Falling Hard (Colorado High Country #3)

  Janet laughed. “He adores her. You want to know who runs this ranch? She’s eight and has big blue eyes and blond hair.”

  Emily ran up to them. “Have the twins ever seen horses?”

  “No, they haven’t. Would you like to show them?”

  Emily’s face lit up. “Can we, Mommy?”

  Megan stood. “Let’s bundle up. It’s cold out there.”

  Ten minutes later, the small herd of children moved together through the house toward the back door, either in their mother’s arms or on their own feet, Emily leading the way, Jack promising to join them in a few minutes.

  “Buckwheat is my horse. He’s a gelding. He’s with my daddy today, but we have other horses,” Emily told the twins.

  “She’s been riding since she was four,” Megan explained. “That’s when I met Nate. He adopted her after we got married.”

  A bittersweet longing washed through Ellie. “It must have meant so much to you—to give her a father, to have someone to raise her with you.”

  “Nate has been wonderful for her.”

  They stepped outside to find it snowing lightly, the sky overcast, the wind cold. Thankfully, it wasn’t a long walk to the barn.

  Inside it was much warmer, the mingled odors of straw and manure tickling Ellie’s nose. They turned a corner and… “Oh! Look at them!”

  The twins’ faces lit up.

  Daisy pointed and looked up at Ellie as if to ask, “What is that, Mama?”

  “That’s a horsie. Can you see the horsies, Daniel?”

  A half-dozen palomino mares stood in their stalls, munching on hay. They whickered when they heard Emily’s voice and walked toward their gates, clearly familiar with her and happy to see her.

  Emily introduced them to the horses. “This is Baby Doe. She’s my favorite mare. She’s going to foal in March. I hope it’s a filly because we might get to keep it.”

  They met Molly Brown, Chipeta, Isabella Bird, Julia Greeley, and Clara Brown—all beautiful palominos named after famous women from Colorado’s history. All were in foal, which meant they were pregnant, Emily explained.

  Ellie found herself laughing and in need of an extra pair of hands as the twins, curious and excited, stuck their hands in the stalls trying to touch the horses and ran every which way, chattering to one another. She finally picked Daisy up and did her best to hold onto the back of Daniel’s coat.

  Jack walked up to her. “You look like you’ve got your hands full.”

  He scooped up Daniel and helped him pet one of the mares. “Be gentle. There you go. See how soft her muzzle is? Can you say horsie?”

  “Howsie.”

  “Good enough.”

  “Miss Emily, let’s tack up Baby Doe.” Jack took a lead rope from a nail on the wall and handed it to Emily, who entered Baby Doe’s stall, clipped it to the mare’s halter, and led the big animal out and down a walkway. “How old are your twins, Ellie?”

  “They’ll be three in April.”

  “Then it’s high time they learned to ride.” While Emily saddled the mare, Jack took a small riding helmet from a nearby shelf and put it on Daniel’s head, fixing the strap under his chin. “Are you ready to ride this horsie, young man?”

  Ellie shook her head. “Oh, I don’t think—”

  “This is what he does,” Megan said. “The twins will be safe. He’s ridden with kids with severe disabilities, kids who can’t even talk. When he was two, he was riding by himself. So was Nate. Crazy, isn’t it?”

  It certainly seemed crazy to Ellie, who could imagine a dozen ways it could all go terribly wrong. Being a nurse meant having a vivid imagination where injury and catastrophe were concerned.

  Emily rode the mare first under Jack’s watchful eye, the child looking like she’d been born on a horse.

  “My daughter loves to ride.”

  Ellie laughed. “I couldn’t tell.”

  When Emily dismounted, Jack adjusted the stirrups, took her place in the saddle, and then reached for Daniel. “Are you ready, buddy?”

  The moment Jack settled Daniel into the saddle in front of him, Ellie’s fear melted away. Jack had absolute mastery of the animal. More than that, Daniel was in heaven. He smiled and laughed, petting the horse and squealing with delight when Jack brought the mare to a lope.

