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Nodding, Matt whispered rawly, “I’ve never seen Megan throw her arms around another woman since her mother’s death. This is a big first, Casey.” Seeing the turmoil and hesitation in Casey’s features, he asked, “How do you feel about that?” He understood not every woman wanted to have children or to be a nurturing mother type. He’d seen other women take career paths where they showered their natural nurturing upon their employees or choosing service work to help others. All women were maternal, he felt, it was just a question of how they expressed it.
“I come from a large family,” Casey explained. “My parents were U.S. Navy pilots for twenty years until they retired from the military. There’s five girls in our family. And two sets of twins.” Casey smiled a little and said, “I’m from the second set of twins and the youngest—I’m twenty-four. My three older sisters say that Selene, my twin, and I, were spoiled rotten because we were the ‘babies’ of our family. I grew up happy in San Francisco. Not all my sisters want a big family.” She smiled fondly. “Selene and I were the ones who played with dolls. The other sisters loved Lego and geek stuff. Someday, I hope to have a family myself, but I’m too young to do that right now. I want to get some roots into my forest-service career.”
Nodding, Matt noticed the softness of her full mouth. “I see. Can I keep in touch with you about Megan after Dr. Ward calls me? I’m in limbo on this, Casey.” He had to give her options. It wasn’t fair to pin her down and insist she had to work with Megan.
Casey felt his desperation. This was a straw to grab at, she realized. His love for his daughter was clearly etched in Matt’s narrow eyes. Despite being a powerful and masculine man, he was being vulnerable with her. She remembered all too clearly her four attackers, big, strapping men in their late twenties, who were Matt’s size and height. There had been no vulnerability in them; they had nearly beaten her to death. Casey remembered some of her attack, but not all of it. She understood as few could about the memories of the trauma being locked away in her brain, too virulent and potentially threatening to her mental stability to be released. That was the way her shrink, Wanda Haversham, had described it to her while she was still in the hospital.
“I understand your position on this,” Casey told him quietly. She glanced over her shoulder toward the hall to make sure Megan couldn’t hear what she was going to say. She handed Matt her business card. “Call me when you hear something from Dr. Ward. I’ll be happy to help Megan if I can.” She saw instant relief come to his rugged features. His mouth suddenly relaxed. His hands released their grip around the coffee mug.
“Thank you,” Matt said, his voice echoing his relief.
SENATOR CARTER PEYTON sat in the rear of the black limo with his red-haired wife, Clarissa. He was continually on his cell phone with his assistants in Washington, D.C. Barely looking out the darkly tinted windows as the driver slowly made his way through the melting slush and traffic on the Easter weekend in Jackson Hole, he continued making his calls. Clarissa looked bored. But when didn’t she? At thirty-five, Carter knew everyone in Wyoming thought he had it made. He didn’t think so.
His life had taken a terrible, twisted turn three years earlier when his first wife, Gloria, and his two young children, Buck and Tracy, had died in a house fire just outside Jackson Hole. Anger grew in him as he thought about it again. And Matt Sinclaire was to blame. The lieutenant had been on duty that night when Gloria had called 911 in a panic. Their multimillion-dollar home that sat perched high on a hill, two miles off the main asphalt road, was on fire. He was stuck in Cody, Wyoming, because of a blizzard, after having attended a meeting of towns-people. The interstates had been shut down and no flights were available. Carter blamed himself for not being at home when it happened. If he had been, he knew his first wife and their children would be alive today. As it was, Sinclaire’s ineptness at getting that fire truck stuck on the muddy dirt road had doomed his family.
“Let’s eat here in town,” Clarissa said. She touched her lacquered red hair to ensure it was in place.
“The housekeeper will have lunch waiting for us,” he growled, flipping his cell phone closed. The limo crawled along. The sky was cloudy and it looked like it was going to snow again. Carter hated going through town because he saw the fire station where Sinclaire worked. It always compounded the rage that was never far beneath the surface.
