He held her gaze. “Does that matter?”
“Yes.” Silence waited patiently in the room, charging for something she wasn’t ready to believe.Love?Her mind spun. The word hovered just behind her teeth, but she knew it was too soon and they were too fragile. The wind pressed against the house again. She broke eye contact first. “What would happen if I chose Dallas?”
He held his breath as the air in the room shifted. The fork rested against his plate with a soft clink.
The storm outside suddenly sounded louder as he blew out a breath. “I don’t know.” He wasn’t angry or cold with his words, but they held in the air as she waited. He didn’t elaborate, and that silence hurt more than a sharp answer would have.
“Okay.” She pretended it hadn’t bothered her.
He stared at her. “You thinking about it?”
She shrugged. “Livvy would like me to.”
“Dallas isn’t you.”
She smiled. “You don’t get to define that.”
He didn’t argue, he didn’t push, he just looked at her like he was memorizing something he might lose.
Why does staying here feel like a risk?The image of her drug-addict mother popped into her mind.
WYATT
He knew the second she said Dallas that something inside him shifted. His appetite drifted away, and it wasn’t anger. It was fear, and he didn’t like that. No woman had ever had that kind of leverage over him.
The storm softened outside, rain tapering to a steady rhythm against the roof. She stood and moved toward the window, watching as lightning flickered in the distance. Her silhouette glowed in lantern light. He got up and walked to her without thinking. “You don’t belong inland,” he said.
She didn’t turn. “You’ve said that before.”
“It’s still true.”
“And you belong here?”
“Yes.” There was no hesitation.
She looked over her shoulder at him.
“And if I don’t?”
He swallowed instead of saying it.Stay, please stay.
She walked back toward him, close enough that the warmth of her reached him. “You go quiet when you’re thinking too much,” she observed.
“I go quiet when I don’t have the answer.”
“Is that what this is?”
“Yes.”
She reached up and touched his chest, right over his heart. “It’s not necessary to solve everything.”
“I do when it’s you.” That slipped out before he could stop it.
Her breath hitched as the lantern light flickered. The storm rolled farther away, and the lightning looked less powerful.
He stepped closer, taking up the space between them. “I don’t like the idea of you choosing somewhere else.”
“Because you don’t like losing?”
