Bad Boy Rancher
Karen Rock
He's not the only one who needs saving…But maybe they can save each other?Dark, brooding, dangerous…and possibly suicidal. Renegade rancher Justin Cade was exactly the kind of man former army chaplain Brielle Thompson needed to avoid after escaping the horrors of Afghanistan with an honorable discharge—and PTSD. The whole point of moving to the remote Rocky Mountains of Colorado was to leave the darkness behind, not fall back into it. But falling she is…
He’s not the only one who needs saving...
But maybe they can save each other?
Dark, brooding, dangerous...and possibly suicidal. Renegade rancher Justin Cade was exactly the kind of man former army chaplain Brielle Thompson needed to avoid after escaping the horrors of Afghanistan with an honorable discharge—and PTSD. The whole point of moving to the remote Rocky Mountains of Colorado was to leave the darkness behind, not fall back into it. But falling she is...
Award-winning author KAREN ROCK is both sweet and spicy—at least when it comes to her writing! The author of both YA and adult contemporary books writes sexy suspense novels and small-town romances for Harlequin and Kensington Publishing. A strong believer in Happily-Ever-After, Karen loves creating unforgettable stories that leave her readers with a smile. When she’s not writing, Karen is an avid reader who also loves cooking her grandmother’s Italian recipes, baking and having the Adirondack Park wilderness as her backyard, where she lives with her husband, daughter, dog and cat, who keep her life interesting and complete. Learn more about her at karenrock.com (http://www.karenrock.com) or follow her on Twitter, @karenrock5 (https://twitter.com/karenrock5?lang=en).
Also By Karen Rock
Falling for a CowboyChristmas at Cade RanchA Cowboy to KeepUnder an Adirondack SkyHis Kind of CowgirlWinter Wedding Bells“The Kiss”Raising the StakesA League of Her OwnSomeone Like YouHis Hometown GirlWish Me Tomorrow
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Bad Boy Rancher
Karen Rock
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-08495-6
BAD BOY RANCHER
© 2018 Karen Rock
Published in Great Britain 2018
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
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“What are you afraid of, Justin?”
That snapped his spine straight. “Nothing.”
“Then prove it. I dare you to spend the next ten weeks here, at the clinic.”
“Dare?” Was she joking? This wasn’t kid stuff... To him, it was life-and-death. And the way Brielle got under his skin, opened him up, was downright dangerous. If he accepted, he’d need to keep his distance. “I’m not going to any group talks.”
She pondered that a moment then sighed. “Fine. Go only if you want to, which I’m betting will be plenty.”
“You’re pretty sure of yourself.”
“I am.”
He found himself smiling. When was the last time he’d smiled for no reason? He liked Brielle’s gumption.
“So,” she pressed, looking so flushed and vibrant he wagered touching her would be like grabbing hold of an electric fence. He could feel the spark from where he sat. “Do we have a deal?”
He shoved back his chair and held out his hand. “Dare accepted.”
Dear Reader (#u0e7d92e2-277b-5e7e-9a21-240f5a960324),
Welcome back! I’ve been eager to share the next story in my Rocky Mountain Cowboys series with you. The Cade and Loveland ranching families, neighbors who’ve been feuding for over a hundred years, are full of such interesting and complicated characters. They each face, and overcome, personal challenges in unique and inspiring ways.
Since losing his twin, brooding daredevil rancher Justin Cade’s not so much searching for meaning in life as he’s challenging it, cheating death by taking extreme risks. But when life puts him on a collision course with a beautiful woman he initially mistakes for an angel, he sees he has a reason to live after all.
Former army chaplain and PTSD sufferer Brielle Thompson’s plans to start over are threatened when the rehabilitation clinic she supervises may close. She’s determined to save the facility, its patients and the tormented rancher she crosses paths with one fateful night. As she and Justin join forces to save the clinic, she discovers there’s more to him than a danger-seeking, Harley-riding cowboy. Despite his gruff exterior, he has a big heart—one that might heal her own if she dares open it to Justin and love.
Happy reading!
Karen Rock
To my sister Cathy, my “Irish Twin.” Being your sister has been such a defining part of my life and my identity. I wouldn’t be the person I am, the writer I’ve become, without you and the unbreakable bond we share.
All my love... Always.
Contents
Cover (#u4eea0e41-f3f7-52c7-9e69-f0a54c83c6b8)
Back Cover Text (#ue2aa9cf9-e6d6-5705-85cb-c8e369bf982d)
About the Author (#udc6a8fa1-8a65-5d19-8f41-c29b1003e691)
Booklist (#ua8d681ae-5a4f-53fb-8687-20a5b025ab3a)
Title Page (#u9e223617-a617-5f6f-a5ee-3010afdac3ea)
Copyright (#u423d6b4d-df25-5666-96b4-2ad154838e10)
Introduction (#u43e64f47-05cc-5439-a4df-e7dddb0b7a49)
Dear Reader (#ubfbbd0c2-1fe6-5f92-bd1e-17367d78167c)
Dedication (#uef5d6e45-c975-5fe9-87c5-65f2ef3e1782)
CHAPTER ONE (#u7f505e1d-9963-5855-8687-0359cc7928ba)
CHAPTER TWO (#uba56d6f2-fdd7-5a83-96ed-3e47ea118cdd)
CHAPTER THREE (#u370ab6d0-b342-51a7-bf57-f300a85fcc9c)
CHAPTER FOUR (#u0440e192-f23a-5c50-9024-7425c9305812)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#u0e7d92e2-277b-5e7e-9a21-240f5a960324)
“HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JESSE.” Justin Cade raised a beer to his reflection then gulped half of the microbrew. He scrunched his face at the citrus tang, forcing down the rest.
“Bah!” He scraped his tongue with his teeth. “How’d you drink this fancy stuff? Fruit and beer? Might as well be a wine cooler.” He crumpled the can in his palm and chucked it at his bathroom’s wastebasket. “Here’s to us turning twenty-six. Or me, anyway.”
He frowned at his identical twin’s face, shrouded by Justin’s dark beard and mustache. A purple bruise from a barn brawl circled his left eye. Black stitches closed a jagged gash on his cheek caused by this week’s dirt-bike crash. Despite the camouflage, Jesse still peeped through. “You should be here, dude.”
Yellow-green eyes, surrounded by a ring of brown, blazed back at Justin. He bared his teeth, stomped from the cubicle-size space then flung himself into the single foldout chair in his cabin’s combination kitchen-living-dining area. It faced an antenna-topped TV perched on empty feed crates from his family’s cattle ranch. A crammed gun cabinet, a wobbly card table and a sagging couch comprised the rest of his furnishings.
Mismatched sheets obscured the front windows and the dark night behind them. An ancient coffeemaker moaned as it dribbled thick, black brew into a glass pot. The bitter smell mixed with the woodstove’s aromatic hickory logs, a melancholy scent that reminded him of times spent chopping stacks with his brother, each refusing to quit until their pile topped the other’s in height.
A one-eyed kitten he’d fished from a storm ditch leaped onto his lap and purred louder than a combine engine. Since he planned on dropping her by the barn, he hadn’t named the scraggly black-and-white thing. No sense keeping her. He barely cared for himself, let alone a kitten that weighed less than a tissue.
His work-rough fingers stroked the quivering fur ball, rising as her back arched and her miniature tail flicked in contentment. “Don’t get used to this,” he grumbled, scratching behind her ears. She rubbed her whiskered face against his hand and purred louder.
He flicked on the TV, peeled off the chair then sauntered to the kitchen counter. Furball wove in and out of his legs. The peppy Monday-night football announcers grated on his ears. He grabbed his ringed mug from the sink and filled it with coffee. Time to clear his head. After herding cattle this morning, he’d dropped back into bed, fallen into an uneasy sleep, then woke even more exhausted. Too bad he hadn’t slept right through.
He eyed the loaded rifle over his front door.
Sometimes he wanted to stop the world and hop off it for a while. That idea was particularly appealing today.
Steam curled from the coffee’s dark surface as he raised it to his mouth. At the last minute, his stomach churned and he chucked it, mug and all, into the sink. A satisfying crash exploded. He grabbed a six-pack and a carton of milk from the fridge, freshened Furball’s bowl, then dropped onto the couch and popped the top off a Miller.
The hell with sober. He wasn’t going anywhere. Least of all to Mount Everest, Kilimanjaro or any of the seven summits he and his twin had vowed they’d scale before turning thirty. Before Jesse’s opiate addiction. Before he wound up murdered over it.
Justin took a long drink then flopped on his back. His boots dangled over the couch’s arm. A purring Furball sprang onto his stomach and needled her claws through his worn T-shirt, pricking the skin beneath. Drawing blood, he’d bet.
Not that he cared about injury.
He welcomed it.
Jesse’s passing had muted all feeling except pain. Pain reminded Justin that he still lived. It also reminded him that he should be six feet under—not Jesse. The woodstove’s flickering light gleamed on his shotgun’s barrel.
Jesse was the better twin. He’d dreamed while Justin made trouble. The fact that death took Jesse, who’d never hurt anyone besides himself, and left a reckless, sullen cuss like Justin behind proved the universe had no plan—or if it did, it sucked.
The kitten’s delicate pink tongue appeared in a wide yawn. She closed her eyes as Justin scratched beneath her chin. His gaze traveled to Jesse’s globe, covered with color-coded pushpins. Green represented places they’d been, yellow for places they’d hoped to see and red places they’d intended on scaling. Conquering. Their chance to view the world from above, riding it astride while it spun.
Then Jesse’s addiction had snatched it all away.
Justin’s trigger finger curled.
Furball inched up his stomach and huddled against his thudding heart. He rested his chin atop her silky head. Growing up in Carbondale, Colorado, a small town smack-dab in the center of the Rocky Mountains, a place where cattle outnumbered humans ten to one, he and Jesse planned elaborate adventures while riding the old, familiar range. It’d never occurred to him that his twin would escape this place with a needle instead. Before drugs, they’d done everything together. The dynamic duo, their grandpa used to call them. Inseparable, their grandma had added. She never got their names straight—not that he or Jesse cared. They’d been a team. A unit. Two halves of a whole.
Now Justin escaped his own way, chasing thrills, the riskier the better, adrenaline his drug of choice. What did he have to lose? His life? It hadn’t amounted to much anyway. His older brothers, Jack, James and Jared, had found love and started families. His younger sister, Jewel, devoted her life to improving the ranch, and his ma had recently gotten a new lease on life with her grandchildren and a beau.
Him? His constant foul mood made him unfit company. His family would be better off without him skulking around, unable to move past Jesse’s death after three and a half years. His grief didn’t have an expiration date. Acting normal, happy, around others stressed him out. Living took effort, and sometimes, like today, he didn’t have the energy for it.
The shotgun drew his eye again.
Sooner or later, he’d even up the score and join Jesse. He’d reneged on his promise to his dying father to look after his twin. And his death would satisfy Carbondale’s rumor mill. Jewel reported that neighbors whispered about him behind raised hands as he roared down Main Street on his souped-up chopper.
