21. Luke
LUKE
The drive to Mila's apartment takes ten minutes but feels like hours. My hands grip the steering wheel tight enough to ache, pulse hammering in my ears as Dean's words echo on repeat.
Tell her everything. Don't hold back because you're scared.
I park at an angle outside the old feed-and-tack building, barely registering the familiar storefront or the mountains looming behind town. Everything narrows to the stairwell leading up to her door, to the conversation I should've had four days ago instead of hiding in work and whiskey.
The climb up feels endless. At her door, I pause, trying to steady my breathing and failing completely. What if she won't listen? What if I've hurt her too badly and she's already made up her mind?
I knock before I can second-guess myself further.
Silence stretches long enough that panic claws up my throat—maybe she's not home, maybe she's avoiding me, maybe I'm too late—then footsteps approach and the lock clicks.
Mila opens the door looking surprised and wary and so beautiful it hurts.
She's wearing one of my old Blackwood Ranch hoodies, the one she claimed weeks ago and never gave back, her dark curls piled in a messy knot that's already falling apart.
No makeup, freckles stark across her nose, hazel eyes guarded in a way they've never been with me before.
"Luke." My name comes out uncertain. "What are you—I wasn't expecting?—"
"Can I come in?" The question sounds rougher than intended. "Please. I need to talk to you."
She hesitates just long enough that fear spikes through my chest, then steps back to let me through. "Yeah. Okay."
I cross the threshold and the sight waiting inside punches the air from my lungs.
Boxes. Everywhere. Stacked against walls, piled on furniture, labeled in Mila's messy handwriting. Kitchen. Bedroom. Office supplies. Books. Her apartment—the space she turned into something that felt like hers—looks dismantled. Temporary. Like she's already halfway gone.
The confirmation of what Harper said hits brutal and sharp. She's actually leaving. Actually packing up her life to move to Helena in three weeks because I told her to go.
"Sorry about the mess." Mila's voice is carefully neutral, that bright energy she usually radiates dimmed to something flat and careful. "I've been packing. Trying to get organized before the move."
I can't speak. Can't do anything but stand here surrounded by evidence of my cowardice—all these boxes full of the life she built here, the permanence she was creating despite always claiming this was temporary.
"Luke?" She sounds worried now, moving closer. "Are you okay? You look?—"
"I'm so proud of you." The words break free before I've fully thought them through, desperate and honest. "For getting the job offer. For building your career back after everything that happened. You deserve this opportunity and I meant what I said about that part."
Confusion crosses her face, wariness deepening. "Okay. Thank you? But I don't understand why you drove all the way here to?—"
"I just—" I drag a hand through my hair, trying to find the right words and failing. "I need to make one thing clear. Something I should've said four days ago instead of telling you to take the job."
She waits, arms crossed now in a defensive posture that kills me. I did this. Made her build walls against me because I was too scared to be honest.
"I want you." The confession comes out hoarse.
"I want you desperately, Mila. And if you're leaving because you don't know that—if you think I was just waiting for an excuse to end things—I'm sorry.
I'm so fucking sorry. I thought I was doing the right thing by encouraging you to go.
Thought I couldn't ask you to give up your career for a guy in a small town who spends most of his time buried in ranch paperwork. "
Her eyes widen, lips parting around a sharp inhale.
"I wasn't trying to push you away because I don't want you," I continue, words tumbling faster now that I've started.
"I was trying to let you go because I thought that's what you deserved.
Thought you'd be better off building the life you should've had instead of staying here with me when you always said this place was temporary. "
"Luke—"
"I don't want to hold you back." I'm close to begging now, all the careful control I usually maintain shattered.
"I don't want you to stay if it means giving up something important.
But I can't—I can't just stand back anymore when it comes to you.
If you really want this job, if Helena is what you need, I'll find a way to make it work.
We'll figure out the distance or I'll—I don't know, I'll visit every weekend, we'll make it happen somehow.
