The Bride Wore Starlight (9 page)

And once she did, she'd be entitled to a quarter of what she and Tim had owned together, if she was lucky. She'd effectively give up the home she'd created, all her possessions except the ones she could prove were her own and hadn't been lost in the accident, and any benefits she'd received from Tim's insurance. Nine months ago, when she'd gone to California with her mother to pack up her things, leave her husband, and come back to Paradise Ranch, she'd had a plan. She'd take over the management of Paradise Ranch and help her mother save the family legacy—which her father had left in financial straits.

All her plans had died in a split second of devastation and agony.

“You don't sound very happy about this.” Alec's voice was suddenly gentle. “Is the divorce something you want?”

She straightened and squared her shoulders. “You bet I want it. It was my idea. My husband is not a good man—he's cheated in more ways than one.”

“Is there a reason you haven't signed the divorce papers?”

She shrugged. “Pride. Despite being the one who broke up the marriage, he's winning everything and making me look like the bad guy. I'd like very much not to roll over and play dead, but I have no leverage. We were only married three and a half years, and he made most of the money.”

“Doesn't mean you can't fight him.”

“And drag it out forever? No. I want him gone. I just have to think a few days, and I'll have someone look over the papers to make sure I'm not missing something. Then it'll be done.”

“And you can move on.”

“I won't have much choice.”

“Hey.” He leaned forward over the table so he could get closer to her. She waited for him to touch her as he had the other day at Paradise, but he drew her eyes to his with no more than his voice. “It sounds like he's baggage you don't need. You've got a nice little place here and you'll do fine.”

Without warning, a dam on her emotions gave way and tears beaded in her eyes. From the moment Alec had arrived she'd been off balance, teetering between the reality that was her life and some unspoken fantasy he evoked about being swept away by a strong, handsome man who'd make everything bad disappear. But he wasn't a prince, and there was no white horse tied to a parking meter outside. She'd failed. Again. The real reason she hadn't signed the papers was that once she did, her marriage would be just another thing she'd killed.

“Hey, hey,” he said again. “What did I do this time?”

“Nothing.”

She swiped at her eyes and pushed her chair away from the table. Hanging onto her composure by a very short, thin thread, she reached her living room without sobbing. Such emotions were ridiculous—she wanted this. Wanted her independence. Wanted freedom from Tim's arrogant, dictatorial ways, and from the constant knowledge that she'd failed him. He wanted her so little that he'd gone to someone else and barely attempted to cover his tracks.

Alec was in front of her in seconds. Squatting at her knees, he placed a hand on each of her chair arms and held firmly so she couldn't push away.

“You aren't fooling me. This is about more than signing papers if they're something you want to sign in the first place.”

“It isn't about anything else, though.” She swallowed more tears. “Because of the papers, I . . . I have to find a new apartment. Tim has cut off the benefits as of June first, and that gives me barely three weeks to find someplace I can afford. I don't know why that got to me right here, right now. I've known about it since the morning of the weddings.”

“Oh. I'm sorry.”

He didn't say more for several seconds, but she could see the thoughts whirling through his brain. She braced for the inevitable platitudes, solution suggestions, and words of comfort, and promised herself she wouldn't deck him for telling her she could go live with her sisters because they had plenty of room, and she'd be okay.

“This is great!” he said.

She nearly fell out of her chair.

“Wha—?”

“It's a whole new world opening up for you, Joely
Crockett
. You can make any decisions you want. Go anywhere you like. Who's going to tell you what to do?”

The tiniest flutter of excitement fought through her panic. It flittered away as quickly as it had come.

“You know, you have this really annoying way of forgetting the special things I need to consider. It isn't exactly easy to find a place with wheelchair-friendly space, nursing assistants, and easy access to physical therapy—not to mention someone to get me around and pay for it all since I have no job.”

He stood and ran a hand through his hair. For the first time he looked slightly disgusted.

“Why do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Throw up a constant series of road blocks? What do you need a nurse for? Right this minute you're handling an unexpected guest perfectly well without anyone's help. Are you required to go to physical therapy at a certain place or time? Why not get back behind the wheel of a car and take yourself places? Get outside and take walks, strengthen that leg and get rid of the stupid chair. Find a damn job. You're smart, beautiful, and strong. Why are you letting this ass of a husband, since that's how you're describing him to me, keep you down even though he's not around? Or maybe he's not the reason you've given up so soon.”

