Saving the Soldier (Selkirk Family Ranch Book 2)

by Vartanoff, Irene

  Why did people want to be in love, anyway? It was the pits. She spent half her time wondering what JD thought about her or felt about her or planned to do to her. She spent the rest of her time wondering what she should do in response. She knew what she wanted to do. She wanted to give in, to receive every moment of attention JD chose to bestow on her. To trust him to have good motives. Her body wanted her to behave like a fool.

  ***

  Sunset came only a few hours later, and with it, the winds increased. Nobody volunteered to check how high the snow was by now. JD didn’t try to kiss Paula when they met for dinner. He sneakily checked her expression and saw she was a little disappointed that he hadn’t tried. Good. Score another point for him.

  Addie fretted out loud about her horses. “I left them enough feed for today, but the new one, Goldie, is very nervous. I should check on her.”

  “You’re not going out in this,” Baron said.

  Addie bridled at his blatant order, raising her head to stare at him challengingly.

  Baron immediately backpedaled. “I’m not risking myself outside in these conditions, either,” he added, obviously trying to convince her he hadn’t forbidden her. “It isn’t safe for anyone.”

  He was explaining too much. Why was he so bent on assuring her he wasn’t the boss? He should be telling her he ran the place and made the decisions.

  Paula smiled at the exchange. She must know what it all meant.

  After the meal, Baron and Addie went down to the basement again. Miss Betty was cleaning up her kitchen while watching one of her evening programs.

  JD caught up with Paula in the den and asked, “What was that all about between Baron and Addie? Why did he explain so much?”

  “You know he brought her here six months ago against her will, right?”

  He rubbed the bristly hairs of his short military-style haircut. “Sure, I heard about it. He made a mistake but she forgave him.”

  “It wasn’t quite that simple. Suffice it to say, Addie doesn’t like being cooped up and she definitely doesn’t take orders from Baron.”

  “Everybody has to follow a chain of command.”

  “The great Chain of Being that the medieval Europeans believed in, huh?”

  He looked at her sideways. She surprised him sometimes. He would have pegged her as someone who cared only about numbers, not about history. “Don’t know about that. Keeping it simple makes for organization. One person in charge, the others following orders.”

  She said, “That works fine for the Army, because—and you can tell me if I’m wrong—in theory you all have exactly the same goal. To accomplish whatever task has been set, and get out unhurt.”

  He sat in a large easy chair. “Following orders saves lives.”

  Paula had a glint of humor in her eye. “They why haven’t you followed doctors’ orders since you came home?”

  JD reached up and grabbed her hand, attempting to pull her into his lap. Paula resisted, but he prevailed. She made a nice soft package in his arms.

  Paula sat tensely, eyeing him with overt suspicion. He let her get used to being in his lap.

  “Never said I liked orders,” he said mildly. Disarm her, that was the way.

  “Don’t be exasperating, JD. You did a long voluntary hitch in the Army, and you re-upped, too. Obviously, you liked it.”

  He leaned back, the action shifting Paula’s softly rounded body closer to his chest. “When I come to think of it, the way my dad ran the ranch geared me to accept the Army’s methods. He was very organized, and the men obeyed his orders because they made sense.”

  He threaded his left hand through her straight black hair. “Now why don’t I order you to kiss me? Let’s see if, unlike Addie, you go for a chain of command.”

  Paula looked tempted.

  “Come on,” he urged. “Kiss me.”

  She took the bait. She leaned in and placed her soft lips on his.

  A pang shot through his entire body. When she made to pull back, he held her against him while he nibbled on those rosy lips. Then he moved forward and took command of her soft mouth.

  Paula sighed against him and opened to him. He plunged in. He tightened his arm around her, bringing her plump breasts in contact with his chest at last.

  He wasn’t much for horses but he knew to take it slow with a nervous filly. His hands touched her gently but firmly, caressing her soft flesh. When one hand landed on her breast, she drew back from his kiss.

