Page 41 of Holden: Bucked By Love (Crawford Ridge Ranch #1)

Leni

It's nearly dark by the time I get home from helping Rae set up the clean rooms. We ended up chatting the entire time, and I feel such a sense of relief that I nearly float through the cabin door.

Mason has already put his little sister to bed and I reward him with a big hug that he doesn't see as much of a prize.

My boy will be thirteen in three short days, and I'm trying to prepare myself for the natural pulling away that will occur over these next few years.

His once chubby cheeks have already grown lean, and his limbs are lengthening as he prepares for a growth spurt that I know is coming.

I open my mouth to ask him how he'd feel about his dad moving back in, but swallow the words at the last minute.

I don't want to assume that Holden is ready, and I don't want to get Mason's hopes up if things don't go as I hope they will.

So, instead, I tell him I'm going for a little walk and give him free rein on the video games for the next hour.

That, as far as he is concerned, is the real gift he's getting for watching Josi.

Back outside it's warm and beautiful, and I know fall will sneak in before I'm ready, so I enjoy the heat on my skin as I make my way to the camp trailer where Holden has been living.

There are no lights on, but I knock anyway assuming he's already settling in for the night thanks to his early ranch hours.

He doesn't answer, so I knock again and nothing.

Stumped, I spin in a slow circle, wondering where he could be.

He's been back here much earlier lately, and I wonder if something happened on the ranch today.

Although, Rae would have gotten word if an emergency had occurred, so I know it's not that.

A soft hammering noise reaches my ears from the left and I hold my breath as I listen.

It comes again. I take a few steps until I've cleared a low rise that blocked my view of the area.

Up ahead is the old storage shed, and a light shines out the propped open door.

I can see a man's shape inside, and I immediately recognize it.

I head that way, motivated by curiosity and excitement.

I'm imagining his eyes lighting up when I tell him I'm ready for him to come home.

I can't wait to feel his heavy weight in the bed next to me and have the sounds of his breathing make me feel secure and safe.

As I get closer, I can see he's pulling up the old floorboards and tossing them out the door. One of them zings my way and I yelp as I dive to the side. The sound has Holden spinning around, eyes wide, already holding another board in his gloved hand. I wave and pull a sheepish face.

"I'm safe, no contact was made," I call, my heart rate erratic with all the emotion plus the near decapitation.

He stands straight, drops the board at his feet, and tucks a hammer into the tool belt around his waist.

"Hey, Sunshine," he says as he comes out the door to where I'm standing, and the easy nickname makes me smile.

"Hi, yourself. What are you up to?" I ask, glancing around at the pile of discarded floorboards near my feet .

He fiddles with the measuring tape hanging near the hammer and shrugs, playing it cool. "Cleaning out the old place, getting it prepped for renovations."

I look past his shoulder to see that the shed is empty. For the nearly fourteen years I've lived on this ranch I've never seen it empty. It's been a sort of catchall for anything that someone couldn't think of a better place for. I hitch a stuttered breath as I realize what's happening here.

"It's empty," I state, overwhelmed with what this means.

"Yeah," he says easily, casually, scratching lightly at his wrist.

"Where did all the stuff go that was in here?" I don't see piles of anything on the ground around us. It's gone.

"Mostly to the landfill." He sniffs. "Some of it was still useful, so that's in the big barn, or donated in town."

My lip wobbles and I press my teeth into it. "When did you do this?"

He pulls the measuring tape out and lets it snap closed. "It's been a slow process over the past couple of weeks."

I think back to when I first mentioned the idea of converting this to a yoga studio. Had he started working on it then? Before we'd begun to have deeper conversations? Tender heat chases over my chest and I press my palm over my heart.

"I can't believe you'd do this," I whisper, voice thick with emotion.

He looks at me and shrugs, and I see a man covered in dust after a long day of hard labor. A man trying so hard to please me.

His tone is self-deprecating as he says, "I know I didn't always give you a reason to believe this, but I'd do anything for you."

I launch myself at him, throwing my arms around his shoulders and accidentally bumping my hip on the hammer in his belt.

His arms are instantly around me, and I hear the measuring tape hit the ground at our feet.

