Her Cowboy Boss Read online

  “Okay. If you’ll tell me why you won’t come to dinner.”

  He glanced around, bowed his head and finally looked her in the eye. “It isn’t safe.”

  “What?”

  “Babe, the way I feel about you scares me like nothing else ever has. And after what happened to you, it should scare you, too.”

  “That’s—” Before she could say crazy, he lifted his hand and lightly brushed two fingers over the scar on her chest. She realized suddenly what he must think, what he must assume.

  “I’m not even sure you should be working for me anymore.”

  “Stark, don’t say that.”

  “I mean it. I’ve thought long and hard about this, and I’m just not sure it’s best for either of us. Especially you. I don’t know how much longer I can...just be your friend, let alone your boss.”

  “Stark, we have to talk about this,” she whispered urgently. “I think you may have the wrong impression. We need to talk. Promise me.”

  He nodded. “Yeah. You’re right. We’ll talk. As much as you’re comfortable talking.” He cupped her cheek with his big, gentle hand, regret in his dark eyes. Then he shook his head, turned and walked away.

  Stunned, Meredith put her head back and looked at the ceiling, sending up a silent prayer.

  Please, God, don’t let him make a decision without all the facts. Don’t let him push me away until I’ve had my say. For both our sakes.

  Chapter Eleven

  Why couldn’t he be smart about this?

  Stark asked himself that question for the umpteenth time, and the only honest answer he could come up with was pure selfishness. Meredith made him feel alive again, but he knew that if he kept on seeing her every day things were going to change, intensify, fly out of control. And that would be bad.

  She trusted him not to hurt her, but his affection for her grew daily, and he feared frightening her. She’d likely never get over it if that happened. No doubt she’d run for the hills. Those two reactions together would cut him up inside as bad as Cathy’s death, if not worse, which meant they’d both lose.

  The only wise choice was to stop it now, before it was too late.

  When he’d seen her sleeping on those chairs in the waiting area of his clinic, he’d wanted to scoop her up and keep her with him, protecting her for the rest of his life. Only later had the impossibility of that hit him. In the moment, he hadn’t let himself think through what he was doing or saying, let alone intending.

  They could be each other’s support through the holidays.

  He was going to ease into her family by attending church with them.

  What he hadn’t let on was that he’d already been planning how he was going to introduce her to his family. What she hadn’t realized was that he was already dreaming about how they’d make new memories, a new life. Together.

  That’s when the ugly, selfish truth had clobbered him. Considering all she’d been through, he couldn’t plan a life with Meredith. It was all sweetness and light right now, but it wouldn’t stay that way. He couldn’t go on just being her friend forever, and when she realized that, she’d hate him. At the very least, she’d feel betrayed, and she might even be afraid of him. After all she’d been through, how could it be any other way?

  It was probably best this way. Neither of them was ready for a real relationship. He couldn’t get over Cathy, and Meri could never think of him as anything more than a job and an improvement project. He had to face that fact now, before it was too late, before he damaged both of them irreparably.

  The realization left him feeling both relieved and deeply burdened. He reasoned that the sooner he dealt with the issue, the better for both of them. Now that her father seemed firmly on the mend, he had no good excuse for putting it off. His feelings would wane over time, become bearable, something he could live with; he knew that from experience.

  Surely it was best just to be honest about it. She’d helped him make great strides in the quality of his life, but it had to end there, for everyone’s sake. He told himself he’d mourn the loss of his foolish dreams later, but the loss would be tempered by the sure knowledge that what he was doing was best and right for both of them, especially her.

  He’d get over it and be the better for it. And so would she. Before long they’d both feel a little silly about the whole thing. They might even be able to go on being friends. He’d continue to work on his issues and she’d continue to work on hers. But apart. Safely apart.

  Surely he’d start to feel some peace about this, some satisfaction with his life as it was now. Without her. This...bleakness would pass.

  Please, God, let it pass.

  He’d grown used to the spurts of delight that she’d brought into his life, the laughter and comfort, the affection. How he would miss her smile and her warmth, but he couldn’t afford to weaken. The possibility of disaster was just too high.

  He purposefully did not meet her at the door when she finally came in on Monday morning. In fact, he made certain that he was at the desk going over the books on the computer. She called out his name, and the shock of it sent shivers through him.

  “Stark?”

  “In here.”

  She breezed in, hung up her outerwear and came straight to him. He could feel her good mood but kept his eyes glued to the computer screen. Perhaps he should have expected what happened next. She walked up behind him, slid her arms around his shoulders, bent forward, laid her cheek atop his head and hugged him. Closing his eyes, he savored every instant of the contact. It might well be the last. Then he caught the break in her breathing and realized she was on the point of tears.

  Reacting without prior thought, he rotated the chair, came to his feet and reached for her. “Babe? What’s wrong?”

  She shook her head, tears glistening in her beautiful blue eyes, her hands on his shoulders. “It’s all good,” she squeaked, obviously struggling to master her emotions. “Even better than we’d hoped. Oh, Stark, I’m so happy!”

