Chapter 11
Zane
I catch Hope just above the elbows, my bare fingers hooking around her slim upper arms. That only makes her jump away from me again, and she backs up until she bumps into the doorframe.
“Whoa, it’s okay,” I say, and I know I’m talking to her like I do a scared filly, but that’s what Hope is.
Young, innocent, and unsure of this place where she’s found herself.
I know what to do with a horse like her.
I don’t know what to do with this woman.
Not exactly. I know what I want to do. Watching her prowl around my office, wearing my clothes, gave me some very bad ideas that I know would feel really fucking good.
And I can’t deny that there’s some kind of invisible string between us, some kind of chemistry that tethers us together when we’re alone.
The kind of chemistry that says she’d be curious about how good a bad idea might feel, too.
Not gonna happen.
I have more discipline than to give in to that kind of impulse. But it’s dangerous to think that it might not be one-sided. Especially when I’m this close to her and can breathe in the shower-fresh scent of her willowy body.
Holding up my hands to show her that I’m not a threat, I ease back. “I just wanted to ask you about the plants. We started to talk about them, and then got off topic.”
Her chest rises and falls quickly under my rodeo t-shirt that swallows her up, the hem hanging past her hips.
She looks simultaneously fragile and fierce. Brave girl. Tired girl.
My girl.
Wrapped in my old clothes, it would be easy to imagine that were the case. It’s inappropriate, given whatever she’s running from and the fact I’m now her employer, in a manner of speaking.
But I don’t feel like her boss.
I yank my gaze up to her face. Her hair is loose around her shoulders, all that strawberry-gold wild and wavy after her bedtime shower. That doesn’t help my reaction to her in this moment, this private, off-limits exchange with a woman who came here for shelter and work.
Nothing more.
My inner primal instincts growl. Don’t ever want to think about her like she works for me. Don’t ever want her to think she needs to—
“What about the plants?” she asks in a rush.
Right.
Fuck me.
The plants. The ostensible reason I came back, not because I didn’t like the idea of her waiting all alone in here for her laundry to finish. Not because I got halfway downstairs and realized sleep could wait when there was more to learn about Hope.
I still don’t know her last fucking name, for example.
And that doesn’t matter at all. She’ll share more about herself when she feels safe enough, and making her feel safe—making sure she’s never lonely or scared, ever again—is a burning desire under my skin.
And the only burning desire I can think about when it comes to her. The rest of it, my inconvenient attraction…that needs to be buried deep.
I drag in a breath and turn, pacing to the window. “You were looking at them like you might have some ideas to bring them back from the brink.”
“Oh.” She takes an audible breath and follows me.
I brace one hand against the window frame and shove the other in my pocket. Catching her by the elbows was accidental, instinctive. Brief. But my fingers are still warm from the contact, and I can’t pretend I don’t want to touch more of her silky skin.
"The peace lily could use less water," she says carefully as she stands beside me. "You want to give it a good, deep drink, but not as frequently as the others. It might also do better in an east-facing window.”
Her brows furrow as she looks out the dark window. The mountains are invisible right now in the inky night, but in the morning, they’ll be pink from the sun behind us—and these plants won’t get any light until the afternoon.
I see the problem. “We don’t have a ton of east-facing windows up here, but my room downstairs looks out on the valley, and I get woken up by the sun. I’ll take this with me when I go to bed.”
“Take the succulent, too. It craves direct light.”
I wince. “Of course, because it’s a desert plant. That makes sense.” I direct my attention to it. “Sorry, my spiky friend.”
She laughs. A little surprised ha that she immediately swallows, but it’s very pretty.
I grin at her. “How many other plants have I put in peril by putting them in front of the wrong window?”
She bites her lower lip.
“You can tell me the truth.” I mean it on every level. But we’ll start with plants. “Half of them?”
“The ferns can stay here,” she says diplomatically. “They’re doing well.”
I accept my fate. “I’ll move the rest, then.”
“They’ll be happier with morning sun.”
“Aren’t we all?”
She tips her face up to look at me, surprise lifting her eyebrows. “I think so, yes.”
Up close like this, she looks less like a glossy city girl than I first thought. Those rose gold sunglasses were doing a lot to imprint that impression, I guess.
Tonight, she looks painfully young.
Too young to be a single mother, although obviously not.
I take a deep breath. “You know, Luna was only sixteen when she had Ridge. If you—”
Her brow lifts even more.
I stop talking.
She has a car, albeit a few years out of date in registration, according to Cash. So that means she’s not a teenager anymore, although she might have been when she had Bellamy.
I push off the window frame and push both hands into my pockets.
“We don’t judge anyone here. For choices or circumstance.
