Page 28 of Oops, I Fell For The Ranch Hand Next Door

One by one, the stars emerge, puncturing the darkening sky. I count them because counting is easier than deciding. Easier than acknowledging that I already know what I want and I’m just too terrified to reach for it.

Chapter ten

Eli

The dove’s wings won’t sit right.

I’ve been carving the same feather for twenty minutes, and my hands refuse to cooperate. The knife slips, gouges too deep, ruins the flow I’ve been building. It feels like forever since I walked away from Jessie’s cabin because staying would’ve meant watching her choose the hospital over me. I left wildflowers that died in the heat, leaving space that’s killing me to maintain.

Wood shavings scatter across the workbench. My knuckles are white where I grip the knife. The dove sits in front of me, one wing still rough where I gave up carving. I pick up the knife and force my hands steady. If she’s leaving, I need to finish this. Need to complete the hope before it shatters so I can remember what it looked like before it was gone.

Afternoon heat presses through the open door, carrying dust and the scent of dying wildflowers from the meadow beyond the tree line. One feather. Then another. The rhythm settles into my muscles: blade against wood, shavings falling, shape emerging from rough timber.

My shoulders lock at the sound of boots on gravel. I know those footsteps, lighter than mine, slightly uneven on the left side where she favors an old knee injury she’s never mentioned but I’ve cataloged anyway. Jessie. Here. In my workshop when she should be packing her car.

I set down the knife. The dove is finished now, with both wings spread, every feather detailed. The timing feels like a prophecy. Completed in the moment before she walked in to say goodbye.

I don’t turn around. I can’t. If I look at her and she’s come to say goodbye, I’m going to do the stupid thing and beg her to stay. So I keep my back to the door and wait for her to speak first.

“You finished it.” Her voice cracks on the words.

The dove. She’s looking at the dove. I force myself to turn, and the sight of her stops my lungs. It feels like a lifetime since I’ve seen her this close. She looks like she hasn’t slept. Dark circles sit beneath her eyes. Her hair is piled into a messy bun, and she’s wearing jeans and a T-shirt instead of my flannel. She’s holding her phone in one hand, Dr. Meekins’ contact pulled up on the screen.

She’s here to tell me she’s leaving.

“Had to finish it.” My voice comes out flat, stripped of inflection. “Couldn’t leave it half-done anymore.”

Recognition flickers across her face. She understands that I’m finishing things, completing the hope I was afraid to complete, preparing for her to walk away. She clears her throat and takes a few steps into the workshop.

“Eli—”

“Don’t.” The word stops her. I curl my hands into fists on the workbench, nails biting into my palms. If she apologizes, I’m going to lose what’s left of my control. “Don’t apologize. Don’t explain. I gave you space. I gave you time. Now I need you to give me an answer.”

She flinches like I’ve struck her. “I’m scared.”

“I know you are.” I close the distance in two strides because I can’t stand the space anymore. My hands come up to frame her face, palms cupping her jaw, thumbs stroking along her cheekbones. The contact sends relief flooding through my nervous system even as my mind prepares for the worst. “But I need to know what you’re choosing. Right now. No more waiting.”

“I’m terrified that if I stay, I’ll disappoint you. That you’ll wake up one day and realize I’m too much work. That choosing this life means throwing away a lifetime of building a career that mattered.”

My jaw clenches so hard a muscle jumps in my temple. “And if you go back? If you go back to the hospital that broke you, to the shifts that hollowed you out, to measuring your worth by how much you can give until there’s nothing left—what then?”

“Then at least I know who I am.” Her voice is small and scared. It cracks something open inside me. “At least I’m useful.”

The word sits heavy in my gut. Useful. She still thinks all she is is a collection of skills and service, valuable only when she’s giving until there’s nothing left.

“You want to know what I see when I look at you?” My grip on her face tightens, not painful but immovable. “I see a woman who gave everything she had for fifteen years. Who walked toward death every single shift and kept choosing to care anyway. Who burned herself to ashes keeping other people warm.”

Tears track down her face. I catch them with my thumbs, and the wetness against my skin makes my ribs ache. “I see a woman who’s never been taken care of the way she takes care of others. Who doesn’t know how to ask for what she needs because she’s never been allowed to have needs.”

I drop my forehead to hers, and the contact anchors us both. “You’re not too much. You’ve never been too much. You’ve been surrounded by people who couldn’t hold what you were giving. That’s not your fault. That’s theirs.”

She shatters. Her shoulders shake and her lungs seize. I pull her against me without hesitation. My arms band around her, one across her shoulders, one around her waist, and she buries her face in my shirt and falls apart. The sound of her crying tears through me, but I hold her through it. Hold her the way no one else has. I hold her until the sobs slow and her ribs stop heaving and she’s just standing in my arms, letting herself be held.

“I love you.” The words come out rough, scraped raw. “I know it’s fast. I don’t care. I loved you the moment I found you in that meadow, and I’ve loved you more every day since. I’m not going anywhere. Not today. Not next month. Not when things get hard or when you’re struggling or when you need space to figure out who you are without the hospital.”

I pull back just enough to see her face. She’s looking at me like I’ve said an impossible thing. Like love without conditions is a language she’s never learned to speak.

“I showed up for you when you were two breaths from shattering. I’ll keep showing up every day for the rest of my life if you let me. But you need to choose this. Choose me. Choose the life we’re building instead of the identity that destroyed you.”