His Cowboy Heart

by Jennifer Ryan

  She stared out the big door to where Ford used a hammer to bang out the pins on the gate hinge. Once he had both pins out, he braced his hands on the gate’s crossbar and lifted the gate free, carrying it back several paces to lay it out on the ground to repair the broken, weathered boards and attach the new latch lying at his feet. The muscles in his arms turned rock hard from the hefty weight and strength it took to lay the gate down without just dropping it. Her eyes ate up the expanse of rippling muscles in his arms and back. He didn’t seem winded or even remotely strained by the exertion.

  Heat pooled low in her belly. The connection she’d felt to Ford so long ago pulsed in her chest. A strange pull made her want to go to him and touch all that strength and somehow take it into herself. Acutely aware of his scrutiny while he’d been in the stables with her, she’d asked him to go, hoping she could stop thinking about him and what they used to have, but distance didn’t lessen the thoughts in her head—it amplified them.

  She wanted so much to go back in time and change the course of her life. She wanted Ford to ask her to stay, not tell her to go. She wanted to have the life they’d dreamed about, but now it seemed like some other woman’s wish because she wasn’t that person anymore. She wanted to be that hopeful girl again, but couldn’t fight reality. She’d never be the same again. This version of herself wanted to run. From the nightmares. That terrifying black hole in her mind. From Ford. Herself.

  Damnit, she was so tired of fighting herself, the dark thoughts in her mind, and the feeling of defeat that swamped her sometimes, and especially fighting what she felt for Ford. She didn’t want to do it anymore.

  Time to declare a cease-fire with herself.

  I’ll take care of myself.

  I’ll be kinder to myself.

  I’ll allow myself to believe good things still happen.

  She needed this job. Time outside with the horses, doing something productive. Her shoulders and back ached, but it felt like a workout that would get her the results she wanted if she just stuck with it.

  Get with it, Keller. Push, push, push.

  Drill sergeants could be so unrelenting. She’d made it through basic training—she could do this.

  Instead of overthinking it, she got to work and lost herself in the rhythmic motion of brushing down the horse, the feel of his big strong body under her hands, and the steady billowing of his breath as she steadied herself against his side. She brushed down his head. Dusty blew in her ear and nuzzled her cheek.

  “Hey there, sweet guy. Are you flirting with me?”

  Dusty nudged his nose against her chest. She instinctively swept her fingers over the spot and felt the puckered scar where the first bullet hit her. She fell into the past, seeing her best friend Catalina lying dead. Blood covering the side of her face, her dark eyes empty and blank. Pedro ducked behind a vehicle, rose up, and shot toward the incoming fire. One shot hit him in the chest. He gasped as all the breath pushed out of his lungs. The next bullet sliced across his neck. He dropped to the ground face-first, blood pooling all around him. He was the last of her group to fall. Everywhere she looked lay her dead friends. Ahead, she saw herself falling from the top of an armored vehicle and hitting the ground on her back.

  A hand clamped onto her and dragged her back. She fought the enemy, striking out with her fists, wishing she had her gun.

  “Jamie! Jamie! Come back!”

  She couldn’t breathe. Someone held her tight even as she fought to get free.

  “Jamie! Stop! You’re safe. Please, Firefly, come back.”

  Firefly. No, that’s not right. Everyone called her Keller. Catalina called her Jamie when they were in the mess tent or alone in their bunks.

  But Catalina wasn’t here. None of them were here anymore. She was all alone and the loneliness throbbed in time with the guilt swamping her.

  “They’re dead,” she wailed, giving in to the tide of grief that washed over her. Ford’s strong arms surrounded her and held her close. For the first time she realized her feet weren’t touching the floor but dangling at his calves.

  “Ssh, baby, it’s okay,” Ford crooned.

  Unable to allow the grief to suck her under, she went with the rage that rose up in its place. “It’s not okay.” She pushed against his shoulders and leaned back.

