Wyoming Ranch Heartache
Investment banker Paula Barton harbors a secret love for JD Selkirk, brother of her best friend, but the wounded warrior refuses to leave the VA hospital and get on with his life. Then his brother threatens to sell the family ranch and Paula commits a rash act that puts JD in the middle of the crisis. Her daring tactic leaves her vulnerable to JD’s sudden campaign to charm her, an about-face she knows she shouldn't trust. But how can she resist the man she loves?
JD wants to be left alone to brood over the haunting memories of the day an IED blew him up and ended his Army career. When Paula forces him to intervene in the ranch crisis, JD angrily decides to get revenge and use his well-honed seduction skills on her. As the cocky player suddenly faces new physical challenges on the ranch, JD realizes he has more to reckon with than a romantic game. Someone could get hurt. Will it be him, or Paula?
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Books by Irene Vartanoff
Selkirk Family Ranch Series:
Captive of the Cattle Baron
Saving the Soldier
Temporary Superheroine Series:
Temporary Superheroine
Crisis at Comicon
Summer in the City
Selkirk Family Ranch Book 2
Saving the Soldier
Irene Vartanoff
Dedication:
To all wounded warriors
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations, organizations, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, or to actual persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
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Cover design by Ashley Byland of Redbird-Designs.net
Formatting by Polgarus Studio
Copyright © 2016 by Irene Vartanoff All rights reserved.
Published by Irene Vartanoff
www.irenevartanoff.com
P.O. Box 27
Gerrardstown, WV 25420
ISBN 978-0-9968403-0-9
ISBN 978-0-9968403-1-6 (ebook)
Chapter 1
“Why don’t you start living your life again?” Paula Barton spoke sharply to JD Selkirk as he lay in a Veterans Administration hospital bed in Cheyenne, Wyoming.
She had a helluva nerve. Paula was his sister Tess’s friend, not his. Paula often tagged along on his family’s daily visits. Today, she was his only visitor.
He asked, “Where’s my family? They’re usually here by now.”
Paula put her hands on her generous hips. “Would you stop trying to change the subject? When are you going to get on with your life?”
Why Paula came to bother him, day in and day out, he didn’t get. She was a good-looking woman, if you liked the pushy, no-nonsense type. Which he didn’t. Probably came from her father owning half of Oregon. She was always brimming with self-confidence, with easy solutions to tough problems. She didn’t even bother with makeup the way other women did. He wouldn’t call Paula plain. She had big, dark eyes and pale skin that contrasted well with her dark hair. She had an attractive full figure, too, though she did nothing to show it off.
“Why don’t you wear jewelry like other women?” He didn’t feel like chitchat. Why was she here at all?
Paula’s expression froze. She crossed her arms—defensive gesture for sure—and gazed at him, taking his measure and making it clear from her expression that she thought he stunk. He did, too. He felt like dirt today and Paula being here annoyed him, so tough on her.
“JD, what I look like doesn’t matter a hill of beans to you. You pick on people to push them away. Not playing that game.”
He cursed her out, but the words that usually drove Tess to tears had no effect on her friend.
“Filth mouth doesn’t move me,” she said caustically. “You’ve been rotting in this VA hospital for nearly a year and a half. It’s past time for you to get on with your life.”
He tried a few more choice words, ending with “and who are you to tell me what I should do?”
“I’m a friend. You got a raw deal from your Army service, but that’s the past. Now it’s time for you to help out your family.”
“Why don’t you just leave?” he said sourly.
“Why don’t you make me?” she asked, fire in her dark eyes.
He sat up in the bed, as if to get out of it. The pain in his gut came again. Vicious, uncontrollable pain. He sank back down on the sheets, striving to keep his face expressionless. He took a long, shallow breath to control it. Paula glared at him, unaware. Good. Let her think he’d backed down.
“Go home,” he said again.
“You’re twenty-five years old, JD, not seventy-five. Those Iraqis did their best to kill you, but they didn’t succeed,” she said flatly. “You’ve recovered. The ranch needs you. Your family needs you.”
“Nobody needs a cripple like me and I don’t need anyone.” When he lay back, the pain eased off. Paula didn’t know about his next operation, the one the doctors wanted but he was resisting. He wasn’t about to tell her. She was such a nosy witch, she’d tell Tess, and Tess would blab to their parents when she was drunk—which was every afternoon—and then his mother would cry over him again.
He wished everyone would leave him alone. Why should he pretend he could ever resume a normal life? He was missing part of his leg, for crap’s sake. The doctors kept saying he could wear his fake foot and be fine. Right. Like he wanted to be that loser guy everybody felt sorry for. No way.
He wanted to give himself a shot of morphine, but he fought the impulse. The drip was hanging next to him. They’d insisted on putting a hep lock on his wrist, but they couldn’t force him to take the damn drugs. No way would he let himself get addicted to painkillers. He refused to go down that road. The pain was bad. The docs said it would be bad off and on until he consented to the next operation. They were such liars. “Just sign off on this one, and we’ll be done.” Five operations so far on his gut. Three on his hand. A blast of sorrow hit him. Just the one on his mangled leg, to remove the connections to the foot he’d left in that messed-up country half the world away.
