Page 77 of A Montana Secret Admirer
And yet, he didn’t want to put that kind of pressure on her. He didn’t want her to feel like she owed him anything.
The worst part? His heart belonged to her. She’d captured it from the moment they’d met, and she hadn’t released it—not that he would have accepted it back had she tried giving it.
He sighed, dragging a hand down his face as he dealt with the anguish that was becoming the norm these days. He’d be leaving in less than twenty-four hours, and it felt like he was going to lose everything if he did.
What was he supposed to do when the girl of his dreams already had plans to return to the life she’d led before this summer?
“Nervous?”
He jumped and turned around to find Jane standing behind him as he worked at removing the saddle from his horse. “About what?”
“The training course.”
Reese turned back to the saddle and lifted it. “It’s just like school, right? I go, I learn, I take notes… what’s there to be nervous about?”
The silence that hung in the air between them was deafening. She didn’t have to utter a single sound for him to know what she was getting at. This was Jane—the woman who had figured out he was interested in her sister before he had a chance to deny it. Was he nervous about leaving Serenity behind only to return and find out that she’d moved on with someone else?
Absolutely, he was.
He’d told Serenity they would keep in touch with calls and messaging, but she had only agreed half-heartedly, which could only mean one thing. She wasn’t as interested in him as he was in her.
Jane cleared her throat. “It’s going to be okay, you know.”
He scoffed. “What would you say if I told you that I don’t want to go anymore?”
“I’d call you a liar.”
Reese scowled as he deposited the saddle on a stand. “Oh? And you know me so well?”
She shrugged when he glanced in her direction. “I know you well enough to know that this has been a passion of yours for a while.”
He scoffed again. “You don’t know me well at all.”
Jane arched a brow. “I was in every one of those meetings you and Leo had with Kat. I know what you want to do with your life, and this is a big part of it.”
“And yet I can guarantee that I’d be just as happy staying here and—” He cut himself off before he could confess that all he really wanted was to beg for Serenity to stay. He’d drop to his knees if he had to. She had somehow become his reason for living, and walking away from her was already destroying him.
In fact, he’d attempted to have a conversation like that with her about two days ago. She’d cut him off and pushed him away, telling him that they were making the right decisions for themselves and their families. Bo and Jane needed him to take on this program to make the therapy services shine. She needed to figure things out with Tegan.
And he hadn’t been able to come up with a reasonable argument to her statement.
Each passing day, she’d gone against what she’d promised him. They weren’t making the best of the time they had with each other. She was pushing him away, further and further until he couldn’t breathe.
The worst part?
She looked about as miserable as he felt.
And for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why. The words that came from her mouth were the opposite of her behavior.
He turned to Jane, the question he’d been desperate to ask slipping from his tongue before he had a chance to rein it in. “Is she happy?”
Jane arched a brow. “Who?”
“You know darn well who,” he snapped. “Is Serenity happy? Because it sure doesn’t seem like it. She keeps saying that she’s making decisions that are going to make her happy, but even you have to admit she seems more of a shell of herself than she was when she first came out to visit.”
Jane’s lips pressed thinly together. There couldn’t have been a more obvious sign that she was holding something back. Of course, Serenity confided in her. And there was no way that she would share what Serenity had told her in confidence.
“It’s not just Serenity,” Reese tried again. “Somethingisgoing on with her, but with her boys, too.”
