The Cowboy SEAL

He stroked her nose and was rewarded by a warm, breathy snort against his palm. For this weather, he should’ve worn gloves and a hat, but pride won over common sense when he’d scurried for the barn’s safety.

Regardless of where things stood with his father, Cooper knew damn well he’d done wrong by his brother and sweet Millie.

It’d been ages since he’d saddled a horse, and it took a while to get his bearings. Having followed the routine since he’d been a kid, he knew the drill, just had to reacquaint himself with where everything was stored. He found leather work gloves that’d seen better days and a hat that looked like a horse had stomped it to death before it’d wrestled with a tractor. Regardless, he slapped it on his head, thankful for the warmth, but wishing the simple work didn’t leave his mind with so much space to wander.

Millie wasn’t flashy.

Hell, back in Virginia Beach, she wasn’t the sort of woman to whom he’d have given a second glance. Funny thing was, back at Tipsea’s, he’d only been on the prowl for one thing, and it sure wouldn’t have made his momma proud. A woman like Millie, who was as at home in a big country kitchen as she was out on the range, was the kind of catch a man could be proud to escort to a Grange Hall dance.

His brother had been damned lucky to have found someone like Millie so young. Little good it’d done him, though, seeing how he’d gone and died way before his time. What’d Jim been thinking, shooting from a moving four-wheeler? Had disaster written all over it.

Yeah? How many shots you taken from a Mark V at fifty knots, yet you’re still ticking?

Jim may have been hot-dogging, but it wasn’t a stunt Cooper hadn’t tried himself. Only difference was that Cooper had gone fast enough for the devil not to catch up.

Even when they’d been kids, Millie had been a feisty little thing. He couldn’t even imagine the fury she’d had with her husband for putting himself in that position. With two kids, he should’ve known better.

But then who was Cooper to talk?

His entire adult life had been based on a split-second nightmare from which he still hadn’t awoken.

* * *

“HOW ARE YOU this morning?” Millie asked her father-in-law, even though she knew he couldn’t respond.

He replied with a snarling growl.

To say Clint was having a tough time adjusting to his new reality was putting it mildly. Poor guy had been a powerhouse all his life. He was making progress in his recovery, but it was far too slow for his liking.

Millie hustled through the personal-hygiene routine Peg taught her to follow. The nurse would handle his primary bathing, but no matter how much her father-in-law clearly resented Millie invading his personal space, for his own well-being, the job needed to be done.

“You should’ve seen your naughty granddaughter trying to get out of school this morning.” While brushing Clint’s teeth, she kept up a line of running chatter. She couldn’t tell if her attempt at levity had any effect on the patient, but it at least helped calm her nerves. “It’s cold enough out there, we might have to break the smoke off the chimney.”

All her good cheer earned was another grunt.

“Your new therapist should be here after a while. I think she’ll be working on speech today. Peg’s got a whole slew of folks coming out to help.” She tidied his bedding. “It’s gonna be a regular Grand Central Station ’round here.”

More grumbling erupted from Clint, but she ignored him in favor of slipping his small whiteboard around his neck, along with the attached dry-erase marker. It was a struggle for him to smoothly move his right arm and hand, but as with the rest of his recovery, with each passing day he grew more adept at the skill.

“Now that you’re all cleaned up, I’m going to make your breakfast then be right back.”

She prepared a light meal of scrambled eggs with cheese and pureed peaches. Clint loved coffee, so she filled a lidded mug with the steaming liquid then added a few ice cubes before sealing the top and adding a straw. Would he notice it wasn’t her usual awful brew?

Peg said Clint’s hearing was fine.

Had he heard Cooper enter the house?

Millie didn’t have long to wait for an answer. She entered Clint’s room only to find he’d already been practicing his writing. On his board were the barely legible letters: C-O-O-P?

His bloodshot eyes begged for an answer that left her wishing they’d found a way to install Clint’s hospital-style bed in the upstairs master bedroom as opposed to Kay’s old sewing room.

How much had Clint heard?

With an extra cantankerous growl, he waved the board hard enough to send the attached marker flying on its string. The writing instrument landed smack dab in the center of Clint’s eggs, which only made him roar louder.

Jerking the marker back as if it were on a yo-yo string, he drew a line through his former word to painstakingly write: O-U-T!

