Heart of a Soldier

She’d wanted someone to fall for her without the wheelchair getting in the way. Yes, in retrospect it was selfish of her to withhold the truth, but she hadn’t been able to write those words down on the page. She hadn’t wanted his opinion of her to change.

Her relationship with Dylan had started out as mere friendship, blossoming into tender, powerful feelings over the course of the past year. Deep in her soul she’d nurtured a fragile hope that he might be the one. She’d never been in love, but she’d hoped to be in a position to fall head over heels in love with Dylan. And to have those tender feelings returned. Now, in light of everything, those dreams had gone up in smoke. She must have been crazy to think this would all work out in the end.

The sound of whirring tires followed by screeching brakes reverberated in the stillness of the October afternoon. A loud rapping on the front door soon followed. Holly locked eyes with Cassidy before moving toward the front door and slowly opening it. Dylan was standing on the front porch, his handsome features marred by a frown. Holly let out a deep breath. He looked so different now. His face was shuttered. He seemed impenetrable, as if he’d built a wall around himself no one or nothing could breach. The way he was standing—his arms were folded in front of him and his chest was rapidly rising and falling—caused a prickle of awareness to race through her. He looked as if he were ready to take on the world.

“May I come in?” The grim set of his features was nothing compared to the iciness in his voice.

Flustered, Holly waved him into the house. All the while her mind was racing. What was he doing back here? And why was his expression so forbidding? Her throat felt constricted, and she didn’t think she could utter a single word if she tried. The sound of his boots echoed sharply against the hardwood floor. He moved toward the middle of the foyer so he was facing both of them.

Looking back and forth between them, he ground out, “Make no mistake, we need to get something straight. I don’t know what kind of game the two of you are playing with me, but I do know you’re not Holly Lynch.” He jutted his chin in Cassidy’s direction, his eyes blazing with anger. “Are you?”

Resembling a deer caught in headlights, Cassidy froze, her eyes wide with alarm.

Holly maneuvered her wheelchair until she was positioned directly in front of Cassidy. She had no intention of making her best friend take it on the chin. She’d started this whole thing, and even though it wouldn’t be easy, facing Dylan was her responsibility. She looked up at him, refusing to lose her courage and look away from his probing gaze.

Before losing her nerve, she dived right in. “You’re right. She’s not Holly, Dylan. I am.”

Chapter Three

“Holly?” His question bristled in the air like a live grenade. The air around them buzzed with electricity.

“Yes. It’s me, Dylan.” She met his gaze head on, her blue eyes full of intensity.

A hundred different thoughts were swirling through his mind. His first reaction was a strong sense of recognition. Of course this was Holly. It all made sense now, and even though he’d been thrown off by the wheelchair, there was something he’d instantly recognized in her essence.

His second reaction was sorrow. His soul shattered for Holly. She couldn’t walk? The same woman he’d been corresponding with for more than a solid year was in a wheelchair. Hadn’t she written him about being an accomplished rider? About wanting a house full of kids one day? What had happened to her? Had this all been a big scam? Thoughts were whizzing through his brain until he felt himself becoming dizzy.

Confusion covered him like a shroud. His mind went totally blank. Suddenly, he was stumbling around in the darkness without a way out.

“Why?” His voice came out raspy and uneven. He shoved his fingers through his hair as myriad emotions flitted through him. “Why didn’t you tell me? What is this all about?” The tone of his voice sounded sharp and raised, but he was well past caring about that. It hurt so badly that Holly had tried to trick him. The chocolate Labrador retriever began growling low in his throat, the hairs on his back raised. The dog sat down in front of Holly, acting as a protector.

“Shush, Bingo. Quiet down,” Holly said in a firm voice as she patted the top of his head.

Cassidy cleared her throat and looked over at Holly, her eyes wide with concern. “Holly. What do you want me to do? Should I stay?”

Holly met Cassidy’s gaze. She gave her best friend a tentative smile and shook her head. “Go back to the gallery, Cass. I’m sorry I involved you in this.”

