He dragged a hand down his face.
Tessa’s family could give her and Makayla anything they wanted. Her daughter had a musical gift that truly deserved to be developed. Tessa had every reason on God’s green earth to take her daughter and go back east.
He could only offer mud and blood, hard work, an unpredictable schedule, and long nights with him gone on calls. Farmers might own millions of dollars’ worth of land and equipment, but they were often cash poor and existed from harvest to harvest. He would never deny an animal care because the price of beef was down or a farmer had a bad crop that year and couldn’t afford to pay him. Which meant he, too, was often scraping by financially. He would never be able to offer her the life of luxury she’d grown up in and deserved to have.
And now there was a music school in Connecticut.
A few fat raindrops splatted against the windshield.
Don’t be the man she has to feel guilty about leaving.
He wanted desperately to ask her to stay. But where would that put her five years from now, when the bridal store deal had dried up or the farm had eaten through everything she had or Makayla, grown, brilliant, and without an avenue into the music field, wanted to know why Tessa hadn’t let her go to the good music school.
Resentment would build in Tessa the same way it had in Lexi, and one day, she would pack a bag. He would watch her walk out and know—not guess, know—that he’d been the anchor holding her back from the life she deserved.
He turned the wipers on and pulled back onto the road. Lexi might have been wrong about him not being a man who showed up, but she was not wrong when she accused him of not giving him the life she deserved.
He was not going to be that man again. He cared too much for Tessa and Makayla to do that to either one of them.
Hank found him at the clinic the next morning.
Dillon had been there since five. He’d already scrubbed down the exam room, inventoried his medications, and reorganized the shelf where the dewormers lived. He’d answered Bonnie Watson’s text about her puppy’s ear, confirmed two ranch calls for the afternoon, and ignored a voicemail from Reno that started with, so just a quick question.
He hadn’t opened the text from Tessa.
It had come in at six-twelve. He’d read the preview line—Want to talk to you. Free tonight?—and put the phone down.
He’d spent all night building his emotional wall of solitude and he wasn’t going to start knocking bricks out of it before breakfast.
Hank strolled in carrying two coffee cups from Rose’s diner and set one on the desk in front of him. “You look like a med student who slept in a chair at his desk.”
“I slept in a bed.”
“In a chair-shaped way?”
He rolled his eyes and picked up the coffee.
Hank sipped his own coffee in silence. His brother had a doctor’s patience and could outlast almost anyone in a waiting game. It was an extremely irritating quality in a brother.
“Spit it out,” Dillon said finally.
“Spit what out?”
“Whatever you came here to say.”
Hank set his cup down. “Reno called me last night.”
He gifted his brother with a little professional silence of his own. After all, none of his patients could speak.
“Reno said you sounded weird on the phone yesterday. Apparently, you cut him off in the middle of telling you about a discovery motion and didn’t pick up when he called back to ask why.”
“I was driving.”
“For four hours?”
He didn’t answer that.
Hank leaned forward, his expression serious. “Dude.”
