The Soldier's E-Mail Order Bride (Heroes of Chance Creek) Page 19

  Ella sighed. “Fine. I made a promise. I’ll keep it.” She disentangled herself from his arms and went back into the bunkhouse.

  Austin wanted to follow her inside, take her in his arms and make love to her until she lost that hurt and bewildered expression. But he couldn’t. Not now. Instead he headed up to the Hall to find Mason and break the news. He found his brother and Regan in the living room.

  “You have a son?” Mason stared at him when he told him. “A twelve-year-old son?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And Heather never said a word?”

  “Not a one.”

  Mason rubbed a hand over his face. Regan watched them both from where she sat next to the box of baby chicks.

  “How’s Ella?”

  “Holding up. She wanted to leave at first,” he confessed.

  “Well, this changes things,” Mason said.

  “How’s that?”

  “Richard’s the heir, for one thing. First born son and all that? Heloise will be pleased.”

  “Will she? I don’t know, since I’m not married to Heather.” Austin didn’t care what Heloise thought anyway. He was too worried about Ella—and Richard.

  “You won’t need a back-up baby,” Regan said. “I guess ours is the back-up baby.”

  Austin hadn’t thought of that.

  “How are you going to handle this?” Mason asked.

  “I’ll see if I can sort out a custody arrangement with Heather. Ella and I will continue as we’ve been doing.” He shrugged. “So nothing will change with regards to Heloise.”

  Regan narrowed her eyes. “Wait a minute. You and Ella will continue as you’ve been doing? What does that mean?”

  Shit. For a moment he’d forgotten Regan and Mason weren’t in on the trick. “I mean our marriage is strong. Richard’s presence won’t affect it.”

  Regan didn’t look satisfied. “And you’ll get the ball rolling with your vow renewal, right? Heloise was adamant about that.”

  “That’s right. The vow renewal.”

  “Good,” Mason said. He pulled out his phone and handed it to Austin. “I’ve got Reverend Halpern on speed-dial. Make an appointment to see him—soon.”

  Chapter 21

  ‡

  When Regan let herself into the bunkhouse, Ella was sitting in the middle of the main room, lost in thought. The sofa and easy chair she’d ordered hadn’t been delivered yet, so she sat on the floor.

  “I heard the news,” Regan said, joining her.

  “Some surprise, huh?”

  “You doing okay?”

  Ella hesitated. “No.” A tear streaked down her cheek and she scrubbed it away. “I’m trying to be, but… no, not really.”

  “Don’t be hard on yourself. Anyone would be upset.”

  “Would they?” Ella leaned back. “I feel like someone more gracious would open her arms to her husband’s child.”

  Regan blinked. “A couple of hours after he just appeared in your life? Come on; you’re not Mother Theresa.”

  “I guess not. The truth is I don’t know what to think. I liked the idea of having a baby.” Another tear slipped down her face.

  Regan’s eye’s widened. “Do you think Austin will change his mind about that? I don’t see why.”

  “You don’t? He already has a son. What does he need another one for?”

  Regan stared at her, and Ella bit her lip, realizing what she’d said. “I mean—Austin wasn’t sure he was ready for kids anyway. I pushed him.”

  Regan shook her head. “That’s not what you meant at all. What’s really going on, Ella? Austin said something similar up at the Hall. It’s like—it’s like the two of you aren’t really married.”

  “We’re married,” Ella said, cursing herself for her slipup. This was the last thing they needed—Regan doubting the truth of their relationship.

  “But do you plan to stay married after Heloise hands over the deed to the ranch?” Regan scrambled to her knees. “That’s it, isn’t it? You two are faking! I knew there was something wrong—but…” she trailed off. “But the spark between you. How can you fake that? I’d have sworn you were screwing each other silly all week!”

  Ella’s cheeks flamed, both from the knowledge she’d blown it and because she and Austin hadn’t faked the sex part. Regan was right—they had screwed each other silly all week and the truth was she couldn’t wait to be with him again, despite everything.

