HUNTER (The Corbin Brothers Book 1) (9 page)

“Thanks.”

And then, like that, with zero fanfare whatsoever, Hadley focused completely on Emmett, I was standing there on my prosthesis without the aid of the crutches. There should’ve been at least confetti, or something. Sure, we’d been working on this eventuality during rehab, and Hadley had just pushed me outside of my comfort zone in the pasture, but now that it was here, it was almost anticlimactic. In my childhood, I would’ve been pissed as hell at Emmett for stealing my thunder, but now, after everything I’d been through, I was almost thankful he had all eyes on him.

“Fucking things—sorry, Hadley,” Emmett blustered, teetering on them. “I don’t know how you ever got used to these damn things, Hunter. I feel like I’m walking on stilts.”

“Think of them as training wheels,” I offered. “Don’t balance on them. Make them work for you—like a rhythm.”

“We’ll be back in no time,” Hadley said, ushering Emmett out of the barn and toward her car. “No need to worry about anything.” She threw a wink at me over her shoulder, and I realized that she’d not only stranded me in here without my crutches, forcing me to rely on what progress I’d made to get me back to the house, but she’d stolen them on purpose. She could’ve commandeered Chance and Tucker to carry Emmett to the car, or, better yet, driven her car down here to save my injured brother the trip. I knew how fraught with obstacles that path was with divots and holes and clods.

As soon as Hadley’s taillights faded on down the road, Chance and Tucker turned back to me.

“I hope everything turns out all right with him, but for shit’s sake,” Chance said. “We’re already down a man out there. How are we going to make up Emmett’s work, too?”

“We’ll just have to put in longer hours,” Tucker put in tiredly.

“Tuck, there aren’t enough hours in the day for us to put in anymore,” Chance fired back. “We need help, and we needed it yesterday.”

I cleared my throat. “I can help.”

Both my brothers looked at me as if they were seeing me for the first time. I felt more than a little self-conscious in their scrutiny and wondered if I looked weird or what. As discreetly as I could, I checked the status of my zipper, but it was all the way up.

“I’ll be a son of a bitch,” Tucker said at last.

“That’d make me one, too,” I joked weakly. “What the hell’s the matter with the two of you?”

“Look at you,” Chance said, finally finding his words, gesturing at me.

“What’s wrong with me?” I asked cautiously.

“You’re standing. On your own two feet. No crutches.”

“Can you walk like that?” Tucker asked, not bothering to disguise his gaping. “Like normal? Without the crutches?”

“Well, more or less,” I said, still shy of this blinding attention. “It’s still a little awkward, but Hadley says it’ll smooth out the more I practice it.”

I took a few steps forward, just like I’d been doing in rehab with Hadley, and my brothers gawked.

“I wish Avery and Emmett were here to see this,” Chance remarked.

“If Emmett were still here, Hunter would still have his crutches and we wouldn’t be seeing this,” Tucker reasoned.

“I’m just walking, like you all,” I said, feeling more than a little awkward at this hullabaloo. “You’re not witnessing a miracle.”

“That’s just the thing, brother,” Tucker said. “We kind of are.”

“Come on…”

“It’s true,” Chance added. “We saw you when you…well, no need to sugarcoat it. You were at your worst. Hadley came recommended, but she was a last-ditch effort to bring you back when we weren’t sure you would ever be back in sound mind or sound body.”

“The leg didn’t grow back,” I joked. “It’s new, but not really a part of me. We can’t really say sound body.”

“It’s helping you stand, helping you walk around, isn’t it?” Chance countered. “I’d say you better get used to it being a part of you. Can you ride a horse?”

I gulped. “Hadley and I haven’t really gotten to that part of the rehab yet.”

“If he’s walking, he can ride a horse,” Tucker scoffed. “Hell, he was riding a horse before he was even walking, when he was just a baby.”

“One of us was carrying him.”

“Well, it’s the principle of the thing.”

I knew what they were trying to figure out—if I was ready, really ready, now that I was apparently normal, standing and walking on my own, without the aluminum and rubber of the crutches. It was about time. I knew that was what they were really thinking, whether they’d admit it or not. It was about time I got my shit together and started helping out around here, especially with Emmett down for the count. Three people couldn’t run this ranch. There were too many damn things to do.

At the same time, I was afraid—afraid I’d disappoint my brothers, afraid I’d fail after trying so hard for so long to return to normalcy. I didn’t know how I’d handle a setback, what I would do if I injured myself or fucked something up on the ranch. There were so many ways to mess up out here, and I would be more prone to mistakes.

