Chapter Two
A promise. After an honorable medical discharge, that’s what had sent Nate from Chicago to Meadowlark, Wyoming. The “honorable” part of his release from the Army was a joke, but his pledge to a dying comrade was not. Redemption was asking too much, but he could hope. Something told him he’d still be seeking absolution when he took his last breath on some distant day.
It should’ve been him six feet under with Justin standing vigil at Nate’s funeral. Not the other way around. And he’d pay for it the rest of his pathetic life. He was here, as Justin had asked of him, but there was no atonement for getting a friend killed.
He stared out the massive living room window at a dark Cattenach Ranch, waiting on Olivia to return from upstairs. Justin had talked about his family and the land often, but somehow hadn’t done any of it justice. Nate had envisioned a little farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by rolling hills and cows. Showed what he knew.
It had taken five solid minutes on his Hog to ride to the front door from the local highway. He might’ve missed the turnoff had the arched wrought iron sign not been so prominent. Lined with pine trees on one side and solar lamps on the other, the driveway went on for miles and he thought he’d never arrive.
The three-story log cabin damn near resembled a mansion, rural style. All cedar and glass on the outside, stone and accents on the inside. Wide beams across a twenty-foot ceiling, a flagstone floor-to-rafters fireplace, and scarred pine throughout. The furniture was navy corduroy. The kind you sank into on a snowy day and never wanted to leave. Family portraits and landscapes of the ranch dotted the paneled walls. He hadn’t seen but two rooms, and he was impressed. The kitchen was huge, airy, and modern with stainless steel appliances.
For a city boy used to skyscrapers and sirens, who’d had to hoard food just to scrape by, it was a culture shock. Hell, Iraq had been less of an adjustment.
Footsteps padded on the stairs and he turned. The cold ball of dread in his gut morphed into a boulder. The biggest holy shit since arriving? Olivia Cattenach. He’d seen a couple photos of her, courtesy of her brother, but the 3D version had been a blow to the head.
She rounded the landing of the enormous polished birch staircase, wearing a loose pair of gray sweats, pink socks, and a white tank top. He’d misspoken. She wasn’t a blow. She was a hydrogen bomb directly aimed at his solar plexus.
Like her brother, she was slender and had legs for miles. Waifish would describe her if not for the hourglass flair of her hips and the generous endowment of breasts. That hair, though? Fuck him. His wildest fantasies couldn’t conjure a shade of auburn that heart-stopping. Silky and falling just past her shoulders, he itched to ram his fingers through the strands.
She stepped into the room and glanced around. “Sorry for the wait. We were shearing today and I was filthy. I needed a shower.”
He had no idea what the hell she was talking about, but he nodded. “Not a problem.” When her gaze darted elsewhere again, he made a non-threatening move of sitting in one of the many available chairs. His size could be menacing, and the last thing he wanted was to frighten her. “Your aunt said she’s in her room if you need her. And the man you were with, Nick? He left.” Under duress, even though the aunt assured the guy Olivia would be fine.
“Nakos,” she corrected and offered a polite smile. “He’s our foreman and a good friend.”
Nate wondered if the guy knew he was only a friend. He’d shot nothing but threatening daggered glares Nate’s way, but he’d kept his mouth shut.
After a beat, she claimed a chair across from him and tucked her legs under her. “When did you get to town?”
Small talk typically made him break out in hives, but he liked the sound of her voice. Lilting, almost. “About an hour before you came in. I rode straight from Chicago.”
“Is that where you’re from?” She tugged on her earlobe, her gaze on her lap. She’d yet to look him in the eye for long, and he wanted a glimpse of them again more than air.
“Yes. The south side.” He skimmed his gaze over the light dusting of freckles on her shoulders. Her skin was something else. Not quite fair and not rich enough to be considered sun-kissed. At her nod, he leaned forward a tad. “Don’t be scared. I’m built like a bear, but I’m harmless.” Actually, he could kill a man fifty different ways with his bare hands, but that was intel she didn’t need.
Finally, those eyes focused on him, and the room vacuumed of air. Cornflower and bluer than anything he’d born witness. Her brother’s had been a shocking shade of navy, but hers were...potent. The fine arch of her brows and her long lashes only made them seem bigger on her pretty oval face.
“I’m sorry.” She worked her lower lip between her teeth. “The last time someone from the military showed up, it was to...”
To inform her Justin had died. Nate should’ve thought of that.
