A Real Cowboy Never Says No (26 page)

He needed to do something.

It was important.

He didn't know what it was, but it was pressing at him relentlessly.

It was difficult.

Impossible.

But he had to try.

Try.

Try.

There were voices in the distance, ones he recognized. And another. A woman. He had to talk to her. There was something he needed to say.

The urge grew stronger, pulsing through him, driving him. He became aware of a great weight pressing down on him, trying to hold him back.
No!
He screamed his outrage, fighting to get past it. He had to tell her. It had to be now. He felt like he was swimming through mud, fighting for breath that didn't want to come to him. He could do this.
He had to do it.

Light suddenly burned his eyes. It was bright. Too bright. He tried to block it by closing his eyes, but he didn't want them closed. He needed to see. Shapes began moving, shifting in and out of focus. Shadows mixing with the light. Where was she? He tried to call her, but he didn't know her name.

Suddenly, a face came into focus in front of him. He recognized it. "Chase?" His voice was raw, and his throat hurt, as if he hadn't spoken in so long. Was it really Chase there with him?

His brother's face morphed into shock. "Steen?"

Yeah, yeah, it was really Chase. "Where is she?"

There was noise in the room, and suddenly there were faces crowding his vision. He recognized all of them. Ryder. Maddox. Travis. Zane. Quintin. They were crowding him, grinning those shit-eating grins that he remembered. "Where is she?" he asked again.

There was a shuffle, and then Chase pulled a woman forward. She was pretty. Dark blond hair. Blue eyes. She sat beside him. "I'm Mira."

Yes. Her voice rippled through him, and he took a deep breath at the familiar sound. Excruciating pain tore through his stomach from the attempt to inhale, and he couldn't hold back the grimace of agony. He shook his head at Chase's concerned look, trying to focus on the woman. "I heard you."

She nodded. "I know."

"What did you say?" He felt like she'd said something important, something slipping away at the edges of his memory, elusive but critical. Shit. His stomach hurt. And his side. He felt like he'd been sawed in half and left to rot on the side of the road. His vision began to fog, but he fought to stay conscious. He had to talk to her.

She smiled then, a smile so kind that he wanted to smile back through his cracked lips. "When you're ready to remember, you will."

"No." Desperation rushed through him, and he tried to reach for her hand, but he couldn't seem to move his arm. Pain tore through him again, and he pressed back in the bed, going utterly still as he waited for the pain to abate.
Jesus.
He clenched his teeth, fighting not to breathe and make it hurt more.

"I've got you, bro." Chase took his arm, moving it carefully until Steen's hand was in hers.

Steen forced his eyes open so he could see her. "I need to know. What did you tell me?"

She glanced at Chase, then leaned forward. "The day you walk into the kitchen of the ranch a free man, I will tell you."

"Free man?" he echoed. For a moment, he didn't know what she was talking about, and then his life came rushing back to him. Prison. The stabbing. He looked down and saw his body bandaged up and tubes coming out of him everywhere. Right. He'd forgotten. All the energy left him, and he sagged back into the bed. The pain from his wounds burned through him, and he wondered whether he'd ever be able to take a deep breath again. .

Chase leaned over Mira's shoulder, and Steen noticed that his arm was around Mira's shoulder and she was leaning into him. There was an intimacy between the two of them that made him think of Rachel, and pain echoed in his chest. "Steen," Chase said. "You have less than five months until you're out. This shit will be over, and you can start again."

"For what? I—" He cut off the familiar refrain when he saw the expression on Mira's face. "What?" She knew something. What did she know?

"Give it time," she said softly. "You'll figure out why you decided to live." She leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his cheek. He closed his eyes, stunned by how incredible it felt to be touched so softly, and so intimately. He went utterly still, afraid to break the spell, afraid to move, afraid of never feeling that kind of touch again. The pain that had been gripping him so fiercely eased slightly, allowing him just enough room to inhale slightly.

"Careful, buddy," Chase said. "She's mine."

Steen opened his eyes as Mira pulled back. She held up her left hand, which had a straw wrapped around her ring finger. "I'm marrying into your family, Steen. Zane is pissed, and most of your brothers are afraid of me. It seems as if you like me, so do me a favor and get healed, okay? I need you at the wedding so that Chase isn't the only one on my side. Got it?"

"Married?" He looked at Chase, who was grinning the biggest smile he'd ever seen in his life. Even as he studied his brother, he felt weariness stealing over him, and his eyes growing heavy. Shit, he was tired. He needed to sleep. He could feel his body screaming at him to let it heal, and he knew he had to shut it down. His eyelids began to drift shut, and his finger slackened in Mira's hand.

"Damn right," Chase said. "I need you there. You coming?"

Forcing his eyes open Steen looked at Mira again, and then he looked at each of his brothers, who he hadn't seen in years. He'd cut them out when he'd gone to prison, and yet there they were, all of them present, crowding his bed like they didn't give a shit about what'd he'd done. Only Caleb and Logan were missing. All the rest were there. Something rolled over inside him, something that had been dead for a long, long time. "Yeah, okay," he said, returning his gaze back to Chase and Mira. "I'll be there. At your wedding. But you're going to have to wait. Gotta get better. I'm not coming in a wheelchair." Pain stabbed through him again, and he gritted his teeth.

Chase's smile widened, and the others all seemed to take a universal deep breath. "You promise?"

He met his brother's gaze, knowing that in their world, a promise meant everything. "Yeah," he said. "I promise."

It was Steen Stockton.

