True Love Cowboy by Jennifer Ryan

“Chase! Wake up!”

Chase shot up in bed, the rat-a-tat-tat of automatic gunfire and the blast of explosions going off in his head overlaid with a newer nightmare, the ghostly image of a beautiful blonde staring up at him with dead eyes and blue lips. His unwelcome brother’s scowling face only made things worse.

He sucked in a ragged breath and shook off Hunt’s hand from his shoulder. “What the hell are you doing here?” It took Chase a minute to figure out where here was because everything inside him wanted the last twelve hours erased from reality. He didn’t want it to be true. He didn’t want to be held responsible for another death.

Hunt’s narrowed eyes went wide. “You OD’d and nearly died. Where else would I be but here to force you back on the right path? Again.” The last time Hunt tried to set him straight he’d arrested Chase and had gotten the DA to agree to a deal, rehab instead of jail.

“Why bother?” Hunt obviously thought Chase threw away sixty days of rehab the second he got out. “You don’t care what happens to me.” Sometimes it felt like no one cared about him anymore.

“Because Mom would have wanted us to look out for each other—even if I hate you.” Hunt knew just how to slice open old wounds and make them bleed all over again.

Their mother died seven years ago and nothing had been the same since. His father and brothers blamed him, but he’d done what he thought was right for his mom. She begged him to help her die on her terms. He did it to spare her more pain, so she could die in peace even if she had to do it without her beloved boys.

Chase fell back in the hospital bed and turned away from his brother only to come face-to-face with his younger one. “You too.”

“Yep.” Max gave him a condescending frown. “I think you might have set the record for relapsing after getting out of rehab. Sixty days in and you OD in less than one day out.”

Only he didn’t. His Army buddy Drake did him a solid and asked his girlfriend, Adria, if Chase could crash in the apartment over her shop for a couple days. He needed a minute to figure out how to go home after rehab and rebuild his demolished life.

All he wanted to do was see his little girl and that meant facing her mom, Shelby, and convincing her he’d changed his ways and wanted to put Eliza first.

He prayed he could make Shelby believe him.

“Why are either of you here?” After his mom’s death, his father banished him from their ranch. His mom made him promise to make his dad see reason and let Chase rebuild and repair the failing business. She wanted all of them to always have a home at Split Tree Ranch.

Their family tree had definitely split, leaving his branch broken on the ground while his father and brothers stood against him and kicked him off the ranch and out of their lives.

But he’d kept his promise to his mother and left them all with a business plan and the money to carry it out. The only way to get his hands on a chunk of money without putting them further in debt had been to join the Army and take the big bonus they offered him at enlistment. He needed to escape their hatred and anger and find a place to go and a purpose. He got both, and a new kind of family with his brothers in arms. Knowing he wasn’t welcome at home but he was needed in the service, he reenlisted after his first term ended and sent the bonus he got for that to the ranch, too.

At the time, he thought his service and helping his family was his penance.

It turned out to be his undoing.

He’d served, and served well, but the battles left him scarred, battered, mentally unstable, and ultimately addicted to the very painkillers they gave him for the wounds that healed on his body but not in his mind. That kind of pain never ceased.

His brothers didn’t come today because they cared. They came to pile on the punishment.

Juliana’s haunting face filled his mind. Last night seemed like another nightmare, but it had been all too real. Watching Juliana die because he’d been unable to hold it together long enough to save her killed him. He’d seen her collapse. By the time he got to her, her heart had stopped. He tried to give her CPR, but his demons reared their ugly head. He had some sort of panic attack and couldn’t breathe and passed out. She died because he’d buckled under the pressure.

It had never happened to him in the field under heavy fire, but seeing a young woman, so bright and fresh with so much life left to live drop dead right in front of him broke the last shred of whatever he’d been hanging by these last many months.

“We’re here to take you back to rehab.”

Right. They wanted him out of sight, out of mind.

