by Jo McNally
“You should have seen how proud of himself he looked when he told me I shouldn’t love him. Like he was all noble and wise.”
“Honey, pushing you out of his life saves him from a situation that probably scares the daylights out of him.”
Bree sat back, rolling her shoulders and stretching. “Cole is as strong a man as I’ve ever known. What is there about me that could possibly scare him so much?”
“Oh, child, nothing terrifies a good man more than being loved by a good woman. Especially a man as vulnerable as Cole. And the fact that he loves you back really scares him.” Bree looked up in surprise, and Nell just chuckled. “Of course he loves you. If he thinks he might hurt you or fail you somehow...well, even a man as tough as Colton Caldwell can be brought to his knees by that kind of fear. It might even be enough to send him running away.”
Bree frowned. Was he dumping her because she scared him? Nell stood and extended her hand.
“I don’t know what’s going on in that boy’s head, but don’t give up on him just yet, girl. Why don’t you come stay at my place tonight with Maggie? Things always look brighter in the morning’s light, and a good night’s sleep will help clarify your thinking.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
BREE TOSSED AND turned in Nell’s guest bed for hours, but when she finally fell asleep, she stayed there until well after sunrise. Maggie was lying at the foot of the bed when she woke, as if she’d been standing watch. Her tail thumped happily on the mattress when Bree sat up.
“Good morning, Maggie Mae.” She scratched the pretty dog behind her ears and looked out the window at Cole’s farm. The first time she’d seen that house, she thought it looked cold, like him. But now she knew better about both. That old farmhouse was solid, filled with history and warmth. And Cole was the opposite of cold. He burned hotter than the sun. Sometimes he burned too hot and spun out of control, as he had that night by the river. His temper flared at the slightest provocation, and he was constantly on edge and ready to fight the world.
But he was more than his moods. He was fiercely loyal to family and friends. He could be kind and gentle. He could be loving and aware. She brushed a stray tear from her cheek with the back of her hand. She knew his explosive temper was the result of his experiences in the service. She’d seen his nightmares, watched his reaction to the death of a friend. If he didn’t get help, he’d flame out. Just yesterday morning she’d wondered if she should leave so that he could work on healing his invisible war wounds. Was that why he was pushing her to leave, because he was thinking the same thing?
So much for the morning bringing clarity. Her mind was already spinning in circles, and her feet had barely hit the floor.
When she stepped out of the shower, she heard Nell talking downstairs. A man’s voice answered. Her heart jumped, and she wondered if Cole had come back to tell her that yesterday was just a horrible mistake. Then she heard a teenaged giggle and realized it was Ty’s voice she heard. He was here with Emily, and probably Tammy, too. She pulled on shorts and a T-shirt. Cole was still gone, but maybe his brother had news to share.
When Nell spotted her in the doorway, she quickly filled another mug with coffee and slid it across the table, gesturing for her to sit and join them all at the kitchen table. There was an awkward silence before Ty finally spoke.
“Nell told us what happened, Bree. I’m so sorry. I tried to tell Cole yesterday that you wouldn’t just leave him like that, but I couldn’t shake him from believing it.”
“I’m sure you couldn’t. He’s always expected the worst of me. And to be fair, I was only supposed to be here for a few weeks, then back to—” she held up her fingers in air quotes “—my ‘real life’ in LA. I never planned on falling in love with your brother.” Emily pumped her fist and hissed out a quiet “yes,” but Tammy shook her head at her daughter as Bree continued. “I never planned on falling in love with this place. With all of you. I just don’t know what to do now.”
She took a bite of one of Nell’s pastries and frowned. She felt like she was stuck in quicksand, with no way out.
“He called me last night,” Ty said quietly.
“Did he say anything about...”
Ty shook his head.“When he and Chris got to the church service for Travis, Cole couldn’t even get out of the Jeep. He described it as ‘a bit of a breakdown.’” Bree closed her eyes tightly. She’d tried to tell Chris that Cole wouldn’t be able to handle the funeral. And for Cole to admit to any kind of breakdown meant it must have been really bad.
