by HELEN HARDT
Phoenix. I’d named him after that majestic flaming bird rising from the ashes.
The one with the low voice grunted, finishing.
“My turn,” Tattoo said, pushing Low Voice away.
Tattoo’s rancid breath was hot against the boy’s neck. The boy winced, scrunching his nose.
“You’re nice and lubed up for me now, bitch. I can slide right in and take what I want.”
The boy closed his eyes, detaching himself from the horror surrounding him. Above him, Tattoo pumped, but in his mind, the boy was atop a majestic horse, riding into the wind. Nothing in the world mattered except him, his companion, and the acres and acres of green land ahead of him. He could ride all day and never tire of the beautiful Colorado landscape. The wind whisked through his dark hair. Flecks of dust pelted into his eyes, but he didn’t care. He was alone and wild and free. No one could hurt him here. No one could hurt him…
Until that last thrust, when Tattoo socked him upside the head, his forearm dangling in the boy’s vision, the flaming bird etched there as menacing as the man who bore it.
“That’s it, you little pussy. Take it. Take it all.”
A loud noise echoed around me as I catapulted into the air. In slow motion I descended, and—
Thunk!
My ass hit the ground. Phoenix continued galloping.
When had I let go? I hadn’t fallen off a horse in… Had I ever?
Of course I had, when I was learning. When I was a kid.
Phoenix. The horse had been a birthday gift from my father when I turned fifteen. I’d hemmed and hawed over naming him. Nothing seemed right. Joe had suggested Midnight, which would have been a good fit. The stallion was a glossy ebony all over. My father had suggested Zeus, because the male who’d sired him had been named Cronus. Both were strong, masculine names, but they didn’t work for me. Marjorie, nearly five at the time, had begged me to name him Barney. I almost caved on that one. I had a soft spot for that little girl. After…the…incident, she had been the only good I could find in the world—an innocent baby with pink cheeks, dark eyes, and a smile for everyone. In the end, though, I couldn’t saddle this impressive, muscular animal with a purple dinosaur’s name. He’d stayed nameless for two months…until I saw a poster of a dazzling, colorful bird rising from vibrant multicolored flames at the local five-and-dime.
Phoenix.
That was my horse’s name. It spoke of strength, of rebirth, of second chances.
That poster had graced the wall of my room for a decade. As I sat, my ass numb, my head beginning to ache, I conjured the emotions the image had evoked in me—that it still invoked in me, though the poster was long gone.
My heart thundered as the phoenix, as beautiful as it was terrifying, swooped toward me, its flaming wings heating my face. I closed my eyes, breathed…breathed…
The bird had become a contradictory symbol in my life.
I had to rise from the ashes of my past. I had to be the phoenix.
But the phoenix represented…hell.
How had all of that escaped me for so long?
Ahead, Phoenix finally slowed to a trot and then stopped. I whistled, and he turned and walked back to me.
I took him over to a small pool of water nearby for a drink. Fresh Rocky Mountain spring water. Nothing like it. I splashed some of the cool liquid on my face.
I sat down, cradling my head in my hands.
What was I going to do? I missed Jade so much that I physically ached when I wasn’t with her. How could I have allowed someone to get under my skin like that? How had I become so obsessed? I could never be with her. This I knew as a solid fact. Yet I wanted her back at the house, at my beck and call. I wanted her in my bed every night, my cock in her pussy every night. I wanted to mark her, make her mine.
But that was never to be.
I took the curry comb out of the saddlebag and brushed Phoenix.
Phoenix.
It had been his name for twenty years. I couldn’t change it now. Besides, it fit him. He was a beautiful animal, black as night and sleek as suede. He stood sixteen-and-a-half hands tall at the withers, not a giant but a darn big horse. He was a Morgan—shiny, fast, and friendly.
I loved this animal as much as I loved that little mutt of mine.
And I loved Jade even more—more than my animals, more than my brothers, more than my sister.
Not only more but in a totally different way—and I didn’t mean the physical part.
