Chapter 43 #2
“Before you see her,” she said, voice low, “you need to decide what you’re here for.”
I held her gaze. “I’m here for her.”
Dani’s eyes narrowed. “That’s not the answer I want to hear.”
I exhaled through my nose, fighting the urge to snap back. “I’m here because she left and didn’t say goodbye, and I’m in love with her.” I shouldn’t have told Dani before I told Tessa, but I needed to share it.
Dani’s gaze softened a fraction. “Okay.”
I swallowed. “Is she okay?”
Dani’s laugh was humourless. “Define okay.” She rubbed a hand over her face, then dropped it, her voice losing its edge. “She’s breathing. She’s eating a bit. She’s not… she’s not gone, Wyatt. But she’s not here either. Not all the way.”
Dani stepped closer, her voice steady. “She didn’t come back because she stopped caring. She came back because she has to stop hurting.”
“I know,” I said, and my voice sounded like gravel.
Dani tilted her head, studying me. “Do you?”
I met her eyes. “Yeah. I do.”
Silence held for a beat, thick and charged.
Then Dani said quietly, “She signed papers.”
My stomach dropped. “I know.”
Dani’s brows lifted, surprise flickering. “You know?”
“I know,” I repeated, and my hands curled at my sides, restrained. “I got the call.”
Dani’s face hardened. “So you’re here to yell.”
“No,” I said immediately, because the word felt wrong in my mouth. “I’m here to give her her home back.”
Dani’s eyes narrowed. “What?”
“I was the buyer, and as of this morning, the debt’s paid, and Tessa is the sole owner of Callahan Ranch.”
After a long moment, she nodded once, sharp. “Okay.”
I walked down the hall on legs that felt too heavy. My palms were damp. My heart thudded loudly in my ears. I stopped outside the bedroom door, stared at the wood, and for a second, I was back in that other hallway, the day I told her Ray was dead.
Back then, I’d knocked and changed her life in one sentence.
Now I was about to knock and ask her not to leave mine.
I lifted my hand and I knocked once.
Then a faint shuffle, like someone shifting in bed.
The door opened, and Tessa stood there in an oversized shirt that looked suspiciously like one of mine. Her hair a mess, eyes still heavy with sleep and something deeper. She looked smaller in this space, paler, like she left part of herself under that prairie sky and hadn’t found it again yet.
Her gaze hit mine and froze.
I felt it in my chest like a punch.
“Wyatt,” she whispered, and my name sounded like a bruise.
I didn’t move. I didn’t reach for her. I kept my hands at my sides because Dani was right and because Tessa looked like she’d bolt if I breathed wrong.
“I needed to see you,” I said quietly.
Her eyes flicked over my face, over my jacket, over the line of my jaw like she was checking for anger, for judgment, for the things she expected.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, and her voice tried to be hard. It wasn’t.
“I brought Maddy back,” I said. “And then I came here.”
Something shifted in her expression at Maddy’s name, a flash of guilt, maybe, or tenderness. She swallowed.
“You shouldn’t,” she murmured. “You shouldn’t have come.”
I held her gaze. My chest ached. “I’m not good at staying away.”
Her breath hitched, just a little.
Tessa’s fingers tightened on the edge of the door. “I asked you to stop coming around.”
“I know. And I tried.”
Her eyes narrowed, hurt and anger flickering. “No, you didn’t.”
I nodded once, accepting it. “No. I didn’t.”
The admission hung between us, heavy and honest.
Tessa’s throat worked as she swallowed. “You’re angry.”
“Yes,” I said, because lying would only make it worse. “I’m angry.”
Her shoulders rose, defensive. “Then yell at me and get it over with.”
My jaw tightened. I forced my voice to stay low. “That’s not why I came.”
Her eyes searched my face, suspicious.
I took a slow breath. “You didn’t say goodbye. I’ve been trying to convince myself you did it because you needed space. But the truth is, Tess, it scared the hell out of me.”
The words landed in the small space between us like something fragile.
Tessa’s expression cracked, just for a second. Her mouth trembled, and she bit down hard, like she refused to let it show.
“I didn’t mean to,” she whispered.
“I don’t care,” I said, and my voice roughened. I softened it immediately. “Meaning to doesn’t matter. You were gone.”
Her eyes shone, and her breathing went shallow.
“I didn’t know how to stay,” she said, barely audible. “I didn’t know how to keep breathing there.”
My chest tightened, sharp and hot. “You could’ve told me.”
Her laugh was small and broken. “Why? So you could talk me out of it.”
I held her gaze. “So you wouldn’t have to carry it alone. You don’t have to do this alone anymore.”
Tessa’s shoulders sagged a fraction, like the fight drained out of her in a slow leak.
“You signed the letter of offer,” I said quietly.
“I thought if you had the land, then maybe Ray wouldn’t totally cease to exist.” She kept her gaze locked on the floor, but I could see the tears rolling down her cheeks.
