Chapter 28
Twenty-Eight
Wyatt
Iknew I crossed a line the second I pulled into her driveway with the feed bags in the back of my truck. I knew it, and I did it anyway.
Tessa's barn door was open when I parked, and I could see her inside mucking stalls with the kind of aggressive focus that meant she was pissed off about something.
The late afternoon sun cut through the doorway and caught the sweat on her neck, and I forced myself to look away before I started thinking about things I had no business thinking about.
I grabbed two feed bags and headed toward the barn before I could talk myself out of it.
She looked up when my shadow fell across the threshold, and the expression on her face went from surprised to wary in half a second.
"What are you doing here?" she asked, and there was no welcome in her voice.
"Brought you feed," I said, hefting the bags slightly. “John mentioned you were running low when I saw him at the co-op."
Tessa set down the pitchfork and wiped her hands on her jeans. "I didn't ask you to do that."
"I know."
"So why did you?"
Because I can't seem to stop myself from trying to take care of you, even when I know you don't want me to.
Because watching you struggle with things I could easily fix makes my chest tight in ways I don't want to examine.
Because every time I see you, I want to be closer to you, and bringing you feed was the only excuse I could think of that didn't involve admitting any of that.
"Because you needed it," I said instead.
Her jaw tightened. "I was going to pick it up tomorrow."
"Now you don't have to."
"Wyatt.”
"Just let me help," I said, already walking past her toward the feed storage.
"I didn't ask for your help," she called after me.
I set the bags down harder than necessary. "You never ask. That's the problem."
When I turned around, she was standing right behind me, close enough that I could smell the hay and horse and something underneath that was just her. Her eyes were flashing with anger, and colour had risen in her cheeks.
"The problem," she said, her voice low and tight, "is that you keep deciding what I need without asking me first."
"Someone has to," I shot back. "You're running yourself into the ground trying to prove you can do everything alone."
"That's my choice to make,” she shouted at me.
"It's a stupid choice."
The words came out sharper than I'd intended, and I saw her flinch before her expression went hard.
"Yeah no, we’re not doing this. Get out."
"Tessa.”
"I mean it. Take your feed and your unwanted opinions and get the hell off my property."
Something hot flared in my chest. "Our property dispute doesn't mean I can't help you when you need it."
"I don't need it," she said, but her voice shook just slightly. "I don't need you swooping in like some kind of saviour every time you decide I can't handle something."
"I never said you couldn't handle it."
"Then why are you here? Why do you keep showing up with feed and advice and that look on your face like you're waiting for me to fall apart so you can catch me?"
Because I want to catch you. Because the thought of you falling and me not being there makes me feel like my chest is being crushed. Because I'm so far past professional boundaries with you that I can't even see the line anymore.
"Because I give a damn," I said roughly. "Is that so terrible?"
"Yes.” The word burst out of her like it had been building. "Yes, it's terrible, because I can’t.” She stopped herself, breathing hard.
"Can't what?" I took a step closer without meaning to.
"I can't let myself need you," she said, and her voice had dropped to something raw. "I can't let myself depend on anyone right now. Don't you understand that?"
"I'm not asking you to depend on me."
"Yes, you are. Every time you show up here, every time you fix something I didn't ask you to fix, you're asking me to need you. And I can't. I won't."
We were standing close now, close enough that I could see the pulse jumping in her throat, close enough that her anger felt like heat against my skin.
"Why not?" I asked, and my voice came out lower than I'd intended.
"Because the last time I let myself need someone, they used it against me.
" Her eyes were bright with fury and something that looked dangerously close to tears.
"Because I just got out of a relationship where every kindness came with strings attached.
Because I'm trying to rebuild my life on my own terms, and you keep, you keep…”
She broke off, her hands clenching into fists at her sides.
"I keep what?" I asked.
"You keep making me want things I can't afford to want right now."
The confession hung between us, raw and honest, and I felt something in my chest crack open.
"Tessa," I said, and I didn't know what I was going to say next because she was looking at me like that, and I could barely think straight.
"No," she said quickly. "Don't." But she hadn't moved away, and neither had I, and the air between us felt charged with everything we weren't saying.