His eyes were partially closed. He’d like to zone out now, not listen to Paula nagging him about his duty to his family. He’d done his duty to his country, and now he was useless to anyone. He should have died. Why hadn’t he?
“Damn you, wake up, JD Selkirk,” Paula said. She took a turn around his half of the room—his roommate was at physical therapy right now, so they had the place to themselves.
“What’s your beef?” he drawled. He saw a slight flush in her pale cheeks at his deliberate insolence. Good. He’d riled her.
“I’ve been telling you. Your brother doesn’t want to run the ranch anymore. Baron’s going to sell it.”
“Sell? No way. Over my dead body.”
“Yet you keep saying you don’t care. Why should it bother you if Baron decides to sell?”
“He can’t do that.” He sat up a little. No pain this time.
Paula eyed him derisively. “Get out of that bed, lose the pity party, and go run the ranch the way it ought to be run.”
“Nice
try,” he said. “I’m not falling for it. Baron doesn’t have the authority to sell the ranch.”
“Wrong. When your father insisted Baron ditch his career as a geologist, he gave Baron power of attorney so he could transact business as needed, sign contracts, whatever. Baron could sell the ranch for a dime tomorrow. He says he’s found a buyer.”
“No way. Only if Dad’s incapacitated.”
She frowned. “You don’t know your father had a mini heart attack last night?”
“Why the hell didn’t anyone tell me?” he shouted. “Why wasn’t that the first thing you said when you barged in here?”
She cast an impatient look at him. “Tess and Anita left messages on your phone all night long. Apparently you couldn’t be bothered to check them. When you said nothing about him, I thought that was more of your usual bad attitude.”
He felt heat rise in his face. The phone on his nightstand was flashing, indicating it held messages.
“You’ve declared yourself useless, but you’re recovered now,” she said. “Why don’t you do something to help your family?”
“What about my father?” He brushed aside her concerns, striving to keep his voice from betraying any feeling. “What about Dad?”
Paula’s expression softened. “He’s okay. It was a minor warning kind of heart attack. The doctors stabilized him and they’re running the usual tests.”
She eyed him comprehensively and her mouth twisted at if she’d tasted something nasty.
“You pinning that on me, too?” he asked. Did his voice sound as sullen as he felt?
“I am. You let your parents upend their lives to support you, and now they’re paying. Your whole family is paying. Why don’t you get off your butt and set them free?”
“Damn you. You know why I can’t.” He raised the hand that was missing two fingers. “I’m not the same man I was.”
Paula didn’t flinch. “No, you’re not, but you could be a different man. You’re alive. Don’t you feel a duty to your buddies who died? A duty to live every day to the fullest because they have no more days?”
The accusation cut deep. “You don’t know what it was like. You have no idea,” he said, through his teeth.
“So open up, JD, and tell me. I’ll listen.”
Paula’s expression was sympathetic. When she softened like that, she was a very attractive woman.
He couldn’t tell her anything.
His thoughts went to seeing that little girl blown to pieces in front of him. A little girl. She was only maybe four or five years old. Just a baby. The woman with the bomb had held her hand. She’d known they would both die. She’d done it deliberately. Killed her own little kid, and herself. The look in her eyes under her veil had been pained. She’d begged for their unit to give her some food. Holding a kid was her way of getting at their soft side, disarming them into not checking too carefully about what else she carried. It had worked. He and Rob had pulled out to speak to the woman, who even in her concealing garments couldn’t have been more than a teenager. She’d blown them all to kingdom come.
That little girl. He remembered her face. She’d never had a chance.
JD said tiredly, “Go away, Paula.”
He didn’t tell Paula about the nightmares. He didn’t tell anyone. Did he have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder? Didn’t every guy who returned from a deployment? It was tough out there. The Civil War general, Sherman, who said “War is hell” was right. Nothing pretty about endless sand, endless enemies, endless nights when he’d heard gunfire and rocket fire, and wondered if a shell would hit the spot where he lay.
The docs wanted him to talk to the psychologist again. She was a nice woman. Probably never seen anything worse in her life than a broken fingernail. He couldn’t talk to her.
“JD. JD, listen to me,” Paula said. From her voice, she stood right next to his bed, leaning over him.
He opened his eyes again. Her nicely shaped breasts loomed very near him. Too bad she wouldn’t shut up. “You still here? Why don’t you leave?”
“At least visit your father at the hospital. He worries about you, and he needs to see you’re okay.”
“But I’m not okay. I never will be again.”
“Then lie to him.”
“Why don’t you get out of here?” he said, tired of repeating himself.
“Make me.” She placed her arms akimbo, resting on her nicely shaped hips.
He surged up and caught her in his arms and pressed a hot kiss on her lips. She tried to resist but he easily overpowered her. He forced her to open her mouth to his thrust. He took what he wanted. He put one hand on her full breasts, and finally she broke.
