Shelter ~ Jay Crownover

by Crownover, Jay

  Leora Conner showed up and it was like Cy finally found a reason to smile. She was a city girl through and through and people kept waiting for her to pack her bags and run, until they saw the way she was with my brother. One look was all it took to know the only place Leo wanted to be was wherever Cy was, which meant my brother wasn’t going anywhere. Leo was the one who was going to stick. She was the one who made my stern, serious sibling smile and relaxed him enough that I was no longer worried that he’d have a heart attack before he was fifty. So, damn straight, everyone liked her, but my brother loved her, so no one was going to let some pissed-off cowboy talk badly about her just because his own choice in women needed some work.

  The cowboy holding me gave me a shake that was hard enough to knock my teeth together and bent me even farther over the bar. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Burke on the phone and knew he was calling the ranch or the sheriff—or both.

  “You can’t deal with me on your own? You gotta hide behind your brothers?” He sneered at me, and for the first time in a long time something other than horror and self-disgust filtered through the haze that I’d been wallowing in. I was tight with my brothers. Always had been, up until lately. But I’d never needed them to fight my fights for me. Our dad had made sure each of us knew how to handle ourselves out here, and that involved being able to throw a punch and hold our own in any kind of fight.

  I clumsily managed to get my hands on the cowboy’s flannel-covered chest and shoved him back. Surprised, he fell back a step as I braced myself against the bar. I was dizzy and nauseous. The pounding in my head had ratcheted up and I could feel my shirt sticking to my clammy skin. “I’m not hiding behind anyone. I told you, I didn’t fuck your wife.”

  Finally, the man took a minute to really look at me. His gaze skipping over my tangled and too-long hair, taking in my ashen and scruffy face. It skimmed over my rumpled shirt and dirty jeans and stopped at my worn boots. I looked like I’d just crawled out of a dirty clothes hamper and smelled like the barroom floor after happy hour. In that moment, he finally saw it.

  The cowboy scoffed at me, his eyebrows going up mockingly. “You know what, Warner? You’re right. Cyndi sure as shit could do better than your sorry ass if she’s gonna fuck someone who isn’t me.”

  It was true. She would also more than likely pick a guy who could get his dick up and keep it up for more than a minute. That guy hadn’t been me in a long time.

  “Enough.” Burke barked the word out and everyone around us shifted uneasily. “Joel, I know for a fact whomever Cyndi is stepping out with isn’t Sutton, so leave it be. If you don’t head out in the next five minutes, Rodie will be here to show you the door. Next time you come in my bar trying to start shit, you need to have your facts straight. Talk to your damn wife.” Rodie Collins was the town’s sheriff and he’d been one of my best friends all through high school. He’d gotten his fair share of calls from Burke to haul my ass home when my brothers couldn’t get away to do it. But something had changed between us recently. It was almost like the idea of being associated with me was bad for business. The job of sheriff was an elected position in Sheridan and I wasn’t imagining that Rodie was slowly but surely putting some distance between the two of us ever since I went off the rails. “Sutton, I called the ranch and someone will be here shortly to give you a ride home.” He handed me a new glass, this one tall and holding what looked like nothing more than water. “Drink that and try and act right . . . or at least fake it.”

  I gave a sloppy nod and was moving to hoist myself back on the abandoned stool when everything around me seemed to screech to a stop. My breath froze in my lungs. My heart stopped beating. My muscles locked and went rigid. All the sound around me vanished and all I could see was my living, breathing nightmare pushing through the front door of the last place on Earth she should ever be.

  Everyone in a small town is nosy. A new face was easy to spot so people would have stared regardless of who she was, but because she was quite possibly the most beautiful woman who had ever been born, at least in my mind, everyone went deathly silent and gaped openly at her. I didn’t realize they were watching her, though, because I simply couldn’t look away. Unlike the cowboy, there was only one of her and every single inch was fucking perfect.

  She didn’t look like a nightmare. She looked like a dream come true.

