Tough Talking Cowboy

by Jennifer Ryan

  “On it. Want Sonya and me to meet you in Vegas?” They’d come running the last time, too.

  “No. I want her to see us all supporting her at the rehab. I don’t care what it takes, but I’m getting her on the plane and to the rehab center whether she likes it or not.”

  “I’ll make it happen.”

  Adria sighed out her relief. “Roxy.”

  “Yeah, honey.”

  “Thank you.”

  “What are sisters for?”

  In this case, to pick up the pieces when everything fell apart. And to pick up the tab. When Roxy found out she owned the Wild Rose Ranch, she’d made it clear that she meant to use the enormous amount of money she earned to help her sisters. She’d paid for Adria and Juliana to finish school and eliminated all their debt. Now Adria needed Roxy to pay for the astronomically expensive rehab her sister needed to save her life.

  “I love you, Adria. You’re not alone. Sonya and I will be there.”

  “Thank you.” The simple but heartfelt words didn’t seem enough to convey to Roxy how much she appreciated what she was about to do. Because saving Juliana meant saving Adria.

  She could live without a man, but she couldn’t live without her twin.

  Chapter Two

  Drake rubbed his hand up and down his battered left leg. His other hand, with the raw, bloody scrapes on his knuckles, held the steering wheel in a death grip. He sat in the driveway and stared out the windshield at the woman he lusted after, hated, was happy to see, and wanted out of his sight for good.

  What was she doing here? Why come back when she’d made it clear she couldn’t stand the sight of him?

  He’d made a fool of himself over Melanie. He believed she loved him.

  She had once said so. But was it ever real?

  She promised she’d be his wife. But that was then. Now she didn’t want him or the future they talked about but couldn’t make happen. All because she wasn’t who he thought she was and he’d changed.

  He’d never forget the expression on her face when he’d been medically cleared to come home from the military and he saw her for the first time in months. Her face paled. Her eyes locked on the stupid cane he had to use—he couldn’t get by without it. The severe damage to his leg left him with a limp, limited mobility, and even worse, the inability to stand on his own two feet for more than an hour at a time.

  The many months he spent in the hospital and at rehab meant his only connection to Melanie came from phone calls that got shorter and text messages that dwindled to a few words when she got around to reading them. Oh, she’d encouraged him to work hard and get better, all the while making excuses for why she couldn’t fly out to see him.

  Stupid him, he’d held out hope that once they were back together everything would work out fine. But his anger, resentments, and feelings of inadequacy, coupled with her impatience, reticence, and inability to hide the fact she thought less of him now, coalesced into a stunningly awkward attempt to find what they used to have when he was whole and she thought she loved him.

  One look at the damage to his face and body, and his embarrassing attempt to seduce her without being able to perform, only ended with him feeling completely useless and her picking that moment to tell him she couldn’t do it anymore. Looking at him hurt too much and made her grieve for what might have been if only he’d come home exactly the same as he left.

  But war leaves a mark on your soul, just like the bullets and bombs did on his body.

  He wasn’t the man she remembered.

  He barely remembered that guy.

  He wasn’t really a man at all anymore.

  He’d become an empty shell of a body that didn’t work the way it used to.

  If that wasn’t bad enough, the nightmares took over his mind sometimes and made him do things he wasn’t proud of and scared him and his family.

  He’d scared Melanie. He’d made her afraid of him.

  He had a lot of regrets, but that one cut deep and left him with one thought, I will be alone the rest of my dismal life because of it.

  He’d never do that to another woman.

  Which made him wonder what the hell Melanie was doing here now.

  And why the hell were his sister and two brothers loading his horse into the trailer?

  The unruly side of him flared to life. The anger he couldn’t control sometimes raged inside him. Why couldn’t they all leave him the hell alone?

  His sister, Trinity, walked to Melanie’s side and stood next to her. She said something to Melanie, but the glare she directed right at him demanded he get out of the truck and stop being rude.

  That had become his default setting these days and he didn’t really give a damn. They had no idea what he’d been through, what he’d done, or how fucked-up his mind had become because of it.

  PTSD.

  Four little letters for something huge. Something that slowly destroyed what was left of his life.

  Nothing but the term they gave him to express how fucked-up-crazy he’d become and an excuse for his out-of-control emotions and behavior.

  Sometimes, he blacked out and did things he didn’t even remember.

  He didn’t want to think about those times. They scared him.

  So he tried to pull his shit together, mentally prepare himself for whatever Melanie and his family had in store for him, and got out of the truck. At the last second, his left leg gave out. He caught himself on the door, cursed, and grabbed his cane to stabilize his stance.

  The puppy he didn’t want but was his all the same barked and whined, happy to see him, and tried to escape Tate’s hold.

  Melanie took a hesitant step toward him, then stopped. She looked good in tight jeans, a purple T that hugged her curves, and brown ankle boots. Her honey-colored wavy hair hung to her shoulders, bright and shiny. Too bad he couldn’t say the same about the look in her eyes.

  Sympathy.

  Pity.

