“Imogen.”
“Yeah?”
I turned off the ignition. “If you can’t recognize when it’s raining, you can’t wander around the farm alone. Got it?”
She banged her feet against the passenger seat back again. “Yep.”
“Go ahead,” I said, “but I don’t want to see you soaked to the bone in an hour.”
“Aye aye.” She unbuckled from her booster seat and opened the door, darting off toward the dog run at full speed.
If I was lucky, I’d get an uninterrupted half hour with Shay. I needed every minute of that time. I grabbed our bags and carted them inside. When I didn’t find Shay on the first floor, I headed for her bedroom. It wouldn’t be her bedroom for long. If this went the way I wanted, we’d stop pretending that we could cleave anything into hers or mine. It was allours.
I pushed the door open and found her sitting on the floor, surrounded by—everything. Clothes, books, earrings, shoes.Everything. Then she startled, jumping a bit and scrambling back, a hand pressed to her chest. She tugged out her earbuds, saying, “I didn’t expect you for another hour or two.”
I reached down and offered my hand. “We hit the road early.”
She stood and brushed off the seat of her jeans. “How was it? How did Gennie handle it?”
I wanted to yank her into my arms but small mountains of sweaters and books separated us. Instead, I brought my hand to the back of my neck. “Better than I could’ve expected.”
“That’s good,” she said. “That’s really good.”
“Gennie went to visit the animals. She needed to run around after the drive.”
“That makes sense.”
I studied her mountains for a minute. The closet was empty and the drawers too. There was a system in place that I couldn’t decipher and I had the sinking sense this was a precursor to packing. She was getting ready to leave. She’d decided this wouldn’t work.
I gestured to the mountains as my stomach dropped to the floor. “What’s going on here?”
“Summer is very much over.” She dropped her hands to her hips. “I’m trying to get organized.”
“Organized.” I nodded. My stomach was in the basement. “To move back to Thomas House?”
She parted her lips to speak but stopped herself. She tapped her phone and slipped her earbuds back into their case. Then, “We did this all wrong, Noah. Maybe it was for the right reasons but—” She looked away, out the window facing the orchards. “I’ve fallen for you—and your niece and your farm and even this wonky town—but you married me so I could inherit Lollie’s land.” My heart jumped into my throat. “You rescued me like you rescue everyone.”
“You are not everyone, Shay. Not even close.”
Staring down at her hands, she said, “I have a lot of experience convincing myself that people love me. I don’t even realize I’m doing it until those people make it painfully clear that theydon’tlove me, theyneverloved me. But I can’t convince myself that you would’ve chosen this if not for Lollie’s wacky will and the land, even if you say you don’t want it, and all of the things that mixed together to make this situation. And I can’t convince myself that you would’ve chosen me.”
“You’re wrong about that.”
“But you can’t prove it, can you?” She finally met my gaze and I felt all the agony in her dark eyes. “That’s what I need.Proof.I have all these people who give me fractions and fragments of themselves and swear it’s the whole. I tell myself to believe them, to take those pathetic little pieces and make something real from them. And I do. I make relationships and promises and futures. I make everything and I make myself believe.” She held up her hands and let them fall to her sides. “I don’t want to do that to myself anymore.”
I felt like I was being ripped apart from the inside out. “Then let me give you something better.”
She layered both hands over her heart. “I can’t let you rescue me again. I cannot be one more person who expects you to save the world. I have to save my own world.”
We stared at each other for a long moment, the ridge of her books and clothes dividing us. Thunder rumbled in the distance and wind whipped through the trees. I brought my hand to the back of my neck again and dug a thumb into the knots there. It didn’t help. I couldn’t imagine anything would ever help.
“You want proof,” I said. “I’ll show you proof.”
Shay shook her head. “Can we set this aside for tonight? I need to take a shower and finish some laundry and work on my lesson plans because this week’s schedule has changed again. And you’ve had such a long day—a long week, really—and I’m sure you want to get Gennie back on her regular routine.”
Shower. Laundry. Lesson plans. Routine. I stared, waiting for her to realize that we weren’t going toset this asidefor the night. When I couldn’t stand it anymore, when the pressure was so intense the only thing I could do was hit the release valve or wait to explode, I said, “I love you. I mean, I fuckingloveyou, Shay. I’ve loved you for years upon fuckingyearsand none of the garbage leftover from your ex or your mother or anyone else is going to change that.Youwill not change that.”
A breath whispered out of her and her brows fell as if she didn’t understand. “Noah, I—”
