7. Chapter 7
Kayla
Dylan is waiting for me outside the lodge on Thursday afternoon.
I see him before he sees me. He’s leaning against a rental car in the employee parking area, arms crossed, wearing the same navy peacoat he wore in Ohio. He looks exactly like he always does: clean-shaven, good haircut, nice shoes. The kind of man who looks put-together in every setting.
I stop walking. My keys are in my hand and my bag is on my shoulder and my car is thirty feet away, past Dylan and his rental.
I could go back inside. I could call Ty. I could walk to Caroline’s office and wait until Dylan gets bored and leaves.
I don’t do any of those things. I walk toward my car.
“Kayla.”
“Dylan.”
“Can we talk?”
“No.”
“Five minutes.”
“I gave you five minutes at the front desk two days ago. You used them to tell me you drove sixteen hours like that was supposed to impress me.”
“I came because you won’t return my calls.”
“Because I don’t want to talk to you.”
“You haven’t heard what I have to say.”
“I don’t need to.”
He pushes off the car. He steps toward me. Not aggressive. Just closer than I want him. Dylan has always been good at taking up space without technically doing anything wrong. He stands close and speaks reasonably and makes you feel like you’re the one being difficult for wanting distance.
I used to fall for that. I don’t anymore.
“Dylan. We broke up over a year ago. I moved to Montana. I didn’t answer your texts. I didn’t answer your calls. I don’t know how to make this clearer.”
“You moved to Montana to work at a hotel.”
“A lodge.”
“You left everything we had because of a job at a lodge in a town most people have never heard of.”
“I left because I wanted to.”
“That’s not what happened.”
“That is exactly what happened.”
His jaw tightens. There it is. The shift. The moment where reasonable Dylan starts becoming the other Dylan. The one who decides what actually happened because his version is more convenient.
“You were overwhelmed,” he says. “You were stressed about your career and you made a reactive decision. I understood that. I gave you space.”
“You gave me space while texting me every three weeks for a year.”
“Because I care about you.”
“Caring about someone means respecting their decision to leave.”
“Your decision didn’t make sense.”
“It didn’t make sense to you. It made perfect sense to me.”
He steps closer again. I hold my ground. I am not going to back up because a man I used to date thinks proximity is a negotiation tactic.
“I heard you’re seeing someone,” he says.
I go still. “Where did you hear that?”
“Small town. People talk.”
“We’re done, Dylan. Who I see is not your business.”
“Some rancher. That’s what you left me for? A cowboy?”
“I didn’t leave you for anyone. I left you for me.”
“Kayla.”
“No.” My voice is sharp now. “You don’t get to show up here and rewrite the story.
I didn’t leave because I was overwhelmed.
I left because you spent eighteen months slowly deciding my life for me and calling it love.
You had opinions about my job. My friends.
My schedule. Where we’d live. What our future looked like.
And every single time I disagreed, you framed it as me being unreasonable. ”
His face hardens. “I was trying to build a life with you.”
“You were trying to build your life with me in it. That’s not the same thing.”
“That’s not fair.”
“It’s accurate.”
I can feel my heart hammering but my voice is steady and my hands are still and I am saying every word I should have said when I was too tired to fight about it anymore and just packed my car instead.
“Go home, Dylan.”
“I’m not leaving until we talk properly.”
“We just did. Not my problem that you don’t like what I said.”
He reaches for my arm. His hand closes around my wrist.
“Let go of me,” I say.
“Just listen.”
“Let go of my arm, Dylan.”
“Kayla, please.”
“She said let go.” Ty’s voice comes from behind me. Low. Calm.
I turn. He’s crossing the parking lot from his truck, a feed-store receipt in one hand.
Dylan looks past me. His hand stays on my wrist.
Ty is in his work clothes. Dusty jacket, boots, hat. He’s standing with his hands at his sides and his posture is loose and his face is absolutely expressionless.
He looks at Dylan’s hand on my wrist.
“Take your hand off her,” Ty says.
Dylan lets go. Because Ty is six foot three and two hundred and twenty pounds and made of ranch work and the math suddenly became very clear.
Ty doesn’t move closer. He doesn’t step between us. He stands where he is and watches.
“This is a private conversation,” Dylan says.
“It’s a parking lot,” Ty says. “And she told you to leave.”
“You’re the rancher.”
“I am.”
Dylan looks at me. Then at Ty. Then back at me. I can see him calculating. He’s trying to figure out the dynamic, trying to determine if Ty is someone he can talk around, manage, handle. He’s trying to find the angle.
There is no angle. Ty Harlan is standing in a parking lot looking at Dylan with the patience of a man who will stand there all night if that’s what it takes.
“Kayla,” Dylan says. “This isn’t you.”
“This is exactly who I am.”
His mouth opens. Closes. For the first time since he arrived, Dylan doesn’t have a response ready.
“Go home,” I say. “Don’t text me. Don’t call me. Don’t come back here. We are done. We have been done. I am not confused about this and I am not going to change my mind.”