But he didn’t have a dime to his name. He’d spent everything he had for the sixty days of treatment and therapy.

Right now, he couldn’t even pay his child support.

Shelby told him he didn’t need to until he was back on his feet. Shelby could support Eliza on her own. She told him Eliza needed her daddy and that meant he had to do whatever it took to bring him back, because the man he’d become was not the daddy Eliza deserved.

He stared up at the ceiling tiles and shook his head. “I finished rehab.” He’d done the work. Now, he wanted to get his life back. He’d missed too damn much time with Eliza. She deserved better. He wanted to give it to her, even if he wasn’t quite sure how to do that.

He picked up his phone, hoping it still had a charge.

What if Shelby left him a message? What if she needed him? What if something happened to Eliza?

His thoughts spun out and his breathing turned sharp and desperate when he stared at the black screen, his phone completely dead.

Hunt took his phone and set it on the table. “Look at you. You’re so desperate to call your supplier—”

“I’m not doing drugs,” he snapped, trying to keep from losing it. “Is Drake around? I need my stuff.” His military buddy had helped save his life more than once. He got Chase into the same rehab where Juliana had stayed, though she’d arrived after him and left before him.

Hunt planted his fists on his hips. “Dude. Focus.”

“I need to charge my phone. It’s important.”

Hunt stepped aside and revealed the military duffle bag sitting against the wall behind him. “We picked up your stuff this morning before we came here.”

“Is my charging cord in there?”

Hunt rolled his eyes, annoyed as hell, but Chase didn’t care. Hunt pulled the cord out of the top of the bag. Chase snatched it out of his hand and plugged in his phone and the cord to the wall behind his hospital bed.

The second the phone lit up with the battery-charging symbol, he pressed the side button to turn it on and stared at the spinning circle as his phone went through its start-up.

Hunt swore. “You need to face reality, Chase. You OD’d. You nearly died. Again.”

“I’m not using!” He’d gotten clean and worked with a therapist to quiet his demons, even if he couldn’t kill them.

“You can’t lie to us, man.” Max leaned forward. “We’re not buying your bullshit anymore. The doctor said you’re using.”

Only he wasn’t. He couldn’t explain how he OD’d last night. He hoped Drake could fill in the blank in his mind. It had happened before, losing time. PTSD, anxiety, and depression had taken over his life along with the drugs. He just needed to talk to Drake to figure out what happened to Juliana and him last night. Because he felt like he was missing a huge piece of the puzzle that landed him in a hospital bed.

“I’m not taking any more of your accusations and blame and anger. Go home. I don’t need you.” He needed to see Eliza.

Sheneeded him. She wanted him. She was the only person in his life who loved him. Because she didn’t know who her father really was, or what he’d done, she accepted him as is.

He had a chance to be the man she needed, because at two, she didn’t know there were bad things in the world and he was one of them.

“You need to get your shit together.” Hunt liked to throw out orders like that without any idea how hard that was for Chase after all he’d been through. He expected Chase to snap out of it. He wanted Chase to find a way to undo the past and make everything right.

If Chase could do that, he would.

All he could do now was accept that all the bad shit in his past happened because he’d done the best he could each and every time he’d been faced with impossible decisions. And when it all got to be too much, he’d hidden in a prescription drug haze meant to kill the pain, but all it did was make things worse.

And nearly cost him everything.

Get help, or you will never see Eliza again, Shelby had ordered him, her words and angry voice still ringing in his ears.

The thought of never seeing his little girl had him immediately calling Drake for help before he even left Shelby’s driveway. He’d gone to rehab the next day.

He’d learned his lesson.

He wouldn’t make the same mistake again.

And even though what happened last night left him reeling, he knew the only way to get through it was to feel it, no matter how bad it hurt.

His phone came alive with a series of dings and pings as emails and text messages blew up his phone.

He ignored the emails and tapped Shelby’s text string. She never really said much, but what she sent him was better than anything in this world. Pictures of Eliza started downloading, one after another. Her smiling face stared at him and all the tension went out of his chest. He breathed for the first time in twelve long hours.

