Page 52 of Cowboy Don't Go

A downed tree limb had taken out a section of the barbed-wire fencing. They made quick work of fixing it, working as a team to pull the barbed wire tight around the new fencepost they installed. The curious cattle milled nearby watching them, listening to them talk about nothing. The weather. The fall color in the mountain larches. Anything but what was clearly happening between them.

As they were loading the wire bale back into the Gator, though, Shay’s hand accidentally got caught by a barb that sliced her hand right through her glove.

“Gaaa!” she gasped, grabbing her hand which immediately started to bleed.

Shaking out her fist, she danced around the Gator in pain.

“Lemme see,” he demanded, reaching for her hand. He opened up her fingers. Blood had already spread across her glove. “God. I’m sorry. Was that my fault?”

“No, it was mine. I was . . . my hand almost got trapped under the bale and I yanked it away. Almost made a clean getaway. Darn it!”

He slipped off her glove carefully and inspected the cut. “That’s kinda deep. You had a tetanus shot lately?”

“Maybe. Probably.” She shrugged, feeling a little light-headed looking at all the blood. “I can’t remember for sure.”

He pulled his clean bandana out of his pocket, wrapping it around her hand, tying it tight. “Keep some pressure on it to get the bleeding stopped.”

“It’s not that bad. Is it? It just stings. Like crazy.”

“Well, aside from a tetanus shot, you might need a couple of stitches.”

“No. You think?” Dread filled her expression. She’d never had stitches. The thought of it made her feel dizzy. She felt silly, clumsy, ridiculous. “I-I don’t like needles. Seriously, I hate them. I avoid flu shots, for heaven’s sakes. Maybe they could use glue or foam or—”

Gently, he took her wrist in his hand and rubbed a thumb over her skin. “Hey. It’ll be okay, Shay. We’ll take care of it.”

We’ll take care of it. We will. It had been a long, long time since anyone said those words to her. With him holding her arm that way and touching her as if it was the most natural thing to do, she felt . . . irrationally, like maybe he was right. She’d be fine. Except for the needle part. Stupidly, her eyes filled with tears.

She lifted her watery gaze to his and returned his smile. “I’m just being a baby about it.”

“Nah. I get it,” he said, guiding her into the passenger seat of the Gator. “For me, it’s snakes. Which, for a guy who’s lived in both Texas and Montana—rattlesnake capitals of the world—that’s essentially a big problem.”

She laughed. “Have you even been bitten?”

“Kidding me? I’d like to see the snake who can get close enough to sink its fangs into me. No, that’s me running away like a little kid across the pasture.” They laughed together as he accelerated the four-wheeler, flying across the field. “Don’t tell your brothers.”

“You’re just trying to make me feel better.”

“Maybe a little. But the fear of snakes thing . . . yeah, that’s absolutely true.” He turned his headlight grin her way making her wary heart squeeze in her chest.

There were, indeed, stitches in her hand later at urgent care. Four, to be exact. And she did not die. Or even faint. It was okay, and Cooper stayed right beside her the whole time, telling jokes, laughing with the nurses and the doctor. Being charming. That was a skill he’d developed over the years. It wasn’t one she remembered from his boyhood in Marietta when he’d been simply shy and brilliant.

As he charmed the nurses and doctors and held her other hand as she got stitched up, Shay realized that sometime in the last few weeks, she’d stopped thinking of him as a cautionary tale—a danger to her family—and instead as someone she wanted in her life.

It was an earthquake of a thought. A terrifying thought. One that gave her a weird sense of peace. She’d spent most of her life fighting the idea of a man in her life. Any man. She’d convinced herself that it would be just her and Ryan until he was fully grown. There were a lot of reasons why that made sense. But sense seemed to have nothing to do with what she was feeling for Cooper.

Watching him advocate for her with her doctor, even when she could have done it herself, did not offend her. Instead, it made her realize how tired she was of doing everything alone. Without someone who cared about her. Her family and, more particularly, Ryan were crazy about him, and for her son, the feeling seemed mutual. Ryan had bloomed under Cooper’s attention and had made great strides with Kholá and other things. Like math. And smiling. And feeling happy.

Maybe it was all in her imagination that Cooper was feeling the same things she was. And that would be her bad. Talking about feelings with men was not a skill she’d mastered. Not because she didn’t have feelings. But risking sharing them with anyone felt . . . dangerous. The last time she’d told a man she cared about him, he’d left her alone and pregnant.

These days, she’d settled for the possibility that her best years were behind her. That had been fine for a long time. Believing in love and happily ever after had always been a stretch for her. First her parents, who had never been well-suited to a life together, then her twin, Will, whose own divorce had devastated him. But he’d taken a chance again on love, returning to the ranch with Izzy, and Shay had admitted to herself for the first time, that maybe what was standing in the way of her own real happiness wasn’t the world, or summer boy, Ethan.

It was her.

On the way back to the ranch, Cooper asked if she minded if they stopped by his father’s place to pick up a few things for him. Of course, she said yes. She was curious about the place they’d left so long ago and how it had fared.

While the outside needed some attention, the inside looked freshly updated with paint and new furniture. There were arched doorways and refinished wood doors, and big throw rugs that made the room feel cozy and still masculine. Even the kitchen had been updated and freshened up with copper pots hanging on the wall.

“Who did all this?” she asked, standing in the middle of the living room, with its raftered ceiling and river rock fireplace. “It’s so cozy and beautiful.”

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