Chapter 14
Fourteen
Tessa
The day didn’t get any better. I was behind on chores because I’d gone to town first thing this morning, but this felt normal. I knew what to do, and muscle memory took over.
My phone buzzed in my pocket as I grabbed the feed bucket for the horses. I cursed the sound and almost ignored it. But the name made my blood run cold.
Colin.
I stared at the screen. The ringing didn’t stop, and all I wanted was for it to stop. I should have thrown the phone in the manure pile, but instead I answered.
“Tess,” he breathed, soft, too soft. Like he’d been waiting. “Thank God. I’ve been worried sick.”
My throat tightened. “What do you want?”
“I heard what happened with your uncle,” he said gently. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t think you were close.” The fake concern in his voice was nauseating.
“We weren’t,” I answered flatly.
“You don’t have to pretend with me,” he murmured. “I know you.”
A chill crept up my spine. “I’m fine,” I lied, trying to sound more composed.
“You don’t sound fine. You sound overwhelmed. Panicked. You should’ve come back, or I can come there. I just want to support you.”
Anger flared hot. “You don’t get it at all, do you?”
“I’m just being honest. You take on too much. You’re stubborn. You shut people out.”
My breath hitched. “Colin—”
“I could help you,” he whispered. “If you’d let me.”
“No,” I said sharply. “Absolutely not.”
He sighed like I was a disappointment. “You don’t have to be scared, Tess. You just need someone who cares. Someone who actually knows how to handle things.”
“I’m hanging up.”
“Don’t,” he said quickly. “Not when you’re upset. You make rash decisions when you’re emotional.”
Ice slid through my veins. “This is not your business. We’re done. Don’t call me again.” And with that, I ended the call.
My hand shook so hard I almost dropped the phone.
I sat there breathing fast, trying to steady myself, when footsteps crunched on gravel outside the barn door.
My heart lurched. I wiped sweat off my face quickly.
Wyatt stepped inside. The dying light cut across his shoulders. His shadow spilled long behind him. Dust coated his boots and jeans. His hat was tipped back slightly, exposing the line of his brow. His eyes found mine instantly.
Concern flickered there.
He masked it fast.
“What are you doing here?” I managed, voice raw.
“Checking fence lines. You should have stayed after you ate. I could have given you a tour.”
I stiffened. “A tour, right. You probably would have hit me over the head and tossed me in one of those big vats of beer you’ve got in the back.”
“They’re called fermentation tanks, and ruining a good tank of beer isn’t business savvy.” The corner of his mouth turned up, and I wanted to throw something at him, but that would have used the last bit of energy I had, so I just stared at him.
His jaw worked once, slowly. “What’s wrong?” His brow furrowed, and his eyes narrowed in on me as if he could see into my soul.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not.”
And that was it, the match strike. The last crack in the dam. Everything I’d been holding in erupted. The words exploded out of me before I could hold them back.
“You don’t know a fucking thing about me,” I shouted as I launched myself off the bale.
Wyatt didn’t move. Didn’t flinch. He stood there like a wall built of quiet and patience, and something about that made the fury in me snap even harder.
“What do you want? Are you obsessed with me, or do you think if you stalk me and wear me down, I’ll sell to you?”
His voice stayed painfully calm. “I was just out checking fences and thought I’d see how you were doing after your meeting today.
” His voice was calm. He hadn’t raised it or moved closer.
Those were all things Colin did when I’d gotten mad at him.
He had to prove his dominance over the situation.
But Wyatt Hargrove, who quite possibly could pick me up and toss me over his shoulder as easily as picking up a feather, didn’t move.
I hated that everything inside me felt like it was unraveling, and he was just standing there, steady and immovable, watching me fall apart. “You don’t get to be here,” I said, voice cracking. “Not today. Not with what I’ve learned.”
His eyes narrowed. “What did you learn?”
“Don’t do that. Don’t use that tone like you’re surprised about anything. You know exactly what I was told,” I snapped.
“I’m asking so I know what you’re up against.”
Laughter burst out of me, jagged and wrong. “Everyone knows what the truth is, everyone but me.”
He exhaled slowly, a sound that made my heart lurch. “Tessa.” He said my name with so much care. It’s all I’d ever wanted to hear. Someone who could stop me in my tracks by whispering my name. And now the one man who could do it wanted to see me fail.
“No. Don’t say my name like you care what happens to me, or this place.”
He stood a little straighter. “I do care.”
“Well, stop. Stop caring. Stop showing up and watching me. Stop pretending like you’re the solution to a problem you helped create.” My voice shook on every word.
His jaw flexed like I’d swung something heavy and landed it.
“What did you find out?” he asked, quieter this time.
I threw my hands out, wild and useless. “Everything, Wyatt. Everything. The taxes. The liens. The overdue notices. The goddamn auction timelines. He was drowning, and he didn’t tell me.
And now it’s all on me.” My voice rose until it cracked.
