Page 16 of Oops I Fell For The Rancher Next Door

Silence. Griffin's good at silence. It's what makes him a decent sheriff. He lets people talk themselves into the truth.

"She pushed me away," I say. "And she had good reasons. Her ex is threatening the property. Lawyer stuff. She's scared and she took it out on me."

"That's not the part that's bothering you."

"No."

"What'd she say?"

The words come out flat. "That I only show up because fixing things makes me feel needed. That she's just the closest broken thing."

Griffin doesn't respond for a long beat. "Is she right?"

"No."

"You sure about that? Because I've watched you pour five years into that property the same way some men pour themselves into a bottle. You fix fence because you don't know how to sit still. And sitting still is where the feelings live."

I stare at the tree line. My brother is an idiot sometimes, but right now he's not wrong about a single word.

"She's not a fence, Cade. You can't show up with wire cutters and make this right. You're gonna have to use actual words."

"I know."

"Do you? Because in thirty-four years I've never heard you string together more than six at a time about anything that matters."

"Seven," I say. "I told her goodnight and used her name."

He laughs. Once, short, then goes quiet. "Go talk to her. Not with your hands. With your mouth. Tell her what she is to you. And for God's sake, don't bring tools."

The truck keys sit on the kitchen counter. Next to them, the bandana. The blue one I gave her the first day. She left it on my nightstand last week, folded into a neat square, smelling like her shampoo.

I don't bring tools. I don't bring firewood. I don't bring a board or a gasket or a plan.

I bring myself. The part of me that's bad at words and worse at feelings and has spent five years talking to cattle because they don't require explanations.

Her cabin at four. The porch step holds. I knock.

She opens the door. Red-rimmed eyes. Messy hair. One of my flannels over her t-shirt. She looks wrecked and beautiful and terrified, and every sentence I practiced in the truck disappears.

"I'm not here to fix anything."

Her mouth opens.

"Let me talk. Please."

She nods. Steps back. I stand on her porch because this isn't a conversation for inside. This is a conversation for the open air where there's nowhere to hide.

"I've spent my whole life being useful. You're right about that. Fixing things is how I show people I care because I've never been good at saying it. My brother just told me I've never strung together more than six words about anything that matters. He's right."

Shelby wraps her arms around herself. The flannel tightens across her chest.

"But you're not a thing I'm fixing. You are the first person in five years who made this mountain feel less empty. You made me coffee that tasted like punishment and I drank it because you were standing across from me in my kitchen and I didn't want the morning to end."

Her chin trembles.

"You're not broken. You're not a project. And you're not the closest anything to my property line. You're the only reason I look past it."

Her breath hitches.