“Tessa,” I said, voice low. “Look at me.”
Her eyes locked on mine, furious and wet.
“I’m not here to take anything from you,” I said. “I’m here because I can’t watch you burn your life down out of grief and fear.”
Tessa’s breath came shaky. She pressed her forehead lightly to the doorframe for a second, eyes squeezed shut, like she was trying to hold herself together with wood and willpower.
“I can’t,” she whispered. “I can’t do the ranch, Wyatt. I can’t do the debt. I can’t do the valley watching me fail. I can’t deal with you looking at me like you think I can. I’m tired.”
The last word broke. My chest hurt so badly it felt like my ribs were being pried apart. “I know,” I said. “That’s why I’m here.”
Tessa’s eyes snapped up. “What does that mean?”
I took a breath, slow and careful. “It means I’m going to say something you probably won’t like, and you can tell me to get out after. But you’re going to hear it first.”
My heart pounded hard enough that I could feel it in my throat. “I’m not letting that land change hands,” I said.
Tessa’s face went blank. “What?”
“The debt is gone, I’ve cleared it all, but the land is in your name,” I repeated, voice steady.
Her eyes narrowed, sharp. “You can’t do that.”
“I can,” I said, and I hated how the words sounded, like control.
Tessa’s shoulders shook once. She swallowed hard. “I don’t understand.”
I nodded, because that was fair. “You don’t have to understand yet. You just have to listen.”
Her gaze held mine, raw and furious and exhausted.
“The land is yours free and clear. You can come back when you’re ready, or you can stay here, or you can do whatever you need to do. But the land isn’t going to be taken from you.”
Tessa went very still.
Then her voice came out small, almost broken. “Why?”
The question hit the center of me.
Because I loved her, I thought. Because she’d gotten under my skin and into my bones.
Because the valley felt wrong without her, even when she made it feel like a warzone while she was there.
Because I couldn’t take the look on her face when she realized she was losing everything, Ray left her.
Because I’d rather bleed than watch her drown.
But I didn’t say all of that.
I said the truest part, the part I could say without asking her to carry my feelings too.
“Because I love you,” I said. “And you deserved better than what was left in your lap.”
Tessa’s eyes filled completely. A tear slid down her cheek, and she didn’t wipe it away.
“I didn’t tell you goodbye,” she whispered, like she couldn’t stop confessing now. “I was going to. I sat in my truck, and I tried. And then I knew if I saw you, I wouldn’t leave.”
My throat burned.
I held myself still. “I would’ve let you go.”
She gave a tiny shake of her head. “No. You would’ve looked at me like you look at me, and I would’ve stayed, and I would’ve hated you for it.”
The honesty gutted me.
I nodded once, slowly. “Maybe.”
Tessa’s breath came out shaky. “I don’t hate you anymore.”
The words landed like a hand on my chest.
I swallowed hard. “That’s good,” I replied with a chuckle.
A ragged laugh escaped her and turned into a sob. She pressed her palm over her mouth, eyes squeezed shut, shoulders trembling.
I didn’t move closer. I didn’t touch her. I stayed where I was because she needed control more than she needed comfort.
After a long moment, she opened her eyes again and looked at me through tears.
“You shouldn’t be here,” she whispered.
“I know,” I said.
“And you came anyway.”
“Yeah,” I admitted. “I did.”
Tessa’s gaze dropped to my boots, then back to my face. Her voice came out rough. “I’ll pay you back. All the money you spent to save me.”
“No,” I said immediately. Firm. “You won’t.”
Tessa’s eyes narrowed again. “That’s not how money works.”
“It is for me,” I said, and my voice softened. “You don’t owe me a damn thing.”
Her breath caught at that, her cheeks flushing faintly, and I saw it, the memory between us, the night at the brewery that had felt like a match struck in a dark room.
From the kitchen, Dani’s voice drifted, careful. “I made coffee.”
Tessa blinked hard, like Dani’s normalcy reminded her she was in an apartment in Calgary and not in a nightmare.
She looked at me again. “Are you staying?”
“I’ll stay as long as you want me here,” I said. “And if you want me gone, I’ll leave.” Tessa nodded and walked out of her room.
Dani set a mug down in front of me, then one in front of Tessa, then sat across from us. Her eyes looked tired, her face stripped of humour.
For a moment, none of us spoke.
Then Dani asked quietly, “Maddy’s okay?”
I nodded, my throat thick. “Yeah. She is.”
Tessa’s fingers curled around her mug. Her voice came out small. “Tell her I’m sorry.”
Dani’s gaze sharpened. “You can tell her yourself when you’re ready. You don’t get to carry that alone either.”
Tessa flinched, but she didn’t argue. She stared into her coffee like it held answers.
I watched her, chest aching, and made myself stay still. Because this wasn’t about me storming in and fixing things. It was about being here when she decided whether to let herself be held.
Then I looked at her and said the simplest truth I had left. “I’m not leaving you behind.”