Chapter 3
THREE
Haven
Amber had said: You walked away first. That means you won.
I'd thought about that for two days. I was still thinking about it walking across the yard toward the barn, workboots in the winter-stiff grass, breath coming out in a thin cloud in the February morning.
Amber wasn't wrong, exactly. I had walked away first. I'd buttoned my jeans and said okay and gone back inside and I hadn't cried, not even a little, which I was choosing to count.
The thing was, I knew what I'd felt against my hip in that parking lot.
Wyatt Holt had wanted me. Not in a polite way. Not in an oh you're a sweet kid way. In a way that had made my knees stop working correctly, in a way that he'd had to physically remove himself from, in a way that a man did not fake at forty years old behind a bar on a Tuesday night.
He'd wanted me and then he'd decided he shouldn't, which was a different thing entirely.
I pulled the barn door open, grabbing a few halters from the rack on the way in. Wyatt was at the supply shelf with his back to me, pulling on a long plastic glove that went all the way to his shoulder.
I stopped.
"We're preg-checking today?"
"Three of them are due for confirmation." He didn't turn around. "You good to hold?"
Romantic.
There was nothing more romantic than doing rectal exams on cows all morning.
"Yeah." I set down the halters I'd grabbed. "I know how to hold a cow, Wyatt."
"I know you do."
He reached for the lubricant and I turned away and looked at the middle distance for a second, because there was absolutely nothing I could say about that that wouldn't make things significantly worse.
This was fine. This was a completely normal ranch morning. I had assisted with this exact procedure approximately forty times. The fact that I had been thinking about his hands since Saturday night was my problem and nobody else's.
"You ready?" he asked.
"Yep," I said.
We took the first cow together—I got her haltered and held her steady while Wyatt worked, and she was cooperative about it, which was more than I could say for some of them.
He was focused and efficient the way he was about everything, narrating quietly as he went, more for my education than anything else.
He'd been doing that since I was sixteen.
Explaining things. Treating me like someone worth teaching.
That was half the problem, honestly.
"She's confirmed," he said, stripping the glove off. "Mark her."
I made the note on the clipboard.
Moved on.
We spent most of the morning like that, and the hours passed like they always did when you were working hard—slow at first, then fast once you got into a rhythm.By the time we finished I was sweaty and my arms were tired and I'd stopped thinking about Saturday night for approximately two hours, which felt like a victory.
Wyatt stripped off the last glove and went to wash up at the utility sink. I leaned against the stall door and watched him and thought about Amber again.
You walked away first. That means you won.
Did it though? Did it really?
Because from where I was standing, winning looked a lot like spending the morning three feet away from a man who'd had his hand down my jeans forty-eight hours ago and acting like we were strangers.
It looked like noticing every time he reached past me and making sure I didn't react.
It looked like being extremely professional about cow pregnancy while quietly losing my mind.
He turned off the tap and dried his hands and turned around and caught me looking.
"Lunch," he said.
"In a minute."
He waited.
I pushed off the stall door. "Can I ask you something?"
His jaw tightened…just slightly. “Haven…”
“Did you think I was going to just pretend it didn’t happen?” I interrupted—before he could preemptively apologize, cut me off.
He frowned, still not looking at me.
"You wanted me," I said. "I felt it. You can't tell me you didn't."
He looked at me then. Cleared his throat. “Yeah. I wanted you. What do you want me to do about it? I feel like a bastard, if that’s what you’re looking for—”
“Not at all,” I said, taking a step toward him. “I want…” I swallowed hard. “I want to do it again.”
His expression did something complicated.
"Haven."
"I want to do it again," I said. "That's all. Nobody has to know. It doesn't have to mean anything past what it is." I held his gaze. "You wanted me. I want you. That's pretty straightforward."
"You work for me."
"I know where I work."
"You're twenty-one."
"You keep saying that like the number's going to change."
His jaw tightened.
"I'm not asking you to take me to prom," I said. "I'm asking you to—"
"I know what you're asking."
"Then answer me."
He looked at me for a long moment. His eyes cut to the barn door, then back to me. He dropped his voice.
"Haven." His voice was low. "If I say yes—and I'm not saying yes—but if I did. You understand what that means. It means nothing changes out here. You work, I work. Nobody knows."
My heart was going hard but I kept my face steady. "That's what I said."
"And when it's done, it's done. No—" He stopped. "No complications."
"I'm not a complicated person."
He looked at me like he wasn't sure he believed that. I wasn't sure I believed it either, if I was being honest, but this wasn't the moment for honesty about that particular thing.
"I need to think about it," he said.
That was not a no.
That was so far from a no that I had to work very hard not to smile.
"Okay," I said.
"Haven—"
"I said okay." I picked up my jacket. "Come on. Your mom made lunch and I'm starving."
I walked out of the barn ahead of him into the thin February sun and I did not smile until my back was to him and I was sure he couldn't see my face.
Not a no.
I could work with that.