* * *

“WHO ARE YOU?”

After a long day of checking the well-being of not just the cattle, but fencing and the overall state of the land, as well, Cooper had just finished brushing his horse when a pretty, freckle-faced girl, whose braids reminded him an awful lot of Millie’s back when she’d been a kid, raised her chin and scowled.

“Mom doesn’t like strangers messing with our livestock.”

The fire flashing behind her sky-blue eyes also reminded him of her momma. “You must be LeeAnn?”

“Yeah?” Eyes narrowed, she asked, “Who are you, and how do you know my name?”

A boy peeked out from behind the partially closed door. He had the same red hair Jim had had when he’d been about that age. Jim Junior? Or J.J., as Peg more often called him. Through emails, Cooper had seen the kids’ pictures, but they hadn’t done them justice.

His throat grew uncomfortably tight.

How proud his brother must’ve been of these two, which only made his actions all the more undecipherable. If Cooper possessed such treasure, he’d be so careful....

But then he’d treasured his mother and look what’d happened to her.

Cooper pulled himself together, removed his right glove, then cautiously approached his niece, holding out his hand for her to shake. “LeeAnn, J.J., sorry it’s taken me so long to finally meet you. I’m your uncle Cooper.”

“The Navy SEAL?” Seven-year-old J.J. found his courage and bolted out from his hiding spot. “Dad said you blow up ships and scuba dive and other cool stuff.”

Judging by LeeAnn’s prepubescent scowl, she wasn’t impressed. “Mom said you abandoned your family when we needed you most.”

How did he respond? Millie had only spoken the truth.

From behind him, Sassy snorted.

“You didn’t ride her, did you?” His pint-size nemesis followed him on his trek to the feed bin. “Because if you did, don’t ever do it again. Sassy’s mine.”

“Interesting...” He scooped grain into a bucket. The faint earthy-sweet smell brought him back to a time when he’d been LeeAnn and J.J.’s age. Everything had been so simple then. Do his chores, his homework, play with the dog. Speaking of which, he hadn’t seen their mutt, Marvel. Not a good sign. “Because Sassy was a birthday present for me.”

“You’ve gotta be like a hundred,” his nephew noted.

Most days, I feel like it. “Only seventy-five.”

“That’s still pretty old....”

His niece narrowed her eyes. “That’s not true. I heard Mom talking to Aunt Peg about Grandpa, and she said he was in his seventies. That means you can’t be that old—probably just like fifty.”

Cooper laughed. “Yeah, that’s closer.”

LeeAnn wrenched the feed bucket from him. “Since she’s my horse, I’ll take care of her.”

“Be my guest.” Cooper backed away. “But since I’ll be here awhile, do you think we might work out a deal?”

“Like what?” She stroked the horse’s nose.

“Sassy’s allowed to help me with the cattle while you’re at school, then she’s all yours once you get home?”

“Sounds good to me.” J.J. took an apple from his backpack and sat on a hay bale to eat it, all the while watching the negotiation with rapt interest.

The girl nibbled her lower lip. Another trait she’d inherited from her mom. “I’ll think about it.”

“Fair enough.”

“LeeAnn! J.J.!” Millie called from the house.

“Bye!” Jim’s son bolted.

His sister chased after him.

Cooper gave Sassy one last pat, made sure the three other horses had plenty of food and water, then closed up the barn for the night. As the day had wound on, the weather had only grown more ugly. At five, clouds were so heavy that it was almost dark. Sleet pelted his nose and cheeks on his walk across the yard.

As miserably cold as the day had been and night now was, Cooper would’ve preferred to spend the evening in his truck rather than go back into the house. He didn’t belong there. At least in Virginia, he’d been part of a well-oiled team.

On the ranch, he wasn’t sure what he was. No-good son. Disrespectful brother. Forgotten uncle.

“Coop?”

He glanced out from beneath his hat brim to find Millie hollering at him from the back porch. Much like she had with her robe, she now clutched the lapels of a chunky brown sweater. Wind whipped her long hair, and when she drew it back, she looked so lovely in the golden light spilling from the house that his breath caught in his throat.

Lord, what was wrong with him? Appraising his brother’s wife? There was a special place in hell for men like him.

“Hurry, before your feet freeze to the yard!”

