Chapter 29 Elsie
ELSIE
Wells brushes past me so fast I nearly spill my drink. His jaw is tight, his shoulders bunched, and when I call his name, he doesn’t break stride.
I shove my way after him.
People turn, watching with the careless curiosity small towns afford other people’s private disasters. A tableful of regulars fully cranes their necks. My cheeks burn.
“What the hell—Wells, wait!”
Outside, the snow is falling hard. It catches in his golden hair like confetti.
“Did something happen?” I call, hugging my coat tighter around me. “Talk to me—”
“Not here. Not in front of everyone.”
He pushes forward, and the stragglers outside part automatically. I follow because I’m reckless and worried and more afraid of losing him than of making a scene.
I swallow, heart banging. “Should we . . . go back to the inn?”
He finally wheels on me, and the look on his face makes my stomach drop. “The inn you’re selling to Beau Langford? That fucking inn?”
I stop dead on the steps. “What? No—”
He’s already moving again, storming down the lane toward his truck, breath steaming. I stumble after him, the snow slick beneath my boots. My foot catches, and I go down hard on one knee.
“Shit—” He whirls, hands on me in an instant, gentler than his fury should allow. His palms wrap my arms, pulling me upright.
For one dizzy second, I see the Wells I’ve come to know—the one who steadies my ladder, who calls me contrarian with a smile, who notices when I’m tired before I say a word. But then he lets go, and the space between us freezes solid.
I force a laugh, brittle. “Clumsy, remember?”
He doesn’t answer. I think his silence might be worse than his shouting.
“Can I—” My breath fogs between us. “Can I come back with you? We can talk there.”
He jerks a nod, tight, and we climb into his truck. The cab is cold at first, the kind of cold that sinks into the bone. He starts the engine, the radio spilling static before it settles on a familiar song.
Fleetwood Mac’s “Silver Springs.”
Neither of us speaks the whole way home. Snow blurs the windshield, the wipers keeping time with my pulse. When we pull into the drive, he kills the engine, stock-still.
Finally, he turns to me. “You went behind my back,” he says, eyes dark. “Making deals with the devil. Beau? Really?”
I bark a laugh, sharp with nerves. “That’s a bit dramatic, don’t you think? I get that you don’t like him, but—”
“Oh, so now you’re gonna defend the man?” He scrubs a hand through his hair, the longer strands on top falling damp into his eyes. “What, you have a thing for him or something? Is that why you’re doing this? I get it—he’s all about progress and wealth, and I’m stuck in the fucking past, right?”
For a second, I can’t even answer. My brain stalls. It lands like a slap.
Is that what he really thinks of me? That all of this—every late night at the inn, every letter I’ve opened, every inch I’ve fought to reclaim—could be boiled down to some schoolyard crush? Some shallow desire for forward momentum that erases everything I’ve loved?
“Are you serious right now?” I ask, my voice quieter than I mean it to be. “Is that actually what you think?”
He doesn’t reply. The silence says enough.
“Excuse me?” I snap. “You think I—no, you know what? Fuck you. And fuck this.”
I throw the door open, snow rushing in, and stumble out into the drive. He’s right behind me, boots crunching fast, his breath hot on my neck.
“Fuck me, yeah?” His voice slices through the night. “That’s all you’ve got after lying straight to my face?”
The accusation shreds something raw inside me. I whirl, shove him, hard. He doesn’t budge an inch. My palms sting, my chest heaves, and before I can stop it, hot tears spill over.
“Unbelievable,” I choke. “You’d really think that of me after everything?”
His rage falters. I see it in the way his face changes, horror sliding under the anger. He panics at the sight of me breaking, his hand hovering like he wants to reach for me but doesn’t dare.
I don’t care that he doesn’t like to see me cry. I don’t particularly like it, either. Hate the way it cracks me open in front of someone else, makes my pain a shared thing when I never mean to share it.
So, let him panic. Let him look stricken. Let him wish he could take it back.
He doesn’t get to make wild accusations and then flinch from the fallout.
“You have kept things from me before,” he says in a low, grumbling voice.
“So have you.” I turn away, wiping furiously at my eyes. “I wasn’t going to sell to Beau. Yes, I asked him to send me the information, and yes, I read it. But that was it. That’s all it was.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted to have everything laid out in front of me, all my ducks in a row, before I made my final choice. Because I know this isn’t just about me anymore, Wells. It’s about the house, and the town, and every single person who’s ever set foot inside those walls.”
The snow hisses against the hood of the truck.
He stays silent, shoulders taut.
“I was going to tell you tonight,” I whisper. “That I don’t want to sell. That I don’t want the trust, either. That I want to stay.” My voice cracks. “But how can I now? How can I, when you don’t even have faith in me? When at the first sign of a crack, you let your whole trust in me crumble?”
He drags a hand down his face, groaning. “Elsie . . .”
“No.” I step back, shake my head hard. “To stay, I’d have to lean on others.
Do you get that? I’ve spent my whole life refusing to lean on anyone, and if I stayed here, it would mean learning how.
It would mean choosing to trust, even when it’s scary.
And now?” My tears freeze on my cheeks. “Now I don’t know if I can lean on you, either. ”
He stumbles back half a step.
I press a fist to my chest, trying to hold myself together.
