An unexpected knock on your door when you live in the middle of nowhere is never a good thing.
I eased the door open, and my back stiffened. “I thought I told you never to come back here.”
Three months ago, on Thanksgiving Day, a stranger named Finn Rafferty showed up at my front door claiming to be Jenn’s husband. I felt like a fool, standing there with an engagement ring burning a hole in my pocket. Jenn and I had lived together for seven months on the ranch she inherited from her uncle, and I had finally worked up the nerve to pop the question in front of family and friends.
“May I come in?” He hugged himself against the cold.
I folded my arms. “You can try, but I wouldn’t recommend it.”
His eyes shifted back and forth. “Is Jennifer home?”
It bothered me he was back asking for Jenn. It had been three months since I threw him off our porch. Where has he been? Why was he back now? And how do we keep him away for good?
“She’s not here.” I shifted my weight. “What’s your play?”
“My play?”
“What are you after?” I took a step forward to intimidate him. It worked. “You show up here after all this time, claiming to be Jenn’s husband. What do you think is going to happen?”
“Sounds like you don’t believe me.” He pulled a folded paper from his back pocket and held it out between us.
I slapped it out of his hand. “Jenn is my girl, and no piece of paper from you or anyone else is going to change that.”
“That’s a legal document.” He picked it up and took a deep breath. “You may have bullied your way through life, but it isn’t going to change the fact that the State of Kansas recognizes us as man and wife.”
“You’re not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy.”
He pulled a second paper from his pocket and set them both on one of the porch chairs.
“Jenn says the marriage was annulled. It’s like it never happened. So, I suggest you leave now and never come back.”
“And what if I don’t?”
“You can leave in that car… or in a body bag. Your choice.”
One side of his mouth turned up to form a crooked smile. He walked down the steps. I followed.
Jenn and Alex walked out of the stables and stopped when they saw me talking to Finn. Jenn said something to Alex and sent him back inside. She looked madder than a wet hen as she marched toward us.
“There she is,” Finn said as the crooked smile made another appearance. He waved in her direction like he wasn’t here to destroy our lives.
I stepped into her path and held up my hands. She responded with a get-out-of-my-way glare, and I obliged.
“What are you doing here?” she huffed.
Finn looked around deliberately. “I like what you’ve done with our ranch.”
Jenn’s face reddened, and I felt the heat coming off her. She folded her arms across her chest. “Our marriage was annulled. You have no claim to anything here.”
“Apparently, he didn’t get the memo,” I said.
“I don’t have to move into the main house, just yet. One of those cabins down by the river will work for now. I might even help with chores.”
“We don’t need any help.”
His eyes narrowed. “We’ll see about that.”
It sounded like a threat. I’d heard enough. “Finn was just leaving.” I stepped between the two and puffed up my chest. I got up in his grille. “Wasn’t he?”
Finn hesitated, but I left him only one option. “I guess I was.” He relaxed the muscles that had tightened in his neck.
I took a half step forward, and he retreated.
Jenn stood at my side as we watched him walk toward his car. I made a mental note of the license plate.
“I’ll be in town for a while. We should have coffee, get caught up.” He climbed into his car.
“Yeah, that’s not gonna happen,” Jenn responded. “Y’all better not come around here again.”
He waved out the window as he spun his tires and kicked up gravel on his way down the drive.
Jenn flipped him off with both hands.
“Did you ever bring him here?” I asked. “You know, back in the day?”
She looked about ready to give me the same two-finger salute Finn got. “Never.”
“How did he know about the cabins?”
“I don’t know.” She paused, then turned and walked away.
I called after her. “We need to talk.”
“That’s all we’ve been doing.” She turned and looked at me as she walked backward. “I’m getting tired of it. I guess y’all better decide who you believe—him or me.” She turned and headed off toward the stables.
“So that’s it?”
“I need to get Alex, then make dinner,” she said without looking back.
Jenn had adopted Alex, an eleven-year-old boy whom I’d rescued in Afghanistan before Jenn and I met. He’d ended up in an Army hospital in Germany where Jenn had been stationed, and the two became friends. When Jenn returned stateside, she searched for him and made arrangements to take the boy that no one else wanted.
Imagine my surprise when I arrived in Colorado to find the boy with the war-torn soul living with my girlfriend. Jenn took him in and gave him a second chance. He called me GI Joe back then. I never knew his name. Jenn decided that Pop was a more appropriate moniker, probably hoping that we would become a family someday.
Jenn was scared and pissed at Finn or maybe herself. I didn’t know which. I thought I’d been doing a good job of being patient with her. Jenn wasn’t the only victim here. I could lose everything. She’d been reluctant to talk about her past, but that would have to change. It didn’t look like Finn Rafferty was leaving any time soon, so I had to find out more about him and whether there was any truth to his claims.
I sat on the step feeling queasy and out of sorts, much like I did after a PTSD episode. The air was warm for the end of February, but a cool wind blew under my jacket and sent a chill down my back. I pulled up my collar.
The memories I’d tried to bury from my tour in Afghanistan were resurrected from time to time after I returned stateside, usually triggered by a loud noise or stressful situation. Plenty of both had been available in my hometown of Bradley, Texas. I hadn’t had an episode since I moved to this ranch in Middle-of-Nowhere, Colorado.
One thing that helped me relax was a unique blend of herbal tea made for me by a Cherokee medicine woman named Leotie just before she died. Mama had convinced me to see her, and I reluctantly agreed. She had deep-set onyx eyes that could see into my soul. She knew things about me no one could have possibly known and made the tea specifically for me from herbs she picked herself. I called it rain dance tea because of a dream I once had. She passed away last year, so I can’t get any more of it. I’d been rationing it, but I might need a cup tonight.
I took a few deep breaths, my head in my hands. When I looked up, I saw Jenn and Alex approaching.
“Dillon, you look like hell. Are you okay?”
I shook my head. “Not really.”
“Did you have one of your flashbacks?”
“No.” I wiped the beads of cold sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand. “I reckon I had one of yours.”
