I leave her sleeping.
Not because I want to spend any time away from her. I don’t. But if I stay wrapped up next to her, sleeping so peacefully as if she’s exactly where she belongs, her hair wild on the pillow, her mouth parted in satisfied sleep, I won’t be able to think straight.
And I need to do some thinking. A lot of it.
We’re more than halfway through this marriage. It hurts to even think of it that way since, from day one, it felt real to me.
It felt permanent.
And with every day that passes, it only feels more and more like forever.
I pull on my jeans as quietly as I can, grab my boots, and slip out onto the porch into the cool night air. The stars are putting on a show, the way they always do out here.
Usually, I find the night sky meditative. But tonight, it only makes me more restless.
The barn door creaks as I step inside. The familiar smells wrap around me, the animals shifting in their stalls. Solid and real. This is my life.
It’s not hers.
What should be steadying and grounding is only another reminder that Maisey isn’t here to stay.
The truth has been sitting heavy in my chest for days and only growing louder every time she laughs in my kitchen or curls into me at night like it’s second nature.
Footsteps sound behind me.
“Why am I not surprised to find you out here?”
I glance over my shoulder. Wyatt stands in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest, looking like he just rolled out of bed.
“Did I wake you?”
He snorts. “There’s no such thing as sleeping with a baby. This is the third time I’ve been up so far, and the night is young.” He runs a hand through his rumpled hair. “I figured I’d check on the horses since I was up. But I guess I’ll check on you, too.”
We stand there for a moment in silence.
My friends are observant. They’ve seen it. The way I’ve completely fallen for my wife, even though it’s supposed to be temporary.
“She seems happy here,” Wyatt says after a moment. “She fits.”
“That’s the problem.” I blow out a breath. “She isn’t supposed to fit here.”
“Trav, don’t?—”
“Don’t what?” I challenge him. “Speak the truth? ’Cause that’s what it is, man.” I shake my head and turn to Pico, giving the horse a gentle scratch. In the last few weeks, she’s become Maisey’s horse. The two of them are getting on perfectly, as if Maisey has spent her whole life on a horse instead of only a few weeks. She’s a natural. “She has a life in the city,” I tell Wyatt. “Our marriage, it isn’t supposed to be real, remember.”
“But it is.”
I shake my head. It’s too dangerous to let myself entertain that thought.
“I don’t want it to end,” I admit, the words slipping out before I can stop them.
Wyatt studies me for a long moment. Then he smiles knowingly. “Then why are you acting like it has to?”
“She’s got plans,” I say, thinking back to all the discussions we’ve had over the last few weeks. She’s so passionate about art and incredibly talented, too. Rock Creek is a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, and there’s definitely no such thing as anart scene.“Things she wants out of life.”
“And?”
“I won’t be the reason she gives it up.”
