ROMANCE: Lion Protector (Paranormal Shifter BBW Military Romance) (Shapeshifter Alpha Male Short Stories Book 2) (19 page)

IV.

Having been ordered to be off of the ranch within 72 hours before officers appointed by the court would begin to carry out the division of property, Buck had spent about as much time in his neighbor Charlie’s bunkhouse as he had wanted. A bottle of Tennessee’s finest whiskey, several of them, actually, had been his sole company during most of that time. Though Charlie had made attempts to console him and to try to take his mind off of what felt like nothing less than virtual sodomy to Buck, there wasn’t much of anything that could help him swallow the bitter pill that Denise and the courts had given him.

That afternoon with Karissa had turned into a night of passion that went far beyond any fantasy that he’d ever had. Like wild savages, they had ravished each other, giving way to pent up tension and raw emotions. Once those passions had been spent, however, there was only an awkward silence left between them, as rationality returned and each began to wonder if what they had just done had been a bad idea.

For Buck, the fact that he was losing his family’s spread and the hard work of four generations had finally hit and it fell onto his shoulders with the weight of a freight train. When he left Karissa’s office as the sun was dawning, his world was still dark. It stayed dark as he returned to the ranch and gathered the few things that the court had allowed him to have until the settlement orders were carried out. It hadn’t taken him 72 hours, but less than 12. The gut-wrenching sickness that hit him, simply wouldn’t allow him to linger any longer.

A thick wall went up between him and the world around him as he started up the pickup and drove out of the ranch yard. He hadn’t dared to look back and rub salt into the already raw wound. He’d gone directly to Charlie’s and crawled into his hiding place, keeping himself pleasantly unaware of any sort of feelings by use of a bottle.

The few times that he had actually answered the calls from Karissa had been too painful for the both of them to endure. The awkward silence between them hurt nearly as much as his loss. In time, even the playing out of that delicious fantasy that the two of them had fulfilled began to fade into dark oblivion along with every other happy moment his life had ever known. In time, even Charlie had given up on his attempt to bring him out of the funk that had overtaken him. Others, who had made a half-hearted attempt at cheering him up had also fallen short. Losing the most precious thing in his life had ripped the heart right out of him and there was no putting it back.

Karissa guided her Mercedes into the ranch yard of Charlie Sammons place, parking it in front of the house, opening the door and stepping out, scanning the numerous buildings in the hope of seeing someone to address, rather than simply snooping around the place until she found Buck. She knew that Buck was staying there, but she didn’t know much beyond that.

She understood, in a way, the reason that there was such a profound awkwardness between the two of them, but she simply couldn’t put off speaking to him any longer, especially because of the newest development in her life. As she was considering going up to the front door of the house, a voice called out to her from the direction of the barn. As she turned toward it, she saw Charlie strolling toward her.

“Miss McCall,” he said, extending his hand toward her.

Karissa accepted his hand. “I don’t mean to just barge right in.”

“It’s alright,” Charlie smiled. “I’m going to assume that you’re here to see Buck.”

She matched his smile, nodded, and then turned serious as she whispered. “How is he?”

“I ain’t gonna lie to you, Miss McCall,” Charlie responded with an equally serious expression spreading across his face. “He ain’t good.”

“I didn’t suppose that he would be,” she muttered.

“Well, maybe you can pull him out of it.” Charlie shook his head. “Lord knows that I’ve tried. A lot of people have tried. He just sits in there with a bottle. Once in a while, after dark, he’ll come out and sit on the porch to drink, but that’s about it. He drove to the liquor store a few times to resupply. My wife has taken food out to him pretty regular. Sometimes he eats it and sometimes she brings it back untouched. Most of us have just gone to leavin’ him be and hopin’ that he’ll snap out of it.”

Karissa didn’t know how to respond to what Charlie had just told her. If he was treating people that he’d known since birth the way that he was, what chance did she have of bringing him out of his funk? Especially, since the reason for his burden had been because of her failure in the courtroom. She had to talk to him. Had needed to talk to him for several days, but she hadn’t been able to summon the courage to make the trip out to Charlie’s ranch to see him until that morning. “Maybe this was a bad idea.”