  He released her, but held on to her shoulders to keep her within reach. She swung her arms up and out, breaking his hold on her. Ford’s eyes went wide with surprise by her defensive move.

  She fisted her hands and stamped her foot, her body rigid with the rage roiling inside of her. “They’re dead. All of them.” And somehow it felt like it was all her fault.

  “I’m sorry, Jamie.”

  “Sorry! Sorry. What the hell did sorry ever do? What the hell did I do? Nothing.” She should have done something. “I see him up there spraying bullets everywhere. People are yelling, then they’re silent. Nothing but the crack of gunfire. Over and over again.” She placed her hands over her ears to block out the sound, but it didn’t stop the echo in her head. “It hurts like hell, but I go after him. I need to stop him. Stop! Stop!”

  “Do you reach him?”

  “I don’t know. It all goes black. Like I can’t bear to see what happens next.”

  “Did anyone else survive with you?”

  Her hands fell limp at her sides as the glimpse at her lost memories faded along with her energy. So much for a cease-fire with her dark thoughts.

  “Tobin survived.”

  “What did he say happened?”

  “The shooter got away.”

  “Is that what you remember?”

  “I can’t remember anything,” she shouted, her frustration overriding the roiling fear and urgency building inside of her, pressing against her skin, until she felt like she’d explode. “I failed. They’re dead.”

  The grief swamped her again. Her knees buckled from the weight of guilt on her shoulders. Ford caught her before she hit the ground and pulled her into his chest and wrapped his arms around her. His lips pressed to the side of her head again and again. Those sweet kisses eased her in a way she’d never thought possible. His strength and comfort wrapped around her. She buried her face in his neck and breathed in his spicy scent mixed with the hay and horses surrounding them. She held his shoulders in a tight hug that had her fingers digging into his tight muscles.

  “It’s okay that you lived, Firefly. Your friends would have wanted you to survive. They’d want you to go on living and be happy. They’d want you to live the life they lost. For them, Firefly. For your friends, if not for yourself and for me, you’ve got to keep trying to live again.”

  “It all comes back. I can’t shake it. I feel like I should have done something. I should remember something.”

  “There is no making sense out of war. You fought. You survived. War is a battle that goes on but solves very little and makes even less sense the further you get away from what started it and why it seemed so necessary in the first place. Being over there and seeing the things you saw changed you, but that one event hurt you in a way that goes deeper than the wounds on the surface. It goes deep into the kind of person you are, who can’t fathom the reason for those deaths. They were good people. Friends who had families and lives beyond that place.

  “You’re home. You got away. You feel guilty for having what they don’t. You have to find a way past that and believe that you deserve a long life as much as they did because you are a good person. Your happiness isn’t a betrayal of them. It honors them. You fought for them to get home. They fought just as hard for you. Don’t let their efforts and their sacrifice go unappreciated. Live, Firefly.”

  “I feel so numb. Nothing feels real.”

  Ford squeezed her tight against his chest. “I’m real. This is real.” His lips pressed into her hair in a soft kiss.

  She held on tighter, not ready to let him go and stand on her own. She needed him to remind her that there were good things in this world. Amazing things like the flus
h of warmth sweeping through her body. The tingle of awareness and need that grew as her breasts crushed against his hard chest and his corded thighs pressed against hers.

  He brushed his hands over her head. She managed to suck in a ragged breath and look up and into his sad and reverent hazel eyes.

  “Ford. Hold on to me.”

  He granted her wish and wrapped his arms tight around her again, his hands clamped onto her sides, crushing her to his chest. It felt so good. So right. So familiar. Like home.

  “You are worth saving.” He leaned down and pressed his lips to hers. Warm. Soft. Filled with a depth of emotion she hadn’t felt in years, not since they were together.

  It seemed a lifetime ago.

