Chapter 15: A gift.
The room was quiet, save for their slowing breaths and the distant, cyclical whir of the ice machine down the hall. The cheap floral wallpaper seemed to pulse in the afterglow. Alysha lay sprawled across the tangled sheets, every muscle languid and heavy, her skin still humming from his touch.
Brandon stirred beside her. He pressed a kiss to her damp shoulder, then shifted, the mattress dipping as he got up.
“Where you going?” she mumbled, her voice thick.
“Got something for you.”
She turned her head on the pillow to watch him cross the room towards his open duffel bag near the dresser. The neon sign outside threw shifting bars of red and blue through the blinds, painting stripes across his naked back. The play of light over the hard planes of his shoulders, the deep groove of his spine, the tight, perfect curve of his ass—it was a study in solid muscle earned through relentless work. She bit her lower lip without thinking, a fresh, warm curl of desire tightening low in her belly just from the sight.
He found what he was looking for and turned, a long, flat box in his hands. He walked back towards the bed, completely at ease in his skin. His cock, hanging heavy and thick between his legs, glistened faintly in the low light, slick with her. The sheer, unabashed masculinity of him made her head spin. She had to physically shake it, a small quick motion, to drag her focus up to his face and the box he was offering.
“Sit up,” he said, his voice a rough whisper.
She pushed herself up against the headboard, the sheet pooling at her waist. He placed the box in her lap. It was sturdy, unadorned. She lifted the lid, pushing aside layers of tissue paper.
Inside, nestled side-by-side, were a pair of boots and a hat. Not costume pieces. The boots were a rich, buttery caramel snakeskin, the scales catching the light with a subtle, primal shimmer. They were elegant and rugged all at once. The hat was a matching chocolate-brown felt, its brim perfectly curved, a simple silver band around the crown.
“Brandon,” she breathed, her fingers hovering over the snakeskin. “My God.”
“Try ‘em on.”
She lifted one boot. It was substantial but not heavy. She slipped her foot in, the cool, smooth interior molding to her arch. It fit like it had been made for her. She pulled the other on, then placed her feet on the floor, feeling the new, solid weight of them. She reached for the hat, settling it gently on her head. She didn’t need a mirror. The look on his face was reflection enough—a blend of pride, hunger, and something unbearably tender.
“How?” was all she could manage.
“Called in a favor with a bootmaker in Fort Worth. Described you. Your spirit. Your grace. Your…” He gestured vaguely at all of her, a helpless, smitten smile on his face. “Your everything.”
A giddy laugh bubbled out of her. She launched herself at him, knocking him back onto the mattress, covering his face in grateful, laughing kisses. “I love them. I absolutely love them.”
He laughed against her mouth, his hands settling on her hips where she straddled him. “Good. ‘Cause tomorrow, we’re breakin’ ‘em in. Goin’ out to cowboy country. I’m consulting on a little cattle move for a friend. Thought we could get Thor out of the stables, let you ride with me.”
The image was so vivid, so far from the fluorescent lights of the hospital, that her heart swelled. She smiled, staring down at him, tracing the line of his jaw with her thumb. The reality of the calendar, of the dwindling days, pressed in. Tamika’s voice echoed in her head. See his world.
He shifted, rolling them so she was on her side facing him. He propped his head on his hand, his other hand coming to rest on her bare thigh, his thumb stroking idle, distracting circles on her skin.
She took a slow breath. “When you go back to Colorado,” she began, watching his eyes. “Would you… consider me coming with you? For a little while.” She hurried on before he could speak. “I’ve got vacation time saved up. A lot of it.”
He went very still, his thumb stopping its motion. The blue of his eyes seemed to deepen.
“I know,” she continued, softer now. “We could keep delaying the inevitable conversation. We could just… distract ourselves by fucking each other’s brains out for the rest of our time here. And we should. We definitely should.” A faint, nervous smile touched her lips. “But this is more than that. It has been since the second I saw you again in that diner. You know it is.”
He didn’t look away. He simply nodded, once, a slow, certain dip of his chin. “Having you with me,” he said, the words rough with emotion, “would be a dream I didn’t even let myself have.”