Forcing himself not to fist his hands, he acknowledged he understood with a grunt. “I apologize for missing the funeral. I was injured and in a hospital in Germany at the time. I just got back Stateside a couple weeks ago.” Long enough to grab the few things he owned from Jim and hop on his Harley.
“Oh.” Her gaze swept over him as if searching for evidence. “I didn’t realize anyone else was hurt. Was it...the same blast? Are you okay now?”
He’d never be okay again. “It was the same explosion, and I’m healed. I took shrapnel to my leg and hip that required a few surgeries.” He wished they’d given him a lobotomy, too. The scars and residual pain in his leg weren’t enough.
“So, you were with Justin when he died?”
Ten feet away. “Yes.” He sensed she needed more details, even if she didn’t necessarily want to hear them. “What do you know about what happened?”
Her throat worked a swallow and she glanced away. “Just what they told me, which wasn’t much. He was sent into a building and an IED went off. It was implied the mission went wrong because of incorrect info from his commanding officer.”
Sometimes, knowing what really happened was worse than fragmented facts. Either the Army had told her placating answers or she’d misunderstood. Either way, most of what she’d said wasn’t accurate. All but one thing. Justin’s commanding officer had screwed up, and Nate was that man. As a first lieutenant to Justin’s second, it had been Nate’s job to protect him. And he’d failed epically.
He wouldn’t fail with Olivia. It was imperative she not know his role in her brother’s death. For Nate to follow through on Justin’s wishes, she needed to trust him. Thus, he geared himself to relay the story while trying not to relive it.
“We were sent to this tiny village to do a sweep for refugees and weapons. Most of the buildings were in ruins and we hadn’t planned to be there longer than a day. Justin and I paired up and went in one structure while the rest of our unit did the same in others.”
The place had been a ghost town, so when Justin claimed to see a kid, Nate figured it had been a trick of the light. He should’ve known better than to send Justin first while Nate radioed an update to base. Turned out, that kid hadn’t been a mirage. He’d been an eight-year-old with explosives strapped to his chest.
“We saw the bomb too late.” Cold sweat broke out on his face, dampened his hands.
She drew a ragged breath, her eyes misty. “Did he...suffer?”
“No. It was quick.” And sometimes, lies were a necessity. Justin had been in agony. Utter, utter agony. Fifteen minutes it had taken for him to die. It had felt like fifteen years. Justin lying on the damn ground, holes riddling his entire body, gripping Nate’s hand while they’d waited for an evac team, and blood every-fucking-where. Nate would never wash away the memory. “He didn’t experience any pain.”
Closing her eyes, she took a second to seemingly collect herself. Relief was evident in the sag of her shoulders. “Thank you.” While the acid in his stomach churned, she shifted positions and resettled. “You said Justin had a message for me?”
“Yes.” He pulled the If you’re reading this letter from his back pocket and unfolded the envelope. “We exchanged notes in case something happened.” He handed it to her.
She stared at the once plain white stationery, now yellow from the elements. “Did he say anything before he died?”
“Shit, it hurts, Nate. I’m so...cold. Take care of my sister. Promise me you’ll...take care of...Olivia.”
“There wasn’t time.” Nate ground his jaw, fighting the urge to scream. To run. To bash his head repeatedly against the closest hard surface to forget. “When he wrote it, he asked that I give you the letter in person and stay while you read it.”
Regardless of what happened in the next few minutes, at the very least, he’d find a motel in town for tonight. That wasn’t the ideal outcome, nor the plan, but he’d figure out something more permanent after she wasn’t so shell-shocked.
“I have some of his things on my bike.” Nate rose. “I’ll go grab them to give you a moment alone. You can meet me on the porch when you’re ready.”
Her gaze lifted to his and he never wanted so badly to be someone else. The kind of guy who offered comfort instead of inflicting misery. A man worthy of the gratitude in her eyes. Alas, he was an asshole of the highest order.
“Do you know what it says?” Her quiet voice wrapped around his jugular and squeezed.
“No. We didn’t read each other’s letters.” Chest tight, he strode to the door and stepped out into the chilly air.
His shoes crunched over gravel as he made his way to his bike in the driveway. Glancing up, he found an endless supply of stars winking overhead. Too many to count and more than he’d ever seen at one time. Back in that shithole of a desert, there’d been stars aplenty, but not like this. Out here in no man’s land, unbidden by city lights and smog—or explosions and smoke—the sky stretched for eons.
