Page 21 of Oops, I Fell For The Ranch Hand Next Door

“I do.” His hands slide to my waist, holding me in place. “There’s more to the fire than I told you. When I went back for that kid, the ceiling came down. Beam pinned me for thirty seconds.” He closes his eyes. “I got us both out, but she wasn’t breathing. I did CPR in the yard while the house burned. Her mother asked why I couldn’t save her. I never had an answer.”

The parallel hits like a smack. Both of us doing compressions on kids long after hope was gone. Both of us unable to stop our hands from trying.

“I quit the next day.” He opens his eyes. “Didn’t go back. Didn’t finish out my notice. Just walked away from the squad and everyone who needed me because I couldn’t face another fire.”

“Eli.” I cup his face the way he’s cupped mine a dozen times. “You saved three people. You went back into a burning building for a fourth. You did everything humanly possible.”

“And lost one.” The words are flat. Final.

“You lost one. You didn’t kill her. The fire did.” Holding his gaze, I will him to hear me. “Same way I didn’t kill that nineteen-year-old. The overdose did. We just loved them enough to keep trying.”

Recognition flickers across his expression, a hairline fracture in the armor he’s been carrying. His hands tighten on my waist, fingers digging in just enough that I register the pressure through my shirt. “I walked away because I was a coward.”

“You walked away because you’re human.” I stroke my thumbs along his cheekbones, learning the architecture of his face the way he’s learned mine. “You gave your life until you broke. That’s not cowardice. That’s survival.”

His eyes search mine for judgment, maybe. Or permission. Whatever he finds makes his shoulders drop fractionally. He pulls me closer, eliminating the remaining space between us, and I go willingly. My arms loop around his neck. His face buries in the curve where my shoulder meets my collarbone, and I hold him the way he held me, anchored and certain and refusing to let go.

We stand there on the porch while the fireflies continue their drift through the meadow. The air has gone cool, autumn creeping into the Texas evening, but his body radiates heat against mine. He’s an anchor I didn’t know I needed until I found it.

“I don’t know how to stop carrying her,” he says into my skin. “The girl. Her name was Mandy. I don’t know how to forgive myself for not being fast enough.”

“You don’t.” Pressing my lips to his temple. “You just find people willing to help you hold the weight.”

He makes a sound that’s half-laugh, half-sob. His arms circle around me, and I register the moment something in him releases, divided now between two people instead of carried alone.

The fireflies have drifted beyond the tree line and disappeared into the night when he pulls back just enough to see me. The hunger and tenderness in his face make my pulse kick into overdrive.

“Come inside,” he says, his voice low and rough around the edges. “You’re shivering.”

I am. I hadn’t registered it. He takes my hand and leads me through the cabin door into lamplight and warmth radiating from the stone fireplace. He guides me to the couch, wraps a blanket around my shoulders, and disappears into the kitchen.

Water runs. A mug clinks. He returns with tea, pressing it into my hands the way he did that night in his cabin during the storm. The ceramic is almost too hot, but the burn grounds me. I take a sip: honey and chamomile.

He sits beside me, close enough that his thigh presses against mine through the blanket. His arm comes around my shoulders, pulling me into his side. I let myself lean. Let myself accept the comfort without calculating what I owe in return.

“Thank you,” I whisper. “For telling me about Mandy, about why you left.”

“You told me yours. Seemed fair.” He laces our fingers together. “We’re a mess, aren’t we?”

“A matched set.” I set the mug on the side table and turn to face him. “Two people who gave everything until we broke. Two people who walked away from the lives we built because we couldn’t save everyone.”

“Two people who ended up here.” His thumb traces an arc along the back of my hand, gentle and grounding. My body responds with that familiar pull in my pussy. “Together.”

The word sits between us, heavy with implication. It’s a choice we’re both making instead of something that’s happening to us.

“Eli.” His name shakes on my lips. “I’m scared. What if I stay and it’s still not enough?”

“You already are enough.” Our foreheads press together. “You already are, and you don’t even see it.”

The blanket falls from my shoulders. He sets my mug aside without breaking eye contact. We’re close enough that I can map the darker ring around his irises, the faint scar over his left eyebrow, how his pupils have blown wide.

“I need to know this is real.” The confession cracks me open. “That you see me. The broken parts. The parts that couldn’t save everyone. The parts that ran away. I need to know you’re not going to wake up tomorrow and realize I’m too much work.”

His expression goes fierce. “You’re not too much work. You’re not too much anything.” His thumbs stroke my cheekbones in slow sweeps. “I see you, Jessie. All of you. The nurse who gave everything she had. The woman who survived a career in an ER without losing her compassion. The person who’s brave enough to walk away when staying would’ve killed her.” He leans in, lips almost brushing mine. “I see you. And I’m not going anywhere.”

Fresh tears track down my face, but this is different, lighter. Like something releasing instead of breaking. He kisses them away, one from each cheek, then the corner of my eye, then my temple, with gentle presses of his lips that land like promises.

“Stay with me tonight,” he says against my skin.