“Does your leg—the fake one—bend the way you need to so you can get up on the horse?” Chance asked as gently as he could manage.

“Don’t pressure him,” Tucker snapped uncharacteristically. “When he’s ready, he’s ready. He’s been through a lot, goddammit, Chance, and us pushing him before he’s able isn’t going to help anything.”

“What’s going on with you two?” I asked, suddenly consumed with suspicion. I’d been confident in my abilities, but now I realized that something bigger was at play here than the bank issuing us past due payments, or us falling behind on the work that needed to be done here.

“Nothing’s going on,” Tucker assured me.

“Don’t hide shit from me,” I said. “I’m a part of this family, too.”

“Well, welcome back,” Chance said. “He deserves to know what we’re up against, Tuck.”

Tucker sighed. “Bud motherfucking Billings is who we’re up against.”

“It’s always Bud Billings,” I said, trying not to register surprise at Tucker’s breach of decorum. “He was trying to buy the ranch ever since Mom and Dad were still alive. I’ve heard the stories.”

“It’s different this time,” Chance said. “Somehow, someone tipped Bud off about the loan we took out.”

“Everyone took out loans last year. It was hard on all of us.”

“But everyone was somehow able to pay them back—everyone but us.”

“We’re going to pay them back,” I said. “The rain’ll come; we’ll cull the herd. We’ll do something.”

“Bud knows we’re behind. He’s being very aggressive.” Chance looked unsettled, and I really didn’t like seeing him like that. He was our pillar of strength, the one who always knew what needed to be done.

“So with both Billings and the bank on our ass, you’re saying this is a real shit time to go two men short on the ranch,” I said.

“That’s what he’s saying,” Tucker confirmed.

“I guess we’d better go see if my horse remembers how to wear a saddle.”

Tucker and Chance exchanged glances.

“If you don’t think you’re ready, I don’t want you to push yourself,” Tucker said. “What if you have a setback to your recovery?”

“If I fall off the horse, I’ll get back on, dummy,” I said, echoing wisdom Hadley had imparted.

“Emmett’s horse is already saddled,” Chance said. “We have to move the herd into south pasture by nightfall.”

“What’s Avery doing?” I asked, walking carefully toward the steed Tucker held.

“Repairing fence line out there. One of the trees by the river fell on it. Knocked several posts down.”

“Is he going to fix it in time?”

“He’s got to.”

They both looked at me expectantly, and I realized they were waiting for me to get on the horse. It had been so long since I’d done it, but I knew all I had to do was get my right foot in the stirrup and swing my left one around. I’d been working out a long time. Even if I hadn’t regained all of my strength, surely to merciful God I could get on this horse, especially in my family’s time of need.

We all let out the collective breath we’d been holding as I pulled myself up, settling into Emmett’s saddle, much more ornate than the rest of ours.

“Like riding a bike,” I said, blushing lightly as Tucker and Chance both grinned at me unabashedly. “Let’s go if we’re going to get there.”

Galloping was something different altogether. I had to place all of my trust in both the horse and the strength of my thighs, gripping to keep myself in place, moving my body in ways it hadn’t moved in a long time to keep the rhythm of the hoof falls. It took a few minutes at a canter before I really remembered how, slapping at its flank to take it back up to a gallop and catching up with my brothers.

“Can’t put into words how good it is to see you back,” Tucker hollered at me before whooping and kicking his mount, taking off in earnest. Chance and I chased him until we caught up to the herd and began working in tandem to compel it out of a pasture it had gotten comfortable in and to a new one so this one didn’t get overgrazed.

“There’s still green grass by the river,” Chance explained before we split off. “We figure that can save us on buying feed—at least for a little while.”

“It’s a plan,” I said.

There was an art to herding, one that I still remembered well, one that made my blood sing and my heart take flight. To be a part of this moving mass of mammals was something special, even if it wasn’t for everyone. I wanted to do everything in my power to keep this place going, and now that I was back in the saddle, I’d really be able to help.

But when we were well into the south pasture, Tucker circling back around to close the gate, I noticed that the fence still wasn’t repaired, Avery laboring away.

“Keep the herd off this,” I said. “We don’t want them to get out.”

“They’re branded.”

“Think Billings will care?”

“Go.”

Avery heard the horse approaching but didn’t look up, his hands bleeding in several spots through his gloves as he wound barbed wire around a post.

“I need more than two hands for this job, goddammit,” he complained.

