Lone Rider

by Lindsay McKenna

  When the grizzly had been killed, it upended their quiet lives on the Bar C. Neither had expected it. Both had turned down interviews locally, regionally and even from major news organizations out of the East.

  She watched the way Harper rode Ghost, with that boneless ease. He was so damned sexy, and her dreams had escalated with each kiss they shared. They both had so much baggage to work through that she wanted the time to get to really know him, to show him their continuing compatibility in so many areas with each other.

  Harper had some ongoing nightmares, too. The bear had been killed on the 15th, and since then, he’d been wrestling with his PTSD, which had spiked. Tara wouldn’t admit that his screams on some nights didn’t bolt her out of bed, her heart pounding, adrenaline coursing through her, trying to tamp down her own reaction. She’d heard screams like that before: her own. And it brought back memories of terrible firefights she’d been caught in, too. Neither of them were getting much sleep.

  That’s why she looked forward to a whole afternoon out on the land. Nature always settled them, she’d come to find out. This was the first time they’d been assigned fence-mending duty together and she’d silently cheered over it. She knew how tough it was for Harper to speak about his emotions and what was bothering him. Tara hadn’t let him know he’d kept her up nearly every night, too. He didn’t need that burden right now. He was dealing with enough because he’d been forced to shoot that grizzly.

  Since the bear killing, he’d retreated in some ways from her, and Tara had felt the loss of the warmth and intimacy Harper had given her. Inwardly, she had cried over it, but she understood why. Her parents, after being awakened by her screams during a nightmare, had wanted to help her, too. And now, Tara didn’t want to crowd him to tell her what the nightmare was about; that was something Tara wouldn’t do. She never wanted to tell her parents; to give voice or words to what she’d seen or what she’d survived. To give it words meant her parents would forever remember it, too, and she didn’t want to go there. Not ever.

  Heaving a soft sigh, Tara leaned down, rubbing Socks’ thick, winter-coated neck. The horse’s ears flipped back and forth, acknowledging her touch. Smiling a little, Tara watched Harper ride with that cowboy slouch of his. He’d been born to a saddle because his parents had given him his first horse at age seven. He’d ridden with his father and mother, practically born to horses. His mother, in particular, loved horses, and they always had some on their small family ranch of twenty acres. It was a hobby and pastime, but Tara could see Harper truly was completely in sync with Ghost. It made her feelings for him bloom once more in her chest.

  Tara had to laugh at herself. Since the bear charging them, she’d barely thought about Cree, that he was in the vicinity. With PTSD, her hardwired mind went to the latest threat, not an old one from years past. And for that, Tara was grateful. On Wednesday, tomorrow, she was going to Jackson Hole with Shay, Kira and Dair to pick up their bridesmaids’ dresses. They were ready to be tried on. Kira was so excited. The wedding would be on in a few weeks, and everyone in the valley was more than ready to celebrate. She was glad there was still quiet time, though, because of the reoccurrence of Harper’s PTSD. Just as he’d laid open his heart to her out there in Prater Canyon, she knew he could open up that vat of horror he’d survived to her in the future. But it would take time. Patience. And trust.

  Trust was strong between them and growing every day. Harper had saved her life out there in Prater Canyon. Although caught in the terror and the grip of the flashback, he’d managed to kill the bear. Tara found that amazing. There was never any doubt within her that Harper wasn’t a trustworthy man. And how she ached to give him a reprieve from these recurring nightmares. She hurt for him, feeling helpless, unable to support him when he really needed it.

  Later, as they were working on a particularly snarly barbed wire issue between two posts, Harper had connected the loose strands. He was down on one knee and Tara was on the other side of him, holding the ends taut between her elkskin leather gloves.

  “Phew,” he muttered, “this one is a rat’s nest.” He quickly wrapped the broken wire around newly strung wire. “You doing okay?”

  Tara was a foot away from him, the barbed wire between them. “Yeah.”

  “Arms getting tired?” and he glanced over at her.

