Page 11 of Oops, I Fell For The Ranch Hand Next Door

Her eyes go bright. She blinks hard, looking away.

“Thank you for telling me about the fire,” she whispers.

“You could tell me your version. Not the one you think I want to hear. The real one.”

She considers this. Walks back to the shelf and picks up the dove again, turning it over in her hands like she’s searching for answers in the unfinished wood. “I walked out of Mercy General on a Tuesday night. Middle of my shift. There was a nineteen-year-old overdose. I did CPR for forty-seven minutes even though he was gone at twelve. His mother was screaming, and I couldn’t stop. Couldn’t make my hands stop moving even when someone pulled me off.” She sets the dove down. “I went to the locker room. Got my keys. Drove away. Didn’t tell anyone I was leaving. Didn’t finish my paperwork. Just ran.”

“You survived,” I say. “Not the same as running.”

“Doesn’t feel like survival. Feels like failure.”

“Same thing, sometimes.” I push off the workbench and close the distance between us. Not touching but close enough that she has to tilt her head back to meet my eyes. “You gave everything to others you had for fifteen years. Wore yourself down to nothing to keep other people alive. You were part of a system that didn’t take care of its own. That’s the failure. Not you.”

Her lips part but no words come out. She looks at me like I’ve said the thing no one has ever told her: You did enough. You gave enough. You are enough.

“I should let you work,” she says, but she doesn’t move.

“You’re not in the way.”

“I don’t want to—”

“Jessie.” Her name stops the spiral. “Stay.”

She stays.

I turn back to the workbench and pick up a piece of white oak I’ve been saving, smooth grain, no knots, ideal for detail work. I pull out my carving knife and test the sharp edge against my thumb. I start roughing in the basic shape while Jessie watches from her spot near the shelf.

“What are you making?” she asks.

“Don’t know yet. Won’t know until it’s done.”

She moves closer, leaning against the bench beside me, close enough for me to smell the body wash she used this morning, clean and simple, not floral. Her shoulder nearly brushes mine. “How do you know where to cut?”

“You follow the grain. Let the wood tell you what it wants to be.” I make another pass with the knife, shaving off a thin curl that falls to the bench. “Force it and you’ll split the whole piece. Listen, and you’ll find what’s already there.”

She’s quiet for a long moment, watching my hands. Then: “Is that a metaphor?”

“Maybe.” I glance at her. “You think you need to be forced into a shape that fits. You’re just tired of pretending to be a version of yourself you’re not.”

Her eyes go bright again. She looks away, blinking hard, and I keep carving. Give her space to feel whatever she’s feeling without having to perform it. The workshop fills with the rasp of blade against wood, shavings falling, morning sun slanting through the window.

“Can I try?” she asks.

I hand her the knife without hesitation. Show her how to hold it, how to angle the blade, how to let the grain guide her instead of fighting it. She makes her first cut, tentative, then bolder. By the fifth pass, she’s found the rhythm.

I pick up a chisel and another piece of wood, and we work in comfortable silence. Her shoulder presses against my arm, and neither of us moves away. Wood shavings accumulate on the bench between us. Outside, the ranch wakes up, horses nickering in the pasture, the distant sound of Cash’s truck starting, Louanne’s voice carrying from the lodge kitchen. In here, it’s just us and the wood and the quiet understanding that some things don’t need words.

Eventually she hands the knife back. “I should get to the lodge. Sloane said I’m helping with guest check-ins this afternoon.”

“Okay.” I don’t want her to leave. Want to keep her here in this space that’s always been mine and is somehow becoming ours. “Lunch is at noon. You coming?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“No.”

She smiles. Actually smiles, and it transforms her face, softening the lines around her eyes. Color blooms in her cheeks, making her look like someone who’s remembered how to exist instead of just survive. “Then I’ll be there.”

She turns to leave, three steps from the door when I call her name.