Page 167 of Tessa and Nash

Conflicted.

I can handle anger. I can handle rejection. I’ve lived my whole life understanding rivalry and boundaries and lines you don’t cross.

Confusion is harder.

Confusion means she felt something too.

I lean against a post and stare out at the pasture, breath fogging the air. The land looks the same. Calm. Neutral. It doesn’t care that everything underneath it is suddenly unstable.

What if I ruined it?

Not just us. Everything.

What if Thomas uses this as leverage? What if the council decides the engagement was manipulation all along? What if Boone and Dallas find out and realize I let personal feelings contaminate something that affects all of us?

What if honesty was selfish?

The thought sits heavy.

I straighten and force myself back to work. By the time I finish the fence line, my hands are numb, and my shoulders ache, but the noise in my head has quieted just enough to function.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Tessa

February 2nd

By noon, I regret coming home for lunch.

The problem isn’t noise. The Long House is never noisy. It’s polished wood, and the kind of silence that presses against your ears until your own thoughts grow too loud to ignore.

I regret coming home because Thomas is in the dining room.

And he is in a good mood.

That should not make my stomach drop the way it does, yet lately every time my uncle smiles, it feels less warm and more like a warning.

I step inside, unbuttoning my coat, and toss my gloves on the counter before I can reconsider. The front hall smells faintly of lemon polish and whatever soup Grandma has had simmering all morning. Through the archway, winter light spills across the long dining table in pale, cold stripes.

Thomas stands at the sideboard pouring coffee like a man who has just received excellent news.

He looks up when he hears me. “There you are.”

I stop just short of the doorway. “Here I am.”

His smile sharpens. “I was beginning to think Town Hall had swallowed you whole.”

I set my bag on the nearest chair and force a polite expression onto my face. “Disappointingly, no.”

He chuckles, and I hate how normal it sounds. How easy. As if my world didn’t crack open somewhere between Juniper House and Old Mill Road.

As if I am held together by posture and stubbornness alone.

Thomas lifts his mug. “You’ve done well.”

I go still. “Excuse me?”

He takes a slow sip, infuriatingly calm. “Nash McCoy’s proposal is officially stalled. Delayed pending further review. Questions are being asked, caution is being exercised, and for once this town remembers that the McCoys are not entitled to whatever they want simply because they smile nicely and host church barbecues.”