The first real kiss happens in the barn.
It is a Saturday at the end of a day spent movin' cattle and repairin' storm damage. By late afternoon, my clothes are dusty, my shoulders ache, and satisfaction sits warm beneath the exhaustion.
I am puttin' tools away in the hayloft when Callum comes up the ladder.
"You missed the post driver," he says.
"I was testin' whether you could enter a room without findin' fault."
"How'd I do?"
"Poorly."
Sunlight comes through the loft window in long gold bars. Dust turns slowly in it. Outside, the cattle settle into the west pasture.
Callum does not reach for the post driver.
"Harlow."
The way he says my name has changed. Or maybe I have stopped pretendin' I don't hear the change.
"Yeah?"
"I've been thinkin' about the thing we're not talkin' about."
"That narrows it down to six or seven things."
"The one where I want to kiss you."
Every prepared joke leaves my body.
He stands several feet away, givin' me room to decide. That matters more than the confession.
"You nearly did," I say. "In the rain."
"I know."
"Then thunder saved us from makin' a complicated decision."
"Didn't feel saved."
I breathe out a laugh. "No. It didn't."
He takes one step closer.
"We ain't blood related," he says. "But that doesn't erase everythin' else. The lies. Earl. Our families. The town watchin' us like we're a parade they don't want to miss."
"You forgot the developer suin' barns out of spite."
"That too."
"Romance really is alive and well in Copper Creek."
His mouth lifts. "I'm serious."
"So am I. I'm scared, Callum. Not because I don't know what I feel. Because I do."
He waits.
"I want this to be real," I say. "And real things can leave."
His face changes. The guardedness does not disappear; it opens just enough to show me what it guards.
"I can't promise nothin' bad ever happens," he says. "I can promise I won't make leavin' my first answer."
That is not a perfect line.
It is better. It is true.
I cross the rest of the space between us.
"Okay," I whisper.
"Okay what?"
"Kiss me before a weather event develops."
He does.
There is no hesitation once his mouth touches mine. One hand settles at my waist, the other cups the back of my neck, and the careful man I know becomes careful in a different way—not distant, not restrained, but attentive. Listenin' with his whole body.
I grip his shirt and kiss him back.
The barn does not disappear. I feel the rough wood beneath my palm, smell hay and leather and sun-warmed dust. A calf bawls outside. Somewhere a gate rattles.
The world stays exactly where it is.
I am the thing that moves.
Years of holdin' myself separate loosen all at once. I kiss him because I want him. Because I trust the way he apologized and the way he changed after. Because desire is not a verdict on my judgment. Because sometimes a foolish heart is only a tired one finally tellin' the truth.
When we part, his forehead rests against mine.
"That was worth the paperwork," I say.
His laugh brushes my lips. "There was paperwork?"
"Emotionally. Several forms."
He kisses me again, shorter this time and somehow more dangerous because now we know how easy it is.
The barn door bangs open below us.
"CALLUM! HARLOW! GUS IS ON THE COUNTY ROAD!"
We pull apart.
Earl Junior is standin' in the doorway, red-faced and pointin' toward the pasture.
His eyes move from Callum to me, then to Callum's hand still at my waist.
"I can come back," he says.
"The bull, Junior," Callum says.
"Right. Bull. County road. Possible traffic."
Callum is down the ladder before Earl Junior finishes. I follow, laughin' despite the danger and the fact that my mouth still feels like Callum's.
Gus has pushed through the storm-weakened fence and planted himself in the middle of County Road 412 like he pays taxes.
For the next forty minutes, romance gives way to practical survival.
Callum circles wide with a feed bucket. Earl Junior blocks the road with his tow truck. I stand at the open gate, wave a sorting paddle, and discover that a two-thousand-pound bull does not respect a woman's recent emotional breakthrough.
Eventually Gus lumbers back into the pasture, offended but contained.
We repair the gap enough to hold until mornin'. Earl Junior leaves with a grin so large it should require a permit.
"I won't tell nobody," he calls from his truck.
"You will tell your mama before you reach town," I shout.
"That ain't nobody. That's Mama."
His taillights disappear down the road.
Callum and I stand beside the fence, sweaty, dusty, and breathless.
"So," I say.
"So."
"Our first kiss lasted forty seconds before livestock intervened."
"Longer than I expected."
"That is a terrible thing to say after kissin' a woman."
His eyes warm. "I meant the time before the interruption."
"Still not recoverin'."
He steps closer. "Can I try?"
"Depends."
"On?"
"Whether Gus is secured."
Callum checks the latch, then comes back to me.
The second kiss happens by a fence we repaired together.
No thunder. No bull. No audience except two dogs, forty-three cattle, and one rooster who has never respected privacy.
This time, nothin' interrupts us.