Erin couldn't believe the man who was standing before her. After all her years of fantasizing about him, wondering what had happened to him, searching the web for information about his football career after he'd blown out his knee in college, he was standing right in front of her.

An old, faded cowboy hat was pulled low over his forehead, almost shielding his dark eyes from her view. His face was clean-shaven, his jaw angular and refined. He was wearing a black tee shirt, black jeans, and boots that would fit more with a motorcycle helmet than a cowboy hat. His shoulders were still wide and his body angled down to a V toward his narrow hips, but he was lean, too lean, and his cheeks were sunken, as if he'd been in a bad place for a long time. He was pure male, well over six feet tall, and his muscles were hard and cut beneath his shirt, despite his leanness.

He was no longer a boy, but the man she'd envisioned. He was pure, raw heat, with a languid grace that she knew hid his lightning-quick reflexes and innate physical grace. For the first time in years, she felt a pulse of physical attraction. Involuntarily, her gaze flicked to his mouth. His lips were pressed together, as if he were trying to contain the words that wanted to escape. Sexy and silent, just as he'd always been, only now, he was so much more.

In the face of the sheer strength of his presence, she suddenly felt like the ugly, geeky fourteen-year-old again, hopelessly outclassed by the only person she'd ever known who lived life on his terms and didn't care one bit what anyone else thought of him.

He frowned. "You okay?"

Erin suddenly realized she'd been gaping at him. Horrified, she snapped her mouth shut, trying to regain some semblance of self-respect. "Yes, fine. Thanks. It's so incredible to see—"

"You need some help with your engine?" he interrupted, cutting off her sentence before she could finish commenting how good it was to see him.

It was her turn to frown now. Did he not recognize her? After all these years of fantasizing about him whenever she'd needed to escape from the reality of her life and marriage, he didn't even
remember
her?

Desolation flooded her, the kind of utter loss that happens only when a dream is shattered, a dream that had all its power because it was pure fantasy, and therefore could never be destroyed. And yet, in one instant, he'd shattered it, because
he
was reality now, standing in front of her. Steen had been the only one who'd ever looked
at
her, instead of
through
her, but it apparently hadn't meant anything to him, at least not enough for him to remember her.

She lifted her chin resolutely. It didn't matter. She knew that her imagination had elevated him into the perfect man, and just because the real life man didn't even
remember
her, it didn't change the fact that he'd been her salvation, her escape over all the years. She knew he was a good guy, and it wasn't his fault that she'd been such an insignificant blip in his life that he didn't remember her.

He tipped his cowboy hat back, giving her a clear view of his eyes for the first time. They were haunted. Deeply haunted. She was shocked by the change in them from the jaunty, arrogant boy she'd known in high school. There was no humor in his gaze. No life, even. Just emptiness. She'd never have believed anything could take him down, but something had, something that had broken the spirit of the man she believed in for so long, the one who had lived in her heart for over a decade. Her heart tightened, and instinctively, she reached out, touching his arm. "What happened to you, Steen?"

Steen froze, and his muscles went rigid under her touch, making her realize that she'd overstepped her boundaries in a major way. She quickly jerked her hand back. "Sorry, I didn't mean to—"

"You recognize me?" he asked.

She blinked. "What? Of course I do. How could I not?" Did that mean he recognized her? She wanted to ask, but she didn't dare. His gaze was too intense, and his silence was too unyielding.

After a few moments, she began to shift uncomfortably. She cleared her throat, and tried to change the subject to one that wasn't quite so incredibly awkward. "So, um, you know engines? Is that right?"

"Yeah." He still didn't take his gaze off her face, which she found both completely intimidating and wildly intoxicating. She used to catch him watching her when they were in school, but his face had always been inscrutable and distant. Now, however, there was so much intensity burning in his eyes that her heart started to race. No longer were his eyes empty and apathetic. They were simmering with heat, and all of it was directed at her.

So much for the fantasies not living up to reality. Even in her dreams, he'd never made her feel the way he was making her feel in this moment, like she was the only thing in his world that had ever mattered. Flustered, she pulled her gaze off him. "Well, um, here." She grabbed Josie's notebook from the engine. "I have this diagram of what I'm supposed to do if Faith dies, but I can't figure it out."

"Faith?" He still didn't take his eyes off her, not even to look at the notebook that she was waving at him.

"My car. Josie's car. Do you remember Josie? She was my only friend...I mean, she was my best friend in high school. Anyway, she's a vet out here, but she had to go to Chicago to help her mom through surgery, so I'm out here for a few weeks taking over her clinic while she's gone. So it's her car, and I don't know how to use it and—" She stopped when the corner of his mouth tipped up in a slight smile. "Sorry. I'm babbling."

"You used to be so quiet," he said. "I think you spoke more words just now than you uttered during your entire high school career."

"I used to be so quiet?" She stared at him as the meaning of his words sunk in. He remembered her from high school? The liar!
He remembered her!
Elation flooded her, and she couldn't stop the silly grin. "I'm still quiet," she said. "That was just a momentary babble because I'm nervous. So, don't get used to it. I'm not suddenly going to become a talker."

His right eyebrow quirked. "You're nervous? Why?" As he spoke, he plucked the forgotten notebook out of her hand and walked around her toward the engine.

"Because you make me nervous."

He glanced over at her as he leaned over the engine. "Me? Why?" There was an edge to his voice that was like steel.

"You always have." She leaned against the side of the truck and folded her arms over her chest, watching him as he looked back and forth between the notebook and the engine.