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Mine involved cattle, mud, and occasionally explaining to my brothers why we needed to buy another piece of expensive equipment.

She liked schedules. I liked surprises. She believed in risk assessments. I believed in figuring out how bad an idea was after trying it. She had a five-year plan. I barely had a five-minute plan.

On paper, we were a disaster.

A glorious, catastrophic, completely incompatible disaster.

And none of that mattered. Because I knew how she took her coffee. I knew she pretended not to like country music but sang along when she thought nobody was listening. I knew she slept curled on her side, one hand tucked beneath her cheek. I knew she could be sharp-tongued and stubborn and bossy as hell. And I loved every single maddening inch of her.

I loved her laugh. I loved her brain. I loved the way she challenged me. I loved that she didn't need me to save her. But sometimes, when she let herself lean on me, even just a little, it felt like she'd handed me something more valuable than anything I'd ever owned.

Her trust.

And I wanted to spend the rest of my life proving I deserved it.

I suddenly pictured our future.

Mikayla in my kitchen, barefoot, stealing bacon off my plate. Mikayla sitting on the porch, her laptop balanced on her knees, telling me all the reasons my latest idea was financially irresponsible. Mikayla laughing so hard she couldn't catch her breath.

Mikayla in my bed. Not for a night. Not for a weekend. Every night.

I pictured Christmas mornings. Road trips. Arguments about which direction the toilet paper should hang. I pictured her getting older. Gray hair. Laugh lines. The same stubborn tilt of her chin when she knew she was right.

And I wanted to be there for every second of it.

Fuck.

I'd gone from avoiding “labels” to mentally picking out matching rocking chairs. Someone needed to check me for a concussion. Because the most unsettling part wasn't that I could picture forever with Mikayla. It was that I wanted it. Badly.

I wanted to marry her. Have kids with her. Grow old with her. I wanted a lifetime of making her laugh when she was trying not to. A lifetime of arguing with her just because I loved watching her eyes flash. A lifetime of kissing that stubborn mouth until she forgot whatever point she'd been trying to make.

I wanted to know everything about her. And I wanted her to know everything about me. Even the parts I usually kept hidden behind a joke. Especially those.

I looked at her again. She was watching her cousin exchange rings, her expression soft and hopeful. And the truth landed with absolute, terrifying clarity. I loved her. Not, I could fall for her, or I might be developing feelings. I was already there. Completely. Hopelessly. In love with Mikayla Parsons.

And even though we’d been intimate, I knew she didn’t take me seriously. She thought I was just being Damon. Charming. Shameless. The guy who could flirt with a fence post and convince it to give him its number.

And why wouldn't she?

I'd spent my entire adult life making sure no woman expected anything serious from me. I'd turned emotional unavailability into a personality trait. I practically had business cards.

Damon Lockhart. Good Times. Zero Commitments.

And now I wanted to stand in front of Mikayla and tell her I'd changed my mind. That I wanted everything. That I wanted her. She'd probably laugh.

Or worse, she'd give me that sympathetic look she reserved for people who clearly didn't understand the situation. Then she'd remind me that our arrangement ended tomorrow.

Tomorrow.

Twenty-four hours until she went back to her billion-dollar empire and I went back to pretending I wasn't completely wrecked by a woman who color-coded her closet.

The thought made my stomach turn. Because I could handle a lot of things. Bucking horses. Broken fences. My brothers being idiots.

But watching Mikayla walk away? Knowing she might find someone else? Some polished, successful guy in an expensive suit who understood her world and didn't have to scrape cow shit off his boots before dinner?

Fuck. No. Absolutely not.

The guests burst into applause. I blinked. Apparently, the bride and groom had kissed. I'd basically missed the wedding because I'd been too busy having a romantic existential crisis.