Chapter 3

A promise. After an honorable medical discharge, that's what had sent Nate from Chicago to Meadowlark, Wyoming. The "honorable" part of his release from the Army was a joke, but his pledge to a dying comrade was not. Redemption was asking too much, but he could hope. Something told him he'd still be seeking absolution when he took his last breath on some distant day.

It should've been him six feet under with Justin standing vigil at Nate's funeral. Not the other way around. And he'd pay for it the rest of his pathetic life. He was here, as Justin had asked of him, but there was no atonement for getting a friend killed.

He stared out the massive living room window at a dark Cattenach Ranch, waiting on Olivia to return from upstairs. Justin had talked about his family and the land often, but somehow hadn't done any of it justice. Nate had envisioned a little farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by rolling hills and cows. Showed what he knew.

It had taken five solid minutes on his Hog to ride to the front door from the local highway. He might've missed the turnoff had the arched wrought iron sign not been so prominent. Lined with pine trees on one side and solar lamps on the other, the driveway went on for miles and he thought he'd never arrive.

The three-story log cabin damn near resembled a mansion, rural style. All cedar and glass on the outside, stone and accents on the inside. Wide beams across a twenty-foot ceiling, a flagstone floor-to-rafters fireplace, and scarred pine throughout. The furniture was navy corduroy. The kind you sank into on a snowy day and never wanted to leave. Family portraits and landscapes of the ranch dotted the paneled walls. He hadn't seen but two rooms, and he was impressed. The kitchen was huge, airy, and modern with stainless steel appliances.

For a city boy used to skyscrapers and sirens, who'd had to hoard food just to scrape by, it was a culture shock. Hell, Iraq had been less of an adjustment.

Footsteps padded on the stairs and he turned. The cold ball of dread in his gut morphed into a boulder. The biggest holy shit since arriving? Olivia Cattenach. He'd seen a couple photos of her, courtesy of her brother, but the 3D version had been a blow to the head.

She rounded the landing of the enormous polished birch staircase, wearing a loose pair of gray sweats, pink socks, and a white tank top. He'd misspoken. She wasn't a blow. She was a hydrogen bomb directly aimed at his solar plexus.

Like her brother, she was slender and had legs for miles. Waifish would describe her if not for the hourglass flair of her hips and the generous endowment of breasts. That hair, though? Fuck him. His wildest fantasies couldn't conjure a shade of auburn that heart-stopping. Silky and falling just past her shoulders, he itched to ram his fingers through the strands.

She stepped into the room and glanced around. "Sorry for the wait. We were shearing today and I was filthy. I needed a shower."

He had no idea what the hell she was talking about, but he nodded. "Not a problem." When her gaze darted elsewhere again, he made a non-threatening move of sitting in one of the many available chairs. His size could be menacing, and the last thing he wanted was to frighten her. "Your aunt said she's in her room if you need her. And the man you were with, Nick? He left." Under duress, even though the aunt assured the guy Olivia would be fine.

"Nakos," she corrected and offered a polite smile. "He's our foreman and a good friend."

Nate wondered if the guy knew he was only a friend. He'd shot nothing but threatening daggered glares Nate's way, but he'd kept his mouth shut.

After a beat, she claimed a chair across from him and tucked her legs under her. "When did you get to town?"

Small talk typically made him break out in hives, but he liked the sound of her voice. Lilting, almost. "About an hour before you came in. I rode straight from Chicago."

"Is that where you're from?" She tugged on her earlobe, her gaze on her lap. She'd yet to look him in the eye for long, and he wanted a glimpse of them again more than air.

"Yes. The south side." He skimmed his gaze over the light dusting of freckles on her shoulders. Her skin was something else. Not quite fair and not rich enough to be considered sun-kissed. At her nod, he leaned forward a tad. "Don't be scared. I'm built like a bear, but I'm harmless." Actually, he could kill a man fifty different ways with his bare hands, but that was intel she didn't need.

Finally, those eyes focused on him, and the room vacuumed of air. Cornflower and bluer than anything he'd born witness. Her brother's had been a shocking shade of navy, but hers were...potent. The fine arch of her brows and her long lashes only made them seem bigger on her pretty oval face.

"I'm sorry." She worked her lower lip between her teeth. "The last time someone from the military showed up, it was to..."

To inform her Justin had died. Nate should've thought of that.

Forcing himself not to fist his hands, he acknowledged he understood with a grunt. "I apologize for missing the funeral. I was injured and in a hospital in Germany at the time. I just got back Stateside a couple weeks ago." Long enough to grab the few things he owned from Jim and hop on his Harley.

"Oh." Her gaze swept over him as if searching for evidence. "I didn't realize anyone else was hurt. Was it...the same blast? Are you okay now?"