  The first he didn’t need. The second punched him in the gut with what a failure he turned out to be.

  “What are you doing here?” The words came out harsher than he intended. He certainly didn’t want to make her take a step back. But hell, she’d walked out of his damn life two months ago. He wished she’d stay the hell out so he didn’t have to think about all he’d lost, what was missing from his life, and what he’d never have with her—or any woman—ever again.

  “Drake, whether you believe it or not, I still care about you.”

  Right. She could barely look him in the eye because she didn’t want to see the ugly scars on his face.

  He pinned her in his gaze, hoping she saw the anger roiling inside him and not the hurt she’d caused. “You’ve got a hell of a way of showing it.”

  “I know you’re hurting . . .”

  “You don’t know anything!”

  Frustration lit her blue eyes. “Only because you refused to talk to me about what happened. At the end, you barely spoke to me at all.”

  You don’t want to hear about the things I did. The terrible things that happened.

  He found himself stumbling to come up with anything to say, to explain, to get her to see that he wanted to be who he used to be, but he just couldn’t find that guy inside him anymore. Being home didn’t feel right. He didn’t know where he fit in his family or with her. He tried to go through the motions, but they could all see he struggled to stay grounded and find his footing in what felt like someone else’s life. He had become so engrossed in his team and their missions, he didn’t know how to switch gears and settle back into civilian society when the war still raged in his head.

  “You gave up on rehab.”

  What’s the point? My leg is fucked and so am I.

  “You keep your appointments with Dr. Porter but you barely speak to him.”

  Talking about it only makes the nightmares worse. Don’t you get that? Doesn’t anyone see that?

  Drake glared daggers at his sister for gossiping with his ex about him. “Stay
out of my business.”

  Trinity planted her hands on her hips. “No. We gave you space. We tried to be nice and understanding. We tried to bully you into helping yourself. We let you have your way. You barely leave your room, let alone the house. Declan needs help running this place, but you won’t even try.”

  Drake pointedly looked down at his busted-up leg, knowing that, though all his sister saw was denim, he saw the scars underneath.

  Melanie got one look at them and tapped out. He wished he could do the same.

  A couple times, he’d come close to ending it, but he’d pulled himself back from the brink. He didn’t know if he could do it again the next time he sank that low. And he crept ever closer to that point even though he tried to hold it back.

  They had no idea how hard he struggled to get through every hour, let alone a day.

  You don’t need me. “Declan needs someone who can do the job.”

  “You’re not useless.” Melanie saying that to him nearly made him laugh, and not in a good way.

  Bitterness and rage swept through him, because he’d shown her how useless he was to her and any other woman unfortunate enough to come into his life.

  Declan and Tate flanked their sister and eyed him. Tate set the puppy on the ground so he could finally reach Drake. The pup attacked Drake’s boots. Drake ignored him, even though he was meant to help Drake connect with something and give him a purpose, something to care about. Drake didn’t care much about anything these days.

  “What the hell are you doing with my horse?”

  “Get in the truck and you’ll find out,” Declan dared him.

  This time Melanie closed the distance between them, though she stayed just out of his reach. “They’re worried about you. They love you. Please, Drake, you can’t live like this.”

  Sometimes I don’t want to live at all.

  He wondered what she’d say about that, but didn’t dare voice that echoing thought. His brothers and sister just might go all in and have him committed. They’d threatened it enough times over the last two months.

  He made his psychiatrist think that all was well and good at home, but it wasn’t, because he was neither of those things.

  “What I do or don’t do has nothing to do with you anymore.”

  Her pink lips pressed in a tight line. Defeat filled her eyes. He hated that she gave up so easily. He wanted her to push. He wanted her to fight for him the way he’d fought his way back to her.

  But she didn’t want him.

  She didn’t love him.

  And maybe he never loved her either. Not enough to put her first.

  Add another item to the I’m a dick list.

  Maybe he’d convinced himself he loved her because he’d needed to hold on to something and someone from home to give him a reason to fight that hard to live. Now that he didn’t have anything, anyone, or even the possibility of the life he’d dreamed of having with her, what was the fucking point?

  She reached out, grabbed his hand, pressed something into his palm, gave him one last sad frown and pitying look, and rushed to her car.

  He looked down at the diamond ring in his hand. “What the hell is this?” Dumping him once wasn’t enough; she had to come back and make the point one more time.

  “I can’t keep it.”

  You don’t want to keep me.

  He didn’t think his battered heart could take another hit, but this pain was like a wrecking ball, demolishing every last bit of anything good left inside him. He’d known pain, but this left him numb. And furious.

  “What the hell am I supposed to do with it?” He barely got the words out before she slid into the front seat of her car.

  She gave him another sad frown but couldn’t meet his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

  No, he was sorry. Sorry he believed she’d wait for him to come home from his tour of duty.

  Sorry he believed love blurred flaws.

  Sorry love wasn’t enough to hold them together.

  His sister stepped in front of him before he could go up to his room, before the rage building inside him exploded. “Where have you been?”

  “None of your fucking business.”