Pouting, Clarissa said, “All right then, drop me off at the Aspens restaurant on your way home. Bob can pick me up when I’m finished eating.”
Carter felt torn. He’d married Clarissa a year after Gloria’s death. As a senator, he needed a wife at his side. She was a tall, lissome woman who came from a rich banking and ranching family in Cheyenne. She was only twenty-nine to his thirty-five years of age, but astute and selfish as hell. Still, Clarissa was the ideal Washington, D.C., wife. She was cultured, a true political animal like him, and she desired power. Carter felt she had married him because he was a second-term senator for the state of Wyoming. She had her own agenda she wanted to pursue.
“All right,” he murmured. “I know you have quilting friends here you want to chat with over lunch,” he murmured. Tapping Bob on his thin shoulder, he asked his long-time driver to turn and drop his wife off at the Aspens. The driver nodded and turned down another street in the center of town.
Pleased, Clarissa gathered up the snakeskin purse that matched her heels. She was dressed in a black wool pantsuit, white silk blouse and red silk scarf. The red of the silk matched her shoulder-length hair. “Good. After lunch, I’m going to walk over to Quilter’s Haven. I want to see what new fabrics Gwen has gotten in for spring.”
He managed a wry smile. “I imagined you would do that.” In some ways, Carter thanked God for his wife’s passion for embroidery and for her cousin, Julie Neustedder, who was a famous quilting teacher over in Cheyenne. That was how they’d met: there was a quilting fest at the local high school, with two hundred quilts hung for the public to appreciate. Clarissa had been there with her famous cousin. Carter had come because, as a senator, he always went to big events where he could press the flesh and mingle. That was part of the political game. He had found Clarissa a beautiful jewel among the ranching and mining middle class at the quilt festival.
After dropping Clarissa off in front of a restaurant bedecked with a red-and-white-striped awning, Carter climbed back into the car. His wife was happy now. And so was he.
“Home, Bob.”
“Yes, sir,” the fifty-year-old balding, bespectacled man murmured.
Sitting back, Carter felt his stomach knot and unknot. When he was alone and there was nothing to do, the memories of what he’d done always came back to him. He blamed it on guilt. Carter didn’t feel he should feel guilt about a damned thing. The limo sped up as they left the plaza area and headed up the hill toward his home on Moose Road, near the Teton National Forest, and Carter sighed.
When he’d been able to get back from Cody to Jackson Hole, knowing his family had died in that fire, he’d gone straight to the fire chief, Doug Stanley, a forty-five-year-old of German-English descent. Carter had stormed into Stanley’s office to find out why his family had been left to burn alive, and the chief had defended the man at the tip of that spear: Matt Sinclaire.
Carter snorted softly. Firefighters, like lawmen, stuck together and were thick as thieves. Stanley had argued that Sinclaire had done everything humanly possible to save the lives of Carter’s family. There was the blizzard of the century howling through at the time, the roads were not plowed, the country trucks had been ordered to stay off them due to the danger. Snow was piling up so fast and furiously it was impossible to clear the roads. And then, because the spring thaw was underway, Carter’s muddy two-mile-long road was a mire. Sinclaire had ordered the two trucks up the hill and they had both got stuck a mile away from the burning home.
Smiling a little, Carter tapped his fingers on the leg of his expensive black pin-striped suit pants. He’d waited a year after his family’s deaths and then he’d gotten even. Everyone thought a senator was clean, but Carter wasn’t. He knew how to grease the wheels politically and how to manipulate to get whatever it was he wanted. Through Gerald Vern, his most trusted office staffer, Carter had hired a professional arsonist and hit man. Frank Benson, who lived in Driggs, Idaho, about fifty miles from Jackson Hole was paid a hundred thousand dollars and he’d partially fulfilled his contract.
Carter was unhappy when he found out Sinclaire’s daughter had managed to escape the flames; he was very pleased when he found out Megan Sinclaire had gone mute. That was some payback, but not enough.
