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‘Yes, but that isn’t why I’m saying this. And you know I’m right. You know you’re going to come to the same conclusion when you’ve had time to process this, because you saw your dad treat people like crap, you saw the way he didn’t love your stepmum, and you don’t want to be anything like him. This marriage is the last thing either of us wants.’

She stared at him, waiting for him to contradict her. Waiting for him to realise that he couldn’t live without her. Hope, despite the circumstances, was a tiny sliver of light in her chest. Tiny but present, so she could still cling to it, until she couldn’t.

‘What do you want to do?’

She closed her eyes then, turning away from him. ‘I don’t know.’ She said the words so quietly, she wasn’t sure if he’d even heard them. She bit down into her lip to stop from crying. Then, channelling her inner strength, she moved towards the door, put her hand on the knob before angling to face him. ‘Goodbye, Tate.’

* * *

‘Sarah, wait,’ he called, moving as quickly as he could. But with an arm in a cast, and his ribs hurting like the blazes, it took too long to scramble out of the bed, let alone cross the room, with his whole body feeling as though it had been rattled around in a tin can. He yanked open the door and looked down the corridor, but she was already gone from sight. He swore, contemplated pulling his clothes on instead of the ridiculous hospital gown, but there was definitely no time for that.

He stalked down the corridor, aware of the pain each step brought, but completely ignoring it. The mother of his child had just walked out on him, and he had no idea where she was going, or even if she was okay. He burst into the car park and grimaced as the scorching afternoon sun almost blinded him. His eyes scanned left, then right, finally landing on her car. But she was already driving, and when he lifted a hand to get her attention, he thought she might have looked in his direction, but she didn’t stop.

He cursed into the arid air, his heart racing as though he’d run a marathon.

* * *

‘I swear to God, if you don’t stop fussing, I’m going to fire you,’ Tate snapped at Everett the next day as the other man came around to the passenger side to help Tate from the car. Impatience was bursting through him, along with a free-floating sense of anxiety. A feeling that he knew what he’d find when he got inside the house.

And it wasn’t Sarah.

Still…even preparing for her to have left didn’t take the sting out of her not being at home. There wasn’t even a sign of her. Having dismissed Everett with a curt response when his station manager asked if Tate would like a cup of tea, Tate went from room to room, looking for the woman he’d been planning to marry.

And found nothing.

The clearest sign that she’d left, of course, was her missing car. But finally, when he went into the kitchen to grab an ice-cold water from the fridge, he saw a crisp white envelope leaning against the coffee machine and it was as though he were in free fall. He reached his good arm out and pressed his palm against the kitchen counter, closing his eyes on the rush of reality that felt like barbed wire around his chest.

‘Sarah,’ he groaned, his gut churning. It was confirmation he hadn’t needed, and didn’t want. He took a second to brace and then cracked his water, took a long drink, before placing it on the bench and reaching for the card. It felt as though a tonne of cement had been poured into his veins as he opened the back triangle, imagining Sarah’s fingers having gently closed the envelope. With a growing sense of devastation, he began to read:

Tate,

You’ve told me time and time again that you want me to be happy, and I know that’s true. Not just because you’ve said it, but because I know you now. I know that it would kill you to have me here, miserable, because you’re not able to give me what I want. You’d die trying, though, and I can’t bear to put either of us through that. I don’t want to make this more difficult than it needs to be. You’re going to be a dad, and I want you in our child’s life. I can’t say exactly how we’ll make that happen, but this isn’t about keeping you from our baby. I would never do that—to you, or them. I just need some space for now. I’ll be in touch.

Sarah

She hadn’t signed it ‘Love, Sarah’, but Sarah did love him. And she did know him. He’d been wrong when he’d said she didn’t, in the hospital. She knew him, just as well as he knew her. Her every thought and feeling, her wants, her needs.

And in the end, her need to be loved, to belong, to feel that she was properly at home, finally sank into him. She’d told him, and she’d shown him. She hadn’t wanted a marriage in name only; she’d wanted this to be real.

Was that why she’d thought she loved him?

He frowned, placing the letter carefully down on the counter, then coming around to sit on one of the stools, bracing his elbows and staring straight ahead. But he couldn’t look across the kitchen without seeing Sarah in it. Making her morning coffee, standing hip to hip with him as they did dishes, looking just exactly as she wanted to feel…looking as though she belonged.

She had belonged. He’d thought that so many times over the past week, when he’d caught a glimpse of her and recognised a kindred spirit, because, out here, Sarah seemed as though she was born for this life. Despite her English complexion and the fact she didn’t know jack about the Outback, it hadn’t mattered.

She was meant to be here, and now she wasn’t.

He told himself it was the right decision, because she was right. Getting married under these circumstances was a one-way ticket to disaster. One day, he’d have woken up and realised that she was pretending to be happy for him, and he’d have had to end it. Unless she fell out of love with him, over time. That could happen.

And why wouldn’t it? Wasn’t it more likely that the more she got to know him, the less she’d love him? After all, his own mother had taken a huge financial payment, then run out of his life, moved abroad and started fresh. What did that say about his ability to be loved?

His gut churned with a familiar sense of abandonment, but this was somehow…different. Worse? Because he hadn’t expected it. He really had thought they were making a decision to marry predicated on sensible things, like connection, care for their child. He’d thought those things would protect them against anything going wrong, but he’d been mistaken.

And now he just had to learn to live with that.

* * *

Ten days after Sarah left, Tate couldn’t keep pretending he wasn’t going out of his mind. With worry, he’d told himself, for the first few days. He’d wanted to take care of her, to keep her safe, to know she was well. That was why he couldn’t stop thinking about her. The press release had gone out, confirming they were getting married, which made her a target for paps and gossips. And she was out there, somewhere, dealing with the fact she’d fallen in love with a bastard of a man who couldn’t love her back.