“That daredevil will follow his brother to the grave and break his poor mama’s heart.”
“The boy’s like to lose his neck.”
“Got a death wish, that one.”
A wish? No. His extreme antics were a challenge. He dared death to come for him—like it had Jesse. And he experienced a grim satisfaction every time he cheated it. When he went, it’d be on his terms.
He stroked his eyes over the shotgun then leveraged himself upright.
A knock sounded. “Uncle Justin?”
Justin shoved the six-pack behind a couch cushion and stood.
“Here.”
Why had his six-year-old nephew sought him out on a school night? He flung open the door. “Hey, kiddo.”
His gaze roamed over Jesse’s son’s face. Almost two years ago, Javi and his mother, Sofia, had arrived at the ranch, upending the strict order his older brother James had imposed following Jesse’s death, and stealing James’s heart. They’d married ten months ago and now expected their first child soon, a cousin for Jack and Dani’s six-month-old boy.
“Grandma says dinner’s ready, and you should come up.”
Justin scratched the back of his head. Furball batted at the rodeo buckle encircling his boot—the buckle had belonged to Jesse. Why the invitation? Ma knew he didn’t leave his cabin much, especially on this day.
“Tell her I’m sleeping.”
Javi’s dark hair swished across his forehead as he cocked his face and perused Justin. Except for Javi’s left-side dimple, he took after his mother in every way. “You don’t look asleep.”
“Maybe this is a dream.”
“Then how come I’m awake?”
“Who says you are?” Justin put Javi in a headlock and they roughhoused, Javi’s laughter foreign in the bleak space of the cabin.
“Okay. Uncle! Uncle!” Justin cried after letting Javi twist his arm behind his back and crashing to his knees. “You win. Now go on home. I’m not the best company tonight.”
The shotgun glistened, beckoning.
Javi eyed him. “You do look kind of scary.”
Justin shoved a hand through his hair, making it stand on end. “Good.”
Javi tugged Justin’s beard. “Like a bear. Except I’m not afraid of you.”
“Shoot.” Justin shrugged and stood. “Must be losing my touch.”
“Now will you come with me?” Javi wagged a finger at him. “Plus, you don’t have a choice.”
“Why’s that?”
“Pa’s orders.”
Justin’s lips vibrated with the force of his sigh. Marrying Sofia had tempered some of James’s controlling ways, but not all—not enough.
“He says he’ll drag you back himself if he has to...though I told him I could do it. See?” Javi pushed up his sweatshirt sleeve and flexed his biceps. The flat muscle twitched.
Despite his dark mood, Justin smiled. “Not bad. You’ve been eating your spinach?”
Javi scooped up Furball and turned in a circle, the wide-eyed kitty dangling at the end of his fingertips. “Yep. And I’m almost seven now. Mama says I’m getting big.”
Justin rescued the bristling puffball and dropped her gently back on the couch. “Guess I’d better go quietly.”
“If you know what’s good for you. Hey! Can I tie up your hands, and you can be my prisoner?”
Justin shook his head at the imaginative boy.
“I’ll come.” Not willingly, he added silently, donning his Stetson and leather jacket. Justin dropped his keys in his pocket and followed Javi up the path that led to his family’s homestead.
Built in the late 1800s by his silver prospector ancestor, the rough-hewn cedar structure sprawled at Mount Sopris’s base. The two-story house’s windows were dark. Strange considering the hour and his mother’s dinner invitation. Had they lost power?
Starlight revealed the log pillars propping up a steep portico and the peaked gables breaking up the roofline. A swing rattled on its chains in the recesses of a wraparound porch. The empty corrals that led to newly harvested hay fields lay empty, the horses stabled, the longhorns grazing in one of the twelve pastures used on their ten-thousand-acre organic beef ranch.
Once the sight of his home, glimpsed after a long day in the saddle, had filled him with relief. Now dread settled heavy in his gut. He’d moved to one of the cabins after Jesse’s death to escape the memories and be alone.
His heavy boots tromped up the stairs. When he pulled open the door, lights blazed, temporarily blinding him.
“Surprise!” his family shouted.
Javi ran around him chanting, “Happy birthday! Happy birthday!”
Justin backed up a step. “No.”
His mother, Joy, strode through the doorway. She shoved silver strands behind her ear and peered at him anxiously from behind frameless glasses. “It’s been a long time since we...we wanted to do something nice, honey... Wanted to celebrate...”
His boots dropped down one tread. “No.” He would not, couldn’t celebrate his life. Not when his twin brother lay six feet under, buried along with Justin’s broken promises, the ones they’d whispered to each other in the womb: fidelity, unity, brotherhood.
They’d always had each other’s backs, until heroin left Jesse addicted and Justin betrayed and furious.
“We baked a cake,” cajoled his pregnant sister-in-law, Sofia. A white kerchief kept her long dark hair tied back and contrasted with her tawny skin. A blue shirt stretched across her rounded belly.
Jared guided his legally blind fiancée, Amberley, through the door to join the group. His pressed shirt and crisp jeans made Justin squirm beneath his grubby Wranglers, frayed T-shirt and worn leather jacket.
“It’s your favorite! Chocolate!” Javi scaled one of the pillars then dropped at James’s frown.
A cool wind howled down from the mountaintops, rustling the leaves of the aspens dotting the property. Temperatures dropped fast at night during Rocky Mountain autumns; Justin zipped his coat against its bite and lowered himself another step.
“That was Jesse’s favorite.” His heart slugged hard, a battering ram in his chest. He couldn’t face their smiles, their cheer.
“We did one layer of chocolate and one of strawberry, the way we used to.” A pleading note entered his mother’s voice. “Please, Justin, come in. It’s time that you, that we—”
“Y’all enjoy it. I’ve got somewhere to go.” He spun, sprinted to his hog and jumped on its low-slung seat.
“Where?” James shouted.
“Can I come?” His sister, Jewel, hustled after him. Her freckles burned dark on her white face, and the moonlight trickled down the length of her side ponytail.
He shook his head, donned his helmet, revved the engine and mouthed “sorry” before letting out the throttle and ripping into the black night.
His family meant well. They just didn’t understand him or his unending grief. Jack, a bounty hunter turned Denver deputy sheriff, had moved on after he’d caught Jesse’s killers. James had healed once he’d opened his heart to Sofia and Javi. Jared kept busy managing his fiancée’s barrel-racing career. Even his mother has gotten on with life since the grandbabies came along and she began dating Boyd Loveland, of all people—their neighbor and patriarch of the family they’ve been feuding with for generations.
But him? He’d never let Jesse go. Who was he without his other half?
Not anyone.
Not anyone good.
Jesse made up the best parts of them.
Justin gazed at the full moon as he wailed around a hairpin turn. Heat waved up from the engine, and he breathed in the sharp smell of exhaust mingling with the pines lining this remote stretch of road. Sharp precipices dropped on either side of the two-lane rural route. At this hour, it should be deserted. He opened the throttle, and the speedometer ticked up until the needle vibrated on the hundred-mile-an-hour mark.
His body hummed, electric, alive, for the first time today. He gazed back at the road and glimpsed a moving van edging into the intersection. His pulse slammed in his veins. Too late to stop. He could either topple sideways onto the narrow shoulder and down the embankment or race to cross in front of the van.
He might make it, he thought, eyeing the lumbering vehicle.
Or he might not.
When it came down to it, what was the difference?
He’d joined the world today; this might be the right time to leave it, too... He pried his fingers from the handlebars and tipped back his head as the motorcycle rocketed downhill.
He’d roll the dice.
Let the chips fall where they may.
Thirty minutes earlier
“IN ONE-THIRD OF a mile, turn left on Willow Brook Drive,” Brielle Thompson’s GPS droned.
“What? Where?” The moving van lurched as she shifted on the steep incline. The gears ground, then caught.
She peered at the lit screen then out at the dark, rugged terrain. Overhead, a full moon shone in a starry sky, illuminating Colorado’s mountaintops. Her headlights picked up fir trees, thick brush, a narrow, pebble-filled shoulder. No willow trees. And no brook.
No turnoff ahead, either.
She groaned and wished herself back on any of the army bases where she’d spent her childhood, places where streets were ordered and her structured life made sense.
The two sets of dog tags dangling from her rearview mirror caught her eye. Her heartbeat stumbled. There was one base she never wanted to return to. Kandahar. It haunted her still. Somewhere amid the dust, heat and blood of Afghanistan, the pillar of strength she’d always relied on to hold her up had crumbled.
Would she finally regain it here in Carbondale?
“We’re part of a long history of suffering,” she’d heard her commanding officer say sympathetically before handing over her honorable discharge papers six months ago. He’d severed her from the only life she’d known—the military—and abruptly ended her tour of duty as an army chaplain, her bout with depression forcing her to abandon her comrades when they needed her most. “Thank you for your service.”
The silent dismissed still rang in her ear.
Her fingers dug in a bag of soft sour candies and tossed them in her mouth. She sucked in her stinging cheeks and chewed through the pain. Lime. Lemon. Watermelon. Apple. Cherry. Orange. She ticked off each explosive flavor until they overrode her memories, shoving them down deep where they wouldn’t get her into trouble again.
“Coming up on Willow Brook Drive,” intoned the GPS.
She rolled down her window and the crisp, pine-scented air tore a strand from her bun and fluttered it across her mouth. A thicket of brush, scrub trees and conifers rose on one side. Opposite, the pines thinned and flashes of the starlit sky appeared through the spaces, revealing a drop-off. Not a stream or a willow.
This GPS made less sense than her civilian life. Her military world hadn’t prepared her for life without a uniform. She was struggling to fit in. The bombardment of choices in fancy coffee shops left her bewildered and stammering. Workdays at her first regular job, as a psychologist at a mental health clinic in Chicago, ended when the clock struck five, objectives unmet. And it had filled her with restless anxiety.
As for her former coworkers, they’d kept to themselves, working independently. It was a different mind-set than the military, where you worked as a unit, brothers in arms, and had each other’s backs.
She’d discovered that the real world was a lonely place.
Not that she’d let herself get close to anyone again. Not after... Her eyes swung off the road and landed on the dog tags. Not in a professional capacity. Not ever again. It could trigger a PTSD episode, one she might not survive this time.
Her new position as the head of Fresh Start, a mental health and drug rehabilitation facility in the remote Colorado Rocky Mountains, was her second chance at regaining her footing.
And she’d better not mess it up.
If she ever found the place.
“Recalculating,” the GPS droned, sounding put out.
Brielle’s head whipped left. What? She’d missed the turn? She groaned. Even a cheap gadget could navigate the real world better than she could.
The rural route stretched beyond her headlights, not showing a decent place for her big van to turn around. A sigh hissed through her clenched teeth. The facility’s owner had texted her a half hour ago when she’d missed their meeting time.
Her. A no-show?