He did hurry, but only because he didn’t want her hanging around outside waiting for him.

“Thanks.” He brushed past her, hating that he once again noticed her sweet floral smell. He removed his hat and stood there for a sec, adjusting to not only the kitchen’s warmth, but also the sight of the space filled with industrious bodies.

J.J. sat at the round oak table, frowning at an open math book. LeeAnn sat alongside him, making an unholy mess with an ugly papier-mâché mountain.

Millie had left him and now stood at the sink, washing broccoli. “Pardon the clutter. LeeAnn’s volcano is due soon, and J.J. has a math test tomorrow. I heard you all formally met in the barn?”

“Yes, ma’am.” What else should he say? That she’d raised a couple of fine-looking kids? That he was an ass and coward for not meeting them before now? Instead, he glanced back to the table and said the first stupid thing that popped into his head. “That’s supposed to be a volcano?”

The second he asked the question, he regretted it. His few hastily spoken words ruined the bucolic family scene.

His pretty niece leaped up from the table, then dashed from the room.

“It’s an awesome volcano!” J.J. declared before throwing his pencil at Cooper, then also leaving the room.

“I realize you’ve probably never been around kids,” Millie said, “but you might try digging around in your big, tough Army Guy head to look for a sensitivity gene. LeeAnn’s worked really hard on her science project. You didn’t have to tear her down.” Having delivered his tongue-lashing, Millie chased after her brood.

From upstairs came the sound of a door slamming, then muffled tears.

Son of a biscuit...

He slapped his hat onto the back-door rack and shrugged out of his brother’s coat, hanging it up, too. Then he just stood there, woefully unsure what to do with his frozen hands or confused heart.

“For the record,” he said under his breath, “I’m a Navy Guy.”

Chapter Three

Millie held her arms around her sobbing daughter, rocking her side to side from where they sat on the edge of the bed. “Honey, he didn’t mean it. You’re going to have the best volcano your school’s ever seen.”

“I’ll help, Lee.” Sweet-tempered J.J. cozied up to his sister’s other side. Since their father died, both kids had grown infinitely more sensitive. Millie knew one of these days she’d need to toughen them to the ways of the world, but not quite yet. They’d already been through enough. She couldn’t even comprehend what would happen if they also lost their grandpa or the only home they’d ever known.

A knock sounded on the door frame.

She glanced in that direction to find Cooper taking up far too much room. He was not only tall, but his shoulders were broad, too. Back when they’d been teens, he’d been a cocky, self-assured hothead who’d never lacked for the company of a blonde, brunette or redhead. When he’d spent weekends calf-roping, rodeo buckle bunnies swarmed him like hummingbirds to nectar. She’d far preferred her even-tempered Jim. Cooper had always been just a little too wild.

“Make him go away,” LeeAnn mumbled into Millie’s shoulder.

“Look...” Cooper rammed his hands into his jeans pockets. “I’m awfully sorry about hurting your feelings.”

“No, you’re not!”

“LeeAnn...” Millie scolded. While she certainly didn’t agree with her brother-in-law’s ham-handed actions, she didn’t for a moment believe him deliberately cruel. He spent all his time around mercenary types. She honestly wasn’t even sure what a Navy SEAL did. Regardless, she was reasonably certain he hadn’t spent a lot of time around kids.

“I really am sorry.” The farther he ventured into the ultragirly room with its pink-floral walls, brass bed piled with stuffed animals and antique dressing table and bench Millie had picked up for a song at a barn auction, the more out of his element Cooper looked. “Ever heard of Pompeii?”

“I saw a movie on it,” J.J. said.

“Cool.” Cooper’s warm, sad, unsure smile touched Millie’s heart. He was trying to be a good uncle, but that was kind of hard when jumping in this late in the game. He took his phone from his back pocket then a few seconds later, handed it to her son. “This pic is of me and a few friends. We had some downtime and toured through the ruins.”

“Whoa...” J.J.’s eyes widened. “That’s awesome! You really were there.”

“Doesn’t make him like some kind of volcano expert,” LeeAnn noted.

“I’ve always wanted to see Pompeii...” Millie couldn’t help but stare in wonder at the photo. Beyond the three smiling men stretched a weathered street frozen in time. Snow-capped Mount Vesuvius towered in the background. The scene was all at once chilling, yet intriguing. The place seemed inconceivably far from Brewer’s Falls.

