Chapter 9 #3
But he wasn’t hearing any of it.
His mind was with her.
Brianna.
He ran a hand down his face, pressing his fingers into tired eyes.
He couldn’t get her out of his head – not her voice, not her laugh, not the way she looked at him like she could see every part of him, even the ones he’d locked up long ago.
And all of it had happened so fast. Too fast. Four weeks.
That was all the time she’d been in Sweetwater.
And yet she felt stitched into the rhythm of his days, like she belonged there, just as naturally as sunrise or stockfeed or the gentle thump of his horse’s hoofs in the morning light.
He wasn’t a man easily swayed, never had been, but this, heck, this was something different.
Something hazardous.
Because falling for someone again? Letting someone that close?
He wasn’t sure he’d cope with another love lost.
He wasn’t sure he was ready to risk the heartbreak of it.
Staring out over his property, at the silhouettes of the gum trees long and lean under the glow of the moonlight, he contemplated how his grief had built this silent existence.
After Casey, Sweetwater Acres had become his refuge.
The quiet, the routine, the horses – it had been enough.
Or at least he’d told himself it was. But Brianna?
She was stirring things in him he hadn’t let himself feel in years.
Not since the hospital nights. The slow decline.
The final goodbye. And god, the guilt that followed.
He exhaled through his nose, slow and deliberate, as the thought returned again. The very one he’d tried to push aside.
The dare.
The bloody bet.
What started as a joke with Gavin, a half-serious push to get him out of his grief shell and back into the world, had become something else entirely.
Something shameful. Because their bet wasn’t funny anymore.
It wasn’t harmless. Not when Brianna was real.
When she was so fiercely kind and good and steady.
When he’d sat at her table that night, enjoying her amazing homemade pasta, listening to her asking questions, putting the pieces of Molly’s story together like she was trying to hold the whole town together by the sheer force of her heart.
Brianna was a beautiful woman, who deserved loyalty, honesty and respect.
And he felt as if he’d essentially failed in all three because of how he’d approached this, approached her.
He always tried to be a man of integrity, and this was destroying him.
He clenched his jaw and leant forwards, resting his forearms on his thighs.
He knew he should tell her. But every time he thought about it, every time the words lined up on his tongue, he couldn’t bring himself to reveal a truth he was ashamed of.
First with Molly’s break-in. Then the blackmail. And now? Now it felt so very wrong.
Irrelevant.
Stupid, even.
But it wasn’t stupid, or irrelevant, or something he could keep buried. Not forever anyway.
But for now, why drag something ugly into a moment when she needed safety?
When Molly needed answers? The bet had served its purpose by dragging him back into the world, but it had no place in the story unfolding now.
It was likely better left unmentioned until everything calmed down.
Still, it had to come out eventually, and the thought of hurting her, of her somehow finding out some other way if he didn’t tell her first, made his chest tighten like it was wrapped up in barbed wire.
Letting out a sigh, he looked up at the stars, sharp and clear against the endless stretch of sky. Sweetwater always did feel like it sat a little closer to heaven, and maybe that was why it hurt to lie here, to withhold the truth, to betray a woman he cared for.
Jack’s name flickered across his thoughts then, sudden and sharp.
Eight months gone and still haunting the people he’d left behind.
He hadn’t liked the bloke, not much. Jack had been all charm and shadows, always with one foot in something shady and the other just ahead of the consequence.
In life Jack had loved Molly, that had been obvious.
But now, in death, he was dragging Molly into hell.
Hayden didn’t know exactly what Jack had owed or to whom, but he knew this wasn’t just some low-level prankster with a grudge.
This was organised. Calculated. Whoever had vandalised the café had done it to send a message.
That message had landed. And he was listening now.
And he also needed sleep, now, before the sun came out and demanded work of him.
So he stood slowly, stretching the stiffness from his spine.
His boots echoed softly against the timber boards as he wandered then paused, kicked them off at the welcome mat, then stepped back inside with the screen door creaking shut behind him.
He made sure he shut and locked the timber door, which was out of the ordinary for him, but warranted considering the circumstances of the past few days, then he flicked off the lights and the house dipped into shadow.
But in his chest, something sparked to life.
Resolve. He wasn’t going to let this lie.
Not the threats. Not the fear in Molly’s eyes.
And not the guilt twisting through him like a blade every time he looked at Brianna.
For now, he would carry the weight of it all quietly, like he carried everything else that mattered to him.
As for tomorrow, he hoped it would come with answers.
And if it didn’t?
He’d do his best to find them himself.