Page 76 of Where She Belongs

And if that wasn’t bad enough, Tate simply turned around and headed for the trail that would take him home. Rylee watched after him, her heart breaking. She’d gotten so caught up in what she thought was happening between them that she hadn’t considered putting a label on it. Maybe she would have been better prepared for this situation if she hadn’t had any expectations.

Tate was always going to put his desires for the town and his family above her. His meeting with that woman wasn’t innocent by any means, but she had to believe it wasn’t romantic. She just couldn’t figure out why he wouldn’t confide in her.

Turning, she trudged toward the house.

“Rylee—” Faith started as she stepped forward from the group. “I’ll talk to⁠—”

Rylee sliced a hand through the air. “It’s fine.” She forced a smile at each of her friends. “I’m just going to go clean up. Sorry, but I’m not in the mood for hanging out anymore.”

Hallie seemed about ready to protest but Sammie pulled her back and shook her head.

“Yeah, okay. We’ll catch up later, okay?” Faith offered.

Rylee nodded numbly and entered the house. She could sense Alexander at her back, and turned to find he’d followed her and Roxy inside. Shaking her head, Rylee pointed to the door. “You need to leave.”

“But—”

“I told you I needed time and you didn’t respect my wishes. This didn’t have to happen like this.” Rylee hated that her voice broke on those words. “Just… please go.”

Roxy stepped between them. “She’s right. You should go. We’ll reach out when she’s ready.”

Rylee fought the urge to roll her eyes. There was no way she’d reach out to Alexander now. Not with how broken she was feeling. And she wasn’t ready to talk it out like she knew Roxy would want to do as soon as Alexander was gone.

Her room was the best option at this point. And she’d nearly made it there before she heard the front door shut and Roxy’s voice call out to her.

“You can’t avoid this forever, dear. We’re going to discuss this.”

“No, we won’t,” she muttered under her breath. Because she’d made her decision. She couldn’t stay in Rocky Ridge after the spectacle her life had become. Her friends weren’t going to look at her the same way. And if that developer was successful, then his assistant would be sticking around as well.

But returning to New York filled her with a different kind of dread. Maybe she didn’t belong in either place. Perhaps it was time to consider that she needed to find somewhere new to put down roots.

A fresh start.

Yeah, that was what her heart needed.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Tate could barely breathe the whole walk home.

The photograph was folded in his shirt pocket, and it weighed about as much as an anvil. He kept hearing her. Not crying. There hadn’t been any of that. Just the flat, careful way she’d told him she had been sitting on the same photograph without ever once asking, and why she hadn’t, and then asked him anyway with her whole yard listening.

One sentence. That was all it would have taken. That’s the developer’s daughter. I went out there to look her father in the eye and got sent home like a kid without an appointment. One sentence, and Alexander’s whole production would have collapsed on the spot.

He’d opened his mouth. He’d felt the sentence sitting right there.

And then he’d seen the rest of it play out—Roxy’s raised eyebrow, Faith’s folded arms, Rylee understanding in real time that the morning after she’d begged him to stop making this town his whole life, he’d gotten up before dawn and driven to the enemy’s hotel. Proving her right in front of an audience. Handing her the last word in their fight, gift-wrapped.

So he’d folded the picture, and put it in his pocket, and walked away like a guilty man. Which, he supposed, was exactly what he was. Just not the kind everyone now thought.

He reached the barn and kicked an empty bucket near the entrance. It skittered down the aisle and thudded against the wall. The horses stirred. Sage put her head over the stall door and gave him a look of mild reproach.

“Don’t start,” he muttered.

He could still fix it. Walk back over there tonight, say the sentence, take his medicine. But every hour he waited, the sentence got heavier, and the silence got harder to explain alongside it. Why didn’t you say something at the time, Tate? Because. Because⁠—

Because being thought a cheat by everyone else was somehow easier than being proven a fool by her.

His hands balled into fists while he paced the aisle. Everything was getting out of control, and it was making him sick. How had he let it get this bad? “You’re an idiot, you know that, right?”