Rosalie was sure she gave him a puzzled look, and it took her a moment to make the abrupt shift in the conversation. “You mean what madeyoudecide to break up withmein a letter instead of tellingmein person?”
And just like that, she was yanked back fifteen years ago when that had happened. The tears, the crushed heart. All of it. It was probably because of theall of itemotion that she didn’t clue in to the way that Gabriel was staring at her. Not with an apology or a nod to confirm he’d phrased his question wrong. No, he seemed frustrated or something.
A frustration that grew by leaps and bounds when he cursed.
Groaning, he stepped away from her, cursed some more and lifted his eyes to the ceiling for a moment. “You got a letter that you believed was from me?” he finally managed to ask.
She opened her mouth to correct him and say the letter was indeed from him, but Rosalie rethought that. She nodded. “I got it the day after graduation,” she verified. “And you got one that you believed was from me?”
With his nod, there was a chorus of groans and cursing from both of them, but Rosalie got specific with her profanity. She cursed Hamish because he was the obvious culprit in this. He was the bitter jerk who thought he was saving his great-nephew from the same bitterness by playing the opposite of a matchmaker.
For crap’s sake.
Rosalie started pacing and kept up the cursing, trying to wrap her mind around this cut-to-the-bone deception. For the first time in fifteen years, she also wished she’d kept the heart-stomping letter so she could yank it out and try to understand why she had fallen for something like this.
“What did I supposedly write in the letter you got?” she snarled.
Muscles tightened and flexed in his jaw. “I didn’t read past the first line. It saidI’m breaking up with you so you can have the life that’ll make you happy. What did yours say?”
Rosalie groaned because that was exactly how her letter had started as well. Unlike Gabriel, though, she’d read the entire thing. Many, many, many times. In fact, she’d read it so often while crying that the paper had been splotched with very sad-looking tearstains.
“You didn’t notice the letter wasn’t in my handwriting?” he asked.
Rosalie didn’t even have to think about her answer. “No, but then, I’d never gotten a letter from you. Cards, yes, where you just signed your name. You didn’t notice the letter you got wasn’t in my handwriting?” she countered.
He shook his head. “But like I said, I didn’t get past the first line.” Gabriel paused. “Truth is, I’d been expecting the breakup. You were heading off to college. I was leaving to join the Air Force so I could be a military cop. And I didn’t think you’d want to wait around for me while I got my life on track.”
“I would have waited,” Rosalie muttered.
She heard the words leave her mouth, and she cringed. She definitely should have kept that little confession to herself. Because it sure as heck wouldn’t do any good now. It would only serve to make Gabriel feel like cow dung. Of course, she was feeling like dung as well, and she wished she could give Hamish a well-placed kick that would drop him to his knees and make him feel some of this crappiness, too.
Rosalie kept pacing and tried to make sense of this. Her entire adulthood had been shaped by that letter from a lying sack of, well, crap. Gabriel’s, too.
Or rather, it’d been sort of shaped, anyway.
Even without the letter, Gabriel would have probably left Last Ride. He hadn’t kept it secret that he’d wanted to join the Air Force. No. The only thing he’d kept to himself was how, or if, she would fit into his future.
“I would have never asked you to wait,” Gabriel said.
That stopped Rosalie in her tracks, and she looked at him. And there it was. The confirmation on his face that even without Hamish’s lies, the breakup would have happened anyway. Of course, she could have pressed him to take her with him, but even at the oh so young age of eighteen, Gabriel had apparently been able to see the flaws in that particular plan.
He’d moved three times during that first year, twice for training and then to a base overseas where the military didn’t send families. Rosalie knew that thanks to the steady stream of gossipers who’d seemingly loved filling her in on Gabriel’s new life. Yes, she could have maybe participated in that life in someway, but it would have been a challenge for her to finish college. An even bigger challenge to try to find teaching jobs as she followed him from base to base overseas.
And then there would have been the biggest challenge of all.
Her, leaving the only place she’d ever wanted to call home. She hadn’t wanted to merely come back to Last Ride for visits. No. She’d wanted to live here, had wanted to teach here, surrounded by family and traditions that sometimes could be overwhelming. But at other times, they had anchored her when she’d needed it.
For Gabriel, that anchor had obviously felt too heavy instead of just the right amount of steady.
That realization calmed her anger some. Some. Though she still wanted Hamish to pay for his deception. But hindsight being twenty-twenty and all, she could see that Gabriel’s leaving hadn’t been the man’s fault.
Or hers.
His leaving had been about him taking the path that he thought would make him happy.
“Yeah,” Gabriel said as if reading her thoughts. More likely, he was simply reading her body language, and he’d no doubt seen the fight and anger inside her melt away.
Rosalie could see the same in him. Thewhat’s done is doneacceptance. But she could see something else. He was right there, standing in her living room while wearing that chest-clinging shirt. And his Last Ride deputy’s badge.