  He drew away, just a breath between them, his gaze locked with hers. Passion and something she didn’t want to acknowledge filled the hazel depths. Drawn to him, the hot rippling sensations spreading through her, the sweet agony of needing and wanting more, she closed the distance, her eyes, and sank into him. His tongue swept along hers in a tempting invitation to take more. The kiss transformed from the novice ones they’d shared as teens into hot, demanding, sensual caresses that promised heaven.

  Ford’s hands brushed down over her hips, then pulled her up and closer to him, their bodies pressed together. His hard length pushed against her belly. She rocked against him, falling into the past and the way they used to be—just like this. Hot for each other. Lost in each other. Completely consumed with the feel of the other, so close she breathed in time with him.

  She slid her fingers up his neck and into his sun-kissed blonde hair. The silky strands slipped through her roving fingers. His hands gripped her ass tight and pulled her close, then rose up her hips and dipped under her T-shirt. The second he touched her scarred and gnarled skin she planted her hands on his chest and shoved him away. She tugged at her shirt to pull it down and cover herself and backed away several feet, breathing heavy and staring at the floor, hoping he hadn’t seen the scars and realized that he’d touched them.

  “Jamie, what’s wrong?” He panted out the words, his breathing as labored as hers.

  The question took her off guard. She didn’t know what to say, or how to answer. “I’m sorry.”

  “Trust me, I’m sorrier.”

  Right. He’d gotten carried away, but it didn’t mean anything.

  She bit her lip and tasted him. “Just take me home.”

  “I don’t want to take you home. I want you back in my arms.”

  Stunned, she blurted out, “What?”

  “You tell me what.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  He held his hands out to his sides, then let them fall back to his thighs with a slap. “Me neither. Why did you push me away?”

  She tilted her head to the side and narrowed her eyes. “You know why.”

  “Uh, if I knew that, I wouldn’t be asking.”

  “My back. Everything.”

  He took a step closer, his hand held out. “Did I hurt you?”

  She instinctively took his hand and stared up at him, his questions and demeanor not computing at all. “Maybe I took too many pain meds again. You make no sense.”

  “Maybe you did, because you’re not making sense, so here’s my side. One second I have you in my arms and I’m kissing you, the next you shove me away. Did I misread the situation and the way you kissed me back?”

  She didn’t know how to put her emotions into words. How it meant everything to her to feel how much he wanted her. How when he touched her scars everything got confused in her muddled mind. But looking at him now, all confused lines on his face and questions with answers that seemed obvious to her, but not to him, it didn’t make sense. She narrowed her eyes and stared right at him, trying to read what was really going on here.

  “You touched my back.”

  That cocky grin came back. “I wanted to touch a hell of a lot more of you.”

  “You touched my back,” she repeated, not believing he didn’t get it. “Trust me, you don’t want to touch it, let alone see it.”

  “Jamie, I saw your back the first night I came to your house.”

  “How?”

  “You passed out on the floor. I put you to bed. In a tank top, it’s not hard to see the marks on your shoulders. Even in your T-shirt I see them spreading up the back of your neck. I understand they make you uncomfortable. They may even still hurt you. I imagine it will be a while longer before they’re fully healed and start to fade. Especially from your mind.”

  It took everything she had not to let her jaw drop to the floor. “You saw them and you still touched me?”

  His hand tensed around hers, firm and unrelenting. “Do you think me that shallow and loathsome that something as insignificant as the scars on your back would turn me away from you?”

  “No.”

  Ford raked his fingers through the side of his hair. Frustration pulled his lips tight and narrowed his eyes. “Every time I see you, I catch my breath, my heart beats faster, and all I want to do is touch you, taste your lips on mine, and feel your hands move over me.” He reached up and traced the scars snaking up the side of her neck and slid his fingers through her hair. “I love the way your hair changes to a million different shades of gold and red in the sunlight. The freckles on your cheeks drive me to distraction when I look in your beautiful green eyes. You have got one sexy set of legs, but I do so love to admire the swing of your hips when you walk away. Don’t even get me started on your tiny, little feet. I used to love to see what color you painted your toes. Looking at you builds a hunger inside me I have had a damn hard time fighting these last days. Thinking about you distracts me from everything. Dreaming about your body pressed to mine keeps me up every night.

