The moment my skin touches hers, everything changes.
The air between us becomes charged, electric, like the moment before lightning strikes. I can see in her eyes that she feels it too. Her lips part slightly, and she leans into my touch like she's been starving for gentleness, her eyes fluttering closed for just a moment before opening again, darker now, heated with want that matches my own.
"Lucy," I breathe her name like a prayer, rough and desperate and full of everything I've been trying not to feel.
"Beau," she whispers back, breathless and needy in a way that makes heat slam through me hard enough to steal what's left of my rational thought.
I step closer, close enough to count every freckle across her nose, my other hand finding her waist and feeling the warmth of her skin through the soft cotton of her sweater. She doesn't pull away.
Instead, she moves into me like we're two pieces of the same puzzle, her free hand coming up to rest against my chest, fingers splaying over my heartbeat like she's trying to memorize its rhythm.
"I've been thinking about you," I confess, my voice barely above a whisper in the hushed sanctuary of the barn. "Every damn day since I met you."
Her breath catches, sharp and sweet, and I can feel the rapid flutter of her pulse under my thumb as I trace the delicate line of her jaw. "Beau..."
"Tell me to stop," I murmur, leaning down until our foreheads almost touch, until I can feel her breath against my lips like a promise. "Tell me this is a bad idea and I'll walk away right now."
But she doesn't. Instead, she rises up on her toes, closing the distance between us by precious inches, her lips parting in invitation that makes my knees go weak.
I'm leaning down, drawn by gravity and something stronger,when—
"Boss! We got a situation with the north fence line! Looks like we've got missing stock!"
The voice crashes through the barn like a gunshot, shattering the moment into a thousand pieces. I freeze, my hand still cupping her face, our lips barely a breath apart. Lucy's eyes are wide, pupils blown with desire, and I can feel the rapid rise and fall of her chest against mine, matching the wild rhythm of my own heartbeat.
"Boss?" The voice is closer now, urgent with the kind of panic that means real trouble. "You in here?"
I drop my hand and step back like I've been burned, the spell broken as completely as if someone had doused us both with ice water. The loss of contact is immediate and devastating, like losing something I didn't know I needed until it was gone.
"I have to—" I start, my voice rough as gravel.
"Yeah," Lucy says quickly, her cheeks flushed pink, brushing nonexistent straw from her jeans with hands that aren't quite steady. "I should probably get back to the clinic anyway."
I want to say something that might bridge the chasm that's suddenly opened between us. Want to finish what we started, want to tell her that this moment meant everything to me.
But duty calls with the harsh voice of reality, and the ranch doesn't wait for anyone's convenience, not even mine.
I shove the feelings down the way I've done a hundred times before, bury them under the weight of responsibility and the Blackwell name, and make myself focus on what needs to be done.
"I'll have one of the hands drive you back to your van," I manage, though every word tastes like disappointment.
"Okay," she says, and there's hurt and resignation in her voice, making my chest tighten like a vise. Like she expected this, expected to be pushed aside when something more important came along.
I walk toward the barn door on legs that feel unsteady, my hand still tingling from the warmth of her skin, the scent of vanilla and spring flowers clinging to my clothes like a memory I'm not ready to let go of.
Behind me, I can hear Lucy talking softly to the calf, her voice gentle and sure, telling little Darcy that everything will be all right.
I wish someone could tell me the same thing.
Outside, my foreman Jake is waiting with his hat in his hands and worry etched deep in the lines around his eyes, ready to deliver news about cut fences and missing cattle that will require my immediate attention.
But all I can think about is the way Lucy looked at me in that moment before we were interrupted. Like I was something worth wanting, something worth the risk.
The way she made me remember what it feels like to want something more than duty and tradition and the carefullymaintained control that's been my entire life for the past two years.
And the way I just chose the ranch over her, exactly like every Blackwell man before me.
10
