by Stacey Lynn
“Max.” I clamped my mouth shut. I was at a loss for words.
I know. Rebecca’s voice rang in my mind, along with the pain in her throat as she’d said it. It’d hurt her to say those words to me. It’d hurt me a thousand times more to repeat them back to her later when she called my name but still couldn’t give me what I needed to be one hundred percent certain walking away from the dreams I’d always had was absolutely the right thing to do.
“I’ll read it and let you know,” I said. “Go back to bed.”
“Like hell that’ll happen,” he replied. “Take care, Max. Give Rebecca my love.”
“Will do. Bye.”
I slid my thumb across the disconnect button on my screen and tossed my phone to the counter.
I had no idea if Rebecca had taken care of the morning chores before she disappeared to wherever she went, but for the first morning since I’d stepped foot onto her ranch, I was in no hurry to take them on.
Instead, I went to Rebecca’s office and grabbed a cheap pair of reading glasses I used when I settled in to lose myself in a script and the excitement of a new roll.
Then I grabbed the script, my coffee, and a pen, and went to work.
* * *
“Hey.” Rebecca’s voice jolted me from my concentration, and I jumped from the bed where I’d settled in to work. “What are you doing in here?”
Her gaze roamed the bedroom in the guesthouse but quickly returned and landed on the script in my hand.
“Hey.” My eyes were dry, felt like they’d been scrubbed with sandpaper and I took off my glasses and rubbed them. “What time is it?”
“Two. Busy day?”
Damn. I’d lost most of the day to the script and my hand was sore from scribbling millions of notes in the margins. The story was more emotional, more taxing, just as elegantly written as I’d remembered when it was first pitched to me and I’d only seen the opening scenes.
She was leaning in the doorway to the room, shoulder rested against the frame. Beautiful with a white, summer dress on. It looked like a thin crocheted pattern over white silk and draped loose and short to her mid-thigh. At her waist, was a pale pink belt. She looked as pure and beautiful as she always did, with her hair draped over her shoulders, a light sheen of gloss on her lips.
The elegance of the script in my hand. The pure beauty of the woman in front of me. Only one of them might have been actually possible for me to grab hold of.
I didn’t answer her question. Her face paled as I set down the script, her gaze not leaving the stack of papers spread all over the bed.
“Where have you been all day? You were gone early.”
“Church.” She shrugged a shoulder and a shy little smile lifted the edges of her lips. “And then to see my parents. I must have lost track of time.”
Pain seared my gut like she’d shoved a knife into it. She’d told me she hadn’t been to church since Joseph died. She’d never mentioned visiting her parents’ graves.
I shoved the script to the side and held out my hand. Her chin wobbled, but she pushed off the door and came to me, sliding her hand into mine.
I tugged her toward me, swinging my legs to the side of the bed so she was next to me. Her head fell to my shoulder and my hand cupped the back of her head, running down her hair to her shoulders. “Want to talk about it?”
“Not really.”
That pain in my gut spread up to my chest, behind my rib cage and to my heart. All the doubts whispering in my head about her either not loving me, being unwilling to or simply unable to…or worse, simply not wanting to, buzzed louder in my ears.
Rebecca opened up at her own time, and I was usually better about giving her time. I knew secrets of hers no one else did and she gave that to me.
This was different, though. We were on the precipice where decisions had to be made. Ones until yesterday I hadn’t doubted. I’d give her all the time in the world, but she had to give me something.
My hand fell from her back and I shifted, putting some space between us.
She scooted away from me, adding more space. “Cooper—” she started and stopped when I held out the contract. The one that would cancel my part in the movie of a lifetime.
The one I’d walk away from if she gave me something.
“What’s this?” She took it, fingertips painted a light color pink to match her belt. Rebecca rarely wore makeup, she didn’t need it. I had never seen her with her nails done, which told me she was up incredibly early, making a concentrated effort to get ready and look proper for everyone in town.
Her eyes scanned the top paper and rose. “You’re pulling out of the movie? Then why are you reading it?”
“I called Max weeks ago and had him start the ball rolling on what it would take to pull out. He and Paul have managed to get the film company and directors in agreement on a settlement.”
“This is a huge amount of money.”
On top of what I’d already given to Camilla, who last I heard via Max had taken an extended vacation to her home country of Brazil, it was enough to make it hurt. I still didn’t have to worry about money for the rest of my life, or providing for any future children I might have, as long as I was smart about it.
I said nothing.
“Why?” she asked. Her brow furrowed and her sweet, brown eyes met mine. “Why would you pull out of it?”
The point of brutal honesty had hit. I dangled one step over the cliff and hoped like hell I didn’t end up splattered on jagged rocks far below.
“Because I love you, and I didn’t want to leave.”
Thirty-Six
Rebecca
My pulsed raced so quickly my blood was burning, running through my veins with such speed I was afraid for my health. I jumped off the bed, the unsigned contract flittered to the floor.
Cooper, the man I loved, was sitting here in front of me, essentially telling me he would walk away from his dream, from his life and his career…for me.
My head shook. “Why?”
