Fearless: Complicated Creatures Part Three (15 page)

“I’m freaked out,” Wes blurted out suddenly. “The minute I step out of this place, you and I won’t ever be the same, Sammy. I’m scared I’m going to lose you,” he confessed, saying the words he hadn’t wanted to admit to himself or to her, as this day had slowly marched toward them since the moment he threw his graduation cap in the air. “I’m scared of losing
us
.”

Her expression softened, and Sam leaned forward to kiss him again, this time so gently, so tenderly, it almost felt more intimate than sex. Because this girl knew him better than anyone. She knew everything. The best and the worst he had to offer, the potential he had yet to realize, and the things he loved most, and the fears he harbored.

His throat tightened as she continued to kiss him gently, communicating with her lips what she couldn’t say with words. The tenderness of their last moments together brought tears to his eyes as he kissed her back. And Wes felt the unspeakable agony of it, the relinquishing of each other, the imminent goodbye… the awful inevitability of letting go.

When Sam drew back, she removed the dog tags from around her neck, slipping the metal chain over his head as he stared back at her, his throat working.

“No matter where you are, no matter what is happening, I love you, Wes. Time and distance doesn’t change that,” she told him, her heart in her eyes as she pressed the metal plates to his chest. “So whenever you feel too far away from me, you hold onto these, and you remind yourself of this moment when I told you everything would be okay.”

He nodded, holding her tags tight in his hand. “You promise to meet me in Paris?”

“Absolutely,” she responded readily, eyes shining. “I’ll take you to the Louvre. Show you all my favorite paintings. We’ll eat croissants at cafés overlooking the Seine, listen to jazz in Montparnasse, make love in a hotel room with a view of the Eiffel Tower—”

Wes gripped her face, kissing her hard.

“You promise?” he asked again, his heart thudding hard, pushing against his rib cage like it was trying to find its way closer to hers.

Sam held him tight, and he felt her tears against his lips, hot and salty. “I promise,” she whispered. “I promise.”

March—Present Day

Wyatt Ranch, Texas

S A M A N T H A

S
amantha took a
deep breath, relishing the scent of dry hay and clean horse hair as she brushed back Valkyrie’s pitch-black mane. Her Quarter Horse neighed quietly, nudging Sam gently with her velveteen nose.

“Looking good, honey girl,” Sam murmured, stroking the brush up her horse’s neck. “You’re still as pretty as the day you were born,” she told her in the quiet of the stables.

Valkyrie was nearing twenty now, but she was still quick, her body sleek and muscular. She had a natural cow sense too, perfect for working with cattle on round-ups. Back in the day, Sam’s midnight pony had clocked speeds of up to 50 mph, and Sam could still remember how it felt to ride Val fast across the plains, her hair whipping behind her, the sound of Val’s hoofs thundering over hard-packed earth, just like it was yesterday.

God, to be wild and free like that again. Unencumbered.
Happy
.

Lost in her thoughts, Sam reached too high with the horse brush, and a shard of pain vibrated up her back, a moment of searing, vivid agony lighting up her nerve endings like a white-hot torch. She dropped the brush as she sucked in a sharp breath, leaning heavily against her mare as she fought to breathe through the worst of it, trying hard not to make a sound in the quiet of the stable.

Val seemed to sense her distress, nudging her slightly as she gazed at Sam with serene, liquid-dark eyes. Samantha clenched and unclenched her fingers against the sleek, tensile strength of her mare’s neck as she tried to breathe through the worst of it, waiting for the sharp pain to subside into the dull, throbbing ache she’d learned to live with during the past few months.

“You’re fine,” Sam whispered through gritted teeth. “You’re okay,” she said, repeating the mantra she’d been telling herself since the morning she’d woken up after the last of her surgeries—as if willing the words could make it so.

“You will be once you stop pushing it so hard.”

Sam felt the warm clasp of Carey’s palm on her back as soon as she registered his voice. It was a testament to how much pain she was in that she didn’t notice him enter the stall, big as he was.

