Her eyes fluttered shut. He watched her draw a deep breath through her nose, then shake her head.
“Drop it, Aevrin,” she whispered. “Now.”
“Fine,” he said hoarsely, throwing his hand out to the side. “You wanna have secrets, Cassia, that’s fine. I’ll stop prying. But you gotta tell me one thing, because I’m going damn crazy. All this regret you got over kissing me: if there isn’t another man, what was so wrong about it?”
She shook her head, lips pressed tight.
“No, Cassia, sorry, but I have to know,” Aevrin said, and took a step closer to her, then another. He was in the middle of the room now. “‘Cuz if you want the truth, I’m losing my mind over you more than a little. I’ve barely been able to sleep this whole week. I damn near got roasted by a cow this morning because I wasn’t paying attention. And if you tell me you don’t care for me like that, and it was just a stupid bet, and you’ll never want me back the way I want you, I’ll shut up about it. The last thing I want to do is drive you away from this ranch. You just want a friend, I’ll be your friend and I’ll be a damn good one.”
Cassia’s eyes were wide, her brow furrowed, one fist pressed over her heart.
“But if you kissed me,” he continued, with another step towards her, “because there’s even a tiny part of you that can see yourself with me, just tell me that, Cassia. I gotta know if I have a chance. And even if it’s slim, I'll take it. And I’ll fight for it.”
“Aevrin,” she groaned, and buried her head in her hands. He stopped where he was, drawing one deep breath after another and hoping against hope that she wasn’t about to saydumb ranchers aren’t my type.
A week ago he’d still been convinced he needed to resist her, too worried about making her life hard when she just needed a safe place.
But the way he felt about her was getting impossible to fight or deny. And waiting a week and a half after a kiss to find out what it meant had driven him half mad.
“I gotta know, Cassia,” he said quietly, when a full minute passed without her looking up or saying a word. “And I’m sorry if I’m being kinda forward right now, I am, but… youkissedme. And I just gotta know what that means. And why you hated it so much.”
“Didn’t you hear anything I just said,” she whispered flatly, finally raising her head. She wasn’t crying; she glared at him a little, lower lip trembling. “My… my life is amess, Aevrin. You don’t want anything to do with that.”
It wasn’t a no.
He exhaled hard and closed the distance between them.
“So what,” he said, looking down at her, so close they were almost touching. So close he could reach out and pull her into his arms, if he dared.
“Aevrin,” she insisted, standing her ground and glaring up at him. “Someone tried to… tokillme, maybe, you don’t want…”
All the more reason to make her his, so he could keep her safe. And get to the bottom of it.
“You think that’s gonna scare me off? You don’t want to start something now, fine. I respect that. But if you think it changes how I feel…”
“You don’t need this, Aevrin,” she begged him. “You belong with some girl from a good family, who can introduce you to her parents, knows how to ranch and who hasn’t… hasn’t got these secrets she has to keep, who isn’t running from…”
“From what, Cassia?” He peereddown at her.
“You aren’t hearing me.”
“Yeah, I am, and I’m hearing a lot of reasonsyouthinkIshouldn’t be with you. Not any reasonsyoudon’t wanna be withme.”
“You belong with someone better than me. Someone who’s simple and uncomplicated and good.”
“Now Miss Cassia,” Aevrin whispered hoarsely. “I don’t know why you’re so hung up on me needing something simple, whenyou’rethe one obsessed with plain custard. I’m not scared of a little complication.”
“You don’t mean that. You’ll regret that…”
He tossed his hat onto the floor and cupped her face in his hands, tilting her chin up just far enough that he could stare into her eyes.
“The only thing I’d regret is not knowing if this is what I think it might be.”
“And what’s that?” she asked, her voice trembling.
“Something special. Something once in a lifetime, or maybe even rarer than that. And it doesn’t have to be now if you aren’t ready. I can give you time, give you space. But stop fighting it because of some stupid idea of what you thinkImight want. What I want is you.”
She lifted a hand to grip his wrist, not to push him away but to hold his palm against the softness of her cheek. Her eyes were wavering, studying him just as closely as he studied her. The house could have fallen down around them and Aevrin wouldn’t have noticed. She was all he could see.
