Page 5 of Cowboy SEAL Homecoming

He rubbed at the pain in his chest. Was. Yeah, he didn’t want to think about that. “I think you’ll find three former SEALs don’t need you to be chatty or welcoming. We’ll focus on the ranch, and we’ll try to stay out of your way. It was never my intention to come back here and make you uncomfortable.”

Her lips moved, but he wouldn’t have classified it as a smile, not after seeing what a real one looked like. “Oh, I seem to do a good enough job of that all on my own,” she muttered. She looked down at her hands, seemed to realize she was still holding the key chain, and then thrust it toward him.

He took it, and when their fingers brushed, she jerked away. She rubbed her palms on the sides of her pants as though she needed to wipe his touch off of her. Then she clenched her hands into fists.

“Got work to do,” she muttered, turning on a heel and walking toward the back of the stables.

He watched her march away, her words ringing in his head. You really don’t know much about me. No, he didn’t, and he’d never thought to find out. If he examined that too closely, he might have to admit he hadn’t wanted to find out.

These were feelings he most definitely didn’t want to examine. So he turned and headed for the house, ready to settle his crew in.

* * *

Becca worked herself to the bone that afternoon. It soothed her the way it always did, working with the animals, accomplishing routine tasks and knowing everything she did was an important cog in the machinery of the ranch.

But now she had to go in and rustle up some supper before she passed out from hunger. Except there were three men there. In her house.

She’d known this was going to happen and prepared for it the best she could, but the reality of it shook her. An embarrassing amount.

She couldn’t believe she’d told Alex she didn’t want him here. What on earth had possessed her? Not only was it mean, but it also wasn’t fair. Two things she hated to be.

Shehad invited them to stay at the house until the bunkhouse was redone. She had suggested they meld their two dreams together. She had been the one to initiate this.

Why couldn’t she be normal?

She glanced at her horse and rubbed its muzzle. “I’m learning. Can’t be a drama queen about things being a little difficult, can I?” Pal nickered and stamped, and the calmness that came from working with the animals worked its way through her.

It was why she was doing this in the first place. She believed in what they were doing. She believed in the healing that could be found in the life of working a ranch.

Those men had faced far scarier situations than she could even dream of. It was time to find the courage she’d lost sometime in the walk from the airport parking lot to the line of three broad-shouldered soldiers waiting for her approach.

She’d known it would take more courage and backbone than she’d displayed in her entire life put together. Which wasn’t saying much except that it would be incredibly challenging, and Becca was used to backing away from a challenge.

Not anymore. Not anymore.

Right. She was standing up and stepping out. She could do this. Stand on her own two feet, trust her own decisions, interact with people.

She just needed to think of them like animals. It wouldn’t be hard. Alex already reminded her of the quarter horses kept on the ranch. Sturdy and solid, sure and calm. Once she spent a little more time with the other men, she’d figure out what kind of animals they were, and then she’d know how to deal with them.

Or so she’d tell herself anyway.

Giving the horse one last pet, Becca stepped away. She had to face the music of her own making and inhabit the same house as three strange men. It would be like…college, if she’d gone. A dorm experience. Whatever rationalizations worked.

She closed up the stables and trudged through a cold spring evening toward the warm glow of the ranch. She wasn’t sure what Alex and his men had spent the afternoon doing. She’d kept herself scarce and out of their way, but it appeared they’d all gathered back at home base for the evening.

Which was fine and as it should be—and temporary, she reminded herself. They just had to get the bunkhouse livable and then Alex said they’d live out there.

She tried not to worry too much about if that was fair or not. Alex had grown up in the ranch house, but then again, so had she. It was more a home than anything that had come before. Her first home, her first sense of freedom after years of hospital rooms and doctors’ offices.

She deserved to be here as much as Alex did. Half this ranch was hers. Legally. Rightfully. Centering herself on that knowledge was important.

She walked up the wooden porch steps, avoiding the loose floorboard she kept forgetting to fix. She wiped the caked-on mud off her boots with the scraper next to the door as she looked out at the ranch.

A half-snow, half-brown landscape stretched before her until it reached the mountains in the distance. Dark, dusky peaks against a quickly graying sky. It was a salve to all the insecurities of the day, this beautiful eyeful. She’d never in her life seen anything near as beautiful as the Maguire ranch.

On a deep breath and fortified by the beauty in front of her, Becca turned and stepped into the house. She closed and locked the door behind her out of pure habit.

The entryway was as it had always been: the first line of defense against the mud and muck of ranch existence. She tugged off her boots and hung up all her muddy outerwear on the appropriate pegs.

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