  Except when they were together it didn’t feel like being screwed. It felt like making love, which was the biggest joke of all, wasn’t it? Austin didn’t love her. That was the whole problem.

  Because she loved him—with all her heart.

  Her face must have betrayed her pain, because Regan backpedalled. “I’m sorry. What an awful thing for me to say. Of course you aren’t faking it.”

  “We are,” Ella’s tears spilled over. “We are faking the marriage. It’s just… I want it to be real.”

  For the first time since she left Hollywood behind, Ella gave up trying to keep her sorrow inside. She let her tears flow, let all her grief and fear and loneliness out until she’d cried so hard she had nothing left. Regan sat with her, a silent witness. When Ella’s sobs had slowed, Regan grabbed the roll of toilet paper from the bathroom and handed it to her. Ella blew her nose. The pity on Regan’s face nearly set her off again.

  “Are you sure Austin doesn’t love you?” she asked softly.

  “That’s the one thing I am sure of,” Ella said. “He doesn’t want a long-term relationship. He doesn’t want to be married. He definitely doesn’t want a child. I was helping him get the ranch and he was helping me hide and have the baby I want.”

  Regan pulled back. “So you were trying to get pregnant?”

  Ella nodded. “At least that way, when I leave the ranch, I won’t be alone.”

  * * *

  Austin rode for hours, hoping the cadence of the horse beneath him would help him sort his thoughts, but by the time he returned to the stables and rubbed down his mount, he was no closer to making sense of any of it. Heather’s attitude still burned him—not because he had feelings for her, but because he had cared deeply for her back when he was a teenager. He didn’t think the earnest young man he’d been then deserved that kind of treatment, and he was positive Richard didn’t deserve to be isolated from a father who would have loved him.

  He definitely hadn’t handled things with Ella very well. First he’d hurt her feelings and then he’d forced her to restate her intention to help him keep his ranch. Now he needed to figure out how to move forward without hurting Ella or Richard. How could he do that while maintaining an emotional distance from them? Or was it too late for that?

  “So you’re finally back.”

  Austin turned on his heel to find Regan behind him, her hands on her hips.

  “Don’t even try to explain yourself. I know everything. I know you’re a fake, Austin Hall, and I know you’re going to tear the heart out of that beautiful, wonderful woman back there.” She waved in the general direction of the bunkhouse.

  “I don’t follow you.” But he did, and he hated himself for it.

  “Ella loves you. You know that, don’t you? Or are you too big of an ass to even understand that?”

  Austin opened his mouth. Closed it again.

  “Spare me the stupidity of men!” Regan glared at him. “You honestly thought you could bring a woman to your home, marry her, make love to her on a daily basis and get her pregnant—and she wouldn’t fall in love? Are you a complete idiot?”

  Maybe he was, because that’s exactly what he’d thought. “She… told you that?”

  “Told me she loves you? Yes. That’s exactly what she did. And now I’ve betrayed her confidence—I’ve betrayed her every bit as badly as you have, which makes me an ass, too.”

  He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen a woman so furious before, but he was too busy analyzing her words to care. “Ella told you that she loves me.”

 
Regan rolled her eyes. “Would you like me to use smaller words?”

  Ella loved him. She loved him. It shouldn’t make any difference—it didn’t change what he’d done, or what Heather had done to him, or what he owed to Donovan’s memory—but she loved him. That… meant something.

  Regan peered at him uncertainly. “Austin? Are you okay? Do you need to sit down?”

  He was feeling a little off-kilter. The ground came up to meet him fast as he folded his legs.

  “I meant on a hay bale or something.”

  He didn’t care that he was sitting on the wide-planked, hay-strewn wooden floor of the stables, or that the horses were watching him with interest over the half-doors of their stalls.

  “Austin?” Regan knelt down beside him. “Do you love her back? Because if you do, everything will be okay.”

  Did he love Ella?

  Yes. He did.

  But everything was definitely not going to be okay.

  Reality crashed back over him and he realized he’d made a bigger mess than ever before. He’d snared so many people in an emotional web that when he failed them—and he would fail them—he’d take down an entire family. Ella, Richard, Mason, Regan, Zane and Colt.

