Page 9 of Oops I Fell For The Cowboy Next Door

That almost is going to be a problem.

The walk back to the cabin takes five minutes, and I spend every one of them arguing with myself. He's rude. He's territorial. He showed up at my creek to argue about water rights again. But he also fixed my step, offered a fair trade, and looked at my mouth just now with an expression that said he was doing math in his head about all the reasons he shouldn't kiss me.

He came up with enough reasons not to. Barely.

I step onto the new porch step. Solid under my boots. Something he built for me before sunrise because he couldn't leave a hazard. Because he was protecting someone who didn't ask for protection, in the most stubborn, roundabout way possible.

Inside, I sit at my kitchen table, open my laptop, and stare at the blank screen.

Six a.m. tomorrow. His kitchen and an agreement.

My reflection stares back at me from the dark monitor. Flushed cheeks. Bright eyes. A woman who moved to the mountains for peace and quiet, and is currently losing an argument with her own heartbeat over a man who communicates primarily through scowls and acts of unsolicited carpentry.

"You're in trouble," I tell my reflection.

She doesn't disagree.

CHAPTER FOUR

TATE

She shows up at 5:58.

Two minutes early. Hair pulled up in a messy clip with pieces falling around her face. Leggings. Boots. My flannel. Wait. Not my flannel. Her flannel. One of those soft ones women buy at stores that sell candles. But the way it hangs off her shoulder, the way the collar sits open against her collarbone, makes my hands tighten around my coffee mug until I'm worried about the ceramic.

"You're early," I say from the porch.

"You said six. I rounded down." She climbs the steps to my porch like she's been doing it for years. Looks around at the house, the barn beyond it, the corrals where Bucky is watching us with one ear forward. "This is nice."

"It's a ranch."

"Ranches can be nice, Tate."

My name again. She uses it like punctuation. Like a weapon she hasn't decided to fully deploy.

The kitchen is clean because I cleaned it twice. Once at nine last night. Again at four this morning. The agreement is on the table, handwritten on a yellow legal pad because I don't own a computer, and the coffee pot is full because I made a full pot instead of my usual four cups. Because she was coming.

I don't examine that too closely.

She sits at my table. In my kitchen. In the chair across from where I eat standing up every night. Her eyes move over the room. The counters. The single plate in the drying rack. The cast iron hanging from the pot rack my grandfather welded forty years ago.

"Coffee?" I pour a mug before she answers. Set it in front of her. Black.

She takes a sip, wrinkles her nose, and gets up. Opens my fridge without asking. Finds the milk. Pours a splash into her mug. Sits back down.

"You just helped yourself to my fridge."

"You gave me black coffee at six in the morning. I'm allowed a survival response."

I sit across from her. The table is small. My knees are close to hers underneath it, close enough that if either of us shifted forward an inch, we'd be touching. Neither of us shifts.

"Wrote it down." I nod at the yellow legal pad on the table. "Not because it's legal. I know it's not. You're a renter. But I wanted you to see what I'm offering."

She reads it slowly. One finger tracing down the page. Her nails are short. A faded ring of silver on her right thumb. Her lips move slightly as she reads, and I look away because watching her mouth is a bad idea at any hour, but especially at six in the morning in my kitchen where she's close enough that I can see the freckles on her shoulders through the open collar of her shirt.

"Creek access for the east herd, twice daily. Driveway plowed in winter. Repairs as needed. Firewood before November." She looks up. Those blue eyes. Direct, clear, missing nothing. "This is generous."

"It's fair."