Cassidy glanced back and forth between them, hesitating for a moment before she headed for the door. She pulled it open and cast a lingering glance over her shoulder at the two of them. The look in her eyes warned him to go easy on Holly. The sound of the door clicking closed behind her rang out in the stillness of the foyer.

The silence that lingered in Cassidy’s wake was painful. Considering written communication between them had always felt effortless, it was an odd sensation.

“I’m sorry, Dylan. Please don’t blame Cassidy for pretending to be me. It was all my idea. And it’s not something I’m proud of by any means.”

“Then why’d you do it?” he asked, needing to know what this ruse was all about.

“When I got your letter today, I panicked,” she admitted. She gestured toward her legs. “Not telling you about my being paralyzed was cowardly. I should have told you in the very beginning, but as time went by, it became harder and harder.” She hung her head. “I should never have kept secrets from you, Dylan. It was wrong of me.”

“When? How?” He was fumbling with his words. There was so much he wanted to say, to ask, but he still felt out of sorts. He was still reeling from the news. The shock reverberated down to his very core.

“I was in a car accident when I was eighteen, right after I graduated from high school. My friends and I were playing a reckless-driving game, and I didn’t have my seat belt on. The roads were slick that night, and we weren’t being responsible. Cassidy lost control and hit a stone wall. I was thrown from the car.” Holly’s shoulders sagged. “As a result, I lost the use of my legs.”

His mouth felt as dry as sandpaper. He had to ask the question, couldn’t deal with not knowing. Already it was nagging at him relentlessly.

“Permanently?” His voice sounded like a croak.

“Yes. My spinal cord was partially severed. Even though I still have some sensation, I won’t ever walk again. Not in this lifetime.”

The words slammed into him with the force of a tidal wave. The news left him feeling unsteady on his feet. It felt like a kick in the gut. He felt so selfish for thinking it, but there it was, settled firmly around his heart. Why hadn’t she told him? His hands were trembling like a leaf. He felt such incredible disappointment in her decision to withhold something so important from him. As a person who’d been caught in a web of lies ever since he was born, he was a big believer in the truth. And Holly had seemed so open and forthright in her letters. Had he been mistaken? Everything he’d dreamed of building with Holly had crashed and burned in a single instant. And he felt nauseous. Sick with loss and grief and dashed hopes. And he also felt devastated for her. Sweet, loyal Holly, who’d written to him over weeks and months without fail. She’d sent him care packages filled with treats and books and stuffed animals. Holly had kept him in her prayers, and in return, he’d asked God to keep her out of harm’s way. Wonderful, brave Holly, who’d no doubt been through so much pain and tragedy in her young life. Yet in her letters she’d always projected such positivity, like a strong ray of sunshine beaming down on him in a war-torn, unstable land.

Still, it didn’t sit well with him that she hadn’t come clean to him. It made him question every single thing he knew about her. He’d traveled all this way to meet her, all in the hopes of starting a life with her. In his mind, he’d begun to think of her in a forever type of way. The ring, the white picket fence, the kids, promises of forever. Once again, he’d been a prize fool. Counting chickens, his mother called it, and she’d been warning him against doing so ever since he was knee high to a grasshopper.

And there was something else. Holly being in a wheelchair brought him back to a place and time where he himself had been disabled. A roadside bomb in Afghanistan had blown the Humvee he was driving to smithereens. Two soldiers in his unit had been killed, with another losing his sight. The injuries he’d sustained due to the IED had been life threatening. In the beginning, he’d been told he might never walk again. But, over weeks and months he’d crawled his way out of the dark, black hole and gotten his life back. And to prove a point, he’d volunteered for another tour, just to show he hadn’t been beaten. He was still standing.

“I’m sorry you came all the way here only to be disappointed.”

Holly’s melodic voice dragged him out of the past, so that his feet were solidly planted in the here and now. And even though he wanted to run from this situation, he had no choice but to face it. “No, it’s not about that. It’s just—” Just what? How could he explain it to Holly without hurting her or making her feel more ashamed of the information she’d withheld? He needed to be sensitive to her feelings, but at the same time, he couldn’t sugarcoat things. He had to be honest with himself as well as Holly. So far, things were not playing out as he’d imagined.

