The Cowboy SEAL

“Dad?”

“The Easter Bunny...”

He finished his coffee then put the mug in the sink. “Not if I can help it.” He nodded to the tan Carhartt hanging on a hook by the back door. “Mind if I borrow that?”

“Help yourself.” The duster-style coat had belonged to Jim. Sometimes when she felt particularly overwhelmed, she wore it to remind her of him. It used to smell of him—the trace of the tobacco he’d chewed. How many times had she scolded him to quit, afraid of losing him to cancer when instead he’d passed from a hunting accident?

“Was this my brother’s?”

Swallowing the knot in her throat, she nodded.

She wanted to rail on him for not having had the common decency—the respect—to attend Jim’s funeral, but she lacked the strength to argue.

“About that...”

“J-just go, Cooper.” She didn’t want to hear what he had to say, because no mere explanation would ever be good enough. No matter what, a man didn’t miss his own brother’s funeral. Just didn’t happen.

The set of his stubbled square jaw was grim, but then so was the inside of her battered heart. Peg might’ve told him what the past few years without her husband had been like for Millie, but he didn’t really know. Beyond the financial toll Jim’s death had taken, emotionally, she felt as if a spring twister had uprooted every aspect of her and her kids’ lives. And speaking of her kids, they’d never even had the pleasure of meeting their uncle Cooper.

“Okay...” he mumbled.

Never-ending seconds stretched between them. Her watering eyes refused to quit stinging, and her frayed nerves itched for a fight.

“Thanks for the coffee. Guess I’ll head outside.”

Only after he’d gone, leaving her with just the wall of brutal January air to prove he’d ever even been in the room, did Millie dare exhale.

From a workload standpoint, having Cooper back on the ranch might be a godsend, but would it be worth the emotional toll?

* * *

“HEY, GIRL...” COOPER approached Sassy, the sorrel mare he’d been given for his eighteenth birthday. At the time, working this ranch, finding a good woman, having kids, had been all he’d ever wanted from life. Strange how even though he’d accomplished and seen more than he ever could’ve dreamed, he still felt like that kid who’d been run off in shame. “Long time, no see, huh?”

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.”