  Then it was Daisy’s turn. The sound of her laughter was precious to Ellie as Jack rode Baby Doe in circles through the soft sand. But when her turn was over, Daisy didn’t want to come down. She started crying when Jack handed her to Ellie.

  “You’ll just have to come back and do it again sometime.” Jack looked straight into Ellie’s eyes. “You and the twins are welcome any time, Ellie. I mean that. After Dan’s death, we didn’t want to intrude. We knew Dan, but we didn’t have a relationship with you. Now we do.”

  Ellie’s throat grew tight, warmth blossoming in her chest. “Thank you, Jack. And thanks for this.”

  “You’re welcome.” He led the mare back the way they’d come. “Let me get Baby Doe back in her stall, and then we’ll take a sleigh ride out to see what the idiot menfolk are doing. I had one of my hands hook a pair of geldings to the sleigh. Do you want to help me with the reins, Miss Emily?”

  Jesse took the slack out of the rope, his body tensed and ready. “Go!”

  His body was snapped forward as Nate brought the horse to a gallop, snow flying beneath his skis, wind in his face. He couldn’t help but smile.

  He turned to the right, made it through the first gate, then veered to the left, the horse pulling him up the six-foot jump and into the air. “Woohoo!”

  He stuck the landing and swung to the right to catch the second gate, Nate urging the gelding to go faster.

  The next jump was dead center.

  He sailed up and over, catching air again.

  Fuck, yeah.

  He swung to the left and sailed through the last gate then veered hard to the right, rode up and over the third jump, another six-footer. He felt like he was flying.

  He made the landing, then straightened himself up and let go of the rope with his right hand, aiming his arm like a spear to catch the three rings.

  One. Two.

  Damn it.

  His fist punched the last ring off its hook, knocking it to the ground.

  He skied to a stop and caught his breath, Nate riding back toward him.

  “Hell.” Nate shook his head, smiling ear to ear. “You almost had it.”

  “You know, even when you fuck it up, this is fun. It’s a lot like wakeboarding.”

  “Yeah—except that you’re not landing in water when you fall.”

  They took a break, drinking hot coffee from a thermos Nate had brought in the saddle bags. “So you and Ellie Meeks, huh?”

  “Yeah. It wasn’t anything I planned.” He and Nate didn’t know each other well, but Jesse had to ask. “What’s it like being a dad?”

  “It’s great. I love it. Megan is the best thing that ever happened to me, and the kids are right there with her.” He was quiet for a moment as if deciding whether to say more. “Megan had a rough life before I met her. Emily was four when we got together. I adopted Emily when Megan and I got married. I love that little girl like my own. She never knew a father before me. In every way that counts, I am her father.”

  “Wow. Yeah. That’s great.” It felt like a revelation to Jesse.

  He’d always thought that his dad had beaten him because he wasn’t truly his son. Some part of him had accepted it as natural that a man couldn’t love children that weren’t his blood. But now thinking of his feelings for Daniel and Daisy—and considering what Nate had just told him—it seemed to him that his father had beaten him because the man was an asshole.

  “I’m going to go out on a limb here,” Nate said. “I don’t know you well, but I hear good things. You’re on the Team. You’re a patroller. You’ve saved lives. You’ve served your country. But don’t hurt Ellie. Dan was a good friend of mine. I care about what happens to the woman he l
oved and the kids he never got to see.”

  Nate spoke the words in a friendly enough way, but the warning was clear.

  “I don’t want to hurt her. The last thing I want to do is hurt her. I knew Dan, too. We called him Crash, short for Crashhawk. He was the pilot on at least a dozen direct actions I was involved in, and there were a handful of times when he came in for a hot extract, guns blazing, and saved our asses.”

  Nate glared at him. “You were buddies, and you’re with his wife?”

  “I didn’t know she was his wife.” A sticky sense of guilt had Jesse defending himself. “She and I have been neighbors for two years. I helped her one night when her car broke down, and she and Daniel were sick. I knew she was a Gold Star wife, but it didn’t click that she was Crash’s wife. It’s not like he and I were close buds. I only saw him a few times outside of his bird, and that was just in passing.”