Charlie shrugged. “Being as you drove all the way out here, you might as well give it a shot.”

It was hollow encouragement, but it was enough. What she needed to talk to Buck about was important and Charlie was right. She’d made the trip, so she might as well see it through to the end. “I’ll give it a shot,” she whispered.

“He’s right there, in the bunkhouse,” Charlie waved toward a small, log cabin with a board porch extending across the front of it about a hundred feet away.

Karissa closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them again, Charlie was already striding back toward the barn and leaving her to the task at hand. That first step in the direction toward the bunkhouse didn’t come easy, neither did several the several dozen more that it took to close the gap. The hardest ones, however, were the ones that she took to place her foot up onto the porch and make her way across it to the door. By that point, she had worked to block out all other thoughts and feelings and focused all of her attention on tending to the reason that she’d driven out to the ranch to see him. She turned the knob on the door and pushed it open.

Karissa lingered in the doorway a moment as the foul smell of booze mixed with sweat assailed her. The odor was so powerful that she had to fight down the bile rising in her throat. Bottles, clothes, dirty dishes, boxes, wrappers and any other item that one could possibly imagine being there, was strewn in every direction. The mess spoke volumes of what had happened to Buck Kaufman. It took some moments for her eyes to adjust to the darkness of the room, when they did, she made out the lifeless form of what she had once known to be a proud and confident man. She forced his name out of her throat. “Buck?”

Only half aware of his surroundings, Buck had heard a car drive into the ranch yard, heard voices in conversation and even heard the footsteps approaching. It wasn’t until he heard his name being whispered inside the doorway that any of it began to register fully. He looked toward the voice and saw the shapely form of Karissa in silhouette inside its frame. He was trying to work out if he was fantasizing or if she was real, when she spoke again.

“I need to talk to you,” she said, barely above a whisper.

“Ah, Karissa,” he moaned. “What is there left to be said between the two of us?”

“A great deal, actually,” she responded. His words and actions spurred her on. She decided to put the reason for her visit right out in the open and have it done with. “I’m pregnant.”

V.

Karissa’s words brought reality rushing into Buck’s foggy mind like the bursting of a dam. He sat up on the bunk and stared at her, unsure of how to respond. When he finally did, it was the only words that would form on his lips. “You’re pregnant?”

“Yes,” she answered simply.

Buck closed his eyes and shook his head in an attempt to clear away the effects of several weeks of drunkenness. With reality rushing in upon him rapidly, he was forced to try to regain some semblance of rationality. He looked around the cabin, suddenly embarrassed by its condition. She shouldn’t have had to see him like that. His mouth was dry and he glanced toward a half empty bottle on the table. He licked his lips and tried to force the thought of picking it up out of his mind. He had to get out of there. He had to get her out of there.

“Let’s go out on the porch,” he said, rising up from the cot and starting toward the door.

Karissa backed out of the doorway and waited for him to cross the small room. She had watched his foggy mind clear within the space of a minute. He hadn’t questioned whether or not he was the father. He had too much respect for her to even suggest anything different. The embarrassment in his eyes had registered next, as did his glance toward the bottle on the table. In that moment, she saw the first steps of his spirit returning to his empty shell.

Buck hadn’t spent much time in the sun since he’d buried himself inside the bunkhouse. Its bright rays had burned him as they contradicted the darkness that lingered around him. Stepping out onto the porch was a force of will, the likes of which he hadn’t seen in several weeks. He motioned her toward one of the two chairs on the porch and then lowered himself into the other, squinting against the light.

“How have you been?” he asked, trying to put a bold face on things. No doubt, she had moved on with her work and her life while he had been working at trying to erase and destroy his own.

“How have I been?” What the hell kind of a response was that? She had just announced that she was pregnant and he wanted to know how she had been. “You heard what I said, right?”

