Colton woke and for a brief moment he did not recognize his surroundings. He sat up ramrod straight while his heart pounded against his rib cage. But then he noticed the pale blue ruffled curtains with bright sunshine spilling through them. A framed photo on the wall of his mother, Marge, and Delores when they were much younger. The throbbing in his chest slowed and eased. Gradually he relaxed in the knowledge that he was no longer in Germany, going through debriefings. Putting himself through therapy. He was home.
The commonplace was important, the familiar and routine key to readjustment. Today, he’d go riding and get reacquainted with his horse, Freya. He’d have to figure something to do with Jennifer. He hated leaving her alone for a few hours, even in a place where she should feel safe. It would take her time, too, since she’d been through her own form of terrorizing. He had to be patient and simply do his job. Um, favor.
Look out for Horace’s daughter until the threat was gone.
The scent of garlic and onion wafted through the house and smelled delicious. His therapist told him that familiar scents would be therapeutic and help with any flashbacks. He rose from bed and pulled on a shirt. He wouldn’t bother shaving, and dragging a hand through his hair was the most he’d do today about his appearance. There was a woman, sure, but she wasn’t his, and he would do well to remember that from now on. No need to impress.
“And that’s Colton’s first sleepover with his best friend, Taylor.”
“Delores, what are you doing?” He found both women on the couch, a photo album settled on both of their laps.
“Taking a walk down memory lane, Mr. Popular,” Jennifer said.
“Hello, sleepyhead.” Delores stood and reached up to tousle his hair like he was still nine. “You’ll be happy to know I brought y’all some groceries.”
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“I wanted to. And guess what? I showed your fiancée how to make your favorite meal. You’re welcome.”
“What’s my favorite meal?”
Delores knew this even if he didn’t. Colton used to eat whatever was put in front of him.
“Pot roast, of course!”
He scratched his beard stubble, so thick it made a sound. “Oh yeah, I forgot.”
“You’d forget your head if it wasn’t screwed on!” Delores waved a hand dismissively. “Anyway, it ought to be tender and succulent for supper. Just keep checking the water, Jennifer. I’ll leave you two lovebirds alone.”
Jennifer stood. “You don’t have to—”
“I’m afraid I do. I promised little Cal I’d play hide and seek with him after his nap. His favorite game. You should see how he plays! When it’s his turn to hide he just covers his little face with his hands. He’s adorable. We don’t have a lot of baby photos of Riggs, but I still see his face in that little boy.”
“Don’t let us keep you.” Colton bent to kiss her cheek. “Don’t tell anyone, by the way, but you’re my favorite.”
“Aw.” She beamed. “I’ll see y’all tomorrow. I’m so glad you’re home.”
“Bye, Delores.” He shut the door behind her.
“Colton?”
He turned to Jennifer. “What’s up?”
“I feel terrible lying to your family. Delores is so sweet and caring. And she’s so happy that you’re engaged.”
“I know.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “And I thank you for that.”
“But she’s going to be angry later. I don’t want her to hate me.”
“No one’s going to hate you.” He made his way to the kitchen stove and lifted the lid to peek inside. “You should at some point stop caring what other people think of you.”
She behaved as though he’d slapped her, her neck swiveling back. “I…I don’t.”
Realizing he’d hit on a nerve, he back pedaled. “Okay. I believe you. Look, let me be the bad guy when the time comes for truth telling. This isn’t your fault.”
“Fine.” She crossed her arms and jutted her chin. “And I hope this hasn’t given you the idea that I’m going to cook for you every night. I wouldn’t do that even if I was your fiancée for real. I was happy to peel potatoes, but Delores seems to think I want to be some kind of domestic goddess for you.”
“Are you kidding me? I wouldn’t let you in my kitchen if you tried.”
That seemed to stop her short. “Excuse me?”
“No offense, but I’m going to do all the cooking around here.” He held up both palms. “It isn’t that I don’t trust you, far from it. But cooking relaxes me. So please, let me handle this.”
“Cooking relaxes you?”
“Don’t believe me?” He chuckled. “I listen to all the cooking podcasts. I’m finally going to have time to make all the food I’ve been dreaming about.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I can’t decide if you’re teasing or telling me the truth.”
“The truth. I’m always going to tell you the truth. No lies between us. Let’s lie to everyone else but never to each other.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t you have something that relaxes you?”
“I used to swim every day. There’s something about the water and the sound it makes that comforts me. We have a pool at the condo complex, but I haven’t been swimming for weeks.”
