Redeeming the Rancher (Meier Ranch Brothers 2)

“Told you he was dreamy.”

Wes scrubbed the growth on his jaw, hoped to hell he favored G.I. Joe more than the mopey French guy. He reached behind the hay block by the door and retrieved her gift. He’d had it reframed and re-matted from a specialty place near Austin. The wrapping was shit, nowhere near the time she put into hers, but every day for the past two weeks, his stomach had hitched from the anticipation of seeing her face when she opened it.

He spread a saddle blanket on a haybale and invited her to sit beside him.

“You first,” he prodded.

Her eyes widened as she took his gift in hand. “It’s so big.”

He loved that she seemed to genuinely not guess what the flat, rectangular present was, that Christmas came hours early, not wrapped in bows but in the flush of her cheeks, the energy in her smile, the innocence that came with an unexpected gift. He wanted to swallow back everything he had said, but the moment was too pure to taint with talk of misplaced anger.

She tugged at the brown paper too carefully for the blood racing through his arteries. He helped her with a corner that revealed George Langley’s The Infinite Nows from the front, how a surprise was meant to be shared.

At her first, full glimpse, she froze. Mouth open, fingertips spanning her lips, her eyes swimming behind glass like a fishbowl.

He had hoped for happiness. The tears were unexpected.

“Oh, Wes. It’s…” she hesitated, still stalled on her thoughts about the piece. Ultimately, she decided on “generous,” “cherished,” and “perfect.”

As quickly as she was swept up in the gift, her expression fell.

“I’m afraid yours isn’t as extravagant.”

“Between Santa’s ass chaps and Léon Bonnat, I already have everything I want.”

Right here. Everything Wes wanted was right here. Every. Single. Thing. Sitting beside her, knowing how much he must have hurt her, bringing up Daniel in the way he did—all of it made it hard to breathe.

Fresh from the Olive Blake school of paper preservation, he unwrapped his gift, careful not to split dream guy’s chiseled face. Inside the box was an ornament of an old red truck with a cut Christmas tree in the bed.

“To remember the Christmas you restored your grandfather’s Ford.”

Wes nudged her with his shoulder. “Be a little hard to forget this Christmas.”

Her tepid smile didn’t reach her eyes. Something was wrong.

“I wanted to give it to you before I packed up my things,” she said.

His gut clenched, the way it had when he woke up with her in his bed. He had been a fucking mess and smelled like death, but she was there beside him, fingers resting in his palm as if she had held his hand but relaxed in sleep, so serene and delicate without her glasses, and he knew she had found him. He remembered none of it. The ache traveled to his scalp at the thought of her side of the barn empty.

“Don’t…” he said on a sigh then repeated it with more conviction. He leveled her with a stare. “Don’t go.”

“It’s clear that my being here is a problem. I have an artist friend in Dallas who said I could use part of her warehouse. It might be a few days before I can arrange transport of the pieces but—”

“Olive…”

She rose. Her sexy black combat boots rearranging hay fibers was all he could focus on because meeting her eyes, seeing all he had done to her in their depths, would break him.

“What, Wes? What do you want from me? One day you’re kissing me and the next you tell me I’ve ruined your peace here and you can’t get past my dead brother to see me. I can’t work like this. Not knowing that you’re counting the seconds until I’m gone.”

“Look, I’m sorry for the way I said it, but every single word was true. And we said we’d always be honest.”

“And that’s the best you can do?”

“No. No, I can do better.”

His gaze scaled her body, fighting for courage, temporarily detouring past the hideous sweater to the way her skin-tight jeans hugged her willowy curves, to the summit of her charged stare. Honest. If there was ever a time to be honest, before she was gone for good, it was now.

“I’m falling in love with you.”