"I'm trying to respect your boundaries," I said roughly. "But you make it damn hard when you look at me like that."
"Like what?"
"Like you want me to cross them."
Her breath hitched, and I saw her pupils dilate slightly. "I don’t.”
"Yes, you do." I took another half-step closer, and my voice dropped even lower. "You want me to stop being careful. You want me to stop asking permission. But I won't. Not unless you tell me to."
"Wyatt,” she whispered.
"Tell me I'm wrong," I challenged. "Tell me you don't feel this thing between us, and I'll walk out of here right now and never bring you feed again."
She stared at me, her chest rising and falling too fast, and I watched her struggle with what to say.
"I can't," she finally whispered.
"Can't tell me I'm wrong, or can't deal with me being right?"
"Both." The word came out broken. "I hate that you're right. I hate that I want…” She stopped herself again.
"What do you want?" I asked, and I couldn't keep the rough edge out of my voice.
"Things I shouldn't." Her hands were shaking now. "Things that complicate everything."
"Maybe complicated isn't always bad."
"It is when I'm still trying to figure out who I am without someone else defining me." She took a shaky breath. "I need to be able to stand on my own before I can, before anything else."
"I'm not trying to define you. I'm just trying to be here."
"But don't you see? That's the problem. You being here, you helping me, you looking at me the way you're looking at me right now, it makes me want to lean on you. And I can't. Not yet. Maybe not ever."
The "not ever" landed like a punch to the gut, but I forced myself to stay still.
"So what do you want me to do? Stay away?"
"I don't know." She pressed her palms to her eyes. "I don't know what I want except for everything to stop being so goddamn complicated."
I reached out without thinking and caught her wrist gently, pulling her hand away from her face. Her skin was warm under my palm, and I felt her pulse racing.
"Look at me," I said quietly.
She did, and the vulnerability in her eyes made my chest ache.
"I'll back off. I'll stop bringing you things you didn't ask for. I'll stop overstepping. But I can't stop caring about whether you're okay. I can't turn that off."
"I'm not asking you to turn it off," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "I'm asking you to give me space to figure this out on my own terms."
"Okay." I squeezed her wrist once, then made myself let go. "Okay."
But neither of us moved.
We stood there in the barn with dust motes floating in the air between us and the smell of hay and horses all around, and I could feel every inch of space that separated us like it was a physical thing.
"I should go," I said, but my voice lacked conviction.
"Yeah," she agreed, but she didn't step back.
"Tessa.”
"Don't," she said again, but this time it came out softer. "Don't say whatever you're about to say, because I don't think I can handle it right now."
"I was just going to say I'm sorry." My thumb brushed the inside of her wrist before I could stop myself. "For overstepping. For pushing. For making this harder than it already is."
"You're not.” She swallowed hard. "It's not just you. I'm the one who can't seem to…”
She didn't finish, but I understood what she meant.
She couldn't seem to keep me at a distance, no matter how much she wanted to.
I could see it in the way her body angled toward mine, in the way her breathing had gone shallow, in the way she was looking at my mouth like she was thinking about things that would definitely complicate everything.
"This is a bad idea," she whispered.
"Probably," I agreed.
"We're in the middle of a property dispute."
"We are."
"And I'm not ready for anything."
"I know."
"So why are we still standing here?"
That was a damn good question, and I didn't have a good answer except that walking away from her felt physically impossible.
"Because sometimes bad ideas feel like the only ones worth having," I said roughly.
She laughed, but it came out shaky. "That's a terrible justification."
"It's the only one I've got."
Her hand came up and rested against my chest, right over my heart, and I wondered if she could feel how hard it was beating.
"We can't," she said, but her fingers curled slightly into my shirt.
"I know."
"I mean it, Wyatt. We can't do this."
"I heard you the first time."
But I still didn't move, and neither did she, and the space between crackled with tension that had nowhere to go.
"Tell me to leave," I said, my voice coming out rougher than I'd intended.
"I already did."
"Tell me again."
She stared at me, her lips parted slightly, and I watched her struggle with what to say. Her hand was still fisted in my shirt, holding me there even while her words pushed me away.
