“What is there to make work?” He averts his gaze. “I told you, Tess. We shared a heat together. That’s the only reason you’re feeling this way. In a week…you’ll feel differently.”

“Oh, fuck that, Hunter,” I snort. “You don’t get to hide behind that because you’re scared.”

“Scared,” he echoes.

“Yes, scared,” I assert. “You think it’s inevitable that you’re going to lose me, so you’d rather let me go without a fuss to save yourself the trouble later on, right?”

His mouth forms a tight line, and I know I’ve hit the nail on the head.

He clears his throat, looking down at his feet. “You have so much ahead of you. You and I both know that I would just hold you back. Deep down, you know that, Tess.”

“Sounds like a crock of shit to me,” I rasp, my voice sounding rough.

Hunter sighs, stepping deeper into the room and gathering me up in his arms. I go easily, nuzzling my face into his chest, inhaling his scent and trying to commit it to memory.

He kisses my hair, and I soak up the simple gesture like a flower in sunlight. I almost whine when he pulls away, his hands cupping the backs of my arms as he peers down at me, studying my face as if maybe he’s doing a little memorizing of his own.

Ask me to stay, I scream silently. Ask me.

“It’s just your hormones,” he says soothingly. “That’s why it feels like the end of the world. By tomorrow…you’ll feel much better. You’ll see.”

I hear him, and I hear the sense in his words, but I don’t feel it. Not even a little bit.

I’m opening my mouth to tell him so—to beg him to ask me to stay, to beg him to come with me, I have no idea what—but he robs me of all rational thought when he brings his fingers to his face, turning them into a square over his eyes and making a soft clicking sound as he takes a pretend picture.

“Really?” I say with a sniffle. “You want to remember this?”

His eyes are soft, his smile softer. “I told you, Tess. I want to remember everything.”

“But not keep it,” I say petulantly.

I can almost feel the way he wants to say something, and at this moment, I’m so close to begging for him to do so.

But he doesn’t, and the hurt I feel at his silence keeps me from saying anything more.

If I’m honest with myself, I know why he’s being like this. I know Hunter thinks he would just hold me back, that he would trap me here with no future, but I don’t know how to tell him that isn’t how I feel. I can’t make him see that he’s worth staying for, and…I know he’s right about at least one thing.

I can’t throw everything away for him.

But it would be nice to know that a part of him might want me to, as unreasonable as it sounds.

“I think”—he composes his features into something more manageable—“I’m going to go for a run.”

“You’re leaving? You won’t see me off?”

The facade cracks, and I can see a sliver of pain—the same pain I’m feeling—bleed through in his eyes. “I can’t watch you go, Tess,” he says quietly. “Please don’t ask me to.”

“You’re having an easy enough time watching me do it right now,” I say quietly, feeling childish and hurt.

Hunter levels me with a look, his expression grim. “You were always going to leave, Tess,” he tells me. “Maybe it’s better this way. Easier, even. I’m sure you’ll move on before you know it.”

He gives me his back, leaving me there with my suitcase and a whole roomful of regret, and I feel his words cut at me like a knife, so final in their delivery. It’s like he’s counted on my leaving being inevitable. And I realize that he most likely has, if I really think about it.

I’m sure you’ll move on before you know it.

It makes me wonder how much of a chance we ever stood in the face of that.

The lodge feels emptier without Tess here, which makes no sense, given that she was only here for a few weeks. But in that time…her presence was so large that it almost seemed to brighten the place, to make it feel like more than what it is. I can still scent her in every room, so warm and sweet that it’s like she’s standing here with me.

And now she’s just…gone. Because I practically pushed her out the door. I didn’t fight, didn’t beg her to stay like everything inside me screamed I should. Why didn’t I do that?

You know why, something whispers.

Deep down, I know there’s nothing here for her. Even if we were to try to make this work around her schedule…I’d do nothing but hold her back. I mean, really, what is there for her here? Nothing but a lodge that’s barely making ends meet and a town that she could probably fit into a subdivision in her city. She can’t thrive here. There’s absolutely nothing.

Nothing except me. And it’s no secret that I’m not exactly a prize.

I feel anger and regret swirling through me, a small part of me wishing I’d never touched her to begin with. I knew what would happen if I kept giving in to her, if I kept indulging in her sweet scent and her soft body and her softer heart—but I did it anyway. Like a fool.

I smile bitterly.

Appropriate, since I apparently never learned my lesson.

But then I think about her smile and her big brown eyes, which looked at me with such trust over and over again, and honestly…I never stood a chance, I think.

I do up the last button on the nicest shirt I own, feeling stiff in the rigid material and the slacks that were a surprise even to me when I found them in my closet. Tess’s friend should be here anytime, and with every second that ticks by, bringing his arrival closer, my nerves skyrocket a little higher.

It feels silly now without Tess. What can I possibly say to this man to convince him that the lodge is as special as it feels to me? Sure, there have been a lot of good changes in the last few weeks, but there is still so much to do. And now there’s a possibility that we’ll be doing it without Tess.

Fuck.

As much as I try not to think about her, my thoughts always seem to find their way back to her. It’s torture, really.

A knock sounds at my door, and my stupid heart jumps into overdrive, despite knowing there’s no way that it could be her.

“Come in,” I say.

Jeannie’s head pokes around the doorframe, giving me an encouraging smile. “Your guy is pulling up the drive.”

“Great,” I say shakily, dropping down to the edge of my bed. “Now I just have to figure out how to not say anything stupid.”

Jeannie frowns, moving deeper into my room and taking a seat next to me on the bed. “You’re not going to say anything stupid.”

“How do you know?”

“Because you love this place too much,” she says. “Anything you say will just be a reflection of that.”

I stare down at my hands in my lap, my lips pursed and my brow wrinkled as I consider that.

Jeannie pats my knee. “How about we talk about what’s really bothering you?”

“What do you mean?”

“I think you know exactly what I mean, young man.” She tsks. “Tess called me from the airport to tell me goodbye.”

My jaw clenches despite the fact that I’m trying to look nonchalant. “Oh?”

“Yep. Sounded about as miserable as you look right now.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” I say unconvincingly.

I peek over at Jeannie to catch her rolling her eyes. “Oh, come off it. The pair of you were trapped here for days, and I come back and the entire place smells like heat. I’m not stupid, you know.”

“Yeah, well,” I chuckle darkly. “Maybe I am.”

“It’s not stupid to admit you care about the girl,” Jeannie points out. “And it’s been clear to me for weeks that you do, even before all this heat business.”

“I have no issues admitting I care about her,” I say with a sigh.

The problem is, I think I care about her too much.