6 months later

COURTNEY COULD BARELY contain her excitement as she rushed in the front door and flew up the stairs to her room in a mad dash to get ready. Cole had just called her and told her he had flown into town and was on his way to take her out to dinner. The last six months had been hard, even harder than when he was in the military because she had allowed herself to believe that somehow this time, it would be easier, but it hadn't been. There were distorted phone calls during which she could barely make out his voice over the sat phone he was using to call in, and all their conversations had been extremely short. They couldn't even Skype while he was out on this job. She hadn't known it was possible to miss him this much, and apparently, he felt the same way since he had come all the way home from wherever he was working without a moment’s notice.

She had just stepped into her pointed toe stilettos and checked her lipstick in the mirror, and since she could hear a vehicle approaching the house, she rushed from the room and back down the stairs. Her dad was walking in from the barn as she raced out the door, and he hollered out a greeting. "Where are you headed in such an all-fired hurry there, Firecracker?"

Instead of answering verbally, she stopped and smiled hugely at her father before gesturing to the drive, where Cole was pulling in, in an SUV that he must have rented at the airport.

"Well, lookee here! Cole, what are you doing in town, son?" Courtney's dad shouted across the field as he started to make his way over to where Cole was climbing out of the rig while Courtney had started dashing toward him again.

Something in Cole's posture had Courtney slowing drastically and not flinging herself into his arms the way she had planned. She could see that this wasn't Cole coming home battle weary and battling his demons; this was something she had never seen before. Her man was standing there like he was defeated. Like he was waiting for a blow to land. She stopped dead five feet away from him and noticed that he wouldn't meet her eyes. Looking back at her father, she realized that he, too, had noticed that something was wrong and had changed his approach to his future son-in-law.

"Cole, you alright there, son?"

Cole looked at her dad and tried to force a smile, but it didn't meet his eyes. Instead, it looked more like a grimace. "Yeah, Pops. I'm alright. Just had a tough few days, and I'm beat." Cole seemed to loosen up just a little, and his eyes crinkled at the corner with a smile as he stepped forward and met her dad to give him the handshake, man hug, back clap thing that all the men in her acquaintance seemed to do.

The two men stepped away from each other and finally, Cole looked up at Courtney and smiled at her. A real smile. The one he saved for her and her alone. "Hey, Baby Girl. I came all this way, and you can't even come greet your man?" He winced when he said the last part, and for the life of her, Courtney couldn't make sense of what was going on with him. But she knew that he would let her in. He always did.

"Hey, darlin'. I've missed you." Finally, she let herself go and rushed her man like she had intended to do earlier.

She tried to ignore the way his grip was even tighter than normal, almost to the point of being painful. "Cole, we can stay in. There's no point in going out, especially with you so tired. Let me run and pack a change of clothes, and we can go to yours and throw something together for us to eat. We can go out to eat tomorrow or something."

Cole buried his face in her hair for a moment and breathed her in before he answered. "Can't do that, Court. I have a flight tomorrow morning, headed back out. I just had to get back here and see you right now. I couldn't stay away any longer with everything so fucked."

Courtney's dad straightened and cleared his throat, saying, "Cole, Court, I've got to get in there and get cleaned up, but you two give me and Mama a shout before y'all call it a night." With that, he clapped Cole on the back once more and bent to kiss the cheek that Courtney didn't have pressed to Cole before he slapped his work gloves against his pants and turned to make his way into the house.

There was a ball of panic forming in Courtney's throat, and she was terrified of where the night was leading. "Cole, what's going on? What's messed up?"

Cole stiffened but blew out a sigh, and instead of answering her, he said, "How do you feel about The BeefHouse for dinner tonight? I'm in the mood for a steak that I don't have to cook."

She debated pursuing it further but chose instead to let it rest and pulled away to smile up at him slightly and say, "Yeah, darlin', steak sounds good."

He kissed the side of her head and gave her a soft squeeze before leading her to the passenger door of his truck. She was shaking with trepidation as Cole made his way around to the other side of the truck, but she sat in silence and gave him time to work up to giving it to her. They made the half-hour drive in complete silence. With each second that ticked along, Courtney became more and more concerned. Still, she waited.

They pulled up at the restaurant and were seated. Courtney had never been more terrified in her life. "Cole, you're scaring me. What is going on?"

