Page 47 of Heart & Hope

Each inhale I take is too tight, and a strangled moan slips out on every exhale.

Worry and fear tighten Ruby’s eyes.

Goddamn it.

Shit, I’m scaring her.

No.

I close my eyes, desperate to take back control. My heart flings against my ribs, and I shake my almost numb hands out, forcing air in and air out.

“Reed, look at me.” Her words are wobbly, her voice cracking at the last one.

I open my eyes and try to apologize for scaring her. She pulls me close, her head dropping against my neck. “You scared me.”

Tears burn behind my eyes, and I fold her into my hold. Letting her warmth, her body pressed to mine, extinguish the raging torrent that stole the air from my lungs. Her smell swallows me whole, and her beating heart against my chest calms my own.

“I’m sorry, Rubes,” I rasp.

Now she pushes out of my hold, holding me at arm’s length, and I miss her already. “Don’t you dare apologize. You hear me?” She’s shaking her head. “Don’t you ever be sorry for being who you are.”

“Harry may disagree with you there.”

“Harry can bite my ass. You are more important than his bottom line. Or any grand plan he has.”

I stare at her. The fire she carries, the way she knows who she is. I run my hands through her hair. What I wouldn’t do to kiss that beautiful mouth. To have her want me the way I have wanted her since the second I saw her that night in Great Falls.

“What caused this?” she asks tenderly.

“I can’t do it. I can’t be tied to the land for the rest of my life. I’m not Hudson or Harry. It’s not who I am.”

“You don’t have to be either of them. You’reyou. You have no idea how incredible you are. You’re kind, extremely thoughtful, hilarious most of the time and...” Her gaze drops to my mouth before returning to my eyes, laced with fire. “And if this was another time and I led a different life, I would?—”

I run my thumb over her bottom lip, trailing it over her jaw. “I wish you could stay.”

The words tumble out on their own accord.

“I can’t?—”

She closes her eyes as if she is thinking about what’s right in front of us. Like she feels every single thing that I do and has been for months, too.

“I know. Sorry, baby. It slipped out.”

She huffs a small laugh before wiping her eyes dry. “Why do you call me that?”

“Baby?”

“Yeah.”

“Feels right, ya know. I know we will only ever be friends. But my brain doesn’t have another name for you, Ruby.”

I have to be honest. I know she’s leaving. She doesn’t owe me a thing. And I want her to have the life she dreams about. Just wish it didn’t mean I had to lose the only thing I have ever been sure of in my entire life.

Fully recovered and in command of my own respiratory system, I bundle her back onto Magnet, and we head down the mountain. She’s quiet on the way down, leaning back into me. Her hands are around mine on the reins, as if anchoring me in case I spiral again. My life preserver.

“There are other ways to make an income on a ranch that don’t include being tied to the land and Harry’s way of life, Reed.”

“Yeah?”

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