The words made my throat tight. "He was a good teacher."
"He was. But you had the hunger to learn. Not everyone does." She refilled my tea glass without asking. "That program you outlined—it could really transform things here."
I huffed a laugh, staring at my sandwich. “If Wyatt doesn't fight me every step of the way."
"He might. He's as stubborn as his father and twice as proud." She paused, then added quietly, "He's also hurt. Has been for a long time."
"I know."
"Do you?"
I looked at her, this woman who'd been more of a mother to me than my own had ever been, and felt the weight of all the years between then and now.
"I never meant to hurt him," I said quietly. "I thought I was doing the right thing."
"The right thing for who?"
"For him. For everyone."
Louisa was quiet for a moment, then reached over and covered my hand with hers. The touch was warm, calloused from years of ranch work, infinitely gentle. It pulled up a memory so sharp I almost gasped.
That night. The summer before I left. Wyatt had been at that cattle drafting school in Fort Worth for two weeks. Daddy had been getting meaner as graduation approached, like he knew I was planning to leave and was determined to get his last licks in. That particular night, he'd been drunker than usual, meaner than usual. The bruises on my ribs made it hard to breathe. The cut on my lip wouldn't stop bleeding.
I'd ridden my bike to the Blackwood ranch at 2 AM, barely able to see through the tears and the swelling around my eye. I hadn't meant to knock—hadn't wanted to wake anyone. I just wanted to sit on their porch for a while, somewhere safe, somewhere that felt like home.
But Louisa had found me. Like she had a sixth sense for broken things that needed tending.
She'd taken one look at me, and her face had gone hard as stone, then soft as silk. She'd brought me inside without a word, led me to the kitchen, and started cleaning my wounds with hands that didn't shake even though I could see the rage in her eyes.
Owen had come down, taken one look, and I'd seen him reach for his keys.
"No," I'd begged. "Please. You can't. He'll know I came here. He'll make it worse."
"Honey," Louisa had said, her voice breaking, "it can't get much worse than this."
"It can. It always can."
They'd kept me there for three days, until the worst of the bruising had faded enough to cover with makeup. They'd swornnot to tell Wyatt, though I could see how much it cost them. They'd offered me a permanent place to stay, offered to call the sheriff, offered to make it stop.
But I'd known the truth—the only way to make it stop was to leave. And if Wyatt knew, if he saw what his future father-in-law was capable of, he'd do something that would ruin his life. Prison or worse. Because Wyatt Blackwood protected what was his, and he considered me his.
"Honey?" Louisa's voice brought me back to the present. "Where'd you go?"
"Just remembering that time you and Owen took care of me," I said, my voice thick.
Her hand tightened on mine. "I remember too. That summer... I wanted to kill Art Garrison with my bare hands."
"But you didn't."
"No. You begged us not to. Said it would make things worse." She studied me with those knowing eyes. "Is that why you left? To protect Wyatt from your father?"
I couldn't answer. The truth was lodged in my throat like glass. I just looked down at my hands and picked at my nails.
"Oh, honey," she said softly. "You were just a baby yourself. Trying to handle all that alone."
"I wasn't alone. You and Owen?—"
"For three days. Then you went right back to that house, to that monster, and pretended everything was fine." Her voice held old frustration, old grief. "We should have done more."
