by Amy Vastine
Justin hustled over.
“Let me.” He brushed her hand away, and the brief contact breathed fire into her cheeks. This close, she could touch the beard now fascinating her, kiss the mouth she’d been dreaming of when she woke.
Justin had laid her bare last night. While it’d be easy to blame it on the moon, the man, the wild outdoors, deep down, she knew where the fault lay…with her. No one had forced her to confide in Justin and briefly kiss him, a reckless man capable of destroying the peace she sought in Carbondale. She’d made that choice on her own.
Worse.
She wanted to kiss him again.
Worst of all…he was a client. Technically he wasn’t a patient in her direct care, so she hadn’t violated any ethical codes, yet she needed to maintain a professional boundary between them—for her own sake.
“You’re free.” Justin released her shirt, winked, then strode back to the attendees, leaving her to stare after him.
Why was he in such a good mood?
Didn’t he regret last night, too?
If not for her promise to attend his workshop, she’d have buried herself behind piles of paperwork today, avoiding him entirely. Yet here she stood, her focus on the last man she should be thinking about…especially with the town’s fact-finding group waiting for their chance to pounce. Imagine if they caught Fresh Start’s director mooning over a client?
Talk about bad optics.
Speaking of which… She surveyed the patients, noting they wore helmets. Justin considered others’ safety, at least—just not his own.
“Want to ride?”
She started to shake her head then stopped when Justin led out a saddled, glossy bay by its halter.
“She’s soft.” She stroked the horse’s velvet nose and warm, moist air rushed over her fingertips. “What’s her name?”
“Ted.” Mischief dialed up the gold in Justin’s hazel eyes, setting them aglow. “Not sure if Ted likes being called she.”
“Dr. Sheldon said we’re a judgment-free zone,” hollered Stew, whose adult children Brielle had spoken to this morning about his progress. He’d put on weight, she observed with satisfaction—physical healing which, for the formerly homeless man, was as needed as the emotional and mental work he’d been undertaking.
“Sorry, Ted,” she chuckled. “Guess I should have—uh—checked. You’re a handsome boy, though, aren’t you?”
Ted bobbed his head and snuffed her empty pockets. Justin passed her a green candy strip.
“What’s this?”
“Green apple licorice. His favorite.”
Delighted, she offered the treat, and Ted slurped it like a spaghetti strand. “You little piggy,” she crowed, her mood lightening, as fluffy as the white clouds erupting in the broad blue sky. No wonder her dark rider resembled a white knight today. Being outdoors, surrounded by majestic mountains and the endless, rolling sky lifted the weight from your shoulders.
“Are you riding with us, Ms. Thompson?” called Paul, the former artilleryman she’d also met at the first group meeting. His tree-trunk legs angled off the sides of a brown mare, his large frame covering most of his saddle.
Her fingers tapped on her thigh as she considered her answer.
“She’s scared,” giggled Pam, a patient with Tourette’s. She clapped a hand over her mouth and spoke through her fingers. “Sorry.”
“No. It’s okay,” Brielle rushed to reassure her. “It’s just, I’ve never ridden before.”
“Me neither,” Maya put in. The teenager had her arms looped around a gray mare’s neck, her cheek resting against the horse’s silver mane. “It’s not hard. Even Paul can do it. Mostly.”
“Hey,” protested Paul. His weary-eyed mare flicked her tail. “I only fell once.”
“Twice,” Maya sniped good-naturedly.
Brielle scrutinized the faces surrounding her. Their expressions were open, calm, much different than the creased brows and crossed arms from their first group session. The horses relaxed them, just as she’d envisioned when she’d agreed to direct this unconventional treatment facility.
“Need a hand up?” Justin plunked a wood block down beside Ted.
“Okay.” She tried to ignore the delicious feel of Justin’s chafed hand against hers, but the sensation steamrollered through her anyway, heightening all her senses. Everything intensified: the loud chirping of sparrows, the bright splashes of sunlight, the tart scent of green apple licorice and especially the rub of Justin’s palm against hers. It turned her insides to liquid.
