Chapter Five
April 5
Harper made a point of watching the vets as they pulled the chairs, sofa or folding seats into a loose circle for their Friday-night chat at Shay and Reese’s ranch home. Libby, her red hair in a topknot, ran the session after dinner. She was in her midforties, and Harper, as all the other vets, entrusted the psychologist with their vulnerable, combat-injured emotional wounds. Maybe it was Libby’s pale green eyes, several shades lighter even than Tara’s beautiful willow-colored ones, that made her look like a hawk. She was intense and attentive. Libby was a very good listener.
He’d wanted to sit next to Tara but had decided not to do that because he didn’t want anyone to know how protective he had become toward her. And he instinctively knew she would pick up on it herself. It was too soon to let her know he was seriously interested in her. Libby would have picked up on that instantly, too. Women had all-terrain radar. Harper wasn’t ready to admit to anyone, much less fully to himself, that Tara was opening doors that had slammed shut in his heart. He was still getting used to his heart acting up, and he wasn’t sure what to do about it. He’d failed miserably at marriage before and didn’t feel he had the necessary skills to be an equal partner in a serious, emotional relationship with another woman. At least not yet. Tara was making him want to engage with her on that level, though. Maybe it was just as simple as that he was lonely and Tara, by accident, was filling that spot in his heart.
Everyone warmed to Tara immediately, especially Kira and Dair. And when Tara finished her explanation of Cree Elson kidnapping her, both women got up and walked across the room to give her hugs of support and sympathy.
He’d wanted to do the same thing but had anchored his butt to the chair instead. At least Kira and Dair could give Tara what she really needed right now: a sense of acceptance and care. He could see the relief in Tara’s eyes that she wasn’t alone in this ongoing predicament, that she had stalwart friends standing with her. Still, he fought an urge to go over and hold her because he sensed that was exactly what she needed.
Garret Fleming, who was going to marry Kira, gave his fiancée a concerned look when she sat down after hugging Tara. He studied Tara and then said, “There isn’t anyone here who won’t have your back, Tara. You need to know that.”
“Thanks, Garret. My mind knows that, but right now, I’m pretty rocky about the whole issue.”
Libby leaned forward, giving Garret and the rest of them a kind smile. “Tara, you’ve just left the world you’ve known for many years and stepped back into civilian life. That’s enough of an emotional adjustment. But then to find out Cree Elson is still around, and the sheriff insisting on a restraining order to keep you safe; it’s enough to make anyone reel. Your reactions are normal. You need to lean on all of us while you make these external and mental adjustments.”
“That’s right.” Noah Mabrey spoke up, giving his fiancée, Dair, a loving look before he held Tara’s distraught gaze. “We’re all here for you. Anything you need, just ask us.”
“Oh,” Kira said, her gray eyes stormy with emotion, “you can cry on our shoulders, Tara. Dair and I are great listeners.”
“Yes,” Dair chimed in, her black hair in braids, “but I think Kira, Shay and I just might drop in unannounced to check up on you every once in a while. You’re black ops. You’re used to buttoning up and not asking for help from anyone.”
Tara gave Dair a roll-eyed look. “Well, you’re sure right about that. You work hurt, you don’t complain, you stuff your fears and get your job done. Teammates are counting on you to do that. But I don’t mind if any of you come up to ask me how I’m doing. I promise I’ll spill it all because I’m not black ops anymore.”
Garret grinned. “Well, now that you’re with us here at the Bar C, I’ll just make you a couple of special dinners. You do know we gather every Sunday at Shay and Reese’s house at four p.m.?”
“Harper mentioned it to me,” Tara said. “I’ve just been too busy of late to think about it.”
“Well, it’s Friday,” Reese told her, smiling a little, “and we do expect you to show up for Sunday dinner. Okay?”
Harper added, “Tara, Garret is a chef of the first order. Once you taste the food he makes, you’ll never miss a dinner here.”
Tara gave them all a grateful smile, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. “Thank you—all of you—you have no idea how welcome you make me feel. I promise, despite everything that’s going on, I’ll carry my fair share of the load here at the ranch.”