He reached across the table and took her hand in his. He smiled at her gently with a smile that didn't reach his eyes and said, "I just didn't expect this job to be so shitty. I didn't expect to have to do things that I am morally opposed to, out of obligation to my country, and I didn't expect the way it could have repercussions on everything else in my life. You know me, Baby Girl. I'll give it all to you tonight. Let's just enjoy dinner, yeah? I need this one more evening of normalcy before I tell you about this job. I'm ok. Is that enough to reassure you so we can enjoy our date? I love you, and I'm fine. Promise." He smiled the crooked smile she loved so much, and she felt her nerves settle. Whatever this was, it didn't have anything to do with her, and she could and would do whatever it took to help him shake off the funk he was in and live in the moment.

For the two hours they were at The BeefHouse, she made him laugh again and again, and she could see the demons slowly leaving him. On the ride back to the ranch, she talked constantly, just chattering, to keep him distracted. She was feeling loose from the two glasses of wine she'd had with dinner, and she was happy. Her man was home, and whatever troubled him, they could handle it together.

When they pulled down his drive, she saw a car parked that she didn't recognize. "Cole, is Clint in town, too? He could have come with us or have dinner with my folks. He didn't have to stay home alone."

The tension was palpable, and Cole opened the center console to pull out a 9-millimeter Beretta, which had Courtney straightening in her seat and losing her pleasant buzz. "Clint's still in Istanbul with Devon."

Cole put the SUV in park, leaving it running, and swung out of the vehicle saying, "Stay here, Court."

Courtney wasn't about to get out of the vehicle with him on such high alert. This was a side of her man that she had never seen before, and it suddenly brought the stark reality of his other life home to her. She was freaking out until she saw a tall, slender, dark-haired woman stand up from the porch swing. She watched the caution leave Cole's posture and saw him tuck the gun into the back of the waistband of his jeans before he shouted something and the woman stomped off the porch toward him, gesturing wildly. Sensing that the danger was over, Courtney stepped out of the SUV to see what was going on. She had never seen the woman before in her life. She seemed to really upset Cole by being there, so Courtney wanted to know what was going on.

Neither of them seemed to notice the sound of the SUV door opening and closing as she exited it and made her way toward them. What she heard them yelling at one another had her stopping dead in her tracks and her heart faltering.

"What the fuck are you doing here, Monique? I told you that I had something to see to and would be back in a day or two."

"Yes, you leave a note on the pillow. What should a wife do when her husband disappears? I called Clint to find you. You are supposed to protect me!" The woman, Monique, had a very strong French accent that had her pronouncing her th's with a zee sound, her oh's sounded drawn out as oo's, and she had a thick sound in her throat as she spat the words at Cole.

"Woman, you were fucking safe. You had no business calling my brother, and you sure as fuck don't need to be here."

The other woman gestured to where Courtney stood and spat at Cole, "So, you leave me for this woman?"

Courtney saw Cole's shoulders tighten, and she felt like she was having an out-of-body experience. This woman was claiming to be her fiancé's wife. And apparently, Cole had left a note on this woman's pillow before he came home to Courtney. A ball of what felt like slithering snakes settled in the pit of her stomach, and all she could do was stare at the two of them. It was like watching a car accident. She couldn't tear her eyes away from them. They may be the ones who were the car wreck, but Courtney felt as if she were the victim of one.

Cole, as if suddenly reminded of her existence, turned back toward Courtney and approached her. She had the presence of mind to hold her hands up to stop him from touching her. All she could get out was, "What?"

Cole shook his head, and she could see from the look in his eyes that he had retreated to that dark place he went from time to time. The place she was usually the only person who could pull him back from. Right then, that wasn't something she was capable of. She couldn't make sense of the situation. How was her fiancé married?

"Baby Girl, it's not what you think."

Suddenly, words bubbled up from deep inside her, and she found she wasn't speechless after all. "What the hell, Cole? You got married? How is it not what I think? I don't even know what I think. How did this happen? God, were you even going to tell me?"

"Fuck, Courtney, of course, I was! But it's not what you think. It's not a real marriage."

Relief swept through her.

He isn’t really married. There has to be some explanation.

"So, you aren't married?" Even she heard the desperate hope in her voice, but she didn't care. She had to know.

Before he could respond, the other woman laughed and then spoke, "Cole is my husband. It is legal."

Courtney looked back at Cole and waited for him to say something, anything. Instead, he watched her in complete silence.

She could barely get the words out, and they were only a choked whisper when she asked, "You're really married?"

He still didn't speak. He nodded. And she wilted. Her entire being shattered into a million pieces, and she knew that no matter what, she would never be put back together again. She was Humpty Dumpty.

All the kings' horses and all the kings' men...

She couldn't even breathe. Cole still stared at her, and even the French woman was silent at the devastation she had wrought over Courtney. Courtney couldn't speak another word, so she turned, raced back to the running SUV, and jumped into the driver's seat to race back to her parents’ ranch.

