Worth the Trouble (20 page)

To think she was afraid she was falling in love with him was just embarrassing now.  To think he may have cared about her, even a little, ridiculous.  Ethan had gotten what he wanted from her, yet again, and was avoiding her like the plague
now because he thought she was going to turn into a clingy emotional woman. 

He obviously didn't know her very well
, if that's what he thought. 

That was something he wasn't ever going to have to worry about with her
again.  He'd be damned lucky if she didn't stake him out on an ant pile and coat his ass in honey.  Mental images of doing just that made her smile. 

How's that for clingy?

She had asked Terri to have him stop by this morning, before they headed out.  It wasn't to test him, and it wasn't because she wanted to see him, Rocky needed answers. 

Was he or wasn't he going to be in Lubbock at that class for the rescue team tomorrow?  Wes had paid good money to reserve a spot for Ethan in that class, and he was taking up a spot that could have been given to someone more dependable.  Those registration fees had come out of the precious donations Wes had raised for the team.

And she had recommended him.

Rocky was a big girl, she could handle rejection, even though Ethan's stung a lot. What she couldn't handle was a piss poor excuse for a man who abused a charitable organization and her friends, because he didn't have the balls to tell her he was having regrets and didn't want to see her anymore. 

Ethan Cassidy was a low-life coward.

If Ethan didn't show up, she would be embarrassed for pushing Wes to include him on the team and in the class.  And Wes would be out the registration costs.

When
Ethan got back to the R & R later, he had an ass chewing coming, and she looked forward to giving it to him lock, stock and barrel.  If he didn't show up at that class tomorrow, Rocky was going to make damned sure he paid Wes back every penny that class had cost him.

Rocky slung the feed bucket into the feed bin and slammed the lid shut then stomped down the aisle to the hayloft and scrambled up the stairs. 
Like a bad video, flashbacks of the night they had spent up there the night of the wedding played through her mind and emotion burned in her chest.  Closing her eyes, she sucked in a deep breath, and fought it back, channeling her anger instead. 

Grabbing one of the bal
es, she pulled the twine and it slid toward her, then she jerked it off the edge and let it fall to the floor below.

"Whoa there," Dylan said and she looked down to see the bail rested
at his feet and would have landed on his head if he hadn't seen it coming.

"Sorry," she said gruffly, as she climbed down the ladder
and jumped to the ground.

"Who
put a burr under your saddle this evening?" he asked with a short bark of laughter.

"Nobody," she grumped then grabbed the hay bale and picked it up.  "Mind your own
damned business."

"This have something to do with
Terri's brother?" he followed behind her to ask.

She stopped in her tracks and spun around on him.  "
What the hell makes you think that?" she demanded.  To her knowledge, nobody knew anything about her and Ethan, except maybe Terri.

Dylan
took the bale from her and started walking toward the first stall at the end of the row.  "You think we're blind, Rocky?" he asked her with a snort.

"Blind?" she repeated dumbly.  Fear and embarrassment warred inside of her as she waited for him to respond.

"I was out with Matt the other morning and saw ya'll come back together with mud all over you, half-dressed, with your fishing poles," he told her and dropped the bale, before turning around to face her.  "I think two and two still equal four, sugar."

"Butt out, Dylan," she said,
not bothering to deny it, because his words told her she was busted.  "I'm a grown woman, I don't think I have to explain myself to you."

"You don't," he told her
, then grabbed her arm.  Turning her toward him, his eyes were serious, a rare event, when he added,  "But I'm here if you need an ear, that's all I'm saying.  You two have been throwing sparks off of each other like flint on steel since he got here.  If he hurt you, I'll kick his ass."

"If he needs his ass kicked, I'm more than woman to do it.  I can take care of myself, Dylan, you know that," she ground out, then softened her voice.  "But thank you for caring."
 

Gently, she pulled her arm from his grasp
then bent to cut the twine on the bale, before pulling out two flakes.  She opened the first stall and walked inside, pushed on Diamond's rump to move her aside, then dropped the hay into the hay rack.

"It's about time you
got involved with someone, I just wish it had been someone better than him," Dylan told her, resting his chin on his forearms on the top of the stall door.

"Butt.
Out
. Dylan," she repeated a little more firmly, as she walked out of the stall and shut the door, mindless of whether he had stepped back or not.

His arms dropped to his side, and he took a step closer to her. 
"He has player written all over him," Dylan told her, then qualified, "And that's coming from a player, so trust me when I tell you it's true."

"Dylan, I don't need to hear all this...you're not helping things," she told him with frustration building inside of her.  "Don't you have chores to do?"

"Nope, I'm off today.  Next guests aren't coming in for two days, and you get them first," he informed.

"Then go find something to do, other than pester me!" Rocky yelled throwing up her hands.