“I got you.” I was out of the saddle as easily as I’d gone into it, holding the post in place, kicking more dirt in to fill in the hole, as Avery wrapped the wire.

“Hurry, the next one,” I said. “Herd’s here, and they’re interested in that river. Haven’t seen it in a long time—trees, either.”

“Almost there.”

Chance was able to keep several strays from crowding us as we finished. Avery wiped his brow and looked at me.

“Holy shit.”

I felt my face to make sure I hadn’t sprouted horns or anything. “What?”

“It’s you—you’re back!”

“I guess,” I said, feeling embarrassed but pleased as Avery pounded my back in a hug.

“Damn good to see you out here again. You were getting soft.”

“Pretty hard, now,” I said, knocking on my prosthesis. “I guess you heard about Emmett.”

“Think we’ll ever be five again out here?” he wondered.

“One of these days,” I assured him.

The ride back was leisurely until we saw Hadley’s car pull back in the driveway. I stayed back to put the horses away as everyone went to help Emmett and pepper Hadley with questions. I felt good—damn good.

Hadley was waiting for me as I drifted toward the house, flushed with my success. My brothers had rushed on to help Emmett into his house to rest, a brace encasing his knee, but I made a beeline—well, the quickest beeline I could manage—for Hadley.

“I rode the horse,” I began when I was still several yards away from her. “I rode the horse. I moved the herd. I helped repair the fence line. I’m back in the saddle.”

She opened her mouth to offer some kind of congratulations, but I seized her by the shoulders instead, dipped her down, and kissed her, my tongue in her mouth, the scent of roses overwhelming, my erection pressing against her hipbone, wanting to celebrate this milestone in a carnal way.

She bit down on my tongue and shoved me away, and I suddenly realized that I’d fucked up.

Hadley spluttered, coming up for air, backing away from me, her chest heaving like it sometimes did when she was angry. I blinked swiftly, not sure that I believed what just happened. If she was upset with me that I’d kissed her, I’d be devastated—even though she had every right. I didn’t think I’d ever taste those lips beyond our little wagers, but it had just…happened. Maybe I’d misread everything, but when we were both so excited about my successful day on the ranch, I’d thought I’d punctuate it with a kiss.

I was an idiot.

“Hadley, I’m sorry,” I said quickly. If I lost her now, I wouldn’t know what I would do. Even though I’d gotten back in the saddle—both literally and figuratively—I wasn’t ready to be on my own. I still needed her to prod me into my exercises, and I craved her constant and comforting presence, the guidance and direction she provided me, and the insight she had into my recovery. I wasn’t ready to let all that go yet. I wasn’t ready to let Hadley go, even though I’d just kissed her, like an idiot, and probably erased whatever fondness she might’ve had for me. Fondness—that was probably too strong of an assumption. People who were shoved together learned how to put up with each other. There wasn’t necessarily any fondness between them, but they learned to work with and around each other. That was probably what Hadley felt for me—that I was just someone she’d been dealing with for these past few months to endure to earn a paycheck, someone whose jokes she’d laughed at only to be polite and to maintain an effective relationship so her work would be more effective.

It was laughable to consider that I had ever harbored the hope she could feel something for me, that she could feel even an ounce of what I felt toward her.

Her hand had flown to her mouth, and she touched her lips with her fingertips gently, as if she were having a difficult time understanding what had just happened. I wondered if I should apologize again, if she’d heard me the first time, if I should back slowly away from her and leave her to her ruminations. She looked at her fingertips as if she was seeing them for the first time, then she looked at me.

If I had to guess, I would’ve guessed terror—even if that didn’t make complete sense to me. I was expecting disgust—that I was a pig for kissing her, for assuming she would want me to kiss her, even though I couldn’t rightly say just what was going on in my head the moment our lips made contact. I knew I was overthinking it, but it was hard not to, especially as the silence stretched on, Hadley’s green eyes wide, her hair rumpled from a long car ride.

Stupid. I was stupid. I hadn’t even asked her how Emmett was, how the journey had been, whether his injury was what she’d feared, how long he would be out of commission for. All of that had dropped away when Hadley saw me walking toward her after dismounting from that horse like I hadn’t been robbed of a leg and whole months of my life.

“Come on,” she said suddenly, taking me by the hand and leading me around to the back of her car. She popped the hatchback and shoved a couple of things aside before lying down, wriggling out of her jeans, pulling me toward her.

“Is this…is this okay?” I asked, hesitating.

