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“It’s okay. It’s not your fault. But I told you that so you’d understand me when I tell you that when I first came here, besides Chris, Mark was the only other man I bonded with. I mean I got along with Hawk and Caleb. Jimmy and I had a rough start, but we figured it out. But I really liked Mark. He was honest with me about who he was and that he was disappointed that I wasn’t his type of girl.” Sarah smiled. “He likes my cooking.”
Abby made a face. “I can’t cook.”
“No, but you work on cars and believe me, he’s fascinated by it.”
“Really?”
Sarah nodded. “They have Thursday night poker at our place every week, and Tex is always talking about your car and how much you’ve done to it already. Anyway, whatever Tex is into, I was always comfortable around him. And when things got really bad for me and my situation, Chris told Tex if anything happened to him, Tex was supposed to take me out of South Dakota and hide me. He told Tex that out of all the guys, Tex was the one he trusted with me the most. So that means a lot to me, that Chris would trust him that much.”
“I could never be tied up or anything,” Sarah admitted. “I sometimes still have nightmares. So, that’s the only reason I could never do anything kinky. Not because I think it’s wrong or anything. Chris would never, ever, allow one of his brothers to hurt a woman. But I know Tex would never do it anyway, whether Chris was around or not. He’s just not like that. He never scared me or made me feel uncomfortable. Not once. Some of that’s because he’s Tex and he’s a good guy. And of course a lot of it is because he’s got a degree in psychology.”
Abby sat forward in her seat. “He does? I thought he was in the Army.”
Sarah nodded. “They all have degrees. The higher up in the army you go, the more common it is. In Special Operations like the Rangers, it’s required. Chris has two. Business and Poly Sci. Mark has two, also. Psychology and Communications. Hawk’s degree is in Computer Science. Caleb has a degree in Criminal Justice and Jimmy’s is in Mechanical Engineering. They all enlisted, then took classes when they weren’t deployed.”
“Wow,” Abby said, impressed.
Sarah grinned. “You thought he was a dumb mechanic?”
Abby grinned back. “Watch it, girlie. There’s nothing dumb about mechanics. My dad was a mechanic.”
Sarah laughed. “Well, there’s not a dumb one in the bunch.” She rolled her eyes, “Although, Tex, with that accent…”
“Yeah, what’s the deal with that?” Abby asked. “It comes and goes. I don’t get it.”
“It’s bullshit. You ever pick up on the fact that it only really comes out around Hawk?”
Abby thought about it. “Now that you mention it. At the bar, yeah, it does get a lot more noticeable.”
Sarah nodded. “That’s because Hawk and Tex have been doing this Cowboy versus Indian shtick since they enlisted together. Hawk was pissed about being in the army and he called Tex a dumb redneck and Tex asked him if he was going to put down the M16 and just throw tomahawks at the enemy.”
“Oh, my God!” Abby gasped.
“And they traded insults for about a year until they got really wasted one night and dared each other to sign up for Ranger school. Which Chris told me one time is so hard that sometimes people die. During the training part.”
“Jesus Christ, seriously?”
Sarah nodded. “They starve or freeze to death. Not a lot, but it’s happened.”
“Well, damn,” Abby said. “What’s a spanking compared to that?” she wondered out loud. Then she blushed and looked at Sarah. “Oh. Sorry. Um…”
“It’s fine,” she said. “I kind of figured out that part at least. But yeah, their…worldview…I guess you’d call it?…is a little different than other people’s. Because they’ve seen so much and done so much.”
Abby cringed. “Jimmy has a prosthetic leg and I didn’t know.”
“IED,” Sarah confirmed. “It killed almost half their unit. Four of the nine men. Chris has scars on his side from the shrapnel. The ones that lived, Chris, Hawk, Tex, Doc, and Easy decided to settle down together. Since Chris and Hawk are both from here, I guess this seemed like a logical place. They’re hard men, Abby. They’ve gone through a lot together. But they’re good men, too. The best men.
“I can’t tell you if you and Tex are right for each other. Only the two of you can figure that out. But I can tell you without a doubt that he’d never hurt you. In fact, he’d die to protect you. Right now. Even though you don’t really know each other all that well. Any one of those men would give his life if it meant saving yours. That’s what they do, Abby. They just…ride black Harleys instead of white horses.”
