The words land in my chest like a stone dropped in still water, the ripples spreading outward into spaces I didn’t know were empty.
I don’t know how to respond, so I nudge the mare forward and pretend my eyes aren’t stinging.
We ride in comfortable silence after that. Tex points out a section of fence that needs attention. I spot a loose tension point he missed. We work together without needing to negotiate. He holds the post while I hammer; I hand him tools before he asks for them.
It’s easy in a way that nothing in my life has ever been easy.
And that terrifies me because easy doesn’t last. Easy means I’m not trying hard enough. Easy means I’m going to ruin it somehow, say or do the wrong thing, be too much or not enough.
I’m overthinking. Again. So I focus on the way his hands grip the post, forearms flexing. On how his jaw tightens when he concentrates. On the way he moves like he’s always ready to react.
And I look away before I do something stupid, like imagine those hands on me.
Too late.
My skin prickles. My breath becomes shallow.
Tex straightens, lifting the wire. “Hold that.”
I step closer, taking the wire in my gloved hands. “Got it.”
He moves behind me to pull it taut, close enough that his chest almost brushes my back.
Almost.
The heat of him is there anyway.
Tex’s breath shifts. He goes still for a fraction of a second, as if he feels it too.
Then he says roughly, “Keep holding.”
He pulls the wire tighter, muscles straining. His arm brushes mine. A small contact, barely anything, but my entire body reacts like it’s been struck by static. Not that bad kind that fries my brain, but a different, disturbing kind.
Once the fence is secured, Tex steps away like he’s forcing himself to. When he looks at me over the repaired fence and says, “Good work,” something in me settles.
Not because I earned it, but because he means it.
We mount our horses and start back toward the barn as the sun begins its slow descent. The mare’s gait is smooth… until a rabbit bursts out of the brush to our left. The mare startles and rears up. My reins jerk in my hands.
I’m a good rider, a damn good rider, but the ground is slick, and the mare’s hooves hit a patch of ice.
She slips, and my stomach drops.
I shift my weight automatically, trying to steady her, but the mare’s hind end slides, and the next thing I know, I’m going down.
I hit the snow hard, but the body beneath me takes the brunt of our fall. I land half on Tex’s chest, half on the ground, my breath punched out of me.
The mare scrambles upright and snorts, stepping away. Tex’s horse stays steady.
Tex doesn’t move for a second.
Neither do I.
One minute, I was heading for a nasty fall—time slowing into sharp fragments of whirling sky and snow—and the next, Tex was there.
He caught me mid-fall, yanking me out of harm’s way and into him as if his body reacted with instinct and muscle memory.
Now, I’m sprawled on top of him, his body warm beneath mine, his arm locked around my waist. My hat is gone. My hair is everywhere. Snow clings to my jeans.
