Page 10 of Oops, I Fell For The Ranch Hand Next Door

Behind me, Jessie exhales. “That actually worked.”

“Told you.” I lower the broom and turn. She’s gripping the egg basket with white knuckles, a borrowed flannel slipping off one shoulder to expose her collarbone, hair escaping its clip in honey-colored pieces. Dark circles are still carved beneath her eyes, but she’s the best thing I’ve seen all morning. “You ready?”

She nods and moves toward the first nesting box. I track her progress while keeping Ruckus in my peripheral vision. She reaches into the box, pulls out two brown eggs, and places them carefully in the basket. By the time we’re done, the basket is full. She’s grinning, actually grinning, face flushed with accomplishment. “I did it.”

Pride swells behind my ribs. This is what showing up looks like when it matters. This is why I walked to her cabin at five forty-five with two cups of coffee and a plan. Not to save her. To stand beside her while she saved herself.

We exit the coop together. Warm morning sun climbs above the tree line. Jessie sets the basket on a hay bale and rolls her shoulders, working out the tension written in her spine.

“Thank you,” she says. “For showing up and for the coffee.”

I step closer. Can’t help it. The need to be near her is a physical force I’ve stopped trying to resist. “Come on. I want to show you my workshop.”

Her eyebrows lift. “Your workshop?”

“You’ll see.”

I lead her past the barn, down a narrow path among the trees. My workshop sits at the edge of a clearing, a converted equipment shed I claimed four years ago when I needed somewhere to put my hands that wasn’t fire or failure. Weathered wood siding, metal roof, one window facing east to catch the morning light. No one comes here. This space is mine.

I’m showing it to Jessie anyway.

She stops in the doorway. The workbench is scattered with wood shavings and half-finished projects. Hand tools hang in rows on the pegboard. On the back wall, a shelf holds carved animals: a red-tailed hawk mid-flight, a coyote sitting alert, a wild turkey with every feather detailed. At the end is a dove half-formed, wings roughed in but not refined.

“You made these?” Her voice comes out hushed. She moves toward the shelf without waiting for permission, and runs her fingers over the hawk’s wing, tracing carved feathers. “Eli, these are incredible.”

My name in her mouth cracks my control. I lean against the workbench and watch her explore. The way her fingers linger on the coyote’s ears. The small sound she makes when she picks up the turkey and turns it to catch the light.

“How long have you been doing this?” she asks.

“Four years.” Since I left the squad. Since I needed my hands to build instead of fail.

She picks up the dove and studies the unfinished lines, the places where wood is still rough and unshaped. “You started this one recently.”

Not a question. An observation. I don’t correct her, don’t tell her I started it the morning after I found her in the meadow.

“Why birds?” She sets the dove down and turns to face me.

She picks up the dove again, and I track how her fingers trace the grain. My mother used to say that birds and wildflowers have the same job: reminding people that beauty doesn’t need permission to exist. She’d have liked Jessie. Would’ve seen the same thing I saw in that meadow: someone who didn’t realize she was allowed to bloom.

The question lands harder than it should. I could deflect. Could give her the easy answer about needing work for my hands. But I know she’s got a story, so I’ll share mine first.

“My last call was a house fire,” I say. The words come out flat, factual, the only way I know how to deliver them. “Family of four. Got almost everyone out, went back for one of the kids.” My shoulders lock. I force them down. “Didn’t make it. Smoke got her before I could.”

Jessie goes very still. Doesn’t look away. Doesn’t offer platitudes or empty comfort. Just listens.

“Her mother asked me why,” I continue. “Why her daughter and not the others. Why I couldn’t save her.” I look at the dove. At the wings I haven’t finished. “I didn’t have an answer. Still don’t.”

The silence stretches. Outside, a mourning dove calls from the cedar trees, low and soulful.

“I know what that feels like,” Jessie says quietly. “The patients you lose. The ones who stay with you.” She pauses, inhaling. “I had one as well, a kid I couldn’t save. And a mother who…” She presses her thumb into her palm in that grounding gesture I’ve seen her do a dozen times. I reach out without thinking. Taking her hand, I press my thumb into her palm instead, applying the same pressure she’d been giving herself.

Her inhale stutters. Our eyes lock. Her pulse hammers against my fingers where I’m touching the delicate skin of her wrist.

“You don’t need to carry it alone anymore,” I tell her. “The weight. The ghosts. Whatever you’re running from.”

“I don’t know how to do anything else.” The admission costs her. Her throat works, her free hand curling into a fist. “Almost two decades of giving myself away in pieces until there was nothing left. I don’t know who I am when I’m not doing that.”

“You’re Jessie,” I say like it’s simple. Like her name is the only credential she needs. “The woman who survived Ruckus twice. Who drinks her coffee with cream and no sugar. Who stands in wildflower meadows looking like she’s forgotten she’s allowed to live without emergencies around every corner.” My thumb traces another circle in her palm. “You’re allowed to just be. You don’t have to earn your space here.”