Protecting What's Mine: A Western Romance by BL Craven

Author:BL Craven [Craven, BL]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-10-06T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

I woke in the morning to the smell of coffee. The bed was empty, so I padded out to the little kitchenette to see Alison in my robe, her hands wrapped around a mug like her life depended on it. I padded out in my boxers and mused that my life might soon depend on caffeine, so I grabbed a mug and poured myself a cup as I studied her. Her eyes were looking out the window and when I looked, all I saw was everyday ranch stuff from the small window by the door.

“Tell me about your dreams?” Alison asked me.

“What do you want to know?”

“What scares you so bad that you cry out in your sleep? I moved the rifle because you kept reaching for it.”

“Losing friends mostly,” I admitted, a lump in my throat. “Not being fast enough to stop a suicide bomber, having to shoot kids with AKs who were shooting at me.”

“That’s horrible.”

“War always is.”

“Did you kill a lot?”

“Not as many as some. I wasn’t always right up there with the action.”

“But you did kill?” she asked, and we were both silent. I nodded to her.

“Usually from a ways off. Only a few times from up close.”

“And it gives you bad dreams?”

“Yes,” I admitted.

She paused a moment, chewing her lip in thought.

“I guess that’s a good thing. If you didn’t have bad dreams, you probably wouldn’t care?”

“Yeah, I guess that’s right.”

“And if you didn’t care, you’d be some sort of monster, but you’re not.”

“I’d like to hope not,” I told her, hating to have this conversation now, but knowing it would have come out some time or another.

“Good. I don’t know if I could love a monster.” She wrapped her arms around me.

With those words, my heart soared. I’d just admitted to her the worst of myself, and she told me she loved me, and she was holding me. How could she love the part of me that was a monster? With what I’d done, what I did. What I could do? I had felt bad with every kill, but in every war, there is always a shooter and I was one of them.

“Penny for your thoughts,” I asked after a couple minutes.

“I’m just worried.”

“About Mom and Dad…”

“No, no, not that.”

“Then what?”

“That everything with Tim, all the crazy stuff. Everything with the ranch. It’s either going to get worse or better. He lives, who knows? He dies, who knows? I honestly don’t know which one I want.”

“That’s a lot of guilt for one lady,” I said, holding her close, almost spilling her mug.

“Kind of. It doesn’t help that I’m sore all over.”

“Quit riding horses all day.”

“It wasn’t the horse that made me sore.” She set her cup down and swatted me.

“Well, about that, you see…”

Her cell phone rang, interrupting what could have been some shenanigans of some sort. She told Jackson hello, yes we were going, and sure, we’d take him with us. She flipped the phone closed.

“That was Jackson.”

“I got the gist of it.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.