The Reluctant Bride (Montana Born Brides) (10 page)

Risa enjoyed the muffin and the coffee that Monty had provided, but she
’d noticed that since he’d saved her bacon when she fell off the horse, he was contemplative. She had no idea what to say. This was different than when they’d first met. He’d been gregarious, always with a quip or a comment. This morning, with the sun slowly peeking over the mountain and the mist dissipating, it felt different.

“
I like this place. It was even worth that horrible horse ride to get out here,” she said. “Is this your property?”

“
No. This is Lane’s. I just bought five acres around the red barn they converted for me. Just enough property to feel like I had my own place. My dad was a ranch hand in California.”

“
I never knew that,” she said.

“
We didn’t have time to talk, did we?”

“
Not really. I’m glad you had the chance to Skype with my parents the night we got engaged.”

“
Me too. I would have liked to have known them,” he said.

She would have liked that too.

“Tell me about Afghanistan. Talk to me about the day that Lane got hurt,” she said. If they had any chance of getting married, she knew she needed to understand the man he was now. And it was easier somehow to talk about him than about herself and her own emptiness.

He tossed the last bits of coffee from his mug onto the ground and looked out toward the mountains and away from her.
She let the silence build between them for as long as she could, before she reached over and took the mug from his hand and set it on the wood of the tree trunk.

“
We have to talk about it sometime.”

He gave her a gruff sort of nod and looked back at her, and she knew it was her imagination, but she saw the desert in his eyes.
She knew he needed something from her and she patted his arm, trying for comfort, but, because she was unsure, it felt weird even to her.

“
We were on patrol through the bomb-created corridors in Now Zad, using the minesweeper and disabling any IEDs we came across. Lane and I always divided them into evens and odds. Figuring the odds would be in our favor. I stopped to prepare to disable a possible IED and Lane moved further forward with the rest of our team and set off a low metal bomb that we couldn’t detect.”

He talked low, his voice gruff.
He stopped after that. Turned his head back toward the horizon and she scooted closer, wrapping her arm around his shoulder. She didn’t know what to say. Her heart ached and she knew when he’d needed her, she hadn’t been there. The fact that he was here now gave her a chance to make up for that. “God, baby, I’m so sorry. That must have been horrible. It could have been you.”

“
Why wasn’t it me?” he asked.

“
God had a different plan for you. He needed you to save Lane. And now he’s fine. Living a good life, right?”

She really didn
’t know Lane that well. She’d talked to Annie and Sienna, but the actual Scott brothers were still sort of a mystery to her. She was a florist and engaged, so most of the men of Marietta gave her wide berth.

“
I guess,” he said, shrugging and then getting up and walking away. “Maybe he’s just making the most of his situation.”

“
As he should,” Risa said. Guilt was a hard thing to live with. She didn’t want to deflect what Monty was feeling, but she did sort of understand it.

“
You’re right about that. I was the one in charge that day, Ri. I should have—”

“
What? You said yourself that it was undetectable. I know you, Monty. If there had been a way to change the outcome you would have done it. Did you freeze when he was hurt?”

Monty turned to look at her.
“No. The explosion rocked the earth and there were dirt, rocks, splinters and all sorts of rubble. We were all calling for Lane but his radio was fried. I found him in a crater. When I got to him, he was struggling to put on a tourniquet, and Tony and I brushed his hands out of the way and did it for him.

“
Instincts took over. We got him stable and evacuated back to base. It was only then I started thinking it could have been me.”

She wrapped her arms around her own waist as he isolated himself in emotions that she couldn
’t break through. She was scared for him and felt a bit of anger that she hadn’t been able to comfort him when he’d needed it. Maybe there was some way she could help him now.

She walked over a little bit closer and he turned toward her.

He grabbed her and held her close, his face buried in her neck. “I was so glad it wasn’t me.”

She held him tightly to her and rubbed his back.
“I am, too.”

“
What kind of man does that make me?” he asked.

She pulled back and looked up into those intense eyes of his.
She didn’t know if she’d find the right words to say. If she could comfort him through this. “It makes you human. And you did all you could to help Lane. I know if you could, you would have changed places. It’s only natural that you’d be glad it wasn’t you.”

He didn
’t say anything else and neither did she. But suddenly she felt very cowardly for running because she had been unsure. Monty had stayed and faced his fears. Looked his friend in the face every day as he recovered, knowing his guilty secret hadn’t made him walk away. In fact, even now he was living in the same town as Lane and creating a life here near him.

