Cowgirl, Unexpectedly

by Vicki Tharp

  They weren’t wasting any more water on the horse barn. A lost cause and a waste of time and valuable resources. The structure had imploded on itself, beams and posts sticking out at odd angles like a mass grave of broken bones, flames bleeding from the tips. Beneath it all, the unmistakable, bile raising, gut churning, sickening stench of burning flesh and hair, the odor so thick in the air I tasted the sour ash on my tongue.

  Then in a flash, the heat of the fire turned into the hot Iraqi wind and the barn morphed into a burned-out Iraqi apartment. My skin grew as clammy as the underbelly of a catfish and sweat poured down my back and between my breasts. As fire consumed the timber, it popped and cracked like the intermittent staccato of small arms fire. The whoosh of blood echoed in my ears like a voice yelling, “Run, run, run!”

  Dink struggled in my arms as I attempted to swallow my panic.

  “Mac? Mac!” Jenna stood beside me and I startled a little. I hadn’t noticed she’d dismounted and come over to me. “You okay?”

  Numb, I handed Dink down to her. When she set him on the ground, she grabbed my horse’s reins. “You can get down now,” she said.

  I nodded, but I couldn’t make myself move.

  “Someone help me!” Jenna called out.

  Hank dropped whatever he’d been doing and ran over to us. “I’ve got her,” he said as he wrapped his hands around my waist and helped me out of the saddle. He held me tight against his side as I slid to the ground. To Jenna, he said, “Take the horses to the paddock by the firing range. It’s the only one where the fencing isn’t destroyed.”

  “She’s shaking. Is she okay?” Jenna asked. “She was fine and then…”

  “I…I’m…” I tried to swallow, but my throat contracted painfully and I coughed instead.

  “Shh.” He silenced me. “Don’t try to talk.” Then to his daughter he said, “Go on. Take care of the horses then go help your grandmother.”

  I didn’t hear an argument so she must have done as her father told, but I couldn’t really focus on her. “You okay?” he asked me.

  I nodded though I wasn’t sure it was true, but his arms grounded me and I didn’t want him, of all people, to see me as weak. I knew where I was. I knew I was safe, but for the life of me, I couldn’t get that point across to the rest of my body. Slowly, Hank released the grip he had on me as if he didn’t trust me at my word. I locked my knees and balanced with one hand on his arm.

  “Want me to carry you?”

  Oh, hell no. If my team could see me now, they’d be laughing their asses off and ribbing me unmercifully. That’s what I needed. This concern, Hank’s caring, crippled me. I shook my head adamantly. Still, he snaked an arm lightly around my back but I swatted it away. I gulped down a lungful of air, straightened, then took a shaky step and promptly crumpled to the ground.

  “Fuck!” I ground out, pissed off and mortified at my body’s betrayal. I held my hand up to ward off Hank. This was stupid. I’m strong! A Marine, for fuck’s sake. I channeled my old drill instructor. Heard him cursing me, calling me names, pushing me, cajoling me, and ordering me to pull my shit together. I rolled onto my hands and knees, batted Hank away again and slowly got to my feet. My legs were still shaky, but more stable beneath me now.

  “Mackenzie.” I glanced up at Hank, his arms held wide for me to walk between them. So I did. Why it was okay now, when it hadn’t been a second ago, I’ll never know. But it was. He tugged me tight up against him with one arm around my waist, the other cupping the back of my head as he held me to his chest. The mixed aromas of dirt and smoke and a hard day’s riding wafted off his skin and he couldn’t have smelled any better if he’d bathed in French cologne.

  His heart thumped steadily beneath my ear and I gained strength with each beat as if he were pumping his strength into me. “I’m okay,” I mumbled into his chest.

  He pulled away, framing my face with his hands. His callused thumbs swiped at my cheek. There was moisture beneath them. Were those tears? What the hell? “I know you are,” he said with conviction as if I wasn’t all broken inside. “It will get better, Army. You’ve got to give yourself permission to feel. To forgive.”