  “Just a little.”

  “Wouldn’t fib, would you, Ms. Dalton?”

  Grinning, Tara said, “Not to you, Mr. Sutton.”

  “I wonder how many women would be out here doing this?”

  She chuckled. “Not many.”

  “Builds character and muscle,” he said. “You can let go now. Let’s see how the wire sits.”

  Releasing it, Tara sat back on her heels, her hands resting on her wet, splotched chaps. At least her jeans were dry, the leather keeping them that way.

  Harper tested the tautness with his glove. “Feels about right.” He looked over at her. “Nice job. Thanks for your help on this one.”

  Tara saw the pride in his eyes for her part in the process. “It’s easy when working with you.” She saw his expression relax and he, too, sat back on the heels of his boots.

  Harper took off his gloves, holding her gaze. “Our quiet, private lives have been pretty upended since I killed that bear.”

  Groaning, Tara muttered, “It’s the media, Harper. If they’d just leave us alone. I’m not glorifying the killing of such a beautiful wild animal and I know you don’t want to either.”

  “Well,” he said, wrapping the gloves in his left hand and resting it against his chaps, “I guess I was kinda talking about something more personal. About us.”

  She gave him a blank look. “Oh …” Tara saw the tenderness in his gray eyes as he silently regarded her. “I don’t understand.”

  “You and me.” Harper quirked his lips. “Since killing that bear, I’ve had nightmares nearly every night. I wake myself up screaming. I know I wake you up too, Tara, even though you haven’t said a word about it.”

  “Why should I?” She shrugged. “It happens to people like us, Harper.”

  “Yeah, I guess so,” he muttered, frowning. “You should have told me I was waking you up in the middle of every night.”

  She compressed her lips. “You didn’t ask.”

  He gave her a dark look and considered her answer. “You’ve got shadows under your eyes,” and he gestured toward her face. “I keep trying to figure out what to do.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m going through a cycle of nightmares. It will probably last another two or three weeks, Tara. I don’t want to keep waking you up like that.”

  “I’ll handle it,” she said. “It would be different if I didn’t know why you were having them, Harper.” She saw his scowl deepen, worry in his eyes. “Really. I can,” and she held up her hands. “This will pass.”

  “It’s not what you signed up for,” he said heavily. “I was worried about this from the time you were assigned to the house.”

  “I have nightmares, too, Harper. Don’t I wake you up some nights?”

  “Sometimes … not often… .”

  She gave him a frustrated look. “The biggest thing that bothers me about you and your nightmares? It’s waking up, sitting there, wanting to go to you and not doing it.” She saw surprise in his face, his mouth moving as if to stop a backlog of emotions from being unleashed within him.

  “Why would you want to come to my room after I woke you up like that, Tara?”

  “To hold you.” She stared across the barbed wire, her voice choked with feelings. “I don’t know, Harper. I don’t know what to do or how to help you. I feel so damned helpless. I hate that I’m too much of a coward to get up, walk out of the room and knock on your bedroom door. That’s what I really want to do. But I don’t.”

  He swallowed hard, looking down at the green grass. Finally, he lifted his head. “That’s funny … I mean, it’s not but … When you arrived? I’d hear you screaming and I knew w
hat was going on. The first time it happened? I leaped out of bed and was halfway down the hall, getting ready to open your bedroom door before I stopped myself.”

  “Really?” and she gawked at him.

  “Yeah. I was torn out of sleep, wasn’t thinking and my brain finally got engaged before I ripped that door off its hinges to reach you.”

  She saw the tenderness in his eyes, felt teary and pushed it all away. Now wasn’t the time to cry. “I know the first two weeks I was having a lot of waking up at night … I’m sorry, Harper.”

  “Why apologize? We do it to each other. You can’t help it any more than I can, Tara. Do I feel bad when I wake up screaming? Knowing I’ve probably jerked you out of desperately needed sleep? Yeah … well, we’re two of the same kind.”

