Page 29 of Oops, I Fell For The Ranch Hand Next Door

Her fingers fist in my shirt, griping hard enough that her knuckles go white. “What if I’m not brave enough?”

“Then I’ll be brave enough for both of us until you catch up.” I kiss her forehead, her temple, the corner of her eye with soft presses of my lips that land like the promises my words hold. “I'm not asking you to stop being scared. I'm asking you to be scared here, with me, instead of three hundred miles from here in a building that already showed you what it does to women like you.” My thumb settles at the hinge of her jaw where her pulse is running fast under the skin. “Whatever you decide, I'll still be standing in this doorway tomorrow. I'd just rather you were standing in it with me.” The question settles between us. Her ribs expand and contract rapidly beneath my palms, and I track her pulse where my thumb rests against her throat. This is it. The moment where she chooses the hospital or chooses me.

She pulls her phone from her pocket. Dr. Meekins’ contact is right there on the screen. My stomach drops. My palms start to slide from her waist, preparing for the loss when she makes the call and accepts the position.

But then she does the impossible thing.

She blocks the number. Deletes the contact. Watches it disappear from her screen.

Then she looks up at me, with clear and unmistakable certainty on her face.

“I’m not going back to the hospital.” Each word lands with conviction. “I’m staying. I’m staying with you.”

Relief crashes through me with enough force to buckle my knees. My palms come back to her face. My mouth crashes down on hers, and this kiss is hunger unleashed. I angle her head exactly where I want it, and when my tongue traces the seam of her lips she opens for me with a sound that makes my cock strain against my zipper.

My palms slide from her face to her waist, spanning her soft curves, and I pull her against me. She gasps when she discovers me hard against her belly, and possession surges through my veins. Mine. She’s mine. She chose me.

I break the kiss to trail my mouth down her jaw, down her throat, finding the pulse point hammering beneath. When my teeth graze there, she arches into me, her nails digging into my shoulders hard enough to leave marks.

“Say it again.” My lips are against her neck, voice wrecked. “Say you’re staying.”

“I’m staying.” Her palms slide up my back, mapping muscle through the cotton. “I’m staying with you. I’m choosing this. I’m choosing you.”

My arms tighten around her, and we just stand there, foreheads together, sharing air, my pulse hammering against her ribs where our bodies meet. The afternoon light paints her face gold.

“I need you to understand what you’re choosing.” My voice drops lower, rougher. “I’m possessive. I’m going to show up at your door every morning whether you ask me to or not. I'm going to text you every morning until you stop being surprised that somebody wants to know you made it through the night, and I'm going to feed you, and I'm going to put my hands on you every chance you give me.” My palms slide down to cup her hips, fingers digging in with possessive pressure. “I’m gonna love you so completely that you forget any time in your life that you thought you weren’t worth it.”

Her pupils dilate. “That doesn’t sound difficult.”

“It will be.” I bore into her eyes with intensity that strips every remaining defense. “You’re going to have to learn how to receive instead of give. How to accept being taken care of without calculating what you owe. Instead of worrying about what’s going to walk through the ER door next, you worry about what you need. What you want.” My thumbs stroke her soft, lush hips through her jeans. “That’s going to be the hardest work you’ve ever done.”

Understanding crosses her face. “Will you help me?”

“Every single day.” My lips brush hers with barely a whisper of contact. “Starting right now.”

I release her and reach for the dove. Its wings are spread wide, every feather detailed with precision. I pick it up and turn back to her.

“I started this the morning after I found you, but I couldn’t finish it because finishing it meant accepting that you might leave. That the hope might be wasted.” I face her, pressing the carving into her palms. “But you’re staying. So the hope isn’t wasted. And neither are you.”

Her eyes go bright. She grips the dove hard enough that the carved edges must be biting into her skin.

“You carved this before you knew.” Her thumb moves over the spread wing, following the grain the way I did with the blade. “You made it anyway.”

“That's what hope is. You build it before anybody hands you proof.” The workbench is rough under my palm where I brace against it, and I hold her eyes so she can't look away from this part. “Now you've got your proof, and it's sitting in your hands.”

“I told you—I show up. And now you don’t have to wonder. You already know.”

She rises onto her toes and kisses me with everything she has, her gratitude and relief and the certainty of someone who just made the right choice even if it terrifies her. I kiss her back with the same intensity, my hands sliding into her hair, angling her head to deepen the kiss until she’s making small sounds in the back of her throat that drive me out of my mind.

When we pull apart, we’re both out of breath. Her lips are swollen from my mouth, her eyes dark with want.

“Tonight.” The command is rougher than I meant it. “Come back here tonight. Let me show you what choosing each other looks like.”

Her lungs stutter. “What about dinner at the lodge?”

“Skip it.” My thumb traces her lower lip. “I’ll feed you. Then I’m going to take you to my bed and finish what we started before you pulled away.”

Color floods her face from collarbone to hairline. “Eli—”