Raising a Cowgirl (4 page)

“Stop thinking so hard
,
” David said to him quietly.

“Fucking dreams,” Gage said and ran a hand over his face.

David looked a
t
this
friend
closely, they had become close over the last few weeks. He knew what was going on,
Gage just never talked about it. The
nightmares, the guilt, all of it were
weighing on him.

“Yeah, well, this is your first day, and you have a lot more coming. So
take
it a day at a time, and we will see what happens
,
” David
said
and stood.

“
Let’s go and unwind at the ranch. Sable called three times already to let me know
we needed to ‘hurry our asses up
,
’” Gage said and stood up. “I am pretty sure
the
jaywalker isn’t gonna run over night.”

“You never know
,
man, first jaywalking, then shoplifting, robbery,
armed
robbery and murder. Things
g
o south all the time
,
” David argued.

“Now who is dreaming here?” Gage laughed.

“Well one can only hope.” David smiled as they walked out of the Sheriff
'
s office.

Gage was lying in bed grinning
while
his little cowgirl was getting dressed to leave. She was on the same page as him
—
no relationships
—
no ties. He was never going to settle down
as
his teammate had just done, it wasn’t in the cards for him.

Last night he had finished his last shift with David and they celebrated by going
out to Boots, his cowgirl was a waitress there.
Since finally getting out and socializing with the community, Gage had found the
women in Wyoming we
re
pretty
low
maintenance, something he had always dream
ed
of in a woman.

“See you later, darlin',” the woman said, leaned over, and kissed him quickly before
leaving.

“Later,” Gage said and leaned back and sighed. Sleep is what he needed now, tomorrow
was going to be a full day, he had training in the morning, and then he had to ride
the fence to fix it tomorrow.

Just when he was ready to fall asleep, Gage heard his teammates’ voice
s
.
“
Dude, get the fuck up, this is important. We have been waiting forever for you to
quit fucking around
.”

“Huh?
”
Gage said and looked up
—
his dead teammates were in his room. “Holy Hell!”

“
You could say that, man, you have got to get a clue and stop thinking with your dick
. W
e have a huge problem. It is time for you to get the letter and read it
,”
one of his teammate
’s
stepped forward.
“
Someone's life depends on it
.”

“Shit,” Gage groaned and looked around desperately. “Why me?”

“
Because I trust you
,
man, I explained that
,”
Raider
standing before him said.

“Fuck a duck, what do I need to do?” Gage sighed. He had seen Marie a few times since
they arrived back, but it had been painful and a reminder to her having him around.
He sent money every month
,
but so far, none of the checks had been cashed.

“
You have lost contact
,” R
a
ider said slowly.

“I know, I am a bastard
,
man, but I was fucked up, and she had a new baby
. Our
grief
was drowning both of us
,
” Gage whispered.

“
I know, but things change
,
” Raider said.

“Like what?” Gage asked confused.

“
Read the letter
,” Raider
said
and then faded.

Gage stood and screamed loudly. He heard feet
pounding
on the stairs and the floor, then his door was flung open.

“What?” Thane roared as he came in the door with a weapon drawn
,
sweeping the room.

“This is your fault
!
” Gage yelled at Alex as he walked into the room, disheveled and sleepy.

“Huh?” Alex said
,
rubbing his eyes.

“You," Gage said as he pointed his finger at Alex. "You
started the whole
damn thing with all the,
'I see dead people' shit.
Now I am talking to dead people! ALL YOUR FAULT!” Gage barked
as he shook his finger at Alex
.

“Who?” Thane said, relaxing and waiting for an answer.

“Raider,” Gage said sadly. He was already thinking
back
over the times they shared with one another. Raider had been the only one who understood
his need to not commit, to be focused.
Shit!

“What
did
he say?” Voodoo asked slowly and the others all relaxed and took a seat in his room.
Hell, he had room
.
T
h
e
place was like a freaking
mansion in disguise of a Southern
Plantation
home. Each of them had huge bedrooms with super
-
king size beds and a sitting room
,
plus office. Their own bathroom and sadly enough, chick
'
s decorating.

“I
ha
ve
to read
,
” Gage said and ran his hand through his slightly longer hair. Since leaving the
military,
they had all gone through a transformation of sorts. He figured it was time to find
out what hair color he had.

“I will get it,
then
let
'
s meet in the living room
,
” Thane said grimly. Since they had been given the boxes of their teammates after
the bombing, they had been unable to open them all at once. They had done their duty
with
regards
to speaking to family and notifications with each of the contact people of their
friends. However
,
there was a small matter of the last letters the men wrote
,
which had not been delivered yet. One
—
because they had shit to deal with, and
t
wo
—
they were address
ed
first to them with a personal letter inside to take to the family.

