Chapter Eighteen
He didn’t watch her leave. He didn’t want to talk about it. Rowdy and Dakota, however, definitely wanted to talk about it, because they were jerks.
“You’re just letting her go?”
“First of all,” he said. “I don’t think you want to run this place without me.”
“Well, no, that is true. I mean we can’t.”
“Exactly. Second of all, she has a life, and it doesn’t move.
Third of all, she deserves… She doesn’t deserve someone like me.
” What he’d said last night had been true.
If there was a way that she could stay, then he would figure out how to be different.
But she couldn’t, so he wouldn’t. They were two impossible things, frankly, and that was all that really mattered.
“I mean, honestly, what’s the matter with you?” Dakota asked.
“You know what’s wrong with me. Everything is just… It’s bad. And thinking about having a house and a family…”
Except the picture was different now. He wasn’t just thinking of a random person; he was thinking of her.
And when he tried to imagine a life with her, it didn’t feel anything like the stifling, vague image that he’d always gotten from the idea of getting married and having children when the face on the wife was blank.
But her? He could imagine that. He could imagine being in awe of her, and everything she taught their children.
And hell, he could easily take care of the kids with him on the ranch, could do a lot of it while she did her work.
He could support her; he—he couldn’t move the museum here.
He couldn’t ask her to sacrifice for him.
Especially not when he had so many fears surrounding all of it and even beginning to work it out was going to be a struggle. How could he ask her to put her life on hold for him?
He couldn’t.
“I can never ask her to sacrifice a single thing for me.”
“Don’t you know that you’re an amazing person?” Rowdy asked.
“I’m not. I’m literally just a guy.”
“Well, we all are. But she’s pretty into you. And since she’s maybe the smartest woman I’ve ever met, that says a lot.”
He didn’t think so. She would be better off if he left her alone. That was the truth.
As it grew closer to time for the resort to open, it also drew closer to when Ernestine would be back.
He hated this suspended space, where nothing was happening.
Not a single thing. They drove to Bend, and went on a buying spree for last-minute items, and they stopped in a gift shop where he saw something that made him laugh. And laugh and laugh.
“What are you laughing about?” Dakota asked.
“I just found the perfect thing for Ernestine’s new desk. For her brand-new office.”
“Something to remember you by,” he said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Since you insist on making yourself something in her past.”
He stared down at the object. “I’m just trying to do the best thing.”