by Em Petrova
She wrapped an arm around the fence post and slowly lowered her head to rest against the rough wood.
“Good! And cut!”
The producer’s call filled her ears, but Aria didn’t immediately move away from the fence post. She felt like tethering herself to it and becoming part of the beauty of the Washington ranch they were filming on.
Dickson, her producer, was coming toward her. She straightened to give him a smile, wiping away what was supposed to be a fake tear.
“That was heart-wrenching and lovely at the same time. Well done, Aria. Every day I work with you I’m shocked anew at your natural talent for acting.”
She was pretty sure if given any role besides a rancher’s niece that she would suck at it.
“Thank you,” she said.
Dickson peered out from under his own cowboy hat. He was one of the many rich industry people who owned ranches, and his happened to be right here in Washington. He had promised to throw a party there soon so she would get to see it.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
She gave a small laugh. “Of course I am.”
“I wondered for a moment when you kept holding on to that fence.”
“Just homesick, I guess.”
“This has to be the next best thing to being home, isn’t it?” He was like a favorite uncle to her, supportive yet tough if you made a misstep, and she liked him all the better for it.
She nodded. “It’s beautiful and I’m so glad to work here.”
“Good. Then I’m glad. Now why don’t you go get into makeup for the next scene?”
With a nod, she strode off toward the big event tent that was serving as their makeup and wardrobe changing station. When she walked in, several pairs of eyes watched her.
Feeling self-conscious, she lifted a hand to pull off her cowgirl hat. By the time she made it to her makeup chair, everybody was staring outright.
Her assistant’s grin really set her off, though.
“What is going on?” she asked.
At that moment, music sounded through some speakers, filling the tent. She hopped off the seat and looked around. A wedding march. What the hell was going on?
She spun in a circle and near the back of the tent saw a flurry of motion. Then Jason Lee stepped out of a knot of people. He was dressed in a tuxedo with his hair rumpled like he’d just dashed his fingers through it. He was grinning in that bad-boy way that scorched every camera that turned his way.
And he was coming for her.
A step behind him was one of the assistants carrying a sleek white gown of satin and even from here, Aria could see the train.
Panic hit her square in the chest. She couldn’t draw breath, her feet cemented to the floor.
Oh God, he was coming and there was no escape.
As Jason reached her and took her by the hands, he dropped into a debonair pose on one knee and drew a ring from his pocket. He pinched the platinum and diamond between thumb and forefinger and stared up into her eyes.
“Aria Bloom, will you do me the honor of being my wife?”
She didn’t have any air to gasp. Nor did she have a single word floating around her head to shoot out onto her tongue. C’mon, Aria, all you need is a little NO.
But she was blank. Hell, a newborn babe had more thoughts rolling around its head than she did at the moment.
His gaze penetrated her, and she felt everyone closing in. The sensation of being squeezed intensified. She took a breath, but it was choppy and her heart erratic.
“I know I don’t deserve you, but I promise to love you the rest of our days.” Jason added, giving her the impression he was trying to fill the awkward silence.
A collective sigh sounded in the tent as every single person was touched by the romantic sentiment. Every person except the bride.
This couldn’t be happening.
It was.
She had to make some decision—she’d scolded herself for this very thing during her entire flight to Washington. Take charge, speak up for herself. Don’t let life bowl her over.
Jason drew her hand closer and slipped the ring into place.
Her heart gave a hard jerk in her chest as applause sounded. Jason swept to his feet, gathered her up and bent her over his arm to kiss her. When he pulled her upright again, she stared at him in shock.
“Since you seemed worried about all the details of the wedding, I brought the wedding to you. Here is your dress, chosen by your favorite LA stylist. She says it will fit you like a glove and you will be glowing in it. Which we all know already.”
Everyone laughed.
She was in a nightmare. Or a circus tent with her in the center ring while clowns and animals performed around her—life moving while she stood frozen.
“Jason—”
He traced a thumb down the curve of her cheek. “Put on your wedding gown and I will see you at the altar.”
“The altar?”
“Yes, the set crew worked so hard to do this for you both!” Her assistant bounced on her toes. She took Aria by the arm and led her away from Jason, who continued to stare at her and she back at him, though for very different reasons.
The other assistant ran along beside them carrying the dress. Aria ended up in her trailer and damn if she wasn’t surrounded by gorgeous roses. Dozens and dozens overflowing the space, as if she wasn’t claustrophobic enough.
When the assistant hung the gown on a hook and she was truly forced to look at it, a sob wrenched her.
“Oh, Aria. You deserve this surprise wedding! I’m so happy for you!” her assistant said.
No. No, no, no. “No.” She said the last aloud.
Take charge. Take what you want, and it is not this.
She shook her head. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, but she couldn’t compose herself if she tried. A cry left her, and she tore the ring off her finger and thrust it at her assistant.
“Take this. Take it all back to him. I can’t. Tell him I’m sorry.”