Flexing his fist, Carter looked to his right to the elk range. The elk always came out of the mountains to be fed and to winter over near Jackson Hole in a range thousands of acres long and fenced. He saw that about half the thousands of animals had already gone back to the mountains. It was, after all, April. The snow wouldn’t melt until early June and the elk were going to the higher elevations to calve.
Rubbing his jaw, he thought about contacting Benson again. It had been two years since Bev Sinclaire had been shot in the head. Carter still wanted Megan dead. He wanted Sinclaire to feel all the anguish and loss he’d felt. Since the fire chief had staunchly defended his employee’s actions, Carter knew a civil trial to sue Sinclaire would do no good. Rubbing his hands together, Carter gloated over the surprise hit on Sinclaire’s family. He smiled a little. Benson was so good at his job that the police had never found the culprit. And he wanted it to stay that way.
“Soon…” he murmured to no one in particular. Peyton had found that timing was everything. Two years had passed and Sinclaire had moved into town and lived in a one-story ranch house a couple of blocks away from the fire station. Things had settled down in this backwater town. Most people now gossiped and talked about other things rather than Bev Sinclaire’s unsolved murder. It was time to strike again. One final, last time…
“I KNOW LIEUTENANT SINCLAIRE is going to be happy about all this,” Cat Edwin said, sitting at the table eating dinner with Casey.
Sighing, Casey shrugged. “I feel ambivalent about it, Cat.” She picked at the romaine and tomato salad Cat had made for them. She’d gotten home an hour earlier, climbed out of her ranger uniform and gotten into a pair of jeans and a green long-sleeved cotton pullover.
“Why?” Cat asked, eating hungrily. She’d been on duty for twelve hours and had the next two days off.
Casey really didn’t know Cat that well; they were new roommates. “It’s just me,” she murmured, chewing on a tomato. She liked the black-haired woman with intense blue eyes. Her square face went with her solid, large-boned build. Cat was no shrinking violet insofar as women went. She was five foot eleven inches tall, weighed a hundred and sixty pounds and was pure muscle. In one room of their large apartment was a complete gym where Cat worked out religiously for at least an hour a day. Casey knew that firefighting was physical and Cat had to be in top shape to work alongside her male compatriots.
“That guy,” Cat said between bites, “is a good dude. What happened to him is a crime—literally.” She wiped her mouth with the yellow linen napkin and settled it back onto her lap. “I’m not assigned to his watch, but all the guys talk favorably about Matt.” She grinned a little and said teasingly, “You know he’s single.”
Casey cringed inwardly; she wanted nothing to do with men. She was still working through the devastation of nearly being beaten to death by five potheads. “My focus isn’t on relationships right now, Cat. I just graduated and I need to do well here at my first assignment.”
Nodding, Cat got up and walked to the kitchen. She’d made spaghetti and meatballs as a main dish. The air was filled with the aromas of tomato, basil and garlic. Coming back with plates piled high with food, Cat handed Casey hers and sat down. “In my job at the fire department there’s no fraternization between me and the guys.” Cat smiled a crooked smile. “That’s okay with me. I’m only twenty-two and frankly, I don’t want to get married young.” She sliced open a huge meatball. “I come from an abusive family. I got out of it as soon as I could. My father beat us with a belt and my mother never stopped him.”
Casey gave her new roommate a sympathetic look. Cat was beautiful in an arresting way. She had slightly tilted blue eyes that gave her broad, square face a subtle exotic look. With her short, dark curls Casey thought she looked like the mythical Greek huntress Artemis. That goddess was a warrior and a hunter and was just as capable as any man.
Casey frowned, thinking that Artemis had never endured hardship like Cat. “I’m sorry to hear of your hardship. I find that among my friends at the university, if any had a father who beat them up or was verbally abusive to them, they didn’t want to get involved in a male relationship any too soon, either.”
