Chapter 53
Teagan and Knox should be arriving soon. I know the circuit runs long when there are so many entries. Awards drag on. I can only imagine that Knox lingers anywhere there’s an audience. Factor in that and the drive, a stop for food they’ll pretend they didn’t make, and it should be any minute.
I’ve been useless since sundown.
Deacon keeps glancing at me like I’m a skittish colt he’s debating whether to calm or let run. “She’ll be fine,” he mutters, stacking invoices at the kitchen table.
“I know.”
“You’ve checked your phone six times in the last five minutes.” He chuckles.
I slide it back into my pocket. “Did not.”
He arches a brow.
I exhale. “She texted.”
“And?”
“She won.”
His lips curve into a grin. “Of course she did.”
Of course she did.
There wasn’t a doubt in my mind about that. Teagan on a horse is like watching lightning tear through the sky. She doesn’t just ride.
I should’ve been there.
The thought needles at me more than I expected. I stayed because it was the right call, with James and Deacon requiring my help. But still, I wanted to see her fly.
Knox’s truck rumbles up the drive, and I’m on the porch before they even come into view. Images of her jumping from the truck and running up the steps to kiss me flit through my thoughts like a fool.
The headlights cut across the yard, and the engine dies, leaving the ranch in a sudden, heavy quiet. The driver’s side door opens first, and Knox climbs out quietly. My unease from his unusual behavior only grows when he doesn’t look at me.
I stare at the passenger door, waiting to see Teagan.
It feels like an eternity before the door slowly opens.
She steps out, and even in the dim porch light, I see it immediately.
Her face is tear-streaked, her eyes swollen, and her jaw clenched so tight it looks painful.
My stomach drops straight into my boots.
I take one step toward her. “Wildf—”
Instead of running into my arms, she holds up a hand to silence me before marching across the yard like she’s heading into battle. When she reaches me, she shoves a rolled piece of paper into my chest so hard I have to grab it to keep it from falling.
“What’s this?” I mutter, my brain trying to keep up.
“Open it.” Her voice is shredded.
My fingers feel thick and clumsy as I pull the rubber band free. The paper crinkles in the quiet night as I unroll it. I know from the first couple of inches what I’m going to see, but I continue anyway. The air leaves my lungs in a slow, deliberate exhale.
So, this is how it catches up to me.
This is how the universe takes her from me. In a gravel driveway under a porch light. Not in a pile of twisted metal, but the wreckage of my cowardice.
“Who are you?” she asks, tears spilling down her face, silent and relentless. Her hands are clenched at her sides, like she’s holding herself together by sheer force.
Knox shifts awkwardly behind her. “I’ll—uh—”
“Just go inside,” she huffs at him without looking away from me. “Knox,” she says again, firmer. He hesitates for a moment and walks toward the house, boots heavy on the steps, leaving the two of us on the porch. Us and the ghost of a man I’ve been trying to outrun.
“Teagan—”
“Don’t,” she snaps, her voice breaking on the word. “Don’t say my name like that. Just answer me.”
While I watch her fall apart, the only thing I can think is how badly I want to wrap my arms around her. Arms she doesn’t want to comfort her.
“I’m the same man who can’t get enough of you falling asleep in his arms. The same man who thinks about kissing you again the second your lips leave mine. I’m the same—”
“No.” She vehemently shakes her head. “That man doesn’t lie to me. That man knows he can tell me anything without judgment. That man… He wouldn’t have hidden this from me.”
“I wasn’t hiding it from you…” I drag a hand down my face. “I wasn’t hiding from you. I was hiding from myself.”
She blinks at me like that’s the stupidest thing she’s ever heard. “What does that even mean?” she sobs.
“This man”—I gesture helplessly to the poster—“he died with Rosie. And what little of him lingered, I spent a year trying to drown in whiskey.”
She stares at me, her breathing uneven with tears trickling down her face. “You could’ve told me,” she whispers.
“I know.”
“Would you have?” Her eyes search mine with terrifying clarity. “If I hadn’t found that, would you have ever told me?”
It’s a question I don’t have an answer for.
Did I want to tell her? Yes. Would I have?
I don’t know. Every day that passed, and our relationship grew, it only became harder to explain.
I don’t have an answer that doesn’t make me look like a coward.
Because the reality is simple and ugly. I was afraid.
My silence stretches too long, and her face crumples. “Wow,” she exhales.
“I was going to,” I say quickly, hating how weak it sounds even to my own ears. “I just… I didn’t know how to.”
“That’s not an answer.” She wipes at her cheeks angrily. “You don’t get to start over with me using half-truths.”
Starting over.
That’s exactly what I thought I was doing when I came here.
New town. New job. New name. Teagan wasn’t part of that plan.
More like a crease in the page I thought I’d mapped out so carefully, an unplanned bend in the road that should’ve thrown me off course.
Instead, she was the detour that led me to exactly where I needed to be.
“I love you,” she says suddenly, tears streaming hard and fast over her ruddy cheeks.
The words catch me so off-guard, I nearly lose my balance.
“I love you,” she repeats. “But I can’t be with you.”
My chest feels so tight that I can barely breathe as tears prick hot behind my eyes. “Teagan—”
“You should go,” she insists.
The words don’t register at first. “Go where?”
“Away.” Her chin lifts, stubborn and trembling. “Not because I don’t love you, but because I will not build a life with someone who only hands me half of himself.”
The yard feels suddenly enormous and empty. “You’re telling me to leave?”
“I’m telling you that I don’t want you here,” she corrects, “with me.” She turns before I can say anything else and walks into the house without looking back. I stand there, long after the door closes behind her, the poster hanging limp in my hand.
I gather the few belongings I brought with me months ago, stuffing my duffel bag with clothes.
From the desk, I lift Rosie’s journal and tuck it carefully inside.
Then I pick up her photo from the bedside table along with the selfie of me and Teagan and slip them into the bag, trying to carry both pieces of my past with me.
I sling the bag over my shoulder, step outside, and glance toward the house. “I love you, too, wildfire.” I murmur the words for the first time into the empty yard.