  Trinity checked her urge to take a step back from him, which only doubled the guilt he felt for snapping at her. He wasn’t angry at her. He was furious with himself because Melanie walking out on him made him feel like a failure.

  And he didn’t fail at anything. Ever.

  He fought.

  He won.

  He survived.

  But these last few months didn’t feel like living.

  It felt like another battle.

  And his family got caught in the crossfire of his volatile temper.

  The more out of control it got, the worse he felt, which made him even worse to be around.

  He didn’t even want to be with himself, so how could anyone else want to be around him?

  He wanted off the merry-go-round, but it was spinning too fast for him to jump off and he had no idea how to slow it down.

  He shifted his weight off his bad leg and tried to ignore the pain. But it throbbed with insistence that he pay attention and do something about it.

  He’d just gotten home from the pharmacy with his meds, but was reluctant to take them. Not after seeing his buddy Chase Wilde spiral out of control on pills and land in rehab.

  Drake had enough problems.

  The last thing he wanted to do was give his family even more reason to worry about him.

  Trinity picked up the puppy and snuggled him close, accepting a faceful of dog licks. “Jamie is expecting you. You promised you’d go.”

  Yeah, and they were driving him to make sure he went. For his own good.

  He met Jamie Keller—and her overprotective fiancé, Ford Kendrick—last week when his family dragged him to Rambling Range Ranch to meet her—a fellow soldier who’d come home wounded in body and mind and who could relate to him. She’d worked through her PTSD with their mutual psychiatrist, Dr. Porter, and wanted to help him do the same.

  He didn’t think he’d be that lucky. But what he wouldn’t give for a normal day.

  His brain had taken a trip to Crazy Town and didn’t know the way back to normal.

  Jamie foisted the damn puppy on him, said the tiny beast of an Australian shepherd would help him get out of his head. He grudgingly admitted the puppy helped. But he could barely take care of himself, let alone a pet.

  Jamie wanted him to believe his kind of damage could be fixed.

  Broken couldn’t be fixed. And he was broken.

  Melanie could attest to that. She got an up-close and very humiliating look at just how broken he came home.

  Ford stuck it out with Jamie all through the worst of her PTSD. Ford put a ring on that, and they were great together. Jamie found her happiness again.

  Drake wouldn’t mind having a woman like her. Tough. Strong. Someone who was like him and understood the trauma he suffered and still endured.

  Never going to happen.

  “I changed my mind.” After seeing Melanie, he wasn’t in the mood to be around anyone. He gimped his way back to his truck to get the bag of meds. The ring smashed in his fist bit into his palm but he didn’t care.

  “Get in the truck.” Trinity’s voice sounded like anything but the way his sweet sister usually talked to him. “I’m not fooling around here, Drake. You are going to do this one thing we asked.”

  He went around the open truck door, grabbed his meds, then slammed the door. He stared down the drive, where Melanie practically peeled away and drove out of his life for good. He hoped. Because every time he saw her, his sense of falling deeper into that dark pit in his mind intensified.

  “Drake!”

  He spun around too fast and sent a bolt of pain down his thigh and up his hip and almost lost his footing, but caught himself at the last second. Sometimes, he didn’t think and moved like he wasn’t injured. “What?”

  “Let’s go.”

 
He hated to disappoint them, but he was in no mood for equine therapy and Jamie pushing him to open up about his feelings. His family wanted to push him to try to do the things he used to love. They didn’t understand his limitations. He knew them all too well, because everything he couldn’t do anymore took another piece of him. Some of those things took chunks that left even more holes in him than the three bullets that had ripped through him.

  Tate plucked the puppy out of Trinity’s arms and put him in the backseat and held the truck door open. “We’re going to be late.”

  Declan already sat behind the wheel, his face set in a mask of barely contained impatience.

  Why the hell did all of them need to take him? He could drive himself.

  But he already knew the answer: because they knew he’d just drive off somewhere and hide out for a few hours if they didn’t gang up on him now.

  If he stalled any longer, Declan and Tate would probably lose it and wrangle him into the truck against his will. He hated to admit it, but though they’d never been able to overpower him in the past, he was no match for them now.

  Trinity walked over to him and put her hand on his chest. He flinched away. She took a step closer and closed her hand over his arm and held tight. “I’m sorry she gave you back the ring and changed her mind about marrying you. You’ve been through so much. You don’t need her adding insult to injury. If she can’t accept and support you, then you don’t need her.”

  That gaping hole of emptiness inside him widened with a swamping sense of loneliness.

  He needed something because he felt himself free-falling into that dark pit.

  “I need you to hold it together and get in the truck. Please, Drake. For me. For Declan and Tate. We’re trying to help. But you need to work with us.”

  He didn’t say a word. He stuffed the damn ring in his pocket instead of throwing it into the nearest pile of horse shit, leaned heavily on his cane, ignored the pain in his leg, and limped to the truck. Surly, he shoved Tate to get into the backseat with Trinity. It took some maneuvering, but he got his ass up into the front passenger seat, his leg stretched out, the cane beside him.