"Okay?"
"Two weeks." She looks up at me with an expression so raw it aches, her eyes caught in the precarious, vibrating space between fear and surrender. "But if this falls apart—"
"It won't."
"You can't promise that."
"Watch me."
I kiss her again, gentler this time. A seal. A promise. Then I step back and tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear, lettingmy fingers trail down the side of her neck. She leans into the touch before catching herself, and the small surrender makes something fierce rise in my chest.
"Come on," I say quietly. "Let's watch the sunrise."
On the crest of the ridge, we watch the morning light claim the valley floor, turning the jagged terrain into a soft tapestry of emerald and amber. The same view from seventeen years ago. The same woman. But everything's different now.
I'm not letting her go.
The morning heats up around us, but the real fever is in the charged, heavy silence that anchors us to the trail. She's looser in the saddle now, moving with Fancy instead of against her, but I catch the way her thighs grip when we hit rough terrain. The way she's aware of me watching her. The way her gaze keeps sliding to me when she thinks I'm not looking.
She carries a new sharpness now, a brittle kind of tired that shows in the way she holds her shoulders. Yet looking at her, I see through the armor. I see the woman who once delayed her entire life for days just to stay on the ranch with me. I remember her passed out in her mud-caked boots that last night, the sheer exhaustion of loving me written in the slump of her frame.
When we reach the barn, I dismount first and hold up my hand to help her down. She slides off, and my hands stay on her waist a beat too long. She doesn't pull away, just looks at me with those wide eyes. I see the exact moment she realizes we’ve crossed the line.
Then she steps back, wrapping her arms around herself again. "This is crazy."
"Probably."
"I don't even know what I'm doing here."
"Yes, you do." I don't chase her. Just stand there and wait. "I'm not going anywhere, Sloane."
Her eyes collide with mine, scouring my face for even the smallest hint of a lie she can use as a shield. She won’t find a single crack in the truth because I’m laid bare before her, and I’ve never meant anything more in my life.
"Go see Lucinda and she’ll get you set up for the rest of the day. I’ll see you back here tomorrow at six a.m.," I tell her. "Don't be late."
"What if I am?"
I smile. Slow and dangerous. "Then I'll come get you."
Watching her walk back toward the cabins, I'm already counting the hours until tomorrow morning.
Two weeks.
It's going to be enough.
It has to be.
Chapter three
Sloane
Ispend the day in a fog that has nothing to do with the Texas heat and everything to do with the way Cash kissed me on that ridge. The way his hands felt on my waist. The way he saideverythinglike it was a vow instead of a word.
Lucinda assigns me to fence repair after breakfast because I tell her I need to do something with my hands. The retreat offers all the standard wellness programs like yoga, nutrition, and mindful meditation. However, I’m bombarded with so much of that in my life at home that I can’t sit through another seminar on how to center my mind. I told her I needed to immerse myself in things I can’t recreate in the city. Working with my hands is the polar opposite of yoga and something I never get to do at home.
Cash is already there when I arrive, stretching wire between posts with easy competence, sweat darkening the back of his shirt. He doesn't look up when I approach, but his shoulders tense. He knows I'm here.
"Hand me those pliers," he says.