When she pulled into her driveway, she knew there was no way that she could face her parents and their questions, and eventually, Cole was going to have to come get his rental, so she grabbed her purse and left the keys in the ignition after killing the motor and escaped to the one place where she felt peace. She went to the barn and walked straight to her horse, Mystery, and opened the stall door before slipping inside and collapsing in the corner. The bay mare came over to her and nudged her as sobs wracked Courtney's body, but she couldn't even bring herself to reach a hand up to her horse. With a huge sigh, Mystery dropped to her knees and finally to her belly and put her head on top of Courtney's knees, where she watched her with her deep brown eyes, offering her human comfort in the only way she could.

Eventually, Courtney’s tears ran dry and she shifted so that her horse lay on her side and Courtney lay down in the hay, resting her head on the mare's neck and tangling her fingers in her mane. She wasn't aware of anything else for several hours, and night had fallen when she felt someone slide their arms under her and pull her close. She stiffened in fear but caught the scent of her daddy's cologne, so she folded herself into his chest. She couldn't cry, and she couldn't speak. She was spent. All she could do was turn her face into his shirt as he walked out of the barn and to the house. Her mother silently held the front door open for them and stayed behind when her dad carried her to her room and gently laid her on her bed. He walked away for a moment, and when he came back, he had a cool washcloth in his hands and used it to wash her swollen face.

"Figured I'd find you out there with that horse of yours. No matter how old you get, you just hold it in until you can get to somewhere alone to let it out, don't ya?" Without giving her a chance to speak, he continued, "It looks real bad, darlin'. I ain't denying that, but I talked to the boy, and he's just as torn up as you are. I know you feel like your world has imploded on you, but he wants to talk to you. It ain't my place to tell you how to handle this, but I think maybe you two should talk before he leaves. Sounds like he was put in a position where he wasn't given a choice in the matter. He's coming by tomorrow to get his rig and wants to talk to you. You think on it tonight, and if you want to see him, then you can, and if you don't, I'll personally stand in front of the door with my shotgun."

She was too exhausted to speak, so she nodded. She could think about it tomorrow before he came and see how she felt, but for now, she just wanted to close her eyes and forget everything that had happened.

Her daddy kissed her brow and stood up from the bed to walk out of the room, shutting the light off on his way out the door.

***

SHE HAD TOSSED AND turned all night long, but she had decided that when Cole showed up to get his rental, she was going to talk to him. Whatever was going on, he owed her an explanation, and after so many years together, she owed it to him to hear him out. She got up, showered, and dressed, but she didn't put on makeup or dress up. There was no point. Cole knew her better than anyone else in the world, so he would know exactly how devastated she was.

When one hour turned into two, she justified his absence by thinking that perhaps he had been up all night like she had, and he hadn't woken up yet. When two hours turned into four, she was tempted to call him, but he hadn't tried to call her once. Not after she left, not during the long night, and not once during the day. He had called her dad and spoken to him, but he hadn't reached out to her at all, and she felt awkward about calling him now. Something she never believed would have been possible, yet here she was.

It was almost dark when she heard a vehicle making its way down her drive, and even though she knew it was foolish, her heart leaped in excitement. She squelched the excitement when she thought about their situation, but she slowly made her way out to the front porch. Her parents had given her space all day because that was how she processed her emotions the best. When the storm door shut behind her, she saw an older gentleman climb out of a car. She recognized the man as Mr. Henry, who stayed on the ranch and took care of the day-to-day upkeep. Confusion slashed through Courtney as he approached her.

"Miz Kincade, Cole said I should ask you about the keys for this rig, so I can take it back to the rental place?"

Time froze.

"Miz Kincade?"

"Mr. Henry, where is Cole? Isn't he coming to get the rental?"

"No, ma'am, he and, umm, well, he and the new Mrs. La Barron left for the airport this morning. He said I should get a ride over here to get his rig and take it back to the rental place. I guess he and, err, well, I guess he was in a hurry to get back ma'am."

That was the moment when it hit her that he wasn't coming. He had left that morning with his bride to return to wherever they had come from, and he hadn't even said good-bye. He had left his wife a note on the pillow, but for his fiancée? Not a single word.

He really left with her, and that’s that. In the blink of an eye, a relationship over.

Three months later, when Devon and Clint came home for a break after their mission in Istanbul, Devon took his little sister aside to tell her in private that Cole and Monique were expecting a baby in six months. That night, Courtney left her parents’ ranch and didn't return.