No Limits by Katherine Garbera

things you do scare me,” he said.
    â€œLike what?” she asked. “You’ve done everything I do.”
    He put his hand on her leg, just held it loosely, but a shiver went up her body. “Okay, maybe that’s true, but I hated it—at least when I first arrived at fourteen. I was so dusty and dirty and every night when I went to bed, I’d stare out the window above my bed and think about being up there with the stars.”
    Even when he’d been closest to her, he’d been just out of her reach. She knew this. Why did she keep trying to find some way to convince herself he was the kind of man who’d stay?
    She should stop thinking of him as Jason and remember he was Ace. That’s all he could ever be to her.
    Ace.
    Superstar astronaut. Heart in the stars. He was here because he was grounded. As soon as the all clear came he’d be gone.
    He hadn’t even hesitated to sign that document earlier that had given her the right to make all decisions about the ranch if he was off the planet for more than two years.
    â€œWhy did Dad give you half the ranch?” she asked.
    He shrugged. But she felt that he knew more.
    â€œDon’t lie.”
    â€œLifting my shoulders isn’t lying,” he said.
    â€œNot telling the truth is. Please, tell me,” she said.
    â€œHe told me once that he was afraid you’d never have a chance to be anything more than what he and the Bar T had made you. I guess he didn’t want to put the full weight of owning the ranch on you. Maybe he thought I’d be able to help.”
    She could hear her father’s voice in Jason’s words. Heard the worry he’d felt in the last few months before his accident. Tears burned her eyes and she blinked, trying to stem them, but failed. “Why didn’t he ask me what I wanted?”
    â€œMaybe he was afraid of the answer.”
    She hugged herself and put her head down. The ache she felt for her father was all-consuming. She just wanted one more hug. One more chance to smell that unique scent of Old Spice aftershave and worn leather. To know she didn’t have to worry because he was there.
    She felt Jason’s hand on her arm.
    â€œI’m sorry,” he said.
    â€œMe, too. I... What did he think I’d do?”
    â€œLive. He said that he suspected you were hiding from something here,” Jason said.
    She went still. The tears stopped and she realized her father knew there was more to her coming back from Houston than a messy roommate.
    â€œWhat are you hiding from?”
    * * *
    T ALKING NEVER WAS her strong suit. She’d never learned to hide what she was feeling, to protect herself. She pulled her arm out from under Jason’s and scooted toward the end of the truck. She hopped down and stood there. Twilight had darkened and she was caught between night and day. She was dressed up rather than wearing her usual jeans and scuffed boots. She almost felt like she didn’t belong here right now.
    She was a mess. She’d been pretending for too long that she wasn’t. Thought she was going to make a deal with Jason and somehow get the ranch back on solid financial ground once and for all. But now she acknowledged she’d been kidding herself. She was never going to get out of this morass.
    She knew it as surely as she knew that she’d been sending mixed signals all day. She wanted him. She wanted to lose herself in that sweet crush she remembered from a more innocent time. When she’d had no idea what real heartbreak and loss felt like.
    Jason slid to the end of the pickup truck and sat there, his legs hanging over the tailgate as he quietly watched her. She noticed that he had on some kind of hiking boot, not Western boots. He wasn’t a cowboy. How many times was she going to have to be faced with that knowledge before it sank in?
    â€œYou okay?”
    No.
    â€œOf course. I mean, you just told me my dad thought I was hiding,