“I’m fine,” Sam whispered, forcing herself to stand straight on her own, though the move cost her. Sam reached back for the cane she’d been using since she’d begun to walk again. It had been her granddaddy’s, a beautifully-carved mahogany staff with a sterling silver handle. As much as she hated having to rely on a cane, it was better than the walker she’d had to use when she’d first begun her physical therapy.

“You’re not nearly as fine as you’d like everyone to think, and you and I both know it,” Carey replied lightly, slipping his arm around her waist as he gently led her from the stall. “You keep over-doing it, Sammy girl.”

“De Soto been telling on me?” she replied, trying to distract herself from the pain.

Carey smirked at her, blue eyes lit with wry amusement. “Like I need Alejandro to tell me what I already know. Besides, I gave him the night off with a couple of the other guys. He tells me you’ve been meaner than a skillet full of rattlesnakes all week.”

“He likes it,” she said, droll.

“You know… I think that crazy son of a bitch just might. Reckon he’s got to be tough as a whang to go head to head with you on a daily basis,” Carey observed, helping her close up Val’s stall.

And he was. God help her. She’d been hard on everyone lately, Alejo worst of all—just because he was constantly there, ever watchful, unrelenting. They’d come to a sort of uneasy truce over the past couple months. She’d never admit it, but she could see from the tireless way with which Alejandro commanded the security team at the ranch, that he’d grown into a solid strategist and a deeply-respected leader from the cock-sure bastard he’d been in ROTC. Even though he wasn’t part of the Lennox Chase team, Alejo had quickly established trust and rapport with not only her men, but with her family.

Secretly, Sam was glad for the break from him tonight. Though she knew she needed the help, her innate self-reliance made her bristle against being constantly watched over. Alejo didn’t hover, but he was a constant presence, black eyes sharp as a hawk’s as she forced herself through round after round of physio, often pushing too hard to heal when time and patience were the two key ingredients she knew she needed to allot herself.

“When did you arrive?” she asked Carey, taking in his office duds as he stood in the middle of the stable. He wore fine-wool slacks, spit-shined dress shoes, and a bespoke button-down shirt he’d rolled up the sleeves on like he couldn’t wait to be rid of his jacket and tie.

“ ’Bout twenty minutes ago,” he told her as she looped her hand over the crook of his arm. “Mama made her famous enchiladas, and you know I ain’t about to miss that.”

And you want to check up on me…
Sam thought but didn’t say aloud as they walked slowly back up to the main house. She wasn’t surprised by Carey’s last-minute trips to the ranch by now. He’d been spending the majority of his time working out of Wyatt Towers in Houston so he could stay close.

“You’re burning enough helicopter fuel to fund Wyatt Petroleum’s next quarter,” she tsked.

His answering chuckle was warm. “Well, hell, Sammy girl—what’s the point in owning all the oil in Texas if you don’t use a little?” he teased. “Besides, I gotta get you back to running the damn board. I have never been so bored out of my mind! Sitting through hours of decisions on crude futures and guessing what OPEC will be up to in the next month? Shoot. Me. Now.”

“I know you hate it, but I’ll be ready soon, now that I’m back on my feet.” Though she’d urged him to return to Chicago time and again, he assured her Talon and Marvin had it in-hand, and she knew Rush and Simon were taking care of the London office just fine. Besides, she’d long given up trying to prevent Carey from doing as he liked. He was just as mule-headed as she was, even though he was nicer about it.

Carey remained quiet until they reached the edge of the porch. He helped her up the last, painful steps, his hands gentle, but strong.

“Mama told me dinner’s not for another twenty or thirty minutes,” he told her. “You want to sit on the porch swing a bit?”

“Sure—why not?” Sam answered with a pained smile. Her back was killing her. Try as she might to pretend it wasn’t, Carey could read her like a book. There was no sense in pretending with him. He led her to the swing, and Sam took a seat, leaning back gingerly as he arranged a couple of the pillows behind her. “Quit fussing over me, Bear,” she said on a wince. “I’m fine.”

