Shay pressed her tears back, choosing to be strong in this moment when she felt so weak. Austin was clearly doing the same thing, and she wanted him to understand. The only way that would happen was if she talked. He would listen.

“For a while there,” she said. “I couldn’t accept that I’d lost the ranch. Of course I wanted it back.”

Austin simply waited, those eyes encouraging her to continue. “But of course that’s not what I think is actually going to happen. And nowhere near the reason why I agreed to go out with you.”

He folded his arms, his gaze steady, unwavering. His stance basically said, “And?”

“I was talking to an old friend of mine from the base in Georgia, and I haven’t spoken to her in…a long time, and she didn’t understand a lot of the family dynamics, or the mess I found when I got here, and I was just explaining, that yes, I wanted the ranch but well—” She shrugged. “We don’t always get what we want.”

She didn’t want to lose Austin because of part of an overheard conversation. He seemed to be relaxing in steps, bit by bit. Keeping with her courage, she said, “I did not start dating you to get the ranch. My feelings for you have nothing to do with your partial ranch ownership.”

He softened all the way, his arms dropping back to his sides and he released his breath. “All right then.”

“All right then.” Shay glanced around the equipment shed, thinking about the plethora of texts and the two calls she’d sent to Austin. He obviously hadn’t read them or listened to them. If he had, he’d have burst into the shed, demanding to know if she was in love with him, not accusing her of dating him to somehow get the ranch back.

“Sorry about the salt lick,” he said. “I honestly thought I was on plowing today.”

Shay sighed and looked down at her hands. “Are we still going to the meeting together tonight?”

“Depends,” he said.

She detected a flirtatious edge in his voice. “On what?”

“On whether or not you made that spaghetti sauce like you promised.”

Shay tightened her ponytail, lengthening the moment before she said, “Well, then I guess we’re goin’ to the meeting together.”

Austin smiled and closed the rest of the distance between them, sliding his hands around her waist slowly, deliciously drawing out the contact. “I hope we can always talk through our…problems.”

Shay leaned into him, breathing in the fresh-air scent of his shirt, and pressed her cheek over his pulse. “I hope so too.” In reality, she’d prefer no more hard talks like this. She didn’t want to experience another afternoon like the one she’d just endured. Angry one second, scared to death the next. Another text. Maybe a call.

It had been emotionally exhausting, and the adrenaline coursing through her faded, leaving her sleepy and sluggish. She stepped out of Austin’s arms and said, “I think I’m going to knock off early. Go take a shower and finish up dinner.”

“Sounds good.” He trailed his fingers along the underside of her arm as she backed up, effectively sending sparks through her bones and into her ribs. “I’ll come by about five-thirty?”

“Sure, five-thirty’s fine.” As she walked back to her cabin, she knew that if she really wanted a future with Austin, she’d have to work at it. She’d seen her parents go through hard things. She hadn’t understood everything, but she was an only child and had found out that her mother had gone through several miscarriages before giving up her dream to fill the ranch with kids.

She’d heard her parents have serious discussions when she was a teenager, and she’d heard them laugh. Seen them cry together, laugh together, worship together, work together. They’d been perfect partners for life—and then her mother’s had ended so prematurely.

Shay wasn’t sure she was up for the task of being in a relationship. They took a lot of work. She climbed the steps, Austin’s face floating in her mind, and she decided right then and there that he was worth the work. Worth the time investment. Worth the tears, the laughter, the tired muscles, the sleepless nights, all of it.

“You’ll tell him tonight,” she told herself as she ushered Molly and Lizzy into the house. She shut the door and nodded to each dog as if making a pledge to them. “I’ll tell him tonight. Tell him that I’ve never thought about marrying anyone. That I’m terrified he’ll take my heart and shatter it.” The more she spoke, the less sure she became.

She worried her bottom lip between her teeth and went to shower. With the help of prayer and hot water, she emerged ready to confess everything to Austin.

Please don’t let me lose him over this, she thought as she dressed in a pair of black slacks and a blouse the color of bright pink bubble gum. Then she tended to the spaghetti sauce and set a new pot of salted water on the stove.

The simple actions calmed her further, so that when Austin knocked on her door, she was ready to face him. She answered the door in bare feet, with a smile on her face, to find him all cleaned up and smelling as delicious as her homemade spaghetti sauce.

Really, he shouldn’t be allowed to walk around in public looking as good as he did. From the gray cowboy hat, to the leather jacket, to the dark wash jeans, he was the picture of male perfection. He ran one hand over his beard as if trying to hide his own smile. “Somethin’ smells amazing,” he said, pressing into her personal space, one hand easily slipping around her and holding her close to him. “Oh, here it is.” He leaned down and drew in a deep breath of her. Somehow it was the most sensual thing he’d ever done, and Shay melted into him, taking her own noseful of his warm, masculine scent.

“Mm.” His lips swept along her jaw before finding their mark and his kiss became real. He pulled away before she would’ve liked and said, “All right. We better spend more time eating than kissing if we don’t want to miss the meeting.”

Shay felt too warm and too soft, like a marshmallow over gentle heat, but she managed to turn toward the kitchen in time to see the lid on the pot start to jump. “Oh, water’s boiling.” She got the noodles in the water, set the timer, and pulled out a pitcher to make the strawberry punch.

