I’ll be in my room until you call me for lunch.” He started off, Compadre at his side.
Feeling a prick of sorrow, Alexa was inclined to let him go. But to do what? There was nothing worse for him than to sit around all day with nothing to occupy his mind but the loss of his eyesight. So she forced herself to toughen her heart. “Hold it right there, Major. Horses pay the bills and put food on the table at this ranch. If you plan to eat three squares a day for the next month, you’ll pull your weight around here.”
“Did Sierra ask what your services cost? I’ll pay for my keep.”
“I don’t want your money. I want you to stop acting like an invalid.”
ANGER BOILED IN THE PIT of Rafe’s stomach at Alexa’s high-handedness. He could follow her out to the barns and fail miserably, proving his point. Or he could call Sierra to come get him and end this stupid charade. Then he thought about Sierra. How she’d placed so much faith in his coming here. He’d worried her enough already and wouldn’t add to the burden. “Okay, Doc. You win another round. We’ll try it your way today.” He swung back toward the table, but knocked over the chair where he’d been sitting, and instantly froze.
Compadre started to bark and dance around his legs, and Rafe didn’t know which way to turn. He was furious at being so clumsy, and the anger he’d already directed toward Alexa Robinson for putting him in such an untenable position doubled.
He realized she was speaking to him, calmly telling him where the fallen chair was in relation to his left foot. “If you bend your knees and put out your left hand, you’ll feel the chair back, and you can set it upright.”
Rafe followed Alexa’s instructions, shocked that she didn’t rush right over and pick up the chair for him, which was what would’ve happened with the hospital nurses or Sierra and Doug. Once he had the chair on solid footing, he felt a rare sense of accomplishment, the first he’d experienced since his injury. “Thanks,” he said gruffly, begrudgingly giving Alexa a sliver of respect. “I hate the way everyone treats me like a cripple. It’s almost worse than being sent home with a medal while buddies I should’ve saved came home in caskets.”
“The term used now is disabled, not crippled. And I have high expectations for you.” Alexa placed a couple of items in his hands. “Slip on these sunglasses and we’ll be on our way. You’ll need the gloves in the barn. Count how many steps it takes you to get to the barn from the back door. Counting steps and remembering the number puts you on the first rung of the ladder to independence, Major.”
That put her up another notch on Rafe’s judgment scale. “I recall asking you to call me Rafe. I was discharged from the army months ago.”
“Okay, but then don’t call me Doc. I’ve never been one of the seven dwarfs.”
Rafe cracked a partial smile. “You got me there.”
They exited the house with Dog, Alexa providing running commentary about the landscape.
Interest in what she was saying kept Rafe placing one foot in front of the other until she announced, “This is it. We’re at the first and smaller of my two barns. This is where I house the wildlife that park rangers find in their travels and bring to me. That started after I pulled over on the road one day to help a fawn someone had hit. The ranger dropped by to see how the fawn made out and found her well enough to return to the wild.” He felt her touch his arm. “On your left is the corral I use to train three-year-old horses I buy from an area breeder. The horse barn is eighty to a hundred steps behind this one, and sits at the edge of the woods, which is the end of my property. Next to the horse barn, I have a chicken coop and a pen for…uh, other domestic animals.”
Rafe wondered why she sounded hesitant, but decided not to ask. He took a deep breath and felt the tightness in his chest ease. “The air smells of horses and a whiff of cedar. It sorta reminds me of home. Sierra and I grew up in Terlingua, west of here.”
His words stoked memories of the carefree days when Mike, Joey and he rode bucking broncs to the buzzer all summer long. Afterward, the three of them enjoyed cold brewskies at a local bar. Whichever man walked out with the prettiest girl had to pay the tab. But, his buddies were dead. His fault. He’d been their leader, after all.
By this time, Alexa had led him into the barn, and suddenly, Rafe found it impossible to breathe.
Pungent air, thick with the aroma of earth and animal dung, set his head spinning. The clang of metal on metal as the door banged closed behind them shot him straight back to the last trek he’d made through the Afghan mountains. That sound meant one thing—bullets striking their equipment jeep. Familiar earthy smells of goats and the unwashed bodies of the men who tended the flocks threatened to choke him. Innocent looking goat tenders often hid automatic weapons under their worn robes. His body rigid, Rafe was sure he could smell goat, and he started to shake. His patrol should take cover. Where were they?
Someone was touching his arm, and a quiet voice said, “You’re fine, Rafe. This is Texas. As soon as we finish feeding all the stock, we’ll go soak away your anxiety at the hot springs. If that’s not enough, I’ll throw in a peppermint-oil back massage afterward. I know yesterday you nixed the idea of a trip to the springs, but I guarantee, once you step into the water, you’ll be hooked forever.”
Her voice ricocheted like gunshots inside Rafe’s head. Desperate to flee, to find his patrol, he wheeled and tripped over an empty feed bucket and went sprawling. The clatter of his boot on the tin bucket sent the animals around him into a frenzy. He could hear a mountain lion hiss and snarl, and a great owl hooted and flapped its wings. Squirrels chattered nonstop and he heard the shriek of a hawk.
The animals must be warning him of an impending attack. Rafe grabbed Alexa’s legs and threw her down on the ground. He flung an arm over her torso and barked a series of staccato orders. “Don’t move a muscle. Let the heavy artillery rout out the enemy.”
“Easy,” a soothing voice whispered. “You’re okay. Breathe deeply.”
Gradually his pounding heart slowed to a normal rate, and he heard the gentle patter of an animal’s paws approaching just seconds before a wet tongue lapped his face.
Rafe was aware that he was emerging from a flashback. Part of him understood that the threat hadn’t been real. But a major portion of his brain was still befuddled. It made no sense that his face was buried in long strands of sweet-smelling hair. Again, a bird squawked in the background, and it rattled Rafe all the more when a woman shifted out from under him, sat up and forced him to do the same. What were they doing on the ground? Dr. Robinson. God, had he attacked her?
“Are you okay?” she murmured. “You had a small flashback, Rafe.”
The question had him sweating profusely. Was he getting worse? He hadn’t had a single flashback at Sierra’s. This was his second since coming here.
“You fell over a feed bucket,” Alexa said, scrambling to her knees as she began calmly checking his face and arms for cuts or bruises. “It was my fault. I saw the bucket, but didn’t move it out of the aisle. Feed buckets belong on wall pegs, not on the barn floor where they can trip people. I swear I’ll be more careful in the future.”
Her cool, seductive touch telegraphed a signal to Rafe’s body. Even though he couldn’t see the woman who hovered so close to him, he was still a man. All man.
His fingers flexed around Alexa’s upper arms and he pulled her forward until he could feel the outline of her soft breasts
