20. Tessa
CHAPTER TWENTY
Tessa
I just stare at him.
At Nash McCoy standing in Juniper House with his sleeves half pushed up, hair a mess, eyes too honest for a man who’s spent his whole life smiling his way out of trouble.
His hands are braced on the edge of the counter because he needs something solid to hold him up, and I can see it, plain as ink on paper, how much it costs him to say that out loud.
Because he believes it.
I’ve been in rooms with men like my uncle. Men who argue in polished sentences. Men who never let their voice crack, or their eyes go soft, because softness is how you lose.
Nash isn’t polished.
He’s raw.
And it hits me in the most humiliating way possible. I’m the one about to break.
“That’s not true,” I say automatically, because I don’t know what else to do when someone drops a confession that heavy at my feet.
“Yeah,” he murmurs. “It is.”
He laughs again, bitterly, and it doesn’t fit him. It makes him look too young.
Too exposed.
He looks like a man standing in a field after a fire, staring at ash and trying to pretend he’s not mourning the thing he was building.
I hate that feeling.
Not in him.
In me.
Because if he’s allowed to admit failure, then what does that mean for me?
If Nash McCoy, who I’ve spent years calling reckless and spoiled, can stand here and say he’s scared he isn’t enough…
Then maybe what I’ve hated in him wasn’t entitlement.
Maybe it was courage, the kind that makes you keep trying anyway.
And maybe my own version of courage has always been quieter and colder. The kind that looks like control because control is the only safety I’ve ever been offered.
The radiator ticks once, a small metallic complaint.
The wind shoves snow against the window again.
The house stays trapped in its own history.
And Nash stands in front of me, looking like someone just told him the world is ending and he has to smile through it.
I can’t.
“Your legacy isn’t just a ranch project,” I say, and my words come out sharper than intended. My sincerity doesn’t know how to be gentle. “It’s your family.”
Nash flinches slightly—my words hit a bruise.
“Tessa,” he says quietly, and there’s warning in it. Or resignation. Like he’s about to tell me not to pity him.
I refuse.
“I’m not saying that to make you feel better,” I snap, because I don’t know how to be soft. “I’m saying it because it’s true.”
He swallows hard.
I step closer before my body can second-guess it.
His gaze flicks to me, wary.
“What do you mean?”
I exhale through my nose, trying to hold onto the one thing I can control: my voice.
“Buckhorn has survived because the McCoys stayed,” I say. “Because you stayed. Because your mother stayed. Because your brothers stayed. You act like that doesn’t count because it isn’t stamped on a brochure or approved by a council.”
“I’m not saying it doesn’t count,” he snaps. “I’m saying it might not be enough.”
That hits.
I understand what it feels like to look at the future and see it slipping away.
I just never expected to understand it in him.
And in this moment, I realize something that makes me feel sick:
Nash isn’t only scared that the guest ranch won’t happen. He’s scared he’ll be proven right about himself. That he’s filler. That he doesn’t matter the way his brothers matter. That all his hope will turn into another story that people roll their eyes at in the diner.
“Oh, Nash,” I whisper before I can stop myself.
His eyes flicker at the sound of it. And because I’m apparently determined to ruin my own composure today, I reach out.
My hand lands lightly on his forearm, just above his wrist. Warm skin. Tension underneath it. A muscle that flexes, he’s bracing for pain.
He freezes.
So do I.
Because that touch is not something I do.
Nash’s eyes drop to my hand like it’s the most dangerous thing in the room.
Then he looks back at my face, and the expression there almost makes me step back, because it’s relieved, like someone just handed him proof that he isn’t alone, and that’s a weight I don’t know how to carry without panicking.
I pull my hand away too quickly, fingers curling into a fist at my side.
“Sorry,” I mutter.
Nash shakes his head once. “Don’t be.”
My chest tightens again.
I turn away under the excuse of movement, because movement is safer than standing still in front of him while he looks at me like that.
I grab my mug and take a sip of coffee that has gone lukewarm. It’s bitter. It grounds me.
Or it tries to.
“What happens now?” Nash asks quietly behind me.
The question lands right between my shoulder blades. Because it’s about us.
What happens now that he has said out loud the thing he believes about himself?
What happens now that I have heard it and can’t unhear it?
I swallow, staring at the counter as if it holds answers.
What happens now is that I do the thing I hate most.
I tell the truth.
“I don’t know,” I admit.
“Okay.”
I turn slowly, meeting his eyes.
He looks tired. Soul tired. The kind of tired you get when you’ve been fighting to be enough for years and you’re finally realizing you might lose anyway.
“I’m not good at this,” I say, and the words come out clipped because vulnerability makes me feel I’m stepping onto ice. “The… talking part.”
Nash’s mouth twitches faintly. “Yeah. I’ve noticed.”
I glare at him automatically.
