Page 67 of A Forever Kind of Rancher

“I thought she wouldn’t die,” he gritted out. “My parents told us she would. They said...they said the kind of cancer she had there was no chance. I didn’t believe it. They were honest, but I couldn’t deal with it. When she was gone I... I fell apart. I hoped. I hoped and I believed...past reality, and it damned near killed me and I knew I could never do that again.”

She wanted to weep. For the boy he’d been. The boy that was still in him now. Who was afraid to hope. Afraid to love.

“Boone, it took bravery to decide to be with you. I wasn’t running from something. I was running to it. It’s different. And I know it is. And no, I can’t promise you that the world won’t continue to be harsh and hard. But I can promise you that I am in this forever. Because if my love was so easily destroyed, then I would’ve gotten rid of it a long time ago. But I can’t. I can’t. I love you. And it’s only right now, standing here, that it feels like a clear sky filled with stars. It was always cloudy until now. My love was there, but it couldn’t shine bright. I couldn’t see it clearly. But now I can. Now I do. It’s been love all along.”

She could see in his eyes that he knew it too. It was the thing that terrified him. Knowing he was afraid didn’t help this hurt less, but it did make her feel resolved. She wasn’t going to be afraid. She wasn’t going to flinch, not now. Because she could see the fabric of her whole life, stitched together by this fear. Fear of scarcity. Fear that there just wasn’t going to be enough love to go around. That there wasn’t going to be enough of anything. It had driven her into her relationship with Daniel, and it had kept her there. It had made her cling to the companionable, the unobjectionable. It had made her ignore any red flags that might’ve been there, because she didn’t think she deserved to see them. Didn’t think she could afford to. She wasn’t going to do that now.

“We’ve both been given a lot of bad things,” she said. “We have both been given a lot of bullshit. But we have a chance to have each other. We have a chance to have something new, something different, and I’d like to take that chance.”

“I want you to be happy,” he said, his voice rough. “More than I want anything in the whole world, I want that. But I can’t...”

She looked at him, and she felt pity. “I can be happy without you.”

Something flashed through his eyes, and she saw the contrary nature, the complexity of it all. He wanted her to leave him be because he was afraid. He wanted her to be happy, but he also didn’t. Maybe he wanted them both to be a little bit sad all the time because they couldn’t have each other, but they could have the possibility of it. Maybe that was the problem. If she was out there, away from him, he would be able to think about what might’ve been. Instead of trying and failing and knowing what couldn’t be.

But he didn’t understand that her love would cover all the failure.

“Sorry,” she said. “But it’s true. Because I have Mikey and Sadie. And that means I’ll be happy. Because I have a life. Because I have skills. Because I am going to move forward in this work that I’ve enjoyed doing. Because I’m happy enough with myself. That doesn’t mean a part of my heart won’t be broken. My life would be better for having you in it. But I won’t be miserable. I’ll never love another man the way that I love you. I don’t even have any interest in it. My life is full enough without a man. It will never be full enough without you, though. But life is complicated. In the same way I was able to be committed to my marriage while knowing the possibility of you and I existed in the world, I will be able to be happy if you can’t get yourself together. You’re not going to hold my heart hostage. Not all of it. A piece of it. Yes. You might hold my body hostage too. I think I’m set for sex. Unless it’s you. So yes. Part of me will be crushed. Part of me will be devastated. Part of me will never get over you. But you can rest in the knowledge that I’m out there happy in the world. You can rest in that. And you can love me from a distance. We can have half. We’ll be fine. We did it for all these years.” She swallowed hard. “But why? Life breaks us enough, why should we break ourselves? Why, when all we need is a little hope?”

“I can’t believe in impossible things anymore. I have to believe in reality.”

“Why is a sad ending more believable than a happy one?”

He said nothing.

She dressed, slowly and methodically, and she began to prepare to go.

“Wendy...”

“Don’t say anything else. Because you can’t say anything true. And I’m done with lies. I get that the lies are to yourself. But I just... I can’t.”

And when she walked out, she did cry. Real tears, falling hard and fast. And she felt like something in her chest was irrevocably cracked.

She stood there for a long moment, examining the difference. Between losing Daniel and losing Boone. Between knowing that it was over with him, and knowing it was over with Daniel.

The problem with Boone was he’d been there, a possibility, a distant fantasy, for fifteen years.

He had been the other part of her marriage. A piece of herself that she held back. Reserved for him. And now she’d given everything.

It was horrendous. And it hurt.

And she wouldn’t trade it.

Wouldn’t trade going all out. Wouldn’t trade taking the risk.

She only hoped that in the end it was a lesson. If not for her, then for Mikey and Sadie.

That even if it was improbable, and even if it would hurt you, even if other people did not understand, you had to try for everything.

Because you were worth it.

Chapter Twelve

He didn’t know what to do with himself. He had just done the dumbest thing he’d ever done in his whole life. And he rode bulls for a living.

He let her go.

You had to.

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