The Bride Wore Starlight (25 page)

H
E HADN
'
T HAD
the dream in a long time. It was one of the indicators that his two years of therapy had been helpful—the nightmares had stopped. Tonight, however, he could see the surface of sleep through a field of fire and destruction, just out of reach, as if he had to swim through the pictures to reach wakefulness. He didn't want to get anywhere near the fiery images, and he tried to stay under, to push further down, but the currents dragged him upward.

“Alec, man, I'm sorry. I'm sorry we missed him. You okay?”

“Yeah, sure, of course.”

“You want me to drive?”

Tell him yes. Yes. Switch places with him goddammit.

“Nope. No, it's good, gives me something to concentrate on. Thanks.”

Buzz was dead. Gone. No body, no hope. They'd missed him by a week. The insurgents had arrived the damn day he'd landed in the country. It had taken five precious days to start his job, contact his old unit, tell them what he knew. They'd taken him with them, against all regulations—a civilian embedded.

“Alec you sure you okay, buddy?”

He wasn't fucking okay. But he needed to drive. He needed to hit every hateful pothole and . . .

Screams tore into his ears before the shrapnel slammed his body. Light seared his eyes, took away all sight. How ironic was that? Darkness out of light. The world rotated way too quickly so many times he lost count at two. Or three. His head. His neck. God, his leg.

“Pritch? Sandman? Morse?”

Nothing.

Petroleum. In his nose. In his mouth. And copper—an ugly vomit-inducing taste. He finally caught sight of an opening in the smoke. He tried to move. It worked. He wriggled free of his seatbelt. He noticed in passing that the steering wheel was gone. Huh. Convenient.

“Morse? Pritch? Sandman?”

He cleared the smoke field.

He knew for sure he was dreaming. He could see the surface of his dream much closer now, and it made no sense to try to go back into deep sleep even though he knew what was coming.

But the dream took a turn.

Hands reached through the burning Humvee, like a ghost beckoning for him. Not the disembodied hands of Frank Pritchett and Harry Sands, but real, solid, living hands. Grabbing for
him.

He reached back, indescribably relieved for the help. Up and up he went until he woke above the chaos. Safe in his bedroom. Safe in front of Aunt Chris and Uncle Rick. “Thank heavens you were there,” he said. “Thank you. It's so good to see you.”

“How could you fail us?” Aunt Chris asked. “You promised you'd bring him back.”

“You brought back the wrong son,” Uncle Rick said, sobbing violently into a tissue.

Alec swiveled his head to take in his surroundings. It looked like his bedroom. What were they doing here?

“I couldn't bring him back.” He tried to touch his uncle's shoulder, but he kept moving just out of reach. “They took his body and they . . . ”

To this day he had no idea what the insurgents had done with the bodies of those they'd killed.

“You promised,” Uncle Rick said. “You promised. You promised. You prom—”

Alec awoke fully with a jolt that lifted his torso what felt like ten inches off the bed. He landed back into the mattress with an audible grunt and stared wildly around the room. His aunt and uncle were gone. He lay back, exhausted, and concentrated on yoga breathing. It was the only yoga he did or ever planned to do, but his therapist had insisted he learn three different techniques. They worked.

It wasn't hard to figure out this dream's trigger.

Your dead cousin?
Joely had blurted earlier that night.

He'd realized at her words that he never referred to his cousin as dead. He was Buzz. Past tense, yeah, but always as if he might, nonetheless, walk through the door any moment. But Buzz
was
dead, and even though Alec had given up rodeo in penance because it was his fault Buzz had lost it forever, too, he was very fuzzy at the moment as to what purpose a promise to a dead man served.

Slowly the purpose solidified—it always solidified at some point—as the sleep cleared from his brain. The purpose was to pay his uncle back the only way he could. He'd only cried twice since Buzz's death. Once at the funeral. The second time when he'd first faced his uncle after returning from Iraq and heard his fateful words.

“You brought back the wrong son.”

