She swallowed at the lump in her throat. It was such a stupid macho offer she shouldn’t be touched by, because Lord knew if someone deserved a punch in the face, she could certainly deliver it herself.
But somehow it was touching. It was nice. Someone offering to do something for her, or in her name.
But Tyler hadn’t broken her heart, not in the way Dan meant, and he certainly didn’t deserve a punch in the face. She might, but not Tyler. “No, that won’t be necessary,” she managed evenly.
“I’m not talking about necessary. I’m talking about a little repayment for being an asshole.”
“He wasn’t an asshole. He didn’t break my heart. In fact, it was more the opposite.” She stood there, hand on a piece of lumber, trying to work out all the conflicting emotions going on. Emotions she’d never dealt with because everything with Tyler had gone down when she’d still been drowning in surviving Dad’s paralysis, and those emotions had taken precedence.
Yeah, because you’ve really dealt with all those emotions.
“Look, can we get to work? I—”
“You broke his heart?”
She let out a breath. Of course Dan wouldn’t let it go. He was not the let-go, move-on type. He pestered. And she relented. She didn’t want to know what that said about her. “Yes.”
“How?”
“He wanted to marry someone who was going to love him, and that wasn’t me.” I don’t have that kind of thing in me.
“Why the hell were you engaged to a guy you didn’t love?”
Yes, she supposed to someone like Dan, that would sound insane. Crazy. But the last thing she wanted out of this life was love. Love was fleeting. Love was painful. Love disappeared in the middle of the night, leaving people confused, hurt.
Scarred.
All she wanted was stability. She didn’t want to worry she couldn’t measure up to someone’s expectations. She didn’t want passion or dazzle. Those things got eviscerated in Blue Valley. She wanted someone to take half the work, hold half the reins.
She didn’t want to be left again. It wasn’t wrong to want that, to protect herself. It was smart. And worse, so much worse, she didn’t want to be put in the position where she might leave, she might hurt that person who cared for her.
She didn’t want her truest, ugliest self to come out, so she kept it locked away far from anything like emotion.
“Mel.”
She cleared her throat. Keeping it in didn’t exactly work—she had too much to keep in—but that didn’t mean she had to spill her guts. “He was a nice guy. I liked him just fine. I wanted something stable, and Tyler was…that.”
“Well, sure, for a friend, but isn’t marriage supposed to be love and…stuff?”
“You ever been married?”
“No.”
“Engaged?”
“No.”
“Your parents a shining example of lifelong love and monogamy?” she demanded.
“Well, no.”
“Exactly. I’ve never been a fairy-tale girl, Dan. We started dating in high school. It was comfortable. He proposed right before Dad’s accident. It seemed like the thing to do.” Never have to be afraid or hurt. “Someone to build a life with who wouldn’t hightail it to California when he got the urge.” Or, maybe, more the fact she wouldn’t be devastated if he did.
“Why would hightailing it to California even be an option?”
She wasn’t going there. Nope. She’d gone far enough. “Are we going to expand this damn fence or not?”
“Who hightailed it to California?”
“No one.”
“Look, I’m not the sharpest skate on the ice, I’ll give you that, but I’m not dumb.”
And that was her breaking point, though God knew why. There had been far more poignant breaking points in her life, but those had all been fought through. Somehow.
“God, Dan. I don’t… Fine, you really want to know? When I was seven, my mom walked out. Disappeared. Never heard from her again. I saw my dad struggle to deal with that heartbreak, that betrayal, and still manage to be a decent father and rancher and member of this damn community, and what does he get for it? Paralyzed. A shitty son who undermined everything he worked for until it was too damn late.”
And a daughter who couldn’t reach him. Couldn’t find a way to unlock that cage he’d put himself in. She had to somehow wake up every morning and convince herself it was him, not her. Mom, not her.
It wasn’t that she was unlovable, so easy to leave or shut out. It wasn’t that her father could see that deep down all she wanted to do was run, just like the mother she despised.
She swallowed at the lump now fizzling, a hard wedge in her esophagus. Her normal rationalizations seemed so brittle and weak, and she wasn’t sure why. “With Tyler, I just wanted someone I could depend on, and he wanted more. I don’t have more. So. There. That’s it. No big tragedy.”
And it wasn’t a tragedy. So why did she have tears in her eyes, threatening to fall? She kept her eyes wide, refusing to let them win. She would not cry in front of him. She would not.
I am unbreakable.