She lived by a schedule and was never late. As her army colonel father had bragged (when he used to be proud of her), Brielle was born on her due date, during the Army-Navy game’s halftime, the timing so precise he hadn’t missed a minute of the action.
So much for dependability.
She needed to message her new boss back, but she didn’t trust the road’s flimsy shoulders enough to pull over. Should she take a chance and text while driving? Was that legal in Colorado?
Given she barely knew how to drive a stick shift, or her whereabouts, exactly, she didn’t need to add to her distractions. But if she didn’t hurry, she’d lose another job, her fresh start over before it began. And then where would she go?
Not to her parents. After her breakdown, while she’d sorted out next steps, her mother had hovered and recited PTSD jargon she’d learned in online support groups. While her father ordered her to pull herself up by her bootstraps and loomed in her bedroom’s doorway each night, shaking his head when she’d spent another day under the covers.
“Turn left on Laurel Moon Road,” snapped the GPS.
Was it her or did the GPS lady sound snippy?
If so, she wasn’t the only one losing her patience.
Brielle’s beams picked up an unpaved road just ahead, no laurels or a street sign in sight.
Take it?
At the last moment, she veered left, the van protesting as she downshifted on the narrow road. Here, the dark pressed closer still, dredging up old, remembered horrors of what lurked just out of sight. Her breaths shortened. Quickened. She flicked on her high beams and wiped her damp palms on her dress slacks. A split-rail fence ran along either side of the road—if you could call it that, though path seemed more fitting. Hopefully no one approached from the other direction.
“Turn right,” the GPS directed.
“Where?” Cattle with long, deadly-looking horns lifted their heads as she neared. She couldn’t turn into a pasture. In fact, she couldn’t turn at all. Abruptly the road ended at a locked gate.
“Awesome. Now what?”
“Recalculating,” the GPS bit out savagely.
“Enough.” Brielle flipped off her navigator, applied the brakes then popped the truck into Park. Her burning forehead dropped to the steering wheel.
It’d been a dark night like this when a soldier stopped by to see her before heading out on patrol.
“I don’t believe in this war anymore,” Jefferson had told her. “Everybody’s angry. Crazy. Trying to kill you. Blowing each other up.” He’d paused, and his eyes burned into hers. “It makes no sense—who gets killed and who stays alive. Sometimes you mess up, and it’s okay. Sometimes you do what you’re supposed to and people get hurt.”
“You can’t control everything that happens,” she’d said. “You’re only in charge of your own actions.”
“No.” He’d dropped his eyes and shook his head. “I can’t even do that all the time.” His face turned hard. “Once I thought you could help me. But you’re a chaplain. Your hands are clean. You don’t know what it’s like to do what we do.”
She’d tensed up as if he’d struck her. True. She didn’t know what it felt like to take someone’s life, or any of the horrors these courageous soldiers endured, but she’d been trained to understand. To empathize. To listen. To minister. Still, no books, classes or seminars prepared you for the harsh reality she’d discovered during her first deployment.
“No one’s hands are clean except God’s,” she’d said slowly, as if convincing herself of her faith, her purpose, her mission. How did you spiritually minister to men who were still being assaulted? she’d wondered. “All we can do is pray He gives us the strength to do what we have to.”
A fleeting smile twisted Jefferson’s lips. She wasn’t sure she believed her own words, or any words at all. What did words matter in Kandahar, where death struck indiscriminately? Its nonstop toll was a drip, drip, drip on the heart of every service member, boring a hole straight through for some, hardening it for others.
“Look at my hands.” He’d shoved them at her, callused palms facing the ceiling, then he flipped them over and stretched out his fingers. “I look calm, right?”
“Are you?” Should she call his superior? File a report to request he skip today’s patrol? Not that her requests were honored except in the most extreme cases...
“I never sleep anymore,” he’d said. “But check out my hands—look at me. Look at my hands. It’s like I’m calm.”
But she hadn’t really looked, not closely, not like she’d had to do later the next morning, when he and the rest of his platoon returned to the base in pieces. She’d been asked to help identify some of the questionable remains. Her skin shook over her bones as each blood-soaked horror cascaded in her mind’s eye. She’d seen too many brave troops lose their lives in defense of their country. And what’d she do? She’d succumbed to dark emotions and turned her back on her comrades when they’d needed her most, the deadly result one she’d never forgive herself for causing.
Never again.
She screwed her lids shut, snatched up another handful of sour candies and chewed so hard she bit her tongue. Warm, metallic-tasting fluid mingled with the synthetic fruit flavors.
“Don’t think about it,” she whispered to herself, knowing the dangers of reliving her experiences, the drowning depression that’d occur if she let herself sink back into them.
“Complete your mission,” she ordered herself, then shifted into Reverse and headed backward from the dead end, her eyes trained on the rearview mirror, her mind compartmentalizing the way she’d been trained.
It only took one slipup.
The dog tags swung like a meat cleaver, ready to saw her in half.
Pain didn’t exist unless she let it, her father always told her.
If a tree falls in the woods and no one witnesses it, does it make a sound?
If soldiers die in the field and no one survives to tell about it, did they make a sound?
She flipped on the radio as she jolted back onto the main road, drowning out her friends’ screams. She heard them, often, when she wasn’t careful to keep her mind empty or forgot to take her Prazosin before bed.
Those mornings she woke exhausted, restless and anxious, haunted by nightmares. Hopefully out here in Carbondale, in the middle of nowhere, she’d lose her past, her old self, and become someone new. Someone who no longer carried the gut-wrenching responsibilities of her former job—the memorial services for soldiers, friends killed in action, the therapy sessions after contact with the enemy, the perilous excursions outside the wire to minister to remote posts while under enemy fire.
Carbondale seemed peaceful.
Would it silence her demons and let her lead a normal civilian life at last? Or was she doomed to never fit in—to haunt the edges of the real world, straddling the line between it and war, unable to leave her past to fully join the present? She’d arrived at her Kandahar assignment starry-eyed with a head full of jargon and a heart certain of its ability to save everyone. Twelve months later, she’d left with nothing, not even herself.
Her cell phone buzzed on the seat beside her. She risked a glance down at the number, recognized it as her new employer’s, then reached for it, slowing as she approached an intersection.
Her fingers closed on the metallic rectangle just as the dark shape of a biker raced into view, barreling straight at her.
Her pulse slammed in her veins.
Was he crazy?
She entered the intersection and had the right of way. Her heart jumped to the back of her throat, clogging it, stopping her breath.
Had he just lifted his hands from the bars?
Did he want to die?
No!
She slammed on the brakes. Too late!
An explosion of metal colliding with metal boomed and then she heard the sickening thump of something softer, human, hitting her truck with maximum impact. She recognized the sound easily.
For a moment, she smelled Kandahar’s burned refuse, tasted the salty grit of its air, the blood, heard the screams, the groans, and she froze, hands over her ears, her curved body rocking.
Was she alive or dead?
There’d been times when she hadn’t known.
She felt her legs, her arms, her face. No injuries. But how? An IED should have torn the Humvee and her apart.
Only...
She struggled to remember.
This was a van, not a Humvee.
And it wasn’t a bomb, but a biker.
She straightened, scrambled out of the truck and raced to the passenger side. Her heart beat overtime, and her eyes stung.
A body lay crumpled on the ground, a man. Tall and lanky with a bruised, scraped face and a mop of dark hair. Beside him lay the twisted mass of his bike. His cracked helmet rolled a few feet away. She dropped to her knees and felt for a pulse just below his bearded jaw. A couple heartbeats later, it pressed back against her fingertips. Steady. She ripped off her jacket and covered him to stave off shock.
The stranger’s thick lashes fluttered. Yellow-green eyes gleamed at her.
“Am I dead?”
A relieved breath whooshed out of her. “No.”
He closed his eyes again.
“Crap.”
CHAPTER TWO (#u0e7d92e2-277b-5e7e-9a21-240f5a960324)
BRIELLE’S LOW HEELS clacked on the courthouse’s marble-tiled floor as she strode down the hall ahead of the motorcycle driver’s DUI hearing. In her pressed navy suit, her hair scraped into a tight, painful bun, she hoped her respectable, steady image belied her jittering nerves.
Where was room 8A? The hearing started in fifteen minutes and she wanted to arrive early. When the district attorney had contacted her with the date and time, she’d promised to attend. It was her civic duty after all...but deep down she sensed her eagerness stemmed from the rugged man whose tormented face had haunted her these past two weeks. His expression had reminded her of soldiers returning from battle—bleak and raw.
He could have been killed, yet he’d appeared calm and strangely disappointed when he realized he’d lived. He’d only managed to break a rib, tear a two-inch gash in his face and suffer a concussion, but that’d been nothing to him.
Did he have a death wish?
Why had he taken his hands off his handlebars?
Often, soldiers about to leave on patrol had stopped by her office on the pretext of asking for candy. They’d really sought reassurance, hope and faith that they’d return the way they left: alive. Whole. Physically and, with any luck, mentally. They valued their lives and saw each day they breathed as a reprieve until their next tour, and the one after that, the countdown to their deployment’s end feeling like borrowed time. Yet the biker seemed cavalier about this precious gift.
Safety. Many didn’t appreciate it until they’d lost it. Once gone, that faith never fully returned. You couldn’t unknow things...couldn’t unsee them...couldn’t unlive them.
Brielle sidestepped a chattering attorney and client and strolled closer to the window. Outside, fall seemed to be gradually overtaking summer. Yellow now mixed with green aspen leaves. One cluster of red covered the side of an ancient maple. A child and parent stopped beside a spruce, snipped off some needles and dropped them into a baggie.
A student project, she surmised, recalling a happy memory from her elementary school days for a change.
Was her own darkness causing her to read too much into the biker? A traumatic past twisted the present, distorting the new to match the old. She needed a fresh start, something she’d never get if she kept picking the scab over her wound.
Sleep had eluded her since the crash, and she thought of the accident often. When she’d followed the ambulance to the hospital, she’d learned his name was Justin Cade, the youngest son of a ranching family and the town hellion, per an oversharing nurse who staffed an empty waiting room. The bored woman went on to divulge Justin had had a drug-addict twin brother, Jesse, who’d been shot dead by drug dealers on a back road right here in Carbondale. The community’s only murder in over two decades.
When the nurse said “drug addict,” she’d dropped her voice and whispered it, as if she’d uttered a filthy word. She’d pursed her mouth then said characters like that had no place in a sweet, sleepy town like Carbondale.
When she’d asked what brought Brielle to Carbondale and learned she would be running the new rehab and mental health treatment facility, the chatty nurse clammed up and busied herself sharpening pencils. Looked like Brielle might be one of those undesirables the nurse mistrusted.
Brielle paused at a water fountain and bent over to press the tab. She drank the icy stream, recalling the nurse’s dismissal. While she hadn’t expected the town to roll out the red carpet, it surprised her how few had dropped by the new facility. She’d written a letter to the local newspaper’s editor inviting Carbondale residents to tour the facility and ask questions about the provided services before the first patients arrived next week.
