Page 64 of Against All Odds

God! Why had I been so stupid?

I had taken one of the best things that had ever happened to me, shit all over it, as Natasha just told me, and ruined said best thing in the process. All Sable had asked me for was kindness and respect. I’d given herneither. No wonder my daughter looked at me like I was dirt under her shoe. I had fallen in my esteem and my daughter’s, which was way worse.

“She’s not here,” Ben told me as soon as I entered the Wildflower. “And, read that sign” —he pointed to the one above the cash register— “it says we can decline to serve anyone we want, and I don’t want to serve your ignorant ass. So, get the fuck out of here.”

“Ben, I just?—"

“You know why I sold this place to her?”

I dumbly shook my head.

It was my day to eat crow—and a whole lot of it. I’d brought this on myself and deserved every bit of it. So, I had to let the people who loved and cared for Sable give me a piece of their minds while they metaphorically tore me apart.

“Because she has the purest spirit. People have treated her poorly, and yet, she smiles, she’s happy, and she keeps going on, trying to become the best version of herself. That’s strength. That’s courage.”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t. You pretend to. You have no idea what this woman has had to go through. How could you hurt her like this?”

I shifted uncomfortably. “Look, I know I handled it badly?—”

“Badly is the fucking tip of that iceberg,” he interrupted acidly. Ben Greyfeather was a calm man. An easy-going man. The Aspen Yoda, if you please. Now, he resembled Anakin Skywalker.

“I didn’t mean to?—”

“Don’t bullshit a bullshitter. You got angry, and you hurt her in the ways you knew would wound her the deepest. You told her she deserved how she was treated. You told her she was to blame for how the Wildflower was doing—and let me tell you, she isn’t. It’s your wife.”

“Ex-wife,” I automatically corrected.

“Sounds like she’s yourcurrentwife, Heath,” Ben challenged, his tone sharp. “She’s got you by the balls. Why else would you side with her when she’s full-on out there going after Sable?”

He was right. I intentionally, deliberately hurt Sable with the information she’d given me about herself because she trusted me. This wasn’t the person I was—at least, I didn’t used to be. But it was becoming apparent to me that I’d become that man, and now it was time to look at myself in the mirror and figure out how to fix what I’d broken—starting with myself.

“I regret what I said. I am so fucking sorry. If I could talk to?—"

“Doesn’t matter what you are,” he cut in. “What matters is what you did. And you proved to everyone in this town that Sable doesn’t deserve your respect, that she doesn’t belong. That she’s not worth standing up for.”

Everything he said was true, and the realization struck like a fist to the solar plexus. I wasn’t the kind of guy who let anger take the wheel, yet I had. The pressure of the past few days—the looming fear that things with Sable were falling apart—had built to a breaking point. And at that moment at the farmer’s market, it allcoalesced into the shittiest thing I’d ever done to anyone in my entire life.

“She’s been fighting for respect her whole life, Heath,” Ben continued. “And you—of all people—should’ve had her back. But instead, you made it worse.”

“How do I fix it?” I whispered, desperate for a chance to do that.

“You can’t,” Ben replied simply. “She’s probably going to leave Aspen. I know she wants me to buy back Wildflower, and…she ran this place for a few months, and she did it damn well. But this town managed to fuck her up. You know what, I’m going to support her leaving Aspen. She deserves a fresh start.”

She can’t leave!

The panic I felt at the thought of losing Sableforeverslammed into me like a runaway train, unstoppable and overwhelming. It told me everything I hadn’t been willing to admit—that somewhere along the way, I’d fallen in love with Sable. This wasn’t a fleeting kind of love but the deep, unshakable kind that terrified me. And instead of facing it, I’d run like a coward, hiding behind excuses and half-truths, convincing myself it was safer to keep things casual. But now, with the reality of her slipping through my fingers, I realized just how wrong I’d been. Losing her wasn’t just painful—it was unthinkable.

I went to Sable’s cottage on Monday night, hoping that would give her enough time to process my assholery so we could talk.

I knocked on the door, my heart pounding. Isuspected it wouldn’t go well. I deserved for her to knee me in the balls.

After a long moment, she answered.

“What do you want?” she asked, her voice flat, her hand on the door so she could close it at any moment.

“Can we talk?”

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