Once in the saddle, she gazed around her. This height somehow diminished her crowded, pressured world, lifting her from it. She breathed and her lungs moved freely, the band that’d been tightening since the town hall meeting easing.
Justin stepped on the block and reached around her, placing his hands atop hers on the reins. “Tug on the right rein to go right. Left goes left. A gentle kick gets him walking. Pull back and say ‘whoa’ to stop. Got it?”
She nodded, impressed at Justin’s straightforward explanation. It lessened her anxiety, though her pulse refused to slow given he practically hugged her from behind. And oh, he smelled so good. A delicious woodsy-apple combination. It made her want to sink her teeth into him. “We’re just staying in the corral, right?”
Justin hopped down and tilted his head so his hat brim shadowed one side of his face. “For now. And you can leave the group any time you want to, though Ted might be sorry about it.”
“Just Ted?” she murmured, low, her inappropriate question jumping off her tongue as the preoccupied group chattered among themselves.
Justin squinted at her, intent. “Who else?”
“Forget it.” She reached down to pat Ted’s silky neck, hiding her burning face. “Stupid question.”
“No. I’m glad you came. Hope you stay.” His admission snapped her head up, and she stared straight into his unguarded eyes, the naked vulnerability pulling her back to last night’s intimacy. “Will you stay?”
Pleasure, bright and sweet, bloomed inside. She smiled. “Okay.”
A slow grin began on his lips and rose to his eyes, lighting them. “Okay.” He pivoted. “Circle your horses,” he called, and the group walked their mounts toward the center of the corral.
Empowerment flowed through her as she nudged Ted and he responded, walking forward, following her direction as she guided him to the right. When they reached the group, he stopped when she ordered him to halt.
“Dr. Sheldon suggested we talk about what we want to focus on today before we ride.” Justin tugged at his beard then shoved his hands in his pockets. “But I’m not much for talking.”
No surprise there.
He lifted his hat and waved it in front of his flushed face. A few strands of damp hair plastered to his forehead lifted. “Let’s keep it to one word.”
“One word?” Maya asked, stroking her horse’s neck. “That doesn’t totally suck.”
Justin nodded and resettled his hat.
Pam’s horse sidestepped as she wriggled in her saddle. “Anything we want? Like…”
At Paul’s stream of expletives, Maya belly laughed, a huge, whooping sound that spread like a flu in church till everyone howled with her.
Even Brielle.
Justin had asked her to name the last time she’d had fun…if he asked her again, she’d have an answer. Today. He was right about her mingling with the patients. They weren’t a threat to her emotional stability, though the jury was still out on Justin…way out…like permanent recess out.
“Cut that down to one word,” Justin drawled, “and you’ll be fine.”
Paul scratched at his red, peeling nose. “We don’t have to tell you what it means?”
“Nope.”
Brielle bit her tongue to keep from jumping in and correcting him. Justin was a client, n
ot a licensed practitioner. His job was to provide real-life experiences to build confidence and self-esteem, not delve into the issues that’d brought her charges to Fresh Start. But plenty of psychotherapy awaited the patients inside, hard work that took its toll. Downtime like this was critical. Plus, she had no intention of saying anything revealing, either—not when her patients needed a strong role model, not someone lost like them.
Although, strangely, despite sharing one of her blackest memories with Justin, she’d fallen asleep while reading last night. Without medication. When her alarm blared at 7:00 a.m., she’d stared at it, dumbfounded. It was her first unmedicated eight-hour sleep in almost a year.
“We’ll go around clockwise,” Justin said. “Who’ll start us off?”
The white-haired man beside Justin lifted his arm.
Justin nodded at him. “Okay, Francis, you’re up.”
Francis lifted his horse’s reins. “Riding.”
The group’s snicker died down, then a middle-aged woman missing a front tooth startled. “Oh. My turn. Um…suntan.” She angled her face to the sky and smiled, eyes closed.
