Claiming the Cowboy's Heart (10 page)

He knew what her answer would be if he asked. Because of her helplessness in the face of Oliver’s death. He could tell her that feeling would never leave but didn’t see the point. It wouldn’t make her change her mind.

Not for the first time, he suspected she was part mule.

“Rock back and forth a bit. Do you feel solid?”

They went through the stance several times then he addressed her grip.

She listened and practiced the steps he gave. “You sure pack a lot more into a lesson than Mercy did.”

“Hopefully with better results.” He touched his leg.

Her hands wavered. He edged closer. Hesitated. But there was only one way to show her how to hold her arms. He closed the distance between them. “Like this.” He reached around her, steadying each arm with his own.

He felt her arms twitch.

An answering jolt raced up his limbs and landed in his heart with the force of lightning. Thunder echoed through his insides. Here was a woman who needed taking care of.

What was he thinking? He had a father he was responsible for and he took his responsibilities seriously. He would go home, hopefully find Pa much improved and take over his care. He would devote the rest of his life, or however long Pa lived, to that job.

He didn’t need any complications. Especially from a headstrong woman whose only concern was becoming independent at any cost. However foolish her choices were.

He knew where that led. He was the one who paid the price for Frank and Sarah’s foolishness. He certainly wasn’t about to venture in that direction again.

It was impossible to say who moved away first. Though he figured it was mutual. He knew she didn’t want someone taking care of her any more than he wanted the obligation.

“My arms are getting tired,” she said, shaking one then transferring the gun to shake the other.

“Let’s take a break.” He sat on a nearby log and she sat on another. She couldn’t get much more distance between them and remain in the same clearing. The air fractured with unspoken cautions, goals that took them in different directions.

After several tense, silent moments, Jayne sighed. “You’re putting a lot into this.” She sliced her gaze toward him. “Why?”

Perhaps explaining his reason would ease her tension. “I’m just concerned that if you intend to shoot, you are prepared to use a gun appropriately.”

“But why does it matter to you? You’ll soon be gone and our paths will likely never cross again.”

“I suppose that’s so.” She didn’t have to act so relieved about it, he thought. “But I would still feel responsible. The way I see it, if you see someone doing something foolish, you do your best to stop them. If you can convince them to make better choices, you might save them from disaster.” His voice caught but he hoped she wouldn’t notice.

She cocked her head. “Are you speaking from firsthand experience?”

“Yes, I am. I lost two people very close to me because they wouldn’t heed a warning.”

“How close?”

He shrugged. “Does it matter? The point is, I will always do what I can to keep people from making disastrous choices.”

She turned away and seemed greatly interested in something at the far side of the clearing. “How disastrous?”

“They died.” The words tore out of his chest and scratched the length of his throat and they vibrated in the air.

“Oh, Seth. I’m sorry. An accident?”

He nodded, trying to push every remembrance of that day from his thoughts.

“Did you—” She hesitated.

He looked at her. She scrubbed her lips together and seemed to struggle with her emotions. No doubt she was remembering watching her fiance die.

He hobbled over to her side and sat down. “I should have never started this conversation. It reminds you of a painful event.”

She shuddered and his instincts to protect her took over. He slipped his arm across her shoulders and offered his strength. “I’m sorry.”

Another shudder raced through her then she turned to look into his face. Her eyes were wide and so dark he thought the pain must be searing them. Ah. How could he have been so thoughtless?

“Did you see them die?” Her words were barely a whisper.

He nodded. “I wish I hadn’t.”

She squeezed his hand. “Me, too.”

He understood her to mean her fiance. “The pictures fade with time.”

“Do they?” She shook her head. “How do you ever forget watching someone die?”

“You don’t. But you learn how to live with it and how to keep it in the past.”

She clung to his gaze, probing his soul for truth.

He couldn’t hide it from her. He let her glimpse the pain, the despair, the guilt—and hopefully the determination that carried him through every day until it became second nature.

“Seth, who died?”

Her question jerked him to his feet. It was one thing to talk in anonymous terms. It was quite another to talk about Frank and Sarah. “Let’s run through the whole thing again. If we’re both comfortable that you’re ready, I’ll let you shoot a real bullet.”

