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He had not asked Eden to choose him. He had asked her to rescue him from an empty chair, from the indignity of needing help, from Missouri tugging her back, from a future where Jesse Pickett might no longer be the sort of man anyone would willingly stay beside.

“I hurt her,” Jesse said.

“Yes.”

The honesty was deserved, but it still cut.

“Bad?”

“I don’t know.”

Jesse shut his eye. “She said marriage ain’t a bandage.”

Bass was quiet a moment. “Smart woman.”

“Annoying.”

“Most smart women are when a man is being a fool.”

Jesse opened his eye. “You calling Emily annoying?”

Bass’s mouth twitched. “Every day of my blessed life. Never where she can hear.”

“She hears everything.”

“I know. It’s terrifying.”

Jesse let out a breath. It hurt less than laughing.

Bass reached for the cup to set it closer, but his hand paused mid-air. As if remembering how Jesse might take it, he left the cup untouched.

“You need to apologize,” Bass said.

“I know.”

“Not so she’ll stay.” Jesse looked at him sharply. Bass held his gaze. “Because she deserved better.”

Jesse’s anger rose, but this time it had nowhere honest to go, so it faded.

“I know,” he said.

“Good.”

Carolina’s voice carried down the hall from the front room. “Bass?”

Bass stood. “In here.”

The sickroom door opened, and Carolina stepped in. Her gaze moved from Bass to Jesse with the accuracy of a woman who knew she had walked into aftermath.

“Eden is with Emily at the church,” she said.

Jesse’s chest tightened. “She crying?”

Carolina considered him. “That is not my story to tell.”

That meant yes.

He shut his eye.