Cat held up her hand. “That’s me. Not that I don’t like men, I do.” She frowned. “But in here, in my gut—” she touched her stomach region “—I don’t trust them. I know it stems from my father. I try to work it out in my head and tell myself that not all men are like my father.” Frowning, she twirled the marinara sauce and spaghetti onto a huge spoon with her fork. “So far, I haven’t achieved it. I wish I could. I’ve met some decent men, but my emotions are still stuck back when I was an eight-year-old.”
“Hmm, I understand,” Casey said, sympathetic. She had the same problem, only her distrust of men had started in her sophomore year of college. “Have you seen any progress with yourself as the years go by?” she wondered.
“No,” Cat murmured unhappily. “I look at guys, but don’t touch. My head is stuck in PTSD symptoms, according to what my therapist told me years ago. Until I can grow up emotionally and lose my fear of men, there’s not much I can do.”
“Do you date?”
Cat’s mouth twisted. “I have friends who are men. I do go to dances with them, I share a beer at a local bar sometimes, and I go hiking with them. But real intimacy? No…I’m just not there. Yet.”
Hearing the determination in her roommate’s lowered voice, Casey hoped she wouldn’t have to live her life in that PTSD cage. Someday, after she got to know Cat a lot better, she’d share her story. Truly, they were two peas from the same pod. “You’re pretty, Cat. I don’t know of a guy who wouldn’t give you a second look.”
Laughing sharply, Cat said, “Listen, my looks and my body act as a guy magnet for every man around. Isn’t it sad?” She patted her hip. “I got this fab body and face and I’m scared to death of men! How’s that for pure irony?”
Finishing her salad, Casey nodded. “It is ironic.”
“So? Are you going to work with Lieutenant Sinclaire on behalf of his daughter?” Cat wondered, giving Casey an assessing look.
“I probably will,” Casey slowly admitted. “If I do, it’s for Megan.”
“You’re not interested in him, huh?”
“No.” Casey thought she must be a liar. Matt Sinclaire made her feel things she’d never felt before. He was terribly good-looking, like a rugged model on a magazine cover. There was nothing to dislike about him from what she’d observed so far. “He’s terribly conflicted and guilty over Megan’s condition. He felt that if he’d been home at the time of his wife’s murder, Megan’s muteness wouldn’t have happened.”
Cat snorted. “Listen, you have to attend fire school a couple of times a year. It’s mandatory for all of us. You have to keep up with the evolution of fire suppression and the new equipment coming out. Matt had to go to that school in Cheyenne, Casey. As an officer he can’t just up and decide differently.”
“I understand that,” Casey said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t have ulcers over all of this.”
Nodding, Cat savored the meal she’d made for them. She was proud of her culinary abilities. “He doesn’t from what I know, but I see him with dark circles under his eyes from time to time. His men who are on watch with him told me once he has bad insomnia.”
Casey knew that symptom really well. She had restless, sleepless nights, too, particularly around a full moon. She got so she hated that time of the month. Before her concussion and beating, she had always slept soundly and deeply. But no more.
“You know, there’s a new doctor in town,” Cat said, almost to herself, “that I’m thinking of seeing. She’s called a functional medicine specialist.”
“What is that?” Casey asked.
“They deal with PTSD symptoms, from what I understand. And they have a good track record of getting rid of the symptoms from a hormonal level. Her name is Jordana Lawton. I’ve been diagnosed with PTSD, and I thought if there’s a prayer of a chance that she could help me get rid of the symptoms caused by high cortisol levels, I’d give her a try.”
“Let me know what happens?” Casey asked. She’d love to get rid of her PTSD symptoms, too, but no one knew she had them. And no one knew what had happened to her, not even her employer, the USFS. And she wanted to keep it that way. It was a private skeleton in the closet of her life. Casey lived in fear of anyone finding out and then going to her supervisor, Ranger Charley Davidson. There was no telling what the USFS might do. They could fire her because she’d not put down all her medical history on her employment form, for starters. It was a risk Casey had to take.
