Cowboy SEAL Healing
Navy SEAL Cowboys #3.5
(Vivian Armstrong & Ei Sterling)
Vivian Armstrong moved to Revival Ranch to be closer to her brother and be a part of his ranch that offers a place for wounded soldiers to work through their PTSD. Taking over the the mess hall, Vivian imbues her cafeteria with sunshine and positivity. She loves feeding and befriending all the wounded warriors. All except one…
Eli Sterling’s injuries as a SEAL are the least of his problems. He’s convinced his PTSD makes him a danger to all around him, so he stays isolated on Revival Ranch, ignoring everyone’s friendly overtures–especially Vivian’s. Her brother is one of the founders of Revival. The last thing Eli wants is to cause trouble.
But bright, cheerful Vivian isn’t giving up, and when Eli has to help her in the mess hall for Thanksgiving and Christmas, Eli finds himself opening up to the absolute last woman he should.
It’ll take some Christmas magic to heal this injured cowboy’s heart, but Vivian’s not giving up without a fight.
Cowboy SEAL Healing is a 30,000 word digital-only novella.
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Notes for Revival fans:
Cowboy SEAL Healing takes place about 2 years after Cowboy SEAL Christmas (and a few years before Gabe’s epilogue).
Revival characters who appear in this book: Jack & Rose Armstrong (and daughter), Alex & Becca Maguire (and son, plus Ron Swanson, of course), Monica Finley-Cortez (and a brief appearance from her son, Colin).
The heroine of this book, Vivian Armstrong, first appears in her brother’s book, Cowboy SEAL Redemption.
Excerpt
Chapter One
Blue Valley, Montana. Vivian Armstrong bumped along the poorly maintained road, grinning from ear to ear just as she had the first time she’d driven through the town knowing she was going to stay.
Two months later, the simple joy at achieving something so out of the norm for her hadn’t faded. She’d never dreamed of leaving Indiana while she’d been growing up, even when her brother had joined the Navy and then shipped off to foreign locales as a SEAL. Indiana, her little farm store, and her parents’ farm had held her heart.
Until she’d seen Montana. Two years ago she’d visited Jack at Revival Ranch, a place he and two of his injured and discharged SEAL brothers had built to help men like them find some peace after the mental and physical toll of war. The minute she’d returned home from that visit, she’d started to plan.
It had taken almost two years to sell her shop, convince Jack and his partners to take her on as the ranch’s full-time cook, and then say goodbye to her parents and start a brand new life half a country away.
Before that, she’d never done anything on her own, never ventured past a place where everyone knew who the Armstrongs were, and had never really planned to.
But that first short visit to Blue Valley two years ago had changed her, opened her up to a new world. One where she didn’t feel so safe that the edges of that certainty sometimes chafed. One where she had to challenge herself, without being cocooned in Armstrong bubble wrap every time she failed.
Vivian let out a sigh as she parked her truck in the parking lot next to Pioneer Spirit. The outside structure wasn’t very auspicious, especially in the daylight, but inside Blue Valley’s one and only bar reminded Vivian of an old west saloon.
Inside that bar she would find the person who could maybe solve her current problem. Her brother’s wife might be the only one who could get through to all that overprotective male. Surely Rose of all people could convince Jack that his penchant for still treating her like she was a little girl who needed his constant guidance and protection was absurd.
Vivian got out of the truck. The day was bright and beautiful, the mountains that comforting, breathtaking constant in the distance. Fall color was everywhere she looked and nothing made her more certain of her choices than the bone deep satisfaction she got from this view.
She didn’t have time to enjoy it though. She had about one hour to convince her sister-in-law to get through to Jack before Vivian had to be back at the ranch to prepare dinner.
The bar wasn’t open yet, so Vivian had to knock on the door, then wait for it to be opened. When Rose did open it, the sharply-featured brunette rolled her eyes. “If you came to butter me up to talk to Jack for you, I’m afraid you miscalculated.” But Rose let Vivian in nonetheless.
