Burned & Bound (Love Doesn’t Cure All)

by A. Winchester

“I just wanted to feel safe as a kid.” The barbed wire he kept weaving around my heart dug in a little deeper with those words.

I had a feeling we’d done too much too fast, even if West would never admit that out loud.

Feeling compelled to do so, I reached over and slipped my hand in his. The way his fingers wove through mine was natural. It felt nice. Being with Jackson felt nice. And when my head wasn’t a fucked up mess, I liked how he made me feel.

“You’re my priority, baby, above anything else.” My heart cracked wide open with those words—such simple fucking words that probably didn’t mean much to anyone else. At that moment I knew: I still loved him. I had never stopped loving him. I’d just buried the feelings somewhere deep inside me where I never had to face them again.

🖤🖤🖤

I was real tired of hearing how everyone had known what Harrison was up to. And yet, no one fucking cared. I kept telling myself there was nothing no one could’ve done—that it was pointless to get mad—but the longer I dealt with this shit, the harder it was to hang onto that train of thought.

“Hey, cowboy,” he whispered, his forehead tipping against mine. “Hey, baby.” Fuck, I couldn’t believe he was here. “I’m glad you showed up.”

🖤🖤🖤

“Don’t you worry, doll face,” Darla whispered behind me. “Jackson made sure we got you.” Those words wrapped around my heart like barbed wire, and I sucked in a sharp breath. I glanced at the space around me—more than a generous one-person space in every direction. Jackson really had fucking thought of everything.

“When you spend your whole damn life being hit, you start to expect it. And the anger… they just go hand in hand,” I whispered. “And it just stays there and festers and fucking builds until you can’t hold it in no more. One day you just… snap.”

“When my mom died, she said she’d send an angel to protect me. Obviously, that didn’t fucking work,” he began with a sigh. “So, I got drunk and decided it’d be a great fucking idea to have my own wings. I’d protect myself since no one else was going to fucking do it.”

🖤🖤🖤

The last time I’d been in a hospital it was a fucking nightmare. The grating of handcuffs on my wrist. The inability to get comfortable. The lack of pain medication. The food that made me sick. The doctor’s insistence that touching me that way was for my own fucking good.

He had fractured ribs and broken ribs, a punctured lung, a broken skull, a broken nose, a dislocated shoulder, several broken fingers, his left hip had been shattered, his left femur had broken in four places, his left knee cap had been shattered, and his left shin was broken in two places. He was bandages and wires, bruises and cuts everywhere. The doctors had done everything they could to stabilize him and wait until he woke up—if he woke up—to move forward with an orthopedic specialist. His agent had already tracked down the best one in the country to take care of him. And above all, there was a good chance he’d never walk again.

For the first time in my life, I considered that question. I stood at a crossroads with my life. One path was full of my demons and darkness—all the bad things I couldn’t conquer alone. The other path led to a life with Jackson. A life where all my bad shit didn’t follow us around and ruin everything. Where I could smile and feel happiness again. A life I wanted so fucking bad that it hurt. One I couldn’t have if I didn’t do something different.

Yeah, I’d bought the fucking bull that trampled me.

“Maybe… just maybe, Jackson, this isn’t about you,” she replied. “Maybe West is just tired of crawling over barbed wire as a way of living.”

And he wore a pale yellow dress shirt, the sleeves rolled up to show off his tattoos. No one would ever pull off yellow the way West did. That much I was convinced of.

“I love you, Jackson. I loved you growing up, I loved you long after I left, and I still love you. I’ll always love you.”

🖤🖤🖤

But what caught my attention was the new tattoo over his heart. A cowboy hat and a horseshoe.

Those gray eyes met mine, and he grinned—real and utterly wrapped up in the moment. That smile on his face roped around my heart like barbed wire, digging in and sticking where it was. Exactly where West belonged.

“Going to email Colter Lexington and find out if the offer to buy my ranch is still on the table,” he called over his shoulder.

“I told you that if you’d asked me years ago to leave with you, I would’ve,” he replied seriously. “You mean more to me than that ranch ever will, West. Always have, always will.”

West was late and showed up on the back of a horse, wearing a yellow dress shirt and a smile that blinded the sun.

It didn’t matter where the fuck we went. As long as West was there, I was happy.

🖤🖤🖤

“Yeah, I’m good, cowboy.” And I was. I loved our life at West Haven. I loved Jackson. But most of all… I loved me.