Page 23 of Oops I Fell For The Cowboy Next Door

"The creek on that property feeds my east herd. I need to protect my water access."

Practical. True. Not the whole truth. Not even close.

"I'll need to think about your offer," Greg says. "Give me forty-eight hours."

"Take twenty-four."

I hang up. Look at my phone. Look at her cabin. Her kitchen light is on. She's awake. Probably didn't sleep either.

The next call is to Jace Callahan.

"Need a favor."

"Name it."

"You know anybody at the county surveyor's office?"

"My cousin Pete does boundary surveys. Why?"

"I need the original survey for the Mackey parcel. The real one. Not the one the fence is based on."

"How fast?"

"Today."

Jace doesn't ask why. He gives me Pete's number. Pete answers on the first ring because it's barely seven and surveyors keep rancher hours. He pulls the original plat from the county records, scans it, sends it to Jace's shop because I don't have email. Jace texts me a photo.

I stare at the screen.

The original 1987 boundary runs exactly where the current fence sits. Not fifteen feet east. Not where I've been claiming it runs for two weeks.

The fence is right. The creek is on her property. Has been since the plat was filed.

I've been wrong. About the fence line, about the property, about the woman on the other side of it. Wrong about all of it, in the specific way that men are wrong when they're too proud to admit they're scared.

My boots are on before I finish the thought. Jacket. Hat. The space heater under one arm and my phone in my back pocket.

The walk across the yard is the longest hundred yards of my life.

Her porch step is solid under my boots. The one I built. The one that started everything.

I knock.

Thirty seconds. A minute. The door opens.

She looks terrible. Beautiful and terrible. Red eyes, messy hair, my flannel still on, sleeves pushed up to her elbows. She's been crying. I can see the evidence on her cheeks, in the puffiness around those blue eyes that usually telegraph everything and right now are carefully guarding every thought.

"It's six-thirty in the morning," she says.

"I know."

"You're holding a space heater."

"I know that too." I set it down on the porch between us. "Can I come in?"

She stares at me for a long moment. Then she steps back, leaving the door open. I pick up the heater and walk into her kitchen. The fire is dead. The cabin is cold. One mug in the drying rack.

I set the heater down on the table. I pull out my phone. Open the photo Jace texted. Set it on the table between us.