Jade had now become as essential to me as the blood in my veins.
I wasn’t sure I could learn to live without her.
I moved to stand, and the small of my back throbbed down to the crease of my ass. I might’ve bruised my tailbone. Nothing to be done. Time to get back on the horse.
Get back on the horse. I chuckled to myself. What a cliché. I’d heard it so many times before. Just get back on the horse, Talon. Don’t give in to your fear.
Truth was, I had no fear. I had enlisted in the Marines, hoping I’d go overseas and get my head blown off. It hadn’t happened. Instead I blew a few heads off myself and saved some of my fellow servicemen. People liked to call me a hero. Just like Ryan did.
I wasn’t a hero.
Heroes could live with themselves.
I was the one who had gone running into the line of fire to drag fallen men back, to make sure they got medical treatment.
That’s what people thought, anyway.
But they were wrong.
I ran into fire, trying to get shot.
I never did.
I’d been back on the ranch for three years now, and I still hadn’t truly found my place. I was good enough at running the orchard, and even when I didn’t feel up to it, I had the best foreman in the business and several under him who could take care of things.
Axel had taken care of things while I was overseas, and the orchards had flourished.
I really wasn’t needed here, but every time I tried to leave, my brothers talked me out of it.
They both felt so much guilt over what happened to me. I wished I could free them from it, but I was powerless. I couldn’t help anyone, least of all myself. It would be better for them if I left. They could go on with their lives.
But now…
I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving Jade.
True, I had kicked her out of my house myself several days earlier, but nothing had felt right when she was gone. She wouldn’t come back. As much as I wanted her to, my actions earlier had taken care of that.
I must’ve scared her. Hell, I’d scared myself. That screaming—and God only knew what else I had done. It was all a blur to me now.
“Come on, fella,” I said, mounting Phoenix and wincing at the ache in my tailbone. “Let’s go find Joe.”
About twenty minutes later, I found my brother and some of his men checking out some steers on the northern quadrant.
“Hey, Tal,” Jonah said when I dismounted. “What brings you up here?”
“I suppose you talked to Ryan.”
Jonah cleared his throat. “I have. Let’s walk a minute.” My brother led me away from his men. “So Jade’s back.”
“Yes, she’s staying in the hotel in town.”
“Did you try to get her to come back to the house?”
I nodded. “Marj did too. She won’t budge.”
“Do you blame her?”
I shook my head. I didn’t blame her. I’d fucked this up all by myself.
“Ryan says you’re in love with her.”
I shuffled my feet in the dirt, scuffing up my ostrich boots. “I am. At least I think I am. I don’t really know what it is to love someone in that way.”
My brother cracked a smile. “You know when you feel it, Tal. If you feel like you’re in love with her, you are.”
“I don’t know what to do about it.”
“Do you think she feels the same way?”
“I have no idea. I know we have what you might call ‘really good physi
cal chemistry.’”
Joe chuckled. “That’s a good thing.”
“I just don’t know if we can be together.”
“You have to be honest with her, for one.”
“I can’t be, Joe. I can’t be honest with someone else when I have a hard time being honest with myself.”
My brother turned and faced me, his eyes serious. “If you don’t get help, Tal, and deal with everything that’s going on inside you, you’re never going to live the life you were born to live.”
“Are you kidding me? The life I was born to live? So far it’s sucked.”
“It doesn’t suck. You’ve had some tough breaks.”
“Tough breaks? You make it sound like I missed the winning shot in a basketball game. What I went through goes a tough break.”
My brother rubbed his temple. “I’m not trying to belittle what you went through. But you’ve never actually told me about it. Ryan and I can only guess.”
I cleared my throat. “Believe me, you don’t want to know.”
“Our imaginations are pretty good. We pretty much know what went on.”
“What you think went on? Multiply that by a hundred. Then you might get to where I was.”
Jonah shook his head. “Damn, I wish so much it had been me instead of you. I should’ve been there.”
