Page 89 of Rancher's Return

“You don’t have to say you’re sorry, dammit,” he said.

“Well, I feel sorry. I feel very, very sorry.”

“You don’t even know what I’m going to say.”

“Unless it’s that you love me too, then, I’m sorry.”

“It’s not...” He sat up, tenting his fingers beneath his chin, looking straight ahead. “It’s not that simple.”

“Why not?”

“It’s not that simple because... I just can’t.” He looked at her. “Don’t look at me like that, Lily, because it’s your fault. When we were seventeen, I thought everything was going to be okay. For the first time in my life, I thought it would be. I thought you and I were a sure thing. And yeah, that’s a stupid thing to think when you’re seventeen. But I did. I believed in it, I believed in you. You broke us. And it was like... The final nail in the coffin of me being able to have hope. I can’t just resurrect it now.”

“But I’m sorry,” she said, her throat going tight. “I was... I was stupid then. And maybe I was afraid. Afraid because I thought I was going to make the same mistakes my mother did. Afraid because... Why wouldn’t I be? What I knew about love was that it could leave you by yourself with all the pieces of your shattered self and a child to take care of. I was afraid. I wanted to make a future for myself. I wanted to have an independent life. I couldn’t see a way around that. A way that...that included you. Not then. I was also afraid that if I did the wrong thing, then my mom would never be happy. I needed her to be happy. So much. So badly. I really wanted her to be happy.”

“But you want to take it all back now, and you want to take the damage back with it, and it just is not simple.”

“Maybe not. But what if I don’t need you to say anything right now. We are...whether we want to be or not...we’re stuck together, Colton. We are family.” She laughed. “It has never mattered that these feelings hung between us—we still had to see each other. We still had to contend with each other. I thought it was love then, and I told myself it couldn’t be. That I was too young. I talked myself out of it because I didn’t want to be that serious that early. But it was love then, and it’s love now. It is always love. It always has been.”

“That’s why it left such a deep scar. And I just... I don’t want to.”

She looked at him, and she saw years of loss. The kind she could never fully understand.

She had certainly been through her own pain, her own heartache, but it had never been this. Not what he had been through. She’d had stability. A mother who loved her.

He’d had heartbreak and all of these unclosed wounds. All of this unresolved trauma.

“I don’t need you to answer me now,” she said.

“I don’t think I can. Not ever. Listen, I’m sorry. It’s not you. It’s everything. Yes, you were part of it. But since then, I’ve... figured out how to deal with things, but it isn’t always healthy, or good. It isn’t always in a way that makes me better. I’m not better. I’m just...limping along.”

“You’re not. You are so wonderful. You have come out of so much trauma with so much to offer. And I want to marry you. Colton. I really think it would be good and we could be happy.”

He looked like she had struck him, his eyes full of pain, but he drew a shade down over his emotions, and he didn’t let her look at him anymore.

“Colton...”

“Lily, I need you to listen to me. There’s just too much wrong with it. With me.”

“What about the snow? The snow on the beach. I thought... I thought you said it meant something. That it was special.”

“It was. Something can be special without being forever. Maybe we just both have to accept that.” He stood. “I think it’s probably better if I don’t stay.”

“No. I want you to stay.”

“Lily, I think it was a mistake. For us to indulge in a fantasy that isn’t going anywhere.”

“It’s not going anywhere because you won’t let it. Because you won’t... Dammit, why can’t you just be brave?”

“Because I’ve already had to be brave for too many years, for too long. Because I watched my mom sink deeper and deeper into addiction and not be able to get out of it. Because I went through too fucking much already. I won’t do it again.”

He walked through the kitchen and grabbed his keys off the counter. He didn’t go upstairs, he didn’t get his things. He just walked straight out of the house and drove off, leaving her there alone.

Chapter Eight

He was a fool. Maybe. It was entirely possible. She had been offering him what he wanted more than anything else in the entire world. At least, what he had wanted at one time. She had been offering him everything. And he...

He’d said no.

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