Shelter

by Jay Crownover

  I shook my head at her and pushed my heavy hair back over my shoulders. I decided to lighten the mood a little. We’d both had enough serious between us to last a lifetime. “You’re ridiculous. If I had a guy who looked like Cy waiting for me in bed, I don’t care how pissed at him I was, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.”

  Of the three brothers, Cy looked the least like he belonged on a ranch in the middle of nowhere Wyoming. The oldest brother dressed more like a biker than a cowboy and had a thing about his stylish, salt and pepper hair. He was ruggedly handsome in a different way than his brothers, and I wasn’t lying to Leo. There was no way I would sleep anywhere that wasn’t right next to him if he were mine.

  She wiggled her rust-colored eyebrows at me and gave me a leer that made me laugh so hard I had to put a hand on my stomach. “Trust me, making him come get me was well worth it. The man is inspired when he has to work to get what he wants.”

  I felt my lips quirk into a helpless grin. “You look happy, Leo. Really, really happy.” It hadn’t been an easy trip to get there, but it was obvious she had found the place where she was always meant to be.

  “I am happy now that you’re here.” Her eyes skimmed over my messy hair and still-soft-from-sleep eyes. “You look better, Em. So much better.”

  I knew she wasn’t talking about the barely-there scars on my face. “Not better, but getting there.” One slow, painful step at a time. “Is Sutton really awake?”

  Leo gave a quick nod. “He woke up early this morning. Cy said they’ll release him tomorrow. Lane had a trail ride scheduled with a family from Atlanta this afternoon so they had to switch out who was sitting with him. Normally, I’d keep Daye here and wait until Sutton was home before letting her see him, but she’s been so upset. She had a really hard time when he was in the hospital in Montana recovering. We’re looking at a meltdown if she doesn’t get to see him for herself soon.”

  I understood her need to make sure he was okay, to see that he was breathing and that his eyes were open. Those same things made my skin feel too tight and forced my jaw and shoulders to tense anxiously. “I’m anxious to see him myself.”

  Concern crossed Leo’s face but she quickly tried to hide it under a bright smile. “Well, hop in the shower and get a move on. Those Warners don’t like being confined in small spaces. The longer he’s in that bed, the crankier he’s going to be. I’ll make sure Lane leaves you something to eat. He’s a human garbage disposal.”

  I laughed like she intended, but before she could walk away I asked quietly, “How come you’re Aunt Leo and Brynn is just Brynn? Didn’t Daye grow up around her?”

  A genuine smile pulled at Leo’s mouth and her eyes went warm and soft. “Because Sutton calls me her Aunt Leo and he only calls Brynn by her name. Daye worships the ground that man walks on. He’s her hero and her most favorite person on the planet. She emulates every move he makes and repeats every word that comes out of his mouth. Even the ones she shouldn’t.”

  That made my throat tighten and my eyes burn. He knew exactly what he risked losing but had no qualms about sharing all the goodness in his life with someone who deserved it. No matter how self-destructive and dangerous he had become, Sutton was still a good man.

  Clearing away the lump in my throat, I turned on my heel and headed for the bathroom. I let the warm water from the shower wash away the lingering effects of sleep. It would take forever to dry my long hair, so I braided the wet tresses and dressed carefully. I was used to seeing the scars on my chest when I moved the wrong way or my clothes shifted. They didn’t make me cry anymore. They didn’t define who I was. Instinctively, I knew that Sutton wouldn’t feel the same. The man couldn’t even meet my eyes in that bar a few days ago. I had a feeling that if he saw the marks on me he’d tried so hard to prevent, he would do his very best to send me away again. He was in no shape, mentally or physically, to come face to face with the very visceral reminder of what we’d survived.

  I put on a tight t-shirt and covered it with a fitted denim shirt that covered everything it needed to. I added black leggings and boots that hit me right below the knee. I’d kept a lot of the cute stuff I bought for my first foray into the wilds of Wyoming. Now, noticing I was dressed very similarly to both Leo and Brynn, I was glad I held on to most of it. It didn’t occur to me until we piled into Leo’s shiny, new SUV that I wanted to blend in with them. I wanted to look like I belonged here. It was such a startling revelation that I didn’t say much as both the other women kept up a steady stream of chatter to keep Daye occupied for the hour-long ride to the only hospital in Sheridan.

