by Jeannie Watt
Is he a threat...or her protector?
Barrel racer Faith Hartman hasn’t set foot in a rodeo since she was attacked two years ago. Just when she’s ready to move on, along comes Drew Miller, a dead ringer for her assailant...and her new neighbor. Faith wants to give Drew the benefit of the doubt, but every time he’s near, her fight-or-flight instinct goes into overdrive.
When the solitary veteran asks Faith to give him and his daughter riding lessons, the obvious answer is no. She can’t risk setting back her rodeo dreams—or her recovery. Still, Faith is drawn to Drew’s quiet strength, and the hint of vulnerability that suggests he’s battling his own demons, too...
“Faith Hartman?”
The unexpected sound of her name brought her head up and she found herself staring into ice-blue eyes. It took her a second to find her voice, because this guy—this tall, dark, trigger-inducing man—couldn’t be pixie-like Debra’s brother. Could he?
She cleared her throat and managed to say “Yes, I’m Faith” in a remarkably normal voice.
“Drew Miller.”
Worst nightmare coming true. She somehow managed to force her lips into a smile as excuses started tumbling over themselves in her brain. Her schedule had changed...she’d decided not to take on clients...her job was taking up more time than she’d anticipated...
Get a grip.
She really hoped she could. More than once she’d left public places because of people who reminded her of her assailant. But grip or not, she wasn’t going to be spending time with this guy. How could she if having him sit across the table from her made her heart race?
And the worst part was that he was her new neighbor.
Dear Reader,
We all have moments when we want to get away—to escape the reality of our lives, regroup and rejuvenate. In this story, both the hero and heroine have experienced life-altering traumas, escaped to heal and are now finding their way back.
Faith Hartman has spent a year recovering from an assault and is now actively working to put her life back on track and reclaim her place in the rodeo world. My hero, Drew, on the other hand, is still working through his pain and looking for strategies to help him build a life for him and his young daughter. When he approaches Faith for riding lessons, he never dreams that he’ll end up traveling the state, acting as her bodyguard as she competes in rodeos...or that he’s going to fall in love with her.
Drew and Faith had a rough journey toward their happily-ever-after, and they beat me up a little on the way. I didn’t mind, though. It was worth it to get these two together.
Happy reading,
Jeannie Watt
JEANNIE WATT
Her Mountain Sanctuary
Jeannie Watt lives on a small cattle ranch in Montana’s beautiful Madison Valley. When she’s not writing, Jeannie serves as the tractor copilot (aka the gate-opener/cattle-fender-offer). She enjoys horseback riding, reading, sewing and knitting.
Books by Jeannie Watt
HARLEQUIN SUPERROMANCE
The Brodys of Lightning Creek
To Tempt a Cowgirl
To Kiss a Cowgirl
To Court a Cowgirl
Molly’s Mr. Wrong
Wrangling the Rancher
The Montana Way
Once a Champion
Cowgirl in High Heels
All for a Cowboy
HARLEQUIN WESTERN ROMANCE
Montana Bull Riders
The Bull Rider Meets His Match
The Bull Rider’s Homecoming
A Bull Rider to Depend On
The Bull Rider’s Plan
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I’d like to dedicate this book to those who stood beside me on my writing journey—Mom and Dick, Gary, Jamie and Jake, Mike Allen, Charlie Hauntz. Thank you for all of your encouragement. It helped so much.
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
EXCERPT FROM PRACTICING PARENTHOOD BY CARA LOCKWOOD
CHAPTER ONE
DREW MILLER WOKE as he hit the floor, a scream catching in his throat.
The brilliant orange yet eerily silent flash from the blast faded into the night as his eyes snapped open. Kicking himself free of the sheets, he lay on the cold floor next to the bed, taking deep, gulping breaths. Sweat beaded on his forehead as his eyes adjusted to the moonlit loft. He pushed up to a sitting position and took in the damage. The lamp had taken another hit, and the books he’d had on the nightstand were strewn across the room.
Shit.
He looked at his knuckles—no blood this time—then leaned back against the bed, drawing his knees up and resting his forearms on them, letting his head fall forward. It didn’t take a whole lot of thought to connect the nightmare to the second anniversary of his wife’s death, but he hadn’t dreamed of Lissa. He’d dreamed of the roadside bomb that had taken out his convoy a year ago. As always.
Drew never remembered the dreams themselves. Only the colors and invisible forces holding him down, shoving him back. Killing his friends. He fought back, of course. Violently.
After getting to his feet, taut muscles protesting, he scooped up the bedding, dumped it on the mattress and then started down the ladder that led from the small loft to the living room of his grandfather’s cabin.
He crossed the room to the clothes dryer in the alcove off the kitchen, pulled out pants, socks and a flannel shirt. After getting dressed, he turned on the generator, made his coffee. When the brew had finished percolating, he poured a cup and took it out onto the porch where he sat on the step, letting the early morning sun warm him. Calm him.
