For a split second, the sound of the truck door slamming sounded like a gunshot. His muddled mind took him back to the ping and pang of bullets ricocheting off his armored vehicle.
Declan slammed his hand down on Drake’s shoulder, shocking him out of the memory.
Trinity leaned forward and brushed her hand over the back of his head. “This is going to be good for you.”
He didn’t believe her.
For months he’d lived with everyone telling him, “It’ll be good to . . .” Fill in the blank.
Nothing felt good anymore.
He rubbed the heel of his hand over the ever-present ache in his chest.
God, how he wanted something, someone, to make him feel good again.
Chapter Three
Adria stood between Roxy and Sonya, wishing she could make Juliana understand that leaving her here at the rehab facility was the only way they knew how to save her life. It killed Adria to see her sister so gaunt, fragile, and pissed off.
“You can’t make me do this.” Defiant as always, Juliana dug in her heels, even though she’d agreed to come just five hours ago.
Adria held firm and checked the need to hug her sister close and console her. Juliana didn’t need to be coddled. She needed a heaping dose of reality and tough love. Even if it made Adria’s heart ache. “If you don’t stay, you’re on your own from now on.”
Juliana immediately looked to Roxy.
Adria didn’t give her a chance to guilt Roxy into giving her money. That would only give her a way out of doing what she needed to do to survive. “She’s agreed to pay for your stay here. It’s a steep price, but worth your life. You said you’d do this. You promised me you’d get clean.” The tremble in Adria’s voice softened Juliana’s grim face and defiant eyes. “I almost lost you.” The thought clogged Adria’s throat. “I can’t live without you.” This time Adria did reach out for Juliana and held her shoulders. “You’re my other half. If I could do this for you, I would.” Adria would do anything for her sister.
“Like you did before.”
Those harsh words sent Adria back a step. The shock that Juliana would bring up what happened to them as children brought back a flood of nightmarish memories.
Juliana leaned in. “You can’t always save me. Maybe I don’t want to be saved.” Juliana fisted her hands and held her arms rigid at her sides. “Did you ever think about that?” She took a menacing step closer. “Did you ever once think that you made things worse, not better?”
Rage, pure and unrelenting, swept through Adria that Juliana would throw their horrendous past in her face. “I would save you from every second of pain and shame I suffered because I love you. I would do anything for you.” And she did. Horrible, unimaginable things that haunted her even now.
Knowing what Adria had done to save her sister tormented Juliana. That was clear now. It’s why she needed help. “Won’t you do this for me?”
Every muscle in Juliana’s body went rigid with the intensity of staring down Adria, but Adria didn’t back down. She couldn’t. Juliana needed this. If Juliana couldn’t make the right decision, Adria would make it for her.
“I don’t need this. I’m fine.” Denial only made the problem worse. Juliana couldn’t admit she had a problem and needed help. “But I’ll stay. For you.”
Adria shook her head, disheartened that Juliana balked at this chance to get better and find some joy in life. “Not for me, Jules. Do this for you. Make peace with what happened. Purge it from your system along with the drugs. Find a way to be happy.”
“Like you?” Juliana asked that rhetorical question just to push back. She went out with her friends and flitted from one man to the next, enjoying their company and just living life. Juliana repeated the pattern their mother had set: masking the pain and trauma of their lives with booze and drugs and the illusion of happiness.
But both mother and daughter were really miserable deep down.
Hurt people do hurtful things.
Adria understood how her past had affected her. A piece of her was broken. She accepted that. She lived with it.
But Juliana didn’t have to suffer because of what happened to Adria.
As twins, they shared nearly everything.
This was for Adria to carry.
Because the burden was obviously too much for Juliana to bear.
So it was left to Adria to try to fix Juliana. Because that’s what she did for her sister. All the way back to when they were little girls and their mom used them to get what she wanted. Booze. Drugs. Men. Anything that would make her feel good. Or not feel at all.
And most of the time she forgot that she should love her little girls, not hurt them.
Adria had nominated herself the protector. And she’d tried real hard to fulfill that role for Juliana, but she couldn’t protect her from herself. She couldn’t make Juliana want to stay clean.
“What’s it going to be? Are you staying? Or are you on your own?” This time she managed to keep the tremble and emotion out of her voice because Juliana needed this push.
“I’ll just go back to Wild Rose Ranch. I like it there.” Juliana always challenged others.
“Roxy already spoke to security. You will not be let in ever again. That will not be your life.” The thought of her sister ending up a prostitute, falling deeper into this hole, left Adria scared and disappointed. Juliana could do and be anything. She wanted her to choose a better life than the one they had growing up.
Juliana looked to Roxy.
“I will not see my sister turn her back on every opportunity available to her to be a prostitute. Anything you want, you stay clean and I’ll make it happen, but you will not work at the Wild Rose Ranch.”
“Fine. I’ll go back to college.”
Roxy nodded. “Great. I’ll pay for it. As soon as you finish rehab.”
“Now you’re blackmailing me?”
Adria rolled her eyes. “Your choices have consequences. If you want to continue doing drugs, you’ll do it without our support or enabling you. You get clean, we will continue to be your biggest cheerleaders.”