“He told Chris to take him straight to Flat Rock,” Ty said. “They had an opening and checked him in. They told him to expect to be there for at least six weeks.”
“Thank God.” He was getting the help he needed. As he’d put it, he needed to fix his shit, and this might be the answer. “Where is this place? When can I see him?”
Ty looked at her in sadness. “He doesn’t want you there, Bree.”
She felt as if she’d somehow left her body and was looking down at the empty shell of a woman with a broken heart. She pulled in a long, slow breath and held it before releasing it, trying to let her grief go with it.
“He needs to focus on himself,” Ty continued. “You’re a...distraction.” She opened her mouth to protest but he raised his hand. “You’re a beautiful, brave, loving distraction, but a distraction just the same. Cole doesn’t have the capacity right now to worry about being the man you need while he’s dealing with his experiences overseas. It’s too much. Your brightness and his darkness are too far apart for him to be able to cope with right now. You’ve got to let him go so he can do this for himself.”
Nell slid an arm around her shoulders. “If you love him now, then you’ll still love him in six weeks, honey. I know it’s hard, but let him do this. Let him heal.”
Emily was sniffling as she leaned against her mother. Nell wiped tears from her own cheeks then wiped them from Bree’s face with a short laugh.
“Look at you, getting all of us crying just because you love our boy.” Nell took her hands and squeezed them. “It’s going to be okay. We’ll take care of things here, and you’ll take care of things in California. Then you’ll come back to us and be ready to welcome him home.”
Bree shook her head, summoning enough false bravado to speak firmly. “No. I won’t be here waiting for him. He said he wants me gone. Until he says differently, I’ll stay away.”
Emily started to speak, but Tammy shushed her. Bree smiled at her precious friends. “I’m never going to stop loving Cole. But he has to make the next move. I’m not strong enough to have him send me away again. I won’t survive losing him twice. When he’s ready to accept my love and return it, he’ll figure out how to find me.”
By midafternoon, she’d moved to the porch swing with a glass of sweet tea. Nell and Tammy joined her while Emily sat at the produce stand. Ty was working on irrigation lines at Cole’s place. Nell reached over and rested her hand on Bree’s leg.
“What do you need, honey?”
She looked across the road to the big white house. “I want him to come home. To be well. To be with me.”
“And if that doesn’t happen? What then?”
She considered Nell’s question. Damian was buying the Malibu house. California would soon be behind her.
Child, you’re already home...
The sky was bright blue and cloudless, and while it was hot, a steady breeze kept it comfortable. Shep groaned and rolled onto his side in the sunshine at the base of the porch steps. Maggie raised her head and looked up at Bree from her resting spot at her feet. A trio of hummingbirds buzzed around the feeder hanging from the corner of the porch. She could hear the cattle lowing behind the barn. A rusty pickup truck pulled up to the produce stand, where Emily quickly rose from her resting spot and walked over to greet the driver, a skinny young man wit
h sandy hair who couldn’t be more than seventeen.
This felt like home, but if Cole was going to push her away, what was the point? She could move to New York to be near her cousin Amanda, but that didn’t feel right.
“I still want to start a foundation for veterans. Maybe scholarships for counseling programs, or housing or other things like the high-tech prosthetics.” She glanced back over at Cole’s house. “But I don’t know where my home base will be yet.”
“Bree, I’m telling you, that man loves you. He’ll figure it out for himself eventually.”
She stood and stretched. “Maybe. But he was right about one thing. I need to go back to Malibu to take care of things. I’m going over to the cottage for a bit.”
Before she could move off the porch, a sheriff’s car pulled into the driveway. A large uniformed man got out, and Nell and Tammy stood up behind her. Had there been an accident? Had Cole done something unthinkable? She tried to quell the panic that rose in her throat, and his name came out in a tight whisper.