  I knew he wasn’t talking about the barn fire. As awful as it was, it was only that. He meant Iraq. My flashbacks. About all the things I wanted to forget but couldn’t. That he got that made me see him in a new light. It showed me his heart, his empathy, and his understanding. Maybe he wasn’t as smart as I’d given him credit for, but my past didn’t scare the crap out of him the way it should have. He pressed a kiss to my forehead so tender tears pricked the back of my eye.

  Not again! Suck it up, buttercup. I blinked them away, ordering them not to fall. “W-what can I do to help?”

  The admiration reflecting in his eyes knocked the shake right out of my knees. He chuckled softly before saying, “Check on the rest of the horses. They need brushing out and feeding. We stripped their saddles and threw them in the pasture when we got here. We lost all the feed in the fire, but one of the neighbors brought a few bags to hold us until we can buy more.”

  “Which horses did we lose?” I asked as we walked down to join the others.

  “Don’t know for certain. The two mares and that lame old sorrel of Link’s were left behind when we rode out this morning. No sign of any of them, but the fence in their pasture was down too so we hope they may have run off. By the acrid stench, I know we lost at least one. We won’t know if we lost them all until after the fire’s out.”

  “Why would the horses go into a burning barn?”

  “They wouldn’t. What are you trying to say?”

  “I turned them out of the stalls after target practice. They should’ve all been safe.”

  His brows narrowed and he fisted his hands on his hips. I knew the direction his mind had turned. If horses had been in the barn, then someone had locked then in and intentionally set the fire.

  * * * *

  Gasoline fumes burned my nostrils as I bent low over my bike and topped off my tank by the glow of my headlight. There were no lights by the pumps, but the emergency crews had finally cleared out and everyone else had gone to bed so I wouldn’t have turned them on if there had been any. Though that didn’t keep me from feeling as if I was sneaking around.

  When the tank was full, I screwed on the cap then slid my arms into my bomber jacket. It had only been a few days since I’d had it on, but in those few days, the fit had changed as if it had shrunk and was now a size too small. Which didn’t make sense, because even though I’d been working hard, it wasn’t like I’d had time to grow a ton of muscle, and, by the way my jeans were fitting, if anything, I had lost a little weight from my efforts. For the fit to feel off, almost foreign, disconcerted me. My jacket was my home, my safe place. In it, I’d always felt as if my great-grandfather’s arms were wrapped around me, protecting me.

  Or maybe it wasn’t the jacket at all that confined me, but my situation. In a matter of days, Dink had been seriously hurt, cattle rustled, and the barn burned to the ground with one or more horses inside. All on a ranch where they thought all their troubles were behind them. I don’t need this shit.

  I swung my leg over my bike, settled into the seat, heeled up the kickstand with a resonant clunk, and twisted out the kick-starter. I had my leg poised above it when the scrape of a boot sounded behind me.

  “It’s me.” Hank promptly identified himself as my hand reached for the handle of the knife in my boot. He stepped around until I could see him better in the yellowed glow of my headlight wearing an old pair of sweatpants low on his hips and a green plaid flannel shirt tossed over a wifebeater in deference to the chill. His face was all dark planes and the shadows highlighted his muscled chest and the ripple of his stomach muscles. He was sexier than any man I’d ever known.

  Dawn couldn’t be more than a few hours away and even though I was exhausted, the adrenaline factor of
the day ensured I wouldn’t be getting any shuteye soon. I guess I wasn’t the only one with a sleeping problem.

  He stood before me, arms crossed over his chest, scrutinizing me as if I were an enigmatic puzzle to solve. Maybe more like a puzzle box if I wanted to get nitpicky because he might work a few corners, slide things around on the outside, but once the lid slid open, he’d find I was empty inside. I shifted my weight and prepared to kick life into my engine.

  “Comin’ back?” Though soft, his words hit me more like a challenge than a question.

  My head felt inexplicably heavy and I let it fall between my shoulders. I studied the rust pattern on my gas cap where the chrome had chipped off. In truth, I didn’t know the answer to his question. I hadn’t brought my bags. Payday wasn’t until tomorrow so I still didn’t have any money to my name, but I could find another job, and besides my bike and my jacket, nothing I owned was irreplaceable. At the moment, all I knew was I needed to feel the wind on my face, the bite of the road as the friction warmed the rubber on my tires, and the soul-filling vibration of my engine beneath me. I could be gone a few minutes, a few hours, or I might never come back.