“I suppose you had a preconceived notion about me, right? Cute. Blond. Blue-eyed. Standing on two feet.” She breathed out a tiny huff of air. “Wheelchairs don’t exactly come to mind when you’re painting a picture in your head of someone, do they?”

He let out a ragged sigh, then raked his fingers through his military cut. “I don’t know what to say, what to think.” He rocked back on his boots, then looked away from her intense scrutiny. She seemed to be studying him, and it made him feel slightly uncomfortable. With a groan he turned back toward her. “I’m being honest here. If I’d known from the beginning, I’m sure I wouldn’t be feeling this way.” He shook his head, trying to rid his mind of all the jumbled thoughts. “Okay, that’s not true. Or maybe it is. I don’t know how I would feel, Holly. I just feel a little caught off guard. You weren’t straight with me. Don’t you think I deserved to know? It makes me wonder if you were ever planning to come clean with me.” Although it pained him a little to press the point, he felt he deserved an explanation.

Holly nodded, and he saw a soft sheen glimmering in her eyes. Those incredible blue eyes he’d been dreaming about gazing into were awash in tears. For the first time he noticed how pretty she was, and if it hadn’t been for the wheelchair, he might have recognized her right off. It had thrown him, since he’d never been given a single hint about her condition. And he hated to admit it, but he’d looked right through her. The wheelchair had served as a barrier to the truth.

He’d been under the belief that there wasn’t a single thing about Holly he didn’t know. She was his champion. His Texas rose. The woman he’d been so wrapped up in for the past twelve months. But when she’d greeted him at the door, the wheelchair had served as a buffer between them, and it made him feel a little small to realize that he hadn’t even really given her more than a cursory glance.

“Of course you had a right to know, especially when we started discussing the future and meeting one another in person. And I did plan to meet you...on my own terms, when I was ready to tell you everything.” Tears slid down her face. Her chin trembled and quivered. Despite it all, she held her head up high. Her countenance said a lot about her. She was strong. She’d had to be, he reckoned. Being paralyzed at the tender age of eighteen didn’t leave one a lot of choices, did it? He had a hunch Holly had dug in deep and persevered, relying on her faith and family to sustain her.

“Believe it or not, I’m pretty courageous in most other aspects of my life. For some reason, I just didn’t have the guts to tell you the truth. I kept promising myself I would with each and every letter, but as time moved on, it became more and more difficult to do so.”

Suddenly, the tables had turned. Just like that, his anger fizzled. Instead of feeling upset with her, he was now feeling badly for Holly. It was confusing, since he was the one who’d been deceived. He was the one who had no idea where he went from here. With no job, four months of rent paid up to Doc Sampson and nothing going the way he’d imagined, his future was seriously in question. All he knew was that he wanted to comfort this woman he’d grown to care about.

“Hey, don’t cry, Holly. My mama always told me a pretty girl should never cry.” He got down on his haunches beside her chair, then leaned over and brushed her tears away with his thumb.

“At least you think I’m pretty,” she joked, the corners of her mouth creasing in a slight smile. Her dry comment made him want to grin back at her, even though the circumstances didn’t exactly call for it. Wheelchair or no wheelchair, she still had withheld vital information from him. She hadn’t been half as transparent as she’d seemed on paper.

Holly was far more than pretty, he realized. Beautiful, even. He started to tell her so, but he stopped, determined not to go down that road. Not today when so many things were up in the air between them. Not when his stomach was tangled up in knots and he couldn’t seem to think past this very moment. The intense feeling holding him in its grip was easily recognizable. It was fear. Because even though he was a decorated soldier who had served two tours of duty in Afghanistan, the thought of Holly being in a wheelchair sent anxiety racing through him.

And even though he still cared about her, he wasn’t certain he saw a future for the two of them. Call it crazy, but ever since Holly had come into his life, dreams of them together forever filled his head at night as he drifted off to slumber. Although he felt a stab of guilt for even thinking it, he couldn’t deny the doubts coursing through him. He’d just made it home from a combat zone after seeing his fellow soldiers and civilians broken and bloodied and lifeless. He wasn’t sure he was up to any more challenges. Did knowing he might not be able to handle this make him a bad person?

