He exhales hard, scrubbing a hand over his face.
“Not just the pieces I warned you about,” he says quietly. “The entire damned thing.”
“How much of that did you hear?” “Enough.”
“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to force you into a decision.”
He steps toward me, hands lifting instinctively—but I move out of his reach. I don’t want him touching me. The thought of it sends a cold weight settling low in my gut, heavy and sickening. I let him into my life, into my heart—and he shut me out anyway.
I’m an idiot. And I have no one to blame but myself.
I nod slowly, tears burning hot behind my eyes as everything clicks into place.
Of course it does. Everything always comes back to the ranch. Not wanting me beside him. Not trusting me enough to decide together. Just finding another way to save it on his own terms—without choosing me.
“So why didn’t you just tell me that?” I ask, already feeling like I know the answer.
Gage has made strides, I’ll give him that. But there are still too many things he never says—too many thoughts he keeps locked away, sitting heavy between us. For weeks now, I’ve been waiting for him to say the words.
I want you to stay.
It might be moot now, but maybe I’d be less angry—maybe I’d even change my mind—if he’d just asked.
He shrugs. “I didn’t want to make decisions for you.”
I shake my head, a hollow laugh threatening to break free. I can’t make decisions if I’m not being chosen.
What’s the point of a struggle only one of us is fighting?
“Is it always going to be like this?” I ask quietly, finally meeting his eyes.
“Are we always going to clash over this place?”
“Say the six months are up and we decide it’s safer to keep the ranch as equal partners. Do we just go through this again while you go behind my back looking for a buyout?”
He shakes his head. “If I don’t have this place, I’ve got nothing.”
His voice is tired. Defeated. And it’s those words that shatter me.
Then what am I, if the ranch is all he has? Why am I not something?
“When you go back to Austin, you’ve got a whole career,” he continues. “You can go anywhere with it.”
“But this is it for me,” he adds. “I don’t know anything else. And if I don’t have it—then what am I?”
I want to tell him he’s so much more than this land. That he’s a man, not a boundary line or a balance sheet. But the words die on my tongue because I know he won’t hear them—not like this.
I bite my bottom lip as Roger West’s name surfaces uninvited.
His offer still sits heavy in my mind, an option I didn’t want to consider—but can’t ignore.
“Horizon Group approached me about the shares,” I say quietly. “The day after you gave them to me.”
His gaze snaps to mine.
“I think I might speak to him,” I add. “It might be what’s best for me.”
Even as I say it, everything in me screams otherwise.
