Kitabı oku: «The Cowboy's Valentine Bride»

To my husband and our little boy—

the two sweetest Valentines in the world.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

Brody Mason’s leg throbbed. The last of his morphine had worn off, and no matter what position he adopted in front of the crackling fireplace in his childhood home, the pain was constant.

He’d been honorably discharged from the army and given a medal for bravery—presented to him in the crisp hospital bed where he’d spent the last couple of months—but he’d never felt less deserving. While people at home called every returning soldier a hero, he saw a difference: real heroes got their buddies out alive, and Brody hadn’t managed to do that. Now he was home in the tiny town of Hope, Montana, and while his family doted on him, no one really understood. His fellow soldiers hadn’t survived the explosion that tore up his leg in early December; he was supposed to have their backs. And that hurt worse than the shrapnel.

The hospital stay had been a haze of pain meds, and every week the doctor assured him he’d be able to leave soon, but then something would hold up his recovery. Brody had missed his sister’s wedding because of an infection in his leg, and he’d been forced to watch her nuptials via webcam, which was just as well, considering that he solidly disapproved of her choice in groom. Once he recovered from the leg infection, there was a bronchial infection triggered by all the dust he’d breathed for the last year in Afghanistan, which put off his second surgery to remove the last of the shrapnel. When the surgery was complete, the nurses stopped hovering quite so much—a good sign.

Then one day in late January, a week after his last surgery, the doctor had deemed him sufficiently recovered and signed his discharge papers. Just like that. No muss, no fuss, no grandeur. His parents picked him up from the hospital and drove him home. Which left him here, sitting in front of the fireplace, trying to find a comfortable position for his aching leg.

The back door to the ranch house opened and shut, and there was the soft murmur of voices. He couldn’t make out who the nurse was...not that it mattered. He shifted again, closing his eyes against the wave of pain. Brody heard a noise behind him, and he reluctantly turned.

Kaitlyn Harpe stood at the door to the sitting room, her arms crossed over her chest. Her auburn hair hung in loose waves around her shoulders, dark eyes fixed on him uncertainly. She looked nervous to be here—and rightfully so.

“You? Seriously?” Brody wasn’t normally this much of a jerk, and he resented the words as soon as they came out of his mouth, but with the pain, his verbal filter seemed to be missing.

“I get that I’m not your first choice, but there aren’t a whole lot of nurses available in Hope,” she replied with a small smile.

Yeah, that was an understatement. Hope, Montana, was a small ranching community, and while there were two large animal veterinarians in town, medical care for people was a little sparser. Before Kaitlyn went to nursing school, her aunt Bernice was the only other nurse in town. He’d half expected to see the older woman.

Under different circumstances, he might have considered himself lucky. He’d known Kate for years and thought of her as a little sister. She’d always been sweet with a quirky sense of humor, and until recently, he would have described her as honest, too, but she’d gone along with the lie his friends and family had told him while he was away—namely that he still had a fiancée. But Nina had married his best friend, Brian, while he’d been dodging bullets in Afghanistan, and everyone had kept silent about that little fact...so silent that he’d never suspected a thing. No one told him the truth until he’d been in the VA hospital in Fort Harrison for over a month. He’d been set to be released for Dakota and Andy’s wedding when that nasty infection set in. Nina still hadn’t visited, and he’d had enough. That was when his family admitted that Nina had married Brian a few months back.

And now Nina’s sister was going to be his nurse while he recovered? It was adding insult to injury—literally.

Brody looked past Kaitlyn to where his mother stood in the kitchen, stoically ignoring them. His mother, Millie, wore an apron over a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved turtleneck, and she was rolling out some dough on the island with enough muscle to wrestle down a steer. Whatever she was baking would be leather by the time she was done with it.

“It’s good to see you.” Kaitlyn came into the room, those big brown eyes fixed on him with a conflicted expression. “I missed you.”

“Yeah?”

“Of course. No one else lets me cheat at poker.”

She was making a joke, but he wasn’t in the mood. She’d been more than a silent bystander to the deception. She’d written him emails every couple of weeks since the day he left, and never once did she let on that anything had changed. At the end of every email, she’d said the same thing: Nina sends her love.

