Page 127 of Wedding the Wide Receiver

“Yeah. I’m fine. She’s not, though. She left right after with Drew, presumably to get her wrist checked out since I twisted the hell out of it. Oh! And get this. Pete was there at her place.”

“Pete?” I echo, the night of the charity event plowing back into me.

“Yeah. The guy who makes the best flatbread in all of Minnesota is apparently sleeping with my sister,” she says dryly. “Oh, and this is fresh. I think he might be the one who poisoned me at Corks for a Cause.”

“Do you have proof?”

“Proof he poisoned me?” she asks.

“Proof of any of it,” I say, not sure whether I should mention the conversation I overheard. “That he’s the one who sprinkled the mustard, that he’s sleeping with your sister…”

“No. But you can bet I’ll be on the lookout for some now.”

“They’ll be careful now that they know you know. Can we circle back to this physical altercation? Grace, this isn’t you.” My voice is calm, but my chest is anything but.

“She brings out the worst in me.”

“Then get away from her.” I’m not sure why my tone sounds like I’m begging, but I have the sudden fear that between this goddamn article and her fighting with Amelia, being apart right now is the worst thing for both of us.

“I can’t leave the vineyard. It would be handing it over to her.”

“Then maybe it’s time to let it go.” The words are out before I can stop them, but they’re the first words that come to my logical mind. I blow out a long, frustrated breath as I wait for an answer, but she’s silent on the other end.

To her, it must feel like I’m telling her to choose between me and her dream.

I can’t do that to her. I love her, and maybe that means I’m going to have to let her go. It’s too much all at once—the article, starting over in a new city, pure exhaustion, missing her, falling for her, wanting to be with her…and we can’t.

Falling for her has been something out of this world. But maybe love just isn’t enough.

A physical altercation? I can’t picture my sweet Grace getting into a physical fight with Amelia, and yet…she just admitted that she did.

I finally break that silence. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I just…I don’t know how to deal with any of this.”

“I don’t either,” she admits. “But for as much as she brings out the worst in me, you bring out the best.”

It’s my turn to be silent for a beat, and when the words come, they might be even worse than telling her to let go of her fight for the vineyard. “I’m not sure I can be that balancing act for you.”

I hear Maggie calling her name in the background.

“I have to go.” She hangs up before I can tell her I’m sorry, before I can tell her that maybe I can’t be that balance, but I want to try anyway.

Before I can tell her I love her. Before I can tell her I want to fight for her.

Maybe it’s for the best. I need to focus on football, anyway. My workouts. This season.

Fighting for my reputation.

And so I place my focus where it should be, and sure enough, those thoughts about what I should have said start to fade the moment the phone disconnects.

Chapter 53: Grace Nash

An Awful Lot to Lose

Four Months After the Wedding

I’m careful to keep my eyes focused on my screen as Amelia loudly walks by, but I catch it out of the corner of my eye anyway.

She’s wearing an elastic compression bandage around her wrist as she cradles it. She probably sprained it—or, rather, I probably sprained it.

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