He'd cried because he'd agreed. At the very least, Alec should have turned over control of the Humvee to one of the others and been one of the passengers killed. He'd had no business driving as distracted as he'd been. Hell, maybe he'd have seen the damn IED if—

He stopped the downward spiral of thoughts and climbed out of bed. This would not be his third time to cry. It also wasn't a time to curl up and analyze the dream or face his fears as he'd been taught to do. He knew what he wanted, what he needed to do. He'd lost his family, but he had a chance to help Joely keep hers. If he loved her, he could help her reach her dreams. He could get her back to
her
rodeo.

At six o'clock in the morning it was too early to call anyone to make plans, but he could start on his own. He dug out a map Gabe had given him of Paradise Ranch—a simplified drawing Harper had worked up for guests and students of her art classes and retreats who might want to take excursions deeper into the ranch. Minutes later he was engrossed in scoping out the geographical and physical features of the Crocketts' land.

“I'
LL BE BACK
at two!” Harper waved from her car and left Joely on the sidewalk in front of her apartment building.

One nice thing about her sisters: now that Joely had her apartment set up, the other girls offered to help all the time but backed away if Joely claimed it wasn't needed. She said she could walk with her crutches just fine to her front door, and Harper believed her. Other overprotective people, she thought with a little dart of desire through the stomach, weren't so easy to get rid of.

Alec.

Not that wanted to get rid of him.

In fact, she wished there was a way to get closer and break down the few but substantial walls he still lived behind. She didn't know if he'd ever let them crack much less crumble, but she wasn't ready to give up on him. And to be fair, she had her own walls. They were slightly more transparent than his, but solid nonetheless.

She looked into the robin's egg sky and squinted at the sugar-white clouds dotting it. Perfect kids' clouds, she thought. The kind that made shapes. There was an elephant—it made her think of Rowan. She picked out an ice cream cone—that made her think of kissing Alec. One cloud looked like a . . . oh, for crying out loud, something that made her think about way more than kissing.

She dropped her gaze quickly and turned for her house. She didn't even want to think about making love with Alec. Well, that wasn't exactly true. What she actually didn't want to think about was him making love to her. Oh, crap. That wasn't precisely true either.

She reached her door and dug her key out of her purse. What she didn't want to think about was him
looking
at her while they made love. She knew what he'd see—an underweight woman with anemic curves, breasts that were adequate but so far from her Miss Wyoming days it hurt to think about, one leg that had been flattened atop the thigh and crushed in the calf and was now striped with three, yard-long scars to match the meandering white and pink line on her face.

Romance novels always fixed scars by having the man kiss them tenderly, thereby rendering them beautiful. That was the very last thing Joely wanted. In fact, she feared that reaction from Alec more than she did revulsion. She imagined herself nauseated at the first touch of his lips to any spot of twisted, shiny skin.

But maybe he wouldn't. He hadn't done it yet. In all their amazing time together, he'd never once kissed or licked or otherwise paid attention to the scar on her cheek. Most of her wanted desperately to give him the chance not to notice them on the rest of her body, but the part of her that never wanted him to see her leg without pants was a tough, strong, fearful little part, and it had the rest of her cowed.

Of course, there was also the possibility that, after yesterday, Alec wouldn't want to see any part of her at all. In the words of her father's favorite clichéd phrase, she'd been a piece of work all day.

She seemed to have no control over her moods. She'd done better in full-time rehab and assisted living. Everything had run on a schedule. No thought. No stress. No crankiness.

There had been depression—strong, deep, unclimbable cliff faces of depression. To her credit she'd never once considered ending her life, but she'd definitely considered moving to a monastery in Tibet and refusing all visitors.

She pushed into her apartment and basked in the sweet surprise of familiarity. Hers. Her pictures on the wall. Her chosen pillows on the old sofa. Her table. Her bed.

Bed again.

Alec.

Stop it!

She laughed out loud at herself, but then it dawned on her that thinking about Alec and sex was depression-free fun. It was not anxiety-free, but it was
definitely
on the fun end of the emotional spectrum.