“Yeah,” Noah intoned, giving everyone a silly grin, “we know that one. Work hurt. Don’t complain and all that. But here? If you get hurt? You go and see Harper, because he’s our combat corpsman on the property. Don’t overdo anything right now; I think Libby will agree with me on that.”
“Certainly will, Noah,” Libby said. “You’re still in shock, Tara. Let us surround you. We’ll support you. And you’re going to have good and bad days. Like the rest of the vets here, you have serious PTSD. And with Cree Elson around, this is triggering your symptoms big-time. I think all the vets will tell you that after about six months here on the Bar C, they felt more at peace, less anxious, and from that point, their PTSD has been gradually diminishing. Am I right?” Libby looked around the circle at each of them.
Harper saw everyone vigorously nod their heads.
“Maybe I’m expecting too much of myself,” Tara hoarsely admitted, staring down at her hands.
“Vets are bred to the bone to go the extra mile,” Libby said gently. “Just ask for help, Tara. Don’t wall us out. You’re lucky to be bunking in with Harper because he already has the combat corpsman’s healing energy. Utilize him, okay? I’m sure he’ll be there when you want him to be.”
Giving Harper a kind look, Tara said, “He’s already doing that for me, Libby, and I’m so grateful.”
“How does he help you?” she asked, tilting her head, holding Tara’s gaze.
Pushing some of her blond hair away from her face, Tara admitted in a low voice, “Well, I’ve never told him this, but when he comes in from the barn and I’m in the house, I can literally feel my anxiety dissolving.”
“So, just having him near does that for you?” Libby asked.
“Yes. Or if I’m in the barn helping him with something, the anxiety leaves. I stop thinking about Elson stalking me again.”
Libby gave Harper a pleased look. “Nice touch, Sutton.”
It was Harper’s turn to feel heat stealing into his face. “Well,” he stumbled, “I guess it’s just because of my corpsman skills.”
“Oh,” Libby drawled, “I have a feeling it’s much more than that, but I’m not going there. Okay?”
Harper realized the very astute Libby saw right through him, and that whatever was going on between him and Tara was much more than just his corpsman skills. Not daring to look at anyone else in the room, he merely nodded. He’d be digging himself in a hole for sure if he responded. Sometimes no explanation was best, and this was one of those times.
When he happened to glance to his left, Garret was grinning like a wolf who’d just nailed his prey. Looking to his right, Noah had a shit-eating grin on his face. Well, hell! These guys seemed to sense that his connection to Tara was more than just being a caring medic toward her. Damn. They would razz the hell out of him!
April 25
There were moments when Tara didn’t think she’d make it through the day as a wrangler because of her high anxiety levels. She had called Libby Hilbert, who had an office in Jackson Hole, to get some help with it. Libby asked her to make an appointment with a physician’s assistant, Taylor Douglas, who lived in Wind River. Seeing her sounded hopeful. She didn’t want to be drugged up with antidepressants, though, unable to remain emotionally engaged and enjoy her life.
She had just hung up the phone, getting ready to make lunch, when Harper came into the mudroom, stomping off the slush from another snowstorm that had hit the valley yesterday. He’d spread salt pellets along the wooden sidewalk that lay between the four homes and the arena, as well as to the other barns.
“Lunch is almost ready,” Tara called over her shoulder.
“Smells good,” Harper said, entering the kitchen after shrugging off his cold-weather gear. He pushed his fingers through his flattened-hat hair. “What did you make for us?”
Tara hungrily absorbed his unexpected closeness as he halted and leaned over her, smelling the soup she was stirring in a large six-quart pot. “It’s actually whatever I could find in the fridge,” she admitted, enjoying his masculinity, that quiet, intense feeling that automatically surrounded her whenever Harper was near. “I even found a couple of yams, cut them up and threw them in.”
“Well,” he said, straightening, checking to see if the table was set, “it smells great.”
“We had leftover brats and I chopped them up for a protein source.” No cowboy was a vegetarian. The work they did required serious protein in their diet.
“You’ve got corn bread baking, too,” he said, pleased as he leaned over, looking into the window of the oven.
“Yep, it didn’t take me long to figure out you were a meat, potatoes and bread kinda guy,” and she grinned. Tara loved that his gray eyes flared with amusement over her teasing. There were days when Harper didn’t shave and she liked the darkness that collected, giving him a very sexy look.
