That got me. I had to look away.
For a long time, I stared at the ceiling and tried to find a crack in it. But the plaster was perfect, unbroken. I could hear Burke’s breathing, slow and steady, a metronome in the quiet.
“Is it always this quiet here?” I asked.
He smiled, small and sad. “Sometimes. Unless Jojo’s baking, or the horses decide to put on a show.” He shifted, clearing his throat. “If you want noise, I can turn on the radio. Or I can just talk until you get tired of my voice.”
“I don’t think I could ever get tired of your voice,” I said, surprising both of us. The words slipped out, soft and unguarded.
He didn’t laugh. Instead, he leaned forward, elbows on knees, and looked at me with a kind of naked honesty I’d neverseen on an alpha. “You can stay as long as you want,” he said. “No expectations. No payment required. We’ve got the room.”
I wanted to say yes. God, I wanted it so much my teeth ached. But there was a clock in my head, ticking down to when Dennis would come looking. When the universe would remember it had made a mistake and correct for it.
I tried to smile, but it cracked at the edges. “For how long?”
He got up, paced to the window, and stared outside for a second before turning back. “For as long as it takes. Or until you get sick of ranch life and decide to run away with the circus. I hear they’re always hiring tech support.”
I let out a noise that was half a laugh, half a sob. “I’d be the world’s worst clown.”
He crossed back to the bed and crouched beside it, bringing his face level with mine. “You’d be the best damn clown,” he said. “Because you wouldn’t have to pretend.”
There was nothing left in me to argue. Nothing left to fight with. I let the words settle into the cracks of my brain, and for the first time since I could remember, I let myself believe, just a little, that it might be true.
Burke stood, stretching his arms overhead, and the light caught the line of his jaw, the shadow of stubble there. He looked tired. But also—if I was seeing it right—happy, in a low-battery kind of way.
“I’ll let you rest,” he said, voice soft. “If you need anything, just yell. Or, you know, text. Jojo fixed your phone.”
He started to leave, but I reached out, caught his sleeve with my good hand. He turned, and I felt the world tilt on its axis.
“Don’t go far,” I said.
He grinned, wide and wild, all the exhaustion burning away in that one flash of green. “Wasn’t planning on it,” he said.
He left the door open behind him.
And for the first time, I didn’t mind the sunlight at all.
* * * *
I woke the next morning—or maybe afternoon, time meant nothing now—to the gentle hush of eggs frying in a distant pan. My head felt clearer, the way a mud puddle does after a hard rain. The light outside was different: brighter, less like a surgical lamp and more like the world was daring me to look up.
There was a new glass of water on the nightstand, condensation fogging its sides. I drank, careful of my split lip, and tested the rest of my body. Everything still hurt, but the pain was blunt now, dulled by time or Tylenol or both.
A voice floated down the hallway, arguing with itself about the proper toast-to-butter ratio.
I managed to swing my legs over the side of the bed, which was a mistake. Agony flared in my ribs, like someone was trying to play them as a xylophone with rebar. I bit down a gasp and clutched the blanket, waiting for the world to steady.
The door creaked, and Burke’s head appeared, grinning and sheepish at the same time. “Sorry. I know it smells like burned calories, but it’s technically food.”
He set a tray on the foot of the bed and backed away, as if he expected me to swat at him.
The tray was a masterpiece of apology: scrambled eggs, two slices of toast, a banana sliced with surgeon-like precision. There was even a tiny bottle of hot sauce.
“You don’t have to eat it,” Burke said. “But Jojo will literally have an aneurysm if you don’t at least pretend.”
I picked up the fork and poked at the eggs. “I’m not sure my digestive system has rebooted yet.”
“Try anyway. You gotta keep up your strength for…” He trailed off, pretending not to remember why I was laid up in the first place.