“Given up?” She nearly rose out of the chair just to smack his smug, handsome face. He'd gone too far. “I don't know you. Every time I think I'm simply imagining how forward and arrogant you are, you come back with something more insulting than ever.”

“Has anything ever been truly hard for you, Joely Crockett?” He ignored her tirade as usual. “I think you've had it pretty easy up until now, and you don't know how to work hard. Or push past the pain.”

“I take it back.” Tears of pure anger clogged her throat. “You're beyond arrogant. What on this or any other planet gave you the idea you have any moral authority to lecture me on working hard or dealing with pain?”

He moved toward her again, slowly, his face twisted in painful apology. She waited expectantly for the words, pulling her crossed arms tightly to her chest in righteous indignation. But there was no “I'm sorry.” He took a seat on her sofa and extended his right leg. She pressed her lips together.

“I can show you my moral authority,” he said very quietly. “An IED in Iraq is what gave it to me.”

Without any other explanation or warning he pulled up his pant leg. Rising from the top of his right cowboy boot was a cold, gray, titanium post. Joely's head spun, her stomach lurched, and she dropped her head into her palms, folding in half in her chair as she began to sob.

H
E HADN
'
T MEANT
to spring it on her. He hadn't intended to tell her tonight at all; people who didn't know about his leg sometimes never found out. He let the leg of his jeans fall back down over his boot. This visit had never been meant as a chance for him to teach a lesson, as one-upmanship, or to shock Joely into feeling sorry for him. The only thing he'd wanted was to make up for the abrupt end to their evening the past Saturday.

But he'd found her to be so far into self-pity she didn't even know she had a problem. So far into it that a normal conversation hadn't even been possible. Everything they talked about somehow came back to how hard things were for her. And he completely understood. Three years before, he'd been right where she was. Now, however, he had sympathy but no patience for watching people give up. Joely was on the edge of a clifftop saying no to everything and trying to push away any semblance of her old life. The ground underneath her was giving way, and if it crumbled before she figured out how to step back and look around, she was going to fall.

What was going to save her was the spark she still held inside. He saw it clearly every time she got angry at him or when she forgot herself and laughed. It had burned the brightest when she'd asked to stay on the floor for one final dance song. That's when he'd known she wasn't really stuck in the chair. And why, when she'd done nothing tonight but throw up excuses, he'd lost his cool.

He let her shock from seeing the prosthetic so unexpectedly wear off, saying nothing but watching her face turn from white to green. He'd seen every reaction possible to his leg, from abhorrence to sympathy to interest, and everyone started out somewhere on the sliding scale of surprise. Joely also had guilt to deal with, since she'd been berating him for his unwanted advice. She didn't need to feel guilty, but her sickly looking skin wasn't from revulsion. He'd seen plenty of that, too.

Finally her cheeks soaked up a little normal color from the oxygen in her calming breaths, and Alec put a hand on Joely's thigh. He leaned forward until he could nearly touch his forehead to hers.

“You okay? You looked a little green for a couple seconds.”

“I can't believe you kept that a secret. I . . . ” She rubbed her eyes and dragged her palms down her cheeks as if to try and wipe away the emotional exhaustion from the past few moments.

“Nearly everybody who followed my rodeo career knows why it came to an end. A few don't, though, and neither do most people I meet for the first time. Depending on how long I think I'm going to be with the person, I'll let them know about it or not.”

“So I'm on the ‘doesn't need to know' list.”

“On the contrary. It was just a matter of timing. I didn't come here tonight to show it to you.”

“Why not? Wouldn't that have made our conversation a little less—”

“Snarky?”

“Maybe. I'd have had more sympathy. I'd have given you more leeway.”

“Leeway to harass you?” He smiled.

She wasn't ready to smile yet. She stared at his right thigh. “I'm sorry.”

“I'm not looking for sympathy. I'm not looking for anything.”

“And yet, here you are, with a bionic leg and me who feels two inches tall.”

“I don't like to see people give up on doing what they want to do. You had a problem for every solution tonight, and I didn't like seeing that in you.”

“Oh, what do you care?” She looked down at her lap. “God, Alec, you lost your leg?”

