"You can't know that until you try."
"Very helpful."
"I mean it." He wasn't joking now. "You've been out here for three years being careful and you're still miserable, so careful isn't working." He nudged my shoulder with his. "Maybe try something else."
I looked at the cottage window.
Still lit. She was still up.
"She's going to get hurt," I said. "Whatever happens. She's twenty and she's new to everything and at some point she's going to want things I don't know how to give her."
"Maybe," Sawyer said. "Or maybe you're borrowing trouble from a future that doesn't exist yet." He stood up, brushed off his jeans. "You know what I think?"
"You're going to tell me regardless."
"I think you're not scared of hurting her." He looked down at me. "I think you're scared she's going to be good for you. And then you'll have to actually be here. All the way. Not just functional."
I stared at the horizon.
He wasn't wrong.
God, I hated that he wasn't wrong.
"Get some sleep," he said. "And maybe—" he nodded toward the cottage— "leave her coffee out in the morning. The way she likes it."
"I already do that."
He grinned. "I know." Then he stretched his arms over his head. “Now…I’m gonna go get Daniela before she and Millie start sharing too many secrets, and then I’m going to show my woman a good time.”
“I’ll keep the windows closed so I can’t hear you all the way across the property,” I muttered.
He extended his hand to help me up.
Turned it into an involuntary high five instead.
“I’ll do the same thing,” he said. “Good luck.”
Then he left me there to stew…to think.
To feel bad.
To feel hopeful.
NINE
Willa
I’d learned a lot since I’d gotten free of the homestead.
Not necessarily about the outside world…although I’d learneda littleabout that. I was still kind of scared to leave the property; the Holt ranch was my safe place, Forrest’s cottage my panic room.
But I’d learned some things from my books.
At that point, I’d inhaled basically every romance novel Haven and Millie had handy. Haven had placed an order for even more novels; I’d read everything from regency to monster romance. Things were getting weird in my fictional world, and they were just…
…they were stagnant at home.
At the cottage, I mean—which had already become more of a home than the Daley homestead ever was.
