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CHAPTER6
Tanner paced his small cabin, walking between the couch all the way to the kitchen, before he turned and walked back to the bedroom. At a little over twenty feet, it wasn’t much bigger than the cabins they rented.
But it was his safe space. His place where he knew the only person he could endanger was himself. His home where he could face his demons alone.
And now he had to see Emily every day. Every day, he would have to look into those twinkling sapphire eyes of hers, see her long blonde hair and that cute little upturned nose and high cheekbones.
And worry that one of his hound dog cousins would try to take his place.
How in the hell had he managed to have an affair with the woman who was their new cook? Of all people for him to choose, it had to be her. And damn, but she was a temptation. Even today, he felt drawn to her like he wanted to touch her again. But that wasn’t possible unless he wanted to lose his job.
When she interviewed the first time, he was in Dallas at the VA Hospital and had not met her. So he had no idea who she was and what she looked like. He had no idea he was playing with fire and about to get scorched – black-earth scorched if he wasn’t careful.
How could he gaze at her every day and keep from touching her? He couldn’t. All that sweet flesh of hers beneath her clothes. All that tempting softness and sweet-smelling woman would be way more than he could resist.
She couldn’t stay. She had to go and he’d do everything he could to make certain she was out of here and soon.
Like tomorrow. Aunt Rose be damned. Emily had to leave.
It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy last night, it was actually the opposite. There was no way he could continue to be around her without wanting more of her and that was impossible.
The sex had been incredible, but he could never have a permanent relationship. Last night was only supposed to be a single encounter. That’s all.
Pacing the floor of his cabin, he tried to think of some way to convince her to leave. But, obviously, she must need the job for her to be working here.
“Why here? Why not some hifalutin restaurant in the big city? What had drawn her to the Burnett Ranch?”
As he asked the questions out loud, the smell of lavender filled the room and he stopped. The only smell associated with his PTSD was gunpowder, blood, and the smell of death – a stench he would never forget.
With a sigh, he knew what he had conjured. A ghost.
“I don’t believe in you,” he said. “I’m going to take my anxiety medicine if you appear. You are a hallucination. Get out of my head. Leave me alone.”
“Tanner,” the older woman’s voice called out while she slowly appeared dressed just like she would have in the late eighteen hundreds in a long dress with a full skirt and apron.
“No,” he said, turning away from her and heading to the bathroom to take one of his pills. This wasn’t real.
“What’s troubling you?” she asked in a sympathetic voice. “You seem upset.”
Ignoring the apparition, he flipped on the bathroom light to search for his anxiety pills.
They were gone.
“Crap,” he said, searching about wildly, wondering if one of the maids had taken them. “Where are my pills?”
He heard the bottle rattle and he whirled around.
“These pills?” the shimmering apparition said. “You don’t need them. You’re fine.”
What did she know? He wasn’t fine. There was a ghost rumbling around in his head and he kept seeing her.
“The hell I am. Give those back to me. I need them because of you,” he said.
“Me? What have I done?” the older woman said.
Had he seen her in Iraq? No, the women over there wore hijabs and she didn’t have one of those on. This was so strange to have a woman appear in his hallucinations. This had only happened twice. Once before when he was leaving for the VA Hospital in Dallas and now.
All he wanted was for her to disappear. Get out of his vision.
