I sit up, because lying down for a talk like this doesn’t seem right.
“Where are you going?” he asks.
“Nowhere. I just …” my breath turns shallow and the room grows hot. “Continue with what you were saying.”
“You’re going to be in a new place. You’ll probably get homesick a time or two. And if you keep talking to me, you’re going to keep missing me, and all it’s going to take is a bad day or two to make you want to pack your things and catch the next flight home,” he speaks like it’s gospel. “I know how these things happen. I saw it with Tripp and Cassidy.”
“You can’t compare what we have to what your brother had with Cass.”
“Maybe. I guess what I’m trying to say, Blaire, is that I don’t want to hold you back. I want you to go to the city and chase your dreams and when you catch them, I want you to run like hell.”
“And I can’t do that if we’re talking every day?”
“You can. But it’ll be hard.”
My cheeks bloom with warmth, and I slide off the bed, fanning my face as I pace the small space beside the bed.
“I knew it. I knew you were breaking up with me. Oh my god. I’m such an idiot.” I fish around in the dark for my clothes, which are strewn around the shack.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” He climbs off the bed, wrapping his hands gently around my wrists and turning me to face him. Capturing my full attention, he cups my cheek in his hand before leaning down to deposit a slow kiss. “Never.”
“I don’t understand what you’re getting at.” I press my ear against his chest, taking in the steady thrum of his heart.
“You and me, Blaire, we’re so much more than labels and all that nonsense,” he says. “I’ve told you that from day one.”
It’s true. We’ve never referred to each other as boyfriend or girlfriend or high school sweethearts or any of that. Our closeness has spanned beyond anything a label could ever define. We’ve always just been … us.
No questions, no doubts: just Wyatt and Blaire.
“I want the world for you,” he says. “But you can’t have the world if you’ve got one leg straddling New York and the other one back in Whiskey Springs.”
“Maybe that’s not for you to decide.”
“Then let me ask you this. If I asked you to stay. If I told you right now that I wanted you to never leave Wyoming and we’ll let everything happen how it’s going to happen … would you?” He studies me in the dark, though I can’t bring myself to look at him.
He knows the answer to that question.
And so do I.
I’d stay in a heartbeat.
“I could marry you tomorrow,” Wyatt says. “And good God, would I be the happiest man alive. But ten, fifteen, maybe twenty years from now, there may come a night when you’re lying in bed wondering … what if I’d have gone? What if I’d have at least tried?”
Silence clings between us for a moment, and I picture myself at forty. A thin gold wedding band on my finger. A couple of kids or so. An unfulfilled dream in my heart and the opportunity to chase it long gone.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he continues. “I’ll be here. I’ll always be here. Was born on this ranch and I’ll die here too.” Wyatt takes my hands in his. “Go. Go to the city. Make me proud. Make yourself proud. And if you decide it’s not what you want or you’d rather be here with me, I’ll be waiting.”
I love the sound of that.
It’s the best of both worlds.
But I’m also not naïve to the fact that he’s a young man—an insanely attractive one to boot, and he’s going to have needs. And one of these days, while I’m studying lines at a coffee shop in Brooklyn, there could be another pretty little thing riding my horse and sitting shotgun in his truck and putting that dimpled smile on his face.
“What if I make it so big, I never come back?” I ask. While the odds of me becoming some rampant breakout actress are akin to winning a lottery jackpot, there’s always a chance.
“Then you’ll have everything you’ve ever wanted, and you’ll have me to thank for pushing you out the door when you were digging your heels in.”
Drawing in his musky scent, I release a soft sigh. “I just wish I could have it both ways. I wish I could go knowing that I was going to end up with you in the end, no matter what.”
His lips bunch at one side and his brows furrow. “Maybe you can.”
“What do you mean?”
Brushing a strand of hair from my forehead, he says, “How about we make a pact?”