  Without thinking about the why or the what of my next actions, I grabbed the slippery glass off the bar and hurled it at the cowboy’s back. He had stopped mid-step to gawk at the woman hovering uncertainly in the doorway the same way everyone else in the bar had, so he was an unmoving target. It was a cheap shot, but I didn’t care. He was practically eye-fucking the only woman I’d thought about for months.

  Burke swore and hollered my name as he vaulted over the bar. The cowboy swung around, his simmering fury now a raging inferno. The water dripping down his back and pooling around his feet did nothing to cool the furious heat blazing off him.

  When he lunged for me, I didn’t bother to move.

  When his fist connected with my face, I didn’t flinch.

  When his knee connected with my junk. I couldn’t help but double over, breathless and groaning. The pain shooting through me was sharp enough that I had to battle back a serious wave of nausea.

  Burke was doing his best to hold the cowboy back as I let out a low, strangled laugh. I looked up at my attacker, careful to keep my eyes off the woman in the doorway. The last time I’d seen that haunting, golden gaze it had been glittering with tears because I couldn’t stand to be around her . . . or myself. It hurt too much. I’d told her to leave, to never come back. I’d told her to stay as far away from this place and the memories that were slowly killing me as she could. If one of us deserved to move on from that moment that bound us together, it was her.

  She didn’t stay away. I hated that there was a part of me that hoped she couldn’t stay away.

  “Hey, cowboy.” The words wobbled from my lips almost as much as I did when I straightened up. I wiped a hand across my mouth and did my best to smirk back at him. “I didn’t fuck your wife, but now,” I wiggled my eyebrows even though it made my head scream. “Now, that I know she’s easy, I’ll be sure to pay her a visit the next chance I get.”

  He let out a roar that would have shaken the walls if the Big Horn wasn’t made of hand-hewn logs that had withstood hundreds of years of history and as many harsh Wyoming winters. There was no way Burke could hold the man back by himself after that, and anyone who overheard my taunt wasn’t going to deny the man deserved to get his shot in.

  I heard a woman’s gasp and knew it was hers without looking. I heard her whispered ‘no’ and remembered the way it sounded when she screamed it over and over again as she fought for her freedom and her life.

  Things would have been fine if the cowboy went for my face again. My head was already pounding and my nose had been broken a time or two. They also would have worked out if the son of a bitch fought dirty and went after my nuts again. Real men didn’t go after another man’s junk unless there was no other option, so this cowboy had already broken the unspoken rules.

  Maybe he knew about my injury and all the ways it had messed me up. Even though most of my recovery had taken place at a hospital in Montana, people knew I’d been gone for a long time from the ranch and the business I ran with my brothers. They also knew when I came home a shadow of the man I’d been before taking that bullet.

  Or maybe he didn’t know anything and just got lucky.

  As soon as his hands hit the center of my chest I went down. It hurt worse than the shot to the balls. My vision went dark around the edges and I couldn’t stay on my feet.

  The floor came rushing toward my face and I heard my name shrieked in terror, exactly the way it had sounded that day, letting memories rush in and obscure everything else.

  The pressure inside my chest felt like it was going to crush my heart.

  I couldn’t breathe.

  I couldn’t s
ee.

  I couldn’t move.

  But I could hear her screaming. . . . and that sound followed me into the dark the exact same way it had before.

  Somewhere Close to Chaos

  Emrys

  Chaos.

  It didn’t make sense that this small town, a million miles away from an airport and a shopping mall, was brimming with so much bedlam. People moved here, vacationed here, ran away from life, and ended up here to escape the noise, confusion, and crush of regular life. They would stay far, far away if they knew that, at a moment’s notice, this peaceful place could erupt into violence and disorder just as easily as places that rarely saw the sun unless it peeked between skyscrapers.

  I’d been fooled once by the promise of quiet nights and serene days in the sunshine. I believed the brochure when it said I could leave my worries at home and escape to a simpler, quieter kind of life. I let myself be lured in by the picturesque landscape and stunning mountains. I foolishly fell prey to the temptation of leaving my current set of troubles behind in San Francisco while I hid away in the middle-of-nowhere Wyoming.