She moved with a grace that belied her very pregnant belly. Vivian followed Rose into the main room of the bar. When it opened in a few hours, the lights would go down—hiding the scarred and nicked surfaces of ancient tables and chairs and the bar itself. People—mostly local ranch hands and the like—would start trickling in one by one, ready to drink their dinners and talk about cows and sports with the low strains of Merle Haggard or George Straight filling the small room.
But right now, the lights were on full, and the sun shone through the big storefront window that had the name of the bar painted on the front. When Rose was this pregnant, she left the bartending and waitressing to her employees, but she still did the administrative duties during the day.
Vivian loved this place—something she could never tell her teetotaling parents, who would neither approve nor understand. But it reminded her of home—a grittier, tougher home, but home nonetheless. The regulars who sidled up to the bar every night weren’t all that different from her parents’ church group who got together after service every Sunday to share news and gossip.
Rose moved behind the bar, asking her if she wanted a pop. Vivian nodded, taking a seat on one of the tall bar stools.
“So, since you couldn’t possibly be here to talk to me about Jack, what can I do you for?” Rose grinned as she slid the glass full of pop to Vivian.
Vivian didn’t let her smile dim. She’d grown used to Rose seeing through her ploys. Even though it was a little irritating to be so quickly shut down, it was one of the things Vivian admired about Rose. She saw to the heart of people—good or bad—and she didn’t dawdle around wondering how to handle them.
She just did.
“I don’t need you to butter him up exactly,” Vivian began, infusing the words with all the charm she had to offer.
It was lost on Rose, though Vivian thought maybe she caught a slight softening.
“Come on, Viv. Surely you know your brother as well as, if not better than me. He’s not going to budge on this. Yes, you’re a grown woman, but to him you’re the baby. Sucks for you, but I’ve got three little sisters. I’m more on his side than yours.”
Vivian gave up the cheerful routine she should have known wouldn’t work on Rose and let her chin fall to her palm. “You don’t treat your sisters like they’re fragile glass, and neither does Jack to yours! And he doesn’t flutter around you like you’re a helpless female. Just me.”
“I hate to break it to you, but that’s because no one would mistake me for a helpless female. You, on the other hand…” Rose gestured at Vivian, and Vivian looked down at the cute bright blue sweater dress over her floral fleece leggings.
“What?” she returned, trying not to pout. “It’s cute.” She knew she was in for a long winter, so she’d bought a bunch of bright, happy winter gear before she’d moved.
“It is cute. Adorable, in fact. You’re like a beautiful goddess of happiness brought to life, and I think it’s a great addition to the ranch to have basically sunshine personified cooking meals for the men, but your brother isn’t going to let up on the macho overprotective act any time soon. Especially since the audience of that getup is men.”
“I thought you being this pregnant would at least take some of the focus off me.”
Rose sent her a killing look. “Trust me. It does. And as we hurtle toward January, it’s only going to get worse. For me. I’m not sacrificing myself early to save you.” She leaned forward conspiratorially. “I didn’t even really have inventory to do today. I just had to get out of there before he started timing my ‘sit down’ minutes again.”
Vivian laughed patting Rose’s hand. “I’m sure Jack fell for it hook, line, and sinker.”
Rose rolled her eyes. “He saw right through me, but he told me to go anyway. He knew I was about to snap. Because that’s the thing, Viv. His protectiveness is just part of him, and it’s one of the parts I love, but when you tell someone who loves you how you feel, they will try to give you a little bit more what you need.”
“He’s a good guy,” Vivian replied, feeling almost a little bad for being so irritated with Jack. She loved her brother fiercely. He’d been through so much and was still one of the best people she knew in the whole entire world. “Can’t he just not be such a good guy when it comes to me?”
Rose smiled, one of her rare soft ones, usually only Jack or their daughter got one of those out of her. “Then he wouldn’t be him. Listen, if you really want him to ease up a little on the watching your every move—you’re going to have to do something really terrible.”
