Total pages in book: 42
Estimated words: 40951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 205(@200wpm)___ 164(@250wpm)___ 137(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 40951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 205(@200wpm)___ 164(@250wpm)___ 137(@300wpm)
“And you’re going to be up here,” she says, voice tight. “With your horses. With your bells. With your cabin.”
“Yeah,” I say.
“And?” she demands.
“And that’s what I want,” I force out. “My quiet. My mountain. My routine. I spent years wanting nothing but noise and action, and it broke things in me I still don’t know how to fix. I’m not built for long-distance. For half a relationship stuffed into weekends and spotty phone calls. I don’t have it in me to…split my life like that.”
My hands are shaking. I grip the reins harder.
She stares at me like she’s seeing a stranger.
“So you’re saying,” she says carefully, “that because my dream finally came true, you don’t want me anymore.”
I flinch. “It’s not—”
“That’s exactly what you’re saying,” she cuts in, voice rising. “You told me last night that you wanted a future. That you weren’t going to let this be a closed chapter. That you’d fight.”
“I shouldn’t have,” I say, hating myself. “I got carried away. It was… a storm. A bubble. Up there, everything feels possible. Down here is where reality is.”
Her eyes shine, furious and hurt. “Reality is that sometimes things are hard and you find ways around them. You of all people should know that. You literally rebuild roads for a living.”
“This isn’t a road I can fix with a chainsaw,” I say quietly. “You’ll resent me. I’ll resent your job. It’ll rot from the inside out.”
“You don’t know that,” she snaps. “You’re just afraid.”
“I’m being realistic.”
“You’re being a coward.”
The word hits like a slap, because it’s true in all the ways that matter.
“I won’t hold you back,” I say, jaw tight. “You’ve worked too hard. This promotion… it’s everything. You should be there for it. Fully. Not worrying about some guy on a mountain who can’t sleep when he hears carols because it sounds too much like—”
I cut myself off.
She’s breathing hard now, cheeks flushed with something that has nothing to do with cold. “You don’t get to decide what I can or can’t handle,” she says. “Or what I want my life to look like. You don’t get to walk away and tell yourself it’s for my own good like that makes it noble.”
“I’m not noble,” I say. “I’m tired. I know what I can carry and what I can’t. I can’t do this. Not the way you deserve.”
She swallows hard. “So that’s it? You’re choosing the mountain over me.”
“I’m choosing the only life I know how to survive in,” I say, voice low. “You deserve more than half of me. And I… don’t have more to give.”
The words hang there.
Ugly.
Final.
Behind us, Donner stamps a hoof, impatient. The bells jingle softly.
Ivy looks away, blinking fast. When she turns back, her jaw is set.
“You know what?” she says, voice shaking. “If you’d just told me you needed time… or that you were scared… or that you wanted to try and didn’t know how… I would’ve worked with that. I would’ve bent. I would’ve found ways. Because you’re worth it to me. You were worth figuring it out.”
My throat burns.
“But this?” she goes on. “You making the choice for both of us? You deciding I’d be better off without you? That you’re somehow protecting me by breaking my heart before anyone else can? That’s not selfless, Rhett. That’s you being afraid to risk being happy.”
She lifts her chin, eyes blazing.
“You are a coward,” she says quietly. “Not because you’re staying on your mountain. But because you’re too scared to see if you could have more than just surviving.”
I don’t defend myself.
Because she’s right.
And because the only thing that hurts worse than hearing it is the idea of her dragging herself up and down this mountain for a man who’s still fighting old wars in his head.
She sucks in a breath, looks away, then back at me. “Take me back to the square, please.”
The politeness in that please hurts more than anything else she could’ve said.
I click my tongue, and the horses move. We ride back in silence, the bells suddenly too loud. The lights of town bleed slowly back into view, all warm and bright and oblivious.
When we pull up by the gazebo, she doesn’t wait for me to circle around and help her down. She swings her leg over the side and jumps, boots hitting the packed snow with a soft thud.
She pauses, hand on the sleigh rail, not looking at me.
“For what it’s worth,” she says, voice tight, “I wasn’t going to ask you to give this up. Any of it. I just wanted to be part of it.”
My vision blurs.
“Ivy—” I start.
She shakes her head, steps back, and finally looks up. There’s hurt in her eyes, but there’s steel too.
“Have a nice quiet life, Rhett,” she says. “I hope it keeps you as safe as you think it will.”