"How bout I help you finish, then we can go fishing tonight?" he offered with a twinkle in his eyes.  Dylan was her friend, and he knew she loved fishing.  Usually that's all it took to cheer her up, and it was obvious that's what he was trying to do.

Rocky did not want to go fishing, she didn't want to go
anywhere near that damned lake, ever again.  Unwelcome emotion she wrote off to embarrassment balled up in her chest again then pushed up into her throat.  She sucked in another deep breath, because being emotional pissed her off. 

Turning her back on him, Rocky bent down and
peeled off two more flakes from the bale and angrily threw them over the second stall door.

"I've got a class to go to tomorrow,
" she said over her shoulder. "I want to read the manual tonight so I'm prepared."

"What kind of class?" he asked following behind her.

"Equine search and rescue.  Wes is forming a team and asked me to join," she told him continuing to put out hay for the horses.

"Wes Jepson, the vet?" he asked curiously.

"Yeah, that Wes," she confirmed then brushed her hands when she put hay in the last stall.  It was Reed's stall and he neighed a greeting, so she scratched his muzzle and he rubbed his face against her hand.

"Now, that's a good man...you should date him," Dylan told her seriously.

"Not interested in dating anyone," she replied shortly as she latched the stall. 

It would be a helluva long time before she made th
e mistake of trusting a man again, any man.  They couldn't be trusted, smooth talking or not.

"Now go away!
  I've got work to do," she said with a huff as she walked past him down the aisle to get the water hose off the reel.

"Well, let me know if you change your mind.  I have some ex-rodeo buddies who would
definitely
be interested in meeting you," he said with a chuckle.

Rocky was at the end of her rope with Dylan, and hanging on by a thread. 
She was hot, tired and ready for a shower and to find some peace in her room.

"I'm not interested in being a
buckle bunny
, either, Dylan!" she ground out, her fists clenched and her body vibrating like a volcano on the verge of an eruption.

"You'd make a cute buckle bunny," he told her with a grin, but
because he was a smart man, he said it over his shoulder as he ran for the barn door.

Terri stepped around Dylan and looked back over her shoulder at him, before walking into the barn to ask, "What's a buckle bunny?"

Heat rushed up to Rocky's face and she stammered, "Um, women who, uh, follow the rodeo circuit...rodeo groupies."

"I see," Terri replied and put her tongue in her cheek.

"Yeah, definitely not something I want to be.  Dylan was just ribbing me," she assured her, then asked, "Trip to Henrietta go okay?"  Rocky couldn't control the edge in her voice with her friend. What she really wanted to ask was "
Where the hell is your low-life brother?
"

"Not so good, but I'm home now, so I expect things will get better shortly," she said with a chuckle.

Against her will, concern surged up inside of her.  "The doctor's appointment didn't go well?"

"It's more than that, but I don't have time to talk about it right now.  I just stopped by to tell you I realize Ethan didn't stop by here this morning to talk to you, and let you know that I did tell him."

"Thanks," Rocky replied, then asked as nonchalantly as she could manage, "Where is he?  I'll go find him."

"Won't be back until tomorrow.  He stayed in Henrietta at our parent's house.  I have no idea why," she said with a frustrated sigh.

Rocky knew why, but she wasn't going to fill Terri in that her brother had stayed there because he was avoiding her, and a quarter mile, the distance from the bunkhouse to the big house, evidently wasn't enough room for him to do that now.

CHAPTER F
OURTEEN

At six o'clock in the morning, Ethan turned for the final time and ended his sleepless night by flinging the covers off of him and sitting up on the edge of the bed.  He smelled coffee brewing, and like a man in a trance he stood and stumbled toward the kitchen.

His mom and dad were sitting at the table talking when he walked through without saying a word.  On auto-pilot, he reached up and pulled down the biggest mug he could find and filled it to the brim, then took a deep swallow, flinching as the hot liquid scorched his throat.

"You could at least put some pants on, son," his mother grumbled and he heard her chair scrape over the floor as she stood. 

Ethan glanced down at himself, and realized he was in his boxers.  "Sorry, mom,
I forgot," he replied, his voice gravelly and tired.

When she walked up to the sink
she slapped his ass, and he jumped almost spilling coffee on both of them.  "Remember next time," she told him, then bent and pulled a pan out of the lower cabinet.

"Jesus, mom, give me a break," he told her.

"Sleep good?" she asked then put the pan on the stove and walked to the refrigerator.

"Hell no, I could use those sheets to hang myself they're so knotted." 

"What's on your mind, honey?" she asked raising up from the refrigerator with a pack of bacon in her hand.

