“Did you get in trouble?”
“The lunchroom monitor saw her shove me and sent her to the office. I got to go back to class. And before you ask, I apologized to her before fifth period.”
“Let me know if you need me to change the dressing on your elbow for you,” he said mildly.
“Okay.” A long, loaded pause. Then, “Have you ever been to Connecticut?”
He kept his eyes on the road. “I did an internship during vet school in New Hampshire. It’s next door to Connecticut.”
“Was it nice?”
“It’s leafier than here. Smaller mountains. More white houses. Why?”
“My grandmother called my mom this morning. There’s a music school in Connecticut that wants me. It’s a really good one.”
“I’m not surprised. You’re really talented.”
“It’s a boarding school. I wouldn’t come home except for Christmases and summers.”
“Mm.”
“It’s really expensive. But my grandmother said she’d pay for it.”
“Sounds like a big opportunity.”
“I don’t know if I want to go,” she said heavily.
“What does your mom think?” he asked.
“She was crying when she hung up. My grandmother’s not going to send her any more money unless she moves back east, too. She told my grandmother she would think about it.” Another pause. “We have to decide by Friday.”
The cottonwoods along the road bent and swayed in unison as blustery weather rolled in off the mountains.
“That’s pretty soon to have to make such a big decision.”
“That’s what I thought.”
He pulled into Fern’s place—Tessa’s place—and the geese announced him with their usual raucous clamor. Brown Dog ambled around the corner and sat down to wait for Makayla.
He parked beside the house and killed the engine.
Makayla didn’t get out either. “Are you going to come inside?”
He wasn’t ready to face the conversation Tessa was no doubt going to want to have with him. She needed to know what his intentions toward her were. Before Friday. But he didn’t know, himself. He knew he had big feelings for her. But was he prepared to act on them in the next three days?
“I can’t come in today,” he answered. “I’ve got a call to make.”
“Okay.” She climbed out and Brown Dog wagged his gray-flecked tail.
“Tell your mom I said hello.”
“Okay.”
He barely made it past the bend in the road before he had to pull over.
A music school in Connecticut. Boarding. Tuition that would make his eyes water. Tessa could have access to her trust fund again if she moved back east. It was a stark reminder that Tessa came from the kind of money, power, and access that effortlessly opened doors because her family’s name was on the building.
He’d married a woman from that world, and she’d tried to draw him into it. He knew how that story ended because he’d already lived it. He hadn’t given up veterinary medicine and being who he was for Lexi, and he couldn’t do it for Tessa, either.
