This was fine. This was a completely normal ranch morning. I had assisted with this exact procedure approximately forty times. The fact that I had been thinking about his hands since Saturday night was my problem and nobody else's.
"You ready?" he asked.
"Yep," I said.
We took the first cow together—I got her haltered and held her steady while Wyatt worked, and she was cooperative about it, which was more than I could say for some of them. He was focused and efficient the way he was about everything, narrating quietly as he went, more for my education than anything else. He'd been doing that since I was sixteen. Explaining things. Treating me like someone worth teaching.
That was half the problem, honestly.
"She's confirmed," he said, stripping the glove off. "Mark her."
I made the note on the clipboard.
Moved on.
We spent most of the morning like that, and the hours passed like they always did when you were working hard—slow at first, then fast once you got into a rhythm.By the time we finished I was sweaty and my arms were tired and I'd stopped thinking about Saturday night for approximately two hours, which felt like a victory.
Wyatt stripped off the last glove and went to wash up at the utility sink. I leaned against the stall door and watched him and thought about Amber again.
You walked away first. That means you won.
Did it though? Did it really?
Because from where I was standing, winning looked a lot like spending the morning three feet away from a man who'd had his hand down my jeans forty-eight hours ago and acting like we were strangers. It looked like noticing every time he reached past me and making sure I didn't react. It looked like being extremely professional about cow pregnancy while quietly losing my mind.
He turned off the tap and dried his hands and turned around and caught me looking.
"Lunch," he said.
"In a minute."
He waited.
I pushed off the stall door. "Can I ask you something?"
His jaw tightened…just slightly. “Haven…”
“Did you think I was going to just pretend it didn’t happen?” I interrupted—before he could preemptively apologize, cut me off.
He frowned, still not looking at me.
"You wanted me," I said. "I felt it. You can't tell me you didn't."
He looked at me then. Cleared his throat. “Yeah. I wanted you. What do you want me to do about it? I feel like a bastard, if that’s what you’re looking for?—”
“Not at all,” I said, taking a step toward him. “I want…” I swallowed hard. “I want to do it again.”
His expression did something complicated.
"Haven."
"I want to do it again," I said. "That's all. Nobody has to know. It doesn't have to mean anything past what it is." I held his gaze. "You wanted me. I want you. That's pretty straightforward."
"You work for me."
"I know where I work."
"You're twenty-one."