He winked. “I guess I did. And I do care, or I'd have just kept letting you act like a little wounded bird.”

“Isn't that what I am?”

“You were. Now you're just a woman with a challenge. Or two.”

She ignored his micro-lecture this time. “But I couldn't tell you have a challenge. I mean you just can't tell! Even dancing.”

“It wasn't easy to get to the place where anybody said that. And that's my point. You still
have
your leg. Quit whining that it doesn't work right and
make
it work.”

“I don't think it's—”

“There you go again. Don't say don't. Don't say nobody understands. Don't say you need a nurse or a bus or a driver or anything else. Just say ‘I want to do it myself.' ”

“Look. I will never live up to what you're asking me to do. So you have your life together. Score for you. We don't even
know
each other—why are we having this mortifying conversation?”

His voice lost a little of its strident punch, and his words softened when he spoke again. What didn't change was his forthright delivery.

“Because you need a friend who won't bullshit you. You can't win this one on your looks and talent, but you can win. I only know that whoever's been helping you isn't helping you anymore.”

“You don't mince words do you?”

He laughed and waggled his brows, letting a little of his swagger back in. “I only pull punches with hopeless cases. Pretty lady, you ain't one of those. And you certainly aren't an ass.”

Her face went blank then, and her blue eyes dulled as if she'd shuttered them to ignore the world while she processed it. He stood up, walked to the eating area, grabbed the two bottles of cider, and returned to her. She didn't look up, but he put one bottle in her hand.

“I'd give you whiskey, but I haven't got any.”

“I do.”

His brows shot up again. “Seriously?”

“Our dad taught us all to drink whiskey. He might have had six girls, but by gosh they weren't going to be any sissy girlies drinking little red fruity drinks all the time.” Her voice remained flat, but at least the words were about what she could do rather than what she couldn't.

“So here I bring you a wimpy drink.”

“No. This is an acceptable alternative to beer. Even though we all like Scotch, we don't all like beer.”

“And you?”

“In the ‘like' group.”

“I brew my own. My dog likes it.”

“You have a dog?”

“Do you like dogs?”

“Kids born on ranches are required by law to like dogs. And horses.”

“Good. Then, yes, I have an enormous dog who likes beer. And pretzels. And vegetables. It evens out.”

The first glimmer of light returned to her eyes. It wasn't a spark, but the shutters were cracking open.

“What's his name?”

“Her. Rowan. An Irish wolfhound mixed with, I don't know, elephant I think.”

“Sounds, uh, interesting.”

“She's adorable.”

Joely eyed him skeptically. “Really? You said ‘adorable'?”

“Even one-legged soldiers can be sappy about some things.”

She still wasn't ready for the joking, which she proved by letting her features close down again.

“How much of your leg?” The question came out in a near whisper.

“Did I lose?”

She nodded and swallowed, her hands folded in her lap, her gaze not quite steady on him.

“From seven inches below my knee.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Don't be. It's been three and a half years. I'm used to it.”

“So tell me. What am I supposed to do with this knowledge—that you're the better man? Am I supposed to magically change my attitude and be a new person? Suddenly everything is amazing and golly gosh I can do this after all?”

One of her hands clutched the neck of her cider bottle, the other the plastic arm of her wheelchair. Both sets of knuckles shone white through the skin as if she held onto what was familiar for dear life.

“First thing is down that drink. Give yourself a nice little relaxing buzz this once, and then swear to me you'll never drown your sorrows in alcohol again. That's another thing I have the moral authority to lecture on—it doesn't work.”

She took a swig and he followed suit, letting the tart-sweet fizz of the fermented apples slip easily down his throat.

“What if I want you to leave so I can process all this?”

“Then I'm out of here. No questions. No hard feelings.” He started to stand.

“I didn't say that's what I wanted for sure.”

He relaxed back into the cushions. “Okay. Then what you do next is nothing. Or you ask me questions. Or you make a list of the ten things you have to do first to get ready to move. And you talk to Gabe. Helping people through this kind of thing is what he does.”

Her new brother-in-law was a patient advocate at the hospital here on the VA complex. In fact, being her advocate was what had led him to Mia. He definitely knew his way around the system.

