Page 29 of Fight for Me
“Yes, but I hurt you.”
I take a step back. “It’s not the first time.”
And then his beautiful green eyes turn sorrowful, and my heart aches. He still makes me feel things I know are stupid. I should be immune to sadness since he’s caused me enough of it, and I should be completely over him by now.
“Hopefully it was the last.” The sincerity in his voice makes me want to fling myself into his arms, but I don’t.
I stay rooted to my spot and just nod. “I hope so too, but I doubt it.”
“And here I thought you were the forgiving one.”
I shrug. “I was once.”
“But I broke her.”
“No, you left her.”
His hands run through his dark hair, and he lets out a low groan. “Again, we can’t seem to have a conversation where I don’t feel like a fucking asshole.”
I bite back a remark about a shoe that fits. I don’t want to fight with him, not now anyway. I’m too raw from seeing our baby, too worried about the future, and too confused about whether I can handle the decisions I need to make.
“Do you want to walk with me? I have to check on a few things.”
The tension seems to release from his shoulders, and he nods. “I’d like that.”
We start to move toward the big barn on the back of the property that houses Jimmy’s office. I have no idea if he’s here or back in the fields, but he’s usually doing various paperwork and placing orders around this time of day.
Jimmy is the best thing on this farm, and he might be the strongest reason I’ve never sold.
“How are you?” Declan asks after a few minutes of amiable silence.
“I’m fine. You?”
“I’m in Sugarloaf.”
I snort once. “Yes, that is true. It wasn’t always so bad, you know.”
Declan’s eyes meet mine, a million memories pass between us in that look. “No … it wasn’t, but it’s not the same anymore.”
I try to slow my rapid pulse and temper my scathing remarks. Sugarloaf has remained mostly the same, it’s him who is different. “Nothing stays the same.”
“No, and some things change in ways we don’t prepare ourselves for.” His voice is soft and full of understanding.
“Yeah, but change is good, right?”
Declan lifts one shoulder and then cracks his neck. “I think change is inevitable, but who the fuck knows? I came back here, and some of it is the same as it was eight years ago, some of it, or maybe just the people are nothing like I remembered.”
“Eight years is a long time,” I say, and then feel like a fool. Eight years is how long I’ve been living in the past.
“Yeah, it is.”
“Declan?”
“Yeah?”
“Did you ever really love me? Was what we shared just some fairy tale that two broken kids told themselves?”
He shakes his head and reaches out to grab my wrist. “What we had was real.”