Gage groaned
and
flipped off his
friends
as they left and went into the shower.
Dealing
with the bombing was a task in and of itself. But dealing with a whole entire career
of messy
excursions
, and critical missions, had taken its toll on all of them.

Gage thought back to the first day he met his best
friend
and wanted to laugh
out loud
.
Raider arrived to the SEAL training
and he had been sent to
the first class to
be
evaluate
d
for the new Team TEN.
That
was
when most of them met, and that was when they became family.

SEAL training was rough.
Sleep deprived,
physical
and emotional exhaustion
was
only a small part of the training. Bonding with
members
of the SEAL
s
was the most important.
Th
at
was
where they developed their team, and
that
was
where the nightmares could have started.

Without
e
ach other, each of them agreed they would have gone bat shit crazy. Raider was the
first one to catch his eye. He was smart, cocky, and a player. While Gage observed
them in training and in
down
time, he felt like they were kindred spirits. The only differen
ce was
in their childhood
,
Raider had
a good family, and Gage’s was a bit fucked up
.

His mother ran off with a stable mailman from the base where his father was stationed.
Claiming she was not built for the constant moving or the daily
uncertainty
of
who would come home
—t
he solider or the already emotionally scarred Vietnam
Vet
who had become
making
a regular appearance. His father’s late night pacing, and obsessive behavior had
scared the crap out of
Gage
.
However,
it wasn’t until his mother was gone
that
he truly began to understand what his father was going through. He watched his father
waste away in the bottle until one night after drinking himself into oblivion, his
father set the house on fire with a lit
cigarette
and burned their house down. Making him an orphaned military brat
—
and his father a hero once again.

His issue
s
surrounded being a prisoner of war in Vietnam, the torture he endured would have
been enough to break anyone.
His father had sucked it up, came
home,
and then
continued the mission. Until the day he died,
Col. Steven Loman worked in his Base Commander
'
s office, making sure his men
were
protected, had backup, and more importantly, got help when they returned.

David and
he
had talked a lot over the last few weeks about their past. He was relieved to find
that his new
friend
had a similar upbringing. Only his father was a police officer and had been abusive.
Luckily, Gage escaped the abuse, his father more intent on drinking his guilt away
for the men he saw die while
imprisoned
.

The Sheriff had understood exactly what he had been going through and every day Gage
disclosed a little more information. The man was a good listener and Gage felt comfortable
sharing his history with him.
No, he was not attracted to the man,
he snorted
.

It was like when he met Raider, David was a kindred spirit. Trusting people had always
been hard for Gage, but when he did,
they were
his friends for life. There were only six, well now
,
seven men he could have said that about five months ago. Now, he could honestly
say, some of the past was reconciling itself in his head, well, that was until this
morning when a ghost
appeared
in his room.

How the hell was he
supposed
to deal with
this?
What if his friend asked him to marry Marie and adopt
Sammi
?
He knew i
t was not going to go well
.
He couldn’t be tied down like that, have
civilians
depend on him. If he would go nuts, or get killed in the line of fire
—
the women would be in the exact same place they were in right now. Alone, with dependent
'
s
money and no support.

This was
a problem, one he
'd
need his friends to help him with. Drying off he looked into the mirror and grimaced.
He saw a battle
-
hard man who had no business thinking about being around a child long
-
term. It would never work
because
the first time a boy came to the house, he would be arrested. He was hard, overprotective,
and basically an asshole. Compared to Raider, he was the devil incarnate, he had
no sense of understanding of how the female mind worked. Nor did he really want to
dive into that labyrinth of
trying
to figure it out as well.

Grumbling the whole way down the stairs after dressing, he went into the kitchen to
get his cup of black coffee, there was no way in hell he was going
to
be able to deal with shit, without some bitter
caffeine
to help him. Lou was bustling around the kitchen like normal. Gage grinned at the
older woman they all considered a grandmother figure.
Each of them needed her, and she was more than willing to shoulder the responsibility.
She reminded them to tuck in
their
shirt
s
, fed them their favorite home
cooked
meals, and
listened
when they had panic attacks f
r
om the PTSD.

Gage fell in love with her when she found him in a closet in the middle of the night
after a particularly harsh thunderstorm. It had woke
n
all the men, and each of them dealt with it differently. Gage had been having a
nightmare at the time, and the noises took him right back to the day of the bombing,
staring in horror as the terrorist blew himself up in order to kill them.

She sat with him for hours as he mumbled and talked about the night. Gage never felt
ashamed when she picked up on his anxiety, she just patted him on the
back,
and made sure she made him his favorite dessert that same night. She did that for
them all.

Her husband
,
Timothy
,
was the head ranch hand and all around
handyman around the ranch. He still rode on horses to round up the cattle, and
r
o
de
the fence line. He was also a Vietnam Vet who knew a thing or two about what they
went through. Gage and the others respected the couple and allowed them to help them
heal.
As if
they really had a choice.