Maisey Yates - Wild Ride Cowboy

He looked up, and noticed that some pale wisps of hair had escaped the braid, falling into her face. As they worked, she would stop and shake her head sometimes, trying to flick the hair out of her eyes. But she never stopped. Never stopped working. Never asked for a break. Not even to fix her hair.

Clara was soft in a great many ways, and she was hurting. That much was obvious. But she was also tough. Determined and stubborn. A whole host of big, deep things were contained in that petite, compact frame.

“Okay, that’s enough for now,” he said, when they had the bed of the truck mostly full. “We can drive out and get the lay of the place. Start replacing some of the fencing. Should go pretty quick since we don’t have to dig new post holes.”

“Right,” she echoed. Still wearing the leather work gloves, she opened the passenger-side door of the truck and got in. She grabbed hold of the handle just above the window, as if she were bracing herself for a bumpy ride. And right then she looked like some kind of ranching wet dream. Pretty and soft, but ready to work with those gloves and that very practical flannel top.

He nearly grabbed a wire cutter to cut his thumb—anything to redirect that line of thinking.

He got into the truck and started it, hoping she wouldn’t notice his momentary distraction. His moment of lecherousness.

She didn’t, and the fact that she didn’t was a testament to just how messed up it was that he would think of her in any way other than as Jason’s little sister.

“So...do you have some kind of rancher fantasy or something?” she asked after they’d been driving along the dirt road for a few moments.

Judging by the way he’d been reacting to her, he apparently did have some kind of rancher fantasy, but presumably not the kind she was asking about.

“No,” he responded. “But I made my life about the military. About brotherhood. That’s what Jason and I had. Brotherhood. You don’t leave a fallen brother, Clara. You don’t.” He kept his mind purposefully blank when he spoke the words, because he didn’t want to relive that moment. Didn’t want to see it in his mind. “And when he’s gone, when you can’t help him anymore, you do what you can for those he left behind. It’s the right thing to do.”

He heard her swallow, looked over and saw a tear slide down her cheek.

“I really do miss him,” she said, her voice soft.

“Me too,” Alex said. “He was the first friend I made here during the summers I spent with my grandpa. Do you remember that red Jeep of his?”

“Yes,” she said.

“We used to stand up in the back while he drove.”

“That was stupid,” she said.

“Yeah. We were stupid. We were sixteen.” Invincible. Damn. Why hadn’t Jason been invincible?

“It’s funny,” Clara said. “I would go so long without seeing him while he was on deployment. And I was kind of used to that. He joined the military so long ago, when I was so young. And when our parents... Well, he came back for a while. And that was nice, but I’m used to doing things on my own, and when he left again, I just got accustomed to it all over again. But knowing he won’t come back is different. It feels different. It’s so final. Sometimes I try to pretend he’s just on a really long deployment.” She took a deep, choking breath. “That he’s just still out there riding around in a Jeep, looking badass.”

He didn’t know how to do this. He didn’t know how to be there for someone. But he was the only one who was here for Clara. The only one who was left. So that meant he had to step up.

He looked out the windshield, eyes fixed on the dirt road. “The good news is,” he said, speaking slowly, “that he’s doing something better than that right now, I’m sure. Because trust me, a guy like that gets ushered right into the good part of heaven.”

Clara laughed, the sound shaky. “You think so?”

He wanted to think so.

“Oh yeah,” Alex said. “God probably showed him where all the good fishing holes are. And he’s not driving around some barren desert breathing in dust and hoping today is not the day you get mortared. No. He’s not worried about that anymore.”

Alex fought to keep his throat from closing up, to keep a wall of emotion from crushing him beneath its weight. “I think the only thing he’d worry about is you,” he continued, his voice rough. “But I’m aiming to make sure he doesn’t have to.”

Silence settled in the cab of the tuck. Then Clara cleared her throat. “You think he’s fishing up there, huh?”

“You know he is. And he doesn’t have to lie about how big the fish is anymore. They’re all monsters.” The ridiculous image made him smile. And he felt gratified when he looked over and saw that Clara was smiling too.

They got out of the truck at the old pasture where the cows had been once upon a time. The fence had certainly seen better days, and even if it were in great shape, it wasn’t going to be enough for bison. They needed good, strong materials, and the older one was sagging and falling over. So that meant refencing the entire pasture.

But he was happy enough with that. It gave him a goal. Gave him something to work toward. Something to give Clara. Something to give back to Jason.

He gritted his teeth. He owed the man more than he could ever repay.

And he sure as hell didn’t deserve any of it.

When they got out of the truck, he tossed Clara a pair of wire cutters. “Okay, what we’re going to do is go down the fence and basically cut. Should be quick enough. We’ll get to the posts afterward.”

Clara nodded, and they set to work silently. She was a fast worker, and she was a hard worker, and as he’d observed earlier, she didn’t seem to want to show the need to stop as long as he was still going strong.

So they worked until his shoulders ached, until he was hungry enough that he couldn’t keep going.

“Hey, Clara,” he called. She was several links down the fence, working her way in his direction. “Why don’t you open up the truck? I have a cool chest in the back. We can tailgate.”

“What do you have in there?” She wrinkled her nose as she peered toward the cool chest, looking skeptical and vaguely mouseish.

“I brought sandwich fixings. Nothing is on the sandwich as of yet. You can choose.”

“What kind of meat?”

“Well, I brought roast beef since I noticed when you ate the stew you seemed to like beef.”

She frowned. “I don’t like it cold.”

He looked at her and tried to figure out if she was kidding. Judging by her expression, she wasn’t. “I also brought turkey.”

She smiled at that. “Well, I do like turkey lunchmeat.”

He stared at her. “You don’t make any sense, do you know that?”

She scowled at him, her pale face streaked with dirt, her cheeks bright pink. Her nose was a little sunburned, the upturned tip as pink as her cheeks. And then his gaze dropped to her lips. They were soft, full. At least, they looked like they would be soft. But he wondered if they’d stay soft if he leaned in to kiss them. Or if she’d firm them right up and try to bite him.

He would deserve the bite. Hell, he deserved it just for thinking about her like that. But the knowledge didn’t stop him from thinking it. Also, the idea of her biting him when he pressed his lips to hers didn’t cool him off like it should. No, his body found that every bit as intriguing as the idea of a kiss.

They made their way back to the truck and Clara hoisted herself up on the tailgate, opening the cool chest and rifling through the contents. She happily retrieved a Coke, popping the top while she continued to forage for sandwich toppings. She pulled out the bread, then grabbed the turkey. She took out the bottle of mustard and some pickles and nothing else. He found himself grimacing as he watched her assemble the sandwich and take her first bite. But then a smile spread over her face, and he couldn’t even judge her for her choice of lunch because he just felt accomplished at the fact that he’d given her something she actually wanted.