Page 25 of Forbidden Rancher's Return
I step beside her. Close enough that she can feel me there.
She doesn't move away.
"You're staying in the bunkhouse," she says.
"No."
Her head turns. Eyes sharp. "Where then?"
"Wherever you tell me."
Calla's mouth tightens. She hates being cornered. Hates needing anyone. I can see all three of those things moving through her face. The resistance, the want, the war between them.
I let her have them.
"The house has two bedrooms," she says finally.
"That's a fact."
"It's not an invitation."
"Didn't ask for one."
The silence stretches across the porch. Rain taps the railing. A light flickers in the kitchen window, then steadies.
Calla's gaze drifts to the tree line. To the stream somewhere behind it.
"You told me about the junction," she says. "The two times you almost came back."
My chest goes tight.
"I keep thinking about that," she says quietly. "About you sitting in a truck at the bottom of this road deciding whether I was worth the trouble."
"That was never the question."
"What was."
"Whether I was worth the trouble to you."
She's quiet for a moment. The rain fills it.
"You're here now," she says. "That's what I've got."
"That's what you've got."
She holds my gaze. Then she nods once, like she's closing a deal she's been negotiating with herself all day.
The porch light flickers once.
Then it dies.
The house goes dark in a single breath. And from the tree line, a headlight beam cuts slowly and low through the rain. Not from the road.
From the pasture.
Too close.
The beam sweeps across the barn. Across the house. Across Calla standing in the doorway like she's been found.
