Chapter 4
Chapter Four
“You looked heroic carrying her on the horse like that,” Lila said, looking up at Zane.
He scowled. “I am not heroic.”
“It was pretty heroic,” Lila said.
Everybody was being way too nice to him, and he didn’t like it. He preferred being treated like a stray dog that had wandered into the function. They offered him a plate, but they regarded him with a little bit of wariness.
Cody might be a friend, but everybody else was a mere acquaintance.
They didn’t know him, and he didn’t really want them to. He didn’t really want to be known by anybody.
He took a drink of his beer and walked over to grab another burger off the table.
He had consented to come over for dinner, mainly because he didn’t know what the hell else to do.
He wanted to go check on Cara, but they didn’t have that kind of relationship.
He didn’t have that kind of relationship with anybody.
If anybody was going to check on her, it should be Marlowe. He didn’t have anything to do with it.
He shoved one hand into his pocket and cracked his knuckle. Because even lying like that in his head was uncomfortable.
Cody came over and slapped him on the back.
“Thank you for finding her. Marlowe was so worried.
Zane grunted. He really didn’t have any words for it.
He hadn’t done anything. All he had done was follow his intuition.
He was a tracker, a combat medic, and a wilderness skills expert, and had used those skills in the military, on battlefields.
Applying them on a closed ranch to find one small woman who had given a general idea where she was going to be hadn’t been that hard.
Everybody else had gone more toward the trail, and they had found her car at the trailhead.
They had driven up toward the top of where she would’ve started hiking, and he had taken his horse down below, where vehicles couldn’t traverse.
He had started thinking about the weather, and about the possibility of her slipping off the trail. He’d been concerned as hell because he didn’t know how steep that got up there.
Then, he found her, leaning against the side of the hill, bare legs out in front of her. She was soaking wet, and he was worried she was unconscious, though it turned out she was only just asleep.
Her skin had been freezing. She had been soaked to the bone.
His first inclination had been to lecture her because she had gone out into the woods without any kind of survival gear. Sure, it was only a trail. Only a trail pretty damn close to the rest of the ranch, but it was the kind of place where accidents could happen. Accidents could always happen.
Zane had never been a Boy Scout, but he knew damn well that you always had to be prepared.
Prepare for the worst. Prepare for anything.
He always carried flares, rations, a space blanket or two. He always had a flashlight, an extra headlamp, all kinds of things, because once you had accidentally spent the night out in the wilderness, you made sure that if it ever happened again, you’d be a hell of a lot more comfortable.
Cara had obviously just learned that lesson. Or rather, she needed to make sure that was the lesson. Hell, he would make sure it was the lesson.
Marlowe still looked worried. She was rubbing her hands and looking unsettled. “We should bring her dinner.”
“I could do that,” Zane said, before he even realized what was going to come out of his mouth. “I had an errand to run anyway. I was headed over to the hardware store.”
“Really?” Marlowe asked.
“Yeah. I’ve got to grab some new work gloves.
I wore a hole in mine.” He had worn a hole in his work gloves more than a week ago, and he hadn’t been all that rushed to get new ones, but this was a good excuse.
He needed to see her. He needed to make sure she was okay.
This had hooked into something ugly inside of him.
He had just seen too much death.
No, she wasn’t at death’s door. Yes, she had gone to the hospital just like she should, and yes, everything had appeared like it was going to be okay, but there was a sour note in his stomach that refused to go away.
He knew why. He also wasn’t in the mood to fight it. He could bring her her dinner, he could get a visual on her, just make sure that she looked fine, double-check that she didn’t have any kind of head injury.
His medical training was specific to what he’d just done with Cara. He was trained to evaluate injuries in the field and administer emergency medical treatment as necessary. He had high-octane EMT skills, and logically, he knew he could trust them.
When he’d seen her leaning against the side of the embankment, he had checked her over as best he could without leaving her down in the cold for too long.
He didn’t think she had a concussion or anything like that. She’d been coherent, even if a little bit sluggish.
But the nagging feeling…
It was trauma, not a gut feeling, he had lived long enough to know the difference.
But still, his body reacted to them the same, and he had to lay it to rest the only way that he could.
