Nella
I’m still walking funny when I enter Pippa’s room.
Fletch kept me busy yesterday. I think he was making sure I had no time to go against the sheriff’s clear instruction, which basically was to butt out of his investigation.
He’d left me at my door the night before with a peck on the lips and a warning to get a good night’s sleep in because he’d have a surprise for me in the morning. I’ll admit, I was a bit disappointed but it did give me a chance to boot up my laptop and check out online ads for older model Jayco Redhawks. Sheriff Ewing said not to butt into the investigation, but he can hardly stop me from checking out previously owned motorhomes. I found a few promising listings; one in Eureka, and the other one near Sturgeon in neighboring Idaho and I planned to call yesterday morning, but I never got the chance.
It was barely eight in the morning when Fletch knocked on my door yesterday. My insides did a little squeeze at the sight of him leaning against my doorpost. The black Stetson he’s been wearing since he lost his old one in the creek, a white Henley under a loose plaid shirt, but the showstopper had to be the chaps encasing the legs of his threadbare jeans. It wasn’t so much what they covered, but rather how they framed what was left uncovered that got my full attention.
That was, until I heard snorting and looked beyond him to find two horses tied to the railing of my porch.
“No.”
“You can’t visit Montana and not go riding.”
He’s trying to sway me with that rare grin he flashes, but I’m not falling for it.
“Sure I can,” I fire back. “People fall off horses and break things. I’ve seen enough of Libby’s hospital, thank you very much.”
“Says the woman who took off into the wilderness by herself, faced off with a bear, spent the night in a cave, and dangled off the side of a mountain. Heck, you climbed on King with me, don’t tell me old Buttercup here scares you. She rides like a comfy chair.”
He points at the—admittedly—docile-looking chestnut standing next to his horse. She looks friendly enough but she’s almost as tall as King, and the thought of getting on the powerful animal by myself is a bit daunting.
“Fine,” I snap, unable to resist the challenge in his words. It should probably bother me he seems to know me well enough to recognize I wouldn’t be able to.
He’d been right, riding Buttercup was surprisingly comfortable. I had no trouble keeping up with him as he showed me the beauty of Montana from a new vantage point. He’d even packed sandwiches and water, which we had sitting on the edge of a cliff overlooking Fisher River below.
It wasn’t until we got back to the barn—and I was starting to feel the effects of being in the saddle for an extended period—I realized Fletch had been quiet, even for him. I’d done most of the talking and he’d been listening but hadn’t really said much. There hadn’t been much touching either.
He came with me to the hospital for a visit, suggested a local bar and grill not far from the hospital for an elk burger and a piece of huckleberry pie after, and by the time we got back to the ranch it was dark outside. He dropped me at my door with a brush of his lips and announced he’d be back to work in the morning. That was it.
I’m far from an expert on relationships, but something told me whatever happened between us was a little more temporary than I had thought. I’m not going to lie, it hurt, but somewhere halfway through the restless night I decided I was too practical to let a handful of kisses and one mind-blowing sexual experience throw me off.
After all, I’m the one who bought the condoms and it was me getting naked, practically throwing myself at him. Hell, I didn’t even take the time to explore—all I remember was the sparse hair on his chest and the feel of his muscles under my hands—and went straight for the goods. Sure, he seemed a willing participant, but my guess is most guys would be under those circumstances. Maybe I’d read too much into the fact he stayed the night and cooked me breakfast. Maybe that’s just something he does because he’s a good guy.
A really good guy.
Or maybe he’s just not that into me.
I plaster a smile on my face for Pippa’s sake.
“What happened to you?” she asks, noting my somewhat awkward gait. “Fun night?”
The comment is a small glimpse of the Pippa I used to know. She would regularly encourage me to let loose and have some fun. Often accused me of being a stick-in-the-mud. There is only a shadow of the familiar disarming grin on the face of the woman sitting at the small table by the window, but I’ll take it.
“No such luck,” I tell her, as I join her and take a tentative seat. “Went horseback riding yesterday. Woke up bowlegged this morning,” I explain.
“Still, sounds like fun. It’s been a while since—” She abruptly stops and turns to me, wide-eyed. “I’ve been horseback riding?”
“Every chance you got,” I clear up, trying not to burst out crying at the small glimpse of memory returning. “You actually joined a cattle drive in Wyoming earlier this summer.”
I watch her closely to see how she reacts to my prompt. She’d been so excited when she called me after that adventure. Told me she was seriously considering changing her career from mechanic to cowboy. Or cowperson, whatever the appropriate term is these days.
“Bitterroot Ranch,” she mumbles, her gaze drifting past me. “Winston…” Her eyes come back to me. “The horse they assigned me to. I remember now. It made me think of—”
“Winston Churchill,” I finish for her, my voice cracking. “My cat.”
I’d been fifteen when I came home with the scrawny little kitten I’d found rummaging around the dumpster at the fast-food restaurant where I worked a few shifts after school. My parents had been less than enthused but I’d promised to pay for its care myself and they were finally swayed. Pippa had been over the moon.
“Black with four white socks,” she whispers and all I can do is nod. “He would always sleep in your laundry hamper.”
“Unless you lured him into your room with Mom’s tuna salad,” I remind her, my voice thick with emotion.
I’ve never seen my sister more beautiful than in this moment, her face lighting up with a smile as each memory seems to trigger another.
“Winston was the only one who liked it anyway,” she recalls.
She’s right, Mom’s tuna salad was even worse than her chicken salad, and that was bad enough.
“Mom was always a far better baker than she was a cook,” I reminisce.
I definitely inherited my love for baking from her, but I’d like to think I get my cooking skills from my father, who took care of a lot of the meals in our house. Probably self-preservation.