“You didn’t think to tell me I was writing love letters to a married woman?” he asked. He didn’t have strength for pleasantries right now. They might as well get down to it.

How many letters had he obliviously written to Nina since her marriage? Had she laughed at his humble attempts to put his heart on paper while he was out there in the desert? All of this while Nina’s own sister hadn’t even hinted that he might want to take a closer look.

“Your parents said—” she began.

“You all made a fool of me,” he interrupted. “If I’d known she was starting up with Brian, I could have saved myself some humiliation.”

“And if after you learned the truth you lost heart out there and you’d been shot?” she demanded, something close to anger sparkling in those eyes. “We’d have blamed ourselves.”

“You could have blamed Brian and Nina.” He shot her a sardonic smile. “I do.”

Kaitlyn’s eyes misted and she shot him an irritated look. “You aren’t funny, and if you’d been dead, the moral high ground wouldn’t have been much comfort. No one wanted to keep the secret, you know. We all felt terrible about it—”

“Except Nina, of course.” He couldn’t help the bitterness in his tone. Nina had been busy getting married to another guy...and not just any guy—his best friend.

“Brody, I’m not my sister.” Something in her voice gave him pause, and he heaved a sigh. No, she wasn’t her sister, and Nina was the one who started this whole thing, but Kaitlyn could have gone against the tide and leveled with him.

“It’s just that, of all people, Kaitlyn, I figured I could count on you to tell me the truth. There were a few times when I got suspicious, but then I’d get an email from you, and I’d think that it was okay because I could trust you. You’d fill me in if there was something I needed to know. But Nina always sent her love, right?”

Kaitlyn blushed and looked away for a moment. They’d been friends. He’d called her his “overly serious Kate” because she’d taken her studies so seriously, and he’d always tried to distract her while he waited for Nina to get ready to go out. He’d always won that tussle between responsibility and fun, and she’d push her books aside and turn those chocolate brown eyes on to him. Having her full, overly serious attention had felt good—too good. But he knew the line and he’d never flirted with it. Nina had always taken forever to get ready, but Kaitlyn made the wait fun. They’d laughed at the same jokes and talked about life, and he’d given her advice on some boyfriend who wasn’t up to snuff. And of all people, he’d trusted Kaitlyn to be above that kind of deception.

“We all protected you,” Kaitlyn said after a moment. “It wasn’t ideal, I get that, but it was all we could think of. Whether you believe it or not, we were doing this because we wanted you home safe.” She crouched in front of the foot stool where his leg rested. “Speaking of which, let me take a look.”

Brody sighed and nodded his approval. It wasn’t like he had much choice anyway. He obviously needed a nurse to aid his recovery, and as she’d pointed out, he couldn’t exactly be picky.

Her touch was light and discreet as she uncovered the bandaged wounds. He’d been lucky—no broken bones—but the shrapnel had gone deep into the muscle and the multiple surgeries to retrieve it had left the doctors uncertain if there would be nerve damage or not. That thought scared him. He was born on a ranch and raised on horseback. What was he going to do if he had nerve damage? Riding a horse or returning to the army, he’d need this leg to cooperate. Maybe the fact that it hurt so badly was a good sign—nerves screaming their existence, if nothing else.

“I still can’t believe Dakota married Andy,” Brody said bitterly, wincing as the gauze caught on some stiches. When he’d left, his sister thoroughly loathed Andy, and now they were married. Everything had changed in one short year, and home felt foreign.

Kaitlyn replaced the gauze and taped it back down. “Something happened on that cattle drive—that’s all we know. What can you do?”

“He single-handedly ruined our land,” Brody said. “She can’t be in love with him.”

Kaitlyn rocked back on her heels and eyed Brody for a long moment until he looked away. Then she sighed and pushed herself to her feet.

“A lot has changed,” she said quietly. “And I don’t even know if you’re glad to be back or not, but I’m glad.”

“Are you?” She looked like the same old Kaitlyn—gentle, sweet, doe-eyed—and yet she was different, too. She was stronger, more confident somehow. Situations had changed, but so had people.