When he was serving overseas, he got a picture a day. She’d even hooked up a private web cam in Eliza’s nursery. He could log in with his password anytime and see his little girl in her room. Some days, the pictures and seeing the livestream were all that kept him sane. And Shelby hadn’t stopped now that he was stateside. At some point every day she sent him a picture.

He’d spent every night in rehab watching his baby sleep.

Three pictures popped up today. They went a long way to stitching up his bleeding heart. In the first picture, Eliza stood in front of the fireplace with a piece of paper with an I made out of multicolored buttons glued on it. Above her head on the mantel sat a picture of him. A selfie he’d taken and sent to Shelby to show Eliza while he was overseas. Behind him in the photo, nothing but desert sand spread out as far as the eye could see. The second picture showed Eliza on her swing in the backyard another piece of paper in her hands with the word Love spelled out in animal stickers. And the last, Eliza in the princess chair he sent her for Christmas with her finger pointed at him and another paper with You spelled out in glitter.

His sweet girl liked to stick things on everything. The walls, windows, and doors when her mom wasn’t looking and forcing her to use paper.

Hunt closed in on him. “Chase, put the phone down and pay attention.”

Chase didn’t like being loomed over. At all. “To what? You telling me what you think I did. What you think I am. What you want me to do. Seriously, haven’t I done enough for everyone? Haven’t I paid enough? Lost enough? You guys don’t even want to be here. So why are you? Go home and leave me the hell alone.”

“When you’re left alone, you get high.”

“Not anymore.” It was never about some high. He needed an escape from his thoughts, to turn off his brain, so he didn’t have to remember or feel or do something he couldn’t take back and end it all.

Eliza needed him to be better. So he was going to do better.

“So if you won’t go back to rehab, what are you going to do?” Max asked, sounding genuinely interested, even if Hunt still wanted to kill him for what happened with their mom.

“I’m going home.”

“To the ranch?” Max’s eyes went wide with shock. “Dad’s not going to like that. He’s—”

“As stubborn as you,” Hunt interjected, cutting off whatever else Max intended to say.

Hunt and Max exchanged a look. Hunt pushed harder. “Where exactly do you plan to stay?”

He didn’t know. Somewhere close to his girl since he no longer had his furnished apartment in town. Everything he owned was in the bag next to the hospital bed. “I’ll figure it out.” He hoped he had enough on his credit card to get him a motel room for a few nights so he could go and see Eliza and find a job before he ended up on the streets like so many other vets who struggled to assimilate into society again.

Hunt narrowed his eyes, one side of his mouth drawn back in a derisive frown. “Great plan.”

Before Chase got a chance to tell his brother to fuck off, an officer walked through the door. “Chase Wilde?”

His heart raced. “Yeah.” He had a flashback of Hunt slamming him into the ground, yanking his arms behind his back, and cuffing him. Hunt had taken great joy in arresting him.

“I came to get your statement about what happened last night.” The officer checked out Hunt and Max, then focused on him again.

Of course Hunt couldn’t keep his damn nose out of Chase’s business. “I’m Hunt Wilde. Willow Fork, Wyoming PD. Is my brother under arrest?” Lucky for Chase, they were in Montana, so Hunt had no jurisdiction here, but he could still use his badge to steer the officer into doing what Hunt thought Chase deserved.

When Hunt arrested him back home, that had been rehab. Now, he wondered if Hunt wanted him locked up behind bars. For his own good, Hunt would say, but Chase knew it was revenge, pure and simple.

The officer raised a brow. “For attempting to save a woman’s life?”

Hunt stared at him wide-eyed.

Chase crossed his arms and stared at his lap. “You said it. Attempted. But I didn’t save her.”

“Tell me what happened,” the officer prompted, pulling out a pad and pen to take notes.