  “Lane high-tailed it out of the house after breakfast. I thought he would be too worried about Sutton to focus on his ride this afternoon.” Leo threw the statement out conversationally, but even from the front seat of the SUV, I could feel the way Brynn stiffened in the back.

  I turned my head to look at the gorgeous redhead and lifted my eyebrows when I noticed she was tugging frantically on her lower lip. Brynn was several years younger than both Leo and me. She had beautiful, coppery hair that looked like it was filled with flames. Instead of being pale and petite, she had skin that was a shade darker than mine and legs a runway model would kill for. Her eyes were the color of midnight and full of secrets she didn’t share. She had a sweet kind of innocence about her that made her impossible not to like—even though Leo had tried really hard when they first met because she thought the younger woman belonged to Cy. She belonged to all the brothers, but not in any kind of romantic or sexual way, much to Lane’s obvious disappointment. She was part of their family, as unorthodox as it was.

  Brynn caught my questioning look and shifted her gaze so that she was looking out the window. “I have a date tonight with Jack Hendrix. He’s one of the ranch hands who works over on the McKenna property. He’s been asking me out for months and I finally caved. I don’t think Lane likes him very much.”

  Brynn was close with all the brothers, but her relationship with Lane was the most complicated. They were the same age and had known one another all through school. Brynn’s home life had been brutal and horrific. What she’d suffered made what I’d gone through look like a day at the park. To get her out of her home permanently, the boys’ terminally ill father had married the young woman and opened his home to her. Lane had stepped in and offered to put a ring on her finger first, wanting to protect his friend from her violent father and a system that kept letting her down. It hadn’t gone over well when Brynn refused him and everyone else told him he was too young to sacrifice himself that way. As a result, Brynn was technically his stepmother and Boyd Warner’s widow. It was a convoluted mess because Lane still cared deeply for his childhood friend and she seemed oblivious to his feelings. It wasn’t that Lane didn’t like Jack. He wouldn’t like anyone Brynn was dating, no matter how good a guy he might be.

  I turned back and noticed Leo was grinning. I shook my head and told her, “Never a dull moment around here, is there?”

  She laughed. “Nope. Not really.”

  We turned the topics back to safer and less embarrassing things for the rest of the ride. My hands started to shake and my palms got sweaty when the hospital came into view. I tried wiping them off on my leggings but it didn’t do any good. Everything passed by in a blur as we all followed Leo down the long corridors to the room where they had moved Sutton.

  She paused and knocked on the closed door waiting for the gruff, “come in,” before turning to look at me. “Cy’s in there with him so he’ll behave. You want to go in first or do you want to wait until after Daye sees him?”

  I was opening my mouth to reply that I would wait when the choice was taken out of my hands by a small and surprisingly quick Daye. She darted around Leo, pushed open the door, all while snagging my hand and pulling me forward with her. I was hustled through the doorway, stumbling to catch myself, as the little girl shrieked at the top of her lungs, “Daddy! I missed you! Look, your friend came to see you and help you get all better.
”

  She released me as soon as she laid eyes on her dad. Her little feet couldn’t carry her fast enough to his bedside. It was a good thing Cy was there to catch her because she was intent on throwing her little body into her injured father’s. Cy put his massive hands on the little girl’s waist and carefully set her in the bed next to Sutton, but not before placing a tender kiss on the top of her head.

  “You gotta be gentle with your old man, Goldilocks. Your dad’s in rough shape.” His deep voice was gruff with emotion and it made me suck in a sharp breath.

  Sutton wrapped an arm around his mini-me and pressed his forehead next to hers. “Missed you, too, baby girl. Sorry I haven’t been home.” He sounded like he’d been eating chalk and chewing on razor blades.

  It was a private moment between father and daughter and I felt terrible for interrupting. I was turning to go, to give them time and space, when that rough, broken voice stopped me in my tracks.

  “Em.” He didn’t sound like he hated me, but he didn’t sound like he was happy to see me, either.