“I am.” She fixed him with her direct stare. “So you go ahead and be mad at this whole blasted town because I’m happy you’re back in once piece.”

“Give or take,” he said with a wry smile.

Kaitlyn smiled and shook her head. “I’m going to get your prescription for pain meds refilled, and over the next few days we’re going to get you walking.” She looked down at his medication log. “You’re due for another dose in an hour.”

“The sooner the better on those meds, Kate. It hurts pretty bad.”

“Okay.” She looked as if she wanted to say something more, then gave him a nod and turned back toward the kitchen.

Brody gritted his teeth and gently lowered his leg to the floor. The pain was so intense that it turned his stomach, but he wasn’t about to lie around bemoaning his tattered state. He needed to recover, because once he was back in shape again, he knew exactly where he was going.

This ranch and this town didn’t hold anything for him anymore. He was going back to the army to finish what he started. In the army the truth had been ugly, but no one had lied to him.

* * *

WHEN KAITLYN RETURNED from the drug store with Brody’s pain prescription, Dakota opened the door for her. Kaitlyn stepped into the warm kitchen, fragrant with baking bread. The last time she’d been in this room, they’d been having a meeting of sorts—the Mason family and the Harpes. That was the evening when Mr. Mason outlined the plan to get Brody home safe. Nina and Brian had already moved to the city, so Kaitlyn’s father, Ron, filled Nina in on her part of the deal later—to keep her relationship with Brian a secret and to answer Brody’s emails so he wouldn’t suspect anything. It had been an order, not a request. Nina hadn’t wanted to go along with it—she was about to get married, after all, and she wanted to announce it to the world. But if she announced it, then Brody would hear all about it, and that could be devastating. Brody had to be the priority, and Nina would just have to get married quietly.

Kaitlyn hadn’t been back to this ranch since that solemn meeting of minds, but she and Dakota had run into each other around town a few times, and a tenuous partnership was born. They both wanted Brody home safe—which he was. Kaitlyn could only hope that the deception had been worth it.

“Hi,” Kaitlyn said with a quick smile. “I’ve got the pills.”

“How’s his leg?” Dakota asked. “He wouldn’t let me see it. Said he’d wait for a medical professional because I didn’t know squat.”

Kaitlyn smiled wanly—that sounded like Brody, always the tough guy. Maybe he’d been trying to protect his sister—that leg wasn’t pretty.

“It’s...not great.” His leg, from thigh to calf, was covered in jagged cuts and stitches. Some of the wounds had already healed over—more or less—from his first surgeries, but others were fresh from retrieving the deeper, harder-to-reach shrapnel. She could tell how much pain Brody was in, and if his leg got infected again, it could be fatal. He’d been right about one thing—proper medical care was a necessity if he wanted to walk again.

“He’s mad,” Dakota said. “About Nina and all that.”

Kaitlyn was still angry with her sister about her infidelity. Brody was strong, sweet, handsome, kind... He was the perfect guy, and Kaitlyn had been in love with him from afar for a couple of years before he asked out her sister. But he was two years older than Kaitlyn, and she hadn’t even registered on his radar. He’d made his choice—a perfectly understandable one. Nina was the beautiful sister—a redhead with soft green eyes and a voluptuous pinup-girl figure. She turned heads everywhere she went, and Kaitlyn hadn’t, at least not when her sister was anywhere near. Kaitlyn was confident in her own looks—she was beautiful, even—but she’d been quite solidly in her older sister’s shadow.

So why couldn’t Nina wait for him? Kaitlyn had been through it a thousand times. If it had been her, she’d have waited as long as she had to...but Brody wasn’t hers. He’d never seen her that way, and there were lines that Kaitlyn would never cross.

“So who had to tell him about Nina?” Kaitlyn asked. It was the conversation they’d all been dreading.

“Me.” Dakota winced. “Just before the wedding. He kept asking where Nina was, and I think he suspected. I mean, how many fiancées do you know who don’t bother visiting their wounded man in the hospital? When I told him, he just sort of deflated. He didn’t look surprised, just...silent.”

