"What else? While you ran the ranch with your brothers, I'd be in the kitchen with your mother, learning to make the perfect pot roast. Thanks, but I had bigger ambitions."
"You seemed pretty happy learning from my mother last week."
"That's different. I'm here as a professional now, not as your—" She stopped, the word hanging unspoken between us.
"My what? Girlfriend? Future wife? Thelove of my life?" I laughed, but it came out broken, bitter as bad coffee. "Don't worry, I know exactly what you're not."
She swallowed hard, her jaw tight and eyes cold. “Good. Then we understand each other."
We worked in vicious silence for twenty minutes, the fence taking shape between us like a physical manifestation of all our barriers. The sun beat down mercilessly, turning the world into a furnace. Sweat soaked through my shirt and stung my eyes, coating everything with a layer of salt and grit. Every time she passed close, I caught her scent—that expensive perfume mixed with sweat and the indefinable something that was just her—and it made me angrier. Made me want things I couldn't have. Made me remember things I needed to forget.
She was stringing wire, pulling it too tight in her frustration, her movements sharp and violent where they were usually fluid. The wire sang with tension, and I was about to tell her to ease up when it snapped back like a snake striking, catching her palm.
"Fuck!" Blood welled immediately, bright red against her skin, dripping onto the dusty ground.
I moved without thinking, muscle memory taking over, grabbing her hand to examine the cut. It was deep, would needstitches, and seeing her blood made something primitive in me roar. "You need to?—"
She yanked her hand away with violence that sent drops of blood spattering across my shirt. "Don't touch me."
"It needs to be cleaned?—"
"I said, don't touch me!" She backed away, cradling her bleeding hand against her chest, eyes wild. "I don't need anything from you. Not your concern, not your help, not your anything."
"Right. You made that clear fourteen years ago."
"God, you're like a broken record. Poor Wyatt got left behind and has been nursing his wounds ever since." Her voice dripped contempt that I knew was forced, but hurt anyway. "You ever think maybe I did you a favor? You could have moved on, found someone else, had that perfect life you wanted. But no, you'd rather sit in that cabin feeling sorry for yourself, playing the victim."
"You don't know anything about my life."
"I know you built that cabin for a ghost. I know you're so stuck in the past you can't see what's right in front of you. I know you're pathetic."
The word hung between us like a challenge, like a weapon, like the end of something.
"You want to know what's pathetic?" I stepped closer. "Pathetic is running away instead of fighting for something. Pathetic is leaving a note instead of having a conversation. Pathetic is coming back here and pretending like you're some big success when we both know you're just as broken as me. You're a coward, Ivy. Always have been."
The word landed exactly as I'd intended, hard and brutal like a physical blow.
"I hate you," she said quietly, but with feeling that seemed to come from her bones.
"The feeling's mutual."
We stared at each other, both breathing hard, the Texas sun beating down on us like judgment. Blood dripped from her hand onto the dirt between us, each drop marking time like a brokenclock. I didn’t know if we were going to kiss again or keep screaming.
"Fix the fucking fence yourself, asshole." She threw the wire stretcher at my feet, the metal clanging against rocks, and started walking toward the road.
I spun on my heel. "Where are you going? We're three miles from the ranch!"
"I'd rather walk barefoot over broken glass than spend another minute with you!”
"Ivy—"
She spun around, and the fury in her eyes stopped me cold. But underneath the anger, I saw something else. Pain. Raw, bleeding pain that matched my own.
"No. You don't get to be concerned about me. You don't get to act like you care. You just called me a coward, said you hate me. So stick to that. It's easier for both of us."
Then she turned and kept walking, her figure getting smaller in the distance, shimmering in the heat like she was already becoming a mirage. Blood from her hand left a trail in the dust, and I stood there watching her go, tasting the lie of my words like copper in my mouth.
Chapter 13
