There was a depth to that I hadn’t been experiencing.
I needed him.
In a very literal way.
For actual survival.
It was something I had never experienced before. No matter how much my heart had maybe ached when things with a man in the past didn’t go the way I had wanted them to, I always knew that no matter what, I would be fine. Because I only ever really relied on myself. I always took care of myself. That was how my mother had raised me. Never to make a man my everything because if he had a fickle heart, he took it all away with him. She didn’t want that for me. So she taught me to stand on my own, to know that I never needed anyone.
But, in the purest definition, I did need Ranger. So long as I was in this cabin, in these woods, I needed him.
And, what’s more – and what was even more scary if I let myself think on it for too long – I was entirely at his mercy as well.
He was under absolutely no obligation to keep me around, to let me continue to share his home, share his food, share his dog and donkey.
If he wanted to, he was well within his rights to get up in the morning and inform me that I would be heading out with Finn.
The thought of that created a piercing feeling in my chest.
Sure, there was pain about Captain, about Gadget, hell, even about Red.
But it was more than that.
It was this place, this home, the person I had become in so short a time because of them.
And, as much as maybe I shouldn’t admit it because it was far too soon, it was Ranger too.
Not that anyone could say for sure what was the right amount of time for you to feel like you knew someone, connected with someone, had something special with someone.
I worked with a man at the bank who told me with absolute certainty that he knew he would marry a woman on their first date, before they had even kissed.
He’d married her.
They’d had five babies.
And were still blissfully happy after eighteen years together.
There was no accounting for how emotions worked. There was no universal law we all followed when it came to affection and commitment, to futures and love.
There was no denying it.
I cared about Ranger.
More than I had maybe ever cared about James, a man I had spent two years with, shared a bed and apartment with, thought I saw a possible future with.
Until I suddenly didn’t.
Until even the way he chewed his food and hummed the National Anthem while buttoning his shirt in the morning made me coming-out-of-my-skin irritated.
Turns out, the way I changed into loungewear right after work and drove my car drove him equally as crazy.
And we had broken up.
But that was two years in the making.
That was days and nights and weekends and holidays with the same person.
And yet…
And yet, what I felt for Ranger felt deeper, felt almost primal, something long-buried within me, only to be awakened by his presence.
Hell, maybe it was a condition.
Like Florence Nightingale syndrome, but where the patient develops feelings for the nurse.
He’d saved me, taken care of me when I was hurt, opened up his life to me.
And for that, there was a gratitude I had never experienced before within me.
Maybe it was just that.
Surely, it was just that.
And for the next hour or so before sleep finally claimed me, that was what I had worked really hard to convince myself of.
—
“Why would I stay?”
Finn’s voice was the first thing I heard the next morning, before even Ranger’s typical stomping and slamming around, the dogs rousing and scratching to be let outside.
Finn, apparently, woke up even before Ranger’s ridiculously early schedule.
I stayed still, keeping my eyes closed, knowing it was rude, but eavesdropping nonetheless.
“If they’re having issues, isn’t that even more reason for me to… no. I mean… I don’t think she is planning on leaving with me. I haven’t talked to her. Yeah, I guess that makes sense.”
I could hear the distinct tones of a woman’s voice, but couldn’t make out the words.
If it was Miller, I somehow felt like I could fill in the blanks.
Like she was telling him to stay in case things progressed, in case Ranger and I decided we couldn’t stand each other anymore. In case he kicked me out. In case I decided I didn’t want to stay. If Finn was there, then that would be an easy out for me. We wouldn’t have to sit awkwardly in a car with each other for hours and hours as he drove me back north, dropped me off at my old apartment, back into my old life.
Whatever was left of it.
“Alright. Yeah. It’s fine.”
He wasn’t very persuasive.