Page 38 of Burned & Bound
“I don’t need your help,” I snapped and never glanced up from my work.
“I just asked if you ate dinner,” Jackson said a little too calmly. It grated on my nerves.Irrational? Maybe.
“No,” I muttered. Maybe if I answered him, he’d go the fuck away. Granted, I couldn’t fucking eat anyway. The nausea threatened to take me out by the knees. This withdrawal thing was fucking brutal, and I just knew it’d get worse.
“You should eat,” he told me.Motherfucker. I was going to kill a fucking cowboy for being irritating as all hell.
I held my tongue because I didn’t trust myself if I opened my mouth. I was just as likely to bitch him out as I was to hit him. What I’d do was a fucking crapshoot was what it was with Jackson being the brunt of it no matter what.
“Good night, West,” he said, but I only let out an annoyed sound in response. Over his shoulder, he called, “Door will be open if you want to use the guest room instead of the stables. Don’t let Tess out or you’ll be chasing her around the ranch all night long.”
I scowled.Just what fucking game was he playing at?I didn’t need his charity. The stables were just fine. I’d survived worse.
I threw myself into my work—pushing myself ten times harder to distract from the hazy thoughts weaving through my mind. But when I lay down around midnight to rest and closed my eyes, the screaming started. It echoed with unwanted memories in the back of my head.
Every muscle locked up while I tried unsuccessfully to push them down. The very clothes I wore were fucking razors slicing across my skin. That familiar panic clawed its way into my chest again—a reminder of all the shit I desperately tried to forget.
Hot tears burned down my cheeks as I squeezed my eyes shut tighter. I just wanted to sleep. I was so fucking tired.
But the harder I tried to force it, the worse it became until I was convinced I’d die just lying there. I surged to my feet and took up pacing. But pacing only made the spiral happen faster. The sadistic voices in the back of my head picked up speed, tearing me apart little by little.
With a wordless scream, I punched the stall door.Once. Twice. Three times.And kept going until I was bloodied and the pain in my knuckles drowned out the demons in my head. I shook violently from head to toe as I stormed out.
If I couldn’t sleep, there was work to be done.
CHAPTER 26
jackson
We have a… situation down here,” Peter said when I answered the phone, his voice hesitant as he spoke. And for damn good reason. It wasn’t even five yet. I didn’t like being woken up.
“What kind of situation?” I growled as I sat up.
“I’m not real sure how to describe it, Sir,” he told me. “But uh… West… well, he’s all worked up—muttering to himself and his hand is bleeding. Kind of looks like he got into a fight with someone, you know? The horses aren’t ready, but I’m pretty sure he scrubbed every saddle until the leather was spotless.”
“Does it affect you getting the hell out of there and into the fields?” I asked. With a quiet groan, I dragged myself out of bed. My fucking bones ached. Side effects of being thrown around by bulls for over a decade. Shit, I sure as hell wasn’t young anymore and I felt it more and more with every passing year.
“Not at all,” he replied. “It’s just…”
“It’s just what, Peter?” I demanded. I hated the hemming and hawing.
“Hold on. I’m going to step away.” The pause on the other end lingered, and I waited impatiently. “Sorry, boss, I just… I don’t want them to overhear.”
“It’s just what, Peter?” I didn’t have time for fucking games. I just wanted to know what he had to say.
“I had a brother, Patrick.” Jesus fuck, it was story time.I sank down on the edge of the bed and reached out to scratch Tess behind the ears as I listened. “He served in the Army, two tours overseas. And when he finally came home to stay, he just wasn’t the same. I had a hard time with it, but I was young. My mom called it PTSD. She said you couldn’t go through the horrible things he’d gone through and not be affected.”
I drew in a deep breath, unsure of what to say, but it wasn’t hard to figure out the correlation to West. It made sense when you stopped to think about it. Even before prison, he’d been living in a silent hell for years. For his whole damn childhood.
“I’m not pretending to know what he’s been through—West, that is—but it’s obvious,” he continued. “The bar fight, the anger, the jumpiness. Not wanting to be touched and all that. You have to know it to see it.”
“Yeah,” I agreed quietly. The thing was I did see it. I just didn’t know how to help.
“PTSD is a bitch of a thing.It shreds apart all the things you knew about yourself and then keeps on taking from things you never thought it could touch.”
What a horrible fucking way to live. I laid back on the bed to stare up at the ceiling as I let his words settle inside me. How the hell did I help someone with PTSD? Or hell, how the fuck did I help West?
“I just think he could use your help right now, Mr. Myles.I’d feel guilty not saying anything,” Peter said.