“Oh,” Cat chortled, “I will.” She smiled over at Casey. “This is the first time I’ve had a roommate. I think it’s going to be nice to share with a sister. I don’t usually share much about myself. We had the elephant of abuse in our family’s living room and I never told anyone at school what was going on. I was so afraid.” Cat reached over and touched Casey’s arm for a moment. “So, if I’m being too talkative and sharing, rein me in, okay? I’m not good at this sharing stuff.” She chortled.
Smiling gently at her roommate, Casey realized how fortunate she’d been to grow up in a safe, loving family. She had four sisters who loved her. “I’m pretty good at chatting myself, so I think we’ll get along fine, Cat.” She saw the woman look a little more relaxed over that admission.
“Great, I think we’re a good pair to be sharing this condo,” Cat said, meaning it. “I know my social graces aren’t the best. I trust women. They aren’t my problem. It’s the men.”
Casey nodded and loaded her spoon with spaghetti. “We share a lot in common, Cat. I think we’re going to get along just fine.”
“Sisters in the battle of life,” Cat said, grinning widely.
Indeed, Casey thought. Right now she had a couple of battles she’d never envisioned: Megan’s unexpected affection and being drawn to Megan’s father, Matt Sinclaire. Casey knew she couldn’t separate one from another. There was a driving force in her to help the eight-year-old. Megan didn’t know it, but they shared much more in common than anyone would ever know.
CHAPTER FIVE
MATT TRIED TO CONTAIN his excitement as he walked from the parking lot toward the beautifully constructed visitor’s center just inside the gates of the Grand Teton National Park. Behind him rose the majestic and snow-covered Tetons. Thrusting his hands in the pockets of his red nylon fire department jacket, he hurried down the sidewalk.
It was 10:00 a.m. and so much had happened since Megan had seen the hawk and owl in her class. Hope warred with terror within him. Matt struggled to keep all his emotions in check. He’d found out from Charley, the chief ranger, that Casey would be on duty at the visitor’s center all day. Her job was to answer people’s questions. Should he have called Casey first? Something told him to show up in person. How would she take what he had to say? Would she see him as pressuring her to help his daughter? Was she at all interested in helping? Matt knew she was a stranger who had plummeted into their life out of the blue. He knew he had no right to expect anything from Casey.
Yet, as he pulled opened the glass door that led into the huge, airy center, his intuition told him Casey was a compassionate person and cared deeply for others. Would she care about the news he had?
Because he was a firefighter, Matt had been to the visitor’s center many times. If there was ever a fire here, he had to know the entrance and exit points. He had to be aware of everything so that a team sent into this place would be made aware of the structure and its inherent challenges. Charley had said Casey would be at the map desk. Not that many visitors in late April were interested in hiking trails still covered with anywhere between two and ten feet of snow. Still, a hardy few were up for cross-country skiing on these mountain trails.
He spotted Casey talking to a male visitor over a map. He slowed his pace. The center was pretty deserted at this time of the morning. Over in the gift shop he spotted Cindy McLaughlin. She smiled and waved to Matt. He returned her smile and lifted his hand. Cindy had lost her husband, Steve, to prostate cancer a year ago. Their two children were in college. She managed the gift-shop concession for the company who had won the bid to run it. The black-haired, brown-eyed woman always had a smile for everyone, despite her personal tragedy. Matt knew she wasn’t making enough money to keep her two children in college.
Steve had been a civil engineer with a local company. He’d made very good money. Now, Cindy was losing her financial base. Matt felt bad for her. He turned away and saw that Casey had just handed the young man a map. Good, she was no longer busy. Taking a deep breath, Matt headed in her direction.