  Nodding, she reached down, moving a thick blade of damp grass between her thumb and index finger. “Can we handle this any better with each other than we did with our civilian counterparts?” she wondered.

  He lifted the hat off his head and pushed his fingers through his hair. Settling the Stetson back on his hair, his voice wry, he said, “We need to try. At least, that’s how I feel, Tara. How about you? What are your thoughts on our situation?”

  “My reaction the first time you screamed, Harper, and it woke me up was to run to you and just hold you.”

  They sat there staring at each other for a full minute. Tara absorbed the sun’s warmth, the breeze lifting some strands of her hair caught up in a ponytail. She took off her baseball cap, studying it. “Sometimes,” she managed in a soft, torn voice, “it’s so hard to talk about how I feel. I know much of it has to do with my military training, with my deployments.”

  “Same here,” he admitted, pulling the gloves back on. “I know men don’t show many feelings, and yes, the military definitely brings that point home. But you know what, Tara? When you held me, sensing my flashback in that canyon? That was the best thing that’s happened to me in a long, long time. You holding me short-circuited a lot of it. Usually, I’d go days afterward, dazed and not really connected back to life the way I wanted to be. But your holding me helped so damned much that I’m still in awe of it all. Aren’t you?”

  “I’ve always believed in holding. It makes us feel safe, Harper. Don’t you think?”

  “I’ve been going over that ever since it happened, Tara. I keep wondering when I get hauled out of a deep sleep, screaming, if you holding me would help.” He shook his head, frustration lacing his tone. “I haven’t brought it up to you because I was afraid you’d take it the wrong way. That you’d think I was asking for other reasons.”

  “I was thinking the same thing, Harper. I was looking at myself. I was afraid you would think I was coming on to you. I guess I was afraid my actions would be misunderstood.”

  “I hear you,” he said, watching her sad look. “But I didn’t take it the wrong way in Prater Canyon when you turned and threw your arms around me.”

  “No, you’re right. You didn’t. I guess,” and she opened her hands, “I was afraid. I’m still working through so much, Harper. I’m still decompressing from my life in black-ops combat. I can’t always trust myself in this civilian world yet. I feel pressure to keep up my end of the bargain with Shay and Reese and their ranch. I need to sell a lot of stock photos to make money there, too.”

  “And then we have each other,” he said wryly, giving her a kind look. “We’re exhausted by dinnertime, we need long, hard sleep so badly and yet, when we go to bed, it’s broken up by nightmares and screams.”

  “We’re a pair, aren’t we?”

  “Yeah, but I wouldn’t trade you as my roommate for anything.”

  “These PTSD nightmares ebb and flow. I know that from my own experience, Harper. You didn’t have one last night and we both got a decent night’s sleep.”

  “True. It’s almost who’s going to outlast who. Will our collective sleep loss total us? Or will we be able to gut through it and get in a quiet spot with each other again.”

  “Before something else ramps it up in us again,” she grumped.

  “It’s tiring.”

  “I’ve never been able to talk to my folks or my friends about this,” she admitted, giving him a look of thanks. “It actually feels good to talk about it, get that weight off my shoulders. How about you?”

  “Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Friday nights when Libby visits, it’s helpful.”

  “But this is different.”

  “I know.” He studied her. “I don’t know what that means.”

  “Neither do I.” She slid him a glance. “But I’m willing to find out if you are.” She saw merriment come to his eyes.

  “Always the risk taker, aren’t you, Ms. Dalton?”

  “Kept me from getting killed too many times to count, Mr. Sutton.”

  “Amen. Me too.”

  Tara luxuriated in the pride, desire and respect she saw in his expression as he held her gaze. It was as if Harper had somehow magically enclosed her in his arms once more, just as he had out at the canyon. It was the nicest feeling in the world, and one Tara hungrily absorbed. She wondered if he knew how it affected her. She’d longed for a moment just like this and felt fear coupled with anxiety, but she had to speak up.