“It was amazing but also sad.” He flipped through more pics, some taken of the former citizens who had turned to stone. “Anyway... LeeAnn, you’re right, I’m not even close to being a volcano expert, but if you wouldn’t mind, I’d love lending a hand with your project. I wire a mean explosive and between the two of us, we could probably muster some impressive concussive force.”

While both kids stared, Millie pressed her lips tight.

Concussive force? He did realize the science fair was being held in an elementary school gym and not Afghanistan? Still, she appreciated his willingness to at least try helping her daughter. Lord knew, her own volcano-building skills were lacking. “That sounds nice,” she said to her brother-in-law, “only you might scale down the eruption.”

“Gotcha.” He half smiled. “Small eruptions.”

For only an instant, their gazes locked, but that was long enough to leave her knowing he still unnerved her in a womanly way. It’d been three long years since she’d lost her husband, and as much as she’d told herself—and her matchmaking friend, Lynette—she had no interest in dating, something about Cooper had always exuded raw sex appeal. It wasn’t anything deliberate on his part, it just was. Had always been. Because she’d been happy with Jim, she’d studied Cooper’s escapades from afar. But here, now, something about the way his lips stroked the perfectly innocuous word, eruptions, sent her lonely, yearning body straight to the gutter.

Her mind, on the other hand, stayed strong. If she ever decided to start dating, she’d steer far clear of anyone remotely like her brother-in-law!

* * *

“J.J., HON,” the boy’s mother asked an hour later from across the kitchen table, “will you say grace?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He bowed his head. “God is great, God is good...”

While the boy finished, Cooper discreetly put down his fork, pretending he hadn’t already nabbed a bite. The last time he’d prayed before a meal had been the last night he’d been in this house.

He looked up just as J.J. muttered Amen, to find Millie staring. Damn, she’d grown into a fine-looking woman. And damn, how he hated even noticing the fact.

Conversation flowed into a river of avoidance, meandering past dangerous topics such as his brother or father. Meatloaf passing and the weather took on inordinate levels of importance.

This suited Cooper just fine. He had no interest in rehashing the past and lacked the courage to wander too far into the future. His only plan was to keep things casual then head back to Virginia ASAP to rejoin his SEAL team.

“Uncle Cooper?” J.J. asked. The kid sported a seriously cute milk mustache.

“Yeah?”

“How come you didn’t visit Grandpa with us tonight while he ate his dinner?”

Whoosh. Just like that, his lazy river turned into a raging waterfall, culminating in a pool of boiling indigestion. He messed with his broccoli. “I, ah, needed to clean up before your mom’s tasty dinner.”

“Okay.” Apparently satisfied with Cooper’s answer, the child reached across the table for a third roll.

His niece wasn’t about to take his answer at face value. “I heard Aunt Peg and Mom talking about how much you hate Grandpa and he hates you.”

“LeeAnn!” Millie set her iced tea glass on the table hard enough to rattle the serving platters. “Apologize to your uncle.”

“Wh-why do you hate Grandpa?” J.J. asked, voice cracking as he looked from his uncle to his mom. “I love him a whole lot.”

Son of a biscuit...

“Millie...” Cooper set his fork by his plate and pushed back his chair. “Thanks for this fine meal, but I’ve got to run into town. Please leave the dishes for me, and I’ll wash ’em later.”

* * *

“WHAT’S HE GONNA do in town?” LeeAnn asked, carrying on with her meal as if nothing had even happened. “Everything’s closed.”

Cooper had already left out the front door.

Millie covered her face with her hands. At this time of night, there was only one thing a man could do in Brewer’s Falls—drink.

“Mom?” J.J. pressed. “What’s Uncle Cooper gonna do? And why does he hate Grandpa?”

At that moment, Millie was the one hating Cooper for running out on her yet again. But then wait—during her initial crisis after she’d first lost Jim, he hadn’t even bothered to show up.

“Mom?”

“J.J., hush!” She never snapped at her kids, but this was one time she needed space to think, breathe. She got up from the table and delivered a hasty apology before running for the stairs.

In her room, she tossed herself across the foot of the bed she and Jim had shared. Never had she needed him more. His quiet strength and logic and calm in the face of any storm.

