Her eyes opened halfway—blue, unfocused. Scared and lost.
And underneath the fear… something older.
A hurt that had been carried a long time.
Jake slid his hand under her head and lifted it gently. Heat poured off her skin. Not just sun heat. The kind that made your palm feel like it had touched iron.
He checked her shoulder, careful, looking for wounds.
Her lips moved again.
“That is forbidden.”
This time it didn’t sound like a warning.
It sounded like a plea.
And in that instant, Jake understood something that changed the way he touched her.
She wasn’t scared of him.
She was scared of rules. Of judgment. Of punishment.
Like even lying there half-dead in the grass, she was still afraid of what it meant for a rancher’s hands to be on her—afraid somebody might call it wrong even if he was trying to save her life.
Jake swallowed, slow.
“All right,” he murmured, voice gentle like he was calming a skittish mare. “All right. I hear you.”
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