Tessa’s eyes snapped up. “What does that mean?”
I took a breath, slow and careful. “It means I’m going to say something you probably won’t like, and you can tell me to get out after. But you’re going to hear it first.”
My heart pounded hard enough that I could feel it in my throat. “I’m not letting that land change hands,” I said.
Tessa’s face went blank. “What?”
“The debt is gone, I’ve cleared it all, but the land is in your name,” I repeated, voice steady.
Her eyes narrowed, sharp. “You can’t do that.”
“I can,” I said, and I hated how the words sounded, like control.
Tessa’s shoulders shook once. She swallowed hard. “I don’t understand.”
I nodded, because that was fair. “You don’t have to understand yet. You just have to listen.”
Her gaze held mine, raw and furious and exhausted.
“The land is yours free and clear. You can come back when you’re ready, or you can stay here, or you can do whatever you need to do. But the land isn’t going to be taken from you.”
Tessa went very still.
Then her voice came out small, almost broken. “Why?”
The question hit the center of me.
Because I loved her, I thought. Because she’d gotten under my skin and into my bones. Because the valley felt wrong without her, even when she made it feel like a warzone while she was there. Because I couldn’t take the look on her face when she realized she was losing everything, Ray left her. Because I’d rather bleed than watch her drown.
But I didn’t say all of that.
I said the truest part, the part I could say without asking her to carry my feelings too.
“Because I love you,” I said. “And you deserved better than what was left in your lap.”
Tessa’s eyes filled completely. A tear slid down her cheek, and she didn’t wipe it away.
“I didn’t tell you goodbye,” she whispered, like she couldn’t stop confessing now. “I was going to. I sat in my truck, and I tried. And then I knew if I saw you, I wouldn’t leave.”
My throat burned.
I held myself still. “I would’ve let you go.”
She gave a tiny shake of her head. “No. You would’ve looked at me like you look at me, and I would’ve stayed, and I would’ve hated you for it.”
The honesty gutted me.
I nodded once, slowly. “Maybe.”
Tessa’s breath came out shaky. “I don’t hate you anymore.”
The words landed like a hand on my chest.
I swallowed hard. “That’s good,” I replied with a chuckle.
A ragged laugh escaped her and turned into a sob. She pressed her palm over her mouth, eyes squeezed shut, shoulders trembling.
I didn’t move closer. I didn’t touch her. I stayed where I was because she needed control more than she needed comfort.
