the rest of the night was spent wandering around the house, looking for my demise. Then, I’d turn all the lights on, read, or write, or do anything to distract myself from how alone and afraid I was.
I’d never felt safer with Duke beside me. It turned out my sleeping self didn’t have the reservations I had about the distance we needed behind closed doors. I’d woken up sprawled on his expansive chest, one leg cocked and thrown over the two of his, my forehead on his large pec, using it like it was a down fucking pillow.
And I was not a fucking cuddler, which obviously wasn’t a surprise. No way did I want to find comfort in other people, when they were the ones to give me all my scars in the first place. You never got close enough to let someone cut you—physically or emotionally. I’d done both with Duke. I’d just been glad I’d been able to extricate myself from the situation without Duke waking up.
“The boy still asleep?” Harriet asked.
I nodded, thinking of the way he’d looked sleeping.
She eyed me, much too sharp a gaze for this time in the morning, for this time in my life. “Needs it,” she said finally. “I don’t imagine that boy’s had a good night’s sleep in years, not with all that running around war zones and cities filled with miscreants and misogynists.”
I almost choked on my coffee with her words. Both because they were funny, right on the point, and filled with love and sadness.
“Yeah,” I said, swallowing the coffee. “He needs it.”
“Help yourself to some breakfast,” Amy offered, gesturing to the breakfast bar.
It was spread with enough food to feed a small army. Or a large ranch, I guessed. Scrambled eggs. Toast. Bacon. Fresh fruit. Pastries. Fucking chia seed pudding. All artfully placed like I had my chef do for me for an at-home photoshoot I’d done a few years ago.
Not that I actually ate like that. I had a celery juice, a coffee, and a cigarette right up until I quit. Then it was just the juice and coffee. Egg whites and whole wheat toast after a grueling workout. No butter. No sugar. Nothing on this bar.
“And before you politely refuse or nibble on one spoon full of chia pudding...don’t,” Harriet said. “You need to eat like a human being today. You’re gonna need your strength if you’re gonna go out on the ranch.”
My head snapped up and my gaze went between the women. “I’m going to go out on the ranch?” I couldn’t keep the child-like excitement from my voice.
Something moved in both the women’s faces. Surprise, maybe. They’d expected me to turn my nose up it, no doubt.
“We’ve got a spare horse, and we’re always looking for a spare pair of hands,” Amy said. “If you’re up to it.”
I snatched up a croissant. “Oh, I’m up to it.”
Duke had slept in.
He never slept in. Being in a family of ranchers meant you woke with the sun every morning, some mornings before it. There were no lazy teenage years for him where he woke at noon and lounged in front of the TV for hours.
He’d never done that.
And he’d never resented his family nor his life. Firstly, because he didn’t know any different. Secondly, because he loved his family, he loved the land, and he loved the horses. He loved the way the sky woke up, being able to witness that. He’d loved ranching because it was in his blood. But there was also an itch inside him, a hunger to experience different things, to live a different life to his father.
His father was happy. Even through the hard years, hard years on the land, and other harder years in his marriage. His parents loved each other fiercely, and they’d taught him that. They also taught him that love took work, hence the reason he hadn’t been all that eager to fall in love. He didn’t need the work.
Duke had plenty of work. Inside himself. Because to sate that hunger, scratch that itch, he’d left home with the idea he’d spend a few years serving his country, come back satisfied. Come back ready for the big sky, the stars, the simple life. Maybe for the complication of a woman.
But as his grandmother said: “When you make plans, God takes a look, and she laughs her fucking ass off.”
Which was what happened. It turned out, he was good at things in a warzone on the other side