  “The scars are nothing compared to the way you look at me. Sometimes just one look is enough to bring me to my knees when you show me how much you want me. The scars are there, but I don’t see them as anything more than a mark of what you survived. They remind me of all you’ve been through. They tell me how strong you are. When are you going to finally get it?” His thumb brushed against her jaw. “You lived, Jamie. You’re here. With me. And I am so damn happy to have you back. Scars and all.”

  Jamie leaned into his palm and stared up at him. “I must be out of my mind to think this is real.”

  Ford looked her in the eye. “We have something, Firefly. I’ve lived without it far too long. I don’t want to live without it anymore. Tell me you didn’t feel exactly what I felt in that kiss. Tell me you didn’t feel something and I’ll back off, but I won’t leave you alone. I promise you that.”

  She sighed. “I haven’t felt anything in a long time.”

  The disappointment in his eyes and tilted lips touched her.

  “But when we kissed, I felt like the person I used to be with you. For a moment, I felt light enough to fly.”

  Warmth and understanding filled his golden-hazel eyes. “I made you feel better?”

  “Ford, you made me feel like the sexy woman you just described, and I want more of that. Of us. But the last thing you need is me mucking up your life, especially now when you’re trying to make a go of this place and I’m slowing you down.”

  “I have a good life, but it tends to get boring as hell. Since you’ve been home, I’ve been shot, pummeled, yelled at, and kissed. I think we’re heading in the right direction.” He leaned down and kissed her forehead. “You’re certainly not boring.”

  That made her chuckle, but the reminder of what she’d done to him sobered her quickly. She let go of his wrist and traced her fingers up his bicep to his shoulder, pushing his T-shirt sleeve out of the way and revealing the long scar on the outside of his arm. She gently brushed her thumb over the barely healed wound.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I know you are. It’s better. Doesn’t even hurt anymore. One day, you’ll say the same about the marks on your body. They tell a story about who you are, but they aren’t all you are, sweetheart. You are
so much more than them.”

  “I want to forget how I got them. But at the same time, I’m trying to remember. My head is a really huge fucked-up mess.”

  “You’re not that bad.”

  A silly grin crept across her face. “If you think so, there’s something messed up about you.”

  “Maybe I’m just crazy for you.” He smiled back, clearly trying to ease her mind.

  She released his arm and touched his face, her palm against his rough jaw. She swept her thumb over his bottom lip. “That’s the first real smile I’ve seen from you. It looks good on you.”

  “Got any more affection in there somewhere? That’s sure to make me smile.”

  “I didn’t think I had anything worth a damn inside of me until you came back into my life.”

  “You should kiss me again. I’m happy to help you find all kinds of good things inside of you.”

  “Is that right?”

  Ford’s mouth drew back in a lopsided grin. “It’s worth a shot.”

  She swept her thumb over his bottom lip again, her gaze locked on his. His jaw tensed beneath her hand. Hope filled the depths of his eyes. He wanted her to kiss him.

  Anticipation crawled from her belly and spread through her system until all she wanted to do was press her lips to his and rub her hands over every strong muscle in his body. She wanted to taste him on her tongue, feel him move against her, inside her.

  She used to be brave. She pulled from some deep place within her the last stores she had of that particular trait and leaned up and pressed her lips to his. Warm. Soft. Tempting. She kissed him again and again until her mind went blank of anything and everything that wasn’t him. Lost in his taste and touch, she gave herself over to him and the warm wave of passion and happiness that washed through her.

  Yes, this was what she wanted, what she craved.

  Ford ended the kiss by placing his big hands on each side of her face and pressing his forehead to hers. He kept his eyes closed for several breaths, then opened them and stared into her eyes.

  “Come with me.” He took a step back toward the huge doors that led out to the yard and his house.