  He unbuttoned the top button of her blouse that was straining to hide her bounteous assets. Then the second button, revealing her French cut bra. His fingers touched the silky smooth flesh of her cleavage. When they moved to caress a nipple, she took a sharp breath, and her breasts rose. He undid the next button and put his lips on her nipple through the lace.

  “Oh, JD,” she whispered. Or was it a groan? He sucked on her nipple and she moaned.

  He returned to her lips, while his hand insinuated under her bra and touched her bare breast. She sighed again. She was totally ready. So was he.

  He rose with her in his arms and almost fell. Paula tumbled from his grip and landed half in and half out of the easy chair. JD tried to realign his weight to his good leg, twisting it in the process. His fake foot was useless. He grabbed for the arm of the chair, anything, to stop his fall.

  “JD!” Paula leapt up, reaching out her arms to help him stand.

  What was he doing trying to act as if he wasn’t a cripple, useless to any woman and to himself?

  ***

  JD shook off her hands as soon as he stood solidly.

  “Let me go,” he said, a snarl in his voice. “Don’t touch me.”

  She backed off. He drew himself away from her, turning his back.

  “So much for the great Romeo of the Selkirk family,” he said. “Let’s just forget this.”

  “But—”

  He turned a savage expression on her. “We’re not talking about what just happened. Good night.” He limped away from her.

  She had the good sense not to follow him to the landing or watch his progress up the stairs. The sound of his slow, careful steps as he climbed broke her heart. He’d been utterly humiliated. His male pride, that touchy, fragile part of a man, had been outraged. What had been a natural progression in his lovemaking had turned into a disaster.

  What could she do? What should she do? This could be a huge setback for JD. Would he take to his bed again? Never try to live a normal life again? Would he never try to make love to a woman again? To her?

  She’d wanted him. She would have let him carry her up those stairs. She would have let him strip her of her clothes and put her on his bed. She would have let him do whatever he wanted.

  She loved him. She’d loved him since she first visited him in the hospital. Sure, she’d had a little crush on him as a girl, back when he was all cocky smiles and fun and games. When she laid eyes on him in the hospital bed, horribly maimed, one eye still bandaged shut, his hand wrapped where the fingers had been blown off, and his legs, both of them, in bandages, all of it, he had snarled at her and his grieving family. That was the moment Paula fell in love with JD. Not when there was hope, but when there was no hope.

  He’d come so far on fighting everyone. Now she had unwittingly led him to a disaster that could result in a permanent setback.

  She knew how some men were, especially these western men. They had to be like a wall. They had to keep up that façade even if they needed help. Being in the military merely strengthened that need for a wall.

  JD probably hadn’t even thought it through that if he had succeeded in carrying her upstairs to his bedroom or hers, he’d have had to let her see him with his leg off. Or not, but wearing the prosthesis. Was he ready to let her see his wounds intimately?

  She’d been jealous of the nurses in the hospital for months. They had the opportunity to touch him. She’d suspected he might have let them do more, simply because they were nurses and had seen worse. She saw how they e
yed him. JD was a cut above the pack. They wanted him. One day, she’d been bold enough to ask a nurse if JD had ever done it with any of them. The woman gave her a crooked smile in reply, and Paula had known.

  But did the nurses love JD, or did they simply take what he let them? Did they care about him as Paula did? Could she leave him to stew in his own misery tonight as he’d been doing for months now?

  Chapter 12

  Once JD slammed the door to his room, Paula went to her own bedroom as silently as she could. Two hours later, she was still pacing, undecided. Could she do what she contemplated? Should she? Finally, she got ready for bed and crawled under the covers. The wind still howled and splattered snow against the window. She’d heard Baron and Addie come upstairs a while ago, but everything inside the house was quiet now. Everyone was in their rooms, isolated from each other. Or together. Which did she want to be JD’s future or her own?

