The Cowboy Rescues a Bride (Cowboys of Chance Creek) (2 page)

She was safe. No one wanted to hurt her here.

Fila took deep breaths like Autumn had taught her—in through her nose and out through her mouth. Still the fear rolled over her, her stomach pitching and tossing like a ship on the waves. When she couldn’t stand it anymore, she sunk to the floor to crouch on her knees, her fingers sliding from their handholds until she was balled up on the hard wood, her arms wrapped around her chest, her shoulder pressed against the cabinets that supported the butcher block island where she’d begun to work.

She fought back the tears that threatened to fall and swallowed past the burning lump in her throat. She couldn’t even sing. The Taliban had taken that from her just like they’d taken everything else.

She couldn’t sing, she couldn’t laugh, she couldn’t venture out past her front door without feeling like she’d pitch up the contents of her stomach at any moment.

Fear was her constant companion, just as it had ever been in the little village in Afghanistan. She’d thought she’d outrun it. She’d thought she’d conquered it during her flight home.

But it had followed her here and refused to give up its grip on her life.

She couldn’t let it beat her. She couldn’t let them win—those wiry men with piercing eyes and furious tempers, with their diatribes against everything and everyone and their need to hem her in, cut her down, dictate her every move, steal her words, steal her parents, steal her home—

Fila lurched to her feet again, damned if she would let them control her now. She leaned on the counter, not caring that the flour had tipped over, not caring that her clothes were dusted in white. She lifted her voice again, softly but at least out loud—at least audible, if only to her. She raised her voice again, catching the chorus as it came around a third time, pairing her words to the singer’s, her tones to the melody coming out of the iPod dock.

As her hands shook, her stomach cramped and tears ran down her cheeks, she sang along until the song ran out. Then she dashed for the bathroom and heaved until her stomach was as empty as it ever was on a snowy day in the middle of the Hindu Kush mountains of northeastern Afghanistan.

‡
Chapter 2

L
uke dropped an
envelope on Ned’s workbench in his mechanics shed about a half hour before lunch. Taller than Ned, but somewhat slighter, he was barely a year younger than him. They’d been the middle ones, sandwiched between bossy Jake and trickster Rob. People liked to think of the Matheson boys as a unit—the way they’d appeared when they were kids forced by their mother to attend church. Four blond boys in a row like stairsteps, each a year apart from the next in line. Ned had separated himself from the others by his penchant for trouble. Luke had gone in the other direction. He was upright, a hard worker, rarely fussed or complained, and saw the whole world in terms of black and white. People had a tendency to forget about Luke. Ned knew part of his own hair-trigger temper when he was younger was a desire for people not to forget about him.

“Enjoy,” Luke said and turned back to the door.

“What the hell is that?” Ned eyed the large envelope suspiciously.

“Feed supplement order. You place the order online, of course—that’s just the catalog and a reminder of what we’ve ordered in the past.

“That’s Mom’s job.”

“Jake did it until now.”

“So give it to him.” Ned turned his back on the envelope. Wasn’t going to do him any good, since he couldn’t read its contents.

“You’re in charge of the herd, as you keep reminding all of us. So you’re in charge of the feed supplement order.” Luke walked out of the shop and slammed the door behind him.

Ned felt his anger flare. He knew damned well that Luke could send this order in if he wanted to. For that matter, Jake hadn’t even started classes at Montana State yet, one of the reasons he’d stepped down from managing this place. He could do it in a matter of minutes as a favor to them. If not him, then Rob or his mother, Lisa, could place the order.

Luke was deliberately giving him a hard time. This was his way of showing Ned that his grip on the reins of this operation was tenuous at best. Luke wanted the job as much as Ned had ever wanted it. Ned shook his head. He should have expected something like this. He wouldn’t get help from Luke—or Rob or Jake, for that matter. His mother would be sympathetic, but going to her would open up a whole new can of worms. Would she try to convince him to sign up for tutoring again? Or drag him to one of those doctors she was always on about?

Lisa was the only one who didn’t accept his dyslexia as a done deal. Everyone else in the family knew he couldn’t read and never would. No one outside of his family knew about his difficulty at all.

He hoped.

A familiar tightness gripped his chest at that possibility, but he forced himself to remain calm. No one knew and no one would ever know. That was that. But his dyslexia had dogged him his entire life and he could see that taking charge of the ranch wasn’t going to change anything. It might just make things worse.

In his younger days he’d used his fists to cover up his deficiencies. At school he was always fighting until he’d finally dropped out. As a young man, those fights continued. Nothing stopped questions faster than fear. He’d been feared for the power of his punches and his hair-trigger temper.

Funny how no one seemed to notice that he’d changed.

He was still ill-tempered some of the time, he’d grant them that. But when was the last time he’d used his fists? When was the last time Cab Johnson—the county sheriff—had dragged him home? When was the last time he’d given anyone any grief?

Except his brothers, who hardly counted.

And deserved it.

He’d stopped all that, thanks to a timely word from Cab himself about a year ago, when he lost Boomer, the last in a line of yellow labs that he’d favored since he was a kid. Boomer had been his best friend for years—the kind of dog that was never more than a few feet away from him unless he’d been ordered to stay while Ned left the ranch. The kind of dog that waited patiently for his return and leaped with happiness every time he did. The kind of dog that rode in the front seat of his truck on errands, lay at the end of his bed at night, and was alert to his every mood and movement from sunup to sundown. Boomer had loved him just because he was Ned. No questions asked. No judgments given. He’d been old and slowing down when Ned had lost him, but he would have lasted another year at least.

If Ned hadn’t taken him to town, let him off the leash and turned his back. He didn’t know why Boomer had seen fit to cross the road just as Henry Dillon took the corner of Main and First a little too fast. Boomer’s end was swift—over before the dog could feel the pain.

