Page 99 of Say the Words
He looked unsure of himself, at a loss for what to say. His stricken expression reminded me of when he’d been lying in the dirt, injured and broken.
“I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“Well, you did.” I found some satisfaction in his flinch. Did he think he’dsparedme? “How long did you know?”
“June—”
“Tell me.”
He tried to draw in a deep breath but stopped with a wince. “A few months.”
The wind seemed knocked out of me all over again. After Bret’s evasive admission he was seeing someone new, the question of just how long I’d been deluded had tormented me. How long had I thought our relationship was good enough, when in reality, it had been broken beyond repair and I just didn’t know it yet? And now, I knew. Months. At least.
Dideveryonethink I was too fragile to hear the truth?
“You should have told me.”
“I was afraid.”
“Afraid of what? What could the Unbreakable Ty Hardy possibly have been afraid of?”
He held his hands out as if grasping for the right thing to say but found nothing. This man who kept powerful animals in check, who worked in the harshest elements without a second thought, whose glare could make any rational man take a step back—what was he afraid of? It sure as heck wasn’t me—he’d proven that time and again. He could only have feared angering his brother if he told me the truth.
“Were you afraid you might lose your ranch if you crossed Bret?”
He jerked his head back as though I’d shoved him. “I’m not afraid of Bret.”
“Then what?”
He shook his head like he couldn’t find the answer. I wanted to believe hehadan answer, but now, I wasn’t sure. A scummy ooze crept through my stomach as doubt swelled. I had stormed over to his house again and again these last weeks, involving myself in his ranch, in his home, in his life. He had never once asked me to do any of it, never asked me to come back, never asked me to stay. He’d told me to keep away, and I hadn’t listened. I’d kept barging in, thinking he needed my help—thinking he neededme.
“Isallof this just because you didn’t want to hurt my feelings? Was any of it real?”
What I wouldn’t give for a tender declaration of his growing feelings, a confirmation that yes, there was something between us, it wasn’t all on my side. But Ty clenched his jaw, biting back whatever he felt.
If he felt anything at all.
That was what decided me, the silence. I couldn’t fall for someone who had no intention of loving me back. Hadn’t he been trying to tell me this whole time? I’d been too caught up in my own crazy hopes to listen.
“I’m such an idiot.” Humiliation filled my stomach like a dead weight, creeping outward until I thought I might be sick. I’d done it again, projecting everything I wanted onto a guy instead of seeing the truth right in front of me.
“June, no.”
The tenderness in his voice skated too close to an apology, too close to pity for me to stay out there with him any longer.
“I’m not doing this again.” I moved to slip past him, but he reached out to me.
“Wait.”
“Forget it.” I pulled my arm away, shivering from the soft touch of his hands. “After the wedding is over, I’ll leave you alone, and we can go back to our real lives.”
I managed to say the words without a trace of tears. Maybe I had some unemotional robot in me, after all. Ty’s expression froze as if something in that statement cut him, but whatever it was, he didn’t say.
Of course he didn’t say. He was the Unbreakable Ty Hardy. I was the one who had broken.
“Right.” His eyes grew shuttered, distant. Just like he used to be, before I barged in and got us tangled up in this mess. “We can go back to our real lives.”
Well. That sounded final enough. My heart crumpled in on itself until it became a tiny speck. I turned, walking as fast as I could toward the ash tree where my family waited, trying to clear my expression before anyone caught sight of me. This was no place to cry. After the rehearsal dinner, I would shut myself up in my childhood bedroom and let my heart shatter in private.