  I took a fortifying breath and lifted my chin so I could meet Sutton’s hard, questioning gaze. “Sutton. I’m glad you’re feeling better.”

  He grunted and looked between me and his brother. “How long you staying for?” His tone indicated the sooner I left, the better.

  I wished I hadn’t pulled my hair back so I had something to do with my hands. I always played with it when I was nervous. I forced myself to stand totally still and tell him the truth. “As long as it takes.”

  I had nowhere else to go, but he didn’t need to know that.

  I wasn’t going anywhere until he forgave me . . . and until he forgave himself.

  Something Unexpected

  Sutton

  Daye cried when Leo told her it was time to leave.

  They weren’t fussy tears because she wasn’t getting what she wanted. They weren’t tantrum tears because she was pulled away from me when she clearly didn’t want to let me go. They were real tears. Big, fat, and uncontrollable. She was sobbing so hard her little face was red as she tried to catch her breath while reaching for me. She was scared to death I wasn’t coming home. She was terrified she was going to lose me. It was written all over her tiny, tortured face.

  I watched as Leo swallowed back her own emotions and leaned over the side of the hospital bed so my daughter could wrap her arms around my neck in one last, strangling hug. Her wet face pressed into the side of my neck as I patted her back soothingly and promised her repeatedly I would be back at the ranch tomorrow. When Leo took a step back, pulling Daye with her, I could see my daughter didn’t believe me. It was like a knife in my heart. I’d always been there for her. Until I hadn’t. I had never let her down before. Until I had. There was no way I could miss the heartbreak and betrayal written all over her face right now. My brothers were right. She needed to be protected from me and that made my gut twist and my injured heart tie itself into knots.

  Leo put a hand on the back of Daye’s head and muttered soothing words to her as she carried her toward the door. She told her over and over again that her daddy would be okay, that her uncles would make sure of it. She promised her I would be home and as good as new in no time. The look on Leo’s face indicated she wasn’t sure those were promises she could keep, and she didn’t bother to hide the doubt in her eyes when she gave me one last haughty look over her shoulder before disappearing with my crying daughter.

  I was alone for a minute. Emrys had only stopped by long enough to make sure I was still breathing. When she saw I was awake and mostly functional, she muttered a hasty excuse and bolted out of the room leaving me with Daye and Cyrus. Leo had popped in for a second and so had Brynn, but when they saw Daye curled around me babbling about the rabbit her class just got and her friend’s new pony, they quietly left me alone with my daughter after giving me reproachful and warning looks. Cy had also gotten up and left, but not before telling me, in a way that left no room for argument, that when I returned to the ranch, I was no longer hiding out in one of the bunkhouses. He’d ordered Lane to get my stuff and move it back to the main house. With a smirk, he told me Emrys was in my old room so I was getting shoved in one of the empty guest rooms. When I lifted a questioning eyebrow, knowing the rooms had no furniture, he shrugged and said Lane had muscled one of the beds from the bunkhouse into the room. He didn’t say anything about the empty prescription pill and liquor bottles that littered the bunkhouse. I was grateful for the reprieve, but I could see in his eyes that it wouldn’t last forever, and if I didn’t hear it from him, I sure as shit was going to get an earful from Lane.

  Now that it was quiet in the room and I didn’t have anyone watching me, I put a hand to the center of my chest and pressed, hard. Pain zinged along my nerve endings and it made me suck in a sharp breath. My teeth ground together and tension coiled tightly at the back of my neck. I’d never seen Daye so upset. Not even when she called me in a panic several months ago because Alexa had blacked out in the bathroom. Daye was convinced her mother was dead because she wasn’t moving and wouldn’t respond. No one knew how long my little girl had been alone in that apartment with her mother in that condition, but even one minute was a minute too many, as far as I was concerned. That event had been the tipping point in getting primary custody of my kid. When I showed up to take Daye back to the ranch, she’d been crying and clearly shaken, but nothing like today.

  Today, I watched my little girl’s heart break because of me.

  I swore and pounded a fist on the bedside rail. I’d fucked up even worse than I thought I had. Now I was going to be battling back two tortured faces when I wasn’t drunk or doped up. I was going to hear two sets of screams and two different female voices pleading for me to be all right. I’d barely survived the first one, I had no idea how I was going to make it with my daughter’s pain added in.