“Guilty as charged,” he drawled, rolling up his sleeves. “Anything else you need help with?”
“No. I made us each a salad. You can grab them out of the fridge and put the dressings on the table, too.”
“Got it,” he said. Harper also pulled out the two types of salad dressing, along with the covered bowls.
“How are Candy and her foal doing? This was the first day you were going to let them loose in the indoor arena.”
“Fine,” he said, setting the salads on the table. He pulled off the plastic wrap from each one. “Candy was whinnying a lot because her foal thought the arena was a racetrack,” and he chuckled. “The little one liked getting out and stretching those long, slender legs of hers.”
“I wish I could have seen that.” She ladled the soup into two bowls and brought them over to the table. Next came the corn bread, which she cut up and placed on a platter, bringing it over and putting it down at his elbow.
She loved having three meals a day with Harper. It was their time for intimate talk, not ranch business, and she needed that closeness in an emotional sense, more than usual. Tara supposed it was because her anxiety was off the scale. She wasn’t sleeping well, getting only two or three hours a night, if that.
“You can see them,” Harper said. “Bring your camera with you when you do.” He took a sip of the soup and pleasure wreathed his expression. “This is really good,” he congratulated her. “That corn bread is delicious.”
Tara smiled with pleasure.
“You were on the phone when I came in earlier,” Harper continued. “Who was calling?”
“Oh, Libby called me. She gave me the name of a local PA who she said helps PTSD people like us. Taylor has a test she runs, and if my cortisol is out of normal bounds, she can give me something called an adaptogen that supposedly shuts off the cortisol in my bloodstream.”
Nodding, Harper cut two large slices of corn bread and placed one of them on a smaller plate next to her bowl. “Yes, Libby’s sent all of us to see Taylor.”
“Has it worked? I mean, are you still anxious since getting Taylor’s medical help?”
Harper shook his head. “No,” he said between bites of corn bread, “since taking the adaptogen she gave me, I’ve been calm. I’ve never had the anxiety come back. I sleep through the night, I have fewer nightmares and flashbacks. It takes about three days after taking the adaptogen once or twice a day to shut off the cortisol, which keeps pouring into our bloodstream twenty-four hours a day and making us hyperalert.”
“Truly?” Tara couldn’t keep the amazement out of her voice. She saw his gray eyes turn warm. “We were all on Libby to get you to Taylor sooner, not later, because of this stuff going on with Cree Elson. I’m glad she called you today. Are you going to make an appointment with Taylor? It will be the best thing you’ve ever done for yourself.”
“Sure, with that kind of recommendation,” she said. “I’ll call her after lunch.”
“Good,” he said, pleased. “It’s been a couple of weeks since you came here. Do you feel like you’re settling into some kind of routine?”
She buttered the steaming corn bread. “Yes. I just need to get a decent night’s sleep. I lose so much every night. I get up and putter around in the kitchen. I hope I don’t wake you up, Harper.”
“I was that same way when I first came to the Bar C. Seeing Taylor, getting tested for high cortisol and then taking the adaptogen to turn it off, will give you a new lease on life.”
She muttered, “Will it make Cree disappear?”
He chuckled. “No, but I sure wish it could.”
“I’d give anything to get rid of this horrible anxiety,” she whispered, sipping her soup.
“Taylor will help you on that issue.” He reached over, tapping the back of her hand, cupped around the bowl. “After you get done talking with her, bring your camera down and take some photos of Candy and her little one. You need to start snapping some shots again.”
“I worry it will interfere in my work around here, Harper.”
“Nah, it’s not going to bother anyone. That’s part of your job, shooting stock photos, It’s time you started a file on the Bar C, and who knows? You could sell some of the stock online. That’s where you make your money for the ranch.”
“It is,” she agreed. Looking out the large picture window, she sighed. “And it’s so beautiful out. I can hardly wait to see Candy and her foal in the paddock.”
“Well, right now with the spring day melting some of the snow and then the temp falling below freezing at night, we have nothing but ice in those paddocks. Come late May, they’ll be muddy, but everything will be pretty much melted. Then we can let them outdoors.”