She straightened, wiped her mouth, then continued down the hall. Other than a couple rubberneckers who’d looked plenty and said little, the townsfolk steered clear of Fresh Start. Worse, a couple of nasty letters to the newspaper’s editor blasted the facility, calling it a threat to the community because it would attract the “wrong elements” and drop real estate values.
She blew out a frustrated breath. She needed Carbondale’s support to succeed. While she’d stayed busy, reading through case files for incoming patients, hiring staff and inventorying supplies, her mind kept drifting back to how she could improve community relations...and to a rough-and-tumble cowboy who’d looked like he’d walked right out of a biker fantasy...
Speaking of which.
She pulled up short at the sight of the tall, lean, bearded man tightening his tie knot. His light hazel eyes bored into hers then narrowed in recognition.
“You,” he said, the single word sounding like an accusation. His hands fell to his sides, and he stalked toward her, smooth and graceful, a predatory animal. There was no other way to describe how he zeroed in on her. Like a wolf with hackles raised, Justin Cade seemed to flex every muscle in his possession.
Brielle swallowed hard and stuck her hand out. “Brielle Thompson.” After a moment of hesitation, he clasped it with his callused palm. Warmth exploded up her arm at the brief contact. “I’m sorry about the accident.”
He crossed his arms and his biceps bulged beneath the tailored suit material, curving it. “Wasn’t your fault.”
“I braked, but it all happened so fast.”
“There wasn’t anything you could have done.”
She tilted her head so her eyes caught his. “What do you mean?”
He shrugged and his gaze flitted outdoors, landing on the parent and child she’d spotted earlier.
“Are you doing okay?”
“Suppose,” he said without looking at her, which gave her plenty of license to indulge her curiosity and study him.
Beneath his bearded scruff, he had a perfectly proportioned face: a strong jaw, high cheekbones and a straight, narrow nose. Normally she didn’t like the mountain man look, especially after a lifetime spent around clean-shaven, tightly shorn military men. Yet something about his wild, untamed looks appealed to her. Challenged and drew her in.
“I tried visiting you in the hospital, but they wouldn’t let me back.”
“You’re not family.” He inserted a toothpick in his mouth. “Or a friend.” His eyes slashed across her face then back to the outdoor scene.
Heat crept up her neck and into her cheeks. “True.”
It wasn’t like she wanted to be his friend. Getting close to Justin Cade, she sensed, would be as futile as trying to throw a hug on a cactus.
“I heard you broke your ribs. A concussion, too,” she persisted.
His piercing eyes swung back to her, and the impact of his ferocious gaze was like a hand on her chest, shoving her.
“It’s a fracture.” He yanked at a green tie that brought out the yellow flecks in his eyes. In fact, looking closer, she realized his eyes were lighter than she thought.
“That’s a relief.”
A line appeared between his thick brows. “You think I’m relieved about this?” he mumbled around the toothpick.
“How about grateful?” she snapped, losing her patience with the mulish man.
“Nope. Not that, either.” His broad shoulders rose then dropped in a careless shrug.
Didn’t anything matter to this guy? His face was a slipping mask, and beneath it Brielle saw pain. “I’ve seen a lot of good men and women who cherished life lose it too soon. You’re lucky.”
He scrutinized her for a moment then laughed, a bitter, hollow sound. “Lucky? Good one.” He tipped his hat, pulled open a door labeled 8A, and disappeared inside.
Her eyes wandered over the entrance’s fake wood grain.
Justin Cade might have deliberately taken his hands from the handlebars after all. Maybe he’d wanted to die two weeks ago, and she’d prevented it. Or it’d been some twisted version of Russian roulette with his life.
Did he court death?
She smoothed her hand over her hair, yanked down her suit jacket and wrenched open the door. After the trial, she’d steer clear of Justin Cade.
He didn’t want to be saved, and those cases haunted her most.
* * *
“WOULD THE DEFENDANT please rise?”
Justin shoved back his chair and rose from the courtroom table slowly, ignoring the pain lancing through his side from his fractured rib. His heart drummed, and beads of perspiration broke out across his forehead. An overhead fan whirred in the expectant hush, and the room’s wood-paneled walls seemed to close around him.
Out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed the woman who’d driven the van he’d hit two weeks ago. Brielle Thompson, a former army chaplain from Chicago, he’d learned. She’d been hired to run Carbondale’s new rehabilitation and mental health center, Fresh Start, and had been headed there when they’d collided.
Now she sat beside the county DA, ramrod straight, her strong jaw lifted, her face impassive. Varying shades of blond hair, from platinum to honey to a dark gold, smoothed over her head and twisted in a knot at the base of her neck. Although she hadn’t glanced his way since the hearing began, he recalled her light green eyes in the hall and the way they’d seemed to look not just at him, but through him.
He didn’t remember much about that night, except the image of her stricken face peering down at him. He’d even dreamed of it, a reprieve from his usual loop of Jesse calling for him, insisting this time he’d changed, and Justin angrily refusing to believe until it was too late...
“How does the defendant plead?” asked County Judge Charlotte James.
Her daughter, Amberley, who dated his brother Jared, had warned Justin not to expect leniency on his DUI charge. Judge James had lost her sister in a drunk driving accident and imposed the maximum sentence when hearing these cases. She leaned forward, her forearms extended atop the tall bench, a gavel beside her right hand. Her black robe billowed around her tall, thin frame and the narrow oval of her face creased in disapproval. Gray threaded through her shoulder-length brown hair.
Justin cast a quick glance back at his family. James glowered while Jared mouthed “good luck.” Jewel chewed on a nail while his mother’s eyes glistened. Her lips pushed together so hard the color leached out of them. Regret settled sour in Justin’s gut. He’d caused his family pain.
Again.
Jail would get him out of their hair for a while. Behind bars, he’d also escape their pitying, anxious looks...their useless attempts to pull him from his grief. He squared his shoulders beneath Jared’s borrowed suit jacket. “Guilty, Your Honor.”
An annoyed huff escaped his family’s attorney, Chuck Sloan. A portly man with a thick mane of white hair and a perfect set of teeth, he resembled a well-fed cat used to pampering, not scrapping. He’d insisted they plead not guilty to provide better leverage in a plea bargain, but Justin refused. He’d chugged the beer before hopping on the bike. No one had put a gun to his head—a preferable choice, in hindsight, to driving under the influence.
His mind drifted as Judge James called for the accident report, witness statements and the toxicology reports.
He could have hurt someone, an unforgivable, selfish act. Granted, he’d believed the remote road would be empty and his motorcycle little threat to a moving van, but he couldn’t excuse his reckless disregard for another’s life. Brielle Thompson, by all accounts, was an exemplary person, a woman of the church, practically a saint compared to a sinner like him.
Yet despite her brisk bearing and guarded expression today, he recalled the dark anguish in her eyes after the accident and her sudden fury just moments ago in the hall. She’d looked haunted, desperate, desolate—an expression he recognized. It often peered back at him in the mirror.
Was this godly woman possessed by demons, too?
After listening to the officer on scene’s testimony, as well as a brief statement from Brielle, Judge James steepled her fingers, her elbows planted atop her desk, deep in thought. The room descended into a tomb-like silence. A mother, failing to soothe her fussing baby, hustled up the central row of seats and out through the door.
“With a blood alcohol level of point oh nine—” Judge James waved the toxicology report a few minutes later “—your license is suspended for nine months.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Justin laced his fingers in front of him and rocked back on the heels of his boots, nodding. More than fair. Besides, he didn’t need a license to race dirt bikes or go mudding off-road. As for driving, he’d catch a ride with one of his siblings if he needed to go somewhere. Other than the pool hall and a weekly poker night, he rarely left the ranch anyway.
Since Jesse’s death, he found it hard to leave the place. Everywhere he looked, he saw Jesse. Walking away felt like he was abandoning his twin all over again. Besides, the wanderlust that’d once seized him had died alongside his twin. It’d be disloyal to explore the world without him. If Jesse couldn’t leave Carbondale, neither would Justin, no matter how many sunsets he watched...wondering what lay beyond the horizon.
“As for sentencing,” Judge James continued, “I’m prepared to offer two options for consideration before next week’s sentencing hearing. Six months in the county jail or...”
His mother’s gasp halted the judge’s words. Her eyes brushed past Justin to his parent and softened momentarily. Was she dialing into his ma’s worries? Did she fear Justin would travel the same dark road as his brother, sure he’d break her heart? Joy had already lost one son, and now she was losing another...
Justin’s body ran hot and cold. Jail. Hearing it out loud, in an official setting, brought home the reality he’d be forced to leave the ranch, his family, Jesse...
He’d done the crime and now must do the time.
Cowboy up.
Judge James lifted a mug to her lips, her expression shuttered. A tea bag string dangled over its side. After a long sip, she lowered the cup then circled the rim with her index finger. “Carbondale is now fortunate to have a rehabilitation and mental health facility, Fresh Start.”
A low grumbling broke out in the back of the courtroom. He glimpsed Brielle’s chin lift a notch. The facility’s opening had stirred up some recent controversy. He’d heard James mention the townsfolk worried about the kinds of “elements” a place like Fresh Start would bring to their little corner of the world.
Judge James banged her gavel, scowling, and the room quieted. Justin yanked his starched collar and tie, more loans from his brothers, from his hot neck.
“As we now have a top-notch facility in our community—” The judge shot a fleeting smile at Brielle before continuing, “The defendant may admit himself to this facility for the next six weeks in lieu of incarceration. I trust that would be acceptable to you, Ms. Thompson?”
“Yes, Your Honor,” Brielle said heavily after a moment’s hesitation.
Justin shot her a quick glance but failed to catch her eye. After their heated exchange in the hall, did she not want him as a resident at the facility?
If so, that went double for him.
He didn’t have a drinking problem, unless you considered knocking back a few to fall asleep an issue, which it wasn’t. How else would he escape his thoughts long enough to get a few hours of shut-eye?
As for his daytime drinking, he always waited until after work. Who didn’t want a few beers while watching the game? Harmless. Normal.
A twelve-pack a night isn’t normal, a voice inside him piped up.
He shook off the nagging thought. He didn’t go through that amount every day, mostly just on weekends, which lately also extended to Fridays...and Mondays... Because who could face Mondays sober? But still, he was not an addict.
That’d been Jesse’s label.
Not his.
Plus, Jesse had attended plenty of those kumbaya programs and they’d never done a darn thing except dash his mother’s fragile hopes. Justin glanced over at a stone-faced Brielle. She didn’t look like the type to sing folk songs and shake a tambourine. In fact, her militant bearing suggested she’d carry a gun easier. Interesting. He’d never met a woman who’d served in a war before.
And he wouldn’t meet her now, he vowed, no matter how much she intrigued him.