“Don’t say it,” Vivian warned, faking the most serious, fearful tone she could muster.
“I have to. You, an Armstrong, are going to have to suck it up and tell him how you feel. Really feel.” Rose grinned. “But I have faith in you.”
“Even against Jack’s hard head and misplaced sense of duty and responsibility?”
“Well…” Rose mimed holding up two sides of a scale.
Vivian grunted and pushed off the bar stool. “Fat lot of help you are. See if I babysit next time you and Jack need five seconds to yourself.”
“I’ll have Gabrielle bring you another bouquet of wildflowers and you’ll be putty in our hands.”
Viv wrinkled her nose. “You don’t play fair, Rose.”
“Never have. Never will. Listen, I’ll take Gabs over to Delia’s tonight, leave Jack alone, if you want to come over and have a heart-to-heart.”
“Will you tell him we’re going to have a heart-to-heart so he can be suitably horrified in advance?”
Rose laughed, her low, smoky laugh. “You got it.”
***
Vivian Armstrong was not like other women. In fact, she was not like anyone Eli Sterling had ever met in his thirty-two years.
He didn’t like it, or her. At all.
Since that was the case, he usually hurried through his meals in the mess hall of Revival Ranch, desperate to avoid her attempts at conversation, camaraderie, and what he supposed was some do-gooder spirit of wanting to help—God knew why.
In fairness, she wasn’t the only employee of Revival who went out of their way to be friendly. There were wives of the founders and a whole armload of kids running around, shouting out cheerful greetings and what not half the time, but there was something about Vivian that itched along Eli’s skin and made his brain scream: run!
It was the same voice that had told him to escape home back when he’d been seventeen, and he’d listened. He’d joined the Navy, and left that hardscrabble patch of Oklahoma soil, his perennial struggling-to-put-food-on-the-table parents, and his sweet older sister who’d slipped him some money on his way out of town.
He’d never asked where she’d gotten it, but he’d returned it when he’d been home for his parents’ funeral. Tornado. The only reason Bailey had survived was because she’d been at work where there’d been a safe room. Mom and Dad had died in the remains of the shack they’d spent so long trying to survive in.
Eli blinked once, then focused on the plate of food in front of him. He didn’t care for trips down memory lane, especially ones that involved remembering the look on his sister’s face after the funeral was over.
What do I do now? her eyes had asked, but she’d never said it in words, and he’d gone back to the Navy, become a SEAL, and gone off to war.
And now he was here. ‘Rehabilitating’ his mind. Regardless of whether he thought that was possible, as long as he was here, Bailey was safe.
Vivian slid into the seat across from him and smiled. Beautifully. Because no matter how much he didn’t like her, or how much he wanted to avoid her, there was no denying Vivian was a beautiful woman. Dark hair, green eyes, with skin that looked velvety soft even though he had no intention of ever touching it and finding out. She was tall and willowy and moved with a dancer’s grace while always smelling faintly of flowers. Even on a ranch, she always smelled like flowers.
She was a nuisance, plain and simple.
He stared at her blankly, a skill he’d developed in response to all the pitying glances, or worried ones he’d been getting back home. He’d learned if he kept his face completely devoid of emotion, it usually made people uncomfortable enough to move on.
Not Vivian.
In his experience in the SEALs, the people preparing mess hall food didn’t want to be your buddy, but Vivian was always flitting around, having conversations with the men, asking people what their favorites were.
Eli had never given her any response, and yet he’d watched Drake mention a love of meatloaf only to have it show up on the menu the next week, or Levi to mention he liked beef stroganoff but not mushrooms and wouldn’t you know it, the next day, she’d recreated a mushroom-less version.
She was like a little food fairy, and he sincerely wished she’d buzz off. He didn’t know why he was on her radar when he didn’t want to be noticed by anyone—chatty Cathy, or the leaders, or any of the men who were supposedly in the same boat he was. He wanted to keep his head down, do the hard work, and not worry about causing anyone else in his life any harm.
