Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
TATE
Idon't sleep.
The space heater sits on my kitchen table. Still in the box. Her cabin is dark. Has been since she walked out four hours ago. No porch light. No kitchen window glow. Nothing.
I did that.
The counter where I'm standing is the same counter she leaned against the first time I kissed her. The same counter where her mug sat next to mine every morning for two weeks. The drying rack holds one mug tonight. One plate. One set of silverware.
Back to one.
My phone is in my hand. I've typed three messages and deleted all of them because none of them say what needs saying, and what needs saying can't be said in a text.
It needs to be said standing in front of her, looking her in the eye, with my hands where she can see them and my walls on the ground where they belong.
Nothing tying you here.
I said that. Looked at the woman who put her bare feet in my creek and fought me over fence lines and drank terrible coffee at my kitchen table every morning. The woman who traced the scar on my ribs and kissed it. And I told her nothing was tying her here.
My father, if he were alive, would kick my ass from one end of this property to the other.
At midnight, I call my mother. She picks up on the second ring because mothers don't sleep when their sons are in trouble, even when their sons are thirty-four and should know better.
"I messed up."
"Tell me."
So I tell her. All of it. The email from the landlord. The development group. The fight. What I said. What she said back. The look on her face when she told me I was pushing her away because it was easier than being terrified.
Mom is quiet for a long time.
"She's right," she says.
"I know."
"So what are you gonna do about it?"
I look at the space heater on the table. The kitchen that felt full this morning and feels empty tonight. The east window that faces her cabin.
"Something stupid. Something big."
"Good." Mom's voice goes soft. "Your father would say the same thing."
"Dad would've gotten it right the first time."
"Your father proposed to me three times before I said yes. The first two times he forgot to actually say the words because he got nervous and just handed me the ring. The Rawlins men have never been good with words, Tate. But they've always been good with actions."
We hang up. I sit at the kitchen table until two a.m., staring at the phone number I pulled from the county records office three days ago when Piper first mentioned her landlord.
At six a.m., I call Greg Horton.
The conversation takes twenty minutes. Greg is a reasonable man. The development group offered fair market value for the cabin and the ten-acre parcel. Nothing's been signed. Nothing's final.
"I'll match the offer," I say.
Silence on the line.
"Mr. Rawlins, that's a significant purchase."
"I'm aware."
"The property needs work. The cabin alone requires new insulation, window upgrades, furnace replacement."
"I'm aware of that too."
"Can I ask why you're interested?"
Because the woman who lives there put her feet in my creek on her third day and didn't flinch when the water was cold.
Because she drinks box wine out of a coffee mug and argues about property lines in bare feet.
Because she's the first person in twelve years who made me want to stay at the kitchen table instead of eating standing at the counter.
"The creek on that property feeds my east herd. I need to protect my water access."
Practical. True. Not the whole truth. Not even close.
"I'll need to think about your offer," Greg says. "Give me forty-eight hours."
"Take twenty-four."
I hang up. Look at my phone. Look at her cabin. Her kitchen light is on. She's awake. Probably didn't sleep either.
The next call is to Jace Callahan.
"Need a favor."
"Name it."
"You know anybody at the county surveyor's office?"
"My cousin Pete does boundary surveys. Why?"
"I need the original survey for the Mackey parcel. The real one. Not the one the fence is based on."
"How fast?"
"Today."
Jace doesn't ask why. He gives me Pete's number. Pete answers on the first ring because it's barely seven and surveyors keep rancher hours. He pulls the original plat from the county records, scans it, sends it to Jace's shop because I don't have email. Jace texts me a photo.
I stare at the screen.
The original 1987 boundary runs exactly where the current fence sits. Not fifteen feet east. Not where I've been claiming it runs for two weeks.
The fence is right. The creek is on her property. Has been since the plat was filed.
I've been wrong. About the fence line, about the property, about the woman on the other side of it. Wrong about all of it, in the specific way that men are wrong when they're too proud to admit they're scared.
My boots are on before I finish the thought. Jacket. Hat. The space heater under one arm and my phone in my back pocket.
The walk across the yard is the longest hundred yards of my life.
Her porch step is solid under my boots. The one I built. The one that started everything.
I knock.
Thirty seconds. A minute. The door opens.
She looks terrible. Beautiful and terrible.
Red eyes, messy hair, my flannel still on, sleeves pushed up to her elbows.
She's been crying. I can see the evidence on her cheeks, in the puffiness around those blue eyes that usually telegraph everything and right now are carefully guarding every thought.
"It's six-thirty in the morning," she says.
"I know."
"You're holding a space heater."
"I know that too." I set it down on the porch between us. "Can I come in?"
She stares at me for a long moment. Then she steps back, leaving the door open. I pick up the heater and walk into her kitchen. The fire is dead. The cabin is cold. One mug in the drying rack.
I set the heater down on the table. I pull out my phone. Open the photo Jace texted. Set it on the table between us.