Casey felt her heart bang once to underscore the surprise of seeing ruggedly handsome Matt Sinclaire walking toward her. He wore a bright red jacket, his hands stuffed into the pockets. A pair of jeans on him made her appreciate how tall and in shape he was. It was the narrowed look in his forest-green eyes that made her mouth go dry. Casey had the distinct feeling he was like a wolf on the prowl. His black hair was short but a few rebellious strands dipped across his furrowed brow. No woman in her right mind wouldn’t be drawn to this heroic man, Casey told herself. She saw all men and women in the businesses of law enforcement and firefighting as bona fide modern-day heroes. Matt Sinclaire embodied that concept in warm flesh and blood.
“Good morning,” Matt greeted as he came up to the desk. “I hope you don’t mind me dropping by unexpectedly? I have some news about Megan that I’d like to share with you.”
Relief shot through Casey. This was about Megan. For a moment her silly mind had fantasized that Matt was here for her. It had been almost a week since she’d seen him. Her dreams, for once, had taken a pleasant turn and she’d dreamed of him and of kissing him. Feeling heat tunnel up her neck and into her cheeks, Casey grabbed the stool and sat down opposite him. “Of course not.” She gave him a wry smile as he folded his large hands on the counter in front of her. “As you can see, we’re not exactly busy.”
Dipping his head, Matt drowned in her warm gray eyes. Casey’s ranger uniform was spotless and ironed, and she looked sharp in the long-sleeved tan blouse and dark green trousers. The mannish clothes couldn’t hide her femininity from him, however. She was tall and curvy. Most of all, he liked the softness of her lips as they pulled into a self-deprecating smile. “Thanks, I really appreciate you giving me a few minutes of your time.” He cleared his throat, nervous.
“I talked to Meggie’s psychiatrist over in Idaho Falls earlier this week,” he confided to her in a low voice. “And she, like me, felt Meggie was having a breakthrough.”
“Wonderful,” Casey said. She saw the anxious look in his eyes although it wasn’t broadcast in his low, husky tone. Inhaling, she smelled the cold air and scent of pine around Matt. He was clean-shaven, no trace of a dark beard. There was a white T-shirt beneath his jacket. Black hair peeked out from beneath it. He was so male that it made her dizzy for a moment. Never had Casey had such a powerful response to any man! It scared her silly.
Opening his hands, Matt rasped, “Here’s what you might possibly do to help Megan.” He didn’t say, “help me,” but that was implicit.
“Sure, what can I do to help her?” Casey saw Matt’s eyes were fraught with so many emotions it was impossible to accurately read them. She understood how much he loved his daughter and how guilt hounded him, much as the PTSD stalked her daily from her own near-death experience.
Relieved, Matt saw sincerity in Casey’s large, intelligent gray eyes. It gave him the courage to speak. “Barbara, Meggie’s therapist, feels strongly that for whatever reasons, the owl experience and you, as a woman, have opened some doors that have been closed in my daughter since that night she lost her mother.”
How badly Casey wanted to reach out and touch Matt’s hand. She saw the white lines of many scars upon them. Had he gotten all of them firefighting? She knew it was always dangerous work. “What else?” Casey probed gently. There was such hesitation in Matt’s face at that moment, as if he were unsure he should say the rest of what the therapist told him.
“Barbara Ward is a fine therapist. Megan bonded with her as much as she can.” He moved his shoulders as if to get rid of the accumulated, invisible weight he carried. “I always hoped Meggie would bond more deeply with Barbara and open up, but she didn’t. Barbara said that my daughter running into your arms to be held was an incredibly positive breakthrough.” Matt’s voice cracked. “She said that finally Meggie is starting to move out of the paralyzing PTSD. She’s reaching out to you, Casey.” He stared hard into her widening eyes. Praying that she would not rebuff his daughter’s chances for help, he added quickly, “And she feels that some kind of weekly contact with Meggie would be very, very helpful to her.”