And today was a better day, just as Alec had predicted. The whole thought of Eli Crockett's unethical acquisition of his first piece of land still pained, but the sun was out and she had a long morning planned. There was no time to dwell on Paradise Ranch's past.

Instead she concentrated on repairing the damage from her huge, embarrassing whine fest the night before. If she wanted to stop whining, stop worrying about her future, stop having to rely on rides everywhere, she needed further independence. Independence required her own vehicle. To ever get one of those, she needed a job.

She'd spent the morning finding five possibilities in the tiny
Wolf Paw Pass Pioneer
want ads, all within walking distance of her apartment. The most desirable was a receptionist and administrative assistant's position in the local real estate office that would pay sixteen dollars an hour. She'd known the two owners for years, and she felt confident she could handle the position. Another job was at the yarn shop, one at the small grocery store on the far end of Mountain Street, a fourth at a storefront women's gym, and finally, a last resort right above her in the thrift shop.

She had her route planned so she could use her crutches and not her wheelchair, which she figured would make for less dramatic entrances. She dressed in a pair of dark purple dress slacks that hung on her hips now, a white silk blouse with a modest open collar, and a patterned, pink-purple-and-red, short-waist jacket she'd always loved. She camouflaged her scar and highlighted her lipstick, and by the time she left, optimism practically oozed from her pores. Today she would finally accomplish something worthwhile.

Two hours and three very friendly interviews later, her pores produced nothing but frustration and sweat in the form of rivulets down her spine. The admin position had been filled. The grocer took one look at her and sorrowfully explained that the job required long periods of standing, some lifting, and ladder climbing, and could she handle the physicality? She'd asked question after question, but in the end, it simply wasn't a practical job for her. Two other positions had also already been taken—the receptionists at both the gym and the yarn shop, Have You Any Wool? To her sorrow, there'd been a second job opening there for a knitting instructor. Her grandmother would cluck at her lack of qualifications for that one. Sadie had been trying to teach all her granddaughters to love knitting their entire lives. Five of the six could make a passable garment or blanket, and Grace had inherited Grandma Sadie's exquisite talent. Joely was the last-place sister in that lineup. Her basic garter stitch scarves were warped disasters, and it was sad. Who couldn't knit a row, purl a row?

All that had been left was the thrift store option. Kitty Carlson had tearily and with great hopefulness offered her the job on the spot. Kitty, a heavyset woman of great, sincere feeling, was lovely, but Joely wasn't certain after talking with her that she could handle the emotional coziness. She'd told her she had several more interviews and would get back to her.

Traversing the length of Mountain Street had led her to a bench just outside Dr. Ackerman's veterinary clinic. The little storefront window was charming, with a series of animal silhouettes marching across the bottom of the picture window and friendly but professional lettering spelling out Wolf PAWS Pass Veterinary Clinic. Subtitling below it read Hooves, Claws, Feathers, and Scales Also Welcome.

Joely smiled. The neat brick matching so many other buildings in town, the picture on the door of a welcome sign hung around the neck of a whinnying foal, and the door handle, shaped like a gecko, all made the little business friendly and enticing. Anyone would want to bring a beloved pet here.

The door opened and Sheila Ackerman stepped through. To Joely's surprise she waved and beckoned. “I saw you sitting here, and you look hot and thirsty. Come on in, I've got iced teas or waters in the refrigerator.”

“Hey, Thanks, Sheila. That's awfully nice of you.”

After she had a cold bottle of iced tea in hand, Joely sat in one of the comfy purple armchairs in the narrow lobby. Sheila, a tall woman with black-rimmed glasses and a mop of pretty strawberry blonde curls, was maybe ten years Joely's senior. She'd started her practice fresh out of vet school and had been a favorite in the area from day one. An all-around practitioner, she really could treat anything from a hamster to a llama.

“I've wanted to call you and check up on that little guy you delivered last week. When I spoke to his owner last, the foal was doing well?”