She wanted—needed—so badly to cry, but tears wouldn’t come.

Frustration for her situation balled in her stomach, punching with pain. If she had a lick of sense, she’d do the adult thing—pull herself together and join her children downstairs. She needed to play a game with them and clean the kitchen. Do research on how to build a science-fair volcano. Play mix and match with which bills she could afford to pay. Check on Clint to see if he needed anything.

While she needed to do all of that, what she wanted was an indulgent soak in the hall bathroom’s claw-foot tub.

* * *

COOPER SAUNTERED INTO the smoky bar, taking a seat on a counter stool. In all the years he’d lived in the one-horse town, he’d never been in the old place. Not much to look at with twenty or so country-type patrons, dim lighting, honky-tonk-blaring jukebox, a few ratty pool tables and neon beer signs decorating the walls. But as long as the liquor bit, that’d get the job of escaping—even for a moment—done. After a few drinks, he probably wouldn’t even mind the yeast scent of a quarter-century’s worth of stale beer that’d sloshed onto the red industrial-style carpet.

He said to the guy behind the bar, “Shot of Jim Beam, please.”

“I’ll be damned... Cooper?”

“Mr. Walker?” Seriously? Talk about jumping from the frying pan into the fire. The grizzled cowboy not only happened to be one of his father’s best friends, but owned the land adjoining the Hansen ranch.

He extended his hand for Cooper to shake. “Please, call me Mack. Figure if you’re old enough to drink and serve our country, you’re old enough for us to be on a first-name basis.” He poured Cooper’s shot then one for himself. Raising it, he said, “About time you came home.”

“Only temporarily...” Cooper downed the fiery elixir. “I’ll head back to my base just as soon as things get settled.”

“By things, I assume you’re talking about your father? Damn shame. Everyone’s just sick about the run of bad luck your family’s been having.”

In no mood to hash over the past or present, Cooper wagged his glass. “Another.”

Mack obligingly poured. “Things that bad out there, huh?”

Cooper winced from the liquor’s bite.

“I told your father he was a damned fool for running you off. What happened with your momma... Straight-up accident that could’ve happened to any one of us. I know deep in his heart Clint agrees, but he’s too damned stubborn to tell anyone—let alone his firstborn—any different.”

The tears stinging Cooper’s eyes hurt worse than the liquor burning his throat.

“He needs you. Millie needs you. Hell, even those ragtag kids of hers need you. Yep...” He smacked the wood counter. “’Bout damned time you came home.”

Nice sentiment, but for his own sanity, Cooper knew he was only passing through. A long time ago he’d lost his home, his way, and for a messed-up guy like him, there was no such thing as second chances.

* * *

“WHERE’VE YOU BEEN?” Millie warmed her hands in front of the living room’s woodstove, wishing she hadn’t been on edge ever since Cooper had run off, vowing she wouldn’t lower herself to even turn around and look at him. She thought her lazy, twenty-minute soak would make her feel better, but all it had done was given her the privacy needed to think—not good for a woman in her condition. Hot water, plus loneliness, plus closing her eyes to envision the first handsome face she’d seen in years had proven anything but relaxing. Especially when that face belonged to her dead husband’s brother!

“Where do you think?”

She knew exactly where he’d been. She shouldn’t have wasted the breath needed to ask. “It was a serious dick move for you to walk out like that. You owe your niece and nephew an explanation.”

“Dick move? Talk to your momma with that mouth?”

She spun around to face him, only to find him unnervingly close. “You know better than most anyone I don’t even have a mom, so you can put that sass back in your pocket.”

“Sorry.” He held up his hands in surrender, and her stupid, confused heart skipped a beat. The only reason she even found him attractive was the endearing similarities he’d shared with his brother. Mossy-green eyes and the faint rise in the bridge of his nose. The way his lips looked pouty when he said his m’s. The way he made her wistful and achy and irrationally mad about how perfect her life had once been and no longer was. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have taken off, but honestly?” He shook his head, and his crooked smile further lessened her anger’s hold. “I was scared.” He removed his battered straw cowboy hat, crossing the room to hang it on the rack by the door. Even with his buzz cut, he sported a wicked case of hat hair and damn if it didn’t look good. “Those kids of yours asked tough questions. I don’t even know the answers for myself.”