Chapter 12 #2
I set my jaw and reached for the staple again, ready to hurt my hands worse if that was what it took.
The ground lit up.
A bright, focused beam swept across the sagging fence, the broken posts, my scraped knuckles, and the notebook perched on the post.
My heart jumped into my throat.
I spun around, pulse hammering so hard I could feel it in my bruised fingers.
A person on a horse was about ten feet away and getting closer. Based on the build, it was a man, and based on the broad shoulders of the man, it was Wyatt Hargrove.
He hopped off the horse with ease, shoulders squared, and a flashlight held in one hand.
His hat brim cast half his face into shadow, but the light caught the angles of his jaw, the blue of his eyes, and the dust on his jeans.
His shirt clung to his shoulders like he’d been working too.
He looked out of place and entirely at home at the same time, like the land itself decided to grow a man and send him down here.
My whole body went rigid.
“What do you want?” I snapped. My voice came out higher and thinner than I wanted.
He didn’t answer right away. His gaze moved from my face to my hand, to the broken fence, to the notebook on the post, then back again. He started walking toward me, slow and steady, the beam dipping with each step.
“Don’t,” I warned, backing up half a pace. “I don’t need help.”
He didn’t stop, but he didn’t crowd me either. He lowered himself into a crouch beside the broken post, turning the flashlight so it illuminated the damage instead of my face.
Heat flared under my skin. Anger, humiliation, and something else I refused to name tangled in my chest. “I don’t need you,” I said.
Still nothing. He shifted the flashlight, gripped it gently between his teeth, and reached into his back pocket. When his hand came out, he had his own fencing pliers and didn’t listen to me at all. He reached over to the bucket and grabbed a staple.
“I can do it,” I muttered.
He nodded once, slow, like he was agreeing with me. Then he stood, stepped to the far end of the wire, and lifted. He just raised the tight wire into place and held it there, steady and sure.
He was making it possible for me to work, and somehow that felt worse than him doing it for me.
“I said,” I started.
“I heard you,” he mumbled around the flashlight, the words slightly muffled. “You’re hurt.”
“I am not,” I scoffed, and his eyes flicked to my hand, where blood smeared across my knuckles and dirt already packed itself into the scrapes. He looked at it for half a second, long enough for shame to burn hot under my skin, then he looked away like he didn’t want to embarrass me further.
His jaw tightened. He wasn’t pushing, he wasn’t taking over, he was just there. Steady. Solid. Uninvited.
I snatched up a staple, set it against the cool metal of the wire, and swung the pliers. The impact jolted all the way up my arm, and we fell into a rhythm.
He set the stretcher in place with ease and spliced the line. I drove the staples in, one by one, the sound beating a rough cadence into the quiet field. My breathing turned ragged, more from everything in my head than from the work.
The night thickened. Sweat cooled on my back. My fingers ached. Somewhere along the way, the trembling in my hands eased. The shakes shifted into something like focus.
We didn’t speak.
He didn’t correct me or rush me. He didn’t tell me I was doing it wrong. The only sounds were the hammering against the staples, our breathing, and the distant wild calls that reminded me there were always eyes in the dark.
When I drove in the last staple, my shoulders sagged in relief. I stepped back and let the pliers drop to my side.
“It’ll hold,” he said. The words were simple, but something about the way he said them landed deeper than they should have.
I swallowed and looked at the fence, then at him. The flashlight beam cut across the lower half of his face, catching the stubble along his jaw and the faint lines at the corners of his eyes.
“Thank you,” I said, the words dragged out of me like they weighed something.
He didn’t say you’re welcome. He just shifted the flashlight, so it swept along the repaired section one last time, like he wanted to be sure. Then he turned and let the beam slide back to me.
It caught my cheek and the curve of my mouth. Then it hit my eyes.
Our gazes met in that narrow circle of light.
For one heartbeat, all the noise dropped away. The coyotes. The hum of insects. The ache in my knuckles. Even the simmering anger that usually rose the second I saw him.
“Lock your doors tonight,” he said quietly.
The lingering edge in his voice slid under my skin. “Why,” I asked.
His eyes flashed briefly in the dark. “There are coyotes working closer than usual. A calf got pulled on my side last week. They’re testing fences. They always do it harder when something changes.”
“Have they evolved to opening doors?” I asked, my voice more bitter than I’d meant it to be.
He studied me for a moment. I could barely see his face now, but I felt his attention like a warm hand on my shoulder.
“Just lock the doors,” he repeated, and handed me the flashlight. “Take it, I’ll get it back one of these days.”
“Don’t you need it to get home?” I asked as I stared at the light in my hand.
“Nope, Lady knows how to get home.” Before I could decide whether I was about to thank him again or yell at him, he turned away. The soft thud of his footsteps as he walked back to his horse. The leather of his saddle groaned as he sat in the seat. He didn’t look back when he trotted away.
The tan hide of the horse was visible for a few moments in the waning light, but soon I was alone again.
The repaired fence gleamed in the beam, the fresh metal of the staples catching what little light remained.
Ray’s notebook sat where I’d left it, cover flapping slightly in the breeze, pages ruffling like it wanted to say something else.
I picked it up with both hands and held it against my chest.
I hated Wyatt for being here and for seeing me like this. To make it easier, I’d decided the hard way was what I deserved.
I also needed what he’d just given me.
The help. The steady silence. The way he stepped into the dark without demanding a thank you for anything.
I turned back toward the house, the night sounding louder than before. The coyotes had gone quiet for now, but I knew they were still out there, waiting at the edges, watching.
The notebook felt heavy under my arm.
When I reached the porch, I stepped inside, turned the deadbolt, and listened to the lock slide into place. The least I could do was listen to him about this.