  Paula threw back her covers. She rose from the bed and quietly stepped into the hall. No lights were on in any rooms. She went to JD’s room and turned the door handle. Swiftly, she entered and closed the door, leaning her back against it.

  JD hadn’t closed the curtains. The room was bright from the whiteness of the snow.

  “What do you want, Paula?” he ground out in a raspy voice.

  Of course he’d awakened the moment she’d opened the door. A soldier’s alertness.

  She walked over to the bed and leaned down. “I want to love you.”

  “Go away.” His voice sounded tired and sad.

  She crawled onto the big mattress and lay down beside him. “I want you to finish what you started downstairs.”

  He hissed a breath, no doubt wincing at the memory she’d raised. “You don’t want a man in my condition.”

  “I want you, JD. In any condition. Any way. Any time. Any how.” The words were ripped from her. “Don’t deny me. Let me love you.”

  She lifted his wounded hand, the one missing two fingers, and placed it on her breast. “Love me.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” she said steadily.

  He reached over and pulled her toward his kiss.

  ***

  The little girl had stared at him. Her eyes were so dark, so trusting and curious. It must have been easy for her mother to get her to come see the American soldiers. The little girl held onto her mother’s black robe, eyeing him. And then she blew up.

  He woke up.

  He shuddered. The dream again. His fault that woman had killed her own child. If he hadn’t touched Rob’s arm and pointed at the pair by the side of the road, they wouldn’t have stopped. The girl would have lived. Rob would have lived, too. The woman might have given up her desperate mission. Then again, she might have stood there for hours, or even all day, until another Army patrol came by. Whoever gave her the IED must have done something to push her to that action. She might have been yet another forced bride of an abusive husband, maybe not even the first wife, but an extra he could well spare. Hours later, the woman might still have been standing by the road, holding her hands out to passing American soldiers. By then, though, the little girl would have gotten tired, and maybe been sent back inside the house. She’d have been spared for another day.

  He moved in the darkness. He was alone, and glad of it. Was this PTSD? Or was it legitimate grief and guilt over a war situation he’d had little control over? Following orders, giving orders, but it was never enough. Sometimes he wondered, late at night as the sounds of gunfire and bombs kept him awake, how soldiers in World War II had felt, fighting the war against Hitler, knowing it was them or him, that the survival of their own nation’s freedom and way of life was directly at stake. They’d never had any doubts about their job, had they?

  Soldiers were trained not to have doubts. Just follow orders. Pretend not to fear death. The hardest part wasn’t knowing death could come at any moment from any direction. It was having to act invincible, having to wall up emotions and pretend they didn’t exist. It hardened a man, made him a better soldier. But when the danger was over, there was no way to let go of all those repressed feelings. They clogged a man’s heart.

  Chapter 13

  In the morning, JD woke to brilliant sunlight pouring in through the window. He’d sent Paula away hours ago, before his dream, so she wouldn’t see his leg in the cold light of day. And maybe he didn’t want to see the expression of love on her face when he knew he couldn’t return her feelings.

  He’d used her. Just like he’d used a few of the nurses at the hospital. They’d used him, too, so he’d had no regrets about what they’d done. But Paula was different. She cared about him. She hadn’t said she loved him, but he didn’t need the words to know how she felt. Her love had been in every touch last night, in every caress she gave his maimed body. What a revelation.

  He didn’t deserve her love. He shouldn’t have let her stay, but she’d been so beautiful, so insistent. He was only a man, not some hero who could nobly turn his back on loving arms seeking to enfold him.

  He rubbed his face. Best not to think anymore about last night. Get on with today. Plenty happening today.

  ***

  Paula woke with the sun in her face. She automatically turned to JD, then realized she was in her own bed, alone. He had sent her away despite her pleas to stay. She took a deep breath and then let it out. Okay. Get on with her life. Examine it later.