* * *
Cree sat in his boardinghouse room, ignoring his two friends who helped pay the monthly rent for their Jackson Hole digs. He hated listening to them jabbering with each other when the crazy bastards were high on meth. He had enough constant noise as a dishwasher for the saloon; now he craved quiet. It was cold outside and he didn’t want to walk the back streets of the town. Not at this time of night, because there could be ice on the sidewalks. He didn’t need to slip and land on his ass.
He studied the restraining order the sheriff had handed him. His mouth flattened. He was already on law enforcement’s radar because of his prison record. How stupid had he been? Driven by teenage hormones, blindly in love with Tara, wanting her, wanting a happy life with her, and he’d grabbed her. And got caught. And now? He had nowhere else to go. He didn’t dare try to work in Wind River. Everyone knew what he’d done and was angry at him for it, so nobody would hire him. At least in Jackson Hole, fifty miles away, he could get a job. This was a town of the haves and have nots. The rich and famous lived here. Meanwhile, working-class people struggled like hell to hold on by their fingernails, paid next to nothing, and yet they were the worker bees who made the town function.
He wanted to rip up the restraining order, but he didn’t. If he came within five hundred feet of Tara Dalton, his ass could be thrown in jail. Or if he went onto Bar C property, where she worked. He wondered where she lived. There was no address other than the Bar C. Did she live there, too? Most wranglers had a bunkhouse or some sort of living arrangement on the ranch they worked for and he guessed she probably did live on the property. Hence, he was not legally allowed on that ranch’s property.
His upper lip curled and he felt rage flow through him. It felt like a war within him. On one hand, he wanted to choke Tara and watch her die. On the other, he still obsessed with her. That need for her had never left him. Never. His heart pounded briefly to underscore what she meant to him. He was thirty years old and his puppy love for her had begun back in grade school, and it had never diminished. The intensity of his need for her was like an invisible hand pushing him forward, cajoling him to go after her, kidnap her again. Only this time? He’d be a helluva lot smarter about it. This time, he wouldn’t get caught and she would finally be his. Now and forever.
Folding up the restraining order, he got up and pulled open a drawer on his nearby bed stand and dropped it in. Grabbing a towel, washcloth and soap, he left the large room and headed down the hall to the bathroom on the first floor of the three-story building. His red hair was long and straight and he had it tied back in a ponytail. Once in the bathroom, he stripped naked, removed the rubber band from his dark red hair and climbed into the shower. Scrubbing his hair with shampoo and cleansing himself with the soap, his mind and heart orbited around the need for Tara.
He’d not seen her since she’d left. His mother had called him excitedly, telling him that she’d seen Tara Dalton at the feed store. Cree wasn’t sure whether to be happy or sad about it. Scrubbing his hair, lathering the soap into the thick, heavy strands, he closed his eyes, envisioning Tara. How did she look now? Probably more beautiful. More desirable. In every way. His erection sprang to life as he fantasized what he’d do to her after he kidnapped her again.
All his fantasies had kept his obsession to claim her alive and haunting him hourly. The voices that had manifested when he was fifteen whispered to him to make her his own. The voices never stopped, always cajoling, always pushing him to go after what he wanted. Tara was in his blood. In his soul. He needed her like he needed oxygen to breathe.
The asshole shrink he’d seen in prison had squeezed it out of him and he’d talked about his obsession with her. The shrink had tried to make Cree think he saw Tara as an out, his good-luck charm, a lucky rabbit’s foot and everything wonderful and happy he yearned to have. Tara represented all that to him and more. It wasn’t just about having sex with her, although he knew he’d enjoy that immensely. No, he wanted the nurturing quality that exuded from her. He wanted her to want him. The most powerful emotions arose in him when he visualized her cradling him in her arms, his head pressed to her breasts.
But she never had. Tara had fought like a spitting, angry bobcat when he’d captured her, dragging her off to the Salt River Mountains. She hated him and screamed at him, demanding that she be released. Who the hell did he think he was to grab her and make her his prisoner? Oh, Tara had a mouth on her for sure, and he grinned a little, rinsing his hair beneath the warm water. He tried to patiently explain why he’d done it. That he loved her. That he needed her to live with him. That he needed to be held and rocked by her.
