She leaves me alone in the storage room with the echoes of her words echoing in my mind.
Make it for you.
But that’s the problem. I don’t know who me is anymore. The me who was raised to want Switzerland or the me who’s learned to love Copper Creek. Are they even the same person? Can they be?
At 6:45, I drive to Wyatt’s cabin. The evening is warm, the kind of summer evening that makes you want to sit outside and watch the light change and look for lightning bugs. His truck is in the driveway, smoke rising from the chimney of his outdoor grill.
I sit in my car for a moment, trying to gather my courage.
Just tell him. Why is this so hard?
Whatever happens, you have to tell him the truth.
I get out and walk to the porch. Before I can knock, the door opens.
Wyatt is standing there in jeans and a soft gray T-shirt, a dish towel over his shoulder. He looks tired and worried, but beautiful.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey.”
“Come in,” he says finally. “Dinner’s almost ready.”
He’s made steaks on the grill, baked potatoes, and a salad with vegetables from Meredith’s garden. We eat at his table by the window, and I try to taste the food, but everything is ash in my mouth.
“You’re not eating,” he says.
“I’m not very hungry.”
“Eleanor.” He sets down his fork. “Whatever it is, just tell me. Please. The not knowing is worse than anything you could possibly say.”
I look at him across the table, this man who caught me when I fell off a mechanical bull, showed me a secret waterfall, carved little animals out of wood because he needed something to do with his hands. This man who has been patient and kind and honest with me from the very beginning.
And I’ve been lying to him.
“I got a job offer,” I say.
He goes very still. “What kind of job offer?”
“A really good one.” I take a breath. “In Switzerland. Teaching at an etiquette school. It’s the most prestigious finishing school in Europe. Salary is two hundred thousand a year plus housing. It’s… everything I thought I wanted and everything my mother ever wanted for me.”
The silence stretches between us, like a wire pulled too tight.
“When?” His voice is flat.
“The email came two weeks ago.”
Something in his expression cracks. “Wait. Two weeks? You’ve known about this for two weeks, and you didn’t tell me?”
“I didn’t know how to tell you. I didn’t know what I was going to do.”
“So you just kept it to yourself every time we had dinner together, every time we talked about the future, while I—” He stops and pushes up from the table so abruptly that his chair scrapes against the floor. “While I sat here falling in love with you, you were planning to leave.”
“I wasn’t planning to leave. I wasn’t planning anything. If I wanted to leave, I could’ve taken Gary Allen’s offer. I haven’t even decided anything about this job.”
“Haven’t you?” He’s pacing now. “Two weeks, Eleanor. Two weeks of you lying to my face. Two weeks of me knowing something was wrong and you telling me you were just tired. Two weeks of—” He lets out a harsh laugh. “Gosh, I am so stupid.”
“Wyatt—”