But Ned had felt the pain.

He didn’t know what happened next, except suddenly the baseball bat that had been rattling around in the bed of his truck for months was in his hands, and the windows of Henry’s Chevy were all busted out, glass scattered far and wide across Main. Henry himself was backing away, his hands stretched out in supplication, pleading for him to come to his senses.

Just for a moment—just for one moment, Ned had considered what else he could do with that bat.

And then he saw his future as clear as day in one blinding flash of insight—the kind he rarely had in life. If he took this step it was good-bye ranch, good-bye family, good-bye cattle and pastures and horses and dawns breaking over a landscape so big it seemed God could hardly hold it in his hands.

Good-bye Sunday dinners at his parents’ dining room table, good-bye Thursday poker and pool, good-bye aching shoulders and the peace that comes after a twelve-hour day in the mud and muck of a spring washout fixing a downed fence.

Good-bye newborn calves struggling to take their first wobbly steps toward their mothers’ milk. Good-bye sunrises and sunsets and sunrises and sunsets, and all the days between that made up each year.

He’d dropped the bat just as Cab swerved around the corner in his sheriff’s cruiser, stepped out and surveyed the scene.

He didn’t want to give up his life—not any of it. He didn’t want to hurt anybody, either. He couldn’t walk this path anymore.

Cab must have seen something of his thoughts in his eyes. He should have arrested Ned and hauled him up to see a judge. With all his priors, Ned should have spent some time in jail.

Instead, Cab gripped his bicep with fingers that could have snapped his arm in two, stepped into Ned’s personal space and said, “One more time.”

Ned had nodded. He knew exactly what Cab meant. He had one more chance to get it right. One more chance to become the man he knew he could be. One more chance to learn another way of dealing with the heartbreak and pain life threw at you.

One more chance, or he’d be locked up for a good, long time.

Ned had grabbed that chance with two hands and was holding on for dear life. Especially now that Fila had come to Chance Creek.

He put his tools away carefully, tucked the envelope under his arm, and left the shop to make his way back to his cabin. He’d take a look at the contents when he was alone. Maybe he could piece together the information he needed from the catalog’s pictures. Maybe he could read just enough of the words to figure it out.

Or maybe it would remain as much a mystery as a foreign language, he thought disgustedly.

Or maybe Fila could help.

With that thought buoying him up, he increased his pace, already anticipating the meal to come.

By the time
Ned came through the door for lunch, Fila had herself under control again. She’d sobbed until she’d run out of tears, then taken a shower, scrubbed her face until it burned, washed her hair and rebraided it, got dressed in clean clothes and tried again.

This time she didn’t sing along to the music, but she kept it on, absorbing the words and rhythms and melodies, hoping against hope that they would crowd out the haunting Afghan tunes that had filled her head for the past decade.

She still managed to have the
bolani
ready for Ned’s meal when he came home from morning chores. He burst through the door in a wash of cold, fresh air that braced her up.

“Be right there.” He tossed a large envelope on the sofa in the living room, kicked off his boots, hung up his jacket and cowboy hat and headed for the bathroom. A few minutes later they were seated at the table, and Fila served him several
bolani
flatbreads and passed a container of spiced yogurt to use as a dip.

As she sat down in her chair, she felt Ned’s gaze on her and she knew he had noticed the signs of her earlier tears by the way his mouth went hard. He didn’t say anything, though. Just fell to eating with a relish that made her heart warm. Ned liked her cooking. He liked the way she kept his home. He did a million little thoughtful things to show her that he was pleased.

He never, ever yelled or hit or pinched or punched—no matter what she did. Fila knew that was supposed to be a given, but it wasn’t. Not in her experience.

“I had to feed the cattle twice as much as usual this morning. Sure is cold out there.”

Fila nodded. She’d seen the cattle come out from their sheltered hideouts in the brush to eat their hay this morning. They’d stood patiently in the uncomfortable weather and eaten their fill. Ned had explained that digesting the tough hay actually helped increase their body temperatures.

“We’re still on for dinner tonight, aren’t we?”

Fila set the piece of flatbread she was eating down on her plate and wiped her hands on the napkin that lay across her lap. She’d hoped Ned would forget about that.

“Yes,” she said finally, but she dreaded the outing.

“It’ll be great, you’ll see,” Ned said. “The food at DelMonaco’s is terrific. Almost as good as yours.”

She tried to smile.

“Besides, I want to show you something. Something you’re really going to like.”

“What?” Her voice was thin and she wanted to try again, but that seemed silly. She knew she had to practice talking as much as she needed to practice singing, though, so she cleared her throat. “What do you want me to see?”

“It’s a surprise,” Ned said. “You’ll like it, though. I know it.” He held up a flatbread. “These are terrific, like always. My favorite.”

“I know.”

“The house looks great. What are you going to do this afternoon?”

Fila shrugged. The usual. Listen to her music. Watch television. Autumn had encouraged her to watch as much as she could to catch up with everyone else after her ten year absence. She was beginning to understand pop culture again and while she found she had to avoid the news and violent dramas or risk flashbacks, she enjoyed women’s talk shows and had even gotten hooked on a soap opera. It passed the time and made her feel like she had company, even if in reality she was alone.

Sometimes Ned’s mother came over for a chat, or invited her over to the main house on the spread to spend time there, but Lisa seemed to understand that made her feel uncomfortable. The older women in the village she’d left behind were sometimes as bad as the men. Or worse. Lisa was so kind and sweet, Fila hated herself for the way her words dried up in her throat around her. Her reaction was yet another indication of how much her fear had a hold on her. Fila knew she was healing, bit by bit and step by step.