Paula wrenched away from him, her hand covering her lips. Her eyes were wild. Fearful?
“Why—why did you do that?” she asked, barely whispering.
He made his expression as closed as possible, when what he wanted at that exact moment was to haul her back into his arms and then down to the bed. Take her every way he could, no sweet words or promises. Just take her. He didn’t even like Paula. She was a witch.
“Why don’t you get out of here?” he said in a low, vicious tone.
She turned tail and left.
***
Down the hall, finally away from JD, Paula sagged against a wall. She’d seen it in his eyes. He’d wanted her. He hated her for telling him truths he didn’t want to hear, but he’d wanted her. At last.
Her breasts rose as she gasped for breath. He’d touched her there. She could still feel his fingers on her soft flesh. She wanted more.
JD would be an angry lover. Not a lover at all, but a conqueror. Not the charming flirt he’d once been, the cocky teenager she remembered from visits to the ranch between school terms. JD dated all the girls. He loved and left them, and he smiled.
This JD, hardened by war and tragedy, was a far different man, a man who took without asking, who controlled a woman and bent her to his will. She shuddered from the force of her desire for him. He was the man she wanted. For more than a year, she’d visited him with his family and wanted him, needed him. She’d foolishly thought she needed the charmer he had once been. No. This man, the man who savagely kissed her and made her accept him, this man was who she wanted.
He didn’t mean it. He’d kissed her, touched her, to scare her away when words couldn’t. He’d succeeded.
She straightened. She could not let what just happened keep her from trying to help Tess and her family. He’d won this round. She shivered. What would become of her if he decided he wanted her for real?
He’d told her to go three times. She’d tried to get through to him, and she would keep trying, but today JD was in a very sour humor, and that was saying a lot.
Paula gathered herself together and walked down the hall, past the nurses’ station. Why had she bothered trying to rile JD out of his self-pity? The answer came all too swiftly. Because she was in love with him and had been since the moment she’d seen him again. Tess had called her and begged hysterically for Paula to come down from Oregon. Tess’s parents, Robert and Anita, had already dropped their ranch duties on elder son Baron and rushed to Cheyenne to be near JD. They’d insisted Tess pull out of college and accompany them. Tess was all torn up over how terribly injured JD was, so Paula had flown her plane down immediately.
She’d expected to see the same charmer, the sandy-haired, cocky Selkirk who spent all his time seducing the local girls. Instead, although the quirk in his cheek was the same, he never smiled. His eyes were dark with pain and anger. His previously sunny personality was gone. He spewed bitterness over his physical losses. He shoved aside their well-meant words of consolation and hope. He told his family they knew nothing. He blamed them for letting him go into the Army. He needled Tess constantly about her life being as useless as his had become. JD had turned into a man with a very bad attitude, one who took pleasure in hurting the family who loved him.
For some reason she’d never understood, Paula had instantly fallen
hard for him. This wasn’t a feckless teenage boy anymore. This was a man, hardened and harmed by years of living in unspeakable danger. She felt drawn to his pain, and to his fortitude. As much as he made blanket statements to his family about being useless and crippled, he never complained about his specific pains. The lines in his face testified to that pain, as did the look in his eyes. JD was suffering, and Paula found she wanted to help him heal. She shrugged aside his bad moods and his nasty words. She tried to be helpful in any way she could, and she did her best to protect Tess from his vicious tongue.
The situation dragged on and on, and everybody settled into their prescribed roles.
Until today, when he’d touched her. Suddenly, her noble love for the wounded warrior had taken on a gritty sexual truth. He’d briefly wanted her. It was an angry wanting, no question, but she would take him on any terms.
Ironic. Her life should be smooth, the way paved by her father’s money. Instead, she had to fall for a man so far gone into the protective shell of bitterness and self-pity that he might never recover.
No, she wouldn’t accept that. JD was a warrior. He had the spirit to fight his way out of his emotional slump. He came from tough Wyoming rancher stock. He could overcome his physical losses. Trouble was, ever since he’d been sent home wounded so grievously, JD had been deep in a well of bitterness.
If only she could make him see how much his family needed him. How much he still had to offer the world despite his losses.
***
JD shifted in his hospital bed, trying to find a comfortable position. He felt ashamed of himself. He’d attacked Paula, forced himself on her. He’d behaved like an animal. All because swearing at her hadn’t driven her away. His mother would have fainted had she heard him use such coarse language, especially to a lady like Paula. An old-fashioned word, but Paula had something about her that set her apart from any girl he’d known. Safe to say he’d known more than his share during his teenage years. In Iraq, when he was on night patrol and didn’t want to get sleepy, he’d sometimes listed the names of all the girls, and exactly what each girl had let him do. Or had done to him. They’d had some good times. No wonder his older brother had agreed that the military would be a steadying influence on him. He’d needed something to wake him up from being a player at life.
Saving the Soldier (Selkirk Family Ranch Book 2) Page 1