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"Phoebe." Her name comes out of me like poison. "I know, Jagger. I've known for eleven months. Carla told me the day I left, and I've spent every single day since then trying not to think about the fact that I let an engaged man put his hands on me like I was the only woman in Texas! Now, I'm standing on his family's ranch, working his family's horses, and his wife just told me how sweet it was that I came to work for you!"

"Phoebe's not my wife." He says it fast, urgent, like he can see exactly how badly this is about to go and is scrambling to head it off.

I point up at him, furious. "Don't you dare try to lie to me, Jagger Cartwright! You're a cheating, lying, selfish bastard!"

"Lainey—" He reaches for me.

I shrug out of it, screaming, "Get away from me!"

"Lainey, Phoebe's my brother's wife. Alexander's. She's never once been mine, not for one single second, and whoever told you differently lied to you, or got it twisted, because half this county spent last spring convinced I was the one getting married, and I could never figure out where that rumor even started."

The words disorient me. "That's not—Carla wouldn't have lied to me."

"I'm not saying she lied. I'm saying somebody got it wrong, and it spread faster than anybody could catch it. I spent months correcting everyone in town who wouldn't stop congratulating me on an engagement that was never mine." His voice cracks slightly, raw in a way I don't remember from New Year's Eve, back when everything about him felt polished and sure of itself.

I stare at him through glassy eyes, insides still shaking, and wind gusting around us, not sure what to believe.

Can it be true?

Was it all a lie?

"I never got engaged. I never stopped looking for you. I've got a receipt in my glove box I've carried around for eleven months because I couldn't make myself throw away the last thing I had of you."

"You expect me to believe that?" My voice shakes on every word, fury and disbelief tangled up so tight, I can't separate one from the other anymore. "You expect me to believe that after eleven months, that you were out there looking for a woman whose last name you never even bothered to ask for?"

"Yeah, I was. And why'd you leave? Huh? You're the one who didn't leave your number⁠—"

"Are you serious? You left me in your bed! No goodbye, no note, nothing!" I yell louder than I should, infuriated.

"You saw the receipt!"

"Receipt? Why are you talking about some stupid receipt?"

His eyes narrow. "You know damn well why!"

"Oh really?" I emotionally laugh. Then words come pouring out, and everything I never got to say eleven months ago finally finds a target. "You weren't the one who had to sit in a doctor's office four months later and find out that one night meant a whole lot more than you bargained for. You got to spend the last year searching a search engine. I got to spend it building an entire life around a decision I made in one single reckless night with a man who couldn't even be bothered to say goodbye!"

His face goes white, all the color draining out of it at once. "What did you just say?"

I realize, too late, exactly what I've let slip, and panic slams through me hard enough that my knees actually threaten to buckle. "Nothing. Forget it."

"Lainey." His voice comes out low and urgent, one step closer, and I retreat the same distance to keep the space between us. "What doctor's office? What are you talking about?"

"I have to go." I push past him, not knowing what to do with any of it, standing in the cold with my heart going a hundred miles an hour. My plans for today lying in ruins somewhere back in that barn. Rage, relief, and grief are all fighting for the same real estate in my chest, and none of them are winning cleanly enough for me to know what I'm supposed to say next. The only thing I know for sure is that the last thing I can afford is standing here long enough for him to do the math on what I've spent six months praying he would never get close enough to.

"Lainey, wait." He reaches for my arm, but I shrug out of it. "Please. Just talk to me for one minute."

"I can't." My voice cracks, and I hate it. I hate how much of the old wanting is still tangled up in the anger, hate that some stupid, stubborn part of me still notices exactly how his hand looked reaching for me. "I have somewhere I need to be."

I turn and walk fast toward the guesthouses before he can say another word, or ask the one question I'm most afraid of. I don't know how to process any of this. And my daughter—our daughter—sits in his guesthouse with my mother, not knowing her daddy's only a few yards away.

I need to get to Charlie.

Whatever happens next, whatever this ranch and this man and this whole impossible tangle of misunderstanding turns into, my daughter comes first. She has every single day since a doctor's office and an ultrasound screen rearranged my entire life seven months ago.

I break into a run and my face crumbles, boots pounding frozen ground, my breath tearing ragged out of my chest. I don't stop until the guesthouse door is in sight, and my hand reaches for the handle, desperate to get inside, scoop up my daughter, and figure out how in God's name I'm supposed to survive whatever comes next.

CHAPTER TWELVE