  “Okay, well, that’s different.” The anger faded from Nate’s face.

  But now Jesse was pissed. “If you and Dan were so close and you care so much about Ellie, where have you been these past three years?”

  “That’s a fair question. We started a college fund for her kids. The whole town contributed. She knows it’s there, but she doesn’t know we started it. We didn’t have a personal relationship, and we didn’t want to impose on her grief.” Nate’s gaze shifted to something behind Jesse. “It looks like the old man brought lunch.”

  Jesse looked over his shoulder to see two horses pulling a sleigh, Jack and Emily at the reins, the women and kids piled into seats behind him and covered by blankets. “Wow.”

  Nate towed Jesse over to the picnic shelter, tying off the horse’s reins while Jesse stepped out of his bindings. “Does Ellie know that you knew Dan?”

  “No.” At first, she’d been sick, and it hadn’t seemed right to bring it up, and then... “I need to tell her.”

  Chapter 18

  Jesse was unusually quiet on the drive home from the Cimarron. Ellie didn’t notice at first because all she could do was rave about how amazing their day had been. She didn’t know what had been more fun—watching the kids ride for the first time, going for a sleigh ride, or getting up the courage to ask Jack if she could try riding. She’d also felt better after she’d watched Jesse fly through the skijoring course after lunch. It was only when he didn’t seem to hear this comment that she realized something was wrong.

  The kids had fallen asleep on the drive back to Scarlet Springs, worn out from all the excitement. Jesse carried in Daniel while she carried Daisy. They put them in their beds. On the way back down the hallway, she finally asked him about it.

  “Are you okay? You’re so quiet.”

  “We need to talk.”

  That didn’t sound good. Had she said or done something to upset him? Had something happened at the Cimarron?

  “Okay. Do you want a cup of coffee or something to drink?”

  “No. Thanks. I’m fine.”

  They sat at the table, and she waited.

  “There’s something I should have told you when we first met. At first, it didn’t seem important, and then I just let it go.”

  She reached for his hand. “What is it?”

  “I knew Dan.”

  Blood rushed to her head. “Wh-what?”

  “We all had nicknames over there, so at first I didn’t make the connection. I knew him as Crashhawk. We all called him Crash. I should have told you, but at first it seemed irrelevant and after that .. I didn’t want to stir up old memories for you. I should have told you before we got involved, and for that I’m sorry.”

  But Ellie’s mind hadn’t gotten past his revelation, rage making her face burn. “You knew Dan? You knew my husband, and now you’re sleeping with me?”

  “I didn’t know him that well. We didn’t hang together. He flew maybe fifteen actions for us, saved our asses a few times. We didn’t hang out.”

  “So Dan flew you and your guys on some of your missions and maybe even saved your life. You came back, but Dan died in that helicopter.”

  Grief cut through her, sharp and dark.

  Oh, Dan.

  “If I could change that for you and take his place in Arlington, I’d do it.”

  “That’s not what I meant. I don’t want that.” She’d said something pretty close to it, hadn’t she? “I’m sorry. It came out wrong. I was just stating a fact.”

  She fought to keep herself together. “When did you figure it out?”

  “The night you were sick. I saw the SOAR patch on my way out, and it finally clicked. Ellie Meeks. Dan Meeks. Crash.”

  “You didn’t think it was important enough to tell me?”

  “Not that night, no. You were sick, pale and dizzy. Daniel was sick and crying. You didn’t need a stranger bringing up the past.”

  “Okay.” That was fair. “What about later? What about the night we first kissed and I told you all about him? Or how about when you were in his bed and I asked you if the photos of him bothered you?”

  Jesse’s gaze went hard and cold, and he leaned in. “When I was in your bed, the only person I was thinking about was you.”

  That made her mind go blank for a moment.

  “I wasn’t trying to withhold anything from you. With everything that’s been happening, I just didn’t think about it.”

  “You didn’t think about it?”

  “I should have told you before we got involved. I’m sorry. I care about you. I—”

  “You should go now.”

  “Ellie, I—”

  “I just need some time.”

