Lucas rode up next to her then, grinning like he’d forgotten everything that had happened over the past couple of weeks. “This is awesome.”
Marisol smiled back. “Yeah. It is.”
The tightness in my chest eased. This was why I’d brought them here. Not just for safety. For this. For a morning where Lucas could laugh and Marisol could breathe and the world didn’t feel like it was closing in.
We turned back toward the ranch after an hour, Lucas sun-warmed and chattering, Marisol’s cheeks flushed from windand light and something that looked like it bordered on actual happiness.
When we reached the corral, Owen helped Lucas down, and Lucas immediately started talking about riding again tomorrow.
Marisol slid off her horse more slowly. When her boots hit the ground, she swayed.
I stepped in, catching her elbow. “You okay?”
Her laugh was breathless. “My thighs are going to hate me.”
I couldn’t help the smile that tugged at my mouth. “You did good.”
She looked at me then, and something unguarded passed through her expression. Gratitude, yes. But also want. The kind she tried to hide. The kind she couldn’t fully bury anymore. I let my hand linger at her elbow. Just a second too long. Then I forced myself to step back and keep my distance.
By late afternoon, Lucas was wiped. He passed out on the bunk bed right after dinner with his shoes still on. Marisol sat on the edge of his bed, watching him sleep like she needed proof he was really there. I leaned in the doorway to check on both of them.
She looked up me and whispered, “I almost lost him.”
The words came out raw, stripped down.
I walked into the room and crouched down next to her. “You didn’t.”
“But I could have,” she said, her voice cracking. “If I’d been smarter. If I’d seen it sooner. If I hadn’t…” She trailed off.
The words she didn’t say hit me harder than the ones she had. If she hadn’t let herself need me. If she hadn’t let herself touch me.
I reached for her hand and held it. “But you got him out. Damn, Marisol, you’re braver than half the guys I served with overseas.”
She shook her head, tears spilling down her cheeks. “I don’t feel brave.”
“Brave people never do,” I said.
She turned toward me, and the sound she made was small and broken. Like she’d been holding her breath for weeks and finally couldn’t anymore. I pulled her into my chest. She clung to me immediately, her arms tight around my waist, cheek pressed into my shoulder. Her whole body shook.
I held her like I was built for it. Not as a guard. Not as an assignment. As the man who couldn’t stop wanting her even when he knew better.
When her breathing finally slowed, she whispered against my shirt, “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“You’re surviving,” I said. “One hour at a time.”
She lifted her head. Her eyes were red and wet, her mouth soft from crying. “And you?”
I swallowed. “I’m doing my job.”
Her gaze held mine. “Is that all you’re doing?”
Both of us already knew the answer to that, but I wouldn’t say it out loud. Not now when Lucas’s steady breathing reminded me what mattered, what I could lose, and what I couldn’t afford.
So I didn’t kiss her. I just rested my forehead against hers for one heartbeat. “Get some rest,” I murmured.
She closed her eyes like the touch alone was enough to steady her. When I pulled away, she didn’t follow. She didn’t chase. She just sat there, hand still wrapped around mine, like she was learning how to let someone hold the weight with her.
Later that night, the ranch settled into its new normal. Trucks passed by the cabin on rotation. Boots crunched on gravel as my brothers paced the fence line. Inside, Lucas slept like he’d been starving for it.