I closed the distance between us and cupped her face in my hands, giving her exactly one second to pull away, to tell me to stop, to do anything except look at me like that.
She didn't move.
So I kissed her.
And the world narrowed down to just the two of us, the taste of her and the sound she made low in her throat when I deepened the kiss.
She kissed me back immediately, hungrily, like she'd been starving for this and had finally given herself permission to take it. Her other hand came up and fisted in my shirt, pulling me closer, and I backed her up against the barn wall without breaking contact.
The wood was rough against her back, but she didn't seem to care. She just opened wider and kissed me harder, and I groaned against her lips because this was everything I'd been trying not to think about for weeks.
Her taste. Her heat. The way she fit against me like she was made for it.
I slid one hand into her hair and angled her head back, taking the kiss deeper, and she made a sound that went straight through me. Her leg came up and hooked around my hip, pulling me flush against her, and I had to brace one hand on the wall beside her head to keep from losing all control.
"Wyatt," she gasped against my mouth, and the way she said my name, breathless and desperate and wanting—nearly undid me.
"Tell me to stop," I said roughly, trailing my mouth down her jaw to her throat. "Tell me this is a bad idea."
"It is a bad idea," she panted, but her hands were sliding under my jacket, her fingers hot against my skin through my shirt.
"Then tell me to stop," I repeated, my teeth grazing the sensitive spot where her neck met her shoulder.
"I can't." The admission came out broken. "God, Wyatt, I can't."
I kissed her again, harder this time, pouring weeks of wanting and restraint into it. She met me with equal intensity, her nails digging into my back through my shirt, her body arching into mine.
This was reckless. This was stupid. This was going to complicate everything.
And I didn't care.
Not when she was kissing me like this. Not when her hands were in my hair, and her leg was wrapped around me, and every soft sound she made went straight to my core.
I broke away from her mouth and kissed down her throat, and she tipped her head back against the wall, breathing hard.
"We should stop," she whispered, but her hands tightened in my hair.
"We should," I agreed, kissing the hollow of her throat.
"This doesn't change anything."
"It changes everything." I lifted my head to look at her, and her eyes were dark and dilated and full of want. "You know it does."
"I don’t, I can’t.” She pulled me down into another kiss instead of finishing, and this time it was even more desperate, even more consuming.
I lost myself in it. In her. In the way she tasted and felt, and the small sounds she made when I kissed just below her ear.
My hand slid down her side to her hip, my thumb brushing the strip of skin where her shirt had ridden up, and she gasped against my mouth.
"Wyatt," she breathed again, and I was starting to think I could live off the sound of my name on her lips.
"I know," I said roughly. "I know we shouldn't. I know it's complicated." She pulled me into another kiss, effectively shutting me up, and I stopped trying to be reasonable.
Her hands were under my shirt now, her palms flat against my stomach, and the feel of her touching me like that made my head spin. I kissed her deeper, harder, until we were both breathing like we'd been running.
When we finally broke apart, both of us gasping for air, I rested my forehead against hers.
"Jesus," I muttered.
"Yeah," she agreed shakily.
We stayed like that for a long moment, just breathing each other's air, her leg still hooked around my hip, my hand still on her waist.
"That was,” she started.
"A mistake," I finished for her, even though it hadn't felt like one.
"The worst idea," she agreed, but her hands were still under my shirt, her thumbs tracing patterns on my skin that were driving me insane.
"We can't do this again," I said.
"Definitely not," she whispered.
But neither of us moved.
I kissed her again, softer this time but no less intense, and she melted into me with a sigh that I felt all the way down to my bones.
This was dangerous. This was exactly what we'd both been trying to avoid.
And I'd do it again in a heartbeat.
The sound of gravel crunching in the driveway shattered the moment like a shard of glass.
We both froze, her hands stilling on my ribs, my lips still hovering just above hers.
Headlights swept across the barn entrance.
"Expecting someone?" I asked, but I already knew from the way her entire body had gone rigid that she wasn't.
"No," she whispered, and I heard real fear creep into her voice.
The car pulled into the yard too confidently, too deliberately, and even before the engine cut, I knew this wasn't going to be good.