  A muscle clenched in his jaw. He stood. “If that’s what you want.”

  She stood and walked to her bedroom, fighting tears. There on the walls were photos of the man she’d loved—and lost. What would he say if he knew she’d been sleeping with a man he’d known?

  She sank down on the bed, looked at the ring on her finger, and tried to straighten out the tangled mess of emotions inside her.

  She needed to talk to Claire. She needed to tell her sister what had happened. She walked out to the kitchen in search of her cell phone, and that’s when she saw it.

  Her key.

  He’d left it on the kitchen table.

  Jesse held the bottle of rum, his resolve slipping.

  Drinking won’t make it better.

  No, it wouldn’t. He would just end up with a hangover to go with the sickness in his heart. Then again, didn’t heartbreak and hangovers go together? Besides, it might make him numb for a while, and right now he desperately needed to stop feeling.

  He poured himself a drink, tossed it back, poured another, then went to sit in the chair in front of his wood stove, taking the bottle with him.

  He had fucked up, and he was paying for it. Why hadn’t he told her? Why hadn’t he come right out with it that first night? She’d been so hurt, so angry. But it wasn’t as if he’d tried to deceive her. He’d just forgotten to tell her.

  Jesus.

  He’d been so close to having something special with her, to being more than he’d ever thought he could be. He might have married her. He might have done like Nate and been a father to her kids.

  Regret, cold and sharp, cut into him.

  Daniel and Daisy.

  The thought of never seeing them again made him feel actual fucking pain in his chest, as if someone had just cut through his sternum.

  You knew this wouldn’t work out. You knew it was a bad idea.

  He shouldn’t have left the key. Then he would at least have a reason to see her again. He could have waited, then asked if she wanted the key back. But he hadn’t been thinking tactically. He’d been hurt and angry, and so had she.

  You came back, but Dan died in that helicopter.

  She said she hadn’t meant it the way it had sounded, but Jesse had meant every word he’d said. If he could change places with Dan, be the one who died, trade his life for Dan’s life, he would do it. Dan had left behind two unborn children and a w
ife who loved him. No one would have missed Jesse.

  Restlessness had him on his feet. He emptied his glass, set it down on the coffee table, and walked with the bottle to his front window. He took a drink, watched darkness cover the world outside, the last rays of sunlight fading away.

  How was he supposed to go back to the life he’d had before Ellie?

  Maybe he was overreacting. She’d said she needed time, not that she didn’t want to see him again. Maybe she would call him or text him, and he could find some way to make it up to her. Maybe he could still make this right. Some part of him wanted to walk down the hill to her house, apologize again, and tell her exactly how he felt about her.

  And how do you feel?

  Did he love her?

  No. Yes. Hell, he didn’t know.

  All he knew for certain was that he’d been a better man with Ellie than he could ever be without her.

  On Thursday morning, Ellie dragged herself out of bed, put her heartache over Jesse aside and got ready for heartache of another kind. Today was little Tyler Kirby’s funeral service. She dressed in black, put the kids in their nicest clothes, and met her mother and father at St. Barbara’s. It seemed that everyone in Scarlet Springs had turned out to stand by the Kirby family in their grief, the pews crowded, not even standing room available, the parking lot overflowing.

  Eric Hawke passed by in his full fire chief dress uniform.

  “You look snappy, young man,” her father said.

  “I broke out all the official jewelry today,” Eric said, running his fingers over the golden badge and the pins and medals on his jacket. “Ellie, Mrs. Rouse.”

  He seemed to be there in an official capacity. He and his crew took their positions, standing at attention around the tiny casket, which was covered by a white pall and a spray of white roses.

  She glanced around and saw Eric’s wife Victoria sitting with Lexi and Lexi’s dad and stepmom. Mrs. Beech was there. So was Joe from Knockers, together with much of his staff, including Rain and her daughter, Lark. Rose, always dramatic, was wearing a black lace veil over her silver hair. Frank from the gas station had come in his finest overalls. Megs sat in the back with most of the Team, no yellow T-shirts this time.