But I can't let you walk away thinking I don't care when you leaving is killing me. "
Silence hangs heavy between us. Mila stares at me with an expression I can't read, hazel eyes bright with something that might be tears or shock or both.
"You want me to stay?" Her voice comes out small, uncertain in a way I've never heard from her. "You're saying you want?—"
"Yes." The confirmation is immediate, desperate.
"I want you to stay. I want you here at the ranch and in my cabin and taking up space in my life.
I want your coffee mugs cluttering my kitchen and your design work spread across my table and you stealing my clothes because you forgot your jacket again.
" I step closer, close enough to see the freckles scattered across her cheeks like paint splatters.
"I want all of it, Mila. Want you exactly as you are for as long as you'll let me have you. "
She's crying now, tears slipping down her face as something breaks open in her expression.
"You idiot." The words come out choked. "You absolute idiot. I thought—" She presses her hands to her face, shoulders shaking. "I thought you wanted me gone. Thought maybe I was too much or too chaotic or that you realized I was just—that your ranch was better without me messing everything up."
No. No, that's so far from the truth it physically hurts.
"Mila—"
She crosses to me in three quick steps and cups my face in both hands, forcing me to meet her eyes. "You need to see something. You don't have to be the strong one carrying everyone all the time. You're allowed to want things for yourself. You're allowed to ask people to stay."
Her touch grounds me even as her words crack something open in my chest. I've spent so long being the dependable one, the person everyone leans on, that I forgot how to reach out when I needed support.
"I know." My voice breaks on the admission. "I know, but I also thought—you said it yourself a hundred times. That your time here was temporary. Just a break from real life. I thought asking you to stay would be selfish when you were always planning to leave."
"It was temporary." She swipes at her tears with one hand, the other still warm against my cheek.
"Until you. Until I fell in love with you and suddenly leaving felt impossible but I thought—Luke, I thought you didn't want me around anymore.
Thought the job offer was your perfect excuse to end things without having to say it directly. "
Fell in love with you.
The words hit like lightning, illuminating everything I've been too scared to see clearly.
"You love me?" I sound stunned, disbelieving even though Harper and Sadie both said as much.
"Of course I love you." She laughs through tears, the sound breaking.
"How could I not? You're steady and patient and you notice everything about people.
You remember my coffee order and the names of my clients and which design projects stress me out.
You let me reorganize your entire office and teach you how to take breaks and make you laugh when you're buried in work.
You—" Her voice cracks. "You made me feel like I belonged here.
Like the ranch could be home instead of just a place I was hiding. "
Home. The word settles warm and true between us.
"You are too much," I say softly, and her face crumples until I pull her closer, thumbs brushing away tears.
"You're too much energy and chaos and color for someone who spent fifteen years in careful routine.
You walk into a room and everything gets louder and brighter and messier in the best possible way.
You're too much life for someone who forgot how to want anything for himself. "
Pain flashes across her expression and I realize how that sounded.
"Mila. Sweetheart. You're too much for me in the same way sunlight is too much after years in darkness.
" I trace the freckles on her cheekbones, memorizing the feel of her skin under my touch.
"You're overwhelming and perfect and exactly what I needed without knowing it.
You're not too wild or too much—you're perfect exactly as you are. "
Her breath catches, eyes searching mine like she's trying to believe what I'm saying.
"I love you." The confession spills free, three words I should've said weeks ago. "I'm completely in love with you and I've been terrified to admit it because wanting you felt selfish when you deserved better than ranch life and a guy who doesn't know how to take a day off."
"You love me." She repeats it like she's testing the truth of the words. "You actually?—"
"Yes." I pull her flush against me, needing her close. "So much it scares me. So much that watching you pack to leave was killing me but I thought—I thought letting you go was the right thing. Thought I couldn't ask you to give up your career just because I'm selfish enough to want you here."
"You're not selfish for wanting me to stay." She presses her forehead to mine, fingers sliding into my hair. "You're allowed to want things, Luke. You're allowed to ask people to choose you."