“Why did you stop?”
“I was…afraid he’d see me.” She bit on her lower lip and wouldn’t meet his eyes.
Jesus. He felt like he’d been punched in the gut.
“Right. The reason you’re here.”
She pulled on her pinky finger. “You know that thing you said a minute ago? That I want people to like me? That I care too much what they think?”
“Don’t listen to me—”
“No, it’s true. I should have been meaner to the man. But he was a fan of the podcast and believe it or not I didn’t want to alienate him.” She shook her head. “Crazy.”
“Not crazy. That makes sense.”
“You wouldn’t do it. No man ever would. It’s only us women, for some odd reason, who believe everyone has to like us.”
“Um, I’ve known a few women in my life who don’t care who likes them.”
“Yeah? I want to be more like that.” She paused for a beat. “Well at least I didn’t move from my complex. It was the only stand I took. I won’t move from a place I like just because of him.”
“And now here you are.”
“Yes, here I am. I know what my father would say, but what do you think? Is he winning?”
“I think he was winning when he terrorized you to the point you couldn’t enjoy the pool. When you were afraid to leave your apartment. But I don’t think he’s winning now. He’s losing. You’re no longer an object within his reach. Sooner or later, he’ll realize it and move on when he can’t get a reaction.”
“But what if he doesn’t? What if he hurts himself?”
The hint of fear in her eyes made him wonder what she’d seen or experienced, but he wouldn’t go there. What he would do, sometime when he had access to Wi-Fi, is listen to a few of her podcasts. He’d learn something about who she was and what mattered to her. And maybe he’d learn what attracted this stalker enough to obsess over her.
He tipped her chin to meet his eyes. “If he’s going to hurt himself, he will do it with or without you. You’re not responsible for him. Understand?”
“Yes, I know you’re right.” She nodded.
But he saw it in her blue eyes. She was worried about the man.
“I’m going to go shower and shave.” He raked a finger through the beard stubble, deciding that he should probably make an effort to clean up. “Then I want to show you my horse.”
A few minutes later, Jennifer shut off the stove before they left and peeked under the lid. Delores was right. The roast was the most tender she’d ever seen, meat flaking off like butter. Hopefully Colton would cook it for her another time. Being banished from the kitchen was not the worst thing to ever happen to her. She was a regular take-out person and even had an account with a delivery service once she’d stopped leaving the apartment.
Before Colton took her on this so-called tour or walkabout, she grabbed her camera just in case. This kind of scenery begged for its photo to be taken. And, when she was long gone, she’d have memories of this magical place.
“I have to admit, I’m not too fond of horses,” Jennifer confessed as they walked to the stables.
“Not fond of horses, not fond of guns. I see a pattern. You’re probably not fond of cowboys, either.”
She sped up her walk because he had longer legs than she did and an equally long stride. “Shockingly there aren’t many of them in LA”
“Yeah, I know. Sean tried for a while, but he couldn’t hang.”
“Sean lived in LA? Why?”
“Back when he and Bonnie were trying to reunite the first time. She had to live there for her profession, and he couldn’t live there. It was a problem.”
“I see why it would be.”
“Yeah, glad they worked it out. After almost twenty years.”
“That’s too long if you love each other.” She paused because what did she know about love? Not much. “I think.”
“Definitely not ideal.”
“Speaking of love, Delores seems to think your ex-girlfriend’s heart is going to break when she hears you’re engaged.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“It would be sad to keep you away from someone who has always loved you.”
“You let me worry about that.”
He hadn’t denied there might be someone else, but he also wasn’t sharing more. Big surprise there. He was going to be the one to worry about it, which, fine, made sense. But if he was going to be sneaking out to meet a former girlfriend while pretending to be engaged, she should know about it. Probably. If one lovesick old girlfriend found out they were not actually engaged, word would spread quickly. Maybe that was for the best, even if she’d like to pretend for a while longer that soon she’d be a part of Colton’s family.
He wasn’t touching her anymore, not holding her hand or walking too closely. Instead, he walked a respectable distance from her, giving her space. He’d obviously been serious about letting her set the pace of their PDA. She was okay with the distance for now, but not because she didn’t enjoy being close to Colton. It was mostly because she’d become aware that she might be enjoying it a little too much. One thing she’d never do again is lead a man on. And yeah, she understood on one level that Dan’s obsession wasn’t her fault, especially since they’d only had one date, but she still blamed herself in some ways. Good to know Colton didn’t judge her. Maybe now she’d try not to judge herself.