Well, that hadn’t gone over well either. He pushed the suds on his face away beneath the water, opening his eyes. Squeezing the extra water out of his hair, which hung halfway down his long, muscular back, he laughed. Tara was fearless. She fought him without ever quitting. She tried to escape, which angered him. Even now, he felt bad about striking her and breaking her nose. He’d felt horrible afterward. That wasn’t what he’d wanted to do with her. He’d wanted to love her, hold her and be tender with her. But his anger . . . Well, he’d always raged, had what they termed an uncontrollable temper. The voices would push him into acting and he’d snap and hurt someone. And then he wouldn’t remember what he’d done. It was only after he’d come down out of that blinding rage, with Tara sitting there, her hands with ropes around her wrists, tied to the nearby trunk of a spindly pine tree, her nose bleeding, that he’d realized something had happened.
At first, he didn’t remember striking her. She had angrily told him, tears running from her eyes, that he’d slammed his fist into her face. How the hell else did he think she’d gotten a broken, bloody nose?
Cree shut off the shower and stepped out, his body glistening with water. Grabbing a towel, he scowled, remembering that stark afternoon in the mountains. He’d struck Tara. The last person in the world he wanted to hurt and he’d done just the opposite because the voices in his head ordered him to punch her to shut her up.
Oh, he’d wanted to hurt plenty of people who made him angry. When Tara’d called him crazy, he’d snapped, he guessed. Well, there was no guesswork about it. There was no one else in the vicinity to break Tara’s nose other than him, so even if he didn’t remember doing it, the proof was there, staring him in the face. He’d tried to help her, pulling out a small towel from his knapsack, holding it up to her face so she could press her nose against it.
Tara was so angry, she’d lashed out with her tied hands, striking his hand and the towel away. He’d been shocked by her actions. All he’d wanted to do was make up for his hitting her. Mumbling apology after apology didn’t soothe her anger and hurt either.
He felt guilty that she wouldn’t let him help her afterward. It was then he’d realized he really was the monster his mother and father had always said he was. He’d had these voices screaming inside his head, sudden black rages triggering violence, never remembering them until someone else told him what he’d done. No memory of it. Not ever.
His mother called him an imbecile, an idiot. The shrink in prison had suggested that his old man, his father, Brian, who was an alcoholic, had abused him as a baby and given him a traumatic brain injury. Which was why, the shrink said to him, that the rages short-circuited in the injured frontal lobe of his brain and he would remember nothing, nor did he feel any remorse or guilt while in a fury. He felt dead inside. Always had.
Cree dried himself off, his mind going back to the miserable years he was a prisoner. His mother couldn’t afford to drive to Salt Lake City federal prison to see him often. Gas cost money and she had little. He’d hated that time and, finally, he’d served his sentence and was freed.
Disliking that everyone else called him a mental retard, Tara saying he was a crazed monster had lingered hurtfully in his chest. Cree had never forgotten the kidnapping or her despising him for doing it.
He promised to build her a beautiful cabin in the woods, where she’d be happy with him. That’s all he wanted. He honestly didn’t know what happiness was, but seeing Tara daily in school made his heart feel good. It was the only time he’d ever felt emotions flow through him like sunlight, chasing away the darkness in his soul. Tara made him feel hope for the first and only time in his life. It was her. That wonderful, sunny smile of hers, that husky laugh, that sparkle in her green eyes. All he had to do was picture her in his mind and his whole body vibrated with a wild yearning for her once more. It felt like the world’s worst addiction, and he was trapped within it. Besides, the voices told him that Tara wanted him and he should go get her and make her his own, once and for all.
Somehow, he had to rethink his kidnapping her. This time? It had to work. He had to preplan. He had to watch her and get her pattern of daily living so that when he captured her a second time, he’d be successful. And maybe Tara being older, she wouldn’t be as wild and angry as she had been at sixteen. But even if she was, Cree believed in his heart that he could tame her with kindness, be good to her, hold her. He was older, too. Patience wasn’t his strong suit, but with Tara, he wanted so badly to be just that for her. She might not like being captured and living with him, but eventually, Cree felt, he could wear her down, convince her that he was the only man for her. Yes, that would work. He would be patient with her. No matter if she was angry all over again, calling him names and pleading to be released, he’d stick to his new plan.