Dear Lord, please give me some clarity. Holly is such a sweet, warm person, but I don’t want to plunge headlong into a situation I can’t emotionally handle. And I’m still really confused about where we go from here. A huge curveball was thrown at me when I wasn’t expecting it. Life has shown me that everything happens for a reason, yet I can’t fathom why I’m here. And I can’t wrap my head around Holly being a paraplegic. It reminds me so much of everything I left behind in Afghanistan. Am I strong enough to get past this deception?

“What are you going to do now?” She looked at him sorrowfully, her expression full of regret and a hundred different emotions he didn’t want to analyze.

Dylan shrugged as reality set in. He really didn’t have anyplace to go. With his mother having recently moved to New Mexico with her new husband, there was no longer anything tying him to his hometown. He’d burned all his bridges with his father a while ago, no longer content with being a dirty little secret. His outside child. The one who didn’t matter. It had been almost six years since he’d spoken to him. He wasn’t even certain his father knew he’d made it back from Afghanistan. Nor did he think he even cared. For too long now, he’d been seeking something from the man that he’d never been willing to give. Acceptance. Unconditional love.

At the moment he felt like a ship without a rudder. Here he was in West Falls, Texas, as clueless as the day he was born. For so long he’d been running. From his father. From the painful gibes about his paternity. He’d run away from Madden, Oklahoma, straight into the service. At some point he just had to stand still. And perhaps God had placed him here in West Falls for a reason.

He stroked his chin with his thumb, deep in thought. “My rent is paid up for the next four months, and I really don’t have a lot of options. I need to find a job until I can get on my feet. From what I’ve seen, West Falls is a nice community.”

Holly’s eyes began to blink, and her mouth was agape. “You’re staying?”

He was still filled with so much uncertainty, but this decision to stick around was based more on practicality than anything else. In his current financial situation, losing several months’ rent was a big deal. For years he’d been sending the majority of his active-duty paycheck back home to his mother. And even though she’d socked some of it away for him in a bank account, he was still far from being solvent. In order to realize his dreams of owning his own ranch, he needed to keep making positive strides in that direction. Instead of acting impulsively once again, he’d have to stick around West Falls, at least until his lease ran out. And perhaps he could find work to tide him over while he was in town.

Holly’s gaze was strong and steady. It made him squirm some. Her eyes were such a deep, piercing blue. They pulled him in, and for a moment, all he could do was stare at her. Holly. His pen pal. His more than a friend but not quite a girlfriend. At the moment she was an enigma. As much as her letters had revealed about her life at Horseshoe Bend Ranch, her family and her abiding faith, she’d kept her disability a secret. Surely there were ripple effects in her daily life because of the accident and her being a paraplegic.

“Yep,” he acknowledged begrudgingly. “It looks like I’ll be staying for a while.”

Holly’s eyes widened, and her throat convulsed as she swallowed. “West Falls will welcome you with open arms. And it would be fine with me if you wanted to work here at the ranch. With your background, it would make perfect sense.”

Open arms? For some reason he couldn’t imagine it. His own hometown hadn’t been half as accepting of him and the single mother who’d raised him. No, they’d been considered inferior due to his mother’s unmarried status and the lack of a father figure in the picture. It hadn’t helped matters that his mother had been stunningly beautiful, making all the married women in town clutch their husbands tightly to their sides whenever she was in their presence. She hadn’t deserved their judgment and disapproval. Hurt roared through him as the bitter memories swept over him. There hadn’t been an ounce of compassion or goodness in any of them!

Holly shot him a nervous smile. “It’s a big place with plenty of work to keep you busy.”

He nodded at her, his thoughts a jumbled mess. So far this day had not shaped up as he’d planned. And he had no one to blame but himself for much of it. “I’ll think about it. It’s mighty nice for you to suggest it,” he said. “Especially since I showed up here out of the blue.”

“I think it might work out nicely,” she said, her expression a bit guarded. “If you’re open to it.”

