She hadn’t realized he would fight quite so hard. That he would fight quite this way.
And she realized that he was expecting things to go back to normal, because when they had been talking in terms of him teaching her about sex, they had both agreed that would happen.
But things had changed. They’d changed.
“You think you’re just going to go back to the way things were? That you’re going to work with me every day on this ranch in spite of the fact that you broke my heart?”
“We talked about this.”
“Yeah. But things change. Feelings change. People change. I did. You should have the balls to change too, Logan Heath. But you don’t. You just hide. You hide in plain sight. You act like everything’s great, everything’s fine, but you’re a big mess of fear. Hiding from your family. Hiding from me. Make all the excuses you want, but that’s what it is. I know, because I recognize it. It’s easy to stay safe when you don’t think about anything. When you don’t think about your feelings. When you don’t let yourself want anything after you had something you loved taken away. Just keep it all in a box.”
“Isn’t that what you’re doing still? You’re telling yourself that you’re living some kind of dream? But isn’t that just you keeping to the status quo?”
“You know, I might agree with you. Except me keeping the status quo demands that I stand here in a damn T-shirt, with a bowl of cookie dough from a recipe that I dug out of a mouse-infested barn. It demands that I humiliate myself. That I bare my soul to you. What does your hiding let you do? Lets you pretend that your damn father doesn’t live within walking distance of you. That your brothers weren’t in class down the hall from you all through high school. You know what, I think you do blame yourself for your mother dying. And I think you find it a great comfort. Because as long as you can find a reason to blame yourself, you can find a reason that you can’t be happy. And that’s the real thing you’re afraid of. You’re afraid to be happy, because then you’ll have something you might be able to lose again. I’m not going to be afraid of being happy. Not anymore. Not ever again. I refused to believe that a tragedy we suffered seventeen years ago means we have to live broken.”
“I don’t want you to live broken. That’s why I want you to want something other than me.”
“Then you’re gonna have to find somewhere else to go,” she said. “You’re not using Hope Springs to heal you anyway. You’re using it to hide. To keep you hurt. Well, I love you enough to not allow that anymore. And I love me enough to not put myself through seeing you every day after this.”
She didn’t really have the power to send him away. And he owned part of the ranch. She knew that. She knew that she was being bitter and angry. That no part of her was being a friend or family the way she had demanded everybody who was angry at him during the wedding be.
But she loved him. Big and bright. And her hurt was just as big and bright now. And it demanded some kind of compensation.
A muscle in his jaw jumped. “Fine. If that’s what you want.”
“It is.”
She stomped into the living room and picked up her green dress, shimmying it up to her hips underneath the T-shirt. She grabbed her high heels, and she walked out the front door, making her way barefoot to the truck.
“You cannot leave like that,” he said.
“I can leave in whatever the hell manner I wish. I’m not going to tone my heartbreak down to make you feel better. But don’t worry. You can go back to hiding really soon. And I know how much you like to hide.”
She got in the truck, and didn’t spare him a backward glance as she drove away. It was a good thing that she knew the road back to the main house by heart. Because she was crying so hard she couldn’t see anything through her tears.
CHAPTER TWENTY
HE’D SPENT THE rest of Christmas Day drunk. He hadn’t had that much to drink since high school, and had learned his lesson in the years since. But the whole point of drinking had been to dull the pain, and when it hadn’t worked, he had just continued. And continued, and continued. When he woke up that morning, his headache had been the stuff of legend, and somehow that had seemed fitting in and of itself.
He deserved to have a splitting headache. He just did.
It was about the only thing that matched the ache in his heart. About the only thing that made all of this make sense.
Pain. That was all he deserved. It was all he had.
Two things repeated in his mind, over and over again.
That she loved him.
And that she wanted him to leave.
He owned part of the ranch. She couldn’t make him go.
But he...
Well, he had to talk to Ryder. Dammit. Had confessions to make. Because Ryder would buy him out. He was sure of that.
And that was about what needed to happen now.
There was no getting around it.
So, completely hung over, and with no pride whatsoever, he got in his truck and drove over to the main house.
He knew there was a chance that he might run into Rose.
And she was right. Just the idea of that...
Just the idea.
No. It couldn’t happen. They couldn’t work together every day.
He was miserable as hell. But what could he offer her? Just a broken, bound-up asshole who couldn’t seem to figure out how to open himself up.
You’re afraid.
Her words echoed inside of him.
That he did blame himself for his mother’s death. And that he found some comfort in that blame.
Because without someone to blame... Wasn’t it all just
