Total pages in book: 43
Estimated words: 43512 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 218(@200wpm)___ 174(@250wpm)___ 145(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 43512 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 218(@200wpm)___ 174(@250wpm)___ 145(@300wpm)
A pause. Her eyes narrow. “For what?”
“For the last time.” My throat goes rough on the words. “The last time we really saw each other.”
Her spine stiffens like I touched a bruise. “That’s not necessary.”
“It is.”
“It won’t change anything.”
“It might.”
She faces me fully now, moonlight catching the line of her cheekbone. She looks like a woman who has rebuilt herself with steel and hope and doesn’t appreciate anyone trying to walk through the scaffolding.
I take a breath I don’t feel like I earned.
“I was fresh back,” I say. “I was still… loud inside. Everything felt too close. Too bright. Like one wrong touch would set me off.”
She says nothing.
“I came looking for you because you were the only thing that ever felt like home without a cost.” My voice drops. “And then I heard you.”
Her brows draw together.
“I heard you talking,” I go on. “Out by the trucks. You were telling Sadie or Kaley—I don’t even remember who—that you wanted more than Valor Springs. That you wanted the city, the big job, the whole damn sky.”
Her face flickers.
“You did want that,” I add quickly, because the truth matters even if it stings. “And you deserved it.”
“I can want more than a town and still—”
“I know.” I lift a hand, stopping her gently. “Now I know.”
Back then, I didn’t.
Back then, all I had were instincts sharpened by grief and a mind that kept replaying a blast that took my best friend and left me breathing when I didn’t know what to do with the privilege of it.
“I didn’t want to be an anchor around your ankle,” I say. “I didn’t want you to look back in ten years and realize you traded half your life because I was too damaged to love you without bleeding on you.”
Her jaw clenches. “So you decided for me.”
The words are quiet.
“I made a call,” I admit. “I thought I was protecting you.”
“You were protecting yourself.” Her voice isn’t cruel, but it’s sharp enough to cut rope. “And maybe I would have left anyway. Maybe Austin was always going to happen. But you don’t get to rewrite our history into some noble sacrifice.”
I feel that truth in my bones. “I’m not trying to be noble,” I say. “I’m trying to be honest.”
“Honest would’ve been saying you were struggling.” Her eyes shine with frustration she refuses to let become tears. “Honest would’ve been letting me choose if I could handle your mess.”
“I didn’t know how to say it.”
“That’s your specialty.” She turns away like she’s done talking.
I should let her. I should respect the boundary.
But we’re standing in the dark with years between us and a fake relationship built on a real history, and I’m tired of letting the most important things in my life be decided by my worst moments.
I step closer, slow. “Laney.”
Her head tilts just enough to show me I’m not fully shut out.
“I’m not asking you to forgive me tonight.” My voice drops, rougher. “I’m asking you to understand I didn’t leave because I didn’t love you. I left because I loved you and I was scared love wasn’t enough to keep me from ruining you.”
Her breath shudders.
For a heartbeat, the night goes still.
Then she turns.
We’re close now—close enough that I can see the freckles I used to count when we were kids, close enough that the heat in her gaze feels like a hand on my throat.
“This fake dating thing,” she says quietly, “is for the ranch.”
“I know.”
“Don’t turn it into closure.”
“I’m not trying to close anything.”
Her lips part, and that’s the end of my good sense.
I lean in. She doesn’t move away. The space between our mouths is a fragile, trembling inch.
“Tomorrow,” she whispers, and it sounds like a dare and a plea.
“Yeah,” I whisper back. “Tomorrow we’ll be believable.” My hand lifts on instinct, stopping just shy of her cheek.
Her eyes flick to it like she can feel the ghost of my touch already.
I tilt closer—
A horse neighs sharp and loud from the paddock.
We both freeze.
Then she lets out a breath that might be a laugh or might be surviving. “Even the horses are tired of our unresolved issues,” she mutters.
“Bossy animals,” I say, because my heart is trying to climb out of my chest and I need humor to nail it back down.
She shakes her head, but the tension in her shoulders eases. Just a fraction. It feels like winning a war over an inch of ground.
Then my phone vibrates. A sensor alert. South line. And my body switches gears so fast it’s almost violent.
Delaney sees it happen—the shift in my eyes, the way my posture goes hard. “What is it?”
“Fence alarm.”
Her face drains of color. “Again?”
“I’m going.” I’m already moving before the last syllable hits air.
“Wait—” she starts.
I stop long enough to catch her wrist—gentle but absolute. “Inside. Lock the door. If your dad asks, tell him I’ll call in two.”