“I just don’t want your brothers to see us. This is more than okay. Come on, Hunter Corbin. Fuck me.”

Christ. She was so straightforward it made me pause…even as my cock hardened again. I fumbled with my pants for a moment and frowned at her.

“What?”

“I haven’t done this since, well, since before I lost my leg.”

“You lost a leg, Marine, not a dick. Now fuck me with it. I’ve wanted it for a long time. Don’t make me wait anymore.”

She was defiant, as if she didn’t give a shit, and something about that was a huge turn-on. I pulled my cock out and shoved her underwear roughly aside, plunging into her body with not even a hint of foreplay. She gasped, and I thought I’d hurt her, but she just dug her heels into my lower back and dragged me forward, deeper into her.

“I said to fuck me. Don’t be a pussy about it.”

“I like it when you talk dirty,” I said, grinning at her, thrusting with each syllable as hard as I could. Fine. If she wanted it rough, I was going to give it to her rough. This was a celebration after all.

The car started rocking, but if Hadley cared, she didn’t say so. She wrapped her legs around my waist and squeezed, her inner muscles squeezing, too, both of us riding each other, grappling, fighting, fucking.

It was pure fucking. There wasn’t any romance to it, but maybe there didn’t need to be. This had been building ever since that first kiss, and it had reached a point neither of us cared to resist anymore.

She bit my nipple through my shirt and I howled, ratcheting up my thrusting, pounding into her, the car’s shocks squeaking in warning at our efforts. Hadley panted at me with an open mouth, her auburn hair messy, spread out in a halo behind her head, looking for all the world like a porn star, enjoying herself as only she could.

It was the hottest fucking thing I’d ever experienced.

“You’re going to come for me now,” she said, looking at me through her lashes, and my body seized in response. I gripped her with near-bruising force, gritted my teeth to keep from yelling, and filled her with my seed, well aware of the last time I’d come, wondering if we’d flood her car out, if I could end the drought on the ranch with this single act.

“Touch me,” she insisted even as I was still riding that wave, and I did, thrusting a few last times as I found her clitoris and pushed, working her until she reached between her legs and showed me how she liked it, keening as she reached the same mountain peak I did and tumbled down the other side of it.

I thought that would be it, that it would be a one and done deal, that Hadley would leave me after all that. But she was there the next morning, her hand grabbing at my cock right before we started rehab, squeezing, promising much more.

I was a lucky, lucky man.

Rehab took on an entirely new dimension. Hadley wanted me to work out before I took to the back of the horse, so we both got up well before dawn so she could direct me in my exercises.

“Fifty more lunges, then we’re going to fuck,” she said, sipping on some instant coffee.

I burst out laughing and quickened my pace on the lunges. That was an exercise I never thought I’d get to do again—the lunges and the fucking.

“Where are we going to do it?” I asked, out of breath but better than I had been doing. Slowly but surely, I was coming into my own again, reclaiming my body with the help of my new leg.

“You’re going to lift me up and push me up against this wall,” she said, jerking her thumb over her shoulder at the wooden wall behind her.

“I don’t know if I can do that.”

“You’re going to have to do that. I’m not lying down on the dirt floor.”

I was always so eager to please Hadley, always doing much more than I thought I could do because she told me I could do it. She had so much more faith in me than I had in myself, and I nearly splintered the barn wall pounding her against it.

Morning workouts turned into evening workouts—two-a-days, Hadley liked to call them—as soon as I got done with my chores on the ranch. Chance sent me riding along the fence lines to check for breaks and repair them, something I enjoyed. It was nice to be back in the saddle, galloping faster than I’d ever thought I’d be able to again. But as sore and tired as I was in the evening, I was always happy to oblige whatever exercises Hadley had in mind, always out in the barn, away from everyone else. She was just as demanding having sex as she was directing the rehab sessions, and I realized that as much as we were enjoying ourselves and each other, she always had exercise and strength building in mind.

“Doggy style,” she’d bark at me, exposing herself as she got on her hands and knees. That challenged my trust in the prosthetic’s microprocessor knee, working different muscles for balance and power.

“Sitting,” she’d say, already naked, dragging a chair across the dirt floor. That was another exercise, my calf and thighs burning as I thrust upward, pulling her down simultaneously, my hand on her breast, sure I’d never touched something so sweet.

“Standing,” she’d said, and I was even better at it than before, whipping her around to hold onto the wooden slats and hitting her at a new angle that made her gasp and grab at my head.

