Page 20 of Oops I Fell For The Cowboy Next Door

"Maggie's great. She says you smiled in public and the whole town is talking about it."

"Maggie talks too much." But his mouth twitches. "Come inside. I got something for you."

On his kitchen table, there's a bag from a hardware store in Billings. Inside: a space heater, compact, efficient, still in the box.

"For your bedroom," he says. "Insulation's bad on the north wall. This'll keep it warm until I can get in there and fix it properly."

A space heater. He drove to Billings for veterinary supplies and came back with a space heater for my bedroom because he noticed I get cold at night.

My throat aches. The email burns in my pocket.

"Tate. I need to tell you something."

His body changes. Subtle, immediate. The ease drops out of his shoulders. His jaw sets. Twelve years of people leaving have taught him to read the preamble to bad news the way he reads weather coming over the ridge.

"My landlord emailed me today. He's gotten an offer from a development group. They want to buy the cabin and the land."

Silence. He goes very still. The kind of still that isn't calm. The kind that's pressure building behind a dam.

"When?"

"Nothing's decided. He said he'd keep me posted."

"Development group." He says it flat. "What does that mean?"

"I don't know. Could be anything. Vacation rentals, maybe. Or just someone looking for property."

"Or someone who fences off the creek and puts up a lodge."

"Maybe. I don't know."

He turns away from me. Walks to the window. Both hands on the counter, arms braced, head down. I can see the tension in his back, every muscle locked.

"Your lease transfers to the new owner."

"That's what Greg said."

"For one year."

The words land. One year. My lease. The thing that was always temporary, that he's never mentioned, that has been sitting quietly between us since the day I arrived.

"Tate."

"One year." He says it again. To the window. Not to me. "Then what?"

"Then I renew. Or I work something out with whoever owns the property. I'm not going anywhere."

He turns. The expression on his face guts me. It's not anger. It's something older, deeper. Fear, dressed up in a scowl.

"You've been here three weeks, Piper. You signed a lease, not a mortgage. You don't own that cabin. You don't own that land. And when this development group comes in and changes the terms or doubles the rent or decides they want the property empty, you'll be gone. Because there's nothing tying you here."

The words land like stones. Each one precise, each one aimed at something he's been protecting long before I arrived.

"Nothing tying me here?" My voice comes out quiet. Dangerous quiet. "What about you?"

"I'm not enough to keep someone in a place they don't own. I've learned that."

Rachel. The woman who left because the silence wasn't romantic when the pipes froze. He's looking at me but seeing her. Seeing every person who's ever found this land beautiful in September and unbearable by February.