“Why do I love you?” He hadn’t moved from the bed. Knees bent, bare feet settled on the floor, he leaned forward and clasped his hands together, elbows rested on his knees. “I have a list. But it’s long.”
“No.” I gestured to the floor where papers had scattered. “Why would you do that?”
Because I love you and I didn’t want to leave you.
He’d already answered. It made no sense.
“You can’t give everything up for me.” I stepped back. His laser-sharp eyes on my every movement.
His tongue rolled across the front of his teeth. “It’s funny, because until you said that, I hadn’t felt like I was giving up anything in choosing you.”
Oh my God. My hand flew to my chest, to my heart that was racing. Just yesterday, while folding socks, I’d wondered if something like that was possible. But I would never ask him to give up everything he’d worked for. “Cooper—”
I clicked my mouth shut. I had nothing to say.
He meant every word he said to me, I could see it in the lines tightened around the outer edges of his eyes, the sad pull of his lips.
“I can’t ask you to do that. To walk away from your life.”
He rolled his lips together, dropped his head. God, the pain on him. I curled my hands into fists to stop myself from reaching for him. This morning, I’d gone to church, dressed up and prettied myself up and took off, telling myself I needed some quiet. I needed a peaceful place to go to figure everything out. And then I went and did something I hadn’t ever done.
I sat at my parents’ graves. And Joseph’s. I cried my eyes out, gave him all my anger and betrayal and all my forgiveness. I sat in front of my mom and dad’s grave markers and told them everything. I told them about Joseph, about Jenni. I spilled everything I had felt much too ashamed of to speak to anyone who could actually respond until I’d given it to Cooper.
It hadn’t been enough, though, because the person I needed to give everything to was Joseph a
nd even if he couldn’t respond, I still had to let it all go if I had any hope of ever moving on.
I didn’t expect to get home and search for Cooper, only to stand in the doorway to the guesthouse, the last place I thought to look for him, and I’d done it for several minutes, him not even realizing I was there, he was so wrapped up in whatever he was reading.
And he expected me to sit back and watch him walk away from something that enraptured him in a way I’d never seen? Not even when he was with me?
He stood from the bed, his hands on his hips as he scanned the papers on the bed, the scribbles in margins all over the bent pages like he hadn’t read through it only once, but a dozen times.
“I must have been wrong, then, because I thought I was walking toward something that’d be better than anything I could imagine.”
Me. He meant me, and more than anything I wanted to reach out and grab him and walk wherever he led me because I had no doubt he’d be right. But to choose?
I’d never ask that of him. One or the other.
All my thoughts from yesterday rushed through me. In all of the options I considered, him walking away from his career, one he always said he loved, had never been one of them. Not for me. Not when we were so new.
“Cooper,” I tried again, but this time, he held up his hand and stopped me.
“I’m in love with you, Rebecca. I want this life here, with you, the ranch, the animals. I want to build a life here and someday, ask you to marry me. I want kids to run inside, filthy from rolling in the dirt and chasing chickens and goats.”
“You sound so certain.” If I could slap myself, I would have. What was I saying. Why was I so doubting?
A look flashed through his eyes and his shoulders slumped. “You don’t love me.”
It was a statement, not a question and one I desperately wanted to argue with, but the words still wouldn’t come. I was too drained from the morning, the looks at church, the hugs and the condolences and the smiles and the welcomes and the conversation with Joseph and saying goodbye.
I’d expected to come home and tell Cooper everything—that I was letting Joseph go and moving on.
And even then, in that moment, the words Cooper wanted, words I wanted so desperately to give him, still stuck in my throat.
“I—” Goddamn it. Tears fell down my cheeks and I didn’t swipe them away.
“Rebecca.” The way his name rolled off his lips, so tortured, ripped right through me.
“Yesterday, I saw that package come in the mail, and I figured you were leaving. I wanted to see if we could stay together, work something out, long distance.”
I was messing this up. Royally. The words wouldn’t come smoothly enough.
“You want me to go do the movie? You wanted me to leave?” His face couldn’t have flinched anymore from the confusion.
“And then come back. You know, in between them.”
He swiped his hand over his face. “I’ve done that, Rebecca. I’ve lived a marriage spending most of the year in different time zones or different countries and that didn’t work so well for me.”
I wasn’t Camilla. He wasn’t Joseph. But clearly, they weren’t far enough in our pasts to be behind us. He’d just implied the same fear I had about him going, but I’d thought it wasn’t a valid concern. That he would never cheat on me because he knew the pain from the other side, and yet there he was, confessing it wouldn’t be as easy as I wanted to believe it was.
“I want a home and a family. I want a wife I sleep next to every night. That was my dream, more than a career.”
A sob tore from my throat and I stepped toward him, but he moved back. Away from me.
It was the first time he’d moved away from me since the first time we kissed and it slashed through me.
“I think…” He stopped and cleared his throat. Then he twisted and bent, picked up the scattered papers from the bed, leaving the ones on the floor where they were. When he was standing again, he didn’t look at me, but over my shoulder like I didn’t exist.