  Going up on tiptoe, she hugged him again. He let out his breath in a whoosh of air, relief sweeping through him. “You had me worried.”

  She went down on her heels, keeping her arms about his neck and laying her head in the hollow of his shoulder. “I railed at God when Dad was first diagnosed,” she admitted, sniffing. “I knew how bad it could be, you see. I didn’t even tell the others, not until we had a better idea what we were dealing with. Then I thanked God that it wasn’t worse and started praying for Dad’s complete healing. Now...” She put her head back and looked up at him. “Now I realize that Dad’s illness has been a blessing in disguise. Do you know what he told Dr. Shorter today?”

  Stark shook his head and eased down onto the edge of the reception desk, bringing himself eye level with Meredith. “What did he tell her?”

  “He told her that after our mom died, he started praying for God to make a way to bring us all home, to bring us all together again.” She wiped tears from her eyes. “And here we are. Mom always preached that we kids had to be free to do our own thing, and she was right, but I’m not sure any of us saw that we could do that here. Until God showed us how. I’m so happy that you’re my how, Stark Burns.”

  “Oh, but, Meri,” he began, remembering that serious talk they were going to have.

  Then she kissed him, and he was lost. The hands he meant to keep planted right there on the edge of the desk somehow wound up at her waist. He tried to take them away, but they began roaming her back, until one of them cupped her head. His arm locked her in place as the kiss deepened, and all he could think was that she belonged with him, was meant for him, not an alternate plan or a contingency plan but an ultimate plan.

  The very idea seemed disloyal to Cathy and Bel, but he was helpless against his feelings for this woman. If anything should happen to her... But something alrea
dy had happened to her, and if he wasn’t careful he was going to make it worse. So much worse.

  He pushed her back and jerked to the side in one frantic movement, gasping, “I am so sorry.”

  At first she looked stunned. Then a look of such consternation crossed her face that he thought she might hit him. Finally, she slumped down into the desk chair and rolled her eyes up at him, sighing.

  “Right. Because I was stabbed.”

  Not wanting to loom over her, he went down on his haunches beside her. “You were more than stabbed.”

  “No,” she said calmly, matter-of-factly, “I was stabbed. Period. It was the most harrowing, hurtful, traumatic experience of my life. Because of that one incident, I’ve been through counseling and self-defense training and spent a fortune on locks and cats. I learned to hate living in a big city, because that’s where it happened, and I still have nightmares sometimes, mostly because my attacker was never caught, I think.”

  “Meri, I’m so sorry if I’ve contributed to that. I never meant—”

  “Will you listen to me?” she interrupted sternly. “I’m going to tell you exactly what happened, and I want you to listen carefully. Then maybe you’ll understand. All right?”

  He wanted so much to take her hand, but he just nodded. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”

  “I want to tell you everything,” she insisted. Getting up, she took him by the upper arms, made him rise and parked him on the edge of the desk again. Then she sat once more and began.

  “At shift change, nearly all the nurses leave the hospital at the same time through the same door. I was late leaving that night. It just happened that I left the building by myself. I was walking to my car when this man jumped out from between two SUVs, grabbed me, held a knife to my throat and told me if I screamed or fought, he’d kill me.”

  Stark balled his hands into fists, wanting desperately to hit something, but that wouldn’t help Meredith at all, so he forced himself to relax again. “Go on.”

  “He threw me down on the ground between the vehicles and started tearing at my clothes. He said that if I cooperated, let him do what he wanted, he wouldn’t hurt me. But he’d already hurt me. I’d taken a hard knock on the back of my head and could tell that it was bleeding. And he’d done nothing to keep me from clearly seeing his face, so I didn’t believe that he would leave me alive when he was done. Then I heard the door open again, and more than one person came out. I could hear them talking, so I knew they could hear me. I started screaming and fighting like crazy. When he couldn’t quickly contain or quiet me, he stabbed me.”

  Stark shuddered, reminding himself aloud, “Your necklace deflected the blade.”

  “Yes, or it would have been much worse. The people heard and immediately ran to help me. He took off, literally stepped on me to get away. We were in a hospital staff parking lot, so medical help was right there.”

  Stark let that all sink in. She hadn’t been raped. She’d been viciously attacked, terrified, traumatized, but not—Thank God!—raped. He was so glad for her. And he still wanted to get his hands on the man who had hurt her.

  “You saw him. Why couldn’t they catch him?”

  She shrugged and shook her head. “The likeness they put together didn’t match anything in their database, and he didn’t leave a shred of DNA. He was cleanly shaved, even his head, and he wore long sleeves, gloves and a turtleneck.”

  Stark considered all the possible scenarios of that situation, horrified anew. “You were right to fight. He meant to kill you.”

  “I know he did. The police believed it was a crime of opportunity. I was the one woman who walked out that door alone that night. But for a full year, I had a hard time even leaving my apartment.”

  “But you did,” Stark surmised, marveling at her courage.