She twisted and bolted for the door, shoving it open and running into the field as fast as her feet would carry her. The wind rushed over her, and she didn’t slow. Night was falling but there was no way she could go back there, knowing a candlelit ceremony awaited her to marry a man she didn’t love and didn’t wish to be joined with.
It probably made her an awful person, leaving the way she had, but he’d left her no choice. She felt like a cornered cat, and nobody had respected that her back was up and she was hissing—they’d just corralled her into her trailer and tried to force her into a dress.
Even the dress was all wrong. She never would have chosen that silhouette for a wedding gown. Ever since she was a little girl she’d envisioned herself on horseback on her wedding day, a ball gown enveloping the saddle as she rode down the aisle with her father on a mount beside her to give her away.
No, this felt wrong down to the toes of her boots.
She ran on.
After she reached a dirt road, she slowed her pace, certain nobody would find her here. By now, someone must have sent a car to search for her, and she didn’t want to be found. She needed time.
She walked for another mile up the dirt road, wondering if it was really a fire access for the mountain. Just when she was beginning to think she would end up deep in the mountains alone and should turn back, she caught a glimmer of light ahead.
A truck? She moved her neck, trying to see through the thick trees. Another hundred yards of walking and she made out the house, the outlines small but sturdy, and a warm yellow light projected through the front windows.
But she wasn’t about to walk up to a house and say she’d just run away from her wedding.
Her feet continued to carry her forward anyway. She had nowhere else to go, and she was pulled along by instinct. When she spotted the barn off to the left, she realized why.
Drawn to a structure she knew and loved most, she walked up to the side door and put her hand on the splintery old wood. At first she
wondered if there were animals even kept here, and then she heard a shifting sound of hooves on straw.
She pushed open the door and went inside.
* * * * *
Wheeler reached for the crutches, which were somehow always just out of reach. And here, his entire life, he’d prided himself on his long arms.
He balanced on one foot and leaned to the side. Getting out of the shower—and taking one—was the hardest part. The crutches were just another agitation to add to his growing list over the past few days since breaking his foot.
He growled with frustration and made a lunge for the crutches, putting his casted foot down despite doctor’s orders not to bear weight on it. He shoved the crutches beneath his arms and stumped his way—buck naked—to his bedroom.
Of course his Wranglers didn’t fit over his cast, so he’d resorted to wearing sweats, which wasn’t at all cowboy-like. He perched on the edge of his bed to slide on his boxers and the sweats. Then he grabbed the first shirt he saw, which happened to be a western denim one with pearl buttons.
Putting on one sock and cowboy boot felt wrong as hell, and by the time he finished, he was beginning to question how many more mornings like this he could live through. The doc said six weeks with a possibility of eight.
Two whole months of not being of any use to King up on his ranch, Blackwater, or hell, even managing to care for his own three measly horses burned his ass. Wheeler set his molars together and clomped into the kitchen.
The noise of his crutches on the old worn tile floors irritated him so much that he groaned. When he made it to the kitchen, he abandoned one crutch by leaning it against the cabinet and balanced on the other while he fixed himself some eggs.
He cracked them into the pan with a pat of butter. Usually he ate his eggs over easy, but today he was in such a funk that he ran the spatula through them, breaking the yolks and semi-scrambling all of it.
By the time he sat at the small table for two that his grandparents had taken their coffee at every morning of their retirement years, Wheeler forked up his eggs and swallowed without relish.
Everything was goddamn bleak. There—he’d said it. It might just be a foot, and Lord knew people out there had much worse to contend with, but he was ticked to be out of commission. Luckily, he lived on little wages and had enough saved up to get him by without working for King. Though his friend had offered to continue his wages, Wheeler couldn’t allow him to do that.
He dumped his plate and fork in the sink with the other growing pile of dirty dishes there and then settled his hat on his head. For the past few days since he’d broken his foot, King and the other ranch hand who helped him out, Schmitty, had been coming to tend Wheeler’s horses.
The vet had come and gone a time or two as well, checking on Gusto’s leg. A suspensory ligament tear that would take much longer than Wheeler’s foot to heal.
If it heals at all.
The possibility was still there. Wrapping the leg and keeping the horse on rest was the course for now, but too much rest and he’d get stiff. Wheeler felt his pain. After days of doing so little, he’d rolled out of bed a little stiffer than usual too. And he was damn sick of these crutches digging in under his arms.
Outside, he cursed the dilapidated state of his front porch steps once again and made his way painstakingly down them. Navigating the uneven ground with a gimp foot was no better and a huge test of his patience. Every step had to be calculated first and then executed precisely or he’d end up on his ass again, this time with a broken leg or arm.
He fixed his stare on the barn and set his resolve. At least it was decent weather and he wasn’t doing this in a Washington downpour, which typically came with a stiff mountain wind.
By the time he reached the barn, he heard the horses inside shifting with eagerness to get some attention. He’d texted King that he was going to try to do the chores himself and his buddy had told him to text back if he couldn’t manage. But he knew Wheeler would—they were cut from the same cloth.