“Horse shit,” he replied with a grave look. “You haven’t been fine in so long, I almost don’t remember what you look like when you
are
okay, Sammy.”

She shot him a dark look. “What does that mean?”

“You know exactly what that means,” he answered, his blue gaze direct and unflinching. “You’ve been hurt and angry and miserable for months.”

“I’d say I’ve got good cause to be,” Sam replied darkly. “I’ve been carved up like a Christmas turkey, and now I’ve got a file sitting on my desk reminding me of the worst night of my life. You’d be pissed off and put out too if the shoe were on the other foot.”

Ever since Carey had shared the file Jack had given him, the reality of what had happened to her father and little brother weighed heavy on her like an albatross. For so many reasons. Seeing her own military history redacted like a foreign language, reading her mental and emotional assessments like she was a weaponized experiment was incredibly demoralizing. And all that before succumbing to the realization that her own superiors, men she’d reported to and done unspeakably horrible things for, had kept a terrible truth from her.

“You were unhappy before you found out about your daddy and Ry,” Carey pointed out quietly. “You’re not just angry—you’re hurt. Far worse and far deeper than that knife wound you’ve been nursing. It’s changing you, Sammy girl.”

She looked out into the distance, unwilling to concede, despite the accuracy of the statement. She had been unhappy for a long time, well before all this business with Lucien Lightner, Ibrahim Nazar, and perhaps most painfully, Jack. That he’d known the truth and kept it from her was unspeakably hurtful. He was the first man she’d loved since Wes. The first lover she’d let into her heart after years of self-inflicted loneliness.

But thinking about Jack was a double-edged sword. On one hand, she missed him far more than she cared to admit to anyone, much less herself, and on the other hand, his betrayal of a secret she’d become obsessed with hurt so badly, she wasn’t certain she’d be able to get past it.

Carey followed her sightline, gazing across the persimmon plains as the sun sank low over the horizon, heralding the beginning of twilight. Cricket calls and the sounds of katydids filled the warm Texas air like a lonesome love song bathed in the sultry breeze. He leaned back, pushing the swing gently with the tip of his toe.

“You know when I was a boy, all I wanted was to stay on this ranch, grow up here with Ryland, herding steer and raising cattle, just like my daddy,” Carey told her, his voice soft in the twilight. “Ry and I had this plan: We were both gonna get married to local girls that we chased at the county fairs, have kids at the same time, and raise ’em to be cowboys. We were gonna grow old together. Watch our grandkids run around from this very porch.”

“What about the Naval Academy?” Sam asked, looking at him. “You used to tell anyone who’d listen you wanted to go be in the Navy, follow our father’s footsteps.”

Carey’s blue eyes burned bright even in the dim porch light. “I went into the Navy because of you, Sammy. I looked up to you all my life—maybe even more than our daddies. You were larger than life. Toughest girl I ever saw. Never took shit. Never backed down. And when Ry passed…,” Carey reached for her hand, his emotion belied by the way he gripped her hand. “All I wanted was to make you proud. I wanted to be a man you’d be proud to call your brother.” He took a deep breath. “I couldn’t replace Ry, but I didn’t want you to ever feel alone in this world. You’d always have me.”

“You regret it,” she whispered, tears pressed behind her eyes, unbidden. “You regret the life you chose with me, don’t you?”

“No, Sammy—I
don’t.
That ain’t what I’m saying.” Carey shook his head. “I just changed my mind about what I wanted. I made the best decision I could at the time, with what life handed me, and I never looked back. What I regret is that I couldn’t help you do the same. You never got past what happened, baby girl. You never got over it. You’ve taught yourself to live without happiness, Sammy. You blame yourself for something you couldn’t stop, a night you couldn’t change, and it’s breaking my fuckin’ heart—I’m saying
you’re
breaking my heart.” He met her eyes. “You’ve got to stop this, Sammy—running yourself through the wringer. Because you’re hurting me too. Seeing you like this is hurting me too.”