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If I could have wrapped my grandparents in my arms and fixed it all for them, I’d have done it in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, that wasn’t an option, so I figured I’d give my grandmother the next best thing. “I promise I’ll always focus on what’s important. Nothing matters more to me than my parents, grandparents, my best friends, and this farm.”
“And one day, you’ll add your husband and children to that mix,” she noted. “Cherish every single moment you have with them, because you never know when you might not have it any longer. This emptiness it leaves inside could crush you, Rhea, and I’d never want that for you.”
Nodding, I said, “I promise to keep what’s important at the forefront.”
In what had to be the worst case of bad timing, the door to my shop opened, and Wyatt Westwood walked in.
Seeing him, a whole slew of emotions moved through me, especially in light of what had happened today with my grandparents.
Now, I was feeling like a conflicted mess of emotions. Because I’d been feeling myself softening toward Wyatt, especially since he showed up at my place over the weekend. He’d done so much to prove I’d been wrong about my initial assessment of him.
Things had changed between us since then.
Because I still got up and went for my runs. Wyatt continued to join me. But now, instead of running in silence, we’d spent the last three mornings having conversations. It hadn’t been anything groundbreaking or particularly important, but it was progress. Progress I had been enjoying until this very moment.
I couldn’t continue to act like Wyatt didn’t have other intentions. Maybe he’d been noble about them from the moment I’d turned down listening to whatever he had to say about his family’s interest in part of my family’s farm, but I’d gone ahead and agreed to having dinner with him, so he could share those details with me anyway.
I had to believe there was still a part of him that wanted to see this work out the way he had originally intended.
And that was the problem.
While I was prepared to hold up my end of the bargain and go to the dinner we planned to have this weekend, I knew I was going to have to keep the image of my grandmother’s face this afternoon at the forefront of my mind.
It was the only chance I had to resist a man who acted the way Wyatt did. He had the money and power to make this miserable for me, and he hadn’t. In any other situation, he’d have been a man I could have seen myself falling for.
Now?
Not so much.
“Hi, Rhea,” Wyatt greeted me, belatedly noticing me sitting at the booth.
“Hello,” I returned, an uncomfortable smile forming on my face as I stood.
“I don’t mean to interrupt, but I thought I’d stop by and finally do what we talked about this weekend by giving that ice cream a try,” he explained.
“Right. Sure,” I said, as I lifted my hand toward the counter. “If you want to follow me over there.”
Before we could walk away, my grandmother declared, “This weekend? Rhea, aren’t you going to introduce us?”
I swallowed hard and spun around, noting the curious look on my mom’s face and the excited one on Grandma’s. If she hadn’t been through what she’d been through today, I would have quickly turned them down. But since it was so much better to see her happy expression, I had no choice but to give her what she wanted.
“Yeah, um, well, Wyatt, this is my mom, Danielle, and my grandmother, Edith. And this is Wyatt. Wyatt Westwood.”
In an instant, their faces twisted with fear and doubt. “Did you say something about this weekend?” my mom asked.
There was no missing the worry in her tone.
I was terrified to tell them the truth, and unfortunately, Wyatt didn’t seem to mind. He stepped forward, reached a hand out, and said, “It’s lovely to meet the both of you. I was out on Friday when Rhea was celebrating her birthday with friends. I wound up having dinner with her on Saturday evening, and she insisted I was missing out by not having had the ice cream here.”
“Well, she isn’t lying about that,” Grandma muttered.
My mom, still concerned, stammered, “Are you two… is there some?—”
“We’re just getting to know one another,” Wyatt explained. “Rhea and I have been running together every morning for the last couple of weeks, Mrs. Marks.”
“Do you want to date her, or are you trying to sweet talk her into selling our family’s land?” my grandmother asked, cutting right to the chase.
Apparently, they knew exactly who Wyatt was, and they weren’t holding themselves back.
