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“You can see if she’d want to move up here. Healthcare has to be cheaper here than in California. I’ll help—” I clenched my teeth together.
She was furiously shaking her head. “I can’t hand my fate over to another man.”
“I don’t want to be just another man. I care about you, Tova. I don’t want to use you. I want to be with you. I want us to have a chance.”
She threw her hands up. “Don’t you see? If it doesn’t go anywhere, you’re fine. You have a house. You’re going to have a ton of land with a cute little—” Her gaze slid toward the dips and valleys where the cows were disappearing. “Gah, is that a creek? You’re going to have your family. My friends aren’t evenmyfriends. They’re your sister. Your sister-in-law. Your neighbor. Things go south between us, then where am I?”
“I know you’re used to dealing with assholes like your ex, but we’re good people.”
“Everyone thinks they’re good until they don’t get what they want.” She pressed her fingers to her forehead. “I know you’re a good man, Cody. But staying would mean letting Frederick have everything he took from me. It’d be like...” She blew out a hard breath and turned her pleading gaze to me. “It’d be like giving up, like Mom did each time she left a bad relationship for something she thought was better.”
“Tova.”
When I imagined this talk, I had no idea it’d go to shit like this. I thought she was feeling what I felt. The tumble into an abyss I would end up flinging myself into later. Because she was worth it. She was worth risking impending heartbreak, but what if we worked? What if we went all the way and made a family? And what if it was good? What if we were what the other needed, and she’d have so much more than whatever she’d left behind with her ex?
She slumped in her seat.
I desperately searched for ways to rescue the conversation, but I could only stick to the fact that she didn’t want to try. Her past was too ingrained in her. The trauma she’d been through as a kid and what she’d witnessed, paired with what happened to her as an adult, wouldn’t let her move on. “So that’s it? When this week is over, we’re just done?”
She swallowed hard. Fear bloomed in her gaze and was smothered quickly. “Yes, I think it’ll be easier that way.”
Nothing about this was easy. “You’re leaving right away?” My question was like a straw mat to hang on to for a life raft. I’d take every second with her.
“I have to fight Frederick so I can take care of Mom.”
I was glad she wasn’t planning to let Frederick walk into the sunset, but I also doubted she’d ask for help—from anyone. “By yourself?”
She nodded, lifting her chin. A picture of pride. Of destructive independence.
I let out a sigh. “At least keep my number if you need help. I know a lot of lawyers, thanks to Meg.”
She blinked at me, her eyes shimmering. Blinked again.
I held her gaze. “I mean it. Call me if you need anything. No strings.”
Her perplexed stare changed to resigned acceptance. “There are always strings, Cody. Can you take me back now?”
Eighteen
Tova
Heavy, stifling, forlorn silence filled the drive back to town. I shrank into my seat, but not once did the universe answer my silent plea to make me disappear. I wanted to hop out of the moving vehicle and sprint to the airport.
Unless I caught a ride in a crop duster or had a private jet, I wasn’t flying out of Crocus Valley.
Plans furiously formed and came apart in my brain. A small damn puzzle of options.
How could Cody expect me to stay and enter into a relationship that was just like the one I fled from? I had less now than I did with Frederick.
My traitorous brain tried to insist Cody was nothing like Frederick.
As if I didn’t fucking know that!
I wasn’t in love with Frederick. This was scarier.
Cody pulled to a stop in front of the rental house, his brows drawn together and his stare on the sleek maroon car parked on the curb that hadn’t been there before we left.
Maybe Kali’s grandparents had visitors. I got out and stopped when I saw the older couple sitting on the porch. Cody rounded the back of the pickup and slowed when he caught sight of them.
