Page 101 of Make Me Blush (Oil Barrons 3)

Her haunted gaze met mine, and acid churned in my stomach. Her expression, while distraught, was resolute. “Holden, I don’t think you should come back.”

I didn’t have much relationship experience under my belt, but I understood the finality of her tone. Still, I asked, “What do you mean?”

“I don’t want… I have so much to think about.” Tears gathered in her eyes and spilled out. “I should’ve talked to you about this earlier, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell you to leave. But suddenly I have a lot going on, and I can’t let what’s between us affect me.”

I understood what she was saying, but I didn’t. “What’s between us, Em?”

She hastily brushed her cheeks. “You mean a lot to me, but between what your mother said and the fact I might have to move… I can’t let my feelings affect what I’m willing to do for my kids.”

“You think that if you move, it’s over between us?”

She leveled a stare on me that understood way too much. “You can’t just leave Coal Haven.”

“It’s not that long distance of a relationship.” As I said it, I knew it was a losing argument. But I had to try. I couldn’t let the best thing to happen to me walk out and do nothing.

“For how long, Holden?”

I wished I had a definitive answer. She’d move, Henry would back off, and then she’d have to uproot her job and her home once again and come back to Coal Haven in order to come back to me. “We don’t even know how much Henry is going to push for.”

“I do. I know him. It’s why I didn’t stay in the marriage and repair our relationship. It’s why I didn’t string out the divorce proceedings in the first place. It’s because I know what he’ll do, and I need to be able to concentrate on that, on my kids. I can’t worry that you’ll leave me in the middle of everything. I can’t worry that if you don’t leave me, maybe you and I won’t work anyway because deep down you want kids of your own. I can’t worry about whether I’m willing to have kid number five and what that’ll propel Henry to do.”

“Henry shouldn’t have a say in anything that happens between you and me,” I said hotly and immediately regretted it. In her expression was the acceptance I’d been hoping to fracture. I had wanted to show her that she was wrong, but I’d only confirmed that she was right.

She would be consumed with fighting Henry for custody and child support. I would be a distraction. The distraction she’d wanted to get through the weekend, but too much for the rest of her life.

“All right,” I said and shoved my hands into my jeans pockets. “All right.”

She tipped her head down, and her shoulders shook with silent sobs.

My heart broke with hers. Should I go to her? Wrap her up in a hug and let our hearts break together?

Or should I leave before I felt worse than before?

There was one matter I couldn’t just drop. “Can you, uh, tell the kids…something. I don’t want them thinking…” I didn’t want them thinking I was the one who gave up.

I backtracked out of the kitchen and grabbed my duffel bag by the door. I went straight to my pickup and drove off.

That was it. My relationship with Emery hadn’t topped four months, but it felt like my heart had been incinerated and stomped into mush, then burned again. When Teagan left, I’d felt empty. This was like being shredded into so many pieces I wasn’t sure I could link them back together.

If I had known that last night could be the last time I held her, would I have done anything differently?

I drove through the town I’d known my whole life. I hadn’t wanted to leave when I went to college, but I’d been willing to wait until Teagan changed her mind. I didn’t know what I would’ve done if she hadn’t. Perhaps our breakup after the loss of our daughter was the inevitable end. I hadn’t admitted it, but I’d been glad to come home. It had become my refuge.

I hadn’t entertained the thought of leaving again. This was where I lived. Where I built a house when I got my oil money from the trust my grandparents had set up. And where I worked. But I also hadn’t wanted to leave and open myself to heartbreak. To a life I had chalked up to not being for me. I’d had my chance.

Stetson’s pickup was at the café downtown. I pulled in. It was either this or face my empty house and admit to the secret fantasies I’d had that it’d be full of kids and laughter after sitting so quietly since it’d been built.

I’d have to admit that maybe I had entertained a thought or two of having kids with Emery. But I would also be fine if she allowed me into her life to raise her kids with her.

Stetson was hunched over a plate, digging into an omelet. I slid into the booth across from him. He did a double take at my expression.

Jocelyn came by. “Usual for ya, hon?”

My stomach lurched. I didn’t know when I’d have an appetite again. “Just water, please.”

She paused for a moment, unsure of what to do. Then she patted my shoulder and hurried away.

“Who kicked your puppy?” Stetson asked.

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