Dylan stares at me. I stare back.
He looks at Ty one more time. Ty hasn’t moved.
Dylan gets in his rental car. He closes the door and starts the engine. He pulls out of the parking lot without looking at me.
I watch his taillights turn onto the main road and disappear.
My legs start shaking.
Damn it.
Ty is beside me. “You okay?” he asks.
“Give me a second.”
He waits. I breathe. The shaking slows.
“He grabbed me,” I say.
“I saw.”
“I told him to let go and he didn’t.”
“I know.”
“You didn’t step in until he touched me.”
“You were handling it.”
I look at him. He’s looking at me with an expression I haven’t seen before. Anger, yes. But underneath it, something quieter. Something that looks like pride.
“You were handling it,” he says again. “I wasn’t going to take that from you.”
Something in my chest squeezes.
“Take me home,” I say.
Ty nods once and heads for his truck. He pulls it around in front of me. He gets out and helps me in, then rounds the hood and gets behind the wheel.
“I’ll bring you back for your car in the morning,” he says.
“Okay.”
At the house, I drop my bag on the counter and stand in the kitchen and breathe.
Ty comes in behind me. He closes the door. He doesn’t crowd me. He stands by the counter and waits for me to decide what I need.
“I’m angry,” I say.
“You should be.”
“Not at you.”
“I know.”
“At him. For coming here. For grabbing me. For acting like I owe him a conversation because he can’t accept the word no.”
“Yeah.”
“And I’m angry at myself for shaking afterward when I wasn’t shaking during.”
“You waited until it was over.”
I look at him.
“Seems pretty damn strong to me.”
I look at him. He’s leaning against the counter with his arms at his sides and he is solid and steady and he is not trying to fix me or comfort me or tell me it’s okay. He’s just here. In the kitchen. Our kitchen.
“Come here,” I say.
He comes to me. I put my hands on his chest and he wraps his arms around me and I press my face against his shirt and just breathe.
“You smell like hay,” I say.
“Been working.”
“I like it.”
His hand slides up my back. His mouth presses against my hair. “You were incredible out there.”
“I was shaking.”
“After.”
I close my eyes.
“You told him exactly who you are and exactly what you wanted. He just didn’t want to hear it.”
My eyes sting. I press my face harder against his chest.
We stand there for a while.
“Ty?”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t want to think about Dylan anymore tonight.”
“Okay.”
“I want to think about you.”
I pull back and look up at him. His eyes are dark and warm and he’s looking at me the way he looked at me the night he lost his restraint on the couch, except deeper now. There’s no amusement in it. No game. Just want.
“Take me to bed,” I say.
He doesn’t ask if I’m sure. He doesn’t ask if I need more time or space or a conversation first. He picks me up. My legs go around his waist and my arms around his neck and he carries me down the hall to his room and sets me on the bed and I pull him down on top of me.
I pull his shirt off. He pulls mine off. His mouth is on my neck and my hands are on his belt and we strip each other fast because I don’t want slow right now. I want him. I want his weight and his hands and his voice.
He’s on top of me, between my legs, and he pushes inside me and my back arches off the bed and I grab his shoulders and pull him deeper.
“Harder,” I say.
He gives me harder. His hands grip my thighs and hitch them higher and he drives into me with a focus that makes my vision blur. His mouth is against my ear.
“You’re the strongest person I know,” he says. Low. Rough. Between thrusts. “You’re strong and smart and beautiful, and I—”
“Ty.”
I moan and dig my nails into his back and he groans and buries his face in my neck. There’s nothing careful about him now, and I don’t want careful. I asked for this. I chose this. I chose him.
“Mine,” he says against my throat.
Heat washes through me. “Yours.”
His grip tightens. “Because you chose me.”
“Yes.”
“Say it.”
“I chose you.”
“That’s my good girl.”
He reaches between us and his thumb finds my clit and he works me while he drives into me and I am close, I am so close, and his mouth is on my ear and his voice is wrecked and possessive and tender all at once.
“Let go,” he says. “I want to watch.”
I fall apart. My whole body tightens around him and I cry out his name and he follows me, his hips stuttering, his arms shaking, his face pressed against my neck breathing my name.
We lie there like that, his weight on me. My hands on his back. Both of us breathing hard.
He rolls to the side and pulls me against him. My head on his chest. His arm around me. His heartbeat under my ear, still fast.
“Ty?”
“Mm.”
“That had nothing to do with Caldwell.”
His chest moves under my cheek. A laugh. Small. “No. It didn’t.”
I close my eyes. His hand draws circles on my shoulder.
“He’s not coming back,” I say.
“No.”
“And if he does?”
“He won’t.”
“But if he does?”
His arm tightens around me. “Then I’ll have that short conversation.”
I smile against his chest. I fall asleep in Ty Harlan’s bed with his heartbeat under my ear and his arm heavy around my waist. I am safe and I am strong and I am exactly where I want to be.