Page 109 of Wild Sanctuary

“Nothin’.” He puts the truck in gear. “You still close a gate the same way. One hand on the post, swing it with your hip.”

“Dad taught me that.”

“I know.” I can hear the wry note in his voice. “I taught him.”

The smallest laugh escapes me before I can catch it, and Wyatt’s eyes soften in a way that undoes something in my chest.

“Liar. Dad was closing gates before you were born.”

“He was closin’ them wrong before I was born.”

I laugh again, and his mouth curves just enough for me to catch a glimpse of who he might be if he ever let himself stop carrying the world.

He parks beside the barn instead of pulling up to the house. Then he kills the engine, but neither of us moves.

The cab is quiet. Afternoon light cuts through the windshield and catches the dust particles drifting between us, and I’m suddenly very aware of how small this truck is. How close his hand is to my knee on the console. How the scent of him, cedar and leather and his skin, has been wrapping around me for the last hour and I’ve only just let myself notice.

“We should go in.” He doesn’t move.

“We should.” I don’t move either.

He’s looking at the barn. While I’m looking at his forearms, remembering the way they tensed last night on the porch when he held my face, but how they didn’t waver at all when he cleared the cabin with a flashlight and a set jaw.

“Daisy.”

“Yeah.”

“You’re starin’.”

“I know.”

He turns his head, and we’re close. Closer than I realized. The console is the only thing between us, and it’s not enough. His eyes drop to my mouth for half a second and then drag back up with visible effort, and the air in the cab goes thick.

“This morning I said this can’t happen again.” His voice is low and rough, and he’s not looking away. “I meant it when I said it.”

“And now?”

His hand lifts from his thigh and his fingers find the strand of hair that’s fallen across my jaw. He tucks it back slowly, the pad of his thumb grazing my cheekbone on the way. The touch is so careful it makes my breath hitch.

“Now I’m sitting in my own truck tryin’ my damnedest to remember a single one of my reasons.”

My pulse is hammering. His hand is still on my face, his thumb tracing a line just below my ear, and I can feel the heat of him across the console, close enough to taste.

“Maybe they weren’t very good reasons,” I whisper.

“They were excellent reasons.” His thumb stops moving but doesn’t pull away. “I had a whole list.”

“Tell me one.”

“Can’t think of any, Daisy-girl.”

I lean into his palm. His breath catches, and I watch his control fracture in real time, the careful steadiness giving way to something raw and hungry that makes my stomach swirl with anticipation.

He leans in, and I meet him halfway. His mouth is a breath from mine, so close I can feel the warmth of it, and his hand slides from my jaw to the back of my neck and⁠—

A truck horn blares from the driveway loud enough to shatter the moment clean in half.

We spring apart, Wyatt’s hand flying back on the steering wheel so fast it’s like it was never anywhere else. Through the windshield, I see Colt’s truck pulling up to the barn, one arm hanging out the window, palm still on the horn.