The sheer honesty of it unlocked something inside her chest. Her smile widened, turned playful with relief. “Okay. Good. But just because it’s serious,” she said, poking his solid chest, “doesn’t mean you get to stop fucking my brains out. That’s non-negotiable.”
A dark, promising heat flickered in his gaze. He held it, unwavering, as he moved. Slowly, deliberately, he shifted his body over hers, the weight of him a delicious anchor. He nudged her thighs apart with his knee and settled between them. He was already hard again, the thick length of him pressing against her warmth.
He kept his eyes locked on hers as he positioned himself, and then, with a control that made her breath catch, he pushed into her. It was a slow, inexorable fill, a reclaiming. The stretch was intense, perfect, wiping every coherent thought from her mind. A shaky gasp left her lips, and her eyes fluttered, rolling back for a second before she forced them to focus on his face above her.
A faint, possessive smile touched his mouth as he began to move, setting a deep, rhythm that promised the conversation was far from over, but for now, wonderfully, blissfully deferred.
A faint, possessive smile touched his mouth as he began to move, setting a deep, rhythmic pace that promised the conversation was far from over, but for now, wonderfully, blissfully deferred. The world shrank to the scratch of cheap sheets, the slap of skin, the raw sound of his breathing in her ear. She clung to him, her new boots still on her feet, knocking against the bedframe with every thrust until everything dissolved into a bright, wordless static.
Dawn leaked around the motel blinds, painting the room in weak gray light. They moved around each other in a comfortable silence, washing off the night, pulling on jeans and t-shirts. The new boots felt like a second skin as Alysha walked to his truck.
He drove them to a roadside diner that made the last one look chic. They ate plates of eggs, sausage, and hashbrowns that glistened with grease, washing it down with coffee so strong it threatened to dissolve the spoon. “Fuel,” he said, pushing his clean plate away. “You’ll need it.”
The stables were a twenty-minute drive into rolling, scrub-dotted hills. The air changed, smelling of dust, dried grass, and manure—a clean, honest smell. A massive chestnut stallion stood in a large paddock, muscles rippling under his coat as he trotted the fence line. He stopped when he saw Brandon, letting out a deep snort.
“Alysha, meet Thor,” Brandon said, leaning on the split-rail fence.
The horse was monumental, his neck a powerful arch, his eyes intelligent and wary. He approached the fence, his nostrils flaring as he took in the new scent. Alysha stood perfectly still, refusing to show the flutter of nerves in her chest. She held out her hand, palm flat.
Thor lowered his great head, sniffing her fingers, then her sleeve. He pushed his broad forehead against her palm, demanding a scratch. A laugh of pure wonder escaped her. She stroked the smooth, strong plane of his face, feeling the incredible heat of him, the coarse hair of his mane. A profound stillness settled over her, the hospital noise in her head going utterly, completely silent.
“He likes you,” Brandon said, his voice quiet beside her.
“I like him too.”
Brandon slipped a bridle over Thor’s head and led him out, saddling him with efficient, practiced movements. He led a sleek, dark mare from another stall. “This is Frigga. She’s gentle. She’ll listen to you.” He helped Alysha up into Thor’s saddle, the height startling, the leather creaking under her. He adjusted the stirrups for her new boots, his hands briefly firm on her calf. “Just relax into his gait. He knows what he’s doing.”
He mounted Frigga with an easy swing and took Thor’s lead rope, clucking softly. They walked out of the yard and onto a wide dirt path that cut through the open land. The sun was high now, the sky a vast, cloudless blue. The air was crisp and dry, carrying the sound of crickets and the steady, rhythmic crunch of hooves on hard-packed earth.
For the first ten minutes, Alysha held the saddle horn, her body tense, learning the rolling movement of the horse beneath her. Brandon watched, saying nothing. Then, tentatively, she let go, settling her weight differently, trusting the animal. Her spine unlocked. She took the lead rope from Brandon when he offered it.
“There you go,” he said, a smile in his voice.
