Page 183 of Tessa and Nash

The ranch house is quiet enough that every small sound carries. Rusty shifts somewhere in the hallway, the wind brushes lightly against the windows, and the old boards in the floor creak as the house settles into the cold.

I lie there staring at the ceiling, hoping that staying still long enough might trick my body into feeling rested.

It doesn’t.

Eventually, I give up.

The floorboards feel icy under my feet as I head down the hallway toward the kitchen, rubbing a hand over my face and trying to shake off the dull pressure that’s been sitting in my chest for weeks.

Halfway there, I hear voices.

My brothers.

They’re speaking quietly, the way people do when they think someone else is asleep.

“…I’m telling you something’s wrong,” Boone mutters.

Dallas sighs. “I know.”

“You seen him lately?” Boone continues. “He looks like he’s carrying a damn boulder around.”

A humorless smile tugs at the corner of my mouth.

That’s one way to put it.

“Yeah,” Dallas says.

“And he won’t talk about it.”

The scrape of a chair drags softly across the kitchen floor. Dallas lowers his voice. “The council thing shook him.”

“Maybe,” Boone replies.

He pauses, and I can almost picture the way he rubs the back of his neck when something doesn’t sit right with him.

“I don’t like the way this whole situation with the Longs is going,” he says finally. “Feels like we walked straight into a trap.”

My stomach tightens.

Dallas hesitates before speaking again. “You think Tessa’s using him?”

My chest goes tight, the air catching halfway through a breath as my brain scrambles to decide which reaction comes first.

Anger.

Defensiveness.

Or the quiet, ugly flicker of doubt that slips in before I can shut it down.

Boone exhales slowly. “I don’t know,” he admits. “But her family sure benefits from him being tied up in this mess.”

The words hit me hard as a slap.

My first instinct is to storm in there and rip that idea to shreds, tell them they’re wrong, that they don’t know her, that they don’t know anything. They’re talking about her like she’s some kind of puppet, and it pisses me off more than it should.

But then something else digs at me… something small, ugly, and entirely irrational.

A voice I don’t want to hear that’s whispering, What if they’re right?