Page 70 of Cowboy SEAL Homecoming

Chapter 16

It was a good day of work. Alex and Gabe had made progress on the bunkhouse while Jack had spent most of the day on cow duty with Hick.

Alex felt…sore and sweaty and spent, but it was the good kind. The kind where you knew you’d accomplished something. Which was hard with the bunkhouse because most days, no matter how much work they did, it felt like they were getting nowhere.

But they’d finished installing new windows, just he and Gabe using the basic carpentry skills they’d picked up as kids. They’d taken a step forward, and there were few things in life that put Alex in a better mood.

Unfortunately, there was still that nagging thing at the back of his brain every time he looked in the direction of the horse stables.

Becca had come by and chatted once she’d finally emerged from bed. She’d looked a little worse for the wear and fidgeted a little more than normal, but she’d smiled prettily and joked with them as she’d gotten the update on the cows from Hick.

She hadn’t eaten lunch with them, but she’d been meeting with the vet about one of the horses’ weight loss, so he couldn’t assume she’d been avoiding him. It didn’t change the fact that he’d missed her presence.

Alex found his gaze drifting toward the stables, wondering what she was up to. It was Jack’s turn to fix dinner, so he’d gone into the house, and Gabe was already walking toward the porch, cell phone to his ear, talking stiffly to his mother as Star trailed after him.

So Alex was left to walk to the house alone. With nothing pressing to do except shower.

He could always go talk to Becca. She had been acting a little off this morning. Which could’ve just been the hangover, but…maybe it was his duty to check it out.

And maybe you’re a pathetic dipshit.

Probably that last one more than anything, but his conversation with Jack this morning had stuck with him, and he couldn’t ignore the fact that it would until he did something about it.

What he should have done was ignore this. Avoid this. Get the foundation started and then see about personal happiness. Maybe. But as he slowly walked toward the stables instead of the house, he knew it wasn’t going to work.

He was too practical of a man. He knew how bombs were made and what caused them to explode. Pressure. And applying pressure to himself to stop this inexplicable infatuation with her, or the insistent memory of that kiss, would only make the explosion that much bigger.

Thatwas what had happened at the bar last night. It wasn’t effective. He needed to be effective. To have a plan.

He peeked around the opening to the stables to find Becca in the stall with Pal. She was brushing him down and talking to him, clearly quite involved, as even when he stepped through the door, she didn’t turn to look at him.

It amazed him, the way she had with the animals. Without any fanfare, she treated all the animals as though they were people themselves. With their own personalities and their own roles. His dad always had animals around, dogs and cats and cows and horses, and yet he’d never had that…whatever it was she had. Something so easy and natural he was certain that this was simply part of who Becca was.

“Well, I’ll do it soon enough. Just need to gather some courage,” Becca was saying to Pal.

“Do what?”

She screeched and whirled to face him.

He could’ve lied and said that he didn’t do it on purpose, but he kind of liked the way she jumped and looked at him all wide-eyed whenever he caught her deeply involved in something. There was an unguardedness there that, surprisingly, he very rarely got out of her.

Even when she was half-drunk and telling him that she was going to break through his walls, there was a kind of armor around her, as though she was keeping something back. Or maybe she’d shielded herself with an armor she didn’t even realize was there.

Sound familiar?

Whatever it was, in those moments when he caught her deep in conversations with her animals, he always got to see a flash of it. Unguarded, innocent, genuine Becca.

His heart caught a little and he thought of Jack’s words. Letting himself be or feel happy. That seemed like such impossible bullshit before they got this venture off the ground—this thing was supposed to be what brought him happiness.

Yet when Becca looked at him like that, her wide-eyed surprise morphing into a little smile, he couldn’t think of a single plan that didn’t revolve around more of her.

“Why are you sneaking up on me today?”

“Just checking up on you.”

“That is so the opposite of what I need right now. One compulsive checker-upper is enough, thank you.”

“Your mom bothering you?”

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