It was quiet, too. A rustle of dry grass here, a chirp of a cricket there. Throw in a random hoot from an owl, and that encompassed the symphony. Deafening, really, compared to what he was used to.
He grabbed the small, wooden shoebox-sized package from where he had it strapped to his Hog and dropped into a rocking chair on the porch to wait. Utter darkness swallowed the ranch, save for the sliver of moonlight. He could see why Justin had spoken so highly of the place. One could get lost in the shadows of mountains, the silhouettes of trees, or the obscurity.
After a few minutes, the skittering of fingernails on planks preceded a dog’s form as it rounded the corner of the porch. It sat a few feet away and stared at him. Nate had barely registered anything else but Olivia earlier, but he seemed to recall the dog following her inside the kitchen.
“Hey, boy.” Or girl?
Nate patted his leg and it trotted over to him. He gingerly petted the long black and white fur until the dog pawed at Nate’s pants as if to ask for a real rub-down. With a laugh rusty from misuse, he scratched behind its ears.
“I assume you belong to Olivia. What’s your name?”
“Bones.” The owner in question stepped onto the porch, shutting the screen door behind her. “When he was a puppy, he’d bring me skeletal remains of whatever animals he could find. Ergo, the name.” She sat in the chair next to his and laid her head against the back, her eyes suspiciously red and puffy. She’d put a sweater on to ward off the chilly night.
Figuring she’d talk when she was ready, he continued petting the dog and took in what he could of his surroundings. Another ten years, and he might get used to the silence, the fresh air.
“Looks like you made a friend already.” She turned her head and offered a sad smile.
He glanced at Bones again. Great name. “I always wanted a dog.” Frowning, he snapped his mouth shut, unsure why he’d told her that.
“Your parents wouldn’t let you have one?”
Considering his foster families claimed eating was a privilege, and those were the decent ones, he didn’t respond.
“Do you have anything waiting for you back in Illinois? A job? Family?”
He had nothing but what he could fit on the back of his Hog. “A couple friends.” Just Jim, actually. And as Nate’s former juvie parole officer, Jim probably shouldn’t be lumped in the friend category. If not for him, though, Nate would either be dead from gang wars or doing life behind bars. “I was thinking about staying in Meadowlark awhile.”
“Have you ever ridden a horse or driven a tractor?”
Hell, he almost laughed. “No. I’m city bred. Why?”
She pulled a deep breath and set her rocker in motion, gaze distant. “Well, if you’re going to work here, I guess I’ll have to teach you a thing or two.”
He stilled, staring at her profile. And here he’d thought no one could surprise him after all he’d seen. The plan had always been to hang around town, close by, and find some kind of job and roof over his head. For the rest of her life or his, he was going to watch over her from a respectable distance.
With an endearing smile that felled him, she looked him in the eye. “That is, if you’re interested?”
“I can take an engine apart and put it back together. If need be, I can handle carpentry. Fix crap. I don’t know anything about ranching, Olivia.”
She shrugged as if his excuses were moot. “Like I said, I can teach you. I could use a handyman.” She swallowed, and a tiny wrinkle formed between her brows. “I’d really like you to stay.”
Just what in the hell had Justin put in his letter to his sister? Her entire demeanor had done a one-eighty. No longer wary, she looked at Nate dead on without a hint of unease or tension. Her mannerisms and appearance were so much like Justin’s, Nate’s heart thumped in a strange form of déjà vu.
He glanced at the dog again, thinking. Her offer solved his job issue and working on the ranch meant he could keep a closer eye on her. But he hated the idea of taking money from her, no matter how much work he did.
“You don’t know anything about me.” And if she did, she’d be changing her tune. “I could be a serial rapist or jewel thief.”
“Are you?” The amusement in her tone had his lips curving.
“No.” A murderer by shitty circumstance, former south side gang-banger, and all around loser, but he’d never stolen anything in his life. And he’d never force himself on a woman. “Still, you just met me.”
“You said you were thinking of staying in town. Meadowlark is mostly a ranching community. We only have three-hundred residents. You’d be hard-pressed finding employment elsewhere.”
And the closest city was Casper, a hundred miles west, forgetting the other small blips dotting the map. He sighed and stared ahead, debating. It was one thing to stick close by and another to be right on top of her. Worse, she’d have to train him how to do the damn work.