  She lay in bed, restlessly moving her limbs, remembering anyway. JD thought she came to him out of pity. Now she’d given him everything and couldn’t face him at the breakfast table. Couldn’t face either his indifference or his scorn. JD had been a perfect lover, both masterful and tender with her body, but she wasn’t foolish enough to believe he had soft feelings for her. Their relationship was rocky at best.

  She finally dragged herself out of bed and went to fill the bathtub for a long soak.

  ***

  At breakfast, JD didn’t have to worry about how to treat Paula. She wasn’t there. Was he relieved, or sorry? He tried not to think about how he felt.

  Addie couldn’t sit still. She kept jumping up from the table and peering outside, as if doing so would make the snow stop. “I have to get to the stables and check on the horses.”

  “Don’t you hear the wind? If you try to walk across, you’ll be knocked down,” Baron said.

  Addie grimaced. “I’ll get back up and keep going.”

  “He’s right, child,” Miss Betty said firmly, as she delivered another load of eggs and bacon. “Looks all pretty, but ’tain’t safe out there. Temperature’s real low today.”

  “We could go together,” Addie said to Baron. “Buddy system. Those horses need attention. What about shoveling a path?”

  JD began to see why somebody had said Addie was tough. She seemed so sweet and feminine, but she was very determined to get her way.

  Baron frowned. “Look at all the drifts. The wind will fill in a path before you can get to the end of it. Not that you’ll be doing any shoveling.”

  Addie said, impatiently, “Come on, give me solutions, not barriers.”

  “I saw a ride-on lawnmower in the shed,” JD offered. “Do we have a plow attachment to fit to it?”

  Baron said, “I don’t know. It hardly snows here in a normal year.”

  “I’m game to attempt to plow a path to the stables. Why don’t we go look?” JD asked. He finished his coffee and stood. “I’m going to find my old boots and go check out the shed. Might need your help to attach the plow if there is one.”

  “Dress warm and get a scarf to cover your face,” Miss Betty said. “Frostbite can come on fast.”

  He welcomed the challenge of getting out in the snow and fighting the wind. He had little appetite this morning. Thinking about what he’d done to Paula made him kind of sick. He shouldn’t have let his plan to get payback go so far. She hadn’t come down for breakfast, which meant she suspected his seduction—despite going so disastrously awry at first—had been planned. An honora
ble man didn’t take a woman’s body and give nothing in return. Paula thought she knew the score, but in bed with him she’d been pure sweet love. What had happened last night was madness, never to be repeated.

  A few minutes later, JD had put a snow boot on his remaining real foot, and obtained a terry cloth towel from Miss Betty to tie around his sneaker-clad fake foot. Hopefully that would give it more traction. Togged out in a heavy coat, hat, scarf, and gloves, it was a wonder he could even move.

  He and Baron went to the breezeway, shoveling as they went. It wasn’t so bad. The wind had picked up the snow from part of the flagstone walkway and deposited it into a drift next to the side of the house. Inside, they searched and found the plow attachment. They removed the mower deck and attached the plow. As he and Baron hefted the mower, JD felt a pain in his middle. That shrapnel the doctor had warned him about. He straightened, and it was gone.

  “Don’t know if it’ll run in this cold,” Baron said.

  “Think positive,” JD replied. He’d never noticed before how negative Baron was. He hadn’t been like this years ago. He’d been easygoing. Maybe they’d all changed as they’d grown up.

  “I’m ready,” Addie announced. She was garbed for an icy hike across to the stables, if they could get a path clear for her.

  “You stay here until we clear you a path,” Baron ordered.

  “Makes more sense for me to follow you immediately, and use whatever path you can create before the wind fills it in again.” She had her hands on her hips. Girl wasn’t giving in to her man’s commands.

  “I vote I use the plow,” JD intervened. “You two follow me, and Baron, you carry a shovel. First, we have to get it started.”

  He checked the fuel and oil, then cranked the engine. It caught right away. Probably thanks to Hoot and their dad making sure every piece of equipment on the ranch was always in tiptop condition. He let it idle and warm up.