  “I’m coming with you,” he said as if sensing there was a respectable chance he’d never see me again.

  “I don’t need the company.”

  He ducked his head before raising his eyes to meet mine. At that moment, not a door but a window cracked open and exposed a flash of his soul. “Maybe I do.”

  I expected him to look away, to be embarrassed by the admission, but he kept his eyes locked on mine, allowing me to see his need and his refusal to take no for an answer. He was unlike any man I’d ever known and before I could contemplate my response, I nodded once, then tossed my chin in the general direction of my jumper seat—a narrow shelf of padded leather above my fender. More of an afterthought than an actual seat. I’d ridden on it as a child. No sissy bar, no strap to hold on to. Nothing. It had been ungodly uncomfortable even then. I can’t imagine what it would feel like to ride on it as an adult. Especially one the size of Hank. Careful what you wish for, Cowboy.

  I flashed an evil grin. “It’s your ass.”

  I jumped on the kick-starter and blipped the throttle as the engine grumbled then roared. Unhooking my helmet from behind my seat, I tossed it to him since I didn’t have two. He opened his mouth and I knew the kind of man he was would insist that I be the one wearing it. Except he had a lot more to lose than I did. I raised my voice over the rumble of the idling engine. “It’s nonnegotiable.”

  Still, he opened his mouth to protest, but the glare I shot him had him closing it again. Even above the engine, I heard his growl of frustration, but he put the helmet on his head and fastened the strap beneath his chin as I centered the bike between my legs. “Hop on.”

  He settled behind me and I eased the bike up the dirt road. His thighs bracketed mine as he placed his feet on the outside of my pegs and I cursed myself for never installing that second set of footholds. As I passed the front gate, I realized, this was the first time I’d left the ranch since I’d arrived. Perhaps the longest I’d stayed in one place in more than a year.

  We cruised for more than an hour, and now that I was on the bike, the road called once again. The wind buffeted my ears and the cold seeped into my ungloved hands. But that inner frigidity I’d had since I’d been back stateside, even on the hot days riding through the Mohave Desert, had warmed a bit, and I don’t think it had anything to do with the fact Hank’s chest was pressed against my back and his hands gently encircled my waist.

  Those hands.

  Somehow, his thumbs had found their way beneath my shirt and the slow circles he traced along my sides mesmerized me more than the open road. Geez. Did he have any idea what he was doing? Either way, he really needed to stop that shit before he caused me to wreck.

  I was about to reach a hand back and tap him away when he pointed to a small pullout on the inside edge of the winding road. I slowed and downshifted as I pulled off. When we stopped, he reached past me and pressed the engine kill switch. “My ass needs a break,” he said as he relieved himself of my helmet.

  We climbed off the bike, and the silence greeted us with open arms. There were no other cars on the road this late at night. No lights. No engine noise. He scrubbed his hands through his helmet hair and grabbed my hand. “C’mon.”

  Without waiting for my reply, he tugged me after him, up a narrow footpath on the side of a small hill overlooking the highway. My boots slid and kicked up pebbles as we went, but his firm grip kept me upright. As we topped the hill, my calves burned and I sucked in the thin air, trying to replenish my oxygen levels.

  There was a large, flat boulder on the other side of the hill. He led me down and sat with his legs dangling over the edge. The hand he absently rubbed down his sore leg a couple times wasn’t lost on me and I kind of felt bad for him. Then again, it had been his decision to come with me.

  It was too dark to tell if the ground was five feet below the boulder or fifty. My belly fluttered. Nature’s way of telling me I was a land-dwelling mammal and should be careful I stayed that way.

  “’S okay, I’ve got you.” When I didn’t move, he added, “Don’t you trust me?”

  I hesitated, not because I didn’t trust him, but because I was struck by the fact that I truly did. He held out his other hand and directed me until I sat facing him across his lap. He slid his hands around my ass and snuggled up against me.