“Yeah, I did,” he responded. He knew that he’d gotten under her skin with his question. It had more or less slipped out. Maybe he ought to have asked another one, but his mind was still working on catching up. The truth of the matter was that he really wanted to know how she’d been. It was obvious how he’d been. He motioned with a thumb over his shoulder toward the door of the bunkhouse. “You can see what I’ve been doing. I hope you’ve been doing better than that.”

Karissa realized that he was sorting through things and that, in reality, his concern, in that moment, was for her. Though the question was a little bit too direct, it was a sign that Buck Kaufman was, once again, trying to be his old self. “Things could have been better for me too.”

Buck’s mind was beginning to catch up to the conversation. He wasn’t sure how she wanted him to proceed from that point forward, but he knew that he had to step up to the plate. He struggled with how to tell her that. “I, uh, I… I’ll take responsibility and do right by you.” The words came out hollow and he knew they weren’t the right ones, but they were the only ones that he could put together in that moment.

“I guess I don’t know what I was expecting you to say,” she replied. “But that wasn’t it.”

“Jesus, Karissa,” he began, and then softened his tone. “I’ve spent the last several weeks staring down the neck of a bottle while I tried to kill the ache of losing the ranch. There aren’t a lot of things in my future or even my present that are very clear to me right now.”

She knew he was speaking the truth. Maybe she had expected too much from the meeting. Over the past several weeks, she had sorted through her feelings about him and about the two of them. She had realized that, though they came from entirely different worlds and she was just beginning to understand his, she had grown to love him. The release of her pent up passion on the leather sofa of her office had been an enormous surprise to her, though, throughout the following weeks she had begun to see that it was inevitable.

Though things had become strange between them, she had understood that he was going to need some space and time to get over the enormous loss that he’d suffered. In reality, she too needed some time to work on her own guilt for being a part of that loss. Her hope had been that once they’d both settled things for themselves, they’d come back together again. She had been tossed into her own brand of confusion when she’d discovered that she was pregnant. It hadn’t come at a very good time for either of them.

She decided to make an attempt at doing what she’d seen him do so many times. Maybe it would loosen things up between them. “Hell of a time for me to be getting’ pregnant, huh?” she ventured. She knew that she’d said the right thing when she saw the corner of his upper lip twitch into a grin.

“I don’t suppose there’s ever a good time.”

She decided to answer his question. “I’ve been okay; neither good nor bad. I guess I’ve just forced myself to keep going, but I haven’t really been happy. Is that what you’re asking?”

“After a fashion, I suppose.” He looked up at her for a long moment without speaking. The emptiness that had been in his eyes was slowly filling up with life again. Being in the light wasn’t hurting as bad as it did before and being in her presence had provided some sort of healing power to him. The man who had crawled inside the bottle was coming back out and trying to stand up again. “You look a hell of a lot better than I do.”

He looked down at his filthy, sweat-stained t-shirt and jeans. He was suddenly aware of his own stench as well. As long as he was looking and smelling the way he was, he really couldn’t expect himself to really make the turn around. He was ashamed of himself. His failures had been a heavy load to bear, but to have collapsed under their weight the way he had was suddenly a hundred times worse to him. He couldn’t stand to continue sitting with her as long as he was in that condition.

“Can I as a favor?” he asked.

“Sure,” she responded, wondering what he could possibly want her to do for him.

“Can I ask you to get the hell out of here and let me clean up? This is embarrassing.”

Realizing how she would feel if their roles were reversed, she stood. “Jesus, Buck, I’m sorry. Maybe I should have called first.”

“No, you did the right thing,” he replied. “Just, let me get myself together and then I’ll come join you for dinner later.”

She took a step toward him to give him a hug, but he stepped back, refusing her. “Not right now.”

Disappointed, but fully understanding, she turned away and took several steps. She heard the screen door on the porch close behind her. She stopped and turned back. “Buck, I’ve fallen in love with you.” With that said, not waiting for a response, she hurried to her car.