“Sleep,” yawned a young guy in his twenties, drooping in his saddle. Brad Timmons. A former college basketball star whose failed drug test and heroin addiction fast-tracked him here rather than the NBA.
“Cheerios!”
Everyone turned at Pam’s exclamation.
She shrugged. “You said I could say anything.”
“Guess we hoped it’d be a bit more interesting,” Justin observed wryly.
“I’ll do better next time,” she vowed, and the group groaned.
Brielle’s smile faded when the group turned her way. “Oh. Um…” she delayed, and her eyes landed on Justin. He jerked his chin at her, almost a dare, and she said the first word that leaped to her tongue. “Redemption.”
She pinched her mouth shut. Why had she said that? Out loud. In front of her clients? In front of him? She’d thrown her heavy issues over this light, fun therapy break, smothering it like a blanket.
“What’s that mean?” Maya stage-whispered.
“A second chance,” Justin informed the teen without tearing his intent gaze from Brielle.
“Loneliness,” declared a thirtysomething woman beside Brielle a moment later. A court-mandated patient, Mary had lost her children to foster care because of a drug-related felony. She was also being treated for severe anxiety and, according to Craig, had been extremely uncooperative thus far.
Had Brielle’s slipup inspired Mary to speak openly? Bravely?
Mary patted her palomino’s side and made a shushing noise when it tossed its head. “Loneliness.”
“Dinner,” Maya stated when it was her turn. She peered around at the puzzled group, her chin jutting at their tilted heads and scrunched foreheads. “I haven’t eaten one in four and a half years.”
Brielle nodded at her, her heart stirring. She’d sparked two of her clients to consider their goals. Justin’s one-word session was working…even on her.
“Paul?” Justin prompted.
The veteran raised his head and two wet tracks wound down his cheeks. “Forgiveness.”
Justin raised his eyebrows a fraction of an inch at Brielle, an I told you so written all over his face.
Yes. He had told her so. And she was glad she’d listened, happy she’d come and relieved to have spoken her deepest wish out loud. The sky hadn’t fallen, and she hadn’t tumbled, either. He’d urged her to connect with her patients, and at least one, maybe two, had had a breakthrough because of it.
Plus, her.
“What about you, Justin?” Maya asked.
“Only one word comes to mind. It’s not an easy one. In fact, someone said it’d take a lot of hard work to get it. And it’s already been said.”
Paul lifted his arms and brushed his cheeks with his sleeves. “What is it?”
Justin ducked his head then rolled his eyes up to meet Brielle’s.
“Redemption.”
* * *
JUSTIN HEAVED AN ax over his shoulder then swung it down to a log perched on a chopping block. It cleaved the wood in half, and he scraped the pieces onto the pile he’d begun a half hour ago for tonight’s bonfire. Despite the chilly temperature, sweat dripped in his eyes. The bare skin exposed by his muscle tank steamed. His hat rested beside his shirt on the seat of the facility’s front loader. He tried swallowing but his mouth was too parched.
He needed a beer.
He released a sigh, grabbed another log and set it on the block. If he wasn’t trying to avoid Brielle, he’d head in for a water break. But being outdoors, always his preferred element, soothed the beast she’d unleashed when she’d briefly returned his kiss beneath a moonlit sky.
The afternoon sun flashed on his blade as it whooshed through the air and sank into the wood. He flicked away the pieces, set another log in their place and hefted the ax again.
Why had he kissed her?
Because you wanted to, dummy.
A moment later, he jerked the blade free of the chopping block after a hard stroke. It’d sunk in a good inch. He placed another log in the center of the chopping block, split it and repeated the maneuver, his mind turning back to Brielle.
He couldn’t stop thinking about her. Brielle had this way of looking at him, like she knew him and wasn’t intimidated or put off by his snarky attitude and gruff mannerisms. A strange feeling, considering most folks switched sides of the streets or avoided making eye contact when they saw him coming. She made him feel appreciated. Wanted. Not because of anything he tried to be, but because of who he was, scars and all.