“Your Honor,” Justin said quickly, “I don’t need time to deliberate. I’d like to—”
“Consult with his attorney,” interrupted Mr. Sloan. He tapped his pencil on a piece of paper with the writing: Don’t act rashly.
Rash?
It was practically Justin’s credo. Better to act than think too hard, since thoughts cut deeper, bruised harder and never healed the way physical injuries did. He couldn’t imagine a worse place than a rehab program that’d force him to think too hard and feel too much.
“But I—” Justin began.
“Appreciate your generous offer,” Mr. Sloan cut in again. “My client will give this the serious consideration it deserves.”
He slid another sheet at Justin, the words Think of your mother scrawled on it.
Justin gritted his teeth. He was thinking of his family. By going to jail, they’d be free to lead their happy lives without him spoiling it. Behind bars, he couldn’t get into much trouble. No more barn brawl matchups, dirt bike races or the other kinds of hell-raising that gave his mother palpitations.
He swung around and met his ma’s watering eyes. James jabbed a finger at him while Jared’s eyebrows nearly hit his hairline. Jewel tapped her teeth with her nail, eyeing him the way she sized up runaway heifers. He bet she’d like to truss him up right now.
They didn’t know how much happier they’d be without him. His gaze drifted to Sofia. She smoothed a hand over her belly and shot him an encouraging smile.
“I appreciate your advocacy for your client, Mr. Sloan,” Judge James said. “However, I’d like to hear from Mr. Cade.”
Ma clasped her hands together and mouthed “please” while James’s eyes said something less polite and a lot more threatening. Big brother asserting himself. Justin bristled. Clearly, they wanted him to wait on a decision. He let out a breath and unclenched his hands. Fine. He hated delaying the inevitable, but if they needed more time to adjust to the idea of him going to jail, then so be it.
“I’ll give my answer at next week’s hearing.”
His mother’s relieved sigh made him gulp hard. She’d cried too many tears over Jesse to have him add to the count. The sooner he disappeared, the better. Eventually they could move on like they had after Jesse died.
“Before you’re dismissed, I also encourage you to express your gratitude to Ms. Thompson. She prevented you from going into shock while awaiting EMTs, a move that might have saved your life.”
Justin’s back teeth ground together. No. He was not grateful to Brielle Thompson for saving his sorry excuse for a life. In fact, he wished she’d run him over flat. Then this would all be over. The pain gone.
Judge James waited a minute then banged her gavel. “This court is adjourned and will reconvene next week. Dismissed.”
A moment later, Justin stood outside with his family, blinking against the strong afternoon sun. His head throbbed and his bruised muscles ached. He needed a drink.
“So,” drawled their local sheriff, Travis Loveland, his smug smile practically begging to be smacked off. “You and me. Looks like we’ll be spending lots of time together for the next six months.”
Justin’s hands clenched at his sides.
Six months shut up with a Loveland? His family’s neighbors and rivals? Misery. His family had feuded with the condescending Lovelands for over a century. While they’d fooled the community with their constant volunteering, the Cades knew the Lovelands for who they were: kidnappers, murderers and jewel thieves...and those were just the actions which had started the feud. It continued to this day with water access disputes and missing cattle.
Not to mention their cash-strapped patriarch, Boyd Loveland, now courted Justin’s ma for reasons that had more to do with her bank account than her heart. Least that’s how he and Jewel saw it. James and Jared’s improved love lives seemed to have softened them some on the relationship.
“He’s not going to jail,” Jack insisted. He worked as a deputy sheriff in Denver where his wife, Dani, managed a dude ranch.
Jack should have stayed home. Justin didn’t need him, or anyone else, sticking his nose in his private business.
“Can’t say I’m excited at the prospect of a Cade being underfoot...” Travis drawled, tipping up his hat and squinting the famous Loveland blue eyes that made the ladies swoon. Justin couldn’t see what was so special about them. “But behind bars...that might make you a mite more palatable. Enjoyable even.”
He couldn’t spend six minutes alone with a low-down Loveland, let alone six months. Fury blasted Justin off his feet at arrogant Travis. Officer or not, he’d rip his darn head off. Arms grabbed Justin around the waist, checking his momentum.
“Hey!”
“Watch him!”
“Quit it, Justin!”
His siblings hollered, holding him fast as he thrashed and flailed.
“Time for you to move along now,” James spat, glaring at Travis.
Travis only hooked his thumbs in his uniform pants and looked, if anything, even calmer. Travis’s siblings, Maverick, Heath and Cole, lined up behind him, mountain tall like all Lovelands, their shadows long. While the Cades were hotheaded and passionate, the Lovelands barely had pulses, their cool, superior approach infuriating.
“You have no jurisdiction here, Cade,” Travis told Jack easily, with just a hint of menace.
Ma and Boyd Loveland stepped between their bristling offspring.
“Boys, home!” Boyd barked. He was as tall and lean as his sons, his shoulders unbowed by age. The grooves around his mouth spoke of hours in the saddle, the line between his brows suggesting long nights after, worrying. Rumor had it the local bank had initiated foreclosure proceedings on the Loveland ranch. Without easy access to the Crystal River, they had to drive their cattle miles out of the way to water, stressing and depleting their herds.
“Don’t embarrass me,” Justin’s mother hissed while smiling and nodding at the rubberneckers passing by on their way to the parking lot.
“See you in jail, Cade.” Travis pointed at Justin then guffawed with his brothers as they headed to the parking lot.
“Sorry about that, darlin’.”
The Cade siblings exchanged uneasy glances as Boyd pecked their mother on the cheek then strode after his sons. Overhead, a migrating V of geese honked.
Were things getting more serious between them?
Justin barely tolerated his mother and Boyd dating...but engaged? Not on his watch. He’d rather eat a rattler than become a relation to the lowlife Lovelands.
Before a despicable betrayal, the Cades had granted the Lovelands passage to the river. Now, if they weren’t vigilant, their families might become entangled again. So far, Ma and Boyd seemed content to simply date. Yet Justin and Jewel speculated Boyd’s financial predicament would prompt him to ask for her hand in marriage, gaining him the funds and water he needed.
How could Justin keep an eye on the situation from behind bars?
“Ms. Thompson!” his mother shouted, waving. “A moment?”
The lithe young woman halted then turned, her movements efficient and crisp. She wore a navy suit jacket with a matching skirt ending just below her knees, a white shirt buttoned tight around her throat. Despite the covered-up look, attraction spiked through Justin, taking him by surprise. Something about Brielle Thompson’s good-girl image challenged the hell-raiser in him. A red cape before the bull. A sudden urge to unpin her hair, remove that straitjacket and kiss off her immaculately applied lipstick seized him.
He shook away the wild thought.
“I’m afraid I’m running late for a meeting. Another time?”
“Justin just wanted to thank you and apologize.”
“The heck I do,” he muttered, unable to pull his gaze from Brielle’s arresting face. She wasn’t beautiful, exactly, but only because that was the wrong word. Lots of people were beautiful. They blended with the scenery. Brielle’s direct gaze and firm stance demanded attention. Out in the hall, she’d been aggressive, combative and lovely.
One by one, he admired her features. They weren’t remarkable. An upward tip spoiled the straight line of her nose. A heaviness lent her square jaw a stubborn look. Her generous lower lip dominated her mouth, making it uneven. And her eyes, a distinct green color resembling new leaves, oddly contrasted with her darker lashes and brow.
Yet it added up to something unique, compelling—something that made him look twice.
“Not necessary, but thanks.” She waved and turned to leave, the dismissive gesture getting under his skin.
“Wait!”
His call jerked her to a stop again. When her piercing eyes swung to his, his throat closed around whatever he’d been about to say.
Idiot.
Let her go.
“Yes?” She arched a brow, the provocative move sending a current of awareness sliding over his skin.
“I should have said it earlier. I’m sorry for hitting your truck.”
To his surprise, she strode forward and paused only a foot away. No one ever got this close to him anymore. Not even his ma, yet tough Army Chaplain Brielle Thompson had no problem getting right up in his face.
“Are you?” she asked, skeptical.
Jewel’s gasp turned into a surprised chuckle his brothers echoed.
“She’s got you figured out,” Jared guffawed.
“Shut it,” Justin growled without taking his eyes off Brielle.
“Let’s give these two some privacy,” he heard his ma murmur, then the group tromped away.
“You were saying?” Brielle prompted, her prim tone and serene nature revving him up. She didn’t fool him. He’d glimpsed the shadows in her eyes, witnessed her swift burst of anger, and knew she ran deeper, darker, wilder than she appeared.
“I’m sorry I hit your van.”
“I don’t believe you.”
He shifted in his boots, uneasy at her direct, unrelenting gaze. She sure didn’t tiptoe around delicate subjects. “I don’t care if you believe me.”
Her jaw jutted. “Yes, you do.”
His mouth dropped open. She’d just called him out. No one dared do that, other than his family, and even they trod lightly.
A breeze rustled the dry leaves of a nearby maple, sending a few spiraling to the ground. “Why would I care?” he asked, forcing a nonchalant tone.
Her mouth ticked up in the corners. “You’re still here talking to me.”
He pressed his lips together to stop an unbidden smile, amused despite himself. She wasn’t scared to give offense, and he liked that. “I’m doing it for my ma.”
“Not yourself then?”
He stared at her, mute. What was she driving at? A trio of crows alighted on the telephone line running to the courthouse, bobbing their sleek black heads.
“Did you let go of the handlebars before you hit me?”
His head jerked back as if she’d slapped it.
“You saw me in time to avoid me,” she pressed. “Why didn’t you slow down or turn?”
He shoved his hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders, defensive. Her questions pummeled him, pinning him on the ropes. “I was drinking. You heard...”
“Point oh nine?” Her eyes narrowed, a hard street stare, the pain he’d glimpsed the other night now settling into their corners. “That’s just barely over the limit. No. Alcohol didn’t have much to do with it.”
His eyes dropped to his boots. He scuffed a line in the graveled parking lot, alternately wishing himself away and enjoying this dustup with her. “Then what did?”
One of the crows cawed, a rough, harsh, nasty sound voicing the writhing blackness rising from the base of his skull.
“Why don’t you come to my clinic and find out?” she challenged, then turned neatly on her heel and marched away.
He watched her hop into a Jeep with temporary plates and peel out of the parking lot.
No shrinking violet there.
His mouth curved. He liked having a sparring partner.
She made him feel alive, a stinging rush like the return of blood to a limb that’d fallen asleep.
Except he liked—no, needed—to stay numb.
He didn’t want to wake and face reality.
Did he?
CHAPTER THREE (#u0e7d92e2-277b-5e7e-9a21-240f5a960324)
“MY FAVORITE PIZZA toppings are pineapple and jalapeño peppers,” pronounced one of Fresh Start’s patients during their first group therapy session later that week. Brielle jotted down the unusual pairing on a stand-alone whiteboard then turned back to the speaker. He’d introduced himself earlier as Paul, a former artilleryman who’d served in Mosul. Per his intake, he suffered from PTSD and depression.
