Tumble (Dogwood Lane 1)

“It’s not like that.”

“No, you know what? You’re not like that. The woman I know would stick to what she believes in. Look at us,” he says. “I fucked you over, and you didn’t come home for almost ten fucking years. You wouldn’t work for a company that treated you like that.”

“They apologized,” I tell him. “You didn’t.”

He looks away. I wait for him to respond, to somehow open a door and make this easier, but every second that passes shows me he’s not about to make this easy.

I take a deep breath. “I took the job, Dane.”

His eyes go from ice cold to red hot.

“You what?” He looks at me like I’m speaking Swahili, like he can’t understand the words I’m using. “You’re leaving?”

“Tomorrow night.”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” He spits the words with an edge of fury that has me flinching.

“I’m not. I’m sorry.”

He takes off his beloved Dodgers hat and sends it sailing over the bluff. His hands go straight to his hair, tugging at it with both hands. When he turns to me, his face is beet red, a vein pulsing in his temple.

I want to reach for him, to wrap myself around him and somehow make this better. But I can’t because there’s no way to make this easier. For either of us.

He paces a circle, his nostrils flaring. “You’re leaving us? Now?”

“I have to,” I insist. Tears flow down my cheeks as I wish I had a way to make this all stop. To pause time and live forever in this moment, minus the bomb I just dropped. “It’s a great opportunity—”

“It’s a fucking job, Neely.” He glowers.

“It’s a job that means something to me.”

He throws his head back. “I’m glad you stick to your guns about things that really mean something to you.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“No.” He looks at me with a ferocity that knocks me a few steps back. “You don’t get to play that card. You leaving us for a fucking job means it’s exactly what you meant.”

“Dane . . .” I wipe away the tears with the backs of my hands. “I told you from the beginning I wasn’t staying here.”

“Maybe. But you led me on. You rejected one job. What was I supposed to think? Huh?”

“Dane . . .”

“Don’t ‘Dane’ me!” His voice echoes over the bluff.

“What was I supposed to do? Stay here and give everything up? For what? You? Mia? Neither of you are mine, Dane.”

The fury in his eyes softens just a bit, enough to make me drag in a lungful of air. He stands in front of me, his hair a wild mess and his chest rising and falling at warp speed.

“Believe it or not, I try to do what’s right,” he says, his tone a few octaves lower than before.

“And so do I. And right now I have to do what’s right for me. Is it wrong that I don’t want to give up everything I’ve wanted, everything I’ve worked for, for a possibility with you?”

He fires a look my way that I can’t quite read.

“Would you want to come to New York with me?” I offer, knowing damn good and well he won’t.

“No.”

My shoulders sag. “But you expect me to stay here.”

Give me a reason. Just a little bit will be enough. Just something to hold on to.

He shrugs. “You know what? You’d just leave anyway.”

“That’s not fair. Or true,” I say, my voice wobbly.

“You left before—”

“You made me!”

“Fine,” he says, his chest shaking with anger. “I made you. Maybe I make all women leave me. You. Katie. Sara. You’re better off going, I guess.”

My hand trembles as I point a finger at him, my vision blurred by white-hot tears. “You can’t lump me in with them. We were different. You are why we didn’t work.”

“Then. And you are why now.” He turns toward his truck but doesn’t move his feet. He just watches me over his shoulder as I break.

I crouch down and hold my head in my hands. I cry harder than I’ve ever cried. I cry so hard I think I might break in half.

“If you cared as much as you’re letting on, you wouldn’t go,” he says. “It’s really that simple.”

“It’s not that simple,” I sob. Standing up again, my body still shaking with the force of the tears, I look at the gorgeous man in front of me. “I’ve wanted this my entire life, Dane. How am I supposed to not take a chance of a lifetime?”

“This,” he says, motioning between us, “was what I’ve wanted my entire life. This was my chance of a lifetime.”

“Don’t say that.”

“You have your truth. I have mine.” He turns his back to me and heads toward the truck.