Worst of all, he was starting to like hanging around her too much. He’d enjoyed having her company during this morning’s horse therapy. She showed real character by following through on her word to attend. More impressive was her honesty with her patients in confiding her own goal.
Redemption.
She wished for a second chance to undo the mistakes she thought she’d made. He wanted another chance to save his brother, to stop Jesse from throwing his life away and carrying Justin’s with it.
He paused his wood chopping and rolled his aching shoulders. His arid throat clenched. The desperate craving for a drink clawed at him, a nonstop occurrence since he’d stopped drinking cold turkey earlier this week.
Brielle had asked him about his habit during her intake, and he’d assured her he didn’t need to drink. Now he wasn’t so sure. When he’d admitted last night to buying and drinking a twelve-pack a day, every day, since Jesse’s funeral, he’d questioned himself.
Was he an alcoholic?
He propped the ax on the chopping block and leaned on it, breathing heavily.
No.
He’d never let a substance get a hold of him and he rarely drank recreationally. In fact, drinking alone, night after night, was the loneliest thing in the world. Not a drop of fun spilled from one of his beers.
Addicts hankered for a fix, a temporary high. Not Justin at all. If anything, drinking brought him down, the opposite of a buzz. He only gulped enough brew until his grief fizzled and he snuffed out like a spent candle, no longer sputtering in the dark.
And why was he thinking about all of this? He lifted the ax, swung it, then stared at it half buried in the chopping block. He’d forgotten to set a log on it.
He pressed his eyes closed and listened to his thundering heart. This was Brielle’s doing. She pricked him like a needle to a fingertip, squeezing, squeezing, squeezing until unwanted emotions bubbled up, red and stinging.
He’d promised he’d consider attending a group session, and he supposed, since she’d kept her word to him, he should do the same. Just maybe not right away… With his head pounding nonstop, he could barely hear his thoughts, let alone speak them.
Except with Brielle.
Yes.<
br />
She was different. She made him think, feel, want and dream…all things he’d stopped doing after Jesse’s death. He needed to halt his growing feelings for her. To her, he was probably just another case, a patient at her facility in need of help. Once he left the program, she’d move on to the next client, and he’d be left pining for her.
His tendons strained as he hacked at the chopping block again, belatedly noting he’d forgotten the log again. The pain of losing someone he loved as much as Jesse made it impossible to imagine ever letting himself feel close to another person again. He couldn’t give in to his budding emotions for Brielle.
“Strange technique,” a man drawled behind Justin, and he whirled, ax in hand. “Never seen anyone split wood without wood before.” Cole Loveland stood beside the front loader and eyed the cut-up chopping block with raised eyebrows.
“What are you doing here?”
Cole nodded at the heap of uncut logs. “Volunteering. Question is, what are you doing here?”
“Chopping wood.”
“Right…” The ax hanging by Cole’s side caught Justin’s attention. “Lucky for you I’m here to lend a hand.”
“Don’t want your help.” Justin turned away from Cole’s irritating, cocky expression and dropped another log on the block. Typical Loveland.
“Wasn’t asking for permission.” Out of the corner of his eye, Justin spied Cole grabbing a hunk of wood and placing it on a tree stump. He halved it in one smooth move, chucked the pieces to the ground and picked up another log.
Justin clamped his back teeth and set to work, one eye on Cole’s fast-growing pile. He heaved, he swung, he cleaved, yet his rival began catching up to Justin’s heap. Like all Lovelands, Cole was mountain tall and built like a Mack truck, his trunk-size arms moving effortlessly as he chopped piece after piece without breaking a sweat.
Was this guy a machine?
“Shouldn’t you be up at the house with Brielle?” Justin grunted as he smashed through another log.
“I will be when I finish this,” Cole said easily, not a hint of strain in his voice as he cut through more wood then tossed pieces on his stack. “I’m going to the Al-Anon meeting.”