West of Forever (Heartstone Ranch #1)(85)

“No, it doesn’t, but I’m not a child. I’m able to fight my own battles. You taking the blame, letting my family think you did it…how is that okay? I was ready to tell them about us.”

She says that, but it doesn’t make sense.

“Weren’t you the one freaking out about someone seeing us a few days ago?”

Her green eyes flash. Exactly.

“Weren’t you the one who told me how your family would never forgive you? So you may not want my protection, but you have it. I won’t let you bear the brunt of their anger.”

“Why do you care? Why do you give a single fuck what my family says to me?”

“Why do you think?” I ask, my words exploding from my chest, coming out more hostile than I intended.

“I don’t know!”

“Yes, you do!”

“Say it, then! Tell me why, Tristan,” Lark demands.

“I fucking love you! That’s why!”

As soon as I say it, I feel a heavy weight on my chest. Fuck. I can’t love her. I refuse to love anyone. I turn from her, running my hand through my hair as I try to collect myself. My heart is pounding, and I try to think of how to fix it.

I could lie to her.

I could tell her I didn’t mean it.

I have to do it.

“Lark,” I say her name, but she’s just staring at me. She’s searching for something, and then, instead of joy or happiness that should come from someone professing their love, sadness fills her eyes, and a tear rolls down her cheek.

“But it’s not enough, is it?”

She’s giving me the out that I am so desperate for. Yet taking it feels like a part of me is dying.

“It’s enough for this. It’s enough of a reason to let me protect you from your family.”

“Because you don’t want to love me, do you?” The heartbreak in her voice causes my own to ache.

We both know the answer to that. “I told you I couldn’t.”

Lark looks out at the ridge, wipes at her cheeks, and turns to me. “I can’t do this.”

“Do what?”

“This. Us. I can’t because I love you, Tristan. I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t stop myself. I fell in love with you on this ridge, beneath the stars as we stared off to the west of a forever that could never be ours. I thought”—she laughs once—“well, what I thought is irrelevant. I want to be loved, enough that you’d tell the world to fuck off if they had issues with us. I want to have a man who will fight for me, for us, for love. Someone who won’t worry about the future, because the present is worth all the fear.”

I wish it were that simple, but it’s not. People love, they die, and families are left to pick up the pieces of their lives.

Lark walks to her horse, clearly done with this conversation. But I’m not. She grabs the saddle and climbs up.

I take the reins in my hand, keeping her from riding off. “You say that without having lost anyone, not the way I have. Without knowing the fucking horrors of what it feels like to live without that person. I can’t lose you, Lark. I can’t fucking do it. Don’t you get it?”

“So you’re afraid?”

I laugh once. “I’m fucking terrified! I can’t do it! I can’t live through another fucking loss. I won’t survive. Is that what you want?”

“You can’t do this,” she says, shaking her head. “You can’t live like that. It’s going to ruin you far worse than loving or losing me ever will. Why is it so hard? Why can’t you see that? Why can’t you let yourself be happy?”

She doesn’t get it. As easy as all that sounds, it’s just not possible. “Nothing about loving you is hard. Hell, it’s the easiest thing I’ve ever done. It happened despite me fighting against it. Losing you, or even the possibility of it…I can’t take the risk. Then there’s all the other reasons we said why we can’t be together. How do you think we navigate that?”

“Together.”

I release the reins—and her—knowing that if I don’t let her go now, I never will. This is for her own good. I’ll never be able to love her the way she deserves, and even if we were together, her family would turn their backs on her, which I’d never be able to live with. “I won’t do that to you.”

Her lower lip trembles. “Then that’s that. You love me, but you won’t let yourself accept it? How does that work?”

It doesn’t, but I have to make it work. “This is me protecting you.”

“No, you’re protecting yourself. When you’re ready to love me out loud, you know where to find me.”

And then she leaves, and her loss is like a physical blow.









Chapter 34





Lark




Ienter the house, tears streaming down my face, like they’ve been for the last thirty minutes. Each mile felt like I was leaving part of myself behind, like a trail for Tristan to follow.

But I know he won’t.

He’s convinced himself that he can’t, and I’m smart enough to know when to walk away.

So I did.

And it’s killing me.

My mother is sitting at the table, a cup of tea in front of her. She looks up, her eyes taking in the state of my face, and she rises. “Lark. Oh, what’s wrong, sweetheart? Why are you crying? Where have you been?”