“Imagine if that had happened over there,” Kaitlyn reminded her. “Nina’s such a selfish—”

“It’s done, it’s done...” Dakota shook her head. “And Nina isn’t your fault. We’re all just trying to pick up the pieces, and this was the plan, right? He needed to find out here, so we could get him through it.”

“He’s mad that we hid it.” Kaitlyn lowered her voice further.

“I know.” They exchanged a long look, then Dakota nodded in the direction of the sitting room. “He’s waiting.”

Kaitlyn got a glass of water from the sink and headed into the sitting room. Brody was sitting forward, leaning toward the fire. He didn’t hear her at first, and he was so close to the flames that they reflected against his face.

Brody had changed since he left—there were lines around his mouth that weren’t there before, and his eyes had lost that boyish twinkle. There was nothing boyish left in him—he’d hardened, stilled. If Nina could see what she’d caused... But this wasn’t all because of Nina. This was also because of the war. Soldiers saw things that civilians couldn’t even imagine, and when they got home again, it sure didn’t help to return to a nasty surprise.

Should I have told him?

How could she ever be sure? What she knew was that Brody was home, and her job had just begun.

“Here are your pills,” Kaitlyn said, setting the glass of water next to him and unscrewing the cap to the bottle. “Now, it’s important that you never take more than the recommended dose of these. They’re strong.”

“I’m not suicidal.” Brody held out his hand for the pills, then tossed them back with a sip of water. “Thanks.”

“I was more concerned with addiction,” she retorted.

Brody laughed softly. “I’m not an addict, either.”

“Good.”

He turned toward her, dark eyes locking on to her face. “Did you think I’d change that much?”

Brody had been a fun-loving guy with an infectious laugh. He’d been tall and muscular, but he’d bulked up even more since he left, and his lean muscle had turned hard and thick. His hair had been a tousled mess of glossy curls, and now he had that standard-issue army buzz cut—but it didn’t hurt his looks any. It seemed to suit the new him.

“I don’t know,” she replied honestly. “Life changes everyone, and you’ve seen more than most.”

“Yeah, well...” He leaned back in his chair, wincing as he got settled. “You’ve changed, too.”

“Have I?” She grabbed his medications chart and wrote in his dose. “I feel like the only one who hasn’t changed around here.”

“You grew up.” His voice was low and quiet. “When I left, you were a kid.”

“When you left, I was a woman,” she replied evenly. She’d been twenty-two when he left for the army, and that hardly constituted a “kid.” But she’d never looked quite as womanly as Nina had. Nina had eclipsed her quite easily, it seemed, all pouty lips and swaying hips. Kaitlyn hadn’t had a chance. She had been a tamer version of her sister in every way. Her hair was dark auburn compared to Nina’s fiery red, and her figure was slim, her breasts smaller, her expression direct and frank. Nina had a way of looking up through her lashes that stopped men in their tracks. When Kaitlyn was a teenager, she’d tried to imitate her older sister’s sultry pout in the mirror, and she’d cracked herself up. She looked ridiculous, and she’d decided then and there to simply be herself—a brave stance for someone in the shadow of Hope, Montana’s sexiest available woman.

But not so available anymore.

While Kaitlyn had resented what her sister did to Brody, having Nina both married and moved to the city had been a strange relief. For the first time in her life, Kaitlyn felt like she could breathe a little deeper, expand a little more. With Nina in the room, there had hardly seemed to be enough oxygen for the both of them—and what Nina wanted, Nina got.

“Last year I missed our dads’ birthdays,” Brody said after a moment. “I kept thinking of the feast you all would be eating.”

Kaitlyn’s father, Ron, and Brody’s father, Ken, had birthdays in the same week. The men had been close since elementary school. For as long as Kaitlyn could remember, both families had been celebrating those February birthdays together with a trail ride and a massive meal.

“Last year half of us got food poisoning, so you weren’t missing out on as much as you thought,” she replied with a wry smile. “Someone thought clams would be a great birthday meal. Wow. It was bad... The trail ride didn’t happen. Brian landed in the hospital with some Gravol on IV.”