  “No one can know what we’ve done,” he said to Regan. “Not even Mason. We have to keep pretending until next April—until Heloise hands us that deed.”

  Regan pulled back, incredulous. “You don’t love her.” She stood up. “You’ve done all this and you don’t even love her. God, you are such a…” She shook her head. “I don’t even know what you are.”

  Austin stood up too, determined to keep to the course he’d just set, no matter what Regan thought of him. “I’m a man who’s going to save his family’s ranch. I’m a man who’s going to make sure that baby of yours has a place to grow up.”

  “Don’t put me in the middle of this,” Regan blazed at him. “I don’t want it if it means Ella gets hurt!”

  Austin leaned over her. “You let me handle Ella. You let me handle Heloise, too. Don’t breathe a word to Mason.”

  “You want me to lie to my husband for nine more months?” Her voice rose. “That’s not how a marriage works.” She turned and headed for the door. “But I guess you’d have no idea about that.”

  Chapter 22

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  “Give him time.”

  Mason’s sudden appearance at her side some hours later made Ella jump. She sat on the Hall’s back porch, wanting to be close to people but not wanting to talk to them. Regan was cleaning up from dinner, and the rattle and clank of the pots and pans comforted her somewhat. “I’m staying out of his way.”

  “I know. I don’t want you to get discouraged by his attitude, though. It’s hard—coming back from a war.” Mason sat down in the wicker chair beside hers. “None of this seems real for a while. It’s too… calm. Too safe. The things that normally mean a lot in everyday life don’t seem to matter anymore. I think it’s a matter of over-stimulus. When you live with danger twenty-four seven, with adrenaline firing all the time, your brain gets used to it. Cut that off, and it starts looking for its next fix. Starting a fight can be a good substitute, even when it’s with someone you love. Austin never knew he had a son—you can see why he’d be messed up right now.”

  “Of course. I expect him to be messed up. I just wish he’d talk to me about it.”

  “He will when he’s ready.”

  “I wish I believed that.” Ella shifted in her chair. “Regan’s lucky. You seem to have adjusted just fine.”

  “I’ve had my moments,” Mason said ruefully. “Regan helped a lot. She helped me see what mattered. Plus there’s been so much for me to do. Keeping busy helps. A bit.”

  “Do you know what happened to Austin back in Afghanistan?”

  “A little. I can piece most of it together from the news I heard at the time. I don’t know all the details, though, and it’s the details that haunt a man.”

  “Can you tell me? It would help, wouldn’t it? If I knew?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not, too. Men like to think that they’re fighting for something—and that something is to keep women like you out of the muck a war is made of. We want you clean. Untouched by it. Does that make sense?”

  “There are women fighting, too, aren’t there?”

  “Yep. I don’t know how they see it. Do they come home and tell their husbands all about it? Maybe.” He thought about that. “I think if I was one of those husbands, I’d go crazy.”

  She tapped her finger on the cover of her book. “I can understand why Austin wouldn’t want to tell me about it. He probably doesn’t want to relive the experience.”

  “But he’s reliving it all the time. That’s what you have to understand. He might not say anything. He might not do anything. But it’s there, in his mind.”

  “So what do I do? How do I help him sort everything out?” She was ashamed of the note of desperation in her voice.

  “Just be here. Be close. Be available. Try not to get angry. Or do get angry and have a big fight—sometimes that helps, too.” He patted her hand. “It’ll work out. You’ll see.”

  * * *

  “Are we ever going to talk about it?” Ella asked late that night.

  Austin’s shoulders slumped. He’d hoped to creep into bed long after she’d fallen asleep, but obviously that wasn’t meant to be. The light from the living room streamed into the dark bedroom and gleamed in her open eyes. His long ride hadn’t straightened out his thoughts any, and his fight with Regan had made things worse. He’d worked in the stables long after she left, skipping supper and trying to figure out what to do next. He still didn’t have a plan. “We can talk. If we have to.”

