It was her. The lack in her. Maybe if she stopped forgetting or ignoring that, something would go right. She wouldn’t keep getting hurt.
She pushed away from the counter, her limbs shaky, her reasoning even shakier as she forced herself to the door. She would be honest, she would give him what he wanted, and when he turned away…it would be okay.
She knew it was coming. Better to get it over with now.
She stared at the door, trying to ignore the hope inside of her. Trying to ignore the way it multiplied and suffocated the certainty that he would find her lacking.
What if he doesn’t? What if he still cares? She couldn’t…she couldn’t entertain that thought, so she pushed outside.
“Dan?”
She searched the yard, finding him halfway to the stables. He stopped, but he didn’t turn around to face her. The moon shone against his back, making his hair edge toward silver before the clouds shrouded it all. He was so tense and hurt. Still that hurt. It was so much worse than hurting Tyler because…because…
Because it’s a lie, you asshole.
“I’m afraid.” Was that her voice? Wavering in the quiet night, barely more than a whisper, confessing things she never wanted to confess.
He turned, and while his face was still hard, she knew this was her foothold. If she chose to take it. “Afraid of what?”
Oh, God. How was she going to do this? She swallowed, forcing her legs to take her down the stairs and into the grass. Closer and closer to him.
You want that. You want him. He’s just not yours to have. “I’m afraid…that it’s not enough. That I’m…” Sadly, even in the truth, she couldn’t give the full truth. Because she wasn’t afraid of not being enough—she already knew she wasn’t. “That what I do is never enough.”
“Everything you’ve done for me is more than enough.”
“Those have all been easy things. Little things.”
“Not to me.” This time he took a step toward her, and then another. “To me they’ve been everything.” He was close enough to touch, and after a moment, he did. His fingers curled around her shoulders, pulling her close enough to kiss.
But he didn’t kiss her. He looked her directly in the eye. “Tell me what happened.”
She took a deep breath. She’d come this far. There was no going back now. She had to explain no matter how it pained her to do it. “I told them I was leaving, and I wouldn’t come back.”
“Why?”
“I got home, and the cows were loose, and Dad didn’t care, and Caleb was…something is wrong with him, but he won’t tell me what. And I knew I’d messed up, because if I’d gone home last night—”
His hands tightened on her shoulders. “Isn’t Caleb supposed to be taking care of the ranch? Isn’t that his responsibility?”
“Yes, but—”
“But what? You can’t do everything. No one can do everything.”
“Then he can’t exactly do everything, either. I don’t have a choice when it comes to—”
“You do have a choice. You told me that in the restaurant in Bozeman. That you wake up every day and make a choice. So Caleb made the shitty choice and your dad has been making a shitty choice and you walked because…”
Because she was her mother. Because she didn’t have half the strength she pretended to. Because she was a failure at everything, but she was really good at pretending she wasn’t.
This time his fingers didn’t just tighten on her shoulders—he gave her a little shake. “Answer me.”
“Why?” she said a little too desperately, fearfully, all her cracks getting bigger. She’d already let so much slip out—why did there have to be more? It hurt too much to let out any more.
“Because I want to know when you’re hurt, and I want to know what I can do to help, and I hate wanting to know that, because God knows I will screw it all up, but I do want it. I want it, I want you to trust me with it, and I want you and…”
“Why would you screw it up?”
“It is what I do. It is what I have always done.” He looked so serious, so…something she recognized. Not just fear of getting it wrong, but certainty. As if they weren’t really all that different at all.
But. No, that couldn’t be. He was successful at everything he did. He had people who cared. He had no debt or failing ranches or withdrawn family members at his feet.
Any sameness was an illusion.
“You haven’t screwed this up.” She gestured to the ranch, and his gaze followed her gesture. He seemed to take it in, to soak in the surroundings and her words. Then his eyes focused in on her face again.
“What about us?”
“There’s…nothing to screw up.”
His hands went from her shoulders to her neck, then her face, holding her there with his gaze unrelenting and seeing way too much. He always saw way too much.
“That would break my heart if I didn’t think you were just trying to protect yours.” He pressed his forehead to hers, his hands on her face making it impossible to move, to run away, to lie.