Sonya cocked her head. “Are the drugs more important than anything else in your life?”
Adria asked her own question. “Do you need them more than you need your sisters?”
Juliana deflated and her shoulders slumped. “No. I just can’t believe you dragged me all the way up here for this.”
“Roxy and Sonya found a new life up here in Montana. Maybe you’ll do the same.”
“I guess you’re going back to the Ranch.” Disappointment and fear tinged those words. Juliana didn’t want her to leave. She couldn’t stand for Adria to be that far away, because deep down she needed to know Adria would be there to catch her if she fell.
“No. I’m staying nearby. You won’t be allowed visitors for a little while but I’ll be here the second they say I can see you again.”
“Promise?” The desperation in that single word broke Adria’s heart.
She hooked her hand at the back of Juliana’s neck and pulled her forehead to hers. “I swear it. I’m not leaving you. Ever.”
Tears welled in Juliana’s eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“I know you are. It’s forgotten.” Because that’s how they did things.
“I don’t want to die.” The whispered words were barely audible, but Adria heard her and it tore at her soul to hear those words come out of her sister’s mouth.
“Then save yourself this time,” she whispered back.
“Juliana Holloway? We’re ready for you.” The admissions lady stood behind them.
Adria fisted a handful of Juliana’s hair. “You can do this. I believe in you.”
Juliana nodded, then stepped back.
Adria put her hand over her heart, showing Juliana the tattoo on the back of her hand that read simply, I Love You. Three words Adria sometimes needed to remind herself that she was loved. She needed to love herself. Right now, Juliana needed to know Adria lov
ed her. It would always be. It was as permanent as the ink on her hand.
Roxy and Sonya hooked their arms around Adria’s shoulders and hugged her to their sides as the admissions lady escorted Juliana down a hallway to her room.
“She’s going to be okay.” Sonya kissed her on the side of the head.
“I know she needs to be here—I just hate that she thinks I’m punishing her.”
“She deserves to be punished for that callous remark about you saving her.” Roxy was the toughest of all of them, but she had such a big heart. “It took guts and a strength I don’t know if I possess to do what you did at nine years old.”
“I don’t know how I did it. I just didn’t want anyone to hurt her.” Not my beautiful sister.
“Well, she’s hurting now. I hope she’ll take advantage of this program, talk about what happened and how it makes her feel, and release it.” Roxy turned to her. “Maybe you need to do the same thing.”
“I’m fine. I graduated with two degrees and Trinity and I are opening our own business. What more do you think I can do?”
“Be happy,” Sonya suggested.
“I’m happy.”
“How about dating?”
Adria rolled her eyes. “Oh, I get it—you two are engaged, so I need to be, too.”
Roxy shook her head. “I’d settle for you giving up this notion that something is wrong with you because the two boyfriends you had couldn’t accept that for you some things are uncomfortable.”
Adria walked to the door, Sonya and Roxy following. “Sex. Sex is uncomfortable for me.”
“If they’d just given you time to let go of your past and . . .”
Adria put her fingers over Roxy’s mouth. “Stop. The sex was fine. It was me who wasn’t. I get that. I also know that being with them was more an experiment than my actually falling for them.”
“Maybe you’ll find someone better, more open and understanding.”
She shook her head. “It wasn’t them, it was me. They weren’t the problem. I don’t know what I want. Right now, I’m okay on my own.” Without the complications of some man wanting to get to know her better only to discover her horrible past and realizing that the reason she took things slow, didn’t trust easily, and couldn’t seem to let go during sex was because she’d been used and abused.
She fought to erase the images from her mind and not let them overtake her with flashbacks to that time.
She hated what happened to her, but she raged inside that her mother had been the one to make it happen.
Roxy held her face in her hand. “Hey. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring it all up again.”
Adria held Roxy’s arms. “I know. Just let it go. We need to focus on Juliana and her recovery.”
Sonya brushed her hand down Adria’s hair. “She agreed to stay. That’s a step in the right direction.”
Adria hoped her sister walked the whole path and found what she needed at the end of it.
Roxy brushed her thumbs over Adria’s cheeks. “Are you sure you don’t want to come and stay with me or Sonya?”
“Trinity has a cabin on her property for me.” Adria looked around the beautiful ranch-style building, gorgeous gardens, and wide-open pastures. “You know, Juliana will do well here if she tries.” Adria hugged Roxy close. “Thank you for paying for this. I know it’s a lot and it’s not guaranteed that she won’t relapse. We’ve seen it with our mothers. They do well for a long stretch of time, but then . . . they don’t.” And that was the sad truth about what they grew up with and how they lived their lives waiting for the next time their mothers self-destructed.
Adria didn’t know if she could take seeing her sister live her life like that, too.
“Stop. Juliana’s got some stuff to work out. She’ll do it here. We’ll all be there for her when she needs us.” Roxy leaned back. “Sonya and I are here for you when you need us.”
Adria nodded, but her heart grew heavy. “I know you’re busy with your ranches and your cowboys . . .”