Paul took up most of one of the chairs circling the center of the converted ranch house’s living room. In his midthirties, he had wide ears, a round, expressive face and a stooped posture that seemed to be apologizing for the sheer size of him. Six inked names scrolled across his forearm.
Lost brothers in arms?
Names of fallen soldiers spun in Brielle’s mind then stopped on one, the thought like an ice pick to her brain.
“Dude. That’s the worst pizza topping combination ever,” a slouchy teenager said. Maya. She was a skeletal, black-haired girl with bruise-purple skin underlining eyes that looked up from the bottom of a deep well. She hailed from Denver and, according to her mother, had spent most of her life in facilities that’d failed to manage her bipolar and eating disorder.
Hopefully Fresh Start would succeed where others had failed. With its real-world immersion program through ranching experiences, it was designed to build confidence and end self-defeating behaviors. The clinic now housed fifteen residents, half its capacity, with eight more expected at the end of the week.
“This is a judgment-free zone,” Craig, the group leader, intoned, mock serious.
Brielle crossed one leg over the other and smiled encouragingly at her latest hire. At fifty-eight, Dr. Craig Sheldon brought decades of experience as well as a deep personal understanding of what it was like to survive a war after his service as a gunner in the second Gulf War. He sported a pointy goatee, long sideburns and thinning hair he’d pulled into a ponytail at the back of his neck. An enamel yin-yang symbol on a leather cord appeared in the open neck of his golf shirt.
“Lame.” Maya flicked her hand. A shower of tinkling silver bangles slid down her forearm and revealed a freshly healed wrist scar.
“Do we get pizza here?” asked a man with white hair that looked electrified. Stew’s children had tracked him down in an Aspen homeless shelter last week and admitted him for heroin addiction treatment. He’d stopped taking his mental health medications and had been suffering from hallucinations.
“Every Friday,” Brielle supplied and the group slowly turned her way, their eyes wary. She hadn’t spoken this whole hour save for a brief introduction. While Craig took the lead and built rapport, she’d stayed at the whiteboard and jotted down group responses while taking mental notes about her charges. “We’ll make them, so you can have any toppings you want.”
Pizza night was one of several activities she and Craig had brainstormed to build trust, confidence and self-esteem. Yet Fresh Start needed to add ranch skills to reach the potential envisioned by its owner. Thus far, no one had responded to her ad seeking a cowboy to run those activities. Did her lack of applicants stem from the disapproval locals had expressed about the clinic?
“Sweet!” Paul quirked an eyebrow at Maya. “If you’re lucky I’ll let you try mine.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’d kill myself first.”
An appalled silence descended. First-time group therapies needed to stay light and upbeat as the clients learned about each other and built trust; Maya’s statement was anything but that.
“Kidding. Jeez,” she muttered, then slid even farther into her seat. Her stick-thin arms crossed against her chest.
“Hey, if you can’t joke about suicide here, where can you?” Craig put in, a twinkle in his hooded blue eyes.
A twentysomething woman with Tourette’s syndrome giggled then clapped a hand over her mouth. Paul mouthed “what?” and guffawed. Stew joined in with an infectious belly laugh that got the rest of the group going, including Maya, who perked up enough to resume picking the rubber soles off her Converse sneakers.
Brielle stood, crossed the room and shot Craig a thumbs-up at the door. Very nice. Exactly the right touch of levity and reality, she thought as she strode back to her office. Her plans were finally coming together.
During the last three weeks, she’d fallen into a comforting routine with predictable schedules and specified activities. Now that she’d inserted order in her world, she’d begun to feel, for the first time since her discharge, she fit in...at least within these walls. Her days flew by at breakneck speed as she conducted staff interviews, oversaw patient admissions, supervised daily operations and provided individual therapy sessions to lighten Craig’s load.
She rounded a corner and her receptionist, Doreen, a petite redhead wearing oversize glasses, waved at her. Half a bologna sandwich dangled from her fingers.
“Call,” she mumbled around a mouthful, then pointed at Brielle’s office. “Mayor.”
The mayor?
Brielle hustled around her desk and snatched up the handset. Outside her open window was a domed blue sky, the mountains crystal clear around the valley. A light wind carried the scent of wild sage. “Hello, Mr. Cantwell. What can I do for you?”
“Hi, Ms. Thompson. I hope your first week’s going well.”
She thought of the missing paper supply order and the wrong-size bedsheets that failed to fit their overlong mattresses.
“Couldn’t be better.” Her eyes wandered to a picture of her parents from a cruise they’d taken during her first deployment. They stood barefoot in sand, their faces red and their smiles wide. She’d been surrounded by sand, too, back then. It hadn’t been a photo op, though. Not that she needed a picture to remind her. She could still see, feel and taste that sand. Grains of it clung and scraped inside her, out of reach.
“As you might have seen in the paper, some of our residents have raised concerns about your facility.”
“I’ve read them.” The one delivered to her house, the one delivered to the center, even the one sitting on the diner’s counter when she ordered her coffee this morning—each one reminding her of how unwelcome her facility was in this close-knit town.
Doreen appeared and set a glass of iced tea and a pile of mail on Brielle’s desk. She smiled her gratitude, passed Doreen completed applicant forms for data entry and picked up the welcome refreshment.
“The town council has taken an interest.”
The iced tea sloshed over the side of the glass and splatted her desk blotter. “And what does that mean exactly?”
“They’re calling a meeting to allow residents to air their grievances.”
“Grievances?” she echoed. “I don’t understand. We haven’t caused any problems...”
“You haven’t, and believe me, Carbondale is happy to have you,” the mayor soothed, then—“Hold a moment, I’ve got to get rid of this other call.”
“Not all of Carbondale’s pleased,” she muttered under her breath, thinking of Justin Cade as she awaited the mayor’s return. A sip of her sweet, lemony caffeine jump-started her jittering knee.
Despite her burgeoning responsibilities, she found herself thinking often about her dark rider, as she’d begun calling Justin after one particularly blushworthy dream. He’d taken her on a moonlight motorcycle ride to a secluded spot and then... She’d woken up.
Luckily.
Her full-to-bursting life, one she needed to succeed at, didn’t allow for romantic fantasies about some tragic Brontë-esque hero in cowboy boots. Her attention and focus needed to be on the clinic and its patients, not an angst-ridden bad boy with possible suicidal tendencies...especially one who might soon be a resident here.
Would he accept the challenge she’d issued after the hearing?
“Sorry about that,” the mayor said, back on the line. “More business about this year’s Halloween parade. Some are requesting a costume ban because they may scare the children. A Halloween parade without costumes? Can you picture it?”
She made a sympathetic noise, and the man continued, “Anyway, if you would attend the town meeting and present your case...?”
“Is Fresh Start on trial?” Her fingers traced a cross pattern in the condensation beading her glass. She’d expected a bit of pushback from a few of the old-time residents and figured it would just blow over in a few months...a town meeting was way more than she’d bargained for.
“No.” The sound of rustling papers crinkled in her ear. “But Fresh Start’s charter is conditional and can be revoked. It’d be helpful if you’d discuss the good work you do to help some of the more—” he cleared his throat “—cautious community members understand there’s no reason to fear your patients.”
“They’re just trying to get their lives back together. The only harm my clients pose is to themselves.” Her eyes swung to the dog tags stowed in a paper clip holder beside an overwatered spider plant. A discolored ring encircled the pot’s bottom.
“I know. But keep in mind this isn’t a big city like Chicago. We don’t have those sorts of problems here...”
They had those problems everywhere, she thought wearily. Carbondale just might be a bit too close-minded, too proud, too much in denial to acknowledge it. Maybe they believed a problem wasn’t a problem until you identified it.
“What about Jesse Cade?” she blurted, her mind zooming back to Justin.
Neither he nor his family had contacted her about admission. Given his impending sentencing tomorrow, did his silence suggest he’d chosen jail over the clinic?
Clearly, he wasn’t ready for therapy’s hard work. He’d refused to thank her for helping him or admit he’d endangered his life. And with more protest letters to the editor appearing in this morning’s paper, the last thing she wanted were resistant, negative residents during her center’s opening. He didn’t see the program’s benefit and refused to be saved.
So why did she still yearn to do just that?
She’d helped save his life already. The night on the side of the road, when he’d stared up at her dazed and confused, his body bloodied and battered from the impact. In that moment he’d reminded her of the soldiers who’d arrived at her army base on stretchers, crying in pain, asking for their mothers, their girlfriends, their kids. Yet Justin had requested no one, a lone wolf like her, without someone to turn to who’d understand the pain. Was their collision a sign she should help him, despite her reservations?
Her mind whirled, circling a dark hole; she made it stop and tuned back into her phone conversation.
“I believe he’s precisely the reason some locals are concerned,” the mayor said.
“They’d rather act like problems don’t exist than get people the help they need?”
“I’m sure it’s not as drastic as that. More a lack of understanding.”
She sighed. Lord. Give me the strength. “When is the meeting?”
“Next Wednesday at 8:00 p.m. in the town hall.”
“I’ll be there. Thanks.”
Brielle hung up and drummed her fingers on the side of her glass, making the ice cubes clink, her mind in overdrive.
Would her tenure at Fresh Start end before it began? Her chance to help others cut off again? The questions twisted in her stomach. She pressed her palms together, rested her chin atop her fingertips and eyed the dog tags. This time she wouldn’t leave quietly. Or easily. She was stronger now, able to bottle her dark emotions and fight for those who couldn’t stand up for themselves.
She’d made little headway with Justin Cade, but she’d do everything in her power to sway the rest of Carbondale.
No matter what it took.
* * *
“PLEASE, JUSTIN. GO to Fresh Start.”
Justin pulled his mother close in a quick hug. Her scent, lilac mixed with something powdery, rose from her neck and made his nose itch. He breathed in the familiar fragrance then forced himself to let her go. She had better things to worry about than him.
“I’ve made up my mind.” He dropped to the living room floor beside the family’s obese tabby, Clint, and rubbed his round belly. A fire, the first of the season, crackled in the floor-to-ceiling, two-story stone hearth. Javi’s train set and miniature village, once his and his brothers’, dominated a corner of the open living space.
“Wanna play with me?” Javi waved a piece of track.
“Sure.” He crawled over to join his nephew. “Looks like you’ve got some major remodeling going on, bud.”
“Yeah. I’m making room for the Halloween parade.” Javi ripped up more track.
“Like the one here in Carbondale?” His mother perched on the edge of the couch, her knees pressed against their glass-topped wagon wheel coffee table.
Javi nodded; his tongue poked through the gap between his front teeth the way it did when he concentrated.
Justin grabbed a handful of tiny plastic pumpkins and set them in front of the miniature buildings. “Are you going to change it up this year or go as Batman again?”
Javi’s dark eyes rolled up at him, exasperated. “Everyone expects me to be Batman.”