  “We have to talk about Richard. Don’t you think?” Ella sat up in bed and wrapped the light comforter around her body. She wasn’t wearing anything underneath it—she’d long since abandoned wearing anything to bed—and despite his tiredness and confusion his body reacted in its normal fashion. Ella attracted him like no other woman ever had. When he didn’t answer, she sighed. “If there are too many problems to deal with all at once, how about we start with just one? What’s bothering you the most?”

  “All the lies.”

  She cocked her head. “The lies about Richard or the lies about us?”

  “The ones about me.” He shucked off his clothing and joined her under the covers. Both of them sat with their backs against the headboard. It helped not to have to look her in the eye. “People think I’m a hero. I’m not.”

  She digested this a moment. Obviously it wasn’t what she expected him to say. “They’re proud of you for serving your country.” Her voice was soft. “That is something to be proud of.”

  He snorted. “You’re just like all the rest of them—spouting feel-good sentences that mean nothing. None of you take the time to listen to how it really was.”

  “I’ve tried to listen. I’m trying now. Besides, I’m not stupid—I can guess what it’s like.”

  Anger bubbled up within him. Everyone said that and it wasn’t true. “No, you can’t. You don’t have a goddamn clue what it’s like over there. You don’t know what we’re up against. The conditions, the sand, the heat.”

  He didn’t mean to raise his voice to her. Knew she didn’t deserve it. Somehow he couldn’t stop. “Do you have any idea what I’ve seen? Do you have any idea how many dead bodies I’ve gotten up close and personal with? It’s not the same as seeing them on TV. They stink, Ella. They stink like you wouldn’t believe. They’re never whole, either. Not in this goddamn war. You find an arm. Or a foot. Or worse.”

  Ella pressed back against the headboard, her eyes wide and shining with tears. Austin hated himself for telling her this.

  “It’s bad enough when it’s an enemy. It’s worse when it’s a friend.” His voice cracked and Ella’s eyes flared wider.

  “Is that it? Did you lose a friend? Someone you cared about?”

  Austin laughed—a grim, grating sound. “Of course I did.�
��

  Ella nodded. “Mason told me.”

  Anger swelled again. Mason had no right—no matter what he thought he knew. “What did he tell you?”

  “That you lost someone special. I don’t know who.”

  “Did he tell you how I lost him? Did he tell you how I let him die? Did he tell you that’s why I’m not fit to be a husband—or a father to that boy who came by today? To that baby you want so bad?”

  For a long moment Ella stared back at him. Then a tear broke over her eyelids and slid down her cheek.

  Austin reared back. “That’s right. Cry. Now you know what I am. What I’ve done. I’m no hero, Ella. You’ve been with a monster. You’ve fucked a monster.”

  Silent tears slid down her face, but she didn’t move. Austin couldn’t stand it anymore. He’d shown her his heart. She knew all his secrets now. Hated him for them, too, most likely.

  He lurched to his feet, rolling off the bed in an ungainly motion. Ella’s voice stopped him halfway across the room.

  “I’m not crying for myself. And you’re not a monster.”

  “How the hell can you say that?”

  “Because it’s true. I know you.” Her voice strengthened. “You must have done everything you could.”

  “I made the wrong choice.”

  “When—at a picnic? Or a country dance?” Ella sat up. “You were in a goddamn war. If someone died that means someone else was shooting, right? Is that when you made a mistake? In the middle of a battle?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Of course it does!”

  “He died! End of story.” He was shouting again.

  “Who did?”

  “Donovan. Ben Donovan.” The words were pulled from him unwillingly.

  “But you tried to save him?”

  “Of course. After I saved—” He broke off.

  “After you saved someone else? For fuck’s sake, Austin—what are you blaming yourself for?” she was kneeling now, her hair swirling around her shoulders.

  “I did it wrong.” He saw the scene clearly in his mind. “I grabbed Edgars first. I got him out of there. Brought him to the others—he was covered with blood, going into shock. I went back for Donovan, but I was too late. If I’d grabbed him first—”