Roxy hugged her again. “We are never too busy for you, little sister. Noah and Austin wanted to be here, but they didn’t want to make it look like we brought in the muscle to get Juliana to stay.”
“I know what you mean. I hope we’ll all get together soon. Go.” She stepped back and shooed her sisters away. “Go home to your guys.”
“Are you headed to the McGraths’ place?”
She nodded to Sonya. “I’ll get settled in there before Trinity and I check out the retail spaces tomorrow.” Tears welled in her eyes. “I don’t know how to thank you for backing me in the business.”
“The money was a graduation gift.”
Roxy shared her newfound wealth with a generosity that astounded Adria. She never even blinked about how much Adria needed for her business and the cost of Juliana’s rehab.
She was so lucky to have such amazing sisters.
And Roxy and Sonya had found two wonderful men who loved them the way they deserved to be loved.
Maybe Adria didn’t see that in her future, but it’d be nice to find someone who made her feel as good as Noah and Austin made her sisters feel.
Maybe one day. If she allowed herself to get that close to someone. For the right guy, she might risk her heart, but after all she’d suffered, and seeing her sister a breath from death, she didn’t know if she could take another blow to her soul.
Chapter Four
Confined in the truck, Drake felt his skin crawl with the need to escape. He didn’t like having his sister and brother behind him. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled with the threat of an ambush. One part of his brain knew that was ridiculous. While Trinity and Tate loved to sneak up on him as kids, they weren’t about to do that as adults. Especially since he returned from the Army Rangers and was more likely to lose his shit and try to kill them than play along. Still, that other part of his brain felt threatened.
He hated that he’d had some seriously questionable moments since coming home. He’d pushed Declan away and even shoved Trinity aside, when all she’d done was walk up beside him to put her dish in the sink. They hadn’t done anything to warrant his extreme reactions.
If he could control himself, he would. Because the last thing he wanted to do was hurt someone he loved.
And he did love them, even if he couldn’t feel it the way he used to.
Everything good inside him got washed under the waves of unrelenting images of death and destruction he couldn’t erase from his mind.
“I don’t see why this is necessary.”
All of them sighed. He caught Declan’s eye roll and bet Trinity and Tate did the same in the backseat.
Declan pulled into Rambling Range Ranch and headed down the drive to the massive practice ring.
“There’s Jamie.” Trinity hopped out of the truck the second Declan hit the brakes and ran over to the woman who thought she could help him.
Declan turned to him. “Your life sucks right now, Drake. We all get it. You don’t talk to us or Dr. Porter. You hide in your room for days on end. Something has to change. So get out of the fucking truck and do this. Not for us, but for yourself.” Declan forcibly opened up the driver’s door and got out, slamming it shut on him and any further conversation.
Since he took the keys with him, Drake was stuck.
He got Declan’s anger. He’d stepped up when their mom and dad packed up the RV and headed out on their multistate national park tour. At the time, Declan and Tate took over the ranch, hoping that when Drake returned he’d join them. They’d be the team they were as kids and teens—working together again, but this time without their dad.
But he couldn’t stand to be out in the open on the ranch, irrationally looking for snipers in the trees and fearing an IED would go off at his next step in the pasture.
Those kinds of fucked-up thoughts, and even worse, his actions, like taking cover behind the tractor for no reason, or absolutely refusing to leave the relative safety of the barn to feed the ca
ttle, only made it clear he was more a hindrance than a help.
The truck grew too hot for the puppy, so he sucked it up and got out.
Declan and Tate unloaded Drake’s favorite horse and saddled him. Thor stood waiting, tied to the fence. These days, he talked more to his horse than the people around him.
He barely spoke to Jamie last week but listening to her story and what happened to her—seeing her well—helped.
The puppy brushed his head against Drake’s chin. Drake set him down to run and play.
Drake eyed Jamie coming his way and immediately turned so she only saw the side of his face that hadn’t been sliced open by shrapnel and stitched back together.
She walked right up to him. “Why haven’t you named that puppy?”
The Australian shepherd left Tate to attack Drake’s boots. Again. He shrugged. He hadn’t gotten around to it.
“He needs a name.”
Drake ignored her and the furball at his feet.
Jamie pushed like she always did. “Let’s mount up. We’ll ride and talk.”
The last thing he wanted to do was give voice to the horrible things in his head and prove to her and everyone else how fucked-up he was inside and out. “I told you I don’t want to talk about it.”
“It’s your turn to share. I know you want to forget, and the harder you try, the worse things get. So tell me something. Anything. Fight to be better.”
Each and every day he felt the fight going out of him. Some days, he didn’t know why he tried at all to make it through the day. “Is this where you tell me that everything is going to be all right?” Cynicism filled those words because he didn’t believe anything would be all right ever again.
This was his life now. This was his reality. And it sucked.
“Remember what I told you last week.”
You have seen terrible things. You have done terrible things. Terrible things have been done to you. But you are not the terrible thing.
Those words had hit hard and went deep. He wasn’t sure he believed them.
“So get your ass up on that horse. We’re going for a ride, and we are going to talk.”
Tough Talking Cowboy Page 3