Ethan cast a glance at his dad and he shook his head imperceptibly.  His mother didn't know what was going on then, and
obviously he didn't want Ethan to tell her.  Ethan agreed.  His mama worried too much about both him and his dad, and he wasn't adding to that, by telling her they thought someone was trying to kill him.

"Doctor said I was pushing too hard," he told her.
  Let her worry about that, it was the lesser of two evils for sure.

"
That why you decided to stay here last night?" she asked and cast him a disbelieving look.  He had to watch himself, because his mama was smart, she would read between the lines and fill in the blanks herself.

"Nah, I just wanted to drive my pickup back to
Amarillo, so I had some transportation," he told her then sat his mug down on the counter to squeeze her shoulders.  "And I wanted to visit with the prettiest woman in Texas, before I went back."

She sucked in a
breath, turned her head away from him.  He felt a tremor pass through her, and squeezed her again then asked with concern, "Mama, are you okay?"

"Fine," she told him in a choked voice.

He turned her around to face him and saw her eyes were filled with tears.  "What the hell is wrong with you, mama?" he demanded and cast another look at his dad who shrugged.

Her lower lip trembled and she told him tearfully, "I'm just so happy you're yourself again, son.  I thought we had lost you."
  She put her arms around his waist and hugged him tightly. 

Ethan patted her back and hugged her.
  He had been lost, then found, now he was right back where he started, mentally at least.  "I'm sorry I was an asshole, mama...I'm a lot better now," Ethan lied.

"I love you, baby, and I'm just so thankful you're doing better," she told him and hugged him again.
  "I was so worried about you."

She would be ten times as worried if she knew what was really going on with him, so he was
doubly
glad he hadn't told her.

His stomach rumbled and she chuckled then pushed away and swiped at her face with the dishtowel.  "
Guess I better get breakfast on, sounds like your a little hungry."

"Famished...crispy bacon fried eggs?" he asked hopefully and rubbed his stomach.

"Yep, I know you love them."

"Thanks, mama
, I'm going get cleaned up," he told her.  With a kiss to the top of her hair and a wink for his dad, he grabbed his mug and walked back to the bedroom.

The inspector was meeting
them at seven at the coffee shop in town.  If the meeting lasted no more than an hour, Ethan thought maybe he had a chance of making it to Lubbock for that class...if he hurried. 

If he didn't make it, Rocky would
never forgive him, he knew that, and he was going to do his damndest not to disappoint her more than he already had.  She deserved a lot better than he had given her so far, deserved some explanations and apologies.  Ethan just didn't know how he was going to explain himself to her and live to tell the tale. 

Even if she let him live
, after he told her he had basically knew he was using her that night at the lake, that he had lied to her, she probably wouldn't forgive him.  In all likelihood, she would never talk to him again.

That meant Ethan was just going to have to figure out how to see her day in and out, see the hurt and disgust in her eyes, and learn to live with it.
  It would be his penance for his arrogance and cowardice. 

Considering his physical limitations, he now realized thinking he could return to his old life had bee
n sheer arrogance on his part.  Not talking to Rocky and telling her what he was thinking, planning, riding the fence so he could keep both options open, had been cowardly.  Making love to her, letting her pursue getting him on that team, without telling her he was planning to leave was too.

Life was about choices, and he had made all the wrong ones in this situation.

He and his dad
walked into the Henrietta House of Pancakes at ten until seven, and his dad evidently saw the inspector, because he didn't wait for the hostess to seat them, he waved then headed directly over to a booth in the corner.

Ethan followed him more slowly,
feeling plenty of eyes watching his progress.  By now, word of his accident had probably spread like wildfire through his hometown.  Not only had he been a star football player on the Henrietta High School football team, he was a fireman.  When a fireman or cop got hurt, everyone knew about it.  When Jimmy died last year, the whole community had shown up for the funeral. 

Grief and regret shot through Ethan, but he pushed those memories to the back of his mind.  Right now, he has to focus on figuring out who was trying to kill him, not worry about the rookie firefighter who had taken too many risks because he was always trying to one up Ethan.  The man wouldn't be dead if he hadn't felt like he and Ethan were always in a competition.

"Hi, I'm Ethan Cassidy," he told the round middle-aged man sitting on the other side of the booth from his dad, then shook his hand, before he slid into the booth.

"Ethan, I'm Inspector
Gilley, and I'm looking into the fire where you got injured."

"Yes, sir, my dad told me what you think, and I have to say I find it hard to believe."

The man looked around the diner then leaned forward.  "I think you realize, because this involves suspicions that another firefighter is involved, we need to keep it low-key."

"Yes, sir, and we need to be careful we don't make the other men feel like they are under suspicion."

"Exactly," he agreed, his shoulders easing as he sat back again.  "Now, let's order," he said with a chuckle and waved at the waitress.