“Justin said I could trust you, that you were a good guy.”
His gaze whipped to hers. Sincerity looked back at him.
Christ, she was gorgeous. Not in a runway manner or anything found in Hollywood, but in the classical, one-hundred percent natural form not often overturned just anywhere. Beauty like hers had no place in his life.
And damn. Nate wasn’t a good guy and she couldn’t trust him. To protect her, to never hurt her, to give up what remained of his pathetic existence to fulfill a promise? Hell yes. But he was the farthest thing from a saint as they came.
“If all that’s waiting for you back home is a few friends, why not try things here?” She idly rocked the chair, her posture and tone not pushy or assertive. “It can’t hurt. Honestly, it would be nice to have a friend of Justin’s around. It’s like having a piece of him here.”
Shit. How did anyone say no to her? An hour in her presence, and he was ready to hit his knees, submit to her every whim.
“Okay.” He cleared his rough throat. He’d have to figure something out regarding payment because no way was he taking money from her. He’d accrued enough in savings from the Army and had disability compensation checks coming every month. “If you’re sure.”
“Positive.” The smile hit her baby blues this time, making his skin heat. “Welcome aboard.”
“Thanks.” There was a special place in hell for him. He deserved the burn. Grabbing the box at his feet, he passed it to her. “These are a few of Justin’s things.”
She traced her fingers over the engraving of a horseshoe on the lid. “I don’t recognize this.”
He didn’t see how she could. It would’ve seemed like battery acid to a knife wound to return the last items her brother touched in a grocery bag. “I made the box. His stuff is in it.”
She blinked at him. “You made this?” Her gaze dropped to her lap and she ran her hand over the lid again. “Handle carpentry,” she mumbled.
“What?”
“You said you could handle carpentry. This is more than wielding a hammer or saw. The detail is fantastic.”
Well, Jim had taught Nate to whittle as a teen. Idle hands and all that. Through the years, he’d played with various forms of wood and had gotten better, started crafting other crap. In the hospital in Germany, it was the only thing that had kept him sane.
She opened the box and sorted through a few photographs. When she pulled out a necklace, she choked on a sob. “I didn’t know he had this.” Tears streamed down her cheeks, reflecting in the moonlight. “I looked everywhere for it last Christmas. It was my mom’s.”
He glanced from the tiny heart pendant dangling on a gold chain to her and back again. Give him nuclear weapons, give him an assault rifle aimed at his head, but do not put Olivia Cattenach in tears near him. He had no experience with emotional females, and this one already had him wrapped around her pinkie.
Shame, remorse, and self-loathing ate his insides raw.
Rising, he glanced longingly at his motorcycle. “I’ll, uh...give you time alone.” He needed to find a place to crash tonight, anyway. “What time should I—”
The next thing he knew, the box was on her chair and she was plastered against him. With her breasts crushed to his chest and every inch of her molded to him, he froze.
Slender arms wrapped around his waist, clutched his shirt, and she buried her face in his neck. The top of her head barely reached his chin as her tears dampened his skin. The scent of her shampoo and something elemental—rain?—swirled around them and...hell. Nothing before had the ability to arouse and soothe him in the same beat.
“Thank you.” Her lips feathered his throat and he ground his teeth against an involuntary shudder of interest.
Lucifer was engraving Nate’s name on a cage right now.
Since she seemed to need comfort and he was at fault, he carefully cupped the back of her head and set his other hand low on her back. At the contact, she curled into him, and the urgent desire to claim her warred with a fierce need to protect her—from the world, from anything that would dare do her harm, from...him.
“Sorry.” She stepped away and smiled, leaving him reeling at the loss. “Meeting someone who served with Justin and seeing his things again made me a little crazy.” Her laugh was like smoke and twice as toxic. “Come on. Let’s get you settled.”
Settled? How? With a bottle of Jack and a mind bleach? Nothing short would do.
“Are you coming?”
He shook his head and found her holding the screen door open. “What?”
“Aunt Mae’s quarters are off the kitchen. My suite’s on the third floor, so you get your pick of three bedrooms on the second.”
Come again? She wanted him to stay here? “I’ll get a place in town.”
Her grin sent the world around him in a tailspin. “Good luck with that. There’s no motels.”
The dog nudged Nate’s hand as if to say, Move it, asshole.
Fine. He’d figure something out in the morning. What was one more crime in comparison to the plethora of others?