I hated when my brother did this. Ryan too. Acted like they wished it had been them rather than me. That was so stupid. They should be damned happy it hadn’t been them. We’d been through all that before. No need for me to rehash it. I stayed silent.
“You could go see that Dr. Carmichael again. She’s supposed to be really good.”
I cleared my throat. “I thought about it. I was just so… I don’t know.”
“Were you scared?”
“No.” I wasn’t scared. Hell, I wasn’t scared of anything.
Jonah removed his Stetson and wiped his brow. “What’d you come out here for, anyway?”
I swallowed. “I was wondering if maybe you could talk to Jade. Convince her to come back to the house.”
“If Marjorie couldn’t convince her, I doubt I could.”
He was probably right.
“Tell you what. If I can get Jade to come back to the house, would you do something for me?”
I knew better than to make deals with my brother, but right now I was desperate to have Jade back in the house where I could see her.
“What do you have in mind?”
“I get Jade to move back to the ranch house, and you start seeing Dr. Carmichael. Regularly.”
Chapter Eight
Jade
I hastily picked up my cell phone from the carpeted floor where it had landed. I had been breezing through news articles online while I was talking to Marj, and a headline caught my eye. It was a full spread in the Snow Creek Daily. “Local Hero Comes Home.” Complete with Talon Steel in his full dress United States Marine Corps uniform.
Talk about making a splash. A man in uniform—the ultimate man in uniform.
He had been given the Award of Honor.
The fucking Award of Honor.
Why hadn’t anyone told me?
“Jade, are you there?” Marj’s voice came from my phone.
I held it up to my ear. “Yeah, Marj. I’m here. I… I’ll call you back, okay?”
I clicked the phone off in the middle of her good-bye and I started reading.
Local resident and Award of Honor recipient Talon Steel returned home to Snow Creek this past week. Talon entered the Marine Corps as a second lieutenant and quickly gained the rank of first lieutenant and then captain due to his hard work and heroism. He was deployed first to Afghanistan and then to Iraq. He received the Award of Honor from the governor of Colorado for making six death-defying forays into a killing zone to save six American troops. Captain Steel was thirty-two years old at the time of his return. He was granted an honorable discharge.
“Captain Steel is a hero to us all and a great example of a model citizen of Colorado,” said the lieutenant governor. “We are proud to have him home to our great state.”
Steel is the son of the late Bradford and Daphne Steel of Steel Acres Ranch outside of Snow Creek and brother to Jonah, Ryan, and Marjorie Steel.
Captain Steel was honored at a ceremony in Snow Creek last Saturday officiated by Mayor Tom Simpson. In front of Steel’s brothers and sister and hundreds of Snow Creek citizens, Mayor Simpson said that the former Marine would serve not only as a lesson of courage but as a reminder to everyone that heroism comes from everywhere.
“Anyone, even someone from our small town of Snow Creek, Colorado, can do great deeds as part of this great country,” the mayor said. Addressing Steel specifically, he continued, “You did more than your duty as a member of the military and a citizen of the United States. Snow Creek is proud to have such a distinguished hero among our population.”
The mayor retold Captain Steel’s story the next Monday at Snow Creek K-12 School. Captain Steel, an infantry officer in command of an Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit, and his troops were ambushed by a group of insurgents in a small peaceful village in northern Iraq after dark. Suddenly, the lights in the village went out, and gunfire erupted. About twenty-five insurgents who had been perched on mountainsides took cover in the village and ambushed Steel’s unit and one other under the command of Captain Derek Waters. Steel, a first lieutenant at the time, defied orders from Waters, his superior officer, to reenter the battle zone and save six of his fallen comrades: Pvt. Clancy Brown of Los Angeles, Pvt. Lance Fox of Gahanna, Ohio; Pvt. Myron Jones of Schroon Lake, NY; Pvt. Kevin Dale of Reno, Nevada; Sgt. Corey Jensen of Santa Fe, NM; and 2nd Lt. Megan Cline of Dallas.
