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“What’s a gentleman?” Ella asks.

Cash leans down to press a kiss to her cheek. “Me. I’m a gentleman.”

“Not always,” Mollie replies with a smirk of her own.

Cash gives her nape a squeeze. “I won’t elaborate in polite company, but you ain’t wrong, honey.”

Wyatt bends his neck and looks down at me. His eyes are bloodshot, but he still smiles at the inside joke we silently share between us—Wyatt’s no gentleman either.

You turn me into an animal, he says, the skin at the edges of his eyes crinkling.

Wouldn’t have it any other way, I reply, turning my head so I can kiss his arm through his shirt.

“But, yes, a break is what Sally deserves for performing yet more miracles,” Cash continues.

“Wyatt performed some miracles of his own,” I reply.

Cash arches an eyebrow. “Do I want to know more?”

“He got the horses in a good place. Calmed them down so I was able to do my thing with no issues,” I reply. “He’s the best surgical assistant I think I’ve ever had. Other than Dad, of course.”

“Really?” Cash looks at his brother in disbelief.

“I’ve never had an assistant bring me a breakfast biscuit before or look so good doing it, so, yes, really.”

Wyatt pops his cuffs. “Y’all are gonna make me blush.”

“Go home.” Cash waves us away. “Y’all did good today.”

At Wyatt’s house, we take a quick shower. I know I’m exhausted when I’m too tired to have hot shower sex with my very hot boyfriend, despite him helping me come to the realization earlier today that happiness is not success or big salaries, but community and caretaking and dating cute cowboys.

This particular cowboy has turned my world upside down in all the best ways.

We fall into bed and pass out hard. Next thing I know, late afternoon light is streaming through the windows. Wyatt is awake, his head turned on the pillow so that our eyes meet.

His look is so piercingly blue that my heart turns over.

“Hungry?” His voice is gravelly with sleep.

I reach for him. “Yes.”

Later, after dinner, we plop on the couch with our laptops to catch up on work. As foreman, Wyatt is overhauling largechunks of the ranch along with his brothers, and his responsibilities include keeping up with a heinous amount of emails, spreadsheets, invoices, and projections.

I type up my notes from today’s surgeries and email them to Dad, Vance, and Ava. I check the shipment status of some surgical supplies I ordered earlier this week.

Then I draft a letter of resignation and digitally sign it with today’s date.

My stomach churns when I attach it to an email to my adviser and press Send. I close my laptop and let out a deep breath.

Then I smile.

I have no fucking clue what to do next when it comes to my career. Do I form an official partnership with Dad? Start my own practice? Ask Ava to hire me?

I don’t know.

I just know my work—my life—is here now.

My heart has always been here in Texas. I just had to open my eyes and see that for myself.