Page 63 of Second Chance with the Rancher

He often forgot he had the tattoo until he shifted funny and the tight patches of scar tissue that rippled along the span of his back pinched or itched in an uncomfortable way. The tattoo covered most of them, but the edges were still visible at his sides.

“Nate?” she probed, her voice soft.

Slowly, he turned back around, taking the fingers she’d been touching him with in his hands and kissing the tips. “Fire,” he finally said. “I was on a mission in West Africa. A bunch of children—all girls—were kidnapped from their school in a village and were being held for ransom. But they came from impoverished families, so the gang who kidnapped them—a religious extremist group known for their incel ideologies—knew their families couldn’t pay. Some of these girls were as young as five. They were being sold off as child brides.”

“Oh my God.”

“There were four of us on the team. We snuck into the camp to rescue the girls, but something happened—I honestly don’t even remember what. I was hit in the head, blacked out, and the next thing I know, I’m being shaken awake by one of the girls I was rescuing. She didn’t speak any English. We were trapped inside a ramshackle building and it was on fire.”

She pulled her fingers free of his grasp, reached up, and cupped his jaw. He leaned into her touch and briefly closed his eyes, trying his best to remember that night. Things were still fuzzy. The blow to his head had been hard and he was severely concussed.

“The blow to my head was worse than I thought and I couldn’t stand without vomiting. The most I could do was crawl, which worked out since the whole place was full of smoke. We tied wet rags over our mouths and noses and I managed to get them to an exit where another member of my team—Ryke—pulled the girls free. But a beam came crashing down on me, pinning me in place on my stomach. I blacked out again from the concussion, and when I woke up, I was face down in a hospital bed in agony as a nurse debrided my back of the third-degree burns.” His big hand cupped hers where it still rested against his cheek. “I’m not triggered by things like Asher is, but I’d be lying if I said I don’t have a bit of a fire phobia now. I’m also not entirely sure I need to add children from my own bloodline to the world when there are just so many children elsewhere that are living in poverty and could be given a second chance at a decent future.”

He glanced up at her, his heart heavy and his throat tight. He hadn’t told that story to anyone in a really long time and as much as he liked to think he was over it, he wasn’t and he probably never would be completely. Talking about it just brought it back to the forefront of his mind. He’d have a hard time falling asleep tonight, for sure. Good thing he brought a bunch of weed.

Tears shimmered in her eyes and her full lips were in a sexy little pout. “You’re a hero,” she said, her voice strained.

He shook his head stiffly. “No, I’m not. I’m just a guy who did his job. I knew the risks going in.” He hated that word. Hero.

He was no hero. He was just a man with the skills that not everyone else possessed, so he used those skills to help others. Not enough people who were capable, whether by strength and size, or financial means helped others. This was a world full of selfish people—mostly men. Men who just took from others, who used others and believed they were impervious to any ramifications of their actions. He didn’t know a damn person who had served that wasn’t jaded as fuck about the world and the people in it.

But Nate and his team had been there to remind those men—those people—that they were as mortal as the rest of the world. They’d taken out a lot of bad guys. Even though Nate hadn’t been able to, given his concussion and burn recovery, the rest of his team had finished the hunt and taken out every person involved in the kidnapping of those girls since most of them had fled the camp the night of the raid—after setting the place on fire.

He went on two more missions after that, then Asher had his accident and the two of them decided it was time to retire.

It wasn’t his place to tell the public, but all of the ranch hands they hired were also retired vets—Hank, Ronny, Ray, Wes, Braiden—they’d all served somewhere, were honorably discharged, then thrown out into the world expected to assimilate back into society seamlessly.

Neither Asher nor Nate had worked with any of their ranch hands before they came to the ranch, but it was no secret that the ranch offered labor positions to veterans. So the men made their way to Colorado, rolled up to the ranch with lost and haunted looks in their eyes, then found themselves a new purpose and a place full of people who understood what they were going through. A place to call home.

It was often difficult for vets to find work when they returned to civilian life, so he and his brother made sure they offered their fellow soldiers a soft place to land when they ended their career in service. Working with horses was therapeutic, and the hard labor kept the men’s minds from wandering back to their time overseas.

Her question pulled him from the dark rabbit hole of his thoughts and back into the light that was Mieka. “So, I understand the phoenix, but the lion? The roses?”

He twisted around again to show her his back once more. “Each rose represents one of the girls that we rescued and brought back to their family.” He could tell she was about to ask how many roses there were, so he just answered before she could ask or count. “There are eighteen roses.”

“Eighteen,” she breathed. “Wow. And the lion?”

He shrugged. “It happened in Africa. The lion is the apex predator, and yet, the male lion isn’t nearly as strong as a pride of lionesses. It just felt like a good reminder that no matter how strong I think I might be, those eighteen girls are a million times stronger. Not only individually, but collectively. The male lion can be usurped by a stronger one at any point, and wanders the savannah alone most of the time. It’s also a cat, and cats are notoriously hard to kill. My nickname on my team used to be Blaze. Asher’s was Ash, since we were both the explosive and ballistics specialists, but since that fire, I’m not really Blaze anymore. A couple of the girls we rescued called me “Lion Man” because apparently, I jumped and pounced around falling beams to protect them. I don’t remember doing it … Concussion and all. I didn’t think I could stand without puking, but they say I did.” He shrugged and scratched the back of his neck, the warmth of embarrassment creeping into his face.

Her eyes were wider than saucers, which caused a few rogue tears to slip down her cheeks. Blinking spiked lashes, she shook her head. “Nate … if that story and those scars are meant to scare me away …”

“It’s not. They’re not. I don’t want to scare you away, Minx. I want to keep you here. But I want you to know me. All of me, so one way or another, it helps you make your choice more constructively. I don’t have demons or triggers, just a rational fear of fire and fuzzy memories of a mission almost gone terribly wrong.”

“Hence the lack of a woodstove or fireplace?” she asked, her smile small as her gaze drifted around the log cabin.

He nodded. “Yup. We’re not open in the winter, so no need for a fireplace or woodstove. And you bought a couple of electric space heaters for each cabin. That’ll be enough. I also won’t light the woodstove in the house. That’s on Asher or Triss. And they understand why I won’t touch it. I don’t remember being burned, since I blacked out, but I remember the fire. I remember being scared. I remember the debriding, and I never want to go through that again.”

“I can only imagine the fear you felt. To not know if you were going to make it out alive. And I’ve heard that burning alive is one of the worst ways to go.”

He nodded. “It is. I’m grateful that I was passed out when that inflamed beam landed on my back. Otherwise, I probably would have taken my own life rather than experienced that kind of pain, believing that I wasn’t going to make it out alive.”

“And the fact that you didn’t break your back …”

He nodded solemnly. “Another thing I’m grateful for. All-in-all, I’m tremendously lucky. And I know that. I don’t take my life for granted. I’m not ashamed of my burns, but without the tattoo, they are very visible, and seeing them is just a constant reminder. They also scare people, so it was easier to just cover them.”

Her fingertips traced the roses that spread out along his shoulder blades, then slipped down over his ribs, tracing the line of the phoenix. “It’s beautiful.”

“Asher and I used the same tattoo artist. He does incredible work.” He turned back around, reached forward, and slid his hand to her hip, his thumb pushing up the hem of her shirt and down the waistband of her jeans so he could gently touch the small tattoo of five intersecting hearts at her hip. “And you got this one with your sisters?”

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