“Cole?”
“Honey, don’t even think that way,” Nell said. “Let the man speak. This is Sheriff Langley. Tom and I are old friends from way back.” She gestured for the sheriff to join them on the porch. Nell handed him a full glass of tea. “So, what brings you out to the farm?”
The man wiped the sweat from his forehead and thanked Nell for the tea. Then he looked straight at Bree. “Miss Mathews, I’ve got news about the person that’s been stalking you.”
Bree sat down, trying to corral her rattled nerves. He’d called her by her real name. Her immediate thought had been of Cole, not her stalker. This wasn’t the first time she’d forgotten why she was here in North Carolina.
“How do you know about that?” Her presence here was supposed to be a secret.
“Miss Nell’s daughter, Caroline, called our office when you arrived. She filled us in on what was happening, and asked us to keep an eye out for any suspicious activities, just in case the guy found you here.”
“And did he? Find me here?”
“No, but he was working on it.” Everyone else sat, and the wicker rocker groaned from the sheriff’s considerable bulk.
“Are you familiar with someone named Martin Kettner, ma’am?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. Why?”
“He was part of the crew on that TV show you worked on about women in Hollywood.”
“You mean Hot Hollywood Housewives?”
The sheriff blushed and nodded. “Yes, ma’am, that’s the one. He apparently became obsessed with you on the set after you said something nice to him, and in his twisted mind, you two were married as soon as you and that other fella got divorced. They arrested him last night, and found an entire room of his house wallpapered with pictures of you. There was a bed in there and other things...” He cleared his throat and looked away. “It appears he was intending for that to be your room. The walls were soundproofed, the window was bricked off and he’d put a toilet and sink in there. The police chief told me Kettner planned on kidnapping you and holding you there as his...bride.”
“My Lord...” Nell muttered, while Tammy shook her head in shock.
Bree was silent. All of this was set in motion by a random, forgotten man she’d once said a kind word to, and his mind had twisted that into a sick version of love.
“How did they find him? Was he arrested in Utah?”
Sheriff Tom shook his head. “He did go there, but he figured out pretty quick that it was a ruse, so he went back to LA and started following your agent, Miss Silverstein. He hacked her computer but couldn’t find enough information to track you down. So he confronted her at the office yesterday.”
“Oh, my God, is Sheila okay? Did he hurt her?” Bree was sick at the thought that this hiding game may have been dangerous for anyone other than her.
“They told me she’s madder than hell but fine otherwise. I take it she’s a pretty tough lady, huh?”
Sheila Silverstein was in her seventies, and had been in the business forever, clawing her way to the top of an industry dominated by men. She didn’t take any crap from anyone.
“Yeah, you could say that. What did she do to him?”
“He’d trashed her office then confronted her when she arrived, waving a knife and threatening her if she didn’t give up your location. So she tasered the guy then locked him in her office and called the cops. The whole thing was captured on her security cameras. Apparently he didn’t think a little old lady would be a threat.”
She couldn’t help but laugh. “He was a fool to underestimate Sheila. What happens now?”
“He’ll be charged with harassment, criminal trespass and stalking, and maybe something along the lines of plotting a kidnapping. And then he’s got breaking and entering at the agent’s office, as well as assault. She assured the police she’ll be pressing charges. He’s going away for a good long while, Miss Bree.” He looked at her and smiled. “You’re safe now. You can go back home.”
A flood of emotion overwhelmed her at those words. A tear-choked sob escaped her lips, and she was barely aware of Nell rushing to hug her.
Her reason for coming to North Carolina was gone.
Her reason for staying had walked away from her yesterday.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
DR. GRACE SINCLAIR stared at Cole over the top of her ever-present notebook. She was a couple inches shy of five foot tall, and her brown hair was pulled back into a tidy bun at the base of her neck. Her age was somewhere between 45 and 65, but he suspected she was closer to the latter. She lifted her chin and waited patiently for him to answer her question. He never would have guessed that the key to his recovery would be this relentless, ageless gnome.
