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“There was nothing here for you.”
“Everything’shere for me.”
“Except me.”
“That could change.” I thought he would have no rebuttal. He’d said there was nothing here for me, but had he evaluated his life? There was nothing in Dallas for him that he couldn’t do here. The Truitts couldn’t have that big of a hold on him.
His voice was deceptively even when he said, “You want me to stay here with you and do exactly what destroyed my family?”
My mouth dropped open. No. That wasn’t what I was asking. I hadn’t seen the correlation between that and how he’d grown up.
But it was exactly what I had expected him to do. I had been so stuck on his unquestioning loyalty toward Norville Truitt that I didn’t stop to consider the deeper motivation.
He read my surprise. “Exactly, Delaney. I’ve done everything to keep from being put in the same position as my dad, but you’re doing everything to shove me back into it. We don’t own anything; we have to rely on someone else’s permission. I like your brother, but I’d be turning everything over to him.”
“I would be the manager.” It would be my job. Yes, in my family business, but I’d be doing what I was good at. What I enjoyed. And I’d be where I was needed. My marketing education and my short experience made me less qualified than most other applicants. I’d be more lost in Dallas than before. “You can do whatever you want.”
“I am doing what I want.”
“Then do it here.”
He wasn’t swayed. “My first three years, I only got clients passed to me because of Mr. Truitt’s connections. It took years before I built a good enough reputation that clients sought me out themselves. Now I’m asked for by name. Do you realize how much that means to me?”
“Do you realize how much it means to me not to depend on what other people think?” That was the life I wasn’t going back to. Archer had a line he refused to cross; I had mine.
He stared at me for a heartbeat, then shook his head. “This is what you want?”
“My family needs me. I’m not going to just leave them.”
He recoiled, hurt and shame flashing in his eyes. “You think that’s what I did. Left my dad and brother to suffer while I made a better life for myself.”
“I did the same, and I almost lost my brother.”
“You can’t blame yourself—”
“Not for all of it. But if I’d been home, I might’ve seen how miserable Kane was. I might’ve seen the signs, or recognized his depression, or… I don’t know. But I can’t leave Ma to either do it all or lose it. She could get the ranch into serious financial trouble, and that would blow back on Kane.”
He went quiet for a few moments, and my hopes crushed under the weight of the silence. This was why I hadn’t said anything. This inevitable conversation.
“What are we doing here, Delaney?” he asked softly. “I’ve been in Coal Haven for three weeks, but we haven’t resolved a thing. If neither of us is willing to bend, then what?”
“I’ve already bent, Archer. That didn’t work out either.”
He met my gaze. Did I look as stricken as he did? “Okay. I guess we have another week.”
“No matter what, I’m glad you came to Coal Haven.” It’d be closure, at the very least. Or maybe at the most?
His jaw tightened as if he wondered the same thing. “Me too.” He opened the door of the pickup and slid out. No lingering goodbye kiss, no asking me if I’d changed my mind about sleeping at the motel. “See you in the morning.”
“Bye.”
I sat in the pickup until he left, knowing that by not answering a goddamn thing, we’d given the best indication of how and when this marriage was going to end.
