Three days. That’s how long it’s been since the fight, and it’s felt longer than a hard winter. The house has been too damn quiet, the bed too damn cold. I worked the fields sunup to sundown, hoping the ache in my back would drown out the ache in my chest, but it didn’t. Hell, it only made me lonelier.

I’m a man who knows how to fix things—tractors, fences, cattle when they’re sick. But fixing what’s broken between her and me? That’s a job I haven’t figured out yet. Pride’s a nasty habit, and I’ve got it in spades. Stubborn as a mule, my mama always said.

I was just about ready to fold, hat in hand, when she came through the door. Not soft, not shy. She walked in like she had every right—because she does—and planted those sharp eyes on me where I sat in my chair.

“Sit still,” she said, voice steady as a rifle shot. And Lord help me, I did.

She didn’t come with words, didn’t try to talk it out. Instead, she started in slow—her fingers teasing at the buttons of her blouse, one by one. My mouth went dry faster than the August dirt. She slipped it off her shoulders and let it fall, standing there with that little half-smile that told me she knew exactly what she was doing.

“Sweet Jesus,” I muttered, tipping my hat back, heart hammering like a spooked horse.

“Shut up and watch,” she fired back, and I swear my pulse damn near bucked out of my chest.

Her skirt slid down next, easy and unhurried, pooling at her boots. She swayed her hips just enough to make me squirm, to make me feel like a boy again instead of the grown man who runs two hundred acres and wrestles calves before breakfast. Every inch she bared stripped away the fight I’d been holding onto, pride falling like clothes to the floor.

“You’re gonna be the death of me,” I groaned, shifting forward, fingers itching to grab her but too spellbound to move.

“Maybe,” she said, that grin tugging wider, wicked as sin.

By the time she stood bare in front of me, I wasn’t the stubborn bastard who thought he could outlast her. I was hers—undone, broken open, ready to crawl if she told me to. And when she climbed onto my lap, straddling me like I was nothing more than the chair I sat on, I damn near lost my breath.

Her hands slid into my hair, her body pressing close, and I buried my face against her chest, laughing low because I couldn’t do a damn thing else. “Woman,” I rasped, voice rough as gravel, “if this is how you plan to end every fight, I’ll start picking more of ‘em.”

She leaned back just enough to meet my eyes, smirking like she’d just roped the biggest bull at the rodeo. “Don’t test me, cowboy.”

And then she kissed me—hard, deep, final. The kind of kiss that says the fight’s over, but the fire sure as hell isn’t.

Out there, I’m a man of the land. Out there, I bend for no one. But here, with her in my arms, I’d lay it all down—the pride, the stubbornness, the whole damn ranch—just to keep her right where she is.