Who knew it was possible for him to talk so damned much? Dr. Sinclair pushed and pushed at him. The past three weeks had been rough. Hell, it had been absolute torture at times, reliving every detail of his three military tours, especially the final episode.
“I’m still waiting, Cole. Tell me why your family hasn’t visited when they’re only a few hours away.”
“I told them not to come.” Seeing them would remind him of her.
“Care to share the reason for that?”
“I just wanted to focus on the healing process, Dr. Sinclair.” He did his best to look sincere, but she didn’t buy it for a minute and started to laugh softly.
“Yeah, my bullshit alarm just went to Def-Con Five, so let’s try that again.” Her head tipped to one side with an expression that took no prisoners. “Who or what are you hiding from?”
She didn’t miss the way his body stiffened at her question, and her expression softened. “Look, we’ve spent all our energy talking about your service experiences, but it’s time to shift our focus to what’s going on in your home life.”
“There’s nothing to worry about at home, Doc. I live alone. I have friends and family around to support me. They’re all working hard to keep my farm going and I don’t want them taking time to come here. I talk to my brother every few days to make sure things are good, and they are.”
Ty brought Bree up once in conversation, but Cole shut him down as soon as Ty said the stalker was caught and she’d left North Carolina. He’d told her to go, and she had.
Breathe in 1-2-3. Breathe out 1-2-3-4-5. Breathe in 1-2-3. Breathe out 1-2-3-4-5.
It was just one of the coping exercises Dr. Sinclair had taught him in therapy. It slowed his pulse, but it couldn’t slow his thoughts. Just like that, he could see Bree walking into The Hide-Away that first afternoon like she owned the joint, long red hair swinging and green eyes flashing with fire. He could feel her soft skin under his fingers and smell her spicy perfume.
She’d taken up residence in his heart, and he didn’t know if he’d ever be able to evict her. He’d been
a fool to think she might actually stay in North Carolina. But then, he was the one who told her to leave. He shifted in his chair. Yeah, that wasn’t one of his more brilliant moves.
“Everything is fine with your friends and family. So it’s a woman?” The smart little gnome could really be scary sometimes. “Look, this silent act isn’t going to work. I can outwait you, Cole, and you know it. We’ve made great progress helping you deal with your combat experiences, but I need to know what we should address on the home front. There’s no sense putting new tires on the car if you’re just going to take it home and crash it into a tree. So start talking, soldier.”
Breathe in 1-2-3. Breathe out 1-2-3-4-5. Breathe in 1-2-3. Breathe out 1-2-3-4-5.
He cracked at about the three-minute mark.
“A leggy redhead walked into my life last month, Doc, and she did a number on me, okay? I kept hurting her.” He shook his head at the doctor’s expression. “Not like that. I hurt her heart. I didn’t trust her. I did things that frightened her. She fought to help me, and I chased her away. She said she loved me, but I thought she deserved better. She does deserve better. Now I’m going to have to go home to the house where we...”
Damn it, his hands were shaking. Maybe it was the aftermath of the exhausting session, or maybe it was just that he was finally confronting the truth. His house, Nell’s place, The Hide-Away—they were full of memories of Brianna Mathews, and he was going to have to face it all when he left Flat Rock.
“Tell me more about this leggy redhead, Cole.” Dr. Sinclair’s calm but insistent voice was all it took for him to fold like a house of cards, and, despite the fact that they’d just ended a draining two-hour session, he found himself telling her everything.
* * *
THE SUN WAS settling low over the Pacific when Bree walked out onto the balcony of her Malibu home. By next week, it would belong to Damian, and she’d basically be homeless. As much as she wanted to go back to Russell, she’d promised herself she wouldn’t do it without knowing where Cole’s head, and more important, his heart, was.