I was a red-blooded man. I loved the sexual workouts. But one evening, when she beckoned me out to the barn for our nightly rendezvous, I wagged my finger at her and beckoned her to the front porch steps, two beers in my fist.

“Don’t tell me you’re already tired of me,” she said, cocking her head at me as I sat down and patted the step beside me.

“Hell, no, woman,” I said, kissing her so deeply I could taste what we’d had for dinner. “Never. I thought that this would be nice, though, out here. Something different.”

“You’re tired.”

“I’m always tired. That’s what it is to be a rancher.” I kissed her lightly and smiled as she darted a glance over her shoulder. “Relax. If they’re not already asleep inside, they’re on their phones or watching TV. No one’s going to see us.”

“I’m not worried about that,” she said.

“Liar.”

“Okay, maybe we should slow things down a little.” Hadley took a long drink of her beer to avoid following that statement up with any sort of explanation.

“You mean only have sex once a day instead of twice? You’re the expert, but I think it’ll harm my recovery.”

It was a joke, but she sighed instead of laughed. “I just…I enjoy our time together, but I feel guilty.”

“Why? What’s there to feel guilty about? You’re helping me get stronger in every way imaginable. Can’t we enjoy ourselves in the process?”

“It’s just that Chance is continuing to pay my retainer every month.”

“So? You’re still working.”

“What if he were to see us…together?” She gulped again at her beer, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “He’d realize he was basically paying me to have sex with you, and that would make me probably about the world’s highest-paid prostitute.”

I laughed. “Oh, Hadley. Don’t worry about Chance. He’s oblivious.”

“It’s not just Chance,” she said. “You’ve made progress in leaps and bounds. As long as you keep up with your exercise and keep on working the ranch, you don’t need me to be here anymore.”

“That’s not true. I do need you.”

She shook her head. “You don’t. You know what you need to do to keep on getting stronger. You’re already so much more capable of being independent than when I met you. You’re ready to do it on your own.”

“What if I don’t want to do it on my own?” I countered.

Hadley smiled gently. “What, you want someone to wait on you your entire life?”

“I want someone I care about at my side, always,” I said, brushing her hair back away from her face. We didn’t have very many tender moments like this. With the rigors of the ranch and our demanding schedules, there wasn’t an opportunity beyond a couple of minutes after our sex sessions, curled up on the dirt floor, slowing our breathing together.

Hadley’s throat bobbed. “You want me to stay here. On the ranch. With you. Not working.”

“I know it’s selfish,” I said, grimacing. “I know you haven’t been working. You’re probably homesick for your fancy apartment, too. But a man can dream, can’t he?”

“You can always dream,” she said. “Your dreams might not always come true, though.”

“If you don’t want to be here with me anymore, just say it, Hadley.”

“It’s not that,” she said. “I…care about you, too, you know. More than I probably should, especially since you’re my patient.”

“You have very unconventional treatments,” I said suggestively, grinning.

“Effective, though, aren’t they?”

I had an awful thought that maybe she’d done this before—brought someone back from the brink with sex and caring and a whole shit show charade, but I dispelled that notion quickly. Hadley wasn’t like that. We had something that was real, that went beyond a physical therapist helping a man find himself again.

Or at least that’s what I thought we had.

“It’s a lot to think about, Hunter, that’s all I’m saying,” Hadley said after I might’ve been silent for a little bit too long. “You’re asking a lot of me, you know.”

“I know. But you’ve been consulting online, and I thought that if you liked that, maybe you’d like staying on here with me. Without the retainer. As my…” I struggled for the right word to say. Girlfriend seemed almost trite, but it wasn’t as if I were proposing marriage. I just didn’t want her to go anywhere, didn’t want her to leave me, and didn’t want to be alone when being together was such a beautiful thing.

“Can’t I think about it before giving you a definite answer?” she asked.

“Of course,” I said. “Think about it all you want.”

“What did you want to show me out here, anyway?” she asked, drinking her beer, her shoulders relaxing in relief that I wasn’t demanding an answer from her right now. What could I do to convince her to stay?

“I wanted to show you the stars,” I said. “I bet there are a lot more out here than you’re used to seeing in Dallas.”

She lifted her head to the sky to judge for herself, and I kissed the soft swell of her throat gently, nibbling a little at the skin there, eliciting a sigh of recognition. Sex was a territory both familiar and comforting to Hadley, one where she didn’t have to tiptoe around possible land mines. I couldn’t hide a smile. I was about to turn her world upside down.