His jaw flexed like I’d swung something heavy and landed it.
“What did you find out?” he asked, quieter this time.
I threw my hands out, wild and useless. “Everything, Wyatt. Everything. The taxes. The liens. The overdue notices. The goddamn auction timelines. He was drowning, and he didn’t tell me. And now it’s all on me.” My voice rose until it cracked. “It’s all on me, and I can’t do it.” The last word came out of me with a sob.
Something flickered in his eyes. Something I didn’t want to see or deal with.
“You’re not alone.”
My breath hitched. “Oh, like you’re going to help me, you just want this all for yourself. So yeah,Mr. Hargrove,I am on my own.”
“You aren’t.”
“I am,” I shouted. “Ray’s gone. My parents left without acare in the world. I left all this behind years ago. I have no one except a best friend over two hours away and a man standing in my barn pretending to comfort me, while he plots how to get my land and home from me.”
“I’m not pretending, and I don’t want your house. It’s of no use to me.”
“Oh well, should I curtsy to the king for not wanting me to be homeless?” I said, taking a step toward him even though every instinct screamed to run the other way.
“I didn’t come here to talk about this.”
“Then why are you here? Why do you keep showing up every time I’m falling apart? Do you want something from me other than my land? Is that it?” I had my arms out, waiting for him to say something or do something. His eyes never left mine; they were locked on me, and he refused to break eye contact.
“Stop,” he said quietly, but there was something strained under the word.
“No,” I said, tears spilling over again, hot and humiliating. “I won’t stop. You want me to say it. Fine. You’re the last man on earth I should trust. You walked into my house and dropped every truth like a bomb, and then you expect me to come to you when I can’t breathe.”
His throat worked. “That isn’t what I expect.”
“You don’t respect me. You don’t believe I can do this alone.”
“That’s not what I think at all.”
“Then what? Why are you here? Why do you keep finding me and stepping in like you have any right to stand between me and the mess Ray left me?”
He didn’t answer. Not for what seemed like hours. Then he stepped closer. Just a fraction. Just enough that I could see a muscle jump in his jaw and the tight set of his shoulders.
“Because I promised him I would,” he said. The words hit the barn like a gunshot, and I took a step back.
I stared at him. “What?”
He exhaled slowly. “I promised Ray I’d look out for you when you came back.”
My heart lurched. “When?”
“Months ago,” he said. “He was getting worse, and he knew it. He asked me to keep an eye on things when you came home.”
My knees wobbled. The ground felt thin. Everything in me rebelled at the idea of Ray making that choice without telling me. Without asking me. Without trusting me to show up for him.
“You should’ve told me before,” I whispered.
“It wasn’t my place.” He shook his head, “Tessa,” he said again, gentler now. “You’ve had a hell of a few days.”
I choked out a laugh that tasted like salt. “Wyatt, I’m living in a nightmare of debt and foreclosure papers, broken machinery, and now I have you standing here telling me you and Ray made choices for me like I’m some kind of child.”
His face tightened.
“You’re not a child,” he said. “You’re…” He cut himself off, and I watched his eyes shift just slightly as if he was trying not to look at my body. “You’re overwhelmed. And you’re hurting. And you’re aiming all that hurt at the closest target.”
