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“Don’t you dare try to put the Crawford-Anderson feud into my decision, Tyler.”
“You said it yourself Justine, ‘Our families will never stop this feud, we can’t make them,’” he argued, and she knew he hadn’t understood it, then or now.
“It didn’t mean I didn’t want to go with you Tyler. I just realized that I—we couldn’t force them to stop it,” she said, only a half-truth, but the real reason she’d gone wasn’t something he was ready to hear, not with as angry with her as he still was. “If we had left here together we both would have lost our families which would have made us lose each other andthenwe’d have been completely alone.”
“You don’t know that Justine. You don’t know what they would have done. You were just too wrapped up inside yourself and your ‘amazing scholarship offers’ to care about the boy you left behind.”
“Fine, if it’s easier to blame me—the feud and whatever lies your family’s told of mine then do it. I don’t really care about much anymore and what you think of me isn’t even on that list,” she added, another half-truth. The first part was true, but she hated him thinking poorly of her, hating her all this time but there was no stopping it.
“Enjoy your blameless existence Tyler, I won’t argue about it anymore,” she said moving around him to finish her run.
She refused to rehash it all. It wouldn’t solve anything. Not between her and Tyler and not between their families. The feud was as long lived as the history of their town. She never understood why it continued to rage between them, after ahundred and eighty odd years it should have been settled—or at least forgotten—but each generation renewed it, and she may just be the member of their generation to anew it now.
It broke her heart to think Tyler couldn’t see how much it’d hurt her to make the choice she had, but it was better to be heartbroken with family around to lean on than have no one. Yes, she had stayed away from town for the last ten years, but the first five was a self-imposed isolation. Had she come back before then she would have begged Tyler to forgive her—to try again, pick up from where they left it.
Now, she wasn’t about to try that. The last five years had changed her entirely and she refused to open her heart to any sort of pain. It might keep joy out also, but she didn’t want to feel anything at all—it was easier than trying to keep the pain from destroying her.
∞∞∞
Tyler thrust the shovel into the solid ground as hard as he could, tearing a strip of skin from his palm as the splintered wood caught him wrong. He let out a string of curses as anger burned through his entire body. He had finally stopped himself from expecting to see her and the first thing that happens afterwards? He sees her. Why couldn’t she have stayed away? Why now when it was taking every bit of strength he had to not break off the engagement, did she appear showing him just how little he cared about Angela or hurting her by doing it?
Sure, neither of them was going into this marriage with love and roses sparkling in their eyes but he didn’t expect it to be this difficult to not run from it.
Ten years ago, he hadn’t had a single doubt as to being ready to get married. Now, he had thousands of them and the biggestone just ran straight into him. He could still feel the imprint of her body against his and he burned for her in a way he never had for anyone—but her.
He tried to hate her, had pretended even to himself that he did for the longest time. Did his best to stop his thoughts from conjuring her up in his mind, but it never worked. Not once. Every single day of the past nearly ten years, his first thought when he woke was about her. His first hope was that she was out there, as miserable as him, wishing things were different as much as him.
Three thousand five hundred and forty-four days since he’d seen her, and he’d never been able to truly hate her—love her to the point of near madness yes, but never hate her. He wanted to hate her. It would make it easier, but he couldn’t. No matter what the rest of his family said about her family, he just couldn’t hate her. He’d discovered the truth about Justine, discovered that the ‘Despicable Crawfords’ weren’t so despicable long ago.
Well, Justine at least since she was the only one that he’d had any real interaction with in all these years. Not even her leaving had made him think of her the way the rest of his family thought about the Crawfords. His heart was hers. Always had been. Even when he didn’t want it to be.
No matter how pissed and bitter he was over all of it. She’d had his heart from the start and likely always would. Which was why, despite all of the reasons he and Angela had agreed to marry for, he’d been itching to do as Justine did to him nearly ten years ago—run. Far and fast because as the wedding date drew nearer, he knew it wasn’t right. Entering into a platonic marriage to shut others up was likely to hurt the people they cared about down the road.
Tyler muttered a curse under his breath as his hand burned, and he released the shovel, discovering the splintered wood now caught in his palm. He let out more curses as he tried to getthe tiny pieces out, finally giving up as he headed to his cousin’s clinic to have it looked at before it became infected.
“I told you that you needed a new shovel months ago, didn’t I?” Grace questioned with a smile as he cursed a wide streak as the disinfectant bubbled on his palm. “So what were you doing out this early planting for?”
“I just couldn’t sleep, too many things going on in the coming weeks to sit around wasting daylight.”
“Even on a Sunday morning?” she asked, lifting a brow his way with eyes that as usual saw too much. “You would think a man who’s engaged would want to spend Sunday morning in bed with his fiancée instead of out in the crisp morning air digging holes.”
“Yeah well, most men who are engaged don’t have a mother like mine who would have a heart attack if he spent the morning in bed with his fiancée,” Tyler countered to hide the fact that he had no intention of ever sharing a bed with Angela.
“Come on Tyler, you and Angela barely interact unless there’s a town event. What is going on with this engagement?”
“Nothing Grace, geesh would you prefer we all act like Seth?” he questioned with a half-grin bringing up their second cousin who was the town lothario.
“Lord have mercy on us all, no,” Grace replied with a laugh. “I simply wonder why you’re getting married when it seems you have no feelings for your fiancée.”
“Grace, how would you know what type of feelings I have for Angela? I’m not the type to broadcast my relationships all over town—I never have been.”
“I know that, but I’ve also seen you in love before and it wasn’t this. Before you try to say that’s not possible, you should know that no matter how much you tried to hide it, I know you were in love during high school. I also know there’s no way possible it was with Angela because she was always datingother people. So, who was it and why are you marrying Angela if you don’t love her?” Grace questioned as she pulled out the remaining slivers of wood.
“I was young and stupid in high school Grace. I wasn’t in love,” he lied, unsure how she’d react if she knew exactly who he was in love with—then and now as much as he tried to fight it. “I might have thought I was, but it was just a stupid teenage crush that I got over a long time ago. As far as Angela and I go, it’s no one’s business but ours as to why we’re getting married.”
“Fine, lie to your cousin all you want but you can’t lie to your doctor, Tyler,” Grace said shaking her head at him in disappointment. “So as your doctor I’m telling you that you’re about to make the biggest mistake of your life. Don’t get married simply to be married Tyler. You need to find the one person you can’t live without and hold onto them no matter what anyone thinks or says. Even if it’s not someone that you think the rest of the family will accept…approve of,” she added making his brow lift in confusion and a bit of worry. “If you’re worried how everyone will respond if you’re…if you’re not attracted to women…”
Tyler couldn’t quite stop the laugh that slipped out. It was mostly of relief but also a bit of shock because it meant she had no clue his reason for not disclosing it wasn’t because it was a man, but a Crawford that had his heart for nearly fifteen years now. “I’m not gay if that’s what you so delicately have been trying to ask. So since you have an answer to that crazy idea, how about you finish fixing up my hand so I can get home and change before Mom rails on me for being late to church?”