When he pushed open the door, one of his pair of mares let out a nicker of greeting. “Hello to you too,” he crooned. He left the door open behind him to allow in more light. The barn needed some updates but that would come in good time. For now, it served the purpose and he’d only inherited the property two years before.
He planted the crutches onto the dusty floor and swung himself forward.
He froze midway and nearly dumped himself on the floor. Scrambling to right himself, he stared at the far stall that no horse occupied. And it was a good thing too, because a woman slept there, curled in the straw.
His heart gave a hard lurch, and he shoved forward. Was she alive? Had some drug junkie picked his barn to overdose in?
Reaching the stall door, he braced a hand on the wood and gazed down at the figure. She lay on her side, face tipped toward the soft straw he replaced in the corner when he did the other stalls, though he rarely placed a horse here.
She wore jeans—ones with holes put there by a manufacturer and not hard work. Her plaid top was twisted on her body from rolling and the barest glimpse of tan skin, like coffee with a lot of milk, peeked out between her top and the waist of her jeans. As he skimmed his eyes up over her curves—hip, waist, breasts—he spent some time studying her hair, tangled and tumbling over her shoulder.
He stared at her chest for a long moment, watching for a rise and fall. When he spotted it, a breath he’d been holding trickled out. She was alive. But for how long?
Using the crutch, he tapped it against the sole of her cowgirl boot. No movement. He did it again, and this time, she rolled onto her back, her face now visible through the webbed strands of her rich brown hair.
Damn, she had to have delicate features and a full mouth, didn’t she? Suddenly, he felt bad about waking her.
He tapped her again on the boot, and she woke with a wild jerk. Bolting into a sitting position, eyes wild from behind her hair dangling over them. Not bothering to move her hair from her vision, she leaped to her feet.
“Who are you?” she cried out.
The woman had balls, he’d give her that. Demanding answers from him when she was the one camping in his barn?
“Who are you?” he returned.
“Are you the owner?”
He gave a single nod. Their gazes connected, and he noted how fast she was breathing.
“I’m so sorry. I meant to leave by morning.”
“It’s just dawn. I came down early to see to the horses.”
She dropped her stare over his crutches to the fat cast on his foot. His toes were bare, because he’d forgotten to cover them with the stupid sock thing.
“How’d you break your foot?”
“How’d you end up sleeping in my barn? You’d better start giving me some answers, woman.”
She hugged herself and eyed him. “I needed a place to stay.”
“Where ya from? I’ve never seen you in these parts, and it might be big country but we all know each other.”
“Passing through.”
He didn’t believe it for a minute but went along with it. “Where from?”
“Montana.”
He’d been watching her eyes when she replied and there wasn’t even a glimmer there that revealed she was lying to him. Good—Wheeler hated a liar. The last person to lie to him had been promptly evicted from his life, and he hadn’t dated since.
“All right, Montana. What are ya running from?”
Her eyes widened just a tiny bit, but it was enough for him to notice. Especially since he was having a difficult time looking away from the true beauty of those eyes, brown and fringed heavily with black lashes. Looking closer, he saw a streak of makeup smudged across the crest of her cheek, like she’d cried off what makeup she was wearing.
“I told you, I’m just passing through. I’m sorry for sleeping in your barn and I’ll be on my way now.” She didn’t move, though, and he wasn’t convinced it was because he blocked the stall. She didn’t s
eem eager to leave.
“Are you high?”
“What?” Her voice rose a pitch. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah.”
“Of course I’m not high! I’ve never touched drugs in my life!”
“And you haven’t been drinking. I’d smell it on you.”
“Aren’t you observant.” Sarcasm dripped from the whispered words.
Somehow, he liked her more for it. He’d probably smile if he didn’t feel so damn angry at the world right now.
That made him remember the horse, and he turned away from the stall toward Gusto. The gelding nudged the door to be let out. King or Schmitty had been letting him out to graze and coming back to tuck him in at night. Wheeler would do the same, though first he needed to check his wrapping. If he saw any increase in the swelling of that leg, he’d need to take action and fast.
It was damn awkward to use the crutches in the barn but more so to open the door and balance on one foot while trying to tend the horse. The mares on either side of Gusto let Wheeler know they were displeased to be kept waiting.
“You gotta be patient with me, girls. I’m lame and it will take a bit, but I promise to get to ya.”
A boot heel scraped on the floor behind him. “Can I help?”
“Nah, I got it.” She might be dressed like a country girl but that didn’t make her one. Probably some city girl running away from a controlling daddy or boyfriend. Wheeler couldn’t guess her age, but he’d put her below twenty-five.
He patted Gusto and soothed him for a moment before tentatively moving into a crouch to see that front leg. It was wrapped in cotton batting and standing wraps, the ends overlapping to stabilize it. Gusto let Wheeler have the leg and tolerated having the wraps removed, then the tendon palpated even though it was painful.
“I know that hurts, boy. Easy. Just checking for swelling.”
“Tendon injury?” the woman asked from behind.
Wheeler checked his surprise. “Yeah, happened a few days ago.”
“A fall?”
“Yeah.”
“And that’s how you broke your foot too.”