She was proud of him.
Her tough Marine fiancé. She only hoped she’d find a way to be the woman he needed by his side.

He held Risa tightly to him, knowing he didn’t want to let go but knew that he had to. It was cold out here this morning, not the place for making love, but it was what he wanted. What he needed. It was hard to believe he had caught her while he still didn’t have her in his arms.

God, his chest ached from holding back the guilt, pain and anger that he still felt whenever he thought of the day Lane had been hurt.
He’d been to see a therapist in Miramar, but talking about his feelings made him feel weird so he’d stopped going.

He stepped back looked again at the horizon and then back at Risa.
She looked too damned good. Their attraction had always been sort of physical, but what he needed from her was something more soul-deep. He wasn’t sure he could trust her. He had questions for her. Answers he still needed about why she’d let so much time pass.

“
Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked. “Do I have muffin crumbs on my face?”

He smiled as he suspected she wanted him to.
“No muffin crumbs. Just wondering why you came with me this morning.”

“
Well, you are my fiancé.”

“
I am. But that didn’t keep you in Vegas. Why did you let so much time pass?”

“
I was ashamed of how I acted. I wanted to make it right, but then all that time had passed and I thought maybe you’d moved on. I can’t explain it. I feel like a big fraud, running like that, but I felt trapped. You don’t know what it’s like because you have always had so much courage.”

“
Courage? How do you figure? I just told you the least brave thing about myself,” he admitted. He hated that weakness inside of him. He wished he was as strong and brave as others saw him. Men offered to buy him beers in bars and people thanked him for protecting the country when he was in uniform. But inside he knew he had been doing his job. Just a job that he was good at.

“
You just told me the most heroic thing about yourself, Monty. You are the kind of man who does what needs to be done, regardless of the cost. And that scares me.”

“
Scares you? How?”

“
You’re strong and always know what to do.”

“
Ha! I wish I did.”

“
Well, you give a good impression that you do. I’m not even that great at faking confidence. But you’re a good man and I’m broken right now. I wasn’t when you asked me to marry you.”

She wasn
’t, that was the truth. He could see that now. But he wasn’t the same man he’d been, either. He didn’t care. He still wanted her. Not just writhing underneath him, but as his bride. But could he trust her to stay? Trust her to keep her word?

She turned in his arms and he read in her big brown eyes her own fear and pride.
He imagined the things she might want to say to him but was somehow incapable of. Was he simply fooling himself? Seeing what he needed to see?

Because him not getting injured when Lane had needed to have a higher purpose, didn
’t it?

He wanted her.
Wanted at least something from this woman to remind him he was alive. He saw that old rusted-out pick-up which he’d called to have towed from his property, but which was still there.

He stopped asking questions and took action.
It was really what he was best at. Seemed a sin to be out here on this beautiful Montana morning with this woman and not take advantage of it.

He lifted her in his arms and she wrapped herself around him.
Legs around his waist, arms around his neck. Her hands in his hair made him feel like he was alive. She brought her mouth down on his and he opened his under hers. Tasted the coffee they’d drunk, the faintness of the blueberries from the muffins. But mostly he tasted Risa. Damn, but she tasted good.

He stood there in the middle of the meadow that he owned, so far from the desert sand where he
’d lost his soul and wanted to claim a little of it back. He didn’t know if this was real or if he was forcing it, but he didn’t give a damn.

He put his hands on her butt and held her to him.
Rocked his pelvis against the center of her body and heard her moan at little.

“
I missed you, Monty. I missed this.”

He had, too.
He had thought of her all those long nights when he’d been alone and afraid that he might end up like Lane or even dead. And dreamed of an idyllic future that he knew wasn’t real.

But Risa was.

She writhed in his arms and he carried her across the field to that rusted-out pick-up truck bed. He shifted her in his arms as he put down the tailgate and then set her on it. She kept her arms around him and kissed him like she wanted him.

Like she
’d seen death and needed some confirmation that they were both here on this beautiful morning. And he knew that sex wasn’t going to work like a magic tonic to make everything okay between them, but it would remind them both that they were alive.

Risa had forgotten how addictive Monty
’s kisses were. The few times he’d kissed her since he’d gotten back into town last night didn’t count. Those had been motivated out of anger and pride. Trying to prove something to each other. But this passion. This was what she’d missed.

She didn
’t want to let him go. His hands slide up her back and she felt his hands under her sweater and skimming over the Cuddle Duds shirt she wore underneath. He cursed.