They moved from a walk to a gentle trot. The world opened up. The endless sky, the sea of bronze grass whispering in the breeze, the distant purple smudge of mountains—it was a silence so loud it filled her completely. A hawk circled high above on a thermal. Minutes lost their meaning, stretching into something boundless.
They slowed to a walk as the path entered a stand of pine trees, the shade cool and fragrant. “This is it,” he said, gesturing around them with his chin. “The office.”
“It’s incredible,” she said, her voice hushed. “This freedom. It’s real.”
“It is,” he agreed. “But it’s not free.” He picked a pine needle from Frigga’s mane. “It’s seven days a week. It’s getting up at four to check herds in a blizzard. It’s missing things. Normal things.” He looked at her, his blue eyes clear. “I couldn’t do a normal life, Alysha. Sitting in a cubicle would kill me a little each day. This… this I feel good doing. And anything I want, really want or need… I can get it. I’ve built that.”
She heard the unspoken question in his words. Did she want this? Could she need it? She just nodded, storing it all away.
They looped back towards the stables as the afternoon sun began to soften. After unsaddling and brushing down the horses, Brandon led her to a different outbuilding behind the main barn. It was cooler inside, smelling of oil and sawdust. A long, scarred wood table stood under a window, and on it rested two firearms.
“Single-action revolvers,” he said, picking one up. “My grandfather’s. Simpler. Teaches you respect.” He broke it open, showed her the empty cylinder, the mechanism. “Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast.”
He loaded five rounds, handed it to her grip-first. The weight was surprising, solid and cold. He stood behind her, his chest against her back, his hands covering hers on the worn grip. “Lean into it,” he murmured into her hair. “It’s gonna push. You push back.”
She lined up the sights on a simple paper target twenty feet away, took a breath, and let it out halfway. She squeezed the trigger.
The crack was immense, a physical force in the small space. The revolver bucked in her hands, but his hold was firm, guiding it back down. The scent of cordite, sharp and sulfurous, filled her nose. Her heart hammered, but not from fear. From a raw, startling potency.
“Again,” he said.
She did. And again. Each time, the recoil felt less like an attack and more like a conversation—a powerful, loud argument she was learning to answer. By the fifth shot, she was breathing steady, her stance rooted, her own finger controlling the break. The target was torn apart near the center.
He took the gun from her, his fingers brushing hers. He didn’t comment on the grouping. He just nodded, a look of quiet assessment in his eyes that felt like the highest praise. “You’re a natural.”
Back outside, the ringing in her ears faded, replaced by the vast quiet of the land. She looked at her hands, then at the horizon, feeling the new aches in her thighs from the saddle, the ghost of the recoil in her palms. She wasn't just visiting his world anymore. She was putting her hands on it, and it was leaving its marks on her.
She was putting her hands on it, and it was leaving its marks on her.
The dust from the trail mixed with the gunpowder scent on her skin, a new perfume she carried back to the motel in the silent cab of his truck. He let the quiet stretch, his large hand resting on the gear shift, occasionally brushing her knee. She watched the scrubland give way to strip malls and subdivisions, the vastness of the afternoon compressing into something manageable, something she could almost hold.
“We should clean up,” he said finally, his voice a low rumble. “I wanna take you somewhere.”
“More somewhere than all that?” she asked, gesturing back toward the hills.
“Different somewhere.”
He drove past the familiar flickering motel sign to a smaller, quieter lodge at the edge of town. His real room, she realized. It was spartan but clean, smelling of leather and his specific, clean sweat. He ran a bath in the deep porcelain tub, pouring in something from a vial that smelled of pine and sage. “Epsom salts,” he said. “For the saddle.”
He left her to it. She sank into the scalding water, hissing as it touched new muscles, the heat working into the deep ache in her thighs and the faint tremor left in her hands. She could still feel the shape of the revolver’s grip in her palm. When she emerged, wrapped in a towel, her new snakeskin boots and a simple black dress were laid out on the bed. The dress was hers, but he’d hung it up. The boots stood beside it like a promise.
He drove them into the heart of Woodbridge, to a restaurant called The Oak Cellar with dark wood panels and soft, golden lighting. The hostess knew his name. He placed a hand on the small of Alysha’s back, a steadying point of contact as they were led to a corner booth. He held her chair, waiting until she was settled before taking his own seat opposite. He took off his hat, setting it crown-down on the empty seat beside him.
