Page 64 of So Wrong It Must Be Right

Carter felt hollowed out. He’d finally fallen in love with someone, admitted it, and stood there ready to take that leap, and it had spiraled into this other place. A place he recognized all too well.

He wanted to be as certain as she was. He wanted to believe as firmly as she did, but that belief had been beaten out of him, and he didn’t want to do it anymore. He didn’t want to put his heart on the line when there was no chance he was going to keep the thing he was risking it all for.

“I don’t know what you want me to say to that,” Dinah finally said, clearly hurt that he didn’t believe the way she did.

“I don’t want you to say anything. I just think we need to go into this with our eyes wide open.”

“And you refuse to believe?”

“I don’t knowhowto believe anymore.” Which was something maybe he’d known about himself but had tried to ignore, to push away. Leave it to Dinah to make him face it head-on, to make him say it out loud, to face the things he didn’t want to face.

She stood and grabbed his arms, her eyes too warm, too sure. He wished he could believe, for her. That he could get over all of these hurts and cuts and wounds that had never healed.

“If you just believed inme. If you just . . . I can do it. I know I can. All you have to believe is that I know what I’m doing and I can make this work.”

He didn’t know how to do it. Not for her. Not for him. Her hands dropped off his arms and she stepped away.

“But you won’t.” She swallowed, and when she spoke again, her voice was broken. “You refuse to.”

“I guess I do.” He shook his head, because how had this all gone so completely off the rails? But he didn’t know how to give her what she wanted. He didn’t know how to believe anymore, and he didn’t know how to give over all those feelings to her when he knew she would pick Gallagher’s over him. There was no question in his mind, and that was fine. He understood it. Would he choose her over his farm?

That he even paused, even questioned it for a second, was enough to know that love or not, this wasn’t what either of them needed. How could he ever question keeping the farm above all else?

Some weird bubble of panic squeezed his lungs, and he couldn’t do this. Couldn’t think these things, wonder these things. Couldn’t question himself like this, and mostly he just couldn’t believe. Wouldn’t, like she said. “I should go.”

“I guess you should,” she returned, her voice vibrating with all kinds of hurt as she raised her chin at him. “You might want to look up the definition of love when you get home, because this isn’t it. Maybe you like me and the sex is great, but I don’t think this is love.”

It shouldn’t make him angry. It did, but he knew itshouldn’t, so he fought to maintain a calm demeanor. “Maybe I don’t have enough in me anymore.” It thrummed through him, that lie. Helovedher, too damn much. Why couldn’t she see it wasn’t enough? “Some of us continually get beaten down by life, while the rest of us get everything we want.” Which was a damn petty thing to say, but he was struggling to care, even with the roil of guilt in his gut.

“Mature, Carter. Blame me. I’ve gotten everything easy. You’ve gotten nothing, even though you’ve worked hard. But I don’t feel bad for you. I don’t feel sorry for you. You have persevered and built things. You’re fine. Maybe a whiny ass, but fine.”

“Now who’s being mature?”

She pointed to her door, shaking with anger, not that he could blame her. He was damn angry too. Furious, at himself, at her, at the damn world.

“Get out of my apartment,” she demanded.

“Gladly.” He walked out full of regret and shame, but mostly what made his throat tight and his chest constrict was more than shame or fear or hurt. It was more than not knowing how to believe and how to help.

It was understanding that no matter how he tried or moved or worked, loss was always around the corner. He thought he had built something, and it was swept away.

It didn’t seem to matter whether he believed or not, whether he worked hard or not. Mom and Grandma had died. His dad had sold and left, his sisters had left.

For the first time in a long time, he’d felt hope and love again, thinking his relationship with Dinah could be different. But it wasn’t.

He didn’t know who to blame. He didn’t know how to accept it. It wasn’t selling off land, or death. It wasn’t an irrevocable thing, out of his control.

This was something far more complicated, and possibly his own damn fault.

Chapter 18

Dinah didn’t sleep. She tossed and she turned and she cried, but she most definitely didn’t sleep.

When 4:00 a.m. rolled around, she figured it was a lost cause. She might as well get up and go to work.

She hated Carter for making things so confusing. For taking all her certainty and mixing it with insecurity. She was sure she loved him. She was sure they could work it out, but not if he didn’t want to.

She didn’t regret the words she’d said to him. She didn’t have any sympathy for him when he had worked so hard and overcome so much. How could he not know how strong and invincible that made him?

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