She rose slowly. “Seth, there are some things you can’t control. Like death, as you’ve already learned. And people. Guess you didn’t learn that quite so well because you’re trying to control me and I won’t give you that right.” She stalked to where she had practiced her stance. “I will never give anyone that right again.” She shifted her left leg forward, gripped the gun in her right hand and steadied it with her left, just as he’d shown her. She held the stance firmly for several seconds than flung him a hot look. “I think I’m ready for a bullet.”

* * *

It took every ounce of Jayne’s strength to hold the gun steady before she turned to Seth. He’d lost friends. Knowing the pain and shock and despair of watching someone you cared for die, she sympathized with that. She even understood his need to be in control. It was how she’d reacted.

But she only meant to be in control of her life, her choices and her boundaries.

While he, foolish man, thought he could be in control of everything and everyone. It surely must put him in opposition with numerous people.

“I’m ready,” she repeated.

He picked up his crutch and hobbled to her side. “One more thing. You must practice squeezing the trigger.” He cupped his hand over hers. “Hold the gun like you don’t want to lose it.” He tightened his fingers to illustrate, crushing her flesh into the cold steel. “This way you always have control.”

Earlier, he’d wrapped his arms about her to steady her arm. She’d felt safe in his solid grasp. So safe, it sent alarm skidding along her nerves. She didn’t need anyone holding her or keeping her safe. She meant to be independent.

Now the way his fingers closed on hers, she felt again his strength. It raced up her arm and into her heart like a promise of protection. She gritted her teeth. If she gave the slightest encouragement she suspected he would gladly play that role. He’d become her protector, her defender, her knight in shining armor for as long as he chose to stay around. And then he’d leave and she would be the weaker, the more uncertain for having allowed him that role.

She would not do it. She would not give him control.

She nodded. “I’ve got it. Let me show you.”

He dropped his hand from hers and stepped back. “Show me.”

She held the stance he’d taught her, gripped the gun in her hand, held it steady and she crushed her fingers around the gun.

“Squeeze the trigger slowly, keeping your grasp tight all the while. That way your other fingers can’t spasm when you squeeze and you won’t get the same amount of recoil.”

She obeyed his every instruction. In this matter, at least, she welcomed his lessons so she allowed him the right to tell her what to do. He showed her how to line up the sights on the target and made her practice until she could steady the gun on the bull’s-eye.

“Good,” he said when he was finally confident she had the whole procedure down. “Now for a bullet.”

“Finally. I was beginning to think I might have to do this for hours, even days, before it led to the real thing.”

The look he gave her said plenty but that didn’t keep him from saying what he thought, as well. “Need I remind you that I am living—thankfully—evidence of you shooting live ammunition when you didn’t know proper technique?”

“I haven’t forgotten.” She spoke meekly.

He put one bullet in the chamber, stepped behind her then lifted the gun in front of her. “Forget there is a bullet in it. Simply do everything I’ve taught you.” Slowly, quietly, he repeated the steps as she followed them.

A frisson of fear raced through her as she cocked the hammer. Last time she’d pulled the trigger she’d shot someone.

She knew the damage a bullet could do. Thank God that in Seth’s situation, it hadn’t been worse. She tried to swallow but her throat was constricted. What if she had been forced to live with two deaths on her conscience?

He brought his arm around her and steadied her hand. Her fears subsided, settled back to the dark spot behind her heart.

“Good grip. Now squeeze.”

She did. The explosion of the bullet battered her eardrums.

She opened her eyes and squinted at the target. “There’s a hole right through the center.”

He dropped her arm and backed away.

She turned to face him, laughing.

“No thanks to you. You closed your eyes.”

“I did?” Her shoulders fell as did her sense of victory. “I did.”

“Guess I missed one very important step in your lesson.” He leaned closer and narrowed his eyes. “Keep your eyes on the target.” His eyes flashed shades of green. “Keep them open so you aim true.”

“You’re angry.”

His breath whooshed out, and his expression softened. “Not angry.”