He'd never be okay again. "It was the same explosion, and I'm healed. I took shrapnel to my leg and hip that required a few surgeries." He wished they'd given him a lobotomy, too. The scars and residual pain in his leg weren't enough.

"So, you were with Justin when he died?"

Ten feet away. "Yes." He sensed she needed more details, even if she didn't necessarily want to hear them. "What do you know about what happened?"

Her throat worked a swallow and she glanced away. "Just what they told me, which wasn't much. He was sent into a building and an IED went off. It was implied the mission went wrong because of incorrect info from his commanding officer."

Sometimes, knowing what really happened was worse than fragmented facts. Either the Army had told her placating answers or she'd misunderstood. Either way, most of what she'd said wasn't accurate. All but one thing. Justin's commanding officer had screwed up, and Nate was that man. As a first lieutenant to Justin's second, it had been Nate's job to protect him. And he'd failed epically.

He wouldn't fail with Olivia. It was imperative she not know his role in her brother's death. For Nate to follow through on Justin's wishes, she needed to trust him. Thus, he geared himself to relay the story while trying not to relive it.

"We were sent to this tiny village to do a sweep for refugees and weapons. Most of the buildings were in ruins and we hadn't planned to be there longer than a day. Justin and I paired up and went in one structure while the rest of our unit did the same in others."

The place had been a ghost town, so when Justin claimed to see a kid, Nate figured it had been a trick of the light. He should've known better than to send Justin first while Nate radioed an update to base. Turned out, that kid hadn't been a mirage. He'd been an eight-year-old with explosives strapped to his chest.

"We saw the bomb too late." Cold sweat broke out on his face, dampened his hands.

She drew a ragged breath, her eyes misty. "Did he...suffer?"

"No. It was quick." And sometimes, lies were a necessity. Justin had been in agony. Utter, utter agony. Fifteen minutes it had taken for him to die. It had felt like fifteen years. Justin lying on the damn ground, holes riddling his entire body, gripping Nate's hand while they'd waited for an evac team, and blood every-fucking-where. Nate would never wash away the memory. "He didn't experience any pain."

Closing her eyes, she took a second to seemingly collect herself. Relief was evident in the sag of her shoulders. "Thank you." While the acid in his stomach churned, she shifted positions and resettled. "You said Justin had a message for me?"

"Yes." He pulled the If you're reading this letter from his back pocket and unfolded the envelope. "We exchanged notes in case something happened." He handed it to her.

She stared at the once plain white stationery, now yellow from the elements. "Did he say anything before he died?"

"Shit, it hurts, Nate. I'm so...cold. Take care of my sister. Promise me you'll...take care of...Olivia."

"There wasn't time." Nate ground his jaw, fighting the urge to scream. To run. To bash his head repeatedly against the closest hard surface to forget. "When he wrote it, he asked that I give you the letter in person and stay while you read it."

Regardless of what happened in the next few minutes, at the very least, he'd find a motel in town for tonight. That wasn't the ideal outcome, nor the plan, but he'd figure out something more permanent after she wasn't so shell-shocked.

"I have some of his things on my bike." Nate rose. "I'll go grab them to give you a moment alone. You can meet me on the porch when you're ready."

Her gaze lifted to his and he never wanted so badly to be someone else. The kind of guy who offered comfort instead of inflicting misery. A man worthy of the gratitude in her eyes. Alas, he was an asshole of the highest order.

"Do you know what it says?" Her quiet voice wrapped around his jugular and squeezed.

"No. We didn't read each other's letters." Chest tight, he strode to the door and stepped out into the chilly air.

His shoes crunched over gravel as he made his way to his bike in the driveway. Glancing up, he found an endless supply of stars winking overhead. Too many to count and more than he'd ever seen at one time. Back in that shithole of a desert, there'd been stars aplenty, but not like this. Out here in no man's land, unbidden by city lights and smogor explosions and smokethe sky stretched for eons.

It was quiet, too. A rustle of dry grass here, a chirp of a cricket there. Throw in a random hoot from an owl, and that encompassed the symphony. Deafening, really, compared to what he was used to.

He grabbed the small, wooden shoebox-sized package from where he had it strapped to his Hog and dropped into a rocking chair on the porch to wait. Utter darkness swallowed the ranch, save for the sliver of moonlight. He could see why Justin had spoken so highly of the place. One could get lost in the shadows of mountains, the silhouettes of trees, or the obscurity.

After a few minutes, the skittering of fingernails on planks preceded a dog's form as it rounded the corner of the porch. It sat a few feet away and stared at him. Nate had barely registered anything else but Olivia earlier, but he seemed to recall the dog following her inside the kitchen.

"Hey, boy." Or girl?

Nate patted his leg and it trotted over to him. He gingerly petted the long black and white fur until the dog pawed at Nate's pants as if to ask for a real rub-down. With a laugh rusty from misuse, he scratched behind its ears.

"I assume you belong to Olivia. What's your name?"