Shocked, Casey sat there digesting his words. She could see how needy he was about this situation. But wouldn’t she be, too, if it were her daughter in dire straits? Of course. Without thinking, Casey reached out and lightly touched his clenched hand on the desk. “Of course I’ll help you, Matt. Megan is a wonderful child. She’s been dealt a bad hand. I’d love to work with Dr. Ward and you to help her open up.”
Something old and hard shattered in Matt’s heart. He closed his eyes. Casey’s hand was warm and it sent tingles of reaction up his arm and surging into his pounding heart. Casey’s touch had been brief. It seemed to him the moment she’d reached out and caressed the back of his hand, she’d jerked back, as if burned. Joy soared through Matt and he opened his eyes and clung to her gray gaze. “You will?”
Casey’s heart broke for the father. “Of course I will. Now, we need to work around my schedule. I get two days off a week, but not necessarily on weekends, which is our busiest time here at the park. I know firefighters have weird work schedules, too. We’ll just have to dance around those obstacles and make it work for Megan.” In that moment, Casey felt her heart widening like a flower opening to full, direct sunlight. The happiness in Matt’s eyes made them burn like green fire. His look was startling, wonderful, and she felt heat funnel from her face down to her lower body where she grew warm and achy with need—for him—as a man. Shocked, Casey quickly tamped down her unexpected feelings toward him.
Matt blindly opened his arms and leaned across the desk and gave her a quick hug. The unexpected action on his part was pure spontaneity. “Thank you,” he rasped brokenly against her ear. “Thank you so much…I owe you more than I can ever repay you, Casey…” He choked back a sob. Releasing Casey, he felt embarrassed by his own actions. Looking around, he saw the other four rangers staring at them. Mouth quirking, he gave Casey an apologetic look. “Sorry, I didn’t mean…”
Laughing breathlessly, Casey held up her hand and said, “I understand. Don’t worry about it.” She felt her shoulders tingling wildly in the wake of his powerful and unexpected embrace. Casey knew his action was based on the joy and relief of her agreeing to be Megan’s mentor of sorts. So much of the anxiety and guilt had disappeared from his green eyes. Her heart soared with the knowledge that she had been of help to two people who desperately needed a third person to catalyze them. Casey understood it on a deep level. She hadn’t healed from her trauma, either, and wondered if she was doomed to a life where she felt this huge, black stain would continue to ruin her daily existence. Since nearly dying, Casey had felt no real desire to live life again. Not until this seminal, unexpected moment. What was happening?
“I have my schedule with me,” Matt said, digging into his pocket and producing a neatly folded piece of paper. Opening it up, he flattened it out on the desk before her. “Do you have yours?” Matt tried to slow down. He tried to recapture his escaping emotions. Everyone called him stoic. No one would believe him in this electric moment with Casey. Matt knew that before he reached the fire station Gwen Garner would know everything, including his embracing Casey. Somehow, he didn’t care. Gwen wasn’t a gossiper. She verified things first before telling her clientele anything. Smiling to himself, Matt felt relieved that for once, good news would be ladled out by the quilting queen of the town.
Sympathetic for Matt, Casey pulled the rangers’ schedule from the desk drawer. “Okay, let’s compare,” she said lightly, hoping to ease the tension between them. Her softly spoken words had a profound effect on him, she realized. Casey had always heard that people who loved one another could soothe their loved one’s fractious state with voice alone. She’d seen it often between her parents, Clay and Alyssa. And now, Emma, her oldest sister, had emailed her last night telling her that she was falling in love with U.S. Army Captain Khalid Shaheen, a fellow Apache gunship pilot, who was in Afghanistan with her. Funnily enough, as Casey moved through the sheets of paper to find her schedule, Emma’s words echoed in her head: All Khalid has to do is speak to me and I feel like this warm velvet energy surrounds me. I feel his love, his care. I’ve never felt anything like it in my life. This must be love. Have you ever had this experience, Casey?
