I woke up before Blaze. She was still asleep next to me, her mouth open slightly and her body curled tightly into mine. I studied her face. Her lips were full and her eyelashes so long they grazed her cheeks. She had a freckle, too, just to the right of her nose. And even as she slept, there was an expression that looked like very mild skepticism on her face – a certain tightness of forehead. I wondered where that came from. Had she always worn that expression as she slept? Or was it something that came with adulthood, or with the type of work she did – or maybe even with me? Maybe she was dreaming of something dubious?

I grinned at my own adolescent reverie and slipped, very carefully, out of bed. I was hard again, and I knew that if she woke up and so much as said my name in that sweet, slightly rough-edged voice of hers, we were both done for.

"Jack?" She murmured, waking slightly in spite of my carefulness.

"Shhh," I said quietly. "Go back to sleep, baby. I'll be back in twenty minutes."

I grabbed another blanket from the linen closet in the hall and lay it over her before I left. It was freezing in the truck, so cold I could see my breath. I wasn't feeling the cold, though. Not like usual. There was a warmth in my chest and my belly, a contentment that neither the winter nor, for the time being, my worries could get to.

Blaze. I smiled at the mere thought of her. She was the one responsible for that warmth, the gift of herself. I wondered if she knew how much it meant to have her there with me, during those last few days at Sweetgrass Ranch. I didn't imagine she did.

At the drugstore, Krista Jones served me. Krista Jones was Lisa Halloran's best friend, and Lisa Halloran was Brandon Schneider's girlfriend. I reckoned it wouldn't take much longer than twenty, maybe thirty seconds for Krista to call her friend after I left and report that Jack McMurtry had just bought three packs of condoms.

Normally, that would have irritated me. Knowing that I would be one of the subjects of the usual gossip at the Little Falls Saloon that night. That day, though, it didn't even mildly annoy me. I felt oddly untouchable.

When I got back to the Ranch, Blaze was awake and in the kitchen, opening cupboards. When she heard me she turned and smiled, her whole face brightening at the sight of me.

"Don't do that," I said, putting my keys and the bag from the drugstore on the table.

"Don't do what?"

"Don't do that thing – that adorable, smiling thing."

"Why?" She asked, coming to me and resting her cheek against my chest.

"Because I might get used to it," I whispered, kissing the top of her head.

Blaze looked up at me, smiling at first and then more serious. "Yeah. Me too."

I was about to say something when my phone rang. I looked at the screen and made a face. "It's the guy who's taking the beef cattle – I have to take this."

When the call was over, I sighed. Timing. I had less than two days left with Blaze and now the company buying the cattle needed to pick them up in two days. Which meant they needed to be rounded up, like, yesterday.

"What is it?" Blaze asked, touching my cheek when she looked up at me. Goddamn I loved the way she looked up at me.

"The – damnit – the guys who are taking the cattle need them in two days. I have to go out there again right now and try to get them back into one of the fenced pastures."

I didn't want to saddle up the horse again, and head back out into the cold. I didn't want to do anything except peel Blaze's clothes off her body and make love to her until neither of us could speak or think anymore. But that wasn't going to happen. Fuck.

"Do you want me to come with you?" She asked. "Can I help?"

I shook my head. "No. I'd love to take you, but this needs to get done fast and if you come with me I'll just be distracted. Probably end up driving the cattle up into Canada by mistake."

Blaze laughed, but she was understanding. "OK. I get it. Well I'll, uh – I'll wait here? I'll read a book."

"Are you sure?" I asked, feeling guilty about leaving her to her own devices. "Why don't I start a fire for you in the front room before I go? Then at least you can read in comfort."

I didn't usually light fires in the house anymore, because firewood was just too precious a resource to waste on me alone. But there was over half a cord of wood left in the woodshed, and no more reason to conserve it. What was I going to do, rent a trailer and haul a load of firewood around behind me? No.

So I lit a fire and showed Blaze how to stack the kindling and sticks and then logs of increasing size onto it so as not to snuff it out. Then I walked back down to the barn, lowering my head into the bitter wind as it picked up, and saddled the horse up again.

The cattle were a pain in the ass to drive that day, more interested in huddling up against each other than actually moving. At least the cold kept the stragglers from wandering off. It took longer than I expected, and by the time I was walking back up the hill to the house, my hands were raw and frozen in spite of wearing gloves and my cheeks were chapped red from the wind.