Captain Steel made only one comment: “I didn’t do it to be a hero.”
My eyes glazed over as perspiration erupted on my palms. Damn. I closed my eyes. I didn’t do it to be a hero. I’d heard those words before, when I first met Talon. He’d been driving me from the airport to the ranch over a month ago.
“I think it’s really heroic what you did over there. I really respect our military.”
“I didn’t do it to be a hero.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean to imply—”
“I’m no hero, blue eyes. In fact, I’m about as far from a hero as you’d get.”
“It really doesn’t matter what you think, does it? I think anyone who serves our country is a hero. That’s my personal definition, and I’m sticking with it.”
He’d resisted being called a hero. Wow. Just wow.
I’m no hero, blue eyes.
What a crock.
There was so much more to Talon than I knew.
Why hadn’t Marj told me any of this? The Award of Honor from the state? Why the hell not the Medal of Honor from the president? And why wasn’t this national news?
Actually, it probably was. That was where I’d start tomorrow in my research.
For now, I’d call it a day. My eyes were fatigued from staring at the computer screen for eight hours straight, but that wasn’t why I had to stop. I had to digest what I’d just read. I printed a copy of the article and slid it into my briefcase.
Time to go home. I’d have to stop at the grocery on the way home because my new fridge was bare.
I gathered everything. I didn’t even have to say good-bye to anybody in the office because they were already gone. I made my way downstairs and outside the building. As I walked toward the small grocery, a neon sign caught my eye. Toby’s Tattoo Parlor. I’d seen the tattoo place before, of course, but I’d never ventured in. Tattoos had always fascinated me, and I wanted one—a tasteful one—right on the small of my back. However, I hadn’t found an image that spoke to me…until a few nights ago.
My mother’s new boyfriend, Nico, had a beautiful phoenix tattooed on his forearm—swirls of fuchsia, red, gold, purple, with neon-blue and orange flames shooting out from its wings as it rose from a pile of gray ash. It was a symbol of strength, of rebirth, of a new beginning.
/> All the symbolism I needed in my life.
That was the image I wanted.
A phoenix.
A girl with spiky black hair and a lip ring sat at the front desk, and two male artists worked in the back.
“Can I help you?” the girl asked.
“Yeah, I like to get a tattoo on my lower back, and I’d like to take a look at your art books. I’m looking for a picture of a phoenix.”
“Oh, yeah, those make great tats.” She pulled a large book up onto the counter. “Take a look in here. We have lots of phoenixes in our mythological creatures section. Dragons too. You like dragons?”
“Sure. But I want a phoenix.” I took the book and sat down in one of the chairs across from her desk. I skipped straight to the phoenixes. Phoenix after phoenix after phoenix. They were all beautiful but not exactly what I was looking for—
Until there it was—a near replica of the one I’d seen on my mother’s boyfriend’s forearm. A gorgeous tattoo, and the colors were psychedelic almost to the point of mind-numbing. Perfection. I walked back up to the girl.
“I’d really love this one. Can any of you guys do it?”
“Yeah, I can do that one. You want to make an appointment?”
“Actually, could I see some of your work first?”
She nodded. “Absolutely. I wouldn’t expect you to let me decorate your skin unless you were familiar with my work. I’m Haley, by the way.”
“Jade,” I said.
Haley handed me another book, this one not quite as big. “This is my portfolio. If you want to look at the other guys’ portfolios, please do.”
I opened the book. Haley’s work was gorgeous. I wouldn’t have to look any further. “You do great work,” I said to her. “Yeah, let’s make an appointment.”
“Actually, if you have time right now, I’m available. The tat will take about two hours and run about two fifty.”
Two hundred and fifty bucks. I’d just written Sarah a check, but I had enough money in my account to cover it, and I was employed. Still, the car savings and the student loans that were coming due… But something had drawn me into the shop, and then I’d found the exact image I wanted. Seemed like kismet.