Must Love Horses. Vicki Tharp

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СКАЧАТЬ what?”

      “You didn’t pass out because you were dehydrated,” he said.

      “You suddenly an expert on my body?”

      He waited a beat before answering. She expected some kind of smart-ass remark, but his eyes never left hers. Then his expression shifted, softened. “No. But I’m an expert on panic attacks, on PTSD, on things that go bump in the night.” His voice was quiet, sincere, unexpected.

      “I don’t have PTSD.”

      “Or dehydration.” He settled against the rails beside her. “But that was one fucker of a panic attack.”

      She pulled another long, defiant swallow from the bottle.

      “What gives?” he asked.

      Laughter escaped her, incredulous and full of derision. “Seriously? Mister goes silent and deep like a nuclear sub when asked about his leg, his service, then expects me to take my own knife and gut myself? Fat freaking chance.”

      He nodded once at that, leaned back, rested his head on the rail, and settled his hat low on his head, like he was shading his eyes from the sun and was about to take a nap, though his body vibrated with tension like a support wire on a suspension bridge. At the base of his neck, his pulse thrummed.

      “I was stationed in Fallujah, Iraq. Camp Baharia.”

      She leaned nearer to hear him better.

      “A big, fat, fucker of a boil on the hairy ass of the world. It was a day like every other day, hot enough to fry your brain in your head, sand whipping and grinding into sweaty cracks and crevices you didn’t even know you had.”

      She edged closer still, afraid if she moved too fast, he’d realize what he was revealing and stop talking.

      “Went to a briefing that morning with my commander, my CO, two other enlisted, and a trusted Iraqi informant the US had been working with for over a year. We were gathering intel on a safe house where the insurgents had some of their high-level leaders stashed. Mac was running late and my CO was about to lose his shit.”

      He let out a short, strangled laugh and tilted his head to look at her. “My CO was always losing his shit.

      “And then…” Bryan’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down and his jaw muscles contracted as he struggled to maintain his composure. “And then…nothing.”

      Bryan gripped his knee above the prosthetic. Sidney reached over, lacing their fingers together. His hand curved and held her fingers tight. He felt so strong, so alive.

      She knew how the story ended, knew he’d survived, knew he’d lost his leg. Still, her chest tightened and her gut knotted. She didn’t know if she really wanted to hear this, the reality of it, the pain of it, but she wouldn’t stop him.

      “Rahim stripped my CO’s weapon from his holster and blew his brains out.” He scrubbed at his face with his free hand. “Brains, blood, bone splattered my clothes, my face, in my mouth. I raised my weapon, but he was already firing on me, on the others in the tent. I took one in the leg, one through the armhole of my body armor.

      “I was still moving so he aimed the gun at my head. Mac came in.” Bryan leveled his hat, his sight landing thousands of miles away in the desert of a hostile country. “She was shot, but still managed to take him out. I owe her my life.”

      Sidney didn’t know what to say. She barely knew him, yet he’d trusted her with his story, with the worst moment of his life. It humbled her. In comparison, her troubles with her parents seemed so insignificant.

      At the thought of telling him about her panic attacks, about something so personal, her pulse pounded. She took a shallow breath. “My dad—”

      “Shhh.” His grip on her hand had eased, but he didn’t let go.

      “You don’t want to hear—”

      “Yeah, but not like this,” he said. “This isn’t some kind of I’ll-show-you-mine-if-you-show-me-yours.”

      Because the lump of relief in her throat was too huge to talk around, Sidney managed a half smile in thanks. The lasso constricting her chest eased and her blood pressure dipped out of the yellow zone. She swallowed the last of the water then crushed the bottle in her hand.

      A truck pulled up near the big house, the two front doors opening and thunking closed. Bryan stood, pulled her up, finally releasing her hand.

      She wanted his hand back. Crazy. She didn’t even know him, but even while her head warned her about his drinking, her heart stuffed cotton in its ears and refused to listen.

      “That’s Hank with Mac,” he said as a man and Mac walked their way.

      “Was Mac upset about the burro?”

      “I haven’t told her yet.”

      CHAPTER FOUR

      Boomer stood shoulder to shoulder with Sidney by the round pen, in quiet solidarity as Hank and Mac approached. He shifted from foot to artificial foot and rubbed the muscles at the base of his neck. If Mac or Hank didn’t want the burro, he’d find a home that could take it and the buckskin, because he wasn’t about to let them be split up.

      Boomer wasn’t sure he liked what that said about him. Next thing you knew he’d be eating berries and nuts and swearing off steak. He straightened, not giving a flying fuck what anyone else thought. This decision he would own and defend.

      Bryan shook Hank’s outstretched hand.

      Hank turned his attention to Sidney. “You must be—”

      “Holy cowboy! You’re Hank Nash!” She shook his hand as if she’d met Bon Jovi and Captain America all rolled into one, as if she wanted to ask him for a selfie and to sign her breasts with a Sharpie. For hell’s sake.

      “In the flesh,” Hank said.

      “I saw you win the finals in Vegas, that bull was brutal, I—”

      “What happened to your head?” Mac pointed at Sidney’s right temple, drawing the attention away from her husband.

      Maybe Boomer needed a silver belt buckle too. They seemed to be some kind of metallic aphrodisiac.

      Sidney raised a hand and came away with a smattering of sand and blood. “I…uh…” She glanced back at the round pen, then her shoulders sagged, and Boomer knew she’d decided not to lie. To tell her new bosses that she’d lost her shit.

      “My fault,” Boomer said. “I tripped her up while she was working the horses.” The truth, essentially. More of a mental trip, but he claimed fault.

      “It’s a scrape.” She sneaked a thank-you glance at him then turned her attention back to Mac and Hank. “Come on, I’ll show you the horses.”

      As they walked toward the mustangs, Boomer fell in behind them. Sidney carried the conversation. The horses were her deal. Phantom pains shot up his leg—hot and scorching and excruciating, as if a razor-toothed demon СКАЧАТЬ