Deb, his sister, had set up the meeting for him that morning with the equine therapy lady. He was going to go, with the sole objective of saying he had gone—but not today. Not when he looked like the crazed hermit his sister seemed to think he was. He’d call Deb, change the meeting. She’d be upset, but grudgingly oblige, because there wasn’t much else she could do other than hound him. He had no intention of engaging in any kind of therapy that was not of his own choosing. He’d done months of it before being discharged from the military and moving back to Eagle Valley to be close to his daughter. With the help of the counselors, he’d cleared up a few matters, developed some strategies, but he hadn’t been able to shake the nightmares—unless he was taking the drugs that left him useless during the day.
Deb didn’t know about the nightmares—thank goodness. She only knew that her brother was sullying her reputation as one of Eagle Valley’s social elite by living off the grid in a rustic cabin. Well, he loved this cabin. He and Lissa had spent their honeymoon here. She’d drawn up plans to renovate it, and he was going through with them, so that someday, maybe, his daughter could actually live with him.
Although...maybe renovating the cabin, following Lissa’s diagrams, tracing her handwriting
with his finger, was also triggering nightmares.
Drew didn’t know, but he’d damn well bet that hanging around horses wasn’t going to help him one iota. Nevertheless, he was taking the meeting, eventually. It would get Deb off his back—for a while anyway.
* * *
HE WASN’T GOING to show.
Faith Hartman stirred cream into the coffee the waitress refilled on her way by, wondering how long she needed to wait before returning to the college and telling her boss, the registrar of Eagle Valley Community College, that the meeting was a no go. Not looking forward to that. Debra Miller-Hill hadn’t been happy when her brother had canceled the first meeting, and she’d probably be less than thrilled about him not showing up for this one.
Faith dipped her spoon into the cup, then looked up as the door to the café opened and a big man in a dark gray flannel shirt stepped inside.
Faith’s heart thumped as she dropped her gaze.
Damn.
She pulled the spoon out of her coffee, carefully setting it on the napkin before chancing another look at the man who was now casually surveying the café. His gaze passed over her and she felt a rush of relief.
Not the guy she was waiting for. She could see now that he was older than the man she was expecting, and certainly not a walled-off hermit with a thousand-mile gaze, which was exactly how Debra had described her brother.
That didn’t slow her heart down one bit. Faith knew from bitter experience that she wouldn’t feel totally safe until either the man left the café or she did. And here she’d thought she’d made such progress over the past several months.
The guy started moving, and Faith lifted her cup with both hands, concentrating on the warmth of the ceramic against her fingers, the aroma of the coffee—anything to bring her heart rate down before the guy she was supposed to meet arrived. If he did arrive.
“Faith Hartman?”
The unexpected sound of her name brought her head up and she found herself staring into ice-blue eyes. It took her a second to find her voice, because this guy—this tall, dark, trigger-inducing man—couldn’t be Debra’s brother. Could he?
She cleared her throat and managed to say, “Yes, I’m Faith,” in a remarkably normal voice.
“Drew Miller.”
Worst nightmare coming true. She somehow managed to force her lips into a smile as excuses started tumbling over themselves in her brain. Her schedule had changed...she’d decided not to take on clients...her job was taking up more time than she’d anticipated...
Get a grip.
She really hoped she could. More than once she’d left public places because of people who reminded her of her assailant. But grip or not, she wasn’t going to spend time with this guy. How could she if having him sit across the table from her made her heart race? And the worst part was that he lived relatively close to her.
Debra seemed to think that the fact that they were neighbors was a sign from above or something. It would be so handy for both of you...
Faith had agreed to the meeting and now she was in a situation.
“Are you okay?”
The abrupt question brought her back, and Faith did her best to infuse some warmth into her smile and a look of surprise into her eyes as she squeezed her hands together under the table. “I expected someone younger. Like...midtwenties?”
“Why’s that?” he asked as he eased into the booth.
“From the way your sister spoke of you, I guess.”
She certainly hadn’t expected a guy in his mid-to late-thirties who looked as if he was in command of everything around him. But she wasn’t a trained psychologist—just a woman who had helped run an equine therapy program as part of her former job. A program that Debra thought might help her brother.
Now it was his turn to fake a smile. “My sister...yes.” The smile faded. “I’m curious as to how Debra described me.”
Time to pick words carefully. Hard to do when her brain was shouting at her to leave the café. Now. “She said that you were ex-military. That you’d just moved back into the area and that you were interested in horseback riding.” Not the total truth, but tactful.
He snorted through his nose. “Did she tell you I was a basket case?”
“Uh...”
He cocked his head, no longer bothering with the smile. “Or a hermit with post-traumatic stress disorder?”