Then I realize he’s trying to lighten it, to keep it from crushing us both.
It’s infuriating.
It’s also kind.
I take a breath. “Being a Long has never felt like pride.”
His expression shifts. Attention sharpening, the way it does when he knows something real is coming.
I continue anyway, forcing it out.
“It’s felt like an obligation. A role.” My voice tightens. “Grief.”
Nash’s eyes darken.
I don’t say my mother’s name. I never do unless I’m alone.
But the air changes like it hears her anyway.
“When she died,” I say, quiet while breaking inside, “I didn’t get to be twelve. I didn’t get to be messy or angry or confused.”
Nash doesn’t move. He doesn’t interrupt.
He stays still. He’s afraid any sound will scare the words back into me.
“I became… useful,” I whisper. “I became the one who didn’t need. The one who didn’t ask. The one who didn’t fall apart.” My laugh is small and bitter. “Because falling apart wasn’t an option.”
Nash’s voice is low. “That’s not fair.”
I lift my chin. “It doesn’t matter if it’s fair. It’s what happened.”
I go colder, because this is how I survive feeling too much.
“My uncle…” I exhale slowly. “He talks about legacy like it’s holy. Like it’s something that should be protected at any cost.”
“Including you.”
I flinch.
Nash steps forward. “Tessa—”
“No,” I cut in. “Don’t.”
His brows knit. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t look at me like I’m fragile,” I snap.
“You are allowed to be fragile.”
“I’m not,” I say immediately.
The words hit like a gunshot.
Nash goes very still.
“You shouldn’t say that,” he murmurs.
I laugh, sharp. “It is true.”
“That’s…” he starts, then stops himself like he’s trying not to argue with my entire life.
I can’t help it. Anger rises like a familiar shield.
Because if we stay in softness, I might start crying.
And I refuse.
“I don’t get to be reckless,” I say tightly. “I don’t get to chase dreams and fail and have the whole town call it charming. I don’t get second chances.”
Nash’s eyes flash. “You think I get those?”
“Yes,” I bite out. “You do.”
The moment the words leave my mouth, regret hits.
“You think I’m protected,” he says quietly.
I stare back, stubborn and shaking inside. “I think you’re forgiven before the damage even lands.”
Nash’s breath goes sharp.
I think he’s going to snap.
“You can be surrounded by people and still feel like you’re drowning.”
The words hit me in my chest.
Because they’re not defensive, they’re true.
And looking into a mirror, I didn’t expect to find a McCoy.
I go still.
I have to swallow three times before I can speak.
Then I do something I never do.
“I’m sorry,” I say, and the words scrape my throat like rust.
Nash looks startled. Apologies aren’t what he expects from me.
I add quickly, because I can’t help myself, “For lashing out like a crazy person.”
His mouth twitches faintly. “You did.”
I huff a breath that’s half laugh, half relief.
Then the softness creeps back in, quiet and dangerous.
Nash watches me intently. “You’re scared.”
I roll my eyes. “You’re observant.”
“What are you scared of?” he asks, not letting me deflect.
I could lie.
I could say my uncle. The land. The council. The storm.
But the real fear sits deeper.
I stare at him, at the warmth in his eyes, at how he looks at me like I’m not just leverage.
And I hear myself say the truth that tastes of blood.
“I’m scared that if I stop holding everything together,” I whisper, “I won’t know who I am.”
Nash’s face softens.
He nods once, slowly.
“Yeah. Me too.”
I let out a shaky breath, and my next confession comes out before I can stop it.
“I don’t want to be a Long anymore,” I whisper.
Nash’s eyes widen slightly. “Tessa—”
“I mean,” I say quickly, panic flaring, “I don’t want it to be the only thing I am.”
Nash’s gaze softens again, understanding settling in. “I get that.”
“I don’t want to be a McCoy the way the town expects either.”
There it is again.
That impossible thing.
Sameness.
In two people who were supposed to be enemies.
“Then we choose,” he says softly.
It feels like a foreign language.
“I don’t know how,” I whisper.
Nash’s gaze holds mine. “You do.”
I blink. “What?”
He gestures to me, small and firm. “You already did. You came here. You opened the drawer. You didn’t hand it to your uncle.”
My chest aches.
He’s right.
I did choose.
And now the next choice sits between us, a line drawn in snow.
Because I feel it, under my skin, in my bones, how close we are to something we can’t blame on heat or storms or old journals.
If I kiss him now, it won’t be because I’m overwhelmed.
It’ll be because I want him.
And I don’t know what that makes me.
Dangerous, stupid, and alive.
I step closer, and Nash stills.
He looks at me, waiting for permission from a part of me that rarely gives it. My hand lifts, fingers brushing his jaw. He inhales sharply.
His eyes close for half a second as if it hurts.
And then I kiss him.