  “After about three weeks, I had to work and do other things,” she said. “I didn’t have to socialize, though. So I stayed home with my cats and pretended that was enough.”

  Stark shook his head. “You’re still far braver than I am, Meri. I’m just now learning to face the world.”

  She got up out of her chair and stood next to him. “It’s a different kind of trauma, Stark, a different kind of loss and pain.”

  He supposed that was true. “Still...”

  “The point is,” she said, “I’ve been over and over this in my head, and I’ve prayed and prayed about it. I’m not afraid. You can’t use me as an excuse. If you want to push me out of your life, I can’t stop you, but it’s all on you.”

  He stared at her for a long moment, drinking in the beautiful honesty of her, trying to give it back to her. “I don’t want to, Meri,” he finally admitted. “I’m just so messed up.”

  “I know.”

  Her honesty allowed him to at last be honest with himself about his own motivations. He didn’t like what he had to say, but she deserved the very best he could give her, however painful.

  “The truth is, Meri, I’m not sure I can ever be what you need me to be, what you have a right to expect of any man. What I was for Cathy and Bel, I’m not sure I can be that again.”

  “Look how far you’ve come,” she said, slipping her hands into the hair at the back of his head. “I think you’re worth the risk.”

  “Aw, Meri.” He couldn’t agree and shook his head. “I want to be. Believe that at least.”

  Smiling, she kissed him again, and as he held her, he wondered if anything in the world could be as sweet as Meri’s kiss. He didn’t doubt for a moment that he loved her, and he knew now that he’d try to be what she needed simply because that was what she wanted, but...

  No more excuses. No more looking for a way out.

  That’s what he’d been doing; he saw it now, but from now on he would give it all he had, for Meri’s sake. And pray it was enough.

  Firmly in control, she broke the kiss after a moment and said, “Enough of that. We have work to do.”

  He smiled. Thankfully, at least one of them had some sense.

  “I’m kitted up and ready to go,” he told her. “It’s going to be a busy afternoon, so I probably won’t see you again today. If not, I’ll see you in the morning. Call if you need me.”

  “Ditto.”

  He went to kiss her on the cheek, but she turned her head for a full-on lip-to-lip that made his heart swell.

  “For the record,” he told her softly, “I just don’t want to hurt you.”

  “Thank you for that,” she whispered, “and like I said, I think you’re worth the risk.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  He prayed that she was right. Driving to and from every farm and ranch that day, every pasture, corral, pigsty, barn and rabbit hutch, he prayed that he wouldn’t disappoint her.

  Recalling what she’d said about being angry at God over her father’s diagnosis, he thought back to something the pastor had preached on Sunday. The pastor had stated that God can take our anger, doubt and anything else we can dish out and is always waiting patiently for us to come back to Him. Maybe he was ready to go back to God, to start trusting again, to start believing again. Maybe that was part of trying again, of being who and what Meri needed and deserved.

  * * *

  Meri knew an excuse when she heard one. She should. She’d given herself plenty of excuses not to do what needed doing since the attack, most of which her trauma counselor had calmly, patiently knocked down. Stark needed and deserved someone to do that for him, too, but who had ever had the opportunity? Besides her?

  Stark had loved his wife and daughter with a rare intensity, and Meredith loved him all the more for it. A man capable of that depth of feeling was a man worth fighting for, but Stark was also a man of uncommon strength, though he didn’t seem to realize it. Only a very strong man could have survived such gri
ef and put together any sort of functioning life all alone afterward.

  If only he didn’t blame himself for the accident, he might stop doubting that they could build a life together. If he could just face the memories of his past with some joy instead of grief, he might be able to think clearly about the accident and his part in it. Over that Monday afternoon, she racked her brain for ways to help him do that.

  Something her counselor had said to her came to mind, something that Meredith herself had rejected at the time.

  A supportive family can be a great catalyst. A family member who mirrors our feelings can confirm the rightness of our emotions or demonstrate their destructiveness. One who chooses a different path can challenge us to more fully investigate our emotional responses.

  The counselor, provided by the hospital, had encouraged her to exclude her family from her treatment only if they were unsupportive, but Meredith had elected to keep them in the dark. She’d done it partly because she hadn’t wanted to worry them, but also because her siblings wouldn’t have been available to attend sessions with her anyway. If her mom had been alive, she wouldn’t have hesitated to bring it up with her parents, but asking her dad to attend those counseling sessions alone with her had seemed awkward and unkind.

  Stark had apparently never received any sort of counseling, but his family seemed quite supportive. An idea blossomed. She knew that she ought to ask Stark about it, but she also knew what he’d say. Did she dare ask him beforehand? She had the feeling that if she set the wheels in motion and then simply presented it to him as a done deal he might not be too happy but he’d go along. Still, it was a risk.

  Half-a-dozen times she reached for the phone, intending either to discuss it with him or just put her plan into motion, but she held off. Each time, she prayed about it instead. At the end of the day, she considered hanging around, maybe making dinner for Stark. He obviously thought they should be more circumspect, though, and she very much respected that, so she locked up and went home.