Casey could now email her back after work and tell her that yes, she not only understood, but had experienced this herself. But love? Giving an internal shake of her head, Casey decided she was not ready for love. She wasn’t ready for a man—any man—in her life, either. She was still too wounded to reach out and trust any of them right now.
As Matt leaned forward, their heads bare inches from one another as they studied their respective schedules, Casey felt suddenly joyous. The emotion was so foreign to her since her own tragedy, that it caught her completely off guard. Taking in a deep, shaky breath, she tried to quell the feeling. The sensation she felt was like a hawk flying free after a long imprisonment. She gave Matt a confused look; he didn’t realize what was happening, his gaze locked on the papers laid out before them. Maybe that was just as well. Casey knew she couldn’t handle his full attention. Better that he was focused on Megan. That little girl was a safe haven for Casey at this moment. Casey was still in a raw state of vulnerability. Megan was safe; Matt was not. She could easily concentrate on the child, and, right now, that was all Casey could handle.
“It looks like this Friday is good for us,” Matt murmured, looking up. Casey was so close that he could smell her feminine scent, jasmine in bloom. He wondered obliquely if she washed her shining brown hair with a jasmine shampoo. The fragrance intoxicated him and his gaze dropped to her mouth. Her lips were parted and Casey was so close…so close that all he had to do was move three inches forward and he could kiss her senseless. Electrified by the awareness, Matt suddenly straightened so they weren’t so close. He saw so much in Casey’s eyes. Her pupils were dilated, huge and black, and were centered on him. Feeling as if he were spinning out of emotional control, as if someone had lifted the gate on so many of his suppressed feelings, Matt gulped and tried to appear unaffected by her nearness.
“Uh…yes, Friday is good,” Casey stammered. She sat upright on the stool, wanting as much room between herself and him as she could get. Matt was simply too raw and male. He appealed to her feminine senses on a visceral and primal level. There was a raw neediness now clamoring deep in her body, something Casey had never felt before. As if she were hungry for Matt in every possible way a woman could want her man. Shaken, Casey managed in a hoarse tone, “What time on Friday? And does Dr. Ward have any suggestions on how I’m to interface with Megan?”
Matt blinked, feeling as though he was coming out of the deep freeze insofar as his emotions were concerned. Giving himself a stern, internal lecture, he said, “Yes. She suggested we take Megan after school over to the raptor rehabilitation center that Katie runs. I’ve already cleared a visit from us and Katie is excited. She feels that Hank will continue his magic on Megan.”
“Oh, good,” Casey said. The raptor center was a safe place. Right now, Casey did not want to be feeling trapped inside Matt’s beautiful home with him. “And after the visit? Is there more?”
“Katie has a coloring book that she uses with children. She thought if all goes well, that Megan can sit in her office and use crayons to draw Hank. And there’s other raptors in the book, too. We’re just supposed to be in the background at this point. Barbara said we just have to play it by ear. If Megan wants to do the coloring project, Barbara is interested whether she’ll give one of us the drawing.”
“And if she does?”
“It shows bonding,” Matt said. “If Megan asks for your help, or wants you near or wants some kind of connection with you while she colors, Barbara feels that’s a good sign, too.”
“Of what? Bonding?”
Nodding, Matt said, “Yes.” He bit back the rest of his comment. Wanting that bonding to happen so badly he could taste it, he saw the uncertainty in Casey’s face. “You have concerns?”
Shrugging, Casey placed her schedule beneath the counter. “I don’t know what bonding means to Dr. Ward. I mean, I’ve never been put in a position like this before, Matt, and I’m worried I’ll say or do the wrong thing. I have fears of making your daughter regress instead of progress.”
Without thinking, Matt reached out and touched her hand for a brief moment. “Look, you can’t do anything wrong, Casey. I did the wrong thing. I was gone when I should have been home.” He quickly removed his hand. Her flesh was warm and supple.
There was nothing wimpy about Casey. He could tell she was an avid hiker, her legs long, curved and hidden in those dark green trousers. She was an outdoors person like himself.
