Page 42 of Branded By the Cowboy

“Shay was sleeping.”

“You still went outside.”

“Well, you weren’t here.”

His voice drops. Low. Rough. “That doesn’t mean you go charging into the dark. Anything could’ve happened to you.”

“I wasn’t charging,” I say sharply. “I was checking. Because someone was watching this place. Shay was asleep, and no one else was here to do it.”

His hands curl into fists at his sides. “Things are happening around here. Things that don’t feel like bad luck anymore.” He exhales hard like he’s trying to keep a lid on something boiling inside him. “You should’ve stayed inside, out of the way. You don’t put yourself in danger for this place.”

I straighten, heart hammering. “I’ve spent my whole life being told to stay out of the way. To not be a problem. To keep my head down so no one gets tired of me. If I stay,” I say, quiet but unshakable, “I help. That’s how I’ve survived.”

He shakes his head. “You should’ve waited for me.”

My temper sparks. “You think I haven’t been waiting all week?”

He flinches.

We both know I’m talking about more than what happened tonight. I’m talking about the space between us. The quiet that’s stretched longer each night since our wedding.

“You come home, take off your boots, eat dinner in silence, and sleep like your body’s here, but the rest of you isn’t,” I press on, heart thudding.

His jaw clenches, but he says nothing.

“I get it,” I whisper. “You didn’t sign up for someone who wants more. Whofeelsmore. Hell,Inever expected to want more. But I can’t keep pretending this is about paperwork when every part of me wants you to choose me. To fight for me.”

A gust of wind shakes the windowpanes, but the real storm is in the tense silence between us.

Angus closes the door, slow and deliberate, and prowls toward me, his flannel clinging to the hard lines of his chest, his blue eyes full of an intensity I’ve never seen before. “You think I haven’t wanted to touch you? You think I haven’t been lying in my bed wishing I could pretend I’m whole enough to give you what you need?”

My throat tightens. “Because of what happened in Kandahar?”

He turns and rakes a hand through his wet hair, pacing the edge of the room like the memory is still too big to hold.

“Tell me,” I whisper. “Let me in.Please.”

Angus pauses, his tortured gaze capturing mine. For a moment, I think he’s going to ignore my plea. Then he releases a shuddering breath, and his shoulders drop. “Our team was deep in enemy territory, gathering intel on a high-value target, when we were ambushed. There was an explosion, and I woke up under a pile of debris. Beckett was in my unit. He should’ve left me. Mission protocol says you leave deadweight behind. I told him to do it. Told him to get the hell out and finish the job.”

His voice roughens, cracking open along the edges. “He didn’t. Dragged me out of that compound with bullets flying, fire everywhere. I was leaking blood like a busted pipe. I don’t remember much. Just pain. Smoke. The look in his eyes like he’d already written my name on the wall.”

I move toward him slowly, but I don’t reach for him yet. Not when he’s holding something this heavy.

“I coded twice,” he says. “Woke up strapped to a bed with a tube down my throat and a chaplain at my side, prepping my soul to return to its creator while preparing my body for storage.”

His eyes meet mine, and what I see there isn’t simply pain. It’s shame. Guilt. Bone-deep grief worn for so long that it’s become a second skin.

“I survived when I shouldn’t have. And when I got back…” He pauses, breath hitching. “Everyone was so damn happy I lived, but I didn’tfeelalive. I couldn’t get warm. Couldn’t sleep without waking up in a cold sweat, thinking I was still trapped under that rubble while I listened to the screams of my friends dying.”

I whisper, “Is that why you pulled away after our wedding night?”

His throat bobs as he nods. “That night, with you… it was the first time I felt something real in years. And that terrified me.”

I take a small step closer. “Why?”

“Because I fucking lost everyone except Beckett that day!” he shouts, the words tearing out of him. “And if I let myself love you—reallylove you—and something happens…” His voice breaks. “I won’t survive it. Not again. I barely made it back the first time. I won’t—can’t—crawl out of that wreckage twice.”

I step in until we’re nearly touching and press my hand to his chest. “You’re not going to lose me,” I whisper. “Not like that. Not if I can help it.”

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