Page 20 of Forbidden Rancher's Return
"Not here," he murmurs.
I pull back just enough to look at him. "Why."
His eyes move to the water. Then back to me.
"This place took enough from you." His voice is rough at the edges. "It doesn't get the good things too."
The line hits harder than any confession.
I step closer instead of back. My hand presses flat against his chest. His heart hammers under my palm and the contrast, his still face, his racing heart, undoes something in me I didn't know was still locked.
"It doesn't get to take this," I say.
His hand flexes on my hip. His breathing changes. For one second the control slips and I see what's underneath. Not patience, not restraint. Want. The kind that has been building for eight years and has nowhere left to hide.
Then headlights crest through the trees.
Halford. Harlan Grayson. The man who's had his eye on this ridge since before Daddy got sick. The man who sent flowers to the funeral and a land offer to the lawyer the same week.
Everyone on the ridge calls him Halford. Nobody wants him close enough for a first name.
His truck moves at half speed along the ridge road. The beam cuts between the branches and flashes across the water like a spotlight looking for something to expose.
Rowan shifts beside me. Not in front. Just there. A line drawn without a word.
The truck pauses. Light cuts across the bank. Across us.
Then it rolls on.
Rowan's voice drops near my ear. "That's going to get louder."
"I know."
"You ready for that?"
I look up at him. His jaw is set. He looks like a man who has already decided what he's willing to pay.
I think about the kiss. The way he said not here, like he was protecting something that finally deserved to be kept safe.
"Yes," I say.
Rowan holds my gaze.
Then he steps back. Control returning. Discipline that doesn't ask permission.
"Go inside," he says quietly.
I turn toward the trail. The stream follows me with its constant voice. The oak stands behind me with our carving.
And Halford's taillights disappear around the bend, taking whatever he just saw straight into town with him.
Rowan
The bruise blooms across my jaw by noon.
It aches in slow pulses. I let it. Pain keeps a man honest about what he's walked back into.
Calla finds me over by the tack hooks.