“You emailed me about that.” His smiled slipped, and she knew what he was thinking. She shouldn’t have mentioned Brian. She grimaced.

“Nothing had happened then between Brian and Nina—that I knew of, at least,” Kaitlyn said. “We were all friends with Brian, you know that.”

“Yeah. Solid guy.” Brody’s tone dripped sarcasm, and Kaitlyn couldn’t blame him.

They remained silent for a couple of minutes, and Kaitlyn remembered how different everything had been a year ago. They’d been proud of Brody, and scared for him. They’d been happy about Nina and Brody’s engagement. Nina had spent hours staring at the ring on her finger, and Kaitlyn had been determined to sort through her own feelings of jealousy privately. She was happy for her sister—of course, she was—and she’d never really believed that Brody would look twice at her with Nina in the same hemisphere anyway. But it still stung, knowing she was destined to be half in love with her brother-in-law for the foreseeable future.

“Are you all still doing the trail ride this year?” Brody asked.

“I imagine so,” Kaitlyn replied. “It’s tradition, isn’t it?”

“Good,” he said. “I’m going to ride, too.”

Kaitlyn frowned, silently considering the options. Trail rides were narrow and bumpy, and she couldn’t responsibly give him enough pain meds to dull that kind of agony. He seemed to read her thoughts.

“It isn’t hard riding by any stretch. You know that, Kate. I’ve been riding since before I could walk, and I’m not sitting back at the house with the cooks.”

“You’ve earned a rest,” she said. “You’re the resident hero, after all.”

“Don’t use that word with me.” His voice turned gruff and stony. “I’m riding. Period.”

There was no invitation for discussion. He’d been through a nightmare in Afghanistan, and she could only guess at the memories he carried with him. He wanted to heal and recover, and that solidity of mind was important. They’d just have to work toward his goal. Even if he wasn’t strong enough to ride in time, he’d at least have something to work toward. And once it got closer to the trail ride, he’d be able to see the futility of putting his body through that kind of punishment. There was no use in breaking his spirit now.

“You want to ride?” she said with a smile. “All right. That’s our goal. Let’s see what we can do.”

“Good.” Brody smiled faintly. “And I’m serious, Kate. Don’t go easy on me.”

“I had no intention of it,” she retorted. “I’ll be a regular drill sergeant. You’ll think longingly of your boot camp days.”

Brody chuckled, then sighed. “Why am I so tired all of a sudden?”

“It’s the pills. Sleep is good for you. Get some rest.”

Brody nodded and leaned his head against the back of the chair. She quelled the urge to brush a hand against his forehead. She didn’t want to go hard on Brody—she wanted to give him the safe, warm place to heal that he so desperately needed, but he didn’t want those things from her. That had been Nina’s domain.

Kaitlyn would have to get over these feelings for him, because a future with Brody was an absolute impossibility. Before it was because he was engaged to her sister, and now, even with Nina safely out of the picture, anything developing between them was equally impossible.

Kaitlyn had lived in her sister’s shadow her entire life, and she refused to stay there in the heart of the man she loved.

On the fireplace mantle, a tattered slip of red paper caught her eye. She paused, stepped closer to look and a lump rose in her throat as she recognized it—a kid’s vintage Valentine’s card that she’d slipped into his luggage before he left for boot camp. They used to joke about the little sayings on those cards—corny lines that could end up being eerily prophetic. So she’d slipped one in his bag that said, “You’re brave, Valentine.” It went along with a joke they’d shared that it took a big man to take on a woman as high maintenance as Nina was. She thought he’d get a laugh out of it...but it looked like he’d done one more than that, and had kept it.

Kaitlyn shut her eyes against the wave of emotion. How she’d longed to say more than “You’re brave.” She’d wanted to say, “You hold my heart.” She’d wanted to say, “Do whatever you have to in order to get back here alive.”

For now, she’d do her duty and get Brody back in the saddle, or as close to it as she could. And maybe in the process, she’d be able to work through a few of these feelings and put them to rest for good. She had some healing to do, too.