"Jack!" Blaze exclaimed when she saw me and then again, louder, when she saw my hands. "What the hell? What happened?!"

I shrugged. "Just got a little cold is all. What's that smell?"

"It's – uh – I made you something to eat. I don't know if it's any good or if you'll –"

I took her face in my hands, forcing her to look up at my own face rather than down at my bloodied hands. "You made me something to eat, Blaze?"

She suddenly went all soft and bashful. "Yeah. Well, I tried to. I'm not a very good cook, so don't get your hopes up. And it's more of a snack than a meal or anything so –"

"Woman!" I commanded.

"What?"

"Stop talking. Stop telling me why it isn't good enough. It smells wonderful. And I'm starving."

"Are you?"

"Yes."

In the kitchen, sitting on the old wooden cutting board, were twelve misshapen but perfectly baked fresh-from-the-oven blueberry scones. I stared at them for a few minutes, not quite believing what I was seeing.

"How did you know?" I asked Blaze, who was standing back a little, her hands clasped nervously under her chin. How is it that a woman like was nervous – actually nervous – about my opinion? It was inexplicable.

"Know what?" She asked, worried. "I just Googled Irish recipes and found one that didn't have too many ingredients. And I threw the blueberries in there because they were in the fridge. This is the second batch, too. I burned the first one."

Jesus, I could have just about wept. I turned around and pulled Blaze against me, pushing the hair off her face and tucking it behind her ears. "My Grandma Dottie used to make scones on Sunday mornings, after church – when we still went to church. We'd eat them like this – warm, cut in half with a little butter. I love scones, Blaze. And only my Grandma Dottie knew how to make them – no one else in Montana even knows what they are."

"They weren't difficult," she replied. "I mean, if they had been I wouldn't have been able to make them. Do they look OK? I wasn't sure if they were supposed to be round or triangle or square or what."

"So you just went freeform?"

She giggled. "Yeah. So your grandma used to make these?"

I nodded, reaching for one as my stomach growled.

"No," Blaze said, stepping in front of me. "Your hands, Jack. You're bleeding. I don't want you touching anything until we –"

"Feed me one, then," I told her.

"Really? But what about your hands? You need to –"

"I will take care of my hands, Blaze. I promise. But you either agree to hand feed me a scone right now, or I lose all control of myself and stuff all twelve of them in my mouth. I reckon you've got about ten seconds before I do it."

She laughed and relented, cutting one of them in half and buttering it as I watched, doing my best not to drool.

"Is this right? You want butter on it? The recipe said you didn't have to butter them but –"

"Yes. Butter. Lots of it."

I sat down at the table, then, and let the woman who had just baked me scones break one of them up and feed it to me piece by piece.

"How is it?" She asked, after a couple of bites. "Did I put too much –"

"Mmph," I said, my mouth full. "Perfect. They're perfect. Just like how Grandma Dottie used to make them."

Blaze tilted her head to the side and gave me a look like she wasn't quite sure she believed me. "Well, I'm not sure about that, but they're edible at least, right?"

"Like I said," I told her. "Perfect."

She laughed out loud suddenly, and shook her head. "Oh my God, Jack."

"What?"

More laughing and head-shaking and then a pause. "Nothing – I'm just being silly. I think you should deal with those hands now, though."

I looked down at my raw, reddened palms and sighed. "Yeah. I'll go jump in the shower. If you want any of those scones I'd advise you to eat them now, too, before I finish them off myself."

"A shower?" Blaze asked, concerned. "Don't you have a tub upstairs – the one I used before, after the flood? Come with me, Jack."

Normally, when people try to take care of me, I just get annoyed. I can take care of myself, and it's a lot less time and hassle if I do. Even as a child, when Grandma Dottie used to fuss over me when I had a cold or a 'flu, it used to annoy me. I just wanted to get back to playing with my toys and running around in the fields. But when Blaze took my hand – well, my wrist – and led me upstairs to the old bathroom at the very top of the house, and started to run a warm bath for me, I swear I just about died of happiness.