  “That’s better,” he growled, low in his chest.

  My breath caught when I was prodded with the evidence beneath me of how much better he thought this was. It was okay that my lungs had seized because he was breathing fast enough for the both of us. Releasing my hips, he skimmed his hands up my arms, across the top of my shoulders, sending up a rash of goose bumps before his hands settled on either side of my face, the tips of his fingers gently massaging the base of my skull. I tilted my head back, leaning into the touch and softly moaned.

  He caught the tip of my chin between his teeth and nibbled and a rush of heat and blood pooled at my core. I rubbed against him, reveling in the pleasure, then his hands grabbed my hips and stilled them. “You are gonna to hafta stop that or I’ll embarrass myself,” he ground out.

  A lupine smile with no hint of domestication spread across my lips and I wrapped my arms around his neck and licked and nibbled my way upward. I caught a whiff of soap, so he must have showered before he’d found me at the fuel tanks, but deep underneath, the smokiness lingered. I tasted the mint of his toothpaste on his lips as I traced their outline with the tip of my tongue. His stubble—now a few days short of beard status—poked and scraped my lips and chin as his mouth opened to mine.

  He groaned, long and low, and wrapped his arms across my back and hugged me tightly to him. Escape wasn’t an option. It wasn’t even in my vocabulary.

  Gawd. I don’t know how he did it, but somehow he quelled the call of the road, muffled it, and fought it back. Or maybe what he did to me screamed louder than the road. When I was around him, the call didn’t have the same hold on me. Even when he was harassing me or making me fall off horses. How did he do that? How did he quiet the voices in my head telling me I’m a monster? Telling me I’m not like everyone else when I feel more normal around him than I ever could remember feeling before.

  I wanted to tell him all that. Wanted him to know what that meant to me even though no words could really articulate it. Instead, the words “I’m not staying” tumbled from my mouth.

  He stilled, the air whooshed out of his lungs with a grunt as if I’d slugged him in the gut. “Yeah,” he said, “I know.” He rested his forehead against mine as our heart rates ticked down—a clutch engaged, a foot stomping down hard to first gear. “Someday you’ll get tired of running.”

  He was probably right. Yet despite the quiet in my soul when I’m around him, I’m not convinced I’m anywh
ere near there yet.

  He lifted his head and kissed me on the end of the nose, effectively putting on the sexual brakes. It probably wasn’t meant to be taken as a rejection, but it stung my heart like one.

  “Sun’s comin’ up, and we’ve got work to do,” he said.

  The ride back to the ranch was quiet, as much as you could call any ride on an antique Harley quiet. Even with the wind whipping and the engine rumbling, the physical silence between us deafened me. Somehow, he’d found a place on the frame to tuck his feet without burning his legs on the muffler, and if he sat any farther back on the seat, his ass would be scraping the tire. Who knows what he’d found to hang on to with his hands, but it wasn’t me. As the sun rose above the horizon, the warmth it should have given me only left me feeling colder.

  * * * *

  I found everyone chowing down at the breakfast table when I trudged through the kitchen door, Hank hot on my heels. The dull roar of morning conversation and the clatter of cutlery filled the air. We found our seats. “Morning,” I mumbled to no one in particular.

  Then two things happened at once. The eating and conversation abruptly stopped, and someone in the vicinity of Santos, Alby, and Quinn muttered, a little too loud, something that remarkably sounded like “Got ’em some.”

  I glanced up from the coffee I’d poured. Dale tossed his knife on the plate with a resounding rattle. Quinn chuckled.

  “Hush up.” Jenna jabbed him in the ribs.

  “Ow!”

  Across from me, Hank’s hard expression solidified like quickset concrete and fired a ferocious glare at the three men that would have had one of those bulls he used to ride turning tail. Normally, I’d have jumped down someone’s throat for a remark like that, but after going twenty-four hours with no sleep with a full day’s work ahead of me, not to mention Hank’s rebuff on the motorcycle ride, my emotions were as raw as pounded hamburger and I didn’t trust myself not to throw a punch. I also couldn’t let it go without any kind of comment.