"Let me help!" he shouted over the roar of the wind.
He grabbed the other side of the gate, his hands brushing against hers. His skin was warm despite the freezing rain. Together, they managed to latch the heavy wood into place, securing the animals.
Panting, soaking wet, they stood inches apart in the pouring rain. Water streamed down Elias's face, matting his sandy hair to his forehead. He looked down at Nayeli. Her chest was heaving from the exertion, her dark hair plastered to her cheeks.
Elias didn't step back. He looked at her, his gray eyes dark and intense in the storm's gloom. He reached up, his calloused hand trembling slightly, and gently brushed a wet strand of hair away from her face. It was a tender, intimate gesture.
Nayeli froze. The touch sent a shockwave through her system, but it wasn't a shock of warmth—it was the icy jolt of betrayal. Here it is, she thought. The payment he expects for his labor. The debt he thinks I owe.
A fierce, blinding fury erupted in her chest. All the grief, all the isolation, all the disgust she had harbored for the predatory men of the world boiled over in an instant.
She violently slapped his hand away.
Elias stumbled back, startled, slipping slightly in the mud.
Nayeli stepped forward, her eyes blazing with a hatred that made him catch his breath. She didn't shout. The anger was too deep, too concentrated for a scream. Instead, she leaned in, her voice a lethal, shaking whisper that cut straight through the roar of the thunder.
"Cowboy…" she hissed, her voice trembling with venom. "Do you just want my body like everyone else’s?"
The words hit Elias harder than the bullet that had brought him to her door.
He stared at her, the rain washing over them both. For a second, he didn't understand. Then, as the weight of her words—and the lifetime of pain and objectification behind them—crashed into him, his face drained of color.
"Nayeli..." he started, stepping backward, holding his hands up in surrender.
"Don't!" she spat, pointing a shaking finger at his chest. "Don't pretend you are different! You fix my fences, you haul my water, and you look at me like a starving dog looks at meat! You think because I am alone, because I am an Apache widow in the middle of nowhere, that I am desperate? That I will fall into your bed out of gratitude because you didn't die on my porch?"
"No," Elias said, his voice cracking. "God, no, Nayeli, that's not—"
"Pack your things," she commanded, her voice turning to ice. She turned her back on him, wrapping her arms around herself, though whether against the cold rain or the disgust, she didn't know. "The storm will pass by morning. When the sun rises, you ride out. If you are still on my land when I wake, I will use my rifle, and I will not miss."