You’re still pretty young. You have the rest of your life ahead of you, and it can be whatever you want it to be.
Whatever made you feel like greenhouses used to be the stuff of nightmares… it won't follow you here.”
She holds my gaze for a long stretch. I don’t look away. I let her search my eyes, my face, my spirit for whatever she needs to see.
And that patience is rewarded when she finally nods.
“I had Bellamy when I was eighteen. Got pregnant in high school. Barely made it to graduation before my parents kicked me out. I went to a pregnancy resource centre, thinking I might get an abortion, and it wasn’t that easy.
They were affiliated with a church or something, and they kept pressuring me to consider other options. ”
Fury rises in my chest, fast and vicious.
“Places like that should be illegal, misrepresenting themselves,” I grind out.
Her eyes spark with surprise, and she nods. “Yes,” she says softly. “They should be. I didn’t know then. And…I don’t regret keeping Bellamy, but I do…”
She closes her eyes, pain twisting her expression into something so fragile I want to pull her into my arms.
“I regret what happened next,” she whispers.
It feels so wrong to be clenching my fists in my pockets when I could use my hands for something better, like holding her shaking shoulders or wiping those unshed tears off her cheeks the second they fall.
But she takes a deep breath and a slow blink, and then those tears disappear and her shoulders square up. Her wet, spiky eyelashes are the only remaining evidence that she had a moment where she almost lost it there.
“Any time you want to talk about it,” I offer. “I’m a decent listener.”
“Hate talking about it, actually,” she replies.
“Fair enough. Listen, you’re…what, twenty-one?”
“Twenty-two last month,” she says softly.
“There’s a lot of growing up that happens between eighteen and twenty-two.
I imagine even more when you’re raising a smart little girl.
For me, it was going overseas with the army.
Grew up real fast. But twenty-two through twenty-seven…
that was a big change, too. And then we bought this ranch, and in some ways, it feels like my life didn’t really start until that point.
So I guess what I’m saying is, this is just the beginning for you.
Even if it feels like you’re already in the middle of the hardest part, and I hope that’s true for you, I hope it’s easier after this… there’s still a lot of life to come.”
She exhales.
I scrub my hand over my face, hating the thought of her leaving this ranch.
But she's going to, and sooner than I like, so she should be armed with all the important information. “If you’re looking for Christian charity, there’s a good United Church in town.
The minister there is kind and compassionate.
But the New Harvest church just up the road here is a dangerous place. Stay clear of it.”
“I know all about places like that, don’t worry.” Her chin tightens up stubbornly.
“Okay, good.”
“I’m not a hick.”
“I didn’t think you were. I actually thought you were a city girl when I first saw you, with your pretty sunglasses and those sandals on your feet.”
“Sandals make me a city girl?” A smile plays at her lush mouth. “I mean, I am. Or I was. But the sandals come from island life.”
“Ah.” I make a show of zipping my lips. “Your secret is safe with me, but thank you for the clue about where Mystery Hope comes from.”
She hunches her shoulders up. “Yeah, I was on Salt Spring Island for a bit. But I’m from Vancouver originally.”
“I was born in Edmonton,” I offer. “We lived up there until I was twelve, and then we moved around for a summer, and landed here.”
“Your mom said something about that.”
“It’s a nice place to raise a kid.”
She shakes her head.
Too far, Zane.
And that’s my cue to leave, actually leave this time.
“All right, City Girl.” I pick up the peace lily. “East-facing window, you say?”
“Give it a try. Let me know how it goes.”
“Can’t do that if you’re gone,” I murmur.
Her eyes flare wide.
“Sorry.” I grab the succulent, too, just to make sure my hands are extra full. “Good night.”
She reaches out. “Night, Zane.”
As she curls her hand around my forearm, a heady current of electricity jolts up my arm—and her eyes flare wide, as if she can feel it, too.
I exhale, audibly, and her expression goes so impossibly soft, I think I might die if I don’t kiss her, if I don’t get to sink into those lush, wide lips.
Fuck. Fuck.
And then the washing machine timer goes off, interrupting us.
For the best.
She scurries away, and while she’s in the mud room, I head downstairs as fast as my legs can carry me.
The plants go on the deep window seat in my room, which is never used for anything else. Almost like they were meant to be there. I just needed Hope to show up and point that out.
What the fuck are you doing?
Rearranging plants on the orders of a woman who just blew into my life a day ago and is very insistent she’s leaving before too long.
Don’t get attached.
But I think I already am.
I think I'm attached in a bone-deep, life changing way.
And after that little victory of her reaching out and squeezing my arm to say good night, I don’t think I’m going to fight this attachment anymore.