Chapter 7
Tex
The days after that kiss move more slowly. Not because anything’s wrong, but because I made a decision to give her space.
I don’t touch her unless she touches me first. I don’t crowd her. Don’t press. I let her breathe, let her find her footing again, even though every instinct in my body wants to pull her close and see if that spark still burns.
It does. I know because I feel it every damn time I’m near her.
The kiss has replayed in my head more times than I’ll admit. The heat and curiosity I tasted on her lips. The way her breath hitched as she gave me her soft mouth, and how her response lit me up, right down to the bone.
I haven’t felt that alive in a long time.
But Jane has been quieter since then, as if she’s turned inward. She goes for long walks, saying that being in nature helps her head settle. I recognize it for what it is. Regulation. Grounding. A woman trying to make sense of too much input at once.
I respect it, even if it costs me.
Late this afternoon, she told me she was heading out again, boots already on, curls stuffed under her battered hat.
“I won’t be long,” she said, as if she owed me an explanation.
“You don’t owe me a schedule,” I told her.
She smiled faintly, then headed out.
A few hours later, I’m on my way to the side barn when I hear her laugh—too bright, too brittle.
Then I hear Jane’s voice.
“…and I said, ‘That man’s about the unluckiest guy I know. He could fall into a barrel of boobs, and he’d still come out sucking his thumb.’”
Raucous male laughter follows, then mumbled conversation.
I round the corner of the barn, and my gut clenches.
Jane is standing with two ranch hands. One of them is a young, cocky local, the type who thinks he’s charming because he hasn’t been humbled yet. He holds a cigar between the fingers of one hand like it’s a trophy, and a half-empty whiskey bottle dangles from the other.
“Come on, Cutter. You just downed a quarter bottle of whiskey like it was water, and you ride like you own the place. Don’t tell me a cigar scares you.”
Jane stands too close, chin lifted, eyes lit with something I’m beginning to understand. It’s not defiance; it’s desperation and the fierce need to belong overriding common sense.
She laughs. “It doesn’t scare me,” she says, her voice slurred.
I stop a few feet away, my jaw tight. They haven’t seen me yet.
This isn’t about the cigar. It’s not about proving she’s tough or impressing these men. It’s about belonging, about not being the outsider. Being one of the guys, because that’s what she learned, that being one of the men meant acceptance. Being soft meant being protected to death.
She’s trying to fit in. And these idiots are using that against her without even realizing it.
Before I can intervene, Jane takes the cigar from him. She lifts it to her lips, trying to appear casual. Except she hasn’t done this before. I can see it in her angle, the hesitation, the forced nonchalance.
She knows this is a mistake, but she’s going to do it anyway because backing down feels worse than failing.
She takes a puff and coughs hard enough to jerk her whole body.
The men laugh. Jane flips them off without missing a beat and tries again, stubborn as ever. The next puff makes her cough even worse.
Her face pales.
I step in. “Jane.”
She whirls, eyes flashing. “What?”
“Give me that.”
Her chin lifts defiantly. “No.”
“Jane.” I keep my voice low and steady, not a command but an offer. “You don’t have to do this.”
The men go quiet, sensing the shift. The kid’s grin fades.
Jane’s gaze locks onto mine. Not daring me to push, but begging me to give her a reason to stop.
“Jane,” I say quietly, just for her. “You don’t owe them anything.”
Her expression flickers as relief battles with shame.
Then she shoves the cigar back into the kid’s hand. “Fine.”
She turns sharply and storms away, her boots punching through the snow as if she wants to leave dents in the earth.
I don’t let my attention follow her yet. I look at the kid. “Don’t bait her into proving anything. She doesn’t owe you a damn performance.”
His Adam’s apple bobs. “I was just joking.”
“Don’t,” I repeat. “Not with her.”
He nods quickly. “Yes, sir.”
I turn and follow Jane, finding her behind the barn, one hand braced against the wall, breathing too hard.
“Jane,” I say, approaching slowly this time.
She lifts her head, ready to snap at me. Then she gags. In the next moment, she’s throwing up into the snow.
I’m there instantly. I don’t touch her. Not yet, not until she tells me it’s okay.
“Can I?” I ask, gesturing toward her hair.