He could do that here, and he was more and more sure Revival Ranch was the only place he could do that.
“So far everyone has told me their favorite meal except you.”
“Food is food.” His standard answer on the rare occasions she’d cornered him and tried to wheedle the information out of him. He’d been here almost a year before she’d arrived—which had created quite a stir.
It wasn’t hard to see why. She was pretty and sweet and eager to please. She was also Jack Armstrong’s little sister. Eli glanced around the mess hall and sure enough, there was Jack, arms crossed over his chest, glaring.
Jack was one of the founders of Revival Ranch, a former Navy SEAL, and a decent enough guy. Except he seemed to loom over his younger sister like a guard dog. Through every, single meal.
Vivian glanced over at where Eli was looking and then rolled her eyes. “What, are the orders not to talk to me now?” she demanded, sharp green eyes landing right back on him.
Eli looked down at his plate and went to finishing up his meal so he could escape. “No orders here, ma’am.”
She huffed out an irritated breath, but when he glanced back up again, hoping to find her retreating she was straightening her shoulders instead.
She plastered that big smile back on. “If food is food, and you have no favorites, let’s try something else. What was your favorite meal when you were a kid?”
Wrong tactic, fairy. “Nothing.”
“It can’t be nothing,” she returned, not taking a very clear hint that he had no interest in talking with her about this or anything. “Everyone has a childhood favorite.”
Wouldn’t that be nice? To have some kind of favorite made with any kind of regularity. To look back at his childhood and remember something aside from empty stomachs, persistent dust, and his father’s stubborn pride.
“Come on, Eli. Spill the beans.”
It had never, ever been his plan to spill any beans, but she poked at his temper he’d regret later. Fear later. PTSD episode or regular old irritation? Who can tell anymore?
“Favorite childhood meal. Well, it’s tough, Ms. Armstrong. Pretty much anything my mother made after she’d finally gotten fed up with my father’s violent aversion to government assistance, and gotten us on food stamps. Anything is pretty damn tasty after that.”
He gave her credit, she didn’t look horrified. She watched him, her expression somehow taking on an element of compassion or empathy but not the all dreaded pity. Maybe that was the cause of the persistent itch Vivian Armstrong gave him. She was a woman who didn’t give him the response he expected.
Vivian, whether because her brother was a wounded veteran himself or just through some innate ability, seemed to take every man at face value—regardless of their injuries, physical or mental.
“I imagine so,” she said at length, a serious note to her voice before she rose. But she didn’t walk away like he’d hoped. She smiled at him. “Now I know two things I didn’t know about you before. We’re on to something yet.” She leaned down and gave his hand a friendly pat and then sauntered over to her brother, her bright leggings full of flowers skin tight against very long legs.
It took him a little too long to break his gaze, to look down at his plate. When he did, it was at the hand she’d patted, not the remains of his dinner.
He was about to get up, deposit his dirty dishes, and go back to his bunk for the rest of the night when someone slid into the chair next to him and clapped him on the back.
“Jack will mess you up, man. Don’t let that limp fool you,” Drake Worthington said cheerfully, sniping the uneaten roll off Eli’s plate and popping a bite into his mouth.
It took Eli a minute to understand what Drake was getting at. Eli scowled. “No reason to mess me up.”
Levi gave Vivian a glance as she walked from where she’d said something her brother back to the kitchen and let out a low whistle. “Might be worth it.”
Eli only grunted. Vivian Armstrong wasn’t worth a damn thing.
“Hey, man. We’re heading to the bar tonight. You want in?”
Eli didn’t look at Drake. Or Levi who’d also taken a seat at the table. “No.” He got up and walked off. If he felt guilty for being rude, he’d get over it. Better to keep his distance, keep those hard and fast walls up. Everyone would be better off. Safer.
“We’ll get you one of these nights,” Levi called after him.
No, you wont, Eli promised to himself.