“He'll know soon enough,” she said. “He's a gem, and I wouldn't have gotten through this without him, but he's so busy right now. He and Mia are building their house, and while Harper and Cole are gone, they're running the ranch, too. Plus he has the veterans and the wild horses.”

Gabe ran a special program for veterans suffering from PTSD and traumatic brain injuries. He and Mia had discovered that working with wild mustangs held almost magical healing powers with the vets, but administrating the program took up hours of time.

“You probably don't know my connection to Gabe yet, either,” Alec said.

“Just that you were army buddies.”

“He was my CO during my first tour in Iraq. He was already home here when I went back to the Middle East for the second time as a civilian contractor in 2012, but he searched me out when I came back wounded. They transferred me here from Minneapolis, and he was a godsend. I was where you are now only twice as deep into my hole. He set me and one other guy up in housing and got us looking for jobs. He got the idea for the intensive small group program he runs from those first six months with us.”

“You inspired him.”

“Nah, he inspired us. And created success out of nothing with guys like me. That's all I want to pass on—a little of what I learned. And the first lesson is—ask for help but don't expect it—ask for exactly what you need, not a genie to generally fix everything.”

“After knowing me for the equivalent of hours you've decided that? You must think I'm a stunningly horrible person.”

“I think you're stunning, period. And confused. And scared. You don't even know what to ask for.”

She didn't reply. For a long time neither of them said another word. He had no way of knowing what was going through her head, but he had time to study her. He could see the former beauty queen in her thin frame. Based on the pictures he'd seen, she'd lost weight after her accident and hadn't recovered yet. Not that he judged anyone on body score—he'd evolved that far since his youth. Still, he hadn't lied to her when he'd told her she was stunning. Slight and bordering on waiflike though she was, Joely still had the curves to spark a man's libido and an underlying strength that she hid but made her intriguing as a mystery.

It had been a long time since he'd allowed a woman to capture his interest. He had no appetite anymore for his “Mayhem” days or the parade of women who'd loved cowboys and stroked his ego. He also had no interest in the closeness of a one-woman relationship. You had to put your heart on the line in a relationship, and you had to protect it. He was done being in the position of protecting someone he loved. When he loved someone, they always ended up lost to him. His interest in Joely stemmed from nothing more than their similar injuries and his desire to help her get her life back the way Gabe and so many others had helped him. The quivers of pleasure that seemed to grow stronger each time he looked at her were just a bonus. He could appreciate satiny, dark blonde hair, long-lashed blue eyes, and a laugh that rang like an angel's as much as any man.

“You're right.” Her voice barely crossed the short distance between them. “I
don't
know what to ask for. I need to tell my family what's going on, but they'll just fuss and hover, and I hate that.”

“That's a good start, not wanting your family to fuss. So—decide exactly what you do want. Right now you say you don't want to put anyone out and you don't want hovering, but you're waiting for them to come to you anyway and suggest solutions. Ask them for the things you want and nothing else.”

“I don't know what I want.”

“Sure you do. You want to be able to do what you did before. So, make a list.”

Another very long silence descended, and Alec said nothing to make her hurry. He'd lectured her enough for one night, and if he ever wanted to see her again he would be leaving soon.

“I think I might want to be alone.”

Even though her words mirrored his thoughts, they still stung coming from her first. This was different from him having the foresight and courtesy to leave on his own. He nodded and worked to keep his features easy and pleasant.

“I can understand.”

“I'm sorry. It's rude. I just . . . I don't know.”

His disappointment vanished. Misery and confusion filled her face, and he'd put it there. He remembered well the feeling of despair when he'd first confronted the need to quit feeling sorry for himself and make his life work again. He stood, took the bottle of cider from her hand, and set it on a little end table beside the couch. As gently as if he were scooping up two baby birds, he took her hands. They disappeared into his grasp, and he rubbed his thumbs over her knuckles, amazed at the soft skin and dismayed by their limp fragility. She'd been so sure and alive at the wedding. For all too short a time she'd been strong and free. He prayed she'd find the strength again soon.

“You have so much to think about. Don't worry. I can promise you things will work out.”

“You would know.”

“Joely.” He made her look at him. Her eyes revealed only exhaustion. “I didn't reveal my leg to lord it over you or make a statement about moral authority. You have to do things because you want to, not because I said there's only one way to do them.”