“I would do anything for a slice of her pecan pie,” Pippa sighs.
“I’ll make you a whole one. I still use her recipe.”
She turns to me, trying to smile through the tears coursing down her face.
“I’d like that.”
“I’ll do it tonight,” I promise, myself a sobbing mess by now.
“They’re gone, aren’t they?”
“Eighteen years.”
She nods. “I remember.”
It’s heartbreaking to see the pain of their loss play out on Pippa’s face as if she only just received the news. The next moment I’m on my knees beside her chair—ignoring my muscles’ loud protest—and wrap my arms around her.
That’s how Dr. Osborne finds us when he walks in moments later.
Fletch
“What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Bo, who hardly ever gets bent out of shape, is pissed. At me, to be clear. I’m a few inches taller and no slouch, but when I try to brush past him, he easily blocks me with his solid mass.
“Move,” I bark, but he’s not budging.
“Not until you talk.”
That’s the last thing I want to do. I’ve had an internal argument running for the past two days, with my head and my heart on opposing sides. It’s fucking exhausting.
There’s a reason I don’t allow myself to get emotionally involved. It fucks with my head. My current situation is a case in point. I knew I should’ve kept my distance from Nella. Not sure why I didn’t, but those damn words from the sheriff’s mouth were quick to remind me.
“You’re playing a high stakes game.”
Ewing directed them at Nella but I heard them loud and clear. It was like a bucket of ice water.
I was told the same thing once and didn’t listen, with detrimental results. I’m not about to make the same mistake again.
“What’s going on?” Jonas pokes his head in the tack room. It only takes him a second to read the situation. “Someone better fucking tell me.”
“Bo won’t fucking get out of my way,” I spit out like some five-year-old on a temper tantrum, but I can’t seem to help myself.
“You’ve been a dick all damn day,” Bo fires back. “Off in your head somewhere, not paying attention. Losing it on Dan in the breeding barn for no good reason.”
“He dropped the goddamn sleeve!”
I get up in Bo’s face but he doesn’t back down.
“Only because you didn’t have control of Blitz. Your head was too far up your own ass!”
“Fuck off!”
I plant both my hands on his chest and shove, but Bo is like a fucking tree trunk, he doesn’t even waver.
“Told ya, not until you talk.”
“This about the woman?” Jonas asks, stepping up beside Bo.
Great, now I have both of them fucking blocking my way out.
I turn my back, my hands in fists by my side as I try to resist the urge to use them.
“Sully, get the bourbon from my office, will ya? And grab James and join us in here,” Jonas calls out.
“Sure, let’s make this a goddamn party,” I mutter.
“Not a party, a team. Or have you forgotten? We’re only as strong as our weakest link, and right now that’s you. Now take a damn seat and start talking.”
Five minutes later, there’s barely enough room to breathe in the tack room. I’m sitting on an inverted feed bucket, taking a deep tug from the tumbler someone shoved in my hand.
“Brother, not for anything, but Ama has a massive tray of enchiladas waiting inside and I’m getting hangry,” James announces. “So I’m gonna make this easy for ya. Nella is not Sandy.”
My eyes snap up to him but I don’t trust myself to say anything. It still unnerves me how easily these men can see through my shields.
I only had about six months left in Afghanistan when I was reassigned to assist in the search and extraction of a Red Cross worker. She had gone missing from the Pul-e Khishti Bazaar, an open-air market in Kabul, in broad daylight. It took me five fucking days to track her down, but I found her.
She was kept in a cave in the mountains by a group of insurgents, whose ultimate goal turned out to be drawing as many US service personnel into their trap as possible. Sandy had been the bait. As the daughter of a US senator her disappearance drew a lot of attention, which is exactly what those assholes were after.
The rescue was a clusterfuck from beginning to end. The only reason she and I weren’t blown to bits along with the rest of the extraction team and the Humvees was because Sandy tripped about thirty feet from our getaway vehicle and I was helping her up when the first RPG round hit.
“I don’t need to tell you how high the stakes are, Fletcher.”
I could still hear the senator’s words as I managed to throw myself on top of her. I was able to shield her from the worst of it but I didn’t get away scot-free.
After we were pulled from that ditch, I ended up at the Daoud Khan Military Hospital in Kabul while Sandy was whisked off on a military transport to meet up with her father, who was waiting Stateside.
Except, she never made it. The woman who only three months prior had agreed to marry me, killed herself in the small airplane washroom.
That fucks with a man’s head.
I was still in the hospital in Kabul five days later when James found me and told me she was gone. No one contacted me. Not even Senator Galvas—Sandy’s father—had bothered to notify me.
“I fucking know that.”
“Do you?” Jonas questions. “’Cause we all know what happened last time you cared for a woman. We saw the aftermath when we found you in that mountain shack in Canada living like fucking Grizzly Adams. Although ‘living’ may be an overstatement. You were more like an angry bear then too.”
“Then I don’t have to explain, do I?” I counter, pointing at James and Jonas. “This relationship bullshit may work for you two, but some of us are just too fucking messed up to try. She deserves better than damaged goods.”
“Hey, speak for yourself,” Sully pipes up. “I may be messed up but for the right woman I’d give it a shot.”
Jonas tosses back his bourbon and gets to his feet.
“Sounds like you’re making excuses. You can pretend all you want this is some noble attempt to protect Nella from your bad self, but this has got nothing to do with her and you know it.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Agitated, I stand as well, feeling a little less vulnerable when I can look Jonas straight in the eye.
“It’s fear, Fletch. The only one you’re trying to protect is you.”
Moments later I’m alone in the tack room with the bottle of bourbon they left behind.