"I had Jace Callahan's cousin pull the original plat from the county records this morning." My voice is steady. Barely. "The fence line is right. The creek is on your property. I've been wrong since the day you got here."
She looks at the map. Back at me. Doesn't say anything.
"And I called your landlord. Greg Horton. He told me about the development group's offer." I take a breath. "I matched it. I'm buying this property."
Her lips part. "You're what?"
"Buying this cabin. The land. All of it."
"Tate. That's—"
"Hear me out." My hands are shaking. I put them on the table to steady them. "I'm not buying it to own you. I'm not buying it to control the creek access. I'm buying it because last night you told me I was pushing you away because I'm scared, and you were right. I am scared. I'm terrified."
Her eyes are filling. She presses her fingers against her mouth.
"I'm terrified because every person who's ever stood in my life has eventually walked out of it.
My dad died. My mom left for Billings. Rachel couldn't handle the quiet.
And when you told me about that email, every part of me that's been waiting for the next person to leave just reacted.
I pushed you away because it was easier to lose you on my terms than wait for you to leave on yours. "
A tear rolls down her cheek. She doesn't wipe it.
"But you're not Rachel. You're not anyone who came before you.
You moved to Montana to build a life that's yours, and I'm standing here asking you to let me be part of it.
Not because of a lease. Not because of a creek.
Because you drink box wine on my porch step and you fight me about everything and you traced the ugliest scar on my body and kissed it.
Because you make my kitchen sound like a place someone lives instead of a place someone survives. "
My voice breaks on the last word. I clear my throat. Push through.
"I love you, Piper. I love you in a way that scares the hell out of me because I've never loved anything that could leave. Land doesn't leave. Cattle don't leave. But you could, and the fact that you could is exactly why loving you matters."
She's crying. Both hands over her mouth now. Tears streaming.
"If you want to stay, stay. The cabin is yours. No lease, no deadline, no development group. Yours. And I'll be right next door, fixing whatever breaks, leaving firewood before dawn, drinking terrible coffee in your kitchen for as long as you'll let me."
Silence.
She drops her hands from her face.
"You bought my cabin."
"Yeah."
"You pulled a county survey this early in the morning to prove yourself wrong."
"Yeah."
"You told me you love me when you brought a space heater over."
"I realize the presentation could be better."
The laugh that comes out of her is wet, broken, the most beautiful sound I've ever heard. She crosses the kitchen in three steps, throws her arms around my neck, and pulls my mouth down to hers.
The kiss tastes like tears. Hers. Mine, maybe. Her fingers grip the back of my neck. My arms wrap around her waist, lifting her off the floor, holding her against me with everything I have.
"I love you too." She says it against my mouth, between kisses, her voice ragged. "I love you, you impossible, stubborn, porch-step-building, firewood-leaving man."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." She pulls back, cups my face in both hands. Those blue eyes, wide open, no guards, no walls. "And I'm not going anywhere. Not in a year. Not ever. This is my home. You're my home."
I kiss her forehead. Her cheeks. The tip of her nose. Her mouth again, slower this time, deeper. My hands slide into her hair. Her body presses against mine until I can feel her heartbeat through both our chests.
"Marry me," I say.
"What?"
"Not today. Not tomorrow. But eventually. Marry me. Live on this land. Let me build you a proper house with insulation that works and windows that don't draft. Let me wake up next to you every morning and drink your terrible milk coffee."
"My coffee isn't terrible."
"Piper."
"Yes." She kisses me. "Yes. Eventually. Yes."
I pick her up. She wraps her legs around my waist, and I carry her down the hallway to the bedroom for the second time. Set her on the bed. Pull the flannel over her head. She pulls my shirt off. My jeans. Hers. Until there's nothing between us.
We move together slowly this time. My body over hers, her legs locked around my hips, my forehead pressed to hers.
Every thrust is deliberate, deep, unhurried.
Her nails dig into my shoulders. My hand cradles the back of her skull.
She gasps my name, once, twice, and I swallow the sound with my mouth.
"You're mine." I press the words against her throat. Her jaw. Her lips. "You're mine, and I'm yours, and nothing changes that."
"Nothing," she breathes.
We come together. Her back arching, my arms shaking, both of us breaking in the way that makes you whole. I hold her through the aftershocks, my face buried in her neck, her fingers gentle in my hair.
After, we lie tangled in the sheets. Morning sun through the window, casting gold across the bed. Her head on my chest, her finger tracing the scar on my ribs, the way she always does.
"Tate?"
"Yeah?"
"You're gonna have to install that space heater. I can't feel my feet."
The laugh comes up from somewhere deep. Real. Full. The first sound in twelve years that feels like it belongs to a man who's alive instead of a man who's just surviving.
Her cabin. My land. Our creek. The fence line between us that turned out to be exactly where it was supposed to be.
Some things you never plan for.
Those are always the ones worth keeping.