Page 45 of Tessa and Nash

Then her face appears at the window, peering down.

“You alive?” she asks.

“I think my dignity died on impact.”

She snorts, then clamps a hand over her mouth.

“Go,” she says urgently. “Before he looks out the window.”

I scramble to my feet, slipping once, then take off toward the side gate as if I’ve just robbed the place.

At the fence, I glance back.

She’s still there, watching me, hair a mess, eyes bright, cheeks flushed, and despite everything, she looks amused.

“Spurs,” she calls softly.

I nod. “I’ll see you there.”

She shuts the window.

I vault the gate and head down the street, boots crunching through snow, head pounding, heart racing.

I have a fake engagement.

A real problem.

And a breakfast date I absolutely deserve to pay for.

CHAPTER TEN

Tessa

January 4th

I should be furious.

I should be replaying the last twenty-four hours with clinical horror. His mouth, my bed, the lie big enough to swallow the town whole. I should be planning exactly how to dismantle Nash McCoy with facts, distance, and a well-timed exit.

Instead, I am… delighted.

It settles over me somewhere between my second sip of coffee and the way Nash visibly winces every time Martha Lou sets a plate down too hard.

Spurs Diner hums with its usual morning noise. Coffee pouring. Silverware clinking. The low murmur of Buckhorn gossip already stretching its legs for the day.

Nash sits across from me in the booth, shoulders slumped. His hair is a disaster. His jaw is tight. He looks like he lost a fight with his own decisions.

Good.

Martha Lou sets our plates down with a decisive thud.

“Eat,” she orders him. “You look like hell.”

“Morning to you too,” Nash mutters, poking at his eggs like they might bite back.

Jet slides in right behind her, coffee pot in hand, and stops short when she actually looks at us.

Her head tilts slowly, trying to make the picture in front of her line up with the last version of reality she remembers.