Page 8

There’s nothing like the bone-deep exhaustion of calving season on a cattle ranch. Between performing prenatal vaccinations, hourly monitoring rotations, and the actual birthing of calves, we’re never not busy. My focus is usually horse training, but during calving season, it’s all hands on deck.

But I’m grateful for it. When Elsie asked me to leave in November, there wasn’t nearly as much to do to keep my mind busy.

But after the night we spent together three weeks ago, I’ve hardly had any time alone.

And when I do, it’s only to shower and pass out in bed for a couple hours of sleep.

It’s infinitely better than the days I spent riding through the pastures alone, mending fences and building extra feeders to prepare for calving season.

I’m just stumbling into my cabin to catch a few hours of sleep when a familiar truck pulls into my drive, making fresh tracks in the falling snow. For a minute, I think I’m so exhausted that I’m imagining it. Imagining her .

But when she climbs out of the truck and catches sight of me standing on the porch, her feet halting in the snow, eyes wide as she takes me in, I know she’s real. For the first time in three months, my wife has come to me.

My heart thunders in my chest when her feet finally begin moving again, closing the distance between us. She waits to speak until she’s close, standing at the bottom of the stairs, mere feet from me.

“Hey.”

That’s all she says, but it’s enough to make my heart race, to make my body itch to reach for her.

For the millionth time, memories of the night we spent together weeks ago come rushing back to my mind.

Things felt different then, different from how they had for long before I left.

I don’t know when we stopped touching each other like we had to, like we needed to in order to survive.

Like we couldn’t exist one more second without our hands and mouths and skin on each other.

And once again, I wonder if that’s part of the reason she sent me away.

“Hey,” I breathe, my breath puffing in the cold air. I’m dirty and exhausted, mud caking my boots and staining my hands, sweat beading beneath my beanie, but I’d stay out here for days if it meant I got the chance to talk to her, to see her.

She swallows, her eyes never leaving mine, and my skin feels too tight when her tongue darts out to wet her lips. Her hands are pushed into the pockets of her leather jacket, and I can’t help but wonder if they are shaking, if she’s as nervous as I am. “Can I come in?”

“Yeah, of course.” I spin on my heel, trying to fit my key into the lock with trembling hands that I hope she doesn’t notice.

The door swings open and I back up, allowing Elsie to go in first. I can’t help but observe the cabin through her eyes.

It’s small, smaller than our house, only one bedroom, and hardly furnished.

It came with the essentials, like appliances and furniture, enough to make a short stay comfortable, but I didn’t want to buy anything for it.

That felt too permanent, and I’ve always planned on this little cabin being a pit stop only.

Of course, that means it looks like it. Embarrassment creeps up my chest as I watch Elsie’s eyes dart around the space. I don’t know why I feel it. This is my wife. I don’t need to impress her, but I also don’t want her to think I’m incapable of taking care of myself.

The place is tiny and hardly furnished, but tidy, and that’s really all I need. I’ve been working myself to the bone since I left, and I really just need a place to lay my head at night before I get up and do it all over again the next day.

“It smells like you,” Elsie finally says, and then her lips twitch, cheeks turning pink from something other than the cold. “That’s probably a weird thing to say.”

I lift my shoulders in a shrug and cross my arms over my chest to keep from reaching for her, wanting to taste that smile. “I’ve heard weirder.”

“At your parents’ dinner table,” she says, her smile lifting a little. It feels so normal that my chest aches.

“Exactly.”

The conversation lapses for a moment, and I watch as the shutters return to Elsie’s eyes.

“So, I was thinking…” she trails off for a moment, looking everywhere but at me, before her gaze finally snags on mine and holds.

Her bottom lip is caught between her teeth like it always is when she’s nervous.

I hate how awkward this feels. How I can know so much about her and still feel like a stranger.

She hesitates for another moment, the silence hanging heavy between us, and I wonder if she can hear the pounding of my heart in my chest, if she can see it through my shirt.

I watch her swallow, watch the bob of her throat and the way she straightens her shoulders like she used to do before attempting a particularly difficult ballet move. Determination is written in every line of her body.

