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.”
He pulled out his bandana, dipped it into his water skin, and pressed the wet cloth to her forehead.
She flinched at first, shoulders tensing.
Then she relaxed—almost melting into the touch of something cool for the first time in who knew how long.
Jake stayed still, watching her breathing.
Shallow. Uneven. But there.
And then he heard it—far off, faint but unmistakable.
Hooves.
Not his horse shifting. Not some stray deer.
Hooves on hard ground, coming closer.
Jake’s head lifted. His eyes went to the horizon.
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