Page 19 of Forbidden Rancher's Return
The word leaves me before I can soften it.
Rowan's gaze shifts to the ridge road, then back. "Couldn't stop. Came close enough to see the lights in the house. Both times I sat at the junction with the engine running and told myself to turn up the road."
"What stopped you."
"Your father."
"And the belief that you deserved better than a boy who couldn't stay."
Anger rises fast. Not loud. The quiet kind that burns longer.
"You let me think you disappeared."
"I let you think you were free of me."
"I didn't want to be free of you." The words come out before pride can catch them. "I wanted you to come up that road."
Rowan's gaze locks on mine. The air shifts. The stream keeps moving.
He moves closer. The space between us shrinks until I can smell rain and leather and the clean edge of him. Until I can feel the warmth coming off his skin despite the cold.
"You shouldn't say things like that," he murmurs.
"Why."
"Because I'll believe you."
I lift my chin. "Believe me then."
He goes still. Completely still.
Neither of us move.
The stream runs beside us. The oak stands behind us. The whole world narrows to this bank, this man, this moment that has been building since the day he walked back into my barn.
I think about the carving above us.
Two letters, a crooked knife, a promise neither of us understood yet. I think about standing here alone, year after year, pressing my thumb into that groove and telling myself it was enough just to remember.
It was never enough.
I look at him. Really look. At the jaw that doesn't flinch and the eyes that have never once pretended I was less than I am.
"Believe me then," I say again. Quieter this time.
"There was never anyone else," he says.
The words land like a vow.
His thumb presses into my hip. Anchoring himself, anchoring me. His gaze drops to my mouth and stays there.
This time when he kisses me it's different from the fence line.
Slower. Deeper. The kind of kiss that knows it has time now. His hand slides up my spine, and I press into him and the stream roars beside us.
He breaks it gently. His forehead rests against mine. Both of us breathe slowly.
His hand is still on my hip. I can feel his pulse through his wrist, fast, matching mine. Neither of us has let go.
