He could imagine the torment of pretending not to love her—trying to fool himself and tamp down whatever feelings kept bubbling up inside him.
“Maybe not,” he agreed. “I’m not sure I could stay away from you.”
“We’d end up heartbroken anyway,” she said, shaking her head. “This won’t work, Colt.”
“I know...” He put his hand on her cheek and she leaned into his touch. The last time he’d touched her cheek like this, he’d kissed her...and he was holding himself back from kissing her again.
“I’m going to miss you,” he breathed.
“Me, too.” She took a step back, and he dropped his hand. “Should I leave today? To make it easier?”
“No,” he said gruffly. “I don’t need it to be easier. Besides, it’s already getting late. How far will you go? It’ll be a hotel stay for nothing. Stay one more night and start fresh in the morning.”
He wasn’t ready to say his final goodbye yet, because once she had her balance again, would she even want him in her life? There were no guarantees. No matter how much he wanted to keep a connection between them...
Jane moved toward the house again, and she stopped at the door to look back at him. Tears shone in her eyes, and it took all of his self-restraint to keep himself from crossing the grass and pulling her back into his arms. But he stood there, stalk still and his chest aching.
She wasn’t his to hold.
His heart just needed a little time to accept that.
Chapter Fourteen
Colt didn’t mean to skip breakfast back at the house the next morning, but there was an emergency out in the west pasture. One of the ranch hands called him on his cell phone. But before he hit the gas to head out there, he texted Peg—I’ve got to see to a cow stuck in the fence. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Tell Jane...
He stopped typing. Tell her what? Nothing that he could have his aunt relay. He erased the last two words and hit Send. Then he texted Jane directly—There’s an emergency in the field. I’ll be back in a couple of hours. If you’re still here, it would be nice to say goodbye.
He hit Send on that text and waited for a moment. Would she answer? He hoped so. He’d been thinking of her all night, and he couldn’t shake her out of his heart. He’d fallen for this woman, as hard as he’d tried not to. There was no immediate reply, so he dropped his phone in his pocket and put the truck into gear. Work on a ranch never slowed down for long, and right now that might be an answer to prayer. Because he’d prayed most fervently that God would take away these feelings for Jane. His decision to stay single had been a noble one, and he’d truly believed that God had been leading in that. There was a blessing for single people, too, because they could focus on things that family men couldn’t. God needed the devoutly single as much as He needed the happily married. He’d felt that deep in his soul.
But pray as he might, on his knees in front of his bed, his hands clasped together as he begged God to just take it away from him, God didn’t soothe his heart the way He normally did. That pain stayed, gnawing and deep.
So maybe this was His answer at long last in the form of work. Maybe it was best to get out there and lose himself in the job that he loved. Because he and Jane had said it all yesterday. There was nothing else to say that they hadn’t already covered. Neither of them wanted marriage, and playing with emotions this strong was like playing with fire.
If they wanted to stay true to God and their moral convictions, they needed to take some space, no matter how much that might hurt right now.
The drive out to the west pasture took half an hour. Colt tried putting on some music, but all the country songs seemed like they were about Jane, and he flicked the radio off, preferring his own thoughts. He was the owner of this ranch now, and it would thrive or fail based on his sweat. He was thankful for this chance—deeply thankful—but it was hard to feel it right now past the ache in his heart.
When he arrived at the broken patch of fence, he saw the problem immediately. Two ranch hands were trying to calm a frightened steer—the fence wire pressing a deep trough in his neck. Colt grabbed his wire cutters from the glove compartment and jumped out of the truck.
“Hey!” Keith, the older of the ranch hands, called. “We’ve almost got him untangled, but this last bit—”
Colt went back to the truck, grabbed a towel from the backseat and headed over to them. He approached slowly, not wanting to scare the animal more than it already was.
Father, guide me... he prayed, then he tossed the towel over the steer’s head, and it bucked backward again as the cloth came over its eyes.
It took a moment, but then the steer calmed down, unable to see anything. That’s when Colt pulled the wire cutters out of his back pocket and with one hard pinch, snapped the wire in two. It gave a twang and curled back away from the steer’s neck. He was free, and Colt let out a huff of breath. The immediate danger was past. But as the steer felt the wires release, he shook the towel off his head and started forward again, this time powering past the restraining hands around him, and Colt was forced to jump out of his way.
The animal hurtled past him, across the gravel road, and stopped just before the ditch on the other side. Colt and the
