Page 43 of Forbidden Rancher's Return
Calla's hands slide up my chest. She kisses me back with the same quiet force she brings to everything. Warm and sure.
When I pull back, her forehead drops against my chin.
"Spare room," she murmurs.
"Yes."
"Rule stands."
"Yes."
She pulls back and looks up at me. Her mouth curves. Small, private, the smile she doesn't give the town.
"Go fix the generator cap," she says. "And lock the south gate."
"Already planning to."
She picks up the lantern. Moves toward the hallway.
I watch her go.
Then I grab my jacket off the hook, step back out into the rain, and cross the dark yard toward the shed.
Already thinking about tomorrow, about the line I'm going to draw in the middle of that town, about Beck's face when he said you were my best friend like it was a wound he'd been pressing on for eight years and couldn't stop.
He came here tonight scared.
Not angry. Scared.
And scared is something I can answer. Not with words. With time. With mornings. With the kind of staying that doesn't need permission because it never considered leaving.
I intend to give him that answer every day until he believes it.
Calla
Idon't sleep well.
The storm has moved off the ridge, but Halford's voice is still in my kitchen. His smile. The way he said it'd be a shame like he was already measuring the curtains.
I give up before dawn. Coffee. Fire. Window. The yard comes back in slow gray light. The barn. The fence line. The generator shed with its door latched tight. Rowan sealed it twice before he came inside last night.
No movement. No headlights.
Rowan comes downstairs twenty minutes later. Already dressed. Boots on, hair damp from the washroom.
He moves through the kitchen with the quiet efficiency of a man who has spent years waking up in places that weren't his and making himself useful anyway.
He pours coffee. Hands me a cup without being asked.
Our fingers brush on the handle.
Neither of us mention it.
"Generator cap is sealed," he says. "South gate is locked. I walked the perimeter already at first light."
"You didn't sleep."
"Some."