“You don’t have to do what people expect.” Justin balanced a couple of pumpkins on some church steps.
Javi pointed a connecting track piece at Justin. “Yes, you do.”
“Why is that?”
Javi shrugged. “So you don’t hurt anyone’s feelings.”
“What about your own feelings?” Justin grabbed a couple of musty, pint-size hay bales from a Ziploc bag and stacked them in front of the town hall building.
Javi frowned. “I like Batman.”
“Got it.”
“You’re gonna break Grandma’s heart if you go to jail,” Javi said offhandedly as he realigned the tracks to circle his tiny town.
“Javi,” cautioned Sofia, joining them.
Justin stole a quick look at his ma and caught her wiping her eyes with her sleeve. The sight struck him like a punch in the gut. Sofia stopped at the edge of the sofa, pinwheeled her arms, then collapsed onto the cushions with an oof.
“I’m as big as a whale,” she laughed.
“A blue one,” Javi shouted. “Because they’re the biggest! Mrs. Penway told us.”
“Tell Mrs. Penway thanks,” Sofia observed drily.
“And she’s hugely beautiful, too,” James called from the kitchen. He shed his coat and hat, strode around the granite island, then paused to kiss the top of Sofia’s head.
“Emphasis on the huge.” Sofia exchanged a tender smile with James that filled Justin with a strange sense of longing. He’d never be loved like that. Not that he’d let anyone close. He’d had and lost his better half. No one could occupy that spot again.
“What’s that behind your back? Is it a present?” Javi abandoned the train set and flung himself at his stepfather. James dropped a bag and caught Javi in a bear hug.
“More dresses for our little one?” Sofia passed Javi a light-up Batman mask then held up a glittery pink garment.
Something twisted in Justin’s gut. He’d miss seeing her and James’s child born while he was behind bars. A couple months ago, they’d revealed the baby’s gender—a girl, rare in his male-dominated family. Jewel, who could outride, outrope and outshoot any of her brothers, was the least feminine of any of them, especially pretty-boy Jared.
Since then, James had compulsively bought tiny dresses, flowered headbands, ruffled hats and lace socks with ribbons, each item frillier than the one before. The nursery resembled the inside of a Pepto-Bismol bottle, the walls practically oozing pink. The house hummed with hope and joy, leaving Justin feeling at odds whenever he entered it. He no longer fit in with his family—if he ever had. His head drooped.
“This one has rhinestones,” James protested.
“So do about twenty of the other dresses you’ve bought her.” Sofia smoothed a hand over her stomach.
“Those were sparkles and some had sewn crystal beads. Big difference.”
Justin had to give it to James—he considered himself the absolute authority on just about everything, from bioenvironmental engineering down to the trimmings on a child’s dress.
Sofia and his ma exchanged amused glances, and Justin’s throat constricted. What did happy feel like exactly?
He couldn’t remember.
“Yeah, big difference,” exclaimed Jewel as she swept down the open spiral staircase from the loft above the living room. She’d freshened up some from this morning’s cattle drive, her hair tucked back into her usual braid and her dusty Wranglers swapped for a cleaner pair. “Don’t know why you’re trying to ruin your daughter with all this girly-girl stuff. Good thing she’ll have her aunt Jewel to set her straight.”
“Oh, her father’s going to spoil her rotten.” Sofia sighed.
“Am I spoiled?” Javi, wearing his glowing Batman mask, bumped into his miniature village then tumbled to the wide-planked pine floor.
Justin snatched him close before he hit the ground, protecting Jesse’s son the way he should have shielded Jesse. “Never. You care too much about everybody.”
Javi pushed up his mask and peered at Justin. “How come you don’t?”
Justin shook his head, feeling his family’s judgmental eyes on him. “I do.”
“Then how come you’re gonna break Grandma’s heart and go to jail?”
“Javi,” Sofia warned again.
“You told Daddy that,” Javi huffed.
“The decision might be out of his hands anyway.” James settled on the couch beside Sofia and draped an arm around her shoulders. “Heard the town’s holding a meeting next week to discuss revoking the facility’s conditional charter. Place might close.”
“Why?” An image of Brielle flashed in his mind’s eye. He could tell she was committed to Fresh Start, and it bugged him that she’d lose it. Darned if he could say why exactly, but it did.
“Just what we read in the paper. Folks are worried property values will go down, and crime rates will rise from attracting the wrong kinds of people.” James dropped his ear to Sofia’s belly.
Javi joined them and placed a hand next to his father’s cheek. “What makes people the wrong kind?”
Sofia slid her fingers through Javi’s hair. “Some people don’t like drug addicts or people going through tough times.”
“We had bad times, and the shelters let us stay. Why won’t they let them stay?” The color blanched from Javi’s normally tan skin. “Does that mean people don’t like Mama and me?”
Justin felt a lasso cinch his chest and squeeze. Javi had a point. “Everyone loves you, bud.”
James pulled Javi onto his lap. “You have a home now. A family. No more troubles.”
“But Mama was an addict,” Javi continued, his voice rising. “And my first daddy, too. They needed help. How come people won’t help them like they did for Mama and me?”
“Because they’re idiots,” Justin bit out. He wanted no part of the facility personally, but the idea of the town shutting it down irked him. Places like Fresh Start gave people hope, a second chance, a refuge. Jesse had sobered up before he’d been gunned down for an unpaid drug debt. Who knew how long he would have stayed clean that time? Each period of sobriety extended Jesse’s life. If not for the murder, he might be here today, setting up a train set with his son... Of course, that’d mean James and Sofia wouldn’t have a baby on the way, but...
Did it mean Jesse’s death was one of those “meant to be” curveballs life threw at you? He’d bet the godly chaplain Brielle Thompson would think so.
“Thought you hated clinics like that,” Jewel drawled. She passed him a beer on her way back from the kitchen.
“Hate’s a strong word.” His thumb traced the tab’s sharp, metallic outline. “Just don’t see it helping me.”
“They’re dragging Jesse’s name into this,” James put in, grim.
“What? How?” his mother exclaimed.
“Javi, go to your room,” Sofia ordered.
“But—” he protested.
“Now.” James pointed at the stairs, and Javi scurried up them.
When they heard his bedroom door shut, James said, “They blame Jesse for bringing those murderers to town and claim the Fresh Start residents might do the same.”
Justin swore a blue streak, finishing with, “Of all the small-minded, hypocritical, overreactionary talk I’ve ever heard. We need to stop this.” His thumb twitched over his beer’s tab, but didn’t bend it back. It felt like a grenade—pull the pin and boom.
He needed to be alert for this conversation. Not numb.
“We’ll speak at the meeting.” James swept Sofia’s swollen feet onto his lap and rubbed them.
“That might help, but I’m not sure it’ll be enough,” worried Ma. “The lady who’s running it—what’s her name?”
“Brielle Thompson,” Justin supplied, thinking of the saintly warrior he’d gone toe to toe with days ago. She was a fighter. He set the beer down on the coffee table.
“Right.” His mother pulled off her glasses and polished them with the bottom of her yellow shirt. It coordinated with the polka dots in her headband and on her socks. Some people collected dolls. Some were into antique cars. His mother obsessed about matching her outfits, her furnishings, even her car accessories right down to the ocean-blue air freshener in the same shade as her sedan. She called it a lifestyle choice. “As a stranger,” she continued, “and a city girl, I’m not sure our neighbors will listen to her.”
Fired up, Justin bolted to his feet. “I’ll make them listen to her.”
“How are you going to do that?” Sofia asked, her eyes closed as James kneaded her insoles.
“I’m going over to Fresh Start to figure that out. Can anyone give me a ride?”
“Me.” Jewel bussed their ma on the cheek then hustled to join him. “I have plans in town anyway.”
“Wouldn’t be to hear Heath Loveland play at the Barnsider?” James teased.
“I’m going for the wings,” she huffed, then grabbed her coat and flounced out the door.
Justin and James grinned at each other. They loved tweaking their tough, tomboy sister about her supposed crush on one of their archrivals. Dubbed the “sensitive cowboy” by swooning ladies who flocked to his local gigs, Heath was the youngest in his family, like Jewel. Sometimes, given her extreme defensiveness, Justin and his brothers wondered if they might be right about Jewel liking Heath after all, crazy as that’d be.
“Take care now,” he heard his mother call as he jammed on his hat, shoved his arms in his jacket and flung himself out the door. Beer forgotten.
Fifteen minutes later he tromped up the steps to the old Greyson place. Its owner had raised a few cattle as a hobby and stabled horses, until recent years when hard times forced him to sell. The new owner, an investment banker looking to shelter money, rumor had it, had bought the place lock, stock and barrel. And it most recently had become the home of Fresh Start.
“Anybody here?” he called, opening the front door when no one answered his knock. He stepped inside just as Brielle emerged from a room to his left.
“What are you doing here?” Then—“Was the door unlocked?”
For some contrary reason, her hostile tone slapped a wide smile on his face. He swept off his hat and bowed slightly, all old-school, country-boy charm. “Yes, it was. And it’s nice to see you, too.”
“Can’t say the same, but come in. Doreen, please contact maintenance to have them check and reset the security keypad,” she called then turned back the way she came.
He followed her into a small, sterile-looking room, admiring the sway of her trim hips beneath a modest skirt that flowed nearly to her ankles. Today, the silky lavender material of her shirt buttoned at each wrist and twisted into a bow at her neck. With all this covering up, maybe it was a wonder he found an inch of her to be attracted to. Yet his eyes stuck to her like she was flypaper. He stroked his beard, his own form of concealment.
“Please. Sit.”
He folded himself into a chair and watched as she strode behind her desk and sat, her back so straight, he bet he could plumb an entire building off it. A hectic red colored her cheeks and brought out the mint of her magnetic eyes.
“What can I do for you?”
“It’s more what I can do for you.”
Her lips quirked, and he found himself mesmerized by the fuller bottom lip, imagining its softness...its taste...
“And what would that be?”
“Heard about the town hall meeting next week, and I wanted to help.”
She tilted her head and narrowed her eyes. “Why?”
“Why?”
“Seemed like you thought the clinic was a waste of time last time we talked.”
He dropped his eyes at her piercing gaze. With one look, she turned him into glass, see-through and potentially breakable. It was a damn uncomfortable feeling.
“It is for me. But other people...”
“If you don’t believe in what we do, how can you convince others?”
“I—I do believe you can make a difference. Just—you know—not with me.”
“And you’re in the habit of pronouncing judgments on things you know nothing about?”
His mouth dropped open. No. That was know-it-all James. “Look. I’m just beyond help is all.”
Her expression softened. “No one’s beyond help unless they put themselves out of reach.” He followed her eyes to a set of dog tags stowed in a paper clip tray.
“Are those yours?”
Suddenly she hurried from the room, rubbing her eye as if she’d gotten something in it. He glimpsed the anguish, the inner torment he’d spotted the night of the accident. It stirred his protective instincts. What kept her up at night?
