“He’s drunk,” I snap. She blinks back at me. “You’re drunk. That’s stupid, Teagan. Fucking reckless.”
She flinches slightly, and guilt flickers beneath my anger, but it doesn’t stop the words.
“People die like that.”
Rosie died like that.
She doesn’t argue or defend herself. She sits in silence as I berate her foolish decision, not stopping until we are past the outskirts of town.
“Are you even listening?” I huff, turning to face her and finding she has fallen asleep.
I let out a heavy sigh and ease the Bronco around a bend in the road. Her back slides across the seat, and her head settles against my shoulder, the contact stealing the breath from my lungs.
Rosie used to sleep on me like this.
My hands tighten around the wheel as I stare ahead, my vision blurring at the edges.
By the time we reach the ranch, my fury has faded. It has been replaced by something much softer. I park, killing the engine.
“Teagan,” I whisper, but she doesn’t stir. I step out and walk around to her side, opening the door. She rouses enough to try to stand, her body not cooperating, though. “Easy.” I catch her reflexively, and her weight settles comfortably in my arms and against my chest. She mumbles something unintelligible as I carry her to the main house.
Once inside, I carry her up the stairs. “Which room is yours?” I ask quietly, desperately hoping not to wake James or Knox. She gestures vaguely down the hall, and I’m relieved when I guess the right door.
Her bed is unmade, the sheets still tangled from how she left them this morning. I lower her onto the mattress slowly, before kneeling to pull off her boots. After covering her with blankets, I stare down at her. Before I even realize what I’m doing, I bend over, dust my lips against her forehead, and whisper, “Good night, wildfire.”
Her fingers curl in my shirt, holding me inches above her when I try to stand. “If you don’t like me,” she mumbles, barely able to hold her eyes open, “why do you look at me like that?”
My chest tightens because she’s right.I do look at her like that.
“I do like you,” I confess, certain she won’t remember it come morning. “And I don’t know how not to look at you. You’re beautiful in the way a wildfire is—dangerous, mesmerizing, and impossible to ignore. When you walk into a room, I’m drawn to you, like oxygen being consumed by a fire. You ignite things in me I thought had long since sputtered out.”
I shake my head before continuing, “You burn wild with no regard for the wreckage you might leave behind, because you refuse to live small or to curb your light. You’re destruction, clearing away the parts of me that are dead and brittle, forcing me to make room for something new to take root.”
Her eyes open wide, and there’s a moment of clarity in them. I swallow hard as she stares up at me.
“I know that once I’ve stood in your glow—and felt the heat of your singe across my skin—I won’t be able to go back being numb and empty.”
She pulls me down to her, and my lips hover a hair from hers, close enough to feel her breath wafting across my face when she exhales.
“Loving you would not be gentle.” I close my eyes, and my lips dust against hers. But the electric spark I’m expecting feels a lot more like guilt and betrayal. “I’m sorry… I can’t.”
I force myself to leave before I forget why I have to, grateful this will be nothing but a blur for her come morning.
The silence feels different when you’re the one holding it. It’s heavier, sitting behind my teeth like something sharp I could spit out if I wanted to. But I don’t. Ican’t.
Ever since that night at The Dew Drop and that almost-kiss. Most of that night is a complete blur, except for the moment his mouth hovered over mine, and he breathed me in like he was already drowning in me. I haven’t known how to look at him, let alone how to exist in the same space without that split second of his jaw clenching, like wanting me hurt, replaying in my thoughts over and over again.
I can’t.
This push and pull between us, having gone too far, those two words have lodged under my skin.
So now I give him nothing.
If he wants distance, I will build it higher than he ever could. Gone are the days of easy smiles, teasing remarks,and dusting against each other in the barn. He can have the same treatment as any other ranch hand passing through.
The morning starts like any other—mud clinging to the hem of my jeans, calves bawling for feed, the air still cold enough to bite the inside of my nose. Early spring in Montana is a liar. Warm one day and cold the next, it pretends softness and then reminds you that winter isn’t done yet.
I keep my head down through chores as Knox tries to rope me into an argument about whether we should go to Odessa or Tulsa for our first event of the season. Easton is across the yard, stacking feed sacks into the back of the flatbed. I can feel him there without looking, and right now I appreciate the distance.