“All right, I need you to bring a few things for her then,” Marlowe said, hopping up and scurrying back into the house. He stuffed his dinner down as quickly as possible. To keep it plausible, he needed to get out of here because the hardware store closed at seven.
“That’s nice of you,” Walker said.
He turned toward Walker and gave him his hardest stare. “It just makes sense. I’m already headed into town.”
“Are you?” Walker asked, smiling with that winning, charismatic way that he had.
Zane wanted to punch him in the face.
He wondered how Cara felt about Walker. Walker was the one who had asked her to come up to his place. He had gathered. Maybe she had done it because she liked Walker.
He wouldn’t be able to blame her.
Most women liked Walker.
He had an easy way about him. In more ways than one. He was a certified slut, and good for him.
In the sense that if it wasn’t so much goddamn work to hook up, Zane would probably enjoy that sort of lifestyle.
But he needed specific things. The whole process of it all was challenging.
Truth be told, he hadn’t figured it out here.
And he’d been here for a while.
When he traveled with the rodeo, it had been easy. Women had come to him. He’d been on the road. There had never been a question of needing to invite them back to his place.
They had just gone to a hotel. Exactly the way he liked it.
It was release. A fleeting moment of human connection.
One that didn’t require words, and then it was over.
Yeah. That was exactly how he liked it.
He had a feeling Walker wasn’t quite so particular.
“I’ve just never seen you be quite so neighborly.”
“Is there a point that you’re trying to make?” Zane asked, staring at him hard. He waited for Walker to back down, because most men did.
Most anybody did.
Zane could stare an angry bull down and get him to back off. He had done it in the rodeo, and he did it as a rancher.
But Walker didn’t back down. Instead, his smile became a smirk. “Not really. She’s a nice girl, though.”
“I’m aware,” Zane said. No one was paying attention to them, so he did what he wouldn’t normally do. He continued the conversation. “I’m also aware of what I am. Thank you.”
Walker shrugged. “If you think I’m trying to police you, you’re sort of right. I’m not one to demand good behavior from anybody but… she’s Marlowe’s sister.”
“Sister-in-law,” Zane said.
“Sure.”
“Like I said,” he replied to Walker. “I know what I am.”
“Well, that’s good. For the record, Zane, I know what I am, too.”
For the first time, he saw a little bit of an edge in Walker’s eyes, and that actually made him want to know more, which was unusual.
But he would never let Walker see that.
Marlowe came out of the house with a plate wrapped in Saran Wrap and an insulated bag full of God knew what.
“I want her to have some extra food. But I’m probably going to go and see her tomorrow too. Maybe I should bring it tonight.”
His jaw tightened. He didn’t want to lose the delivery job. But he also didn’t want to say that. He didn’t want to explain all of this to anybody. The complex PTSD that he had. Of course, most people would assume it was from the military.
Hilarious. The military had been fun and games. Horrible fun and games, yeah. A trip to the darkest parts of humanity, yes.
But, very different than being a child and being confronted with the loss of everything that you had ever loved.
He had already been so scarred by the time he went into the military that he didn’t feel things anymore.
War couldn’t hurt him.
But one thing that did hurt him, stab at him, was the feeling like he could do something to change a situation if he just got involved.
It was a contradictory thing, something that existed inside of him because of his pain, which was funny, because the other issue he had was attachment.
He’d seen a psychologist. That was part of being in the military.
Afterward he’d been diagnosed with complex PTSD, attachment issues, and a few other things that were basically doctor-speak for: fucked up beyond all reason.
But, FUBAR though he may be, and in touch with it as he was, it didn’t mean that he was free of this feeling that if something bad was going to happen, he had to stop it. Because he had failed to stop it before.
And he didn’t want to fail again.
“It’s all right,” Cody said. “We spent all day at the hospital. Let Zane take it over, and we’ll see her tomorrow.”
“I’ll text her and let her know that you’re dropping the things off,” Marlowe said.
“Thanks.”
“Oh, and can you invite her to come eat on Friday? That might give her a little bit of time to rest, but then we can cook a meal for her.”
He nodded as he left, laden with all the supplies, and he got a text from Cody with her address a few moments later.
He entered it into the map on his phone and zoomed in on it. It was a quiet little residential street. The exact sort of place she ought to live. Not in the newest part of town. But that seemed to suit her too.