Recognition.That’s it. That’s it exactly.
It’s not about replacing Tyler or being disloyal. I’m not reaching for strangers because I’m lonely and scared and want something easy.
These three men are something familiar, and safe in the deepest sense of the word.
My eyes fill with tears, and Weston immediately gets to his feet, rounds the table, and crouches beside my chair. He brushes his thumb under one eye, then the other, with a gentleness that should be impossible for someone as big and strong as he is.
“Hey,” he murmurs.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
His incredulous tone has me laughing through the tears. “Crying over pasta?”
“My grandma would take that as a compliment.” He slides an arm around my shoulder and pulls me close as a watery sound escapes me that’s half laugh and half sob.
If this is a date, I seem to be doing my best to ruin it, but Weston’s face is open in a way that makes my heart hurt.
When I first saw him around town, his physical presence made him seem a little dangerous. He’s the kind of man who walks into a room and changes the air around him. But while I was looking and trying to pretend I wasn’t, I noticed little flashes of something in him, and now I know exactly what that was. Tenderness.
It’s not weakness. Definitely not. It’s strength that reaches out instead of closing into a fist.
“I can’t figure out what I’m allowed to feel,” I whisper.
He takes that in without rushing to answer, but finally says, “Then let me tell you what I feel.”
He slides my chair toward him and rests his hands on either side of my legs, close but not crowding. “I’ve been half in love with you since you came to Moon Ridge.”
The room gives a slow, impossible tilt.
CHAPTER 25
ELENA
Weston exhales roughly, almost like he’s frustrated with himself. “Maybe not all at once. But I always hoped I’d run into you in town. I looked for your car at the school. I listened for your laugh across the crowded restaurant.” His jaw works once before he goes on. “Once everything was out in the open, and I could let myself be with you, even just in the cafeteria … Yeah, half in love.”
My pulse pounds. “Weston.”
He looks wrecked by the admission, which makes it mean even more.
“I held back because you were Tyler’s wife,” he says. “Because that line mattered.” His eyes search mine. “It still matters, but you matter more.”
Tears fall again, and he brushes them away with a tenderness that makes everything in me soften.
“Buck said Tyler would approve.” My voice is shaking, and Weston goes still. “He said Tyler would want me to beprotected. That he’d be glad it was the three of you, men he trusted. Men he loved.”
“He would,” Weston says quietly.
I take a shaky breath. “I think he would, too.”
Saying it out loud softens something heavy inside me. It doesn’t erase my grief, because nothing can do that, but the guilt I’ve been carrying eases a little.
I’ve been assuming that loving Tyler meant I had to refuse everything after him. That wanting comfort, desire, protection, and love was proof I’d failed him. But Tyler wouldn’t have wanted me to be lonely or afraid, and the men I’ve been falling for are men he called brothers.
I touch Weston’s face, and he leans into it. His eyes close, and the trust in his actions almost breaks me all over again.
“I don’t want guilt to be the thing that rules my life,” I whisper.
