“People can’t drive for shit,” Norah mumbled as we both exited her truck and made our way over to examine the damage more closely.
We made it over to the ditch just as Luke’s dually hauling the horse trailer rumbled up Tumbleweed Drive and turned into our driveway. The passenger side window rolled down, revealing Zane riding shotgun as Luke leaned over the console with a low whistle. “Guess your mail’s gonna be delivered into the ditch for a while.”
“Shut up, Luke,” Norah shot back, retrieving the bent mailbox from the ditch as Luke let out a low laugh.
I made eye contact with Zane right after he’d backhanded Luke across the shoulder, and the smile he gave me…gosh, Ididn’t know how to describe it. It was his normal, easygoing smile but there was something…moreto it.
“We’ll fix it,” he said, so reassuringly that it made my heart tug. I knew he was strictly talking about the mailbox, but for one, strange, overwhelming second, I read more into it.
I’d been broken in so many ways when I first stumbled into this little town—practically cracked down the middle and held together with nothing but fear and sheer stubbornness. And Zane? He had his own fractures. His own pieces that didn’t quite fit like they used to. But the past month with him had slowly become this…quiet miracle that I still couldn’t fully wrap my head around. Because somehow, without either of us meaning to, our broken edges had started to line up. Not perfectly. Not even neatly, but enough. Enough that something as simple as “we’ll fix it” felt less like a comment about a busted mailbox and more like an unspoken promise we were already living out—one small repair at a time.
“There y’all go again with those damn googly eyes,” Luke grumbled, earning another backhand to the shoulder from Zane and a strongly worded order to drive up to the house.
For the next hour, the four of us worked together, with Norah taking charge of directing where things went. Kitchen. Her bedroom. My bedroom. Bathroom. We had a whole system going where the two of us carried in the boxes from her truck and the guys unloaded the furniture off the horse trailer.
Luke pretended to drop Norah’s dresser twice, which he thought was hilarious. Norah? Not so much. I swear the two of them must’ve bickered throughout the entire move and didn’t say one nice thing to each other. But while their constant jabs and quick comebacks kept us all laughing and entertained as we carted things into the little cottage, it was the quieter moments with Zane I shamelessly sought out.
Each time he passed me, either bringing in a box or helping Luke angle some heavy piece of Norah’s furniture inside, he’d give me this…look. A soft, wry little smirk that was equal parts apology for his siblings andyou’re a part of this now.
And if I hadn’t already been madly in love with him, that look right there may have just done it for me.
A short while later, Luke and Norah were busy in her room in the back of the house, loudly disagreeing over the assembly of her bed, while Zane and I were in my room in the front of the house, sliding my new mattress onto my fully assembled bed frame.
What can I say? We made a good team.
“Which box has your sheets?” Zane asked, crossing my tiny new bedroom in three strides to open one of the two boxes that housed my entire life. He found them on the first try, opening the cardboard flaps and pulling out the neatly folded white sheets adorned with tiny purple rosebuds. The pattern mimicked the comforter in the guest room on the ranch, and I bought them because I wanted to keep a little piece of that with me. “What’s this?” he asked, holding the bundle of sheets in one hand while reaching back into the box and?—
“Thatis not for you,” I said, scurrying over the full-sized mattress that separated us to pull my journal out of his hand.
Zane smirked playfully and tossed the folded sheets to the mattress before clutching my journal to his chest. “Is this a book of your secrets?”
“You know my secrets,” I said with a laugh as my feet hit the floor and I lunged for my book. “But it has my private thoughts and stuff, and you’re not allowed to read them.”
“What kind of private thoughts?” he asked, wearing that same devilishly, playful smirk as he stretched his arm over his head—effectively keeping my journal out of my reach. “Private thoughts aboutme?” He waggled his eyebrows.
“You wish,” I teased with another laugh and jumped uselessly to try to reach my book.
Zane clutched his free hand over his heart and made a hurt sound. “You wound me, princess.” His stretched-out arm relaxed some then, and I snatched my journal from his hand, marching it over to my nightstand and closing it away in the top drawer. Seconds later, two large hands landed on my hips before Zane’s warm breath ghosted over the back of my neck. Goosebumps rippled down my spine. “Just so you know…” His lips pressed against my heated skin. “…I would never betray your privacy.”
“I know,” I murmured, and loved how I could say that andtrulymean it. Because Ididknow. I knew that this man wouldneverdo anything to intentionally hurt me or harm me in any way. Theknowingwas there in the way he looked at me, in the way he touched me, the way he held me. The way he kissed me and empowered me every single day to take back what I lost—what was stolen from me by a lesser man.
I slowly spun in his arms just as he took a step back and turned, making the backs of his legs hit the bed. He sat down on the bare mattress and pulled me with him. I straddled his hips and pinched the brim of his cowboy hat between my fingers, gently pushing it back some so I could meet his gaze. My heart tumbled over itself when his blue eyes, so full of adoration, met mine. I went warm all over. “You’re really special to me, you know,” I said, tracing my finger along the outer edge of his face.
The corner of his mouth lifted. “Yeah?”
I nodded, capturing my bottom lip between my teeth as my heart started to thump wildly in my chest. “Zane, I…” My eyes moved away from his, darting over his face as all of those feelings I wanted to put into words clogged my throat. “I…I want to…tell you something.”
That corner of his mouth lifted even higher as he looked at me expectantly. “Another secret?” he asked, voice low and teasing.
A laugh bubbled out of me, but it came out sounding more nervous than amused. “I’m not really sure it’s a secret,” I said, sounding out of breath as my heart brutally banged against my chest. “I think it’s…kind of obvious.”
His smile softened. So did his eyes. “I’d like to tell you something, too,” he murmured, cupping my jaw in his calloused hand.
I closed my eyes and leaned into the touch, like it was the most natural thing to do, before twisting and pressing a kiss to his palm. “Zane, I’ve…” I wet my bottom lip and swallowed hard. “I’ve fa?—”
“Please have clothes on!” Norah’s rushed voice sounded from just outside of my room seconds before she burst through the open door. “Oh, thank God,” she breathed, holding a hand over her heart before jabbing a thumb over her shoulder. “Mom’s looking for you.”
“What does she need me for?” Zane asked, grabbing my hips as I slid off of him—I was not about to stay straddling him like that in front of his sister—and pulling me back down onto his lap so my thighs draped across his.
