Page 22 of Oops, I Fell For The Ranch Hand Next Door

I nod, unable to speak past the tightness in my windpipe. He pulls me back into his side, adjusting the blanket around us both. We sit there in the lamplight while the night deepens outside. His hand strokes through my hair. My head rests on his shoulder. Our breathing synchronizes without effort.

The grief that’s been holding me hostage begins to loosen, and underneath it is want. Need. The desire to be close to him in a way that isn’t about pain. My fingers curl into his shirt. My face turns toward his neck. I press my lips to the skin there, tentative and testing, and he goes very still.

“Jessie.” There’s warning in his tone. “What are you doing?”

“I don’t know.” I kiss him again, this time with more intention. My hand slides up his neck to tangle in his hair. “I just need to be closer. I need to know this is real.”

His hand comes up to cradle the back of my head, fingers threading through my hair. His other hand finds my hip, gripping through the blanket. “We don’t have to—”

“I know we don’t have to.” I pull back to see him. “But I want to. I want you.”

His eyes search mine, pupils blown so wide the brown is nearly gone. His grip on my hip tightens, fingers digging in. I register the tremor running through his forearm where it’s pressed against my side. He’s restraining himself. Holding back when his body is screaming to take what I’m offering.

“You just cried yourself empty in my arms. You’re raw.” My voice sounds wrecked. “I’m not going to—”

“You’re not taking advantage.” I shift in his lap so I’m straddling his thighs, the blanket falling away completely. My hands frame his face. “I’m asking. I’m choosing this. I’m choosing you.”

His hands bracket my hips, spanning the width of me, holding me in place. His forehead drops to mine, and his eyes close. I can see the war happening behind his eyelids: want versus restraint, taking versus protecting.

“Not tonight,” he finally says, opening his eyes. “Not when you’re using me to outrun the grief. Tomorrow, when you’re asking because you want me, not because you’re trying to escape the pain.”

The rejection stings. I start to pull away, but his grip tightens, holding me on his lap. “I want you. I’ve wanted you since the day you stopped in the meadow. But you’re hurting right now. You told me about the patient you lost, and I told you about mine, and we’re both cracked open. I’m not going to blur those lines.”

His thumb runs along my lower lip. The touch is feather-light, barely pressure. Heat blooms in its wake. “Tomorrow. When you wake up and still want this. Tomorrow, I’ll give you everything you’re asking for and more.” His voice drops lower, rougher. “Tomorrow, I’m going to make you wonder why you ever thought you weren’t enough.”

My hips shift forward involuntarily, pressing against him. He’s hard beneath me, evidence that his restraint is costing him. The knowledge sends heat straight to my pussy. His grip on my hips tightens to the point of pain, holding me still.

“Tomorrow?” I whisper.

“Tomorrow.” His lips brush mine, a promise more than a kiss. “I swear.”

I nod, letting him shift me off his lap and back to his side. He gathers me against him, pulling the blanket over us both, and I let myself be held. Let myself accept comfort without calculating the cost.

We stay like that until my eyes grow heavy. Until the weight of the day pulls me under and I drift toward sleep in his arms, safe and seen and exactly where I need to be.

The last thing I’m aware of before sleep takes me is his hand stroking my hair and his voice low in my ear: “I’ve got you. You’re safe. I’m not letting go.”

And for the first time in what feels like forever, I believe him.

Chapter eight

Eli

She’s murdering the biscuit dough.

Through the lodge window, I can see Jessie working beside Louanne at the butcher-block counter, knuckles white where she grips the dough like it’s personally offended her. Flour dusts her forearms. My blue flannel, the one she borrowed that first night and never returned, hangs open over a tank top that makes my palms itch to touch. She’s been helping prep for tonight’s guest dinner for an hour. I’ve been out here pretending to check fence posts while really, I’m just tracking her movement through Louanne’s kitchen.

Last night I sent her to bed after she’d cried herself empty in my arms. After we’d both cracked open and bled our ghosts onto each other. After I’d promised her that tomorrow, that when she woke up still wanting this, I’d give her everything.

She woke up wanting this. I saw it in her eyes at dawn when she stood in my kitchen drinking coffee, in the way her pulse jumped when our fingers brushed, in how she walked away from my cabin looking like leaving was the last thing she wanted to do.

I’ve been on edge all morning.

Louanne says something that makes Jessie laugh, and the sound carries out to me through the open window. Two weeks ago, she was a woman in a meadow who’d forgotten how to exist. Now she’s laughing in my shirt while baking biscuits. I’m done waiting.

I push off the porch railing and cross my arms, letting myself stare without hiding it. Letting her absorb the weight of my attention until she lifts her head and our eyes lock through the glass.

Her lips part. Pink floods her face. Even from here, I can see her ribs expand faster. She wants this. Wants me. And I’m done making her wait.