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Boone touched her wrist.

“Other one’s lighter.”

“I can carry this.”

“Know you can.”

She looked at him for a second.

Then she let go.

He lifted the full bucket. She took the smaller one waiting beside the fence, and they went through the gate together. He held it with his boot until she cleared the post. She said something too low for me to catch.

His face changed.

Not much. Boone didn’t have much public face to spare. But the line beside his mouth eased, and his head bent toward hers.

I looked down at the wrench.

There wasn’t a single thing there I begrudged him. Not the woman, not the happiness, not the way the ranch had finally stopped feeling like a place he had to apologize for occupying.

I’d wanted this for him.

I still wanted it.

Which made the pinch behind my ribs feel meaner than it was.

I didn’t want his life.

I wanted to carry a bucket without somebody feeling the need to explain why they could have carried it themselves.

I wanted someone to look at me the way Josie had looked at him: briefly, easily, without checking the ground first.

Boone glanced back.

“You need something?”

There it was. My chance.

I could have said that I’d kissed the woman living in my spare room and she hadn’t come within reaching distance since. I could have asked whether a man got to be proud of feeding somebody a sandwich when he’d also scared her off.

Instead, I lifted the wrench.

“Returning family silver.”

He looked at me another second.

Then he nodded toward the barn.

“Top drawer.”

Josie set her bucket down beside the trough. Boone put his down next to hers.

I went to put the wrench away.

Nobody on the ranch knew what had happened.

I’d arranged that myself, and then spent two days resenting how alone it left me.