"We've eaten, so you go ahead...but I have an appointment in
Lubbock and need to wrap this up as soon as we can," Ethan told him.

The man nodded and ordered then they talked while he ate and they drank coffee.

Ethan recanted the events of the night of the fire as he remembered them, then his dad added details and his own take on things.

After he had listened thoughtfully, and made notes, the inspector sat his fork down and pushed his plate away to ask, "So, do you
know of any friction between you and someone on the crew that might result in a grudge?"

"No, sir, we're brothers...we have each other's backs," Ethan replied instantly then backed up and told him.  "I can't think of anything."

The conversation stalled, then his dad turned to him and asked, "What about Jimmy?"

"Dad, Jimmy is dead," Ethan grated then took a sip of his coffee.

"I know that, son, but his brother is still on the crew."

"Brad is my best friend, dad, and he wasn't at the fire that night," Ethan grated defensively.  There was no way the guy he had grown up with, played football with,
worked on the Texas Task Force with could do that to him, even if he blamed Ethan for Jimmy's death, which he did not.  Brad might as well be his brother, that's how close they were.

Brad
knew about the stupid risks his younger brother took, he and Ethan had talked about it, and Brad tried to keep a tight leash on Jimmy because of it.  When they were on duty together that was, the night Jimmy died, Brad had been off.

"He has a radio," his dad told him.

"We all have radios, civilians even have radios that pick up our calls," he said and that brought about a whole new suspect pool.

"There
weren't any civilians out at that fire, it was too rural for engine chasers."

"
You're right, and a firefighter not on shift, who just heard the call would not have been able to find it either."

"If he followed the truck he could have," his dad pressed.  "Being off duty would give someone the opportunity to open that valve behind Booker and cut the line."

"We would have noticed someone who was not in turnout gear," Ethan countered then stood with frustration pouring through him.  "All this speculating isn't getting us anywhere...I've got to go," he said then told the inspector, "I'll call you if I think of anything."

"
And I'll call you, if I find out anything," Inspector Gilley replied then handed him a business card.

With a shake of his head,
Ethan met his dad's eyes.  "I'll see you later, Cap."

"Ethan, this is serious stuff, you need to be careful
, son.  Regardless of whether you're here or in Amarillo you could be in danger," he warned.

"I get it,
dad, I'll watch my back, but I've got to get out of here," Ethan told him, but his dad couldn't scare him.  Ethan was headed to face something he feared ten times more than being stalked by a killer, Roxanne Baker.  He knew he was going to be late for the class, it had already started, but he could probably make it to Lubbock by noon, which meant he could be there for the last half of the class.

Ethan pulled his truck onto the highway then put his foot down on the accelerator.  It felt damned good to be driving again, having his truck at the ranch and being able to drive it would make him feel less closed in there. 

It wasn't that he thought Terri wouldn't let him use a ranch truck if he asked, the problem was that he would
have
to ask if he wanted to leave the ranch for any reason.  Now, he could come and go as he pleased.  He wouldn't be doing much going, but at least he
could
if he wanted to.

Ethan was slightly calmer now about having to take that ranch medic job, his eyes were open and he wasn't deluding himself anymore.  His sleepless night had given him plenty of time to mull things over, and he'd come to a few conclusions.

His dad was right, he would never be where he needed to be physically to be a fireman again.  It burned his ass to be told he couldn't do something, but it was true.  Even if Ethan pushed himself twenty-four hours a day for years, the level of mobility he had before the accident would never come back. 

He had a broken back, and nothing was going to change that.  The most he could hope for
now was normal, average.  Like Rocky had told him that night in the spa, he wasn't Superman anymore, and that's where he had been trying to return.

Terri had been right and
the ranch medic job was his only option at this point. 

Even though h
e knew he could do it in his sleep, would probably be sleeping through half his days there from boredom, at least he could still be a medic. 

One half the man he used to be was better than nothing.

The doctor had been right and he was pushing himself entirely too hard, expecting too much, too soon.  Ethan had made monstrous strides toward healing and walking in a short amount of time, only because he had pushed himself to the limit and beyond.  He needed to backup, regroup, reassess his goals and then remake his plan. 

Slowing down was not something Ethan had ever had to do, but he was going to do it now.  He had lived his life full throttle for too long, he needed to back off a little.

Finally, Roxanne had been right too when she said he could still be useful, without being Superman.  Between the medic job at the ranch, and being involved with the search and rescue group, he could redefine his life and still help people in the process, make himself useful again.

All of these people had been trying to help him, and Ethan had been an arrogant, pompous, hardheaded ass.  More apologies were in order
, to his family and his firehouse brothers.  If they would even listen to him at this point.  He glanced at the clock on the dash, pushed down harder on the accelerator and the truck shot forward.