He felt himself frowning. There was no way he was getting too optimistic about West Falls, even if the idea of a job at Horseshoe Bend Ranch seemed almost perfect. If he built up his hopes too high, he’d most likely be disappointed. He’d taken this huge leap of faith without thinking things through in a mature manner. And he’d gotten burned by her lie.

All this time he’d been focused on meeting Holly and building on the foundation they’d already established. But perhaps he’d really been doing what he’d always done. Running away. From Madden. From the fear of failure. From a father, who treated him like a castoff. Far away from gossipmongers and painful half-truths. Unknowingly, he’d run straight toward another complicated situation. He’d gotten involved with a woman who didn’t think enough of him to be straight with him.

Although he’d been hopeful about finally finding peace in this town, things weren’t half as simple as he’d envisioned. Just when he’d thought his life was about to be as calm as a lake in summer, a twist of fate had changed everything. At the moment he felt as uncertain about his future as when he’d been dodging land mines in the fields of Afghanistan.

* * *

“Picasso, you’re a beauty,” Holly cooed as she brushed the onyx-colored colt. With her other hand she reached up and fingered the white star on his forehead. She had a soft spot for the handsome horse who’d been born at Horseshoe Bend Ranch during a terrible storm last summer. Although the storm had greatly damaged Main Street Church, it had served as a catalyst to bring her brother and her best friend back together as a couple. For that she would always be grateful.

Rather than sitting at home fretting about the situation with Dylan, she’d gotten in her van and headed down the road to the stables. Being able to drive gave her a sense of independence. Once she was behind the wheel, the world didn’t seem so small anymore. She didn’t feel so much like a caged bird. And she was never more centered than when she was spending time with her horses. This was where she felt most comfortable, a place where her dreams resided.

One day, she vowed, she’d get back on a horse and ride across the beautiful landscape of Horseshoe Bend Ranch. Sadly, she’d never be able to ride in the same manner as she had before the car crash—wild, spirited galloping through the countryside. But she would still be able to experience the unforgettable sensation of being at one with her horses. For the first time in a long time, she’d be free.

Malachi, who’d worked at the ranch since she was a teenager, had given her space as soon as she’d gotten out of the van, seeming to know intuitively that she was seeking solitude the moment she’d shown up. With his dark, brooding eyes, prominent cheekbones and solemn expression, he was the strong, introspective type.

A few times he stepped outside the barn and checked on her, his movements stealthy as he watched her. It was almost enough to make her smile, watching Malachi observing her when he thought she wasn’t paying attention.

Holly heard the crunch of tires on the dirt and the slam of a car door. Shuffling noises let her know someone was walking toward her. As the steps got closer and closer, she called out, “Uh-oh. I must be in trouble if the sheriff of West Falls is paying me a visit in the middle of the afternoon.”

“What in the world is going on out here?” a male voice barked.

The sound of her brother’s voice confirmed her hunch. She swiveled her head around and made eye contact with Tate, taking in his furrowed brow and the deep scowl on his face.

“Something tells me you already know.” She knew Cassidy like the back of her hand. There was a time when she’d kept secrets from Tate—things that had almost doomed their relationship. Now that they were happily engaged, Cassidy wasn’t going to hold back anything from the man she loved. She wouldn’t do it, not even for her best friend. The stern look on her brother’s face confirmed what she already suspected—Tate knew all about the circumstances surrounding Dylan’s visit.

“Cassidy was quite upset. She told me the whole story. I had to practically pry it out of her to find out what you’d said to hurt her feelings so badly.” Tate’s mouth was pinched tightly, his brown eyes narrowed into slits. “Did you seriously throw the past in her face like that?”

Holly looked away and tucked her chin against her chest. She couldn’t bear to see such disappointment in Tate’s eyes. “I messed up. Big time. What I said to her about owing me—” Heat burned her cheeks as her own words came back to her.

“—should never have been said,” Tate finished. His features were etched in grim lines.

Holly wiped her hand across her face, getting rid of the beads of sweat gathered on her forehead. “You have no idea how much I regret saying those words. I wouldn’t hurt Cassidy for the world. You know that. I’m just not myself today. And I fully plan to meet up with her tomorrow and apologize.”