  I now knew firsthand the glossy brochure that brought me to Wyoming the first time was nothing more than a bunch of pretty, packaged lies. I knew the bar brawl erupting in front of me was hardly the worst thing that could happen here. In fact, the level of bloodshed and violence was child’s play compared to what I’d witnessed the last time I’d stepped foot in this small, quaint town. Well, I hadn’t really been in Sheridan last time I was here. I’d spent most of my time in the backwoods that surrounded the Warner brothers’ ranch, which was still a good forty-five minutes outside of this tiny town. The ranch was where I was currently trying to get to so I could see my best friend.

  When I left Wyoming, I told myself I would never come back.

  Ever.

  I told myself there was nothing here for me but bad memories and heartache. I was a pro at lying to myself, at telling myself exactly what I needed to hear to justify my actions. I could convince myself of anything, like it was okay that my last boyfriend stole my grandmother’s silver when I kicked him out because he needed it more than I did. I had no problem believing that pulling Leo out of the city was the only way to heal her broken heart even though she didn’t want to go. It was easier to distract her than it was to watch her wallow. I persuaded myself into believing what I needed to heal was space and solitude. I held onto that until time passed and I was still a mess. I was sick of my own company and of hiding from everything I was feeling. I was the one who always went out of my way to fix everyone else around me, it wasn’t exactly a shock to learn I didn’t have the skills to repair myself. I spent my days helping others focus on their goals, on doing better and achieving more, so I didn’t have to think about the lack of any ambition of my own. I turned thirty at the end of the year and I was still trying to figure out what and who I wanted to be when I grew up. I’d been aimless for a long time; the only direction in my life come from the fact I knew all the way down to my bones that I had to go back to Wyoming and face off with Sutton Warner.

  I told myself that Leo would understand and wouldn’t question my sudden change of heart. Leora Conner was more like a sister than a friend. It had always been me and her against the rest of the world, until I pushed her away. Lucky for me, she didn’t let me get very far. She gave me just enough rope to dangle on and quickly pulled me up when she realized how tired I was of holding on. When I called and told her I was coming to see her, she didn’t hesitate in opening her home up to me, even though her relationship with Cy was still fairly new. I didn’t want to be a burden and Leo was quick to remind me that I had done my fair share of holding onto the end of her rope when she felt like she was going to let go.

  Neither one of us mentioned the real reason staying at the Warner Ranch might not be the easiest or most comfortable thing in the world for me. Unspoken was the reminder that Sutton had sent me away and made it clear if he never had to lay eyes on me again it would be too soon. The middle Warner brother and I had shared an experience that would change even the strongest of souls. It should have tied us together. It should have bonded us, united us, glued both our broken pieces together. He was the only person in the world who knew what I’d been through and I was the only person in the world who knew just how hard he fought to save my soul. I watched him die for me, and when he came back to life I thought I would be the first person he would want to see. I thought he would understand that his sacrifice meant everything to me. I’d never had anyone do anything like that for me before. I was always the one taking the figurative bullet, and he’d taken a real one . . . for me.

  It hurt when he made it known that I was the last person he wanted anything to do with.

  He told me, in no uncertain terms, that he wanted me out of his sight, out of his life, and out of his state. He became so agitated that his doctors ordered me out of his hospital room. They had to sedate him. I could still see his brothers struggling between wanting to make sure I was okay and doing what was best for their brother. Those Warners were good men, but family came first. I couldn’t bear to be that close to Sutton if it was doing him more harm than good. He was a whole different kind of difficult to deal with, and I didn’t do difficult. I did excuses and explanations. I cut and run whenever anything required work and effort. I was used to coasting, and everything with Sutton and what happened to me in the woods was like navigating class-five rapids with no paddle and no life vest.

