Page 30 of Oops, I Fell For The Ranch Hand Next Door

“You chose me.” I let her witness everything: the hunger, the need, the possessive certainty that she’s mine now and I’m keeping her. “You chose this. Now let me choose you back.”

She nods, unable to speak past the want closing her throat. I step back, putting space between us that spans miles. Every muscle locks down with the effort of not pulling her back.

“Go pack a bag. Bring enough for the weekend. Once I get you in my bed, I’m not letting you leave until Monday morning.”

Her eyes widen. “What about my shift tomorrow?”

“I’ll clear it with Sloane while you’re packing.” Satisfaction coils in my gut. “You’re mine until Monday morning. No interruptions. No doubts. Just you and me figuring out what forever looks like.”

Forever. The word settles between us. Instead of fear, I witness acceptance move across her face.

“Okay.” Her voice is steady now. “I’ll be there at sunset.”

“I'll be waiting.” I close her fingers tighter around the bird where she's already got it pressed to her sternum. “Take this with you. Put it somewhere you’ll see it every day. So you remember what hope looks like.”

She grips the carving against her sternum and turns toward the door, making it three steps before I call her name.

“Jessie?”

She glances back over her shoulder.

“I’m proud of you for choosing yourself. For being brave enough to stop running. For trusting that you might deserve happiness just as you are.”

Her throat works on a swallow. “Thank you,” she says. She nods and walks out of my workshop carrying the dove and the comfortable knowledge that she just chose me.

The door swings shut. I sink onto the workbench stool and drop my head into my palms. She’s staying. She chose me.

My phone buzzes a few minutes later with a text from Rev: Saw Jessie walking to Bluebonnet with a carved dove and a smile. You do good work, son.

I type back: She’s staying.

His response is immediate: I know. Whole ranch knows. Louanne’s already planning a celebration dinner when you say the word.

I stand and clean up the workshop, sweeping wood shavings into the bin and organizing tools. She’s coming to my cabin at sunset. I have three hours to prepare.

I lock the workshop and head to my cabin. Inside, I strip the bed and remake it with clean sheets. Open the windows to let in the evening breeze. Start a fire in the stone fireplace because of how beautiful she looked in the firelight the first night. In the kitchen, I pull out ingredients for pasta with the sauce Louanne taught me and Italian sausage, garlic bread, and salad with vegetables from Sloane’s greenhouse.

The sun angles toward the horizon. I shower and change into clean jeans and a Henley she’s never seen.

The sun drops behind the ridge and the meadow goes gold all the way to the tree line. I stand in the open doorway with a dish towel over my shoulder, watching the place where the path disappears into the forest. Sauce simmers low on the back burner and the garlic bread waits wrapped in foil. The fire I wanted didn't need throws heat into a room that's already warm. Four years I've lived in this cabin, and tonight is the first time it's felt like it was built for two people.

I check the clock above the stove. My hands want something to hold, so I wipe down a counter that's already clean, fold the quilt over the arm of the couch, and set the second plate square against the table edge. Cedar smoke has worked its way into everything, my shirt, my hair, the clean sheets I stretched over the mattress an hour ago.

She'll come. She blocked that number with her own thumb while I watched, and I know what it cost her to do it standing in front of me. Still, my pulse goes hard in my throat like a man waiting on weather, because wanting something this much has never once made it mine.

Somewhere down that path she's walking toward me, and every step is a choice she could unmake and doesn't. I pour two glasses of water and hang the towel on the oven handle. The light goes from gold to rose to nothing much at all, and I stay in the doorway watching the break in the cedars, waiting for my woman to come home.

Chapter eleven

Jessie

My palm aches from gripping the dove too tightly.

I stand where the gravel gives way to wildflower with my duffel strap cutting into my shoulder and the carved bird's wings biting crescents into my palm. His blue flannel hangs loose over my tank top, sleeves shoved past my elbows, and it still smells like cedar shavings and the soap he uses. The path winds through cedar toward Eli’s cabin, and I’m choosing this. Choosing him. Choosing to walk toward the man who told me I was enough instead of running back toward the woman I used to be.

My pulse kicks, but it’s not panic, just the body’s acknowledgment that everything’s about to change.

I start walking. Wildflowers brush my jeans with every step, releasing their scent into evening air gone thick with the promise of rain. The path is worn smooth from four years of Eli’s boots, from the daily rhythm of a place that’s learned to exist without emergency. With every step, my lungs expand easier, like my ribs are remembering they’re allowed to take up space.