Page 44 of The First Day of Breeding Season
Just breathe, I tell myself, but my lungs won’t work right. Nothing works right.
I squeeze my eyes shut tighter. I’m shaking.
“Brynn!” He’s above me now, I can feel his presence, but I still don’t want to look at him.
I’m mortified.
“Sweetheart, can you hear me?Fuck.” He kneels down, his leg a solid tree trunk next to my hip, and then his hand is on my neck, my shoulder, my wrist.
Checking my pulse, I realize.
“Wildfire Ranch, this is Drew, come in.” He drops his radio next to me and leans all the way over me, his lips brushing my forehead. “Brynn, wake up, baby.”
“I’m fine,” I stammer.
He huffs in surprise. “Okay. Jesus, you scared me. Can you open your eyes?”
“No.”
Another laugh.
Another forehead kiss, and—oh no.
The tears start before I can pretend that I’m fine. Hot and fast and mortifying, they course down my cheeks.
He doesn’t say anything.
He just wipes my cheeks and stays there, kneeling next to me.
The radio crackles, someone answering him.
He doesn’t reply to them, he just waits next to me, as if he can see that I’m more embarrassed than injured. Hurt, but only emotionally.
Slowly, I blink my eyes open.
“You look like a giant bending over to inspect a mouse,” I mutter.
“A beautiful mouse,” he says softly. “Did you hit your head?”
“No.” I wince. “I landed on my back.”
“Can you wiggle your toes?” He runs me through a very detailed first aid checklist before allowing me to get up.
And then he pulls me hard against his chest, and I let him.
As he finally radios back to the ranch, pretending his call was about something else, I breathe in the scent of him. He’s warm and solid, and his shirt smells like sunshine, but underneath that is something sharp, like panicked adrenaline.
Flop sweat.
That makes two of us.
I start crying again.
“It’s okay, you’re okay,” he says into my hair. And I hear it in his voice, too, that scared note that matches exactly how I feel inside. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I fucked up.”
I press my face tighter into his chest. His heartbeat is fast, like he’s still running.
Running after you, Brynn Hughes.