“It’s all on me, and I can’t do it.” The last word came out of me with a sob.
Something flickered in his eyes. Something I didn’t want to see or deal with.
“You’re not alone.”
My breath hitched. “Oh, like you’re going to help me, you just want this all for yourself. So yeah, Mr. Hargrove, I am on my own.”
“You aren’t.”
“I am,” I shouted. “Ray’s gone. My parents left without a care in the world. I left all this behind years ago. I have no one except a best friend over two hours away and a man standing in my barn pretending to comfort me, while he plots how to get my land and home from me.”
“I’m not pretending, and I don’t want your house. It’s of no use to me.”
“Oh well, should I curtsy to the king for not wanting me to be homeless?” I said, taking a step toward him even though every instinct screamed to run the other way.
“I didn’t come here to talk about this.”
“Then why are you here? Why do you keep showing up every time I’m falling apart? Do you want something from me other than my land? Is that it?” I had my arms out, waiting for him to say something or do something. His eyes never left mine; they were locked on me, and he refused to break eye contact.
“Stop,” he said quietly, but there was something strained under the word.
“No,” I said, tears spilling over again, hot and humiliating. “I won’t stop. You want me to say it. Fine. You’re the last man on earth I should trust. You walked into my house and dropped every truth like a bomb, and then you expect me to come to you when I can’t breathe.”
His throat worked. “That isn’t what I expect.”
“You don’t respect me. You don’t believe I can do this alone.”
“That’s not what I think at all.”
“Then what? Why are you here? Why do you keep finding me and stepping in like you have any right to stand between me and the mess Ray left me?”
He didn’t answer. Not for what seemed like hours. Then he stepped closer. Just a fraction. Just enough that I could see a muscle jump in his jaw and the tight set of his shoulders.
“Because I promised him I would,” he said. The words hit the barn like a gunshot, and I took a step back.
I stared at him. “What?”
He exhaled slowly. “I promised Ray I’d look out for you when you came back.”
My heart lurched. “When?”
“Months ago,” he said. “He was getting worse, and he knew it. He asked me to keep an eye on things when you came home.”
My knees wobbled. The ground felt thin. Everything in me rebelled at the idea of Ray making that choice without telling me. Without asking me. Without trusting me to show up for him.
“You should’ve told me before,” I whispered.
“It wasn’t my place.” He shook his head, “Tessa,” he said again, gentler now. “You’ve had a hell of a few days.”
I choked out a laugh that tasted like salt. “Wyatt, I’m living in a nightmare of debt and foreclosure papers, broken machinery, and now I have you standing here telling me you and Ray made choices for me like I’m some kind of child.”
His face tightened.
“You’re not a child,” he said. “You’re…” He cut himself off, and I watched his eyes shift just slightly as if he was trying not to look at my body. “You’re overwhelmed. And you’re hurting. And you’re aiming all that hurt at the closest target.”
“That target is you. Because you are a part of this. Whether you want to pretend otherwise or not.”
He lowered his gaze for a moment before he looked back up at me with sadness in his eyes. “I know I am. And I’m sorry you’re having to carry this alone.”
“I can’t do this. I can’t have you here, seeing me like this. I can’t handle your hands or your voice or your goddamn calmness that makes me want to scream.”
His breath caught, but he didn’t move. I pushed the heel of my palms into my eyes. I tried to breathe. Failed. Then it all spilled out.
“I can’t save this ranch,” I sobbed. “I can’t save anything. I don’t even know where to start. I’m drowning, Wyatt. I’m drowning, and Ray didn’t trust me enough to tell me how to save myself.”
The barn blurred. My lungs locked. I bent over at the waist, gulping for breath, my hands planted on my knees as if I could hold myself together through sheer force of will.
Wyatt took one step forward, then stopped, and he didn’t cross that invisible line. He stood just close enough that I could feel the heat of him in the air. Close enough that the silence between us throbbed with everything we wouldn’t say.
He didn’t speak or offer comfort. He just stayed. Solid. Quiet. Unmoving. Letting me be broken without trying to fix it. And that wrecked me more than anything else.
Sinking down against one of the stalls, I covered my face and sobbed until my throat felt shredded, until my ribs ached from the force of it. Until there was nothing left in me but shaking breaths and the sound of the barn settling around us.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, because I didn’t know what else to say.
“You don’t need to be. Not for this.”
I shook my head, wiping my cheeks. “Please leave.”
For a moment, I thought he wouldn’t. Something flickered in his face, something raw and dangerous and tender all at once, something that made my breath stall in my chest.
But then he nodded, stepped back, and turned. Wyatt walked toward the barn door, and when he reached it, he paused. His voice came low. Rough. “You’re not drowning.”
I almost broke again.
But then he walked out into the fading light, and I let my head fall back against the stall, shaking and alone, feeling the truth of it. No, I wasn’t drowning.
I was already underwater.