  I went in search of easy. I searched out serene and calm. I rented a beach house on one of the Balkan islands that was almost as far away from my typical life as this speck on the map in Wyoming. I spent my days soaking in the sun, drinking on the beach, and letting my body heal. My mind was a little slower to get with the program and my heart was a total lost cause. Parts of me still hurt so bad I was sure the ache would never go away, but I realized that no matter how fast or how far I ran, the complicated emotional web I was tangled in kept tightening around me. The silken strands were so taut it was hard to move. There was no shaking them loose no matter where I was, so I decided there was only one thing to do . . . stop running and stop making excuses—for myself and for Sutton.

  I called Leo and told her I was on my way back to Sheridan. She knew without words that I was coming to face my fears and the hardest heart I had ever encountered in my entire life. The one miraculously still beating inside of Sutton Warner.

  After what we’d been through together, he owed me an explanation, and he was going to take my gratitude whether he wanted it or not. Leo warned me that he hadn’t been the same since we were airlifted off the mountain, both of us clinging to life. She told me that the man who sent me away in the hospital was Prince Charming compared to the surly, drunk, unpredictable mess Sutton had become. That was fine with me. I wasn’t the same woman who shied away from things that required work. I wasn’t looking for the easy way out this time around.

  When Leo warned me that Sutton had changed, I told her I could handle it. Maybe that was another lie I told myself, one I wanted desperately to believe. I told myself I didn’t need him to talk to me, or look at me, or pretend like he wanted anything to do with me. All I needed him to do was forgive me, so I could possibly, hopefully, forgive myself. She told me it was bad and I replied that nothing could be worse than the callous and cruel way he had sent me packing at the hospital.

  I should have listened closer.

  Nothing could have prepared me for the wild, feral man who was sitting at the bar looking at me like he’d seen a ghost. He didn’t want me standing in the doorway to that bar any more than I wanted to be there. I was supposed to be safe at the ranch, my best friend and his family there to act as a buffer between us. They were supposed to soften the blow of my sudden appearance back in his life.

  Unfortunately, the rental car I’d picked up when I flew into Denver was starting to have problems. It was a six-hour drive and the first five had gone great. The last hour, however, the car had started t
o stall whenever I went up a hill and there was a heavy knocking noise coming from the engine that hadn’t been there at the start of my journey. If I was anywhere else, I would have pulled over and called for help, but cell reception was spotty, at best, and I refused to be stuck alone on the side of the road waiting for rescue. I pushed the rental to its limits, which thankfully got me into Sheridan’s city limits. The Big Horn was the first place I saw that had lights on and cars in the parking lot. I pulled in thinking someone here could call the ranch and Leo would send Cy or Lane to come get me. I never expected a brawl to break out—or Sutton to be the one initiating it. The middle Warner brother was by far the most even-keeled of the three, even if he came across as abrupt and rude. He didn’t run hot the way Cyrus did, and he didn’t joke around the way Lane did. He was quiet, contemplative, and broody. So, so broody. Complicated and complex. He was everything I typically avoided, because there was no fixing whatever was broken inside of him. But for some reason I couldn’t seem to stay away from him.

  His sullen demeanor worked for him . . . or it used to. When I first met him, he’d had all the western swagger with none of the clichéd feel. He was all kinds of long, lean cowboy poured into tight jeans and worn boots. His messy, blond hair was too long then, but now it was ridiculous. Well, it looked ridiculous because it was filthy and tangled. It would probably be prettier than mine if he bothered to do something with it. He was still long and lean, but now he bordered on being skinny. His handsome face was covered in a shaggy beard that was several shades darker than the golden hair on his head. There were hollows under his cheekbones and his eyes were both ringed with dark circles sunken too far into his face. Those green eyes of his were gorgeous, the color of the pine needles on every tree that surrounded this place. Even bloodshot and wide with horror, they were still stunning. They were the only thing about him that hadn’t changed since I had been here last. His ragged appearance made him look more like a homeless person than a successful businessman and rancher; that pensive introspection made him seem like a bomb that was waiting to go off.