“I was ready, Wells. Ready to stay rooted, ready to believe this place could hold me without swallowing me whole. But if you can’t believe in me—if you think the second I look at a piece of paper from Beau Langford, it means I want him instead of you—then maybe we’re already finished. ”
His jaw works, eyes wild. “That’s not what I—”
“Yes, it is!” My voice cracks, sharp as the night air. “That’s exactly what you said. That I’d betray you. That I’d choose him over you. That, after everything, I’d sell the house without even saying a word.”
Snow swirls between us, catching in his hair, his lashes. He looks furious and broken all at once, fists still curled but useless at his sides.
“I’m sorry for that. I really fuckin’ am.” He breathes hard through his nose. “But the rest of it still doesn’t make sense, Els. You have been talking to him. You broke the committee’s holding agreement.”
I throw up my hands. “Okay, officer. Take me to jail, then, if that’s what this is about? Put me in irons for wanting to be thorough, for reading a packet of paperwork. You’re crucifying me on a technicality.”
His teeth grind audibly. “It wasn’t just paperwork.
It was him. You went to him. The man who thinks money fixes everything.
Who’d bulldoze half the ridge if it meant doubling his return.
Who believes in honoring the past—as long as it doesn’t get in the way of progress. What am I supposed to think?”
“Who else was I meant to go to?” I shout, my breath fogging between us like smoke. “I didn’t want him or his ideals or his messy past with the Hollow. I wanted clarity.”
“Clarity,” Wells repeats bitterly, like it’s a curse. “You think I wouldn’t have given you that? You think I wouldn’t have sat down with you and gone through every goddamn line until you felt steady? I told you when you were ready to talk that I’d be there.”
His words slam into me harder than the snow. My stomach knots. He’s right, in a way. I hadn’t allowed him the chance. Not because I thought he’d lie, but because I thought it would hurt him too much to see me even entertain a seller’s offer.
I was terrified of disappointing him. Of losing him.
“You said we shouldn’t talk about the sale.”
He scoffs. “Now who’s the one hanging their whole defense on a technicality?”
I shake my head. “Do you know how hard it is for me to lean on people? To admit I don’t have all the answers? I thought I was sparing you the frustration, Wells. The disappointment. I thought I was doing the right thing.”
“You don’t spare me by shutting me out. You don’t protect me by treating me like a stranger.
I get that Beau—with his money and his big ideas and all his shiny solutions—looks like the easier choice.
But locking me out in favor of a man who sees the past as something to edit instead of honor? That’s not protecting anyone.”
The tears come hot and fast, burning even as they freeze on my cheeks.
“I wasn’t locking you out. I was—God, I don’t know what I was doing.
Trying to line things up, to get everything neat, so when I finally told you I was staying, it would feel solid.
Real. Not some emotional whim. But now .
. .” My voice breaks. “Now I can’t even say it because you’ve already decided I’ll cut and run. ”
His eyes close, his chest heaving. “I wanted to believe everything would work out. But the second I saw the emails—” He stops, swallows hard. “I saw history repeating itself. It’s what Beau does, Elsie. He takes and he takes. And I thought—I thought maybe he’d taken you, too.”
I flinch. “So little faith.”
“You didn’t give me much to work with other than telling me to wait.”
“I just wanted to be ready when the waiting was over!” My voice echoes against the inn’s clapboards. “You think this is easy for me? To want something so much and still be afraid of it? To love this house, to maybe love you, and to know that both things could break me if I choose wrong?”
He rakes a hand through his hair, snow scattering, his knuckles white. “I thought we could figure it all out. That we could stop circling and finally meet in the middle. But this . . .” He gestures helplessly between us. “—this feels like it won’t work.”
Something caves inside me. “Don’t say that.”
“What else am I supposed to say?” His voice is hoarse, almost breaking.
“That I’ll stand here waiting for you to decide whether I’m enough, whether this place is enough?
Our town, our fucking home? You said you wanted to stay, but even that comes with a contingency.
Should I keep giving and giving until you finally put me—us—ahead of your doubts? ”
“You told me there was time.” My throat burns. “And I never asked you to give me everything.”
“Yes, you did,” he whispers. “When you let me hold you and then pushed me away. When you kissed me and said wait. When you let me believe.” He swallows, heavy, then, “Do what you need to do. Run again. Hide. God knows it’s what you do best.”
The wind moans through the trees. The shutters rattle behind us. A low groan pulses through the eaves, boards creaking in protest, the house bristling like it’s ready to splinter.
She’s angry with us.
And I can’t stand it anymore. The judgment, the noise. So, I do as I’m told; I turn and run—through the snow, up the porch steps, through the door that groans at my shove.
The house sighs around me, wooden bones shuddering, doors breathing open and shut. Its walls are closing in like it knows it’s losing both of us.
I take the stairs two at a time, vision blurred, my pulse ricocheting in my ears.
In my room, I collapse face-first onto the bed, wine-stained quilt catching my tears. Hemingway leaps up to join me, his warm body curling against my neck. His purr rattles steadily. I bury my face in his fur, sobbing until my chest aches and my throat goes raw.
It isn’t until hours later that I hear the front door close again.
Relief punches through me so hard it’s almost painful. I’d half convinced myself Wells would drive off into the dark, tires spitting snow, and refuse to return until I was gone.
That I’d lose him as surely as I lost her.