Page 87 of Marrying Mr. Majestic

“I was going to, but… it never seemed like the right time. The purchase was up in the air until the last minute, and I didn’t want to get our hopes up in case we didn’t get the house. And you’ve been so stressed and busy, prepping for AdventureSmash, I didn’t want you to feel like you had to rearrange your whole schedule so you could help us move.” She blew out a breath. “Please don’t be mad, Way. I thought maybe you’d be excited because you and Silas could finally take over here and have all the room you need. We fixed up the apartment over the barn so that ZuZu would have her own place?—”

The information was coming way too fast. “I thought you fixed up the apartment for Devon?”

She had the grace to look embarrassed. I wondered what else my family had been keeping from me. The whole thing made me feel out of touch, when I was already feeling out of step with Silas. I’d assumed his friends would be warm and welcoming, but Landry had acted like I was a roach under his shoe. If that was how Silas’s friends acted, what did that say about Silas’s feelings? Was I deluding myself into thinking we could have a future?

Sheridan glanced over at the guys as they hopped down from the bed of the truck. “We wanted to surprise you.”

I let out a scoff, suddenly losing whatever polite veneer I’d managed to hold on to this far. “Well, consider me surprised. But the joke’s on you, Sheridan. Because I don’t need this house. There is no Silas and me. There will be no settling down together. It was all a mistake. It wasn’t real.” I waved a hand at the ranch house and then back in the direction of my little house in the aspen trees. “He’s leaving next week to go back to the city and file for divorce. So you see? The ranch house will be empty. I won’t need it. I can stay in my own place and… and…”

Emotions clogged my throat and threatened to overflow out of my damned eyes.

“Not real? Are you kidding? Listen to me, Waylon.” Sheridan grabbed me and yanked me into a hug. “Two months ago, I might have believed you. But now I’ve seen you two together. I’ve seen how he looks at you. That man adores you. So who cares how things started? This is the real deal.” She pulled back but kept her hands on my arms. “This is because of what Eden said at the cafe, isn’t it? Aunt Blake was worried, so she called and told me. But Eden doesn’t know the whole story. Do you think a man who didn’t have real feelings would have stuck around and helped you for weeks and weeks? Shoveled shit, slapped at flies, answered Mrs. Jenks’ questions about the Statue of Liberty over and over again just for fun? Hardly. He cares about you. Hell, at this point, I think he even cares about Majestic. Lake McNair said Kicky Winshaw said someone made an anonymous donation to the food bank only a few hours after Silas had been asking pointed questions about the program. The donation was five figures, Waylon.”

I stared at her. “Really?”

She nodded. “No one else would have done that without someone in town finding out about it. It had to be him.”

It wasn’t the first time I’d suspected him of making an anonymous donation in town, but it was enough to make me wonder if he was wealthier than I’d assumed. When he’d paid for my transmission work and offered to bring adventure athletes in from out of town, I’d guessed he was richer than a regular business consultant—not that I really understood what a consultant in New York would earn in a year, but I also knew living in New York wasn’t cheap.

“You need to talk to him, Way,” she said softly.

“I can’t. His friends are here.” I kicked at a pebble in the driveway. “They came to help with the exhibition.”

“So take him for a walk down to the river. Get a few moments alone and clear the air.”

I shook my head. If there was one thing I knew for sure, it was that I couldn’t handle this emotional upheaval on the eve of the biggest event of my career. “Not right now. Maybe tonight. First, I need to check on the river crew. I told Foster I’d confirm emergency communication protocol with the race coordinators over there.”

She pressed her lips together for a beat before nodding. “Okay, but tonight, then.”

I nodded before hopping back in my truck. The crumpled Majestic Rocks T-shirt mocked me from its spot on my passenger seat.

I loved Majestic, Wyoming, with all my heart, but right now, I felt like being in any other place on earth would be easier than being here.

The rest of the afternoon flew by with last-minute issues, small fires to put out, questions and inquiries from race coordinators, and the usual summer tourism challenges. By the time I pulled back onto the ranch road, I was exhausted. But I knew Sheridan was right.

I needed to talk to Silas. There was no way I could spend the entire weekend wondering if my world was on the verge of falling apart. If he was truly leaving next week like we’d originally agreed upon, I needed to know.

The ranch house driveway was sadly empty. Silas’s friends’ rental cars were parked at the barn alongside the SUV and horse trailer Dev’s driver had brought out weeks ago.

I let out a sigh of relief. Maybe Silas would be alone at the house.

But when I pulled up, his rental wasn’t there, and neither was he.

I walked out to the bench by the lake, even though I could see from a distance he wasn’t out there, either. When I returned to the house, his friend Bash was standing on the porch. As I got closer, I saw Landry over his shoulder. They must have seen me drive past the barn and decided to follow me.

But they weren’t the ones I needed to talk to.

“Where’s Silas?” I asked. I probably sounded abrupt and impolite, but I was too tired and heartsore to care.

Bash and Landry exchanged a look.

“New York,” Bash said.

Numbness crawled along my extremities like a creepy parasite.

“He… he left?” I wondered how to ask what I really, desperately needed to know. Was there a work emergency? Some super-important strategic consulting problem he had to take care of right away? Was he coming back…?

Or had my untimely and oddly defensive admission of love made him flee the state and leave his friends to handle our… paperwork?

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