  “We’re drawn to each other,” she said, seeing his eyes darken a little. “I mean, it’s mutual.” She opened her hands. “I’ve never been in a situation like this. And I’m so torn. One part of me, the healthy part that didn’t get slammed with PTSD, wants some kind of deepening relationship with you. My other side, the dominant one with PTSD, makes me feel unsure, unprepared, not knowing what the hell my emotions are doing to me at any given hour of the day or night.”

  “Olivia used to call me an emotional yo-yo,” he said. “I was all over the place. When things would get bad, I’d clam up and storm out of the house or go for a drive because if I didn’t, I felt like I was going to let my anger and irritation out on her. And I didn’t want to do it. But my decision to protect her from myself ended up driving her away from me, too.”

  “There’s just no middle road with PTSD,” Tara said, her voice scratchy with frustration. “And that’s what I’m afraid of, Harper. I’m not afraid of you. I’m afraid of me,” and she put her thumb against her vest. “I’ll admit that since the adaptogen stopped the anxiety, I’m not so easily angered or irritated. I finally feel safe enough to let down for the first time since I was in the military. That,” she said, holding his gaze, “is in part thanks to you. Being around you always makes me feel safe.”

  “You do the same for me, Tara. And I’ve got the same anger and irritation as you do. I try not to take it out on others, which is why the type of work I do now is great. I’m alone, horses don’t trigger it, and it’s actually helped calm me down. But when you came to live with me? Just your presence did something incredible for me.”

  Tilting her head, Tara asked, “What?” Because she had no idea she had such influence over Harper.

  “You calmed me down. I can’t explain it, but that’s what happens when I’m around you.”

  “That’s nice to know.” She drew in a ragged breath and whispered, “When you’re around me? In the house or nearby? I feel safe. Really safe. I stopped feeling safe when Cree kidnapped me. It’s horrible being a captive, feeling that you’ve been abandoned by everyone.” She managed a small smile. “You make me feel normal, Harper. And that hasn’t happened to me since I was sixteen.”

  Harper frowned and moved, slowly getting to his feet, brushing some of the mud and grass off his chaps. “That makes me feel good. I’m glad I’m a good influence on you.”

  Oh, it was more than that. They hadn’t kissed since that day in the canyon. The event had sheered through their fragile new life as civilians, ripping away the veneer and putting both of them back into combat and nightmares. She slowly got to her feet, pulling on her gloves. She leaned over, wiping off the mud on her lower chaps. Straightening, she felt Harper’s gaze on her, warming her, holding her in
visibly in his embrace once more. “I’m just scared and unsure, Harper.”

  “Me too.”

  “We’re so wounded,” she muttered, walking around the fence, opening the gate and then shutting it.

  Harper picked up the reins on Socks, who was trained to ground tie, and handed them to her. She took them and he kept his hand around hers. “Even the most wounded vet has a heart, Tara, that feels emotion. It doesn’t mean he or she doesn’t dream of a more hopeful life, despite the wounds we carry.”

  Lifting her other hand, she rested it on his upper arm, holding his gaze. “You have more hope than I do, Harper.”

  “You just got out,” he told her gruffly. “In time? The hope grows, so let it. I know we have down days, but we have up ones, too, so let’s just celebrate those lighter moments, huh?”

  She slid her hand gently up to his shoulder, giving it a squeeze. “Anyone ever tell you, Sutton, that you’re a great cheerleader, too?”

  “Oh,” he said, releasing her hand, “on some days. Let’s celebrate if one of us is down. Because it means the other one is up and can help us out of that black vat we find ourselves in.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “So, Tara?” Shay said, drawing her aside in Jilly’s bridal shop after they’d finished trying on their bridesmaids’ gowns, “you’re quiet. What’s going on? Are you having flashbacks because of that bear run-in?”

  Tara sat down in the white satin chair near the wall with Shay. Kira was fussing over Dair’s gown. Dair was self-conscious over her amputated lower leg, that the outline showed when she moved in the dress. “Since Harper had to kill that grizzly, he’s been waking up every night from a nightmare.”