Meanwhile, she was living inside a countryside postcard. A long white fence stretched across a grassy plain. Another much longer one divided sections of the property. In the distance, she noticed horses running wild, chasing each other, then stopping to graze. She snapped photos, one after the other, capturing one horse midgallop as graceful as if the wind were pushing him.
“Don’t you keep them in the stables?”
“Those must be Sean’s wild horses. He has a foundation. We don’t have enough land to keep all the ones he’d like to help, so the foundation leases land where the horses can graze and live freely. Most of them are unbroken.”
Unbroken. Jennifer rather loved the word. She would use it somewhere soon, maybe as a title for her next podcast. Whenever she was able to go back to regular life.
“So…no one is ever going to put a saddle on them and ride them? Work them?”
“Probably not. No.” Colton stopped and leaned over the fence, ignoring her camera. “But we do have horses to ride. Or we did. I guess I should check on all that.”
He went quiet for several minutes. Jennifer thought he seemed pretty lost at times, at once seemingly comfortable and at home, at other times an awkward stranger. It was like this for all the returning soldiers, including Joe. She understood more about the subject than she’d ever wanted to know.
“Hey, where did you go?” She pressed a hand to his arm. “Are you okay?”
He met her eyes, shaking off whatever memory had taken him somewhere else. “Yeah. I’m fine.”
“Is it weird being home again, with everything so different?”
“It’s not all that different. That’s the best thing about our land. It doesn’t change the way people do.”
“That’s true. My brother, Joe, he—”
“Hey, you two!” Sean called out from several yards away. “Want to go for a ride?”
“I know it’s probably a dumb thing to ask, but how’s my horse doing?” Colton said. “I’m hoping she’s still around.”
It was only then that Jennifer realized he might have been stalling. Afraid to look and see for himself whether or not he still had a horse.
The smile dropped from Sean’s face. “I would have told you if she wasn’t.”
“Sometimes a soldier thinks nobody wants to send him the bad news.” There was something in his tone, laced with pain, that told her he’d received bad news before.
She thought of his father, dying while he was away.
“She’s older now, but still hanging in there. No major issues. She’s twenty-five and ready for pasture. Living the easy life. She’s been waiting for you to come home.”
All three of them ambled to the stables, a large gray-and-white building with the classic X on the door. Four separate corrals opened to the adjacent stables.
“There she is.” Colton pointed. “Freya.”
Colton’s horse was a beautiful mare, black with only a streak of white on her forelock. She was on the farthest end of the corral from them when they walked up to the fence.
“Hey, Freya. I’m back.”
The mare turned, clearly responding to the sound of Colton’s voice. She trotted to the fence and bent her head low toward Colton. He was tall enough to reach for her, and she lowered her head to his shoulder. And smiled contentedly.
“She’s smiling,” Jennifer said, dumbfounded. “I didn’t know a horse could smile.”
She snapped away, shot after shot of Colton’s back and the horse’s muzzle on his shoulder.
“I haven’t seen her this happy in years.” Sean petted her alongside Colton. “Good girl.”
Jennifer stopped taking photos to pet her forelock. “Freya? That’s an unusual name for a horse. Is it—”
“The Nordic goddess,” Colton said. “Freya was the goddess of war.”
“Perfect name for the horse of a soldier,” Sean said.
“But she’s also the goddess of love, fertility, and death,” Jennifer said and both men turned to her.
“That’s right,” Colton said, sounding surprised. “You know your Nordic mythology.”
“It’s been a long time but there’s some stuff I remember. Her death was never mentioned and even after the religion died, she was still worshipped.”
“Her chariot is pulled by two cats.” Colton chuckled. “Ironic because this Freya hated our barn cats.”
Sean, who had walked inside the barn, came back out and held out his hand. “Here, give her a treat and make friends with your fiancé’s first love.”
Jennifer held out her hand and Freya noticed her for the first time. Turning her large head as if to say, “Who in the world are you?” she sniffed her hand for the treat before licking it off Jennifer’s hands.
After that, she went right back to Colton, who didn’t need a treat for her undying devotion.
“I guess there’s nothing quite like your first true love.” She grinned at Colton. “Don’t worry, I’m not the jealous type.”
Not only was she not the jealous type, but Jennifer was gratified that this soldier already had some equine therapy right here at home.