I’m so focused on it, on her, that I barely hear when she says, “Maybe we could go out.” She pauses again. “On a date.”

I blink, letting the words settle between us, landing in the grooves of the warped wooden floorboards. My breath catches in my lungs, and I’m sure I haven’t heard her right.

“A date?” I ask, then hate myself for it when her expression turns unsure. I don’t let her answer me, needing to scrub that look from her face. “Of course I’ll go on a date with you, Els.”

Her shoulders unknot ever so slightly, like relief is pouring through her. It makes something inside me settle too.

It feels so achingly familiar to when I asked her out for the first time twelve years ago.

I’d just gotten my license, and the first thing I wanted to do was see her.

So I drove to her house and said those exact words, just like that.

I wonder if she remembers, if she asked that way on purpose, but I don’t want to say anything, in case she didn’t.

I don’t know what I expected reuniting with my wife to feel like, but it wasn’t this. Hesitant and unsure. Her asking me out on a date when we own a home together and I’ve still got my wedding ring on and I know what sounds she makes when she falls apart.

It’s nothing like I imagined, but I can’t say I’m not happy about it. I can’t say I’m not willing to take whatever she’s giving me.

“Okay,” she breathes, and I can’t help but wonder how she thought this was going to go. She couldn’t have thought I’d say no . Not when all I’ve thought about for close to three months is how to get her back.

“Where do you want to go?” I ask, zeroing in on her lips as she tugs the bottom one between her teeth again.

“Anything is fine with me. Have you had dinner?”

I shake my head. I hadn’t planned on eating, or if I did, it would probably have been a ham and cheese sandwich washed down with a beer before passing out on my couch. I would have woken still dressed in my dirty work clothes when dawn started creeping through my windows in the morning.

“How about KC’s?” I ask, and something flutters over her eyes, there and gone before I can question it.

Her chin dips in a nod. “That’s good with me.”

“I’ll drive.”

She follows me to the door. “You’ll just have to drive me back out to the ranch to get my car. KC’s isn’t far from the house.”

I can’t help but let my hand settle against her lower back as she passes me, walking onto the porch, and I don’t miss the way her breath catches at the contact.

“That’s fine,” I respond, because I want nothing more than for her to ride in my truck with me, just like all the times before.

I don’t want to follow her off the ranch into town and watch her taillights disappear down the road, heading in the opposite direction as we leave the bar.

Her eyes lift to mine and hold for a moment before she replies, breath puffing out in the chilly air. “Okay, if you’re sure.”

A knot forms in my throat, and I work to swallow it down.

It’s taking all of my self-control not to push her right now, to see if she would kiss me back if I pressed my lips to hers.

To see if I could make her breath hitch again, if I could hear it against my ear as I lifted her and carried her into my bedroom and laid her on the bed I’ve hardly slept in the last three months.

It always feels too lonely without her in it.

“I’m sure,” I say, my voice all gravel.

She nods, eyes drifting from mine. “Let’s go.”

KC’s is packed, but I’m not surprised. There are only a few bars in town, and there’s nothing to do but drink during a Montana winter, when the days are short and the air is cold enough to steal the breath from your lungs.

The night doesn’t feel that different from the one three weeks ago, when Cooper dragged me here because he said I was spending too much time in my cabin alone. He didn’t notice her when we walked in, but I did immediately, my gaze homing in on her like a flashing neon sign.

I’d kept my distance that night, just like all the nights, but something inside me started to fray, watching her sitting alone at the bar, drinking tequila and ignoring the looks the bartender was flashing her way.

Four people came up to me to tell me she was here, like it was going to ruin my night, like a glimpse of my wife was going to make me snap.

It wasn’t until I saw that tourist slide up next to her, put his hands on her, that I finally did. I’d give her all the time she asked for, but I wasn’t going to give up that easily.

Tonight, though, I’m the one here with her. The one with my hand on her back, my chest pressed to her back as she tries to get close enough to speak to me over the loud country music playing on the jukebox.

“There’s an empty table over there,” she yells, breath fanning my ear, and points to a table in the back corner.