Page 21 of Oops I Fell For The Cowboy Next Door

"I'm not Rachel."

"I didn't say you were."

"You didn't have to. You're standing there deciding I'm going to leave before I've even thought about leaving. You're building the ending before the story's half started."

"Stories on a year lease have built-in endings."

"God, you're frustrating." The anger rises hot, sudden. "I moved to Montana to stop being invisible. To stop being with someone who decided who I was without ever asking me. And now you're doing the same thing. You've already decided I'm temporary."

Something cracks across his face. He opens his mouth. Closes it.

"I gave everything to this ranch." His voice is rough. Stripped. "My twenties, my social life, my one relationship. The only woman I ever let close walked out because she couldn't handle what this life costs. And now you're standing in my kitchen telling me the land you're on might sell out from under both of us, and you want me to act like it doesn't matter?"

"I want you to act like I matter more than the land."

Silence. Hard, awful silence.

He doesn't answer. His jaw works. His hands grip the counter behind him. The space heater sits on the table between us, still in its box, a gift from a man who noticed I was cold but can't tell me he's scared.

"I'm gonna go home." My voice shakes. I hate that it shakes. "I think we both need to think."

"Piper."

"Don't." I hold up my hand. "You just told me there's nothing tying me here. You looked me in the eye and said that. So let me go home and figure out if that's what you actually believe, or if you're just pushing me away because that's easier than admitting you're terrified."

I walk out. Down his porch steps, across the yard, through the gap in the fence. The walk back to my cabin takes three minutes, and every step feels like wading through concrete.

Inside, I close the door. Lean against it. Press both palms over my eyes.

The space heater comment. The coffee with milk. The fire every morning. The firewood before dawn. The step he built in the dark. Every single thing that man has done since I got here has been an act of love he refuses to name.

And when the first real threat showed up, he defaulted to the only response he knows. Push away before you get pushed. Leave before you get left.

My phone buzzes.

Mom:

How's my mountain girl?

I don't answer. I slide down the door, sit on the floor with my knees pulled to my chest, and cry. Not the pretty kind. The messy, gasping kind that comes from caring about someone who can't get out of his own way long enough to let himself be cared for.

The cabin is cold. The fire's dead. The space heater is sitting on Tate's kitchen table, still in its box, because I walked out before he could give it to me.

Outside, the sun drops behind the mountains. The stars start showing, one by one. I don't go out to the porch tonight.

I don't look at his porch light.

I'm not sure I could handle seeing whether it's on or off.

CHAPTER EIGHT

TATE

Idon't sleep.

The space heater sits on my kitchen table. Still in the box. Her cabin is dark. Has been since she walked out four hours ago. No porch light. No kitchen window glow. Nothing.

I did that.