She nods, eyes squeezed shut.
I pull her hair back with one hand, keeping it off her face. My other hand hovers near her back, close enough for her to feel the warmth, but not close enough to trap her.
She retches again, her body shaking. It twists something in me; not disgust, but concern and the helplessness of watching someone refuse help until their body forces the issue.
Jane wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and glares at the snow as if it’s offended her.
“I’m fine,” she rasps.
“Yeah,” I say dryly. “You’re glowin’.”
She shoots me a glare. “Don’t.”
“I’m not judging you. I’m worried.”
“That’s worse,” she snaps, her voice cracking. “I didn’t ask you to worry.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Her eyes are bright with humiliation. “I was just... messing around.”
“No,” I say softly. “You were trying to belong.”
Her jaw clenches, and she looks away.
I don’t push. I just hold her hair again when she coughs. The intimacy of it hits me hard, of me holding her like she matters, and her trusting me enough to be messy in front of me.
Jane leans back against the barn wall, breathing hard. “I hate being laughed at.”
“I know.”
She blinks at me. “You do?”
“I’ve seen the look you get when someone challenges you,” I say quietly. “Like you’d rather burn than be small.”
Her throat bobs. “My brothers used to say I’d hurt myself trying to prove I didn’t need help.”
I step close enough for her to feel my presence. “And?”
“And they weren’t wrong,” she whispers.
My chest aches because I understand that. I understand the brain that never stops, the noise that’s always there, and the way stillness feels like failure. I know that noise. Different frequency. Same volume.
I wipe the corner of her mouth with my thumb before I can stop myself.
Her breath catches.
So does mine.
I pull my hand back as if I touched something sacred.
“Come on,” I say roughly. “Let’s get you inside.”
She hesitates as pride battles with nausea.
“Can I help you walk?” I ask.
She nods, and I slide my arm around her waist, guiding her toward the cabin.
She leans into me for a moment, then straightens as if she remembers she’s supposed to be wild. But I feel the tremor, the exhaustion. I feel how hard she’s trying. How hard she’s been trying her whole life to be enough, to be wanted, to be chosen instead of just tolerated.
Inside the cabin, I steer her straight to the bathroom. “Sit.”
She does, perching on the toilet lid.
I wet a washcloth and hand it to her.
She wipes her face, her eyes stubbornly dry. “This is humiliating.”
“Yeah,” I agree.
She looks up, startled that I didn’t soften it.
“But it’s not weakness,” I add.
“You don't get it.” Her voice breaks.
“I do.”
Jane shakes her head. “No. I-I do things because it’s easier than sitting still. Because if I sit still, my head gets loud and—”
She cuts herself off, breathing shallowly.
I reach out and take her hand. “I get it,” I repeat. “More than you think.”
Because my head is loud too. Different noise. Same volume. I learned to build fences against it. She learned to outrun it. Neither way is wrong.
Her blue eyes flick to mine, containing a rawness she hasn’t let me see before. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For being... me.”
The words hit me like a punch.
For being me. As if she’s apologizing for existing. Like she thinks the core of who she is—the noise, the movement, the intensity—is something that needs forgiveness.
And something in me breaks.
I slowly crouch in front of her. “No more provin’ anything,” I say quietly.
Jane’s gaze drops.
“Not here,” I continue. “Not with me.”
Her breath trembles.
I help her stand, guide her down the hall, and pull the quilt back on her bed. She sinks onto the mattress as if she’s finally out of fuel.
I tuck the quilt around her. Before I step away, I lean down, close enough that my breath stirs her curls.
“Jane.” I wait until her eyes meet mine. “You’re enough. Exactly as you are. I’ve never meant anything more.”
Her eyes shine, and for a moment, she looks like she might cry.
Instead, she murmurs, “Don’t say that unless you mean it.”
I hold her gaze. “I mean it.”
Then I leave before I do something reckless, like kiss her while she’s vulnerable or let my want turn into pressure.
I shut her door gently. In the hallway, I press a hand to my chest, as if it might steady the problem beating there.
She rides better than most cowboys.
She fits on this ranch like she was born under its sky.
She’s exactly the kind of wild that doesn’t stay where you put it.
And I wouldn’t have her any other way.