It was colder than the worst winter wind I’d ever felt whipping through me, the kind that chilled your bones and froze your face.
“I think,” he said again. “I’ve just learned I thought I’d found my dream, but that it’s not the same as yours.”
His chin shook. That strong jawline and handsome features that had captured me and held me prisoner before I knew what was happening, wobbled with emotion he fought back.
“That’s not it,” I said. I went to him and pressed my hand to his chest before he could stop me. “I want to be everything you think I am. I want you, Cooper. I just need more time.”
His hand wrapped around my wrist. I dug my fingernails into his shirt before he shoved me away, but he held me tight, almost painfully. His eyes grew wet.
“Will four weeks be enough?” he asked. That was how much time he had before he was supposed to leave. “Plus ten or twelve apart help?”
I loved him. I was certain. But, if I couldn’t tell him with the words he needed, did I really? “I don’t know.”
God. Would someone just slap me with a two by four? I was sabotaging something I so desperately wanted, something I couldn’t imagine living without.
He squeezed my wrist and pulled it from his chest. My eyes burned, tears falling faster than I could brush them away. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” he asked. “I need to know that you feel the same way toward me that I do about you. And you don’t.”
“I do,” I cried. “I want this to work, but I can’t help but think if you give up your career for me, something you’ve always said you loved and you were born for, like I was born to work this ranch, that someday, you won’t look back and regret the choice you made.”
“And that’s how I know you don’t love me. That you don’t feel the same way about me as I do you, because for me, until today, until this very moment, I had never had a doubt in my mind you were worth it. That I would sit on the porch with you or ride the horses or drive around town in your truck and hang out with your friends who have become mine, and I would never need anything more in my life. And the fact you can think in your mind I’d regret anything other than that, tells me you’re not as certain of us as I am.”
I pulled my hands down my cheeks. When I pulled them back, they were streaked with black and I couldn’t find it in me to care a single bit. “Don’t go. Just because I can’t say the words doesn’t mean I don’t feel them. I do. I swear it.”
“If you did, you’d say it. I know you, Rebecca. You don’t hide anything you’re feeling. But this, this I don’t see, and as hard as I’ve tried to look, I can’t find it.”
I gaped at him. He had to be wrong. I gasped his name. “Cooper.”
Everything I thought I had was crumbling before me, falling through my fingers with no hope of me grabbing any of it. How had this gotten turned so sideways?
“I’ll call Max,” Cooper said. His voice sounded scrubbed with shards of glass and he reached to grab his glasses from the bed. “I’ll pack my things. Get on the first plane out I can. I think that’s probably best.”
“Don’t. Don’t leave. Not like this.” This wasn’t ending. It couldn’t. “Cooper, please.”
I was steps from him. It felt like miles. Felt further when he looked at me, had to see the pain so visibly etched on my features and he didn’t flinch. “I think it’s for the best. Maybe this all moved too fast. Maybe you’re not ready. Hell, I don’t know, maybe I’m not ready. But I know that what’s best for me, isn’t giving my all to someone who isn’t sure they can give all of theirs back to me. That’s not fair.”
It was just time I was asking for.
His point was made. When he looked at me, he didn’t see how much I desperately loved him and needed him. Maybe because I hadn’t given it to him, too hung up still on Joseph and Jenni and affairs and death and struggling. Maybe I’d forgotten how to love someone.
Maybe I never knew how to love someone.
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Maybe that’s why Joseph cheated on me in the first place.
“I’m sorry. So sorry.”
He came to me then, slid his hand to the side of my head, cupping it and I fell into him. His thumb brushed my cheek. “I’m sorry, too.” He pressed his lips to my forehead, stealing my breath, but before I could reach for him, he was gone, his back was to me and I stood in the room in the guesthouse and watched him walk away from me.
Thirty-Seven
Cooper
I couldn’t remember the last time I hurt this much. Every limb, every muscle and joint in my body moved like I hadn’t walked in months. It took all my strength to walk away from Rebecca, mascara smeared down her cheeks, asking me not to.
Doubt flared while I flung my clothes into the suitcases in her closet, a closet I’d made my own a month ago and thought I’d never leave.
Everything about the last twenty-four hours went so completely tits up I still hadn’t pieced together how it fell apart so easily.
I’d told her I didn’t need to hear her say to me she loved me.
I did though, need her to love me, and staying like she asked, while she tried to figure it out didn’t give me hope of anything changing. I’d give her everything, absolutely everything I had, my money, my body, my heart, if I knew it’d be returned, even in a minuscule measure.
The very fact she was so terrified, so willing to let me walk away for months at a time told me enough.
She wanted me. I had no doubt she cared for me more than she verbally admitted. But earlier, in that room, with everything I thought I had so close and so far away, what I saw was a woman too terrified, too far behind a wall I thought I’d scaled, to let me in enough to know I wouldn’t get burned in the end.
Time might get her to a place where she was willing to lower those barriers. Space wouldn’t.
That saying if you love something let it go and if it comes back to you it was always meant to be was complete and utter bullshit.