I can’t help but wonder if she’s having her period. I was married. I know how this can affect a woman.
She smiles sadly and doesn’t meet my eyes. “This isn’t working.”
I hear the words, but they don’t compute. At the risk of sounding like an idiot, I have to ask. “What isn’t working?” This can’t mean what it sounds like.
Instead of standing there, waiting for her answer, I stride into the closet. I’m restless. Pissed.
I’m scared shitless.
I unbutton my shirt and shrug out of it. After I’ve pulled on a T-shirt, I head back into the bedroom. She’s staring at her hands.
“What isn’t working?” I drop onto the bed.
I work hard for of all kinds of things. For the cattle, for the land, for this house, and for my family.
I need to work at this relationship. I fucked up by not preparing my family better for her arrival. Letting them know how important she is to me.
Everything I’ve done over the past few days has probably sent her the wrong message.
“Us.” She finally meets my gaze, her blue eyes swimming in tears. “Me. Here.”
I’m shaking my head. “We just got off to a bad start.” I go to grab her hand, but she pulls it away from me.
“No, Tucker. We had a great time in St. Thomas. Maybe we ought to have just left it at that.”
Black creeps in around the edges of my vision. “You don’t mean that,” I tell her. “Isa. Sugar.” I grab hold of her shoulders and she drops her head forward.
“It was a sweet idea.” Her voice is barely a whisper. “Everything is too different here. I’m not ready for it.”
This feels the same as being thrown from a bronc. The jerking. The way your breath gets caught in your chest and your teeth rattle. And then you go flying through the air.
“So, you just want to give up then? Two days and you’re ready to throw in the towel?” She stills and then finally looks up at me with furrowed brows. Fuck if I don’t want to smooth them out. What the hell is happening here?
“I don’t want to drag this out, Tuck…”
“What the hell?” Anger courses through me.
What’s happening?
She went shopping today. And when she got home she had a headache. “You’re not making sense? Seriously? Weren’t the shops nice enough in Buena? Didn’t they carry those fancy high heels of yours? No Starbucks? Is that it?” I’m talking shit but I’m hurt. I’m pissed, and I’m lashing out.
She flinches with my words, but I’ve also ignited something else behind her eyes. That darkness I saw a few minutes ago is fire now.
She rises and stands in front of me, one finger poking into my chest. “Don’t you go there, Tucker James! Don’t you say I didn’t try! I came out here! I left everything and when I got here, I…” She swallows and turns her head. “I realized I came for nothing.”
I take one step backward. And then another. “Nothing?” I’m stunned. “Fucking nothing? What am I? What are my boys? I’m sorry I couldn’t drop everything. Shit, Isabella, I apologized for that already. What the hell do you want from me?” I’m hurting again. Looking for answers. But she’s shaking her head.
“More than you can give.”
For a fraction of a second, I feel like those words should mean something to me.
“Tell me you don’t love me.” I need to hear it. I fucking need to hear it to believe this is happening.
She turns her head. “It doesn’t matter if I love you or not. This isn’t gonna work.”
“It doesn’t matter if you love me or not?” I throw my hands in the air. Priceless. God, I should have been happy to live without a woman for the last three years. Women said shit that didn’t make sense. Women said things that made a man crazy.
I can’t help thinking there are all kinds of things women do that I can live without. But the truth is there’s even more things about women that I don’t want to live without.