Eating dinner at home had always been something Shay looked forward to, and with Austin joining her in her cabin, she wondered if she’d somehow stepped out of her stressed, angry life and into a new one.

With full plates of spaghetti and meatballs, she joined him at the bar. “So I had something I wanted to talk to you about.” She twirled her noodles around, getting them all coated in the sauce made with her mother’s recipe.

“Oh yeah?” He slurped up a bite of noodles. “That’s new.”

“New?”

“I usually ask all the questions,” he said. “I’m usually the one who wants to talk.”

A sting pinched in Shay’s lungs, but she couldn’t argue the point.

“I didn’t mean it as an insult,” Austin said, his voice at half-volume now.

“It’s fine.”

“Your whole face fell.”

How he could keep eating during the conversation, Shay wasn’t sure. The food looked good, but she couldn’t bring herself to take a bite. “I’m fine.”

At least a minute went by before he said, “So what did you want to talk about?”

Shay flinched, and she wasn’t sure she could get the words out. Her mind seemed to be going in a dozen different directions.

“Hey.” Austin put down his fork and twisted toward her. His fingers landed on her arm, drawing her focus there. She lifted her eyes to meet his, and she remembered all the feelings she’d had for him. She wanted to have him in her life. Today. Tomorrow. Possibly forever.

“I just wanted to…I don’t know.”

“Hey, it’s just me,” he said. “You can tell me.”

Shay trusted him. Just tell him, she thought. But she felt like she was opening her chest and exposing her heart. Giving it to him—and he could do whatever he wanted with it. Crumple it up and throw it away. Shatter it and spread the pieces wherever he wanted.

She thought it would be easier to tell him she loved him than tell him she’d spent the last thirty years of her life as a woman who didn’t want to get married.

But she didn’t love him…yet.

And she’d actually thought she could say “I do” to him at some point in the future. Maybe a very far future, and he deserved to know that.

“Okay.” She exhaled, any chance of eating before the meeting vanishing. “So my mom died when I was eighteen,” she said. “It was life-changing to say the least. As I watched how my father reacted, I made a vow to myself that I would never get married.”

Surprise burst onto Austin’s face and stayed there. “Oh.”

“I don’t want to get hurt the way he did. He felt apart. Started buying things he couldn’t afford. He became a hoarder, and you wouldn’t believe half the things I told you about the homestead.” She could clearly see the ruined half-bath off the kitchen in her memories, which helped her push ahead.

“Because he loved her so much, he lost everything when she died. It may have taken twelve years, but he lost everything because he gave his heart to her, and when she died, so did he. I didn’t want to end up like that. So I’d determined never to give my heart, myself, my life, to anyone.”

With every word she spoke, she felt lighter, freer. But Austin’s expression turned dark and then darker. He turned back to his food, but he didn’t eat. “So we’re just playin’ house, is that it?”

Shay swallowed her fear, as well as her rising anger. She should be able to talk to him about things without him jumping to conclusions. “No,” she said. “I think you’re causing me to change, to think about breaking my vow….” She trailed off, her confessions all out now. She couldn’t control the way Austin took what she’d said.

You can’t control him, she told herself, another lesson she’d learned from her anger management courses. She could only control herself and her own actions, reactions, and decisions. Other people? Not her job to manage.

Austin spiraled another forkful of noodles into a bite and ate it. The silence between them felt like it could snap at any moment, explode all over her cabin and stain her life forever.

“So you’re saying you like me enough to think about falling in love?” He kept his face turned away from her, his hat between them.

Shay appreciated that he could say things she couldn’t. Convey them so concisely. She also liked that he gave her space to think by not demanding she look at him during the hardest parts of the conversation.

“Yeah,” she said. “That’s what I’m saying.”

“I think I can live with that.” He glanced at her. “I’m not doing anything casually here,” he added. “I’m thinkin’ long-term myself.”

Shay felt like throwing up, but she managed to nod.

“You’re scared of that.” He wasn’t asking.

“I’m still adjusting my thinking,” she said. “So yes. I’m scared. And I’ll need time.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?” she echoed. “That’s it?”

“What did you think I’d do?”

“Break up with me,” she said honestly.

“Because you made a vow twelve years ago that you’d never get married? People change, Shay. Isn’t that why we go to these anger management classes? So we can change?”

Shay marveled at the wisdom in this man, and she needed the moment to be lighter than it currently was. She smiled at him, glad when he gave her his attention. “How’d a cowboy like you get to be so smart?”

“Hard knocks in life,” he said with a straight face. “I’ve had plenty to learn, and have changed in a lot of ways.” He indicated her plate with his fork. “You’re not eating?”

“I’m not the one obsessed with this spaghetti sauce.”

A smile spread across his face, and he tilted forward to kiss her. “I’ll get you something on the way in. Should we go?”

“Sure.” Shay left the plates on the counter and shrugged into her jacket. “Thanks for…thanks for letting me talk.”

“Thanks for talking.” He slung his arm around her as they walked out to his truck, and she slid all the way across the seat to sit right beside him on the drive into town, wondering if there was a more perfect man for her.