I knew why, too. I knew why I took my clothes off and slid into the water and leaned back against the cold surface of the tub while Blaze tended to my shredded palms. Not because I had suddenly developed a taste for pampering. No, it was Blaze herself. I was still in something like a state of shock that a woman like her would want to tend to me the way she was, so sweetly and carefully. What did she see in me, a man who was about to lose everything, a man with no fancy degrees on his wall and no illustrious family name? I opened my eyes after settling back into the bath for a few moments and letting myself relax, and watched her. She didn't know I was watching, she was too engrossed in my hands, washing away the dried blood and tending to the rough, worn skin so gently I barely felt it.

And when she was finished with one hand, she moved on to the next.

"I never used to like this," I told her quietly as she worked on me. "I never used to like being fussed over."

Blaze looked up, into my eyes. "But now you do?"

I couldn't resist putting my finger under her chin and pulling her in for a brief kiss. "I like it when you do it."

"Well you should have done it yourself," she scolded me in that affectionate, busybody-ish way that women who care about you are wont to do. "The skin is very thick and rough, Jack. You should have taken better care of yourself."

"Cowboy's hands," I said. "That's just how they get, Blaze. Green peas like you just aren't used to it."

"Green peas?" She giggled. "Did you just call me a green pea?"

"Yes I did, because that's what you are. It just means someone from the city, someone who couldn't survive in the country. Someone who thinks a man can spend years driving and tending cattle and have hands as soft as a banker."

"I confess I didn't realize it was normal," she said, slipping her hand down my wrist and running her fingers over my forearm. "But I like your hands, Jack. I like your rough hands."

Our eyes met when she said that to me, and my cock, already half-awake due to her mere presence, stirred more fully to life. She smiled when she saw it, but didn't move to take care of it. Instead, she grabbed a washcloth and dipped it into the bath water.

"Lean forward, Jack. The back of your neck is dirty."

I leaned forward, breathing deeply as she squeezed soapy water out against my neck, just taking it in – taking her in.

"Are you OK?' Blaze whispered into my ear as she washed my neck and back. "Are you OK, Jack?"

She wasn't just asking about my hands, and I knew it.

"I don't know," I answered honestly as she rinsed the soap off. "I don't know what's going to happen with my life. But right now, with you, today? With this beautiful creature from the big city washing my neck and kissing me and feeding me scones she made from scratch and just being her wonderful self? I don't think I was ever as happy as I am right now, Blaze."

She looked right at me, then. "Really?"

"Yeah," I told her. "Really."

An expression that looked almost like sadness flitted across her face, but it was gone before I could figure out if I'd simply been imagining it or not. Then she was leaning over the edge of the tub, kissing me, taking my tongue into her mouth and sighing when she tasted how badly I wanted her again.

"No," she said, when I reached for her. "You need to keep your hands under the water, Jack, so they can soak."

She knew I wasn't going to put up with that for long, though, so she followed up her instructions by sliding her soft hand down my chest, over my abs and wrapping it around my aching length.

I listened to the breath rushing out of me and leaned back into the warm water, closing my eyes at the feeling of her hand stroking me.

"You better be careful," I told her, as the urge to come came on quicker than expected, and I felt my hips straining upwards, pushing myself further into her hand. "I'm not going to last very long if you keep, oh, fuck... Blaze –"

"That's OK," she whispered, not slowing down at all. "I want you to come, Jack. I want to make you come."

At that moment, as I hovered on the edge, it occurred to me that Blaze Wilson had been sent to torture me. What better way to torture a man than to be everything he ever wanted, to give him everything he ever wanted, and then take it away? Fuck it, it didn't matter. The fever was taking over my mind and Blaze's soft little hand felt like heaven.

"Blaze," I growled, snaking my fingers around the back of her neck and pulling her to me, baring my teeth against her pale flesh as the pleasure reached a sudden, agonizing peak and I came, copiously and everywhere.

"Oh," she whispered, with what almost sounded like reverence. "Oh, Jack. Jack..."

I looked up at her, so out of breath I couldn't yet speak, and too beyond words to come up with anything coherent even if I could.

"Relax," she told me. "Just keep your hands under the water, OK? I'm going to go get you a towel."

"Wait –" I grabbed her wrist before she could leave.

"What?"

I looked into her eyes, darkened as they were with desire. I liked seeing that. I liked knowing, as I did and without her saying it, that only I could take care of that for her.