Curiosity overruled politeness, and he leaned forward, grabbed the metal discs and read the inscription.
Pelton
William R.
4763888912
O Pos
Protestant
A brother? Friend? The need to know seized him.
“Who’s William?” he asked when she returned, blowing her nose.
“No one.” She snatched the tags from his hand, yanked open a drawer and dropped them inside.
“My brother Jesse died almost four years ago,” he heard himself say.
What was he doing? He knew better than to talk about Jesse. Yet something about Brielle’s pain made him want to share his.
Her stiff expression slackened. “I’m sorry. I heard he was your twin?”
“Identical. We even liked the same mustard. The brown spicy kind, not the yellow stuff.” He nearly kicked himself. Why was he telling her this nonsense?
Her smile revealed two enchanting dimples on either side of her mouth. “I hate the yellow kind, too. Much too watery. What else did Jesse like?”
“Kids. No mother was safe around him.” His shoulders lowered as he relaxed into the tale. No one ever talked about Jesse except in tragic terms, if they spoke of him at all. His family tiptoed around Justin’s grief like it was a land mine.
Yet undaunted Brielle waded right in without hesitation. It felt good to have an unbiased ear, someone who’d let him focus on positive memories, unfiltered by the bad. “Jesse begged to hold babies every time he came within fifty yards of them, and he had to be bribed to give them back.”
“He sounds like a special guy.”
Justin’s eyes burned for a moment. How long since he’d cried over Jesse? He hadn’t allowed himself tears at Jesse’s funeral nor a day since, and he’d be damned if he was going to start now, in front of a beautiful woman whom he never wanted to view him as broken. “He wasn’t a bad element like they’re saying.” He jerked his head toward Carbondale, visible through her window.
She nodded. “I know.”
Two words. Simple and direct. They carried such conviction that they reached inside and stirred his heart.
“So that’s why I want to help you.”
“You won’t be able to do that from jail.”
He let that sink in. She was right. He’d be behind bars when the meeting took place and couldn’t speak up for Jesse.
“Unless...”
He leaned forward, hands on his knees. “Unless?”
“You came here instead.”
When he opened his mouth to object, she held up a hand. “Hear me out. I know you don’t think we can help you, and maybe we can’t, but you could do us a lot of good. I haven’t found someone to lead the patients’ ranch activities yet. You could take that over temporarily, as a volunteer, while you’re staying here to fulfill the court ruling. It’d help my case and impress the local ranchers at the meeting. Plus, I’d have more time to recruit another cowboy to take on the job permanently. What do you say?”
The room spun around him for a moment. “I—I’d have to think on it.”
“What’s to think about?” she challenged with that same give-no-quarter directness that backed him up and kept him off balance. “What are you afraid of?”
That snapped his spine straight. “Nothing.”
“Then prove it. I dare you to spend the next six weeks here.”
“Dare?” Was she joking? This wasn’t kid stuff...it was life or death. And the way Brielle got under his skin, opened him up, was downright dangerous. If he accepted, he’d need to keep his distance. “I’m not going to any group talks.”
She pondered that a moment then sighed. “Fine. Go only if you want to, which I’m betting will be plenty.”
“You’re pretty sure of yourself.”
“I am.”
He found himself smiling. When was the last time he’d smiled for no reason? He liked Brielle’s gumption.
“So,” she pressed, looking so flushed and vibrant he wagered touching her would be like grabbing hold of an electric fence. He could feel the spark from where he sat. “Do we have a deal?”
He shoved back his chair and held out his hand. “Dare accepted.”
As he left the facility to meet his sister for a ride home, thoughts ran through Justin’s head. He hadn’t been able to save his brother, but perhaps it wasn’t too late to make some sort of amends and help others, even though he had little faith it’d make a difference with him.
And deep down, he had to admit that the choice between spending the next one-plus month with Brielle Thompson versus Sheriff Travis Loveland wasn’t exactly hard to make.
His lips curved as he pictured her fired-up expression.
Nope.
Not a difficult decision by a long shot.
CHAPTER FOUR (#u0e7d92e2-277b-5e7e-9a21-240f5a960324)
“HE’S HERE. HE’S HERE!” Doreen stage-whispered, fluttering in Brielle’s office door the following day. Her gravity-defying bangs quivered like antennae.
Brielle cocked her head and raised an eyebrow. “Who?”
“Him... Justin Cade. He’s filling out his contact and insurance information.” Doreen waved a hand before her scarlet face. “And he’s wearing his dark leather jacket and black cowboy hat with the brim low over those eyes of his and...”
“Decorum, Doreen,” Brielle chided gently, knowing herself to be a flat-out hypocrite considering she craned her neck to glimpse the dark rider just feet away.
Anticipation fired her synapses, lighting her up inside. She’d nearly given up on Justin showing today, given the hour—4:55 p.m. A clear indicator of his reluctance, and his nerves, she suspected, no matter how tough and gruff the grizzly bear of a cowboy appeared.
“Send him in when he’s finished, please.”
“Can I offer him coffee?” Doreen bit her lip and shot a sideways glance over her shoulder. “Tea...some Twizzlers...?”
Brielle tucked back a smile at her smitten secretary. Justin Cade was a tall, dark, dangerous drink of water. No wonder he had Doreen spinning in circles.
“Whatever you like, but don’t stay past five, okay? You’ve put in too many extra hours as it is.” She shot her employee a grateful smile. They’d all been slaving, double time, to get the facility up and running. With her resident cowboy now on location, the final pieces fell into place...
Except community buy-in.
She clamped a hand over her jittering knee. In a few days, she’d face the town members who’d written complaints to the local paper’s editor. They’d air their grievances, and she’d settle their concerns. Simple, right? So why did she feel as though she was preparing to trundle down an IED-riddled road? One wrong move, one careless word, could destroy everything.
Just this morning, a letter had appeared in the paper labeling Fresh Start a “Dangerous Den of Druggies.” She appreciated the alliteration—the sentiment, not so much. She’d defend this facility to her last breath just as she’d stood by her soldiers.
Until she hadn’t...
And look where that got you...
Got them...
The dog tags by her spider plant drew her eye, and she dumped the rest of her water into its dark soil. Mud flowed out the bottom and seeped onto her desk blotter. A yellow frond caught her eye. Was it dying? She scrutinized the rest of the greenery as she pinched it off, dropped it in her wastebasket then sopped up the wet with a tissue clump. Her fumbling hands knocked over her tea, and the scalding liquid shot onto her lap.
“Mary, mother of Jesus!” She hopped in a circle, dabbing at the material. It burned a hole in her flesh—well, her skirt at least. What’d Doreen put in there?
“Is this a bad time?” a man’s low bass voice rumbled.
Her head snapped up, and the heat radiating down her leg paled in comparison to the firestorm of her cheeks. She pressed her hands to them and nodded, her eyes drinking in Justin Cade.
In worn Wranglers, scuffed boots and a black hat that contrasted with his light hazel eyes, he pulled a sigh right out of her. Ragtag as all get-out, he still commanded attention. Hers, at least. He sauntered into her office, lanky, wiry as an apostrophe, his square-shouldered, loose-limbed gait oddly graceful, his dark beard a little menacing. Her heartbeat tripped into double time.
“What gave you that impression?” She swept a hand toward a chair across from her desk, inviting him to sit.
“Thought I interrupted some religious ritual.” He slouched into the chair and crossed his legs at the ankles. With his lids half lowered and the corners of his mouth hidden by his beard and mustache, she couldn’t tell if he was serious or teasing. “Any more saints you plan on summoning? Should I be worried about fire and brimstone, preacher?”
“We’ll see how things go,” she replied wryly. “I’ve got ten thousand more to call on if need be.”
“Jesus,” he muttered, slipping a toothpick into his mouth.
“Technically, that’s the Lord’s son, but always a good go-to.”
That drew a sputtering chuckle out of Justin, a rusty sound like an old engine starting up for the first time in years. It did something strange to her chest, expanding it so her lungs drew in more air, thin and heady.
Or was the response Justin’s effect on her?
“If you’ll tell me where I’m bunking, I’ll go on up.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Leave you to your tribal dance.”
She smiled. Beneath Justin’s glower lurked a bit of a comedian. “Once I complete your intake, we’ll get you settled.”
“Intake?” His lids lifted. “Thought I filled out all the paperwork.”
“Some, but we need more information before we can admit you.”
Justin tugged at the collar of his black T-shirt then pulled off his leather jacket. “How much more?”
“Not much.” She crossed her fingers beneath the desk and tried not to admire the way his shirt stretched across the wide V of his chest. Tried being the operative word. “I’ll be asking you a series of questions. Your answers will be confidential.”
“No, they won’t.” He dropped his leather jacket on the floor beside his duffel.
“Yes, they will.”
His broad shoulders lifted and fell in a shrug. “You’ll know them.”
“I don’t count.”
His eyes lasered into hers. “Says who?”
She blinked at him. As a counselor, she served as a conduit for patients, channeling their fears, their rage, their despair. Justin’s comment solidified her somehow. He made her feel present and alive in a way she hadn’t in a long time. “The counselor you’re assigned can’t help you without this information.”
“I don’t want help.”
She counted backward from ten then said, “We can’t admit you without a completed intake, and you accepted the dare.”
“To volunteer teaching your patients to tend cattle. Ride. Rope...” Justin folded his arms over his chest, mutinous.
“You had the option, here or jail, and you chose Fresh Start. Whether you go to group sessions or not, you’re still a patient.”
“Not so’s I see it,” he grumbled. Behind him, Doreen strolled past the doorway, rubbernecking.
“Would you please close the door, Doreen?” Brielle called.
“Can I get you two anything?” she asked, her eyes sticking to Justin like he was made of flypaper.
“A beer?” Justin drawled.
“That’ll be all, Doreen, thanks.”
Once the door closed, Justin lifted his eyes and studied her. The slanting sun glinted on the gold flecks in his jewel-tone depths. “What kinds of questions?”
She clicked on her keyboard and brought up his Addiction Severity Index sheet. “Medical, employment/support status, alcohol, drug, legal, family/social and psychiatric.”
One thick eyebrow rose. “You said this’d be quick.”
“We’ll be as fast as possible. All clients partake in this interview. The information helps us provide you with the right care for your needs.”
“I don’t—”
“Need anything,” she finished for him, an edge entering her voice despite her effort to stay neutral. He wasn’t used to the tough, blunt talk she’d adopted with her soldiers. Sometimes it was the only way she’d gotten through. “Got it.”
Justin waved a hand. “Let’s get this over with,” he mumbled around the toothpick.
She squared her shoulders.
Lord, give me strength.
“You also have the right to refuse to answer any question.”
“Now we’re talking.” He tipped his hat down so low it covered his eyes. His chin dropped to his chest. Her hands clasped each other, and it took all her self-discipline not to flick that blasted hat right off his head. She knew avoidance when she saw it. Knew how to handle it, too...so why was he getting under her skin?
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