  “Fuck this.” I fiddled with the bed until I got the side rails down and moved to swing my bare legs over the edge. I had bruises on my shins and knees. I had no idea where they came from. I’d been so drunk and so stoned lately that I wouldn’t have felt it if I’d walked into the edge of a table or stumbled down the stairs. I was lucky I hadn’t broken my stupid neck.

  I looked at the tubes attached to the back of my hand and wondered how hard it would be to yank them out. I was picking at the surgical tape holding them in place when the door opened and Emrys walked in like she had every right to be there. I got to my feet, only to promptly fall back down as the room tilted sideways around me. I glared at her as she took in my current state and the fact I was obviously getting ready to escape this room. My ass was hanging out of the back of the thin hospital gown and my head was spinning from the sudden motion.

  Calmly, she walked over to where I was sitting, still trying to get free from the tubes and wires attached to me. Without a word, she stood in front of me and swiftly pulled the tape off my skin. She went to the nurses’ cabinet and found a Band-Aid and cotton ball. Still, without saying anything to me, she carefully and painlessly pulled out the needle that was stuck in the back of my hand. She pressed the cotton ball onto the drop of blood that rose up and locked it in place with the Band-Aid.

  She took a step back and lifted her dark eyebrows at me. “That’s trying to restore all the fluids and nutrients you’ve been denying your body. You were very dehydrated when they brought you in. Also, your potassium and iron levels were low.”

  I pulled off the sensor that was clipped on one of my fingers and tossed it on the bed. Immediately a loud beeping filled the room alerting the staff that I no longer had a heartbeat.

  “Well, I feel fine now and I’m sick of being in this room. I’m going home to my kid.” I felt my heart thud as the image of her puffy, red face flashed through my mind. I ran a hand through my hair and pulled it away with a grimace when I realized how nasty it felt. I needed a shower and a good night’s sleep in my own bed.

  I wanted a shot of Jack with a beer chaser. That thought m
ade my hands curl into fists and my jaw clench. I had to be stronger for Daye.

  Two nurses came into the room and looked over the scene with worried frowns. “Is everything all right in here?” The shorter of the two women took a step toward the bed, but I held up a hand, stopping her in her tracks.

  “I’m leaving.” I looked up at Emrys, daring her to say anything. She didn’t. She took out her phone and started tapping on the screen. “Get me a release form.”

  The taller nurse gave me a wide-eyed look. “You’re being released in the morning, Mr. Warner.”

  I shook my head. “I’m leaving now. I’ll be fine.” I needed to get back to the ranch. I needed to see my daughter and get her to stop crying.

  The nurses shared a concerned look and were clearly ready to argue when Emrys spoke. “If you don’t discharge him, he’s just going to get up and go. At least if you discharge him against doctor’s orders, the hospital won’t be liable for anything that happens to him after he leaves.”

  The short nurse glared at her, mouth tight. “We’ll talk to the attending physician and see what he says. It’s still going to be an hour or so before you can go, Mr. Warner.”

  I waved her off and looked at the gorgeous woman standing in front of me with her eyes narrowed and her jaw set. When she first showed up at the ranch with Leo for a week-long adventure into the mountains that surrounded our property, I’d been an asshole to her . . . on purpose. She was everything I’d learned to hate because of my mother. She was polished, sophisticated, and screamed class-act. There was no way she belonged on my ranch, and there was no way one look at her should make my dick hard the way it did, not when I knew what women like her could do to a man’s heart.

  She was stunning, then and now. Her dark hair hovered between black and brown. It was thick and hung like a heavy midnight curtain all the way to the middle of her back. When she had it pulled off her face like she did today, it only enhanced her almond-shaped eyes and sharply defined cheekbones. Her lips were the stuff wet dreams were made of and the color of her skin reminded me of warm summer nights and dirty promises in the dark. I could see the fine, white lines that ran the length of her cheek, but they didn’t do anything to detract from her natural beauty or flawless complexion. If anything, they made her more interesting to look at. They made her appear more touchable . . . less perfect. She seemed far more attainable than she had been before.