Page 3 of Oops I Fell For The Rancher Next Door

He holds my gaze. No irritation. No pity. Just patience that makes my teeth clench for reasons I refuse to examine.

"Hardware store on Main opens at seven. Ask for a generator gasket and starter cord." He reaches into his back pocket, pulls out a bandana that's been folded into a square, and holds it out. "For your hand."

"I don't need your bandana."

"It's bleeding on your shirt."

I look down. He's right. A smear of red across the hem of my white Henley.

Before I can respond, he sets the bandana on the edge of the generator, turns, and walks back toward the horse. Steps into the stirrup, swings up, settles into the saddle with the ease of someone who's done it ten thousand times.

"Power company's number is on the breaker box inside the back door," he says, not turning around. "They'll send someone tomorrow if you call before five."

He clicks his tongue. The horse turns. And Cade Holloway rides back across my property line like he's got all the time in the world and none of it is wasted on people who don't want help.

I watch him go. The horse picks its way through the brush along the fence, and he disappears into the tree line without looking back.

The bandana sits on the generator. Dark blue. Clean. Smells like hay and something warm.

I wrap it around my knuckle.

Just until the bleeding stops. Then I'm giving it back.

Chapter Two

CADE

Four thirty comes the same way it always does. Dark outside, coffee on the stove, boots by the door. The cattle don't care what day it is. Neither does the fence that came down in the southeast corner overnight.

Buck is saddled by the time the sky turns gray. Good horse. Doesn't need conversation. We ride the east line first because the heifers drift that direction when the temperature drops, and it dropped hard last night. First real frost of the season.

The herd is where they should be. Forty head of Angus, all accounted for. The old bull standing at the edge looking annoyed about the cold, which is his default expression about everything.

Southeast corner takes twenty minutes. Three posts leaning, wire snapped in two places, elk tracks confirming what I already knew. Pull the wire. Cut. Splice. Twist. Set the clip. Done.

By the time I'm heading back, the sun is clearing the ridge.

My eyes go to the cabin across the fence line before I can stop them.

Smoke from the chimney. Thin, uneven. She got the fireplace going. Must've found dry wood somewhere, maybe the stack under the eaves on the south side that the previous owner left. It's seasoned enough to catch, barely. Won't last more than a day or two.

Yesterday sits in my chest. Small. Annoying. Impossible to ignore.

Shelby Reeves. Dark hair in a knot, clothes wrong for the altitude, city boots that'll be ruined by the first rain. Sitting in mud with blood on her shirt, telling me she was handling it.

She doesn't want my help. Made that clear.

My brain heard her. The rest of me loaded a cord of split pine into the truck bed before sunrise anyway.

Her front yard at eight. Subaru still there, frost on the windshield. Smoke from the chimney but barely. She's burning through what little she has.

Five trips from the truck to her porch wall. Split pine, stacked tight. Enough for a week if she manages it right.

On the sixth trip, the front door opens.

She's wearing a flannel that's too big for her. Sleeves rolled past her wrists, hem hitting mid-thigh over leggings. Hair still in that knot. Dark circles under her eyes. She's holding a coffee mug with both hands, standing in the doorway with my bandana still wrapped around her knuckle.

"What are you doing?"