the dresser would have followed the lamp, along with several other pieces of furniture, had she not been standing in the room.
She didn’t back away, didn’t fold her arms. She held herself as absolutely still as possible. “You can’t run from yourself,” she said quietly, not as an indictment but as a simple statement of truth. “Where ever you go, you’ll just end up there with yourself. You’ve got to stand and fight somewhere. Do it here.”
He shook his head, glaring at the dresser. “What the hell was Kit thinking sending me here, a wolf into a lamb’s home?”
“I’m not afraid of you.”
His head lifted, his hard gaze leveling her. “You should be. I’m afraid of me.”
“What is it that you fear?”
“Stay the hell out of my head, sweetheart. The shadows there have teeth. They will shred you as they have me.”
She wasn’t backing down. “Where did you go today, at the diner? In your mind, you saw something.”
A muscle worked in corners of his jaw. “I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.”
“Leave it, Em.”
“No.”
Rocco sighed, his shoulders slumping. He looked at the wall in front of him. Tears pooled in his eyes, spilled down his rigid face. He thought, with some relief, of his shotgun and the cold metal of its barrel. He could put a shell in the chamber, put the muzzle against the roof of his mouth, and end the fucking hell festering in his head.
“Where did you go at the diner, Rocco?” Mandy asked again.
He shut his eyes. “There was a courtyard full of insurgents, resting from the midday heat. I saw them. They saw me. An angel was there. With your voice. I knew I was dead, knew there was no way I’d get out of there alive, but I begged God to spare the Angel.”
He realized, in that moment, if he killed himself here, God would not spare her.
Mandy pulled a ragged breath. She forced her eyes away from Rocco, offering him the only kindness she could. Privacy.
“Put your things away. I’ll go make you a sandwich, then you can get back to the work waiting for you in the pastures.”
“I don’t need a fu-”
“I know
He looked at her. “Why?”
“Because helping you is the only thing my brother ever asked of me. Ever,” she answered, with more vehemence than she wished. The last thing Rocco needed now was more emotion. “Everyone here failed him,” she said in a calmer voice. “I did. My grandparents did. His mother did. My parents did. His girlfriend did. The whole town turned its back on him when he needed them. This is the only thing I have ever been able to do for him. And I won’t let you take it from me. You are important to him, and that makes you important to me.”
She headed for the door but stopped at the threshold and glanced back at him. “Look, Rocco. Not all wounds are physical, but they all take time to heal. Cut yourself some slack. You had a setback today. Big deal.” She shrugged. “It’s not your first and it won’t be your last. I don’t care what the town thinks of you or us or me. I never have. So don’t start arguing that you should leave.” He said nothing, which seemed the best of all mercies.
She’d taken two steps before he stopped her. “Em?” His face was pale. Lines of fatigue showed around his eyes, his mouth. “Make it two sandwiches. And a milkshake?”
She smiled at him and nodded. “Coming up!”
Chapter 8
The next few days were blissfully uneventful for Rocco. He worked. He ate. He ran. The shadows held less and less of him. Maybe there was something to Mandy’s grandfather’s philosophy.
He spent his evenings sitting on his porch, tending her second-hand tack. Area residents had donated most of it, like much of the center’s equipment. Some had belonged to her grandfather. All of it needed cleaning and maintenance.
He worked in phases with the leather items, cleaning, conditioning, then mending. Tonight, he was preparing to stitch a cinch buckle back on a child’s Western saddle when Mandy came down the hill toward the bunkhouse. He looked her over from her feet up, letting the distance camouflage his interest. Her boots were made of soft leather that hugged her slim calves. She wore a short jean skirt that flared at her bare thighs. Her shirt was a short- sleeved, blue gingham confection scooped low at her neck with thin ribbons of elastic that made it fit tightly around her slim waist. Her hair was loose. The streams of her copper mane were topped with a straw cowboy hat.
She looked good enough to eat.
He picked up a lump of beeswax and drew it down the length of saddle thread, then turned the thread and waxed the other side. He didn’t look up when she stepped onto the porch.
“Hi!” she greeted him.
“Evening.”
“Rocco, you’re amazing! These pieces look new! I didn’t have the heart to tackle them yet.” She ran a hand over the child’s saddle. “We may not have to buy as much tack as I’d feared.”
“Mm-hmm.” He still didn’t look at her, though he knew she watched him. Her voice and her scent were as seductive as the sight of her. All he could think was how useful that bare stretch of wall behind him could be. That short skirt would be no impediment-he could have her legs wrapped around his waist in seconds flat.
Did she know how close he was to breaking? What the hell was she doing out of the house dressed like that?
“Rocco-do you dance?”
He pricked his finger with the thick needle and swallowed an oath. “Not unless my life depends on it.”
She leaned restlessly against one of the porch supports, her hands behind her, a knee bent as she braced a foot against the wood. “Do you think you could make an exception tonight? I thought we could go into town and meet my friend, Ivy, at Winchester’s. They do line dancing there. It’ll be fun.”
About as much fun as standing in a field of rattlers in mating season. The thought of a crowd of people made him break out in a cold sweat. A person couldn’t move through a barroom thick with people without touching some of them. What if he had one of his freak-outs in the middle of Winchester’s? That would be a grand start to the work she was doing here, just top off his little performance earlier in the week. People would avoid her riding center for fear of running into him.
“That ain’t my thing.” He shoved the needle through the next hole, playing for time as he flicked a glance at the smooth, pale expanse of her thighs. “You goin’ out dressed like that?”
“What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?” Mandy asked, looking down at herself. She smoothed a hand over her denim skirt, pressing the short hem of it against her raised thigh.
He locked his eyes with hers. “Your legs are showing.”
She laughed, spilling that tinkling, joyful sound across the porch. Goosebumps rose on his arms. “What century are you from?” she teased him.
He dropped his gaze to the leather strap he held. He’d been in Afghanistan too long, most of the past eight years-seven of them deep undercover. He was used to much more conservative behavior from women. He stabbed the needle between the two sides of leather he was sewing and tossed it on the table. “Then I guess I better go with you. Make sure no one mistreats you.”
She grinned. “Yes, you’d better.”
