Page 14 of Snowed In with the Rancher

He didn’t bother to say anything to her, just followed suit and added more wood to the fire, as well.

Assuming his silence was a confirmation, she was already in the kitchen with bread and cheese out. “Grilled cheese and tomato soup sound good?” she asked, having also found the Campbell’s Soup cans in the pantry and grabbed two.

He grunted and turned down the dampers on the wood stove a bit.

“Are we back to the grunting?” she mused, a chuckle in her voice as she showed him her back and went about making lunch in his kitchen like she belonged there.

Why did that rub him the wrong way, but also make something grow tight in his chest?

He didn’t say anything, didn’t even stay in the room. Instead, he took the stairs two at a time, needing some space from the woman who had shown up on his doorstep last night and was now humming in his kitchen.

What the fuck?

He pissed in his bathroom and washed his hands, placing both hands on the sink, he leaned over and studied his face in the mirror.

The white scar on his chin seemed whiter and more prominent than normal. His doctor had offered to make a referral to a plastic surgeon for him to see what could be done to make the scar less visible, but Asher didn’t care enough.

He didn’t care how it made him look, anyway. Nate said it made him look more badass. Asher couldn’t give two shits. What he did hate was that when he looked at himself in the mirror, that scar was a constant reminder of what had happened. It brought him back to that day like it was almost yesterday.

His knuckles ached. He glanced down at his hands gripping the pedestal sink and had to almost pry his fingers loose, they were so tight.

This isn’t Iraq. This isn’t Syria. You’re home in Colorado on the ranch. You are not there. You are home. This is home.

He closed his eyes and breathed deeply. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Over and over again until his heart rate steadied and the cramps in his fingers were gone.

It’d been over five years since he and Nate AKA Blaze had retired from their special operative team. They used some inheritance money they got from their mother’s brother to buy the ranch, having worked with their uncle on his ranch their entire childhood.

Both Asher and Nate—his nickname on their team was Blaze, so they were Ash and Blaze—were pyrotechnic and weapons specialists. They’d taken every course out there on bomb training—how to make them and how to defuse them—and also trained others to do the same.

But it didn’t matter how many thousands of hours Asher had under his belt of training and experience, when a bomb was dropped on a hospital from the sky in Iraq, your skills in defusing it are worth jack shit.

The only reason he was still alive was that he’d been walking to his Jeep after dropping off one of his fellow soldiers to get stitched up. Mauricio forgot his phone in the Jeep, so Asher said he’d go grab it so Mauricio could call his wife. Then the bomb was dropped, Asher dove under his Jeep and watched as the hospital and everyone in it was burnt to a crisp. Sometimes, he could still hear their screams.

He touched his chin. He’d taken a piece of metal to the face, resulting in the scar. That was his only injury.

Every person in that hospital died. He was the only survivor.

Yeah, a lot of good all that training did him that day.

He gave himself another full minute before he splashed cold water on his face and returned downstairs only to hear his niece’s voice on the phone saying that she was in the hospital.

Chapter Six

“It’s nothing,” Hannah said for the millionth time. “I’m fine. Plus, my doctor is like crazy-hot, so I’m not itching to leave.”

“Tell me again how it happened,” Triss said, paying little mind to Asher when he entered the kitchen, worry creasing his handsome face.

“I slipped on some black ice on the crosswalk leaving my hotel to go grab something to eat at the diner across the street. Broke my ankle and cracked my hip. I’m like a ninety-year-old woman, I guess.”

“Osteoporosis does run in the family,” Asher said, his deep voice gritty and edged with concern.

“Oh hello, Uncle Asher,” Hannah said with sarcasm in her tone. “Yes, mom has already lectured me on the importance of taking calcium and vitamin D.”

“So what’s the diagnosis?” Triss asked, ladling steaming tomato soup into two bowls. “Do you need surgery?”

“No. The cracked hip isn’t enough to warrant surgery. I just can’t move for you know … ever again, or at least until it heals. And my ankle is in a cast. But they think I can get one of those walking casts soon. It was just a hairline fracture.”

Triss flipped the grilled cheese sandwiches onto plates and carried them over to the table, smiling shyly at Asher before returning to the counter to grab the plate of apple slices she’d cut up.

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