Chase glanced at Hunt, who crossed his arms over his chest and glared down at Chase as if to say, “You better not lie.”

Chase told the truth, despite how horrible it was. “My buddy’s girl let me stay in her place above the shop where it happened. She said I could eat whatever I wanted from the kitchen. I headed down to find something when I heard Juliana yelling. She sounded angry and desperate, so I rushed in to see if I could help her. The second I saw her, she collapsed to the floor.” Chase could see it all too clearly in his mind. “She just crumbled. I couldn’t get to her fast enough to stop her fall.” He could still hear the crack of her head hitting the polished cement floor. “When I reached her . . . I knew it was too late. Her eyes . . . She didn’t have a heartbeat. Training kicked in. I started CPR.”

“You gave her mouth-to-mouth,” the officer added.

Chase nodded. “I did, then yelled at the guy—I think he worked there—to call for help, but he was out of his mind, ranting. I tried to help her, but then . . .” It all went black.

“You passed out. You were dosed, just like Juliana,” the officer supplied.

Chase’s heart and breath stopped. That never crossed his mind. Of course, he hadn’t been able to think past losing Juliana so quickly. One moment she was vibrant and alive, and the next she simply dropped dead.

“I was dosed?” He really couldn’t believe it.

“Yes,” the officer confirmed. “Luckily Juliana’s sister Adria arrived on the scene and injected you with naloxone. It took two doses. But she saved your life.”

Hunt put up his hand. “Wait. Are you saying someone else dosed Juliana, and then Chase ingested the drug while giving Juliana mouth-to-mouth?”

“Exactly. We have it all on video.”

Chase ran his hands over his face. “I thought I had some kind of blackout.”

“No sir,” the officer assured him. “You did everything you could for Juliana, but nothing would have saved her with that much fentanyl in her system.”

“Fentanyl.” No wonder it took him down so fast. Fentanyl was a hundred times more potent than morphine. He’d been addicted to oxycodone. Same opioid family, but nowhere near as deadly. Even a small dose of fentanyl could kill.

“We’re looking for the suspect who fled the scene. Seems he dosed her with what he thought was heroin. Turns out he bought a bad batch. The fentanyl-laced heroin had already killed six people. We were in the process of tracking down the suppliers and letting the public know . . .” The officer shook his head. “It’s a tragedy she died the way she did when she’d worked so hard to get clean.” The officer stepped closer. “I hope this doesn’t set you back in your recovery.”

“I’m good.” In fact, he felt a hell of a lot better knowing he hadn’t caused Juliana’s death. But the weight of her loss and how Adria must have felt trying to save him when she knew her sister was gone just killed him.

He needed to contact Drake and check on Adria. He needed her to know how sorry he was for her loss and that he really had tried to save Juliana.

The officer turned the page in his notebook. “I just need your contact information for the file. I’m sure the DA will want to talk to you if this goes to trial.”

Chase rattled off his cell number.

“And your address?”

Chase shook his head. “Don’t have one right now, but I’m headed back to Wyoming and you can reach me on my cell.”

“Good luck to you. And I’m glad you survived.”

That’s what I do.

Though sometimes he’d wished he hadn’t.

But that was behind him—he hoped—even if the nightmares were still fresh in his mind.

The officer left him alone with his brothers again.

He glanced up at Hunt. “You were saying something about me using again?”

Hunt looked away.

Max sighed. “It sucks that girl died. It could have been you.”

Hunt unlaced his arms. “Remember that, Chase, the next time you want to use.”

Chase rolled his eyes and wanted to offer up another fuck you, but the nurse came in with some papers.

“Mr. Wilde, you’ve been cleared by the doctor and can go home.”

Yeah, he didn’t have one of those, but seeing his little girl sounded great. If Shelby allowed it.

He’d jump through any hoop she put in place. He’d do whatever it took. He’d show her he wasn’t a deadbeat dad. He cared. More than she knew. Because even if she didn’t know it, she’d saved him.