“We used to own a ranch near San Antonio,” he said when Hazel had been silent for almost five minutes. He hadn’t planned on telling her the depths of his pathetic life after they’d made theirs lists a few days ago.

He figured “simple” meant “boring” and while Hazel still seemed keen to hold his hand, laugh with him while they played childish board games, and talk about her life, Dylan was sure as soon as they got back to civilization, the spark between them would fizzle.

After all, what did he have to offer a woman like her? No college degree. No home. No ranch. Not even a horse or a dog.

“About halfway between the city and Boerne,” he said, his mind flowing back to the wonderful childhood he’d had—at least up until he was confronted with the ugly truth about his father. “It was a great ranch. Shane, my oldest brother, had been working it as an adult for a few years. All us boys worked from the time we learned how to walk.”

He kept his eyes scanning, but it was easy to fall back into the memories of family game nights, the way his mother quoted the Bible to him every time he got in trouble at school, and how his father could tame any horse into the best animal in the world.

Now he sat behind a desk, with a new wife at home, with an occasional text to the three sons he’d abandoned. Dylan wondered if his dad ever thought about the Royal Ranch he’d left a half a million dollars in debt. Did he miss the homestead, with it’s new hardwood floors he’d spent a month teaching Dylan how to install, sand, and finish?

Did he miss the time he spent outside, under this gorgeous Texas sky, with his horses following him around like puppies?

Did he ever think he’d made a mistake?

If he thought any of those things, Dylan didn’t know about them. He’d been eighteen when life as he knew it had crashed and burned, and he said, “My dad made a lot of bad decisions. Terrible mistakes. Our family broke up. My mom lives in a condo in San Antonio now, and works as a secretary in a doctor’s office. Shane kept the three of us together, and we worked at a neighboring ranch while everything was sorted out with the bankruptcy, the divorce, and the sale of everything we had to pay my dad’s debts.”

Hazel sucked in a breath but otherwise said nothing. Dylan gathered his courage close, reminding himself that these weren’t his mistakes. His terrible decisions.

“We lost everything we’d spent our lives working for,” he said. “We landed at Grape Seed Ranch about four years ago. Four and a half, something like that. Shane’s co-foreman now, and if he ever gets up the nerve to propose to his girlfriend, he’ll move out of our cabin and into her tiny house.”

He drew in a breath, suddenly glad to be talking about this.

“Not everyone can have a big house,” Hazel said.

Dylan chuckled, finally reaching for her hand and squeezing her fingers as their palms met. “No, she really lives in a tiny house. One of those that you can hook up to a truck and tow it behind you. She’s got it parked on a patch of land over by the Rhodes’ peach orchards.”

“Oh…interesting.”

“It is interesting,” he said. “She’s a minimalist. Produces very little trash. That kind of thing.” He liked Robin a lot. She’d always been kind to him, and she had a great sense of humor. Not only that, but she was absolutely perfect for Shane, who’d changed drastically in the year since he and Robin had started dating.

“So.” Dylan exhaled. “I have no ranch of my own. They’re expensive, as I’m sure you can imagine. I live on-site, because room and board is included in my pay. We lost our horses, our land, our dad.” His emotions choked him, and he hated that they’d snuck up on him like that. Most of the time, he didn’t miss his father. Only if he allowed himself to remember who’d taught him how to check a horse’s teeth, or who’d sat by him all night in the barn when he had the flu. His mother had always quarantined the boys outside when they got really sick, and his father had always been the one to nurse them back to health.

“But you have a great ranch family now,” Hazel said gently. “A job you like. And I’ll help you find a German shepherd when we get back to town.”

Dylan paused, drawing Hazel in front of him. “So—” He cleared the emotion and insecurity from his voice. “So you think you’ll still be interested once we get back to town?”

She blinked at him, the moon highlighting the shape of her face and the disbelief in her expression. “Dylan, of course I will.”

His heart started tromping around in his chest, thumping and thundering like he’d never experienced before.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, tilting her head as she studied him.

“Nothing’s wrong.” Slowly, he put his free hand on her waist and drew her closer. “Maybe I’m a little nervous.” His pulse was screaming Very nervous. I’m very nervous! He lifted her hand and placed her palm against his heartbeat. “See?”

She gazed at her fingers on his chest, wonder running through her eyes when she met his again.

“Are you scared of me, cowboy?” She spoke in a sexy whisper that made Dylan’s fingers tighten along her waist.

“Terrified,” he whispered, ducking his head. If she’d just stretch up a half a foot, he could kiss her.

She inched that way, sliding her hand from his chest to his throat and along his jaw. Sparks popped along his skin there, and he breathed in the warm peach scent of her hair.

When their lips were only a knuckle apart, their breath mingling, a growl filled the air.

Dylan whipped the rifle around his shoulder at the same time he stepped in front of Hazel. “They’re back,” he said, not bothering to keep his voice down.

“Switch me,” Hazel said. “You’re better with the darts than I am.”

In a flurry of motion and movement, she loaded the dart gun with five sedatives this time and took the rifle in exchange for the dart gun.

“Don’t point it at me,” Dylan said as she started swinging it around. “Out there. Keep it out there. Even just firing it will scare them off. You don’t have to hit one.”

“You do,” she said. “The big one.”

Dylan’s hands shook the tiniest bit and he took a moment to steady himself. Mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually. Let us get this over with quick, he prayed. A clean hit.

He not only wanted it to go well for Hazel, he really wanted to get back to what they’d been about to do before the night got too late.

The coyotes didn’t seem to be afraid of him at all. He strode toward them, the dart gun in front of him, lining up the sight on the animal’s chest. The leader bared his teeth, that growl warning Dylan to stop. He did, took a breath, held it, and released the dart. The coyote yelped, sending the other four scattering, and bounded twice before falling down.

“Got it,” he said, handing her the dart gun and taking back the rifle. “We’ll need to be fast once we go over the fence. There are four more out there that aren’t sedated.” He scanned the darkness for them, but couldn’t see them, couldn’t hear them.

“I’ll get the tracker ready before we go over.” Hazel stepped past him, and he wondered if her heart was crashing around inside her chest the way his was. Not only from the thought of going over the fence and leaning over a hundred-pound coyote with four still on the loose, but from the thought of kissing him.

She worked with quick and able fingers and nodded at him. He went over first, landing on the other side of the fence and waiting, listening, the rifle held at the ready. “All right,” he whispered, and she joined him a moment later.

He liked a woman who could climb eight-foot fences without help. And a woman who marched toward a fallen coyote, bent over, shaved a patch of fur on the shoulder, and implanted a tracker. The whole process took three minutes, during which Dylan didn’t let his guard down for a second.

Back on the other side of the fence, he finally allowed himself to breathe. “Wow.”

Hazel giggled, the sound made more of nerves than anything else. “Yeah. Wow.” She tucked her equipment back in the zipper pouch she wore around her waist and tossed her dark curls over her shoulder. “Should we head back?”

A kiss under the moonlight wasn’t going to happen, not unless Dylan wanted to grab her and plant one on her right there.

He did, and he didn’t. “Yeah, let’s head back.” At least he got to hold her hand for the short walk back to the cabin, but it was a consolation prize to what he really wanted.