True Love at Silver Creek Ranch(49)

“Of course,” Brooke said. “And that way, maybe we can head off the preservation committee’s counterresponse.”

“You really think they’ll try one of their stunts?” Emily asked, her blue eyes going wide.

Monica and Brooke shared another glance and a grin.

“Oh, believe me,” Brooke said, “this is like waving a red cape at a bull.”

That was the last beer Brooke allowed herself as she spent another hour dancing. She even danced with Chad because, what the hell, she liked how his appreciative look made her feel sexy. Then he opened his mouth, and she remembered why they didn’t get along.

On the drive home, she found herself going slowly along Main Street, looking up at the apartments over the stores. Many now had single candles in their windows, or icicle lights. Monica and Emily each lived above their stores. More and more, it seemed wrong to Brooke that she was twenty-eight and living with her parents. But her job was right there—and so was her mother, who needed her. Now wasn’t the time to start changing things just because she was feeling restless. But . . . was she supposed to put her life on hold? After all, she didn’t even know what kind of life she wanted anymore.

As she pulled into the yard beside the ranch, she glanced at the lit windows of the bunkhouse and felt a hunger that was so overwhelming, she knew she wasn’t going to follow up on it. Sex wouldn’t make her uncertainties go away, and she didn’t want Adam to think she was crazy about him.

There wasn’t a TV in the bunkhouse, but Adam didn’t mind. He read until he fell asleep each night, which was usually pretty early. If he’d had a TV, he wouldn’t have noticed when Brooke’s Jeep crunched the hard snow outside, he wouldn’t have gone to the curtain to catch a glimpse of her.

Her hair was long and wild tonight. He knew from a casual question to Josh that Black Friday shopping was a tradition, but it would hardly go so late at night. She’d gone somewhere else that evening—a date?

The shot of jealousy took him by surprise. He hardly needed to remind himself of the rules he’d agreed to where their nonrelationship was concerned. It seemed all of his emotions were coming back to life, welcome or not.

He went back to the fridge and pulled out the pie for a late-night snack. He’d stocked up on groceries. Although he wasn’t the world’s best cook—the Marines had fed him, after all—he’d learned a thing or two when he was still a kid, and his parents had been too drunk to care about feeding him. He made a mean omelet, and his spaghetti was always perfectly boiled.

But he had the pumpkin pie, and thought of Brooke, and what other parts of her body he should have decorated with whipped cream.

He was going to get himself all riled up at this rate.

And then he heard a scratching at the door. He wasn’t proud of how quickly he jumped up, and this time it wasn’t because of any military habit. Had Brooke decided she had to see him and didn’t want to knock for fear it would carry across the pasture?

Adam opened the door wide, already feeling satisfied—but there was no one there. And then he looked down.

Ranger, the cow dog, was sitting on his haunches on the porch, looking up at him with a wide doggy grin. His ears went back, and he gave a little whine.

Sighing, Adam squatted and rubbed between his ears. “What’s up, boy? You lonely?”

Ranger gave another whine and licked his face.

Adam sputtered. “Okay, okay, you can come in for a visit. Let’s see how muddy you are, first.”

He used the barn towel on the dog, then Ranger happily trotted around the living room, smelling every corner, then lifting his nose to the edge of the table.

“Not my pumpkin pie,” Adam warned.

Ranger seemed to sigh, then, after a cursory inspection of the bedroom, curled up on the rug before the fire.

“I know the barn is warm enough for you,” Adam told the dog.

Ranger’s tail thumped, but he didn’t lift his head.

“Oh, all right, you can stay here for the night.”

But soon, Adam regretted his decision, because the dog took up more of the bed than he did.

The nightmare started like it always did, a typical patrol in-country, asspack, canteens, and six rounds of live ammo bouncing around his torso, his rifle in his hands like a part of his body. That rifle was so real, but everything else around him was a dreamy blur, a torn picture of Paul’s girlfriend moving in and out of focus, Adam picking up an unusual stone for Zach’s son.

Then artillery rounds landed too close, the impact like a belch of air from the earth, the explosion shaking the ground, sending rocks to slice flesh. Adam’s voice sped up and slowed down as he called in fire support, but the enemy’s position wasn’t attacked. Instead, the bombs fell on them, screaming out of the sky from the jet long past them. The dead and dying were like bright blood on hunks of meat. Dragging his mangled leg, he felt the weight of Eric as he pulled him behind the shelter of rocks, but the man’s face was already lifeless. The smell of smoke and death swirled around him, the heat of flames as hot as his damaged thigh.