I bury my nose in his neck, sniffling as tears begin to fall.

He smells of hay and outdoors, and I wiggle closer to make any gap between us disappear.

"I love it," I say.

"I'm sorry that I didn't know you wanted this sooner," he says against my hair, one of his hands coming up to stroke down the length of it.

I shake my head. "I should have told you. You aren't a mind reader. You were tied up in your own concerns."

"You should have been my main concern." He pauses and his arms tighten further. "I love you, Leni," he says. His voice is low and a little raspy, like he's a little unsure about admitting his feelings. "I never stopped, not once."

"I love you too, Holden. So much. I actually came looking for you to tell you that I want you back home."

I press my lips against his neck, under his jaw and his body tenses. Then, with a whoosh of air, he gathers me so close that I'm forced onto my tiptoes as he adjusts our position so that his nose is pressed into my temple, his mouth against my ear.

"Thank goodness," he says with feeling. "I've been miserable away from you and the kids."

This moment feels heavy with promise and I reluctantly tug myself out of his arms—yes, tug, because he's a little resistant about letting me go—and take his two hands in mine. I meet his eyes as tears trail down my cheeks and suck in a deep breath.

"I promise that I'll communicate my needs better, and I'll ask you about yours more," I say .

One side of his mouth ticks up as he understands what I'm doing. He squeezes my hands. "I promise that I won't put work above you and our kids."

"I promise to try harder to overlap our lives. I'll meet you on the ranch for lunch, and help during roundup time. I won't focus too hard on the kids and forget about our partnership."

He nods. "I promise to talk to you about yoga and books, and ask what your crazy sister is up to, instead of only talking about fence lines and creek beds."

At this I chuckle. "I promise to pretend to care about those things."

He laughs, and the last of my tears fall as I join him.

I'm downright giddy in this moment. My smile is wide as I look over his handsome face.

It's a face I know better than my own, having looked at it every day for fifteen years now.

The laugh lines around his eyes are deeper, and his jaw is firmer than that of the teen I married, but our shared history is there to be seen in the warmth of his eyes and the softness of his expression.

"Holden Crawford, will you live with me?" I ask.

He nods with a grin. "I'd love to live with you."

"And will you come do yoga here with me sometimes?" I ask.

His eyebrows raise. "This feels like a trap."

I laugh again. "Not a trap, or a test."

He clears his throat. "I'll come in here and read all the feedstore ads while you do yoga."

"Liar. You'll sneak peeks of me in my athletic clothing."

He shrugs. "Win-win."

I pull on his hands so that he's forced to step closer and then lean up on my toes to kiss him. He keeps hold of my hands as he moves to press our joined fists against my lower back, bringing me in tight against him, deepening the kiss.

The first time I kissed Holden as a kid I was the aggressor.

He'd been a little timid, and held back, and I'd had to grab his shoulder and make things happen.

He'd warmed up, but I'd been in the driver's seat.

This time he deepens the kiss, and holds me in place with strong arms that band me to him. I love it.

When we break apart I bite at my lip and give him a teasing smirk. "By the way, I thought you didn't do grand gestures regularly."

He picks up the measuring tape we knocked loose during our straight-up make-out session. He slaps it against his thigh to loosen the dust and puts it back on with a shrug, even though his mouth is twitching.

"Yeah, seems like once I discovered the concept, I went all in," he responds.

I clap my hands. "I accept this."

With a big smile on my face I step into the shed to see what he's been up to.

He stands in the open door and watches me move around the space, chatting away about my plans for each area and how many people I could fit inside comfortably for a class.

I'm light and happy, bubbly enough to float away on feelings I thought I'd grown out of.

My man is out here making my dreams a reality—pinch me.

When I'm done dreaming, I turn to him and hold out a hand. "All right, Boss, put me to work."

He shakes his head, taking off the tool belt and setting it on the dirt where the floor used to be, and then turns off the light. It takes a second for my eyes to adjust to the full darkness that has fallen, but when I can see again I take the hand he's holding out to me .

"If I'm going to put you to work tonight, it's going to be helping me move my things out of the camper and back into our bedroom," he says, and I love the tingles that zip up my spine at his words.

"I like that plan," I say.