“Do you expect me to believe that?” She put more distance between them.

He leaned back on his heels, struggling with his emotions. Suddenly he barked out a laugh. “Like Mercy said, how am I going to persuade you to keep your eyes open?”

“They’re open now.” In fact, they felt too large for her face as she stared at the man who had gone from anger to roaring with laughter. He sure knew how to laugh with abandon. The sound rumbled up and down her chest and tickled behind her ribs. She began to laugh, as well, though she had no idea what they were laughing at. Only that it was pure enjoyment to do so.

He shook his head and pointed at her. “Maybe I should use matchsticks.”

She understood he meant to hold her eyes open. The idea tickled her and she laughed harder. Her knees weakened and she sat on the nearby log.

Seth joined her and they both sobered as they sat side by side. She stretched out her legs as did he. His went on several inches beyond hers. He was a big man, as she’d already noted. A solid man. A steady man.

Good thing he was leaving soon because she was finding it harder and harder to remember why she didn’t need the care and protection of such a man.

One glance at the gun she still held brought her reason back. She drew her legs in. “I’d like to try again.”

He sighed. “I don’t have any matchsticks with me.”

“You won’t need them.” She marched over to the spot where she faced the target. She could do this. All she had to do was focus on the target and keep her eyes open.

He chambered another bullet and edged in behind her. She could feel the warmth of his body, the shelter it provided from the slight breeze…the shelter from life’s storms. His breath caressed her cheek as he lined up the sights over her shoulder.

Confusing emotions raced through her. Determination that she found hard to cling to when his arms were about her, dismay at what her ineptitude had cost Oliver…and herself. Fear of firearms and an emptiness that she wouldn’t allow herself to investigate. Her arms quivered ever so slightly but enough that he noticed. Again he brought his hand up to steady her. “Line it up. Keep your eyes open and squeeze.”

She curled her trigger finger, held her breath as she anticipated the explosion. It was so loud.

“You closed your eyes again.” He held his head in his hands as if it hurt him to even think about it.

“I can’t help it. It’s so loud.” She refused to look at him.

“Jayne, it’s a gun. Guns are loud and heavy and cold and dangerous.”

“I know that.” He didn’t have to treat her like an idiot.

“Why are you shooting one if you’re so all-fired scared of it?”

She flung him a defensive glance. “Because I refuse to let fear control me.”

He lowered his hands and studied her, his eyes wide as if he couldn’t believe what he’d heard.

“Yes, I am afraid of guns. I admit it. But my fear held me immobile when Oliver was shot. I won’t allow it to make me useless ever again.”

“What happened?” His gentle voice melted her resolve. That, and knowing he had a similar experience.

She moved to the log and sat down, folded her hands in her lap. Seth sat beside her and she told him the story. “I met Oliver when I was fifteen and he eighteen. His family is old friends of my family but they’d been abroad and had only just returned.” She tried to think what had attracted her to him. Strangely she couldn’t remember anything specific. He didn’t tease her, didn’t make her laugh…at least not on purpose. He didn’t give her looks that made her want to laugh and cry at the same time. Nor had his arms about her ever made her feel like she’d found a secure shelter.

She shifted to meet Seth’s hazel eyes, saw the gold showing in his irises. She clung to his gaze wanting him to understand how she could have been attracted to Oliver, even though she wasn’t sure she understood it herself. “He seemed so wise. So sure of himself.” At first, she’d liked that but soon discovered it meant he didn’t need her. Not like she needed him and wanted to be needed. “I thought him so grown-up. He did things and took me places I’d never been.” Places her father would have forbidden. “Oliver liked to gamble. Claimed he was good at it. If the amount of money he spent indicated anything then he must have been. But money didn’t impress me. My father is rich and could provide my every want. After a while, when he either didn’t invite me on his exploits or I refused to go because I didn’t care for the type of company I met, I found myself more and more alone. Gambling was his mistress and I couldn’t compete.” She hadn’t meant to say the words aloud. Hadn’t meant to spill all the detail but Seth didn’t indicate shock or disinterest. He cupped his hand over hers on the log.