Alysha watched his hands, large and scarred, handle the heavy wine list with a focus she’d seen him give a sick calf in an old photo. He ordered for them both, a quiet confidence in his choices. The sommelier brought the bottle, and Brandon tasted it with a deliberate nod. The ritual was unfamiliar, a stark contrast to the diner’s chipped mugs and hurried service, but she let it happen. She let him pour her glass, let him recommend the braised short rib, let the quiet orchestration of his care surround her.
It reminded her of that long-ago afternoon at the daycare, him sitting cross-legged on the colorful mat, insisting to a circle of scoffing boys that Annie Oakley was the greatest shooter who ever lived. She could shoot the ash off a man’s cigar, he’d said, his small voice defiant. They’d teased him for weeks. Girl-obsessed. Sissy.
“My granddad set ‘em straight.” He cut a piece of meat, his knife scraping softly. “Said any man threatened by a capable woman is just advertising his own empty spaces. Said oppression isn’t about strength. It’s the weapon of the insecure.”
He said it plainly, a fact learned at a knee, not a lecture. This was his code. Taking off his hat, opening a door—it wasn’t about claiming territory. It was an acknowledgement. A tip of the cap to what he saw as fundamental, essential. The lifeblood.
The food was rich, the wine smooth and deep. The conversation meandered—his ranch’s spring calving schedule, her most resilient patient, the way Thor had nudged her pocket looking for apple slices. The easy back-and-forth built a new layer over the day’s physical intimacy, something cerebral and steady.
She set her fork down. The candlelight danced in his blue eyes. “Brandon,” she began. “Is there any part of this you’re unsure about? Any part that feels… too fast, or too much?”
He didn’t answer immediately. He finished his mouthful, took a sip of water, and leaned back. The leather booth creaked. He looked at her, his gaze so open it was almost brutal.
“If I held back one ounce,” he said, each word measured like a step on solid ground. “If I didn’t give this, give you, everything I’ve got in me to give… I’d be living with a ghost. I’d be eighty years old on my porch, wondering what could have been. And that wondering would eat me alive.” He leaned forward again, his voice dropping. “You’ve got more at stake here. Your life, your career. It’s rooted. Mine’s always been the land and whatever I could build on it.”
He reached across the table, his calloused fingers covering her hand. “So my certainty isn’t a demand. It’s just what I have to offer. I will spend every day I have with you trying to deserve you. I will give you everything I’ve got to keep you happy, for as long as you’ll have me.”
She couldn’t help but stare. The sincerity was a physical force in the plush room. It wasn’t a polished line; it was a blueprint, a vow etched in something harder than stone. He was so completely genuine, and he looked at her with the clear-eyed understanding of the cost, willing to pay every single cent of it.
Her throat tightened. She turned her hand under his, lacing their fingers together. The snakeskin boot beneath the table nudged his calf. “Okay,” she whispered, the word finally releasing the breath she’d been holding. “Okay.”
The drive back to the lodge was quiet, a comfortable, thick silence full of the words they’d just said. He parked, came around to open her door. He didn’t kiss her yet, just kept her hand in his as they walked to the room. Inside, he turned her to face him, his hands coming up to cradle her face, his thumbs stroking her cheekbones.
He just looked at her for a long moment, in the dim light from the parking lot, as if memorizing the agreement they’d just made. Then he kissed her, slow and deep, a seal on the promise. It wasn’t the hungry fire of the motel room. This was different. This was a claiming and a surrender happening in the same breath, a deliberate, limitless convergence.
Her back met the door, the wood cool through her dress. She understood now. This was the start of the work. Not the ranch work, or the nursing. This. The careful, terrifying, exhilarating architecture of a shared life. He broke the kiss, his forehead resting against hers, their breathing synchronizing in the dark.
“Tell me what you need,” he murmured, his voice rough at the edges.
She thought of the vast, empty sky over the pasture, the powerful animal responding to her trust. She thought of the target shredding under her fire. She knew exactly what she needed.