Faith swallowed. “The second.”
He gave a nod and dropped his gaze to regard his hands. “I guess that’s something I’ll have to put up with if I plan to stay in the area.”
“Do you?” According to Debra, he lived on the mountain a couple of miles from Faith’s house. Now that she knew how she reacted to him, she’d feel better if he didn’t stay.
He raised those icy-blue eyes. “I was raised here. What’s left of my family is here. So yes.”
An uncomfortable silence settled between them, and Faith took hold of her cup with both hands again, more for something to do than because she was going to drink the rapidly cooling contents. Drew Miller looked up again, those amazing eyes zeroing in on her.
His saving grace, those eyes. The reason she wasn’t already gone. The man who’d slammed her to the ground, put a knee on her back and cut off her ponytail with one slice of a very sharp knife had green eyes. Black hair, green eyes. A striking combination that she’d noticed at the bar an hour or so before he’d assaulted her in the rodeo ground parking lot as she’d walked back to her truck. His attack had been stopped short by a couple of men driving by, so she could only imagine what might have ensued had he not been caught...and sometimes her imagination could be brutal.
She shook off the thoughts as best she could, made a heroic attempt to sound normal as she said, “Do you want coffee or something?” He shook his head and once again the ball was in her court. “Debra said you might be interested in...” She trailed off before saying the words equine therapy. Something to do with him knowing that Debra had described him as a hermit with PTSD.
“Horseback riding?” He spoke ironically, telling Faith that he wasn’t fooled by her attempts at tact.
“Equine therapy.” There. Now the record was set straight and he wouldn’t think that she was a woman who pussyfooted around the truth. Not that it mattered, but she had her pride.
He settled back in the red upholstered seat and regarded her for a long moment. Faith made a conscious effort to meet his gaze, hold it. The guy let off an aura of power, coupled with something Faith couldn’t quite put her finger on. She didn’t want to put her finger on it. She wanted to end this uncomfortable meeting and be on her way.
Drew shifted in his seat then, making her jump. Inwardly cursing, Faith met his gaze dead-on, silently challenging him to say something.
He did.
“Do I make you nervous?”
“No.” It wasn’t him, per se. All guys like him made her nervous...although again, she’d thought she’d moved on. Her reaction to him proved otherwise. Faith let go of her cup, dropping her hands back into her lap so he couldn’t see her twisting her fingers—a habit she hated.
He didn’t believe her. It was more than obvious from the way one corner of his mouth tightened and his eyebrows lifted. His reaction stirred something in Faith. She would hold her own. She had nothing to fear from this guy. He wasn’t her assailant and they were in a public place. She squared her shoulders.
“Before we go any further, I need to tell you that I’m not actually a certified therapist.”
“I know. You worked under a therapist. Debra briefed me.”
“What else did Debra tell you?” Because she didn’t feel comfortable having total strangers being briefed on her, although, to be fair, Deb had given her a lot of information about Drew. Information he probably would prefer his sister didn’t give to a perfect stranger.
“I know that you’re new at th
e college, new to the Eagle Valley. I pass your house when I drive to town.” Her heart kicked at his last statement. Even though she’d known that he lived near her, she hadn’t realized until this meeting that he was a walking trigger-fest. “And...I know that Deb hopes you’ll make me ‘normal’ again. Not much else.”
One corner of his mouth tilted up, but there was no humor in his expression. His eyes were cool, watchful, giving Faith the feeling that he noticed everything.
“Do you have PTSD?” Asking the point-blank question made her feel a little more like her old self—a woman who had control of her life.
“I have grief.” A flat statement of fact, spoken without any sign of self-consciousness, but Faith felt his withdrawal. She took it to mean, yes, he had PTSD and no, he wasn’t going to talk about it.
“Are you in therapy?”
“I was. I deal with it on my own now.”
Which was why Debra was concerned. Her brother had lost his wife, survived some kind of military disaster and was now living alone in an isolated cabin, dealing with his symptoms on his own. So she had urged Faith to meet with him after discovering Faith’s equine therapy background.
Faith had been torn about meeting Drew Miller, but had agreed because she believed in the healing power of contact with animals. If he hadn’t shared the same body type as her assailant, if he’d been smaller or blonder or geekier, she might have encouraged him to try “riding horses.” He wasn’t any of those things. He was tall and muscular and powerful and Faith was allergic to masculine power. She didn’t want to risk having to spend more time with this guy.
She gave up trying to fake things. “I don’t think this is a good fit.”
“Because I make you nervous.”
“I said—”
“I heard you. I don’t believe you.”
“That’s blunt.”
“And truthful.”
Anger sparked deep within, giving her a dose of courage. “It’s not a good fit because you aren’t really interested in equine therapy.” Her right hand was squeezing her left hand so tightly now that it was going numb from the pressure. “Right?”