Burned & Bound (Love Doesn’t Cure All)

by A. Winchester

The real problem was that I was in love with Jackson Ford Myles. I had been for years. Boys like Jackson chased after the girl next door types while I just pined silently after my best friend. While it fucking hurt sometimes, I’d come to accept that this was my reality.

think you’re scared I’ll win,” Deaton replied. “Ain’t fear if I know for a fact you’ll fucking win.

But those gray eyes. Shit, there was a void there. Broken. Haunted. I couldn’t quite explain it, but he looked every bit the invisible man he was trying to be.

This West was different in a way I couldn’t quite put my finger on. There was a softness to him as he handled the horses, talking quietly and moving carefully. It was like a glimpse into the past—of who he used to be.

because Jesus fuck, West McNamara had filled out fine. Broad shoulders, a strong back, and a tapered waist. Those dark jeans of his showed off muscular thighs and an ass I didn’t need to be noticing. Black ink covered his tanned skin in a wild array of tattoos. The most prominent was the pair of angel wings coming out of his shoulder blades, covering both arms, and ending in roses on his hands. Barbed wire spiraled down his spine while stars cascaded over his right side. The nine rough scars etched into his left side piqued my curiosity, but I’d be damned if I’d ever ask what happened. So did the fact that he had barbells through his nipples—but again, things I didn’t need to be noticing.

“I’m startin’ to think hate fuckin’ is your thing,” he commented. “Jesus fucking Christ, Mickey! Do you have a filter?” “Around them? Sure. Around you? Nope.” Cheeky fucking man. “Don’t you worry, boy, all dicks need attention.”

“There are some things you’re better off not knowin’, boy, and should count yourself lucky that you don’t,” he replied.

She should’ve stuck with that. Instead, she picked the one guy with a broken dick. It hadn’t worked in years, and that wasn’t changing. Not for her. Not for anyone.

“You’re blind to that man,” I said over him. “Blind as fuck. The sun rises and sets with that fucker, don’t it? He could do anything and you’ll still be in his fucking corner.” “Somebody’s got to,” he replied.

“Now, you listen here, boy,” Mickey cut me off, getting in my face as he did. “I’m gettin’ real fuckin’ tired of your attitude. You ain’t got a clue what it’s like to live hard. You’ve had your shit handed to you on a gold fuckin’ platter your whole life. West ain’t had that. Livin’ hard changes people. He may not be whatever the fuck you wanted him to be, but you’re goin’ to just have to accept that he ain’t that kid you knew no more. What you see is what you get. Now, you and me, we ain’t ever had a problem, but we’re about to if you don’t get your shit together and stop pushin’ that button, you hear me?”

“That was right around the time Dad taught me how to shoot and had me carrying a gun around the ranch. He said we had wolves.” “The only wolf on our ranch was Harrison McNamara,”

He wasn’t the West that left me. He was the West I’d lost. That did something to me. Something painful.

“No, y’all decided to bury your fucking heads in the sand, and for what?” I gestured around me. “For some fucking land? For fucking cows? You failed him—all of you—when you decided his worth wasn’t more than this stupid fucking business. Than a stupid fucking job!” “Now, it ain’t like that—” “It is like that!” I interrupted. How could none of them understand that? I was sure my dad probably thought the same shit. That keeping West busy here and there was enough. It wasn’t. “I would’ve burned the whole fucking place to the ground before I let him run away afraid for his life.”

“Tell him I slipped while carrying… what?” I glanced back at the empty containers in the bed of my truck. “Call it twelve gallons of gasoline while smoking a lit cigarette.” “Jesus fuck, Jackson.” “Oops.”

To be a dog in this world was something else. What I wouldn’t give to feel the kind of joy she felt just running through the long grass.

“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.”

Why wouldn’t he just fucking fight me? That shit I wanted. It was the only thing I could handle.

Withdrawal and panic collided violently inside me. I had no fucking control of my body. It did whatever the hell it wanted, and I was stuck for the ride. Squeezing my eyes shut, I begged anyone who might listen to a lowlife like me to make it end. It didn’t matter how. I just wanted it to end. I couldn’t take much more.

“You got your wires crossed, Henry,” I replied loudly. “We were goddamn angels.” “So was Lucifer.”

“He just needed to feel like he was safe, that’s all,” he dismissed. “Animals are simpler than people think. They need to be cared for, have their needs met, and know they’re safe. Do that and you’ll see a whole new side of them.”

“Horses are easy,” West said around another big bite. “It’s people that suck, and the horses know it.”

He was letting me help him. Comfort him. Be there for him. Granted, I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing, but I wanted to be that person.

“I’d rather go through hell with you, West, than watch it destroy you.”

“I’m not worth it,” I whispered breathlessly against his mouth. “You just let me keep believing that for the both of us,”

The familiar edge of panic dug its way into my chest, and I drew in a sharp breath. I just wanted it to go away. To not be a thing. I just wanted to be okay.

But I was used to chasing after West. Growing up, we’d always been like this. On a horse, he was fast and reckless. Free and unrestrained. His pick in horses always reflected that part of him.

worthless, and everyone else is somewhere in between,” he told me “I know where I stand on that scale.”

“You don’t ask, you hear me?” he said softly. My brows came together in confusion. “You just tell me, okay? That ain’t the kind of thing you ask for. Just tell me to stop, West, and I’ll stop.”

sake. “I told you I’m not fucking worth it.” “I’ll keep believing you are for the both of us.”

“Don’t…” he began quietly, “don’t… don’t give me the power to break your heart. I’m not fucking worth that.” This man. This fucking man. He just didn’t get it, did he? “It’s too late for that,” I whispered. Taking his face in my hands, I kissed him once. Twice. Three times. Each kiss lingered longer than the last. “I loved you back then just like I love you now.”

“You need to take care of you too, Jackson,” he told me. “You can’t just take care of him. You’re no good to him if you’re drowning too.”

“That’s my grumpy cowboy.” His cowboy. I liked the fucking sound of that. A lot. More than I wanted to admit out loud.

“Please, don’t hate me,” West whispered, the words slurring together. “I couldn’t hate you.” “You should.” “I never will.”

There were moments when he was on the back of a horse that West looked free. Free of his demons. Free of his insecurities. Free of his pain. With his head tipped back, with the wind in his hair, with his body completely at ease. Those moments were ones I clung to even as they wrapped around my heart like barbed wire. I knew they were fleeting. I would’ve given anything to bottle that feeling up and keep it for him.

“I want normal, Jackson,” West said over me. The desperate edge in his voice tugged at my heart. “How are we supposed to be normal if I don’t fucking try? I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, but I’m here and I’m fucking trying. That’s something, isn’t it?”

“But you need to know, West’s demons are his own. There ain’t a damn thing you can do but love him.” “What if it’s not enough?” I asked quietly. “It ain’t goin’ to be,” Mickey answered a little too honestly. “You’re goin’ to love him hard, but it ain’t goin’ to be enough to win this fight for him. It’s somethin’ he’s got to do for himself. All on his own.” “I hate that.” “I know, Jackson. Me too.”

And somewhere in the middle of the night, his fingers found their way across that distance and found their home over my pulse.

“I don’t see you for what’s going on in here.” His finger gently tapped my temple before he pressed his palm to my chest. “I see you for the man in here. The man who loves animals more than anyone I know. Who brings home the broken ones and shows them what it means to be loved. The man who makes me and my dog breakfast and even cleans up the damn kitchen after. Who challenges me and ain’t afraid to hand me my ass when I need it. I see a damn good man with the best fucking heart I’ve ever known.”

“How’d you figure I was here?” “You like animals more than you like people. You’ve spent all fucking day around people. It don’t take a genius to figure out you’d look for a few animals to spend time with.”

“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.”

It’s time you love yourself the way you loved those horses. It’s time you believed in yourself the way you believed in those horses.

He was still Jackson, I was still West. Whatever the hell came next, that fact made the stress of it all a little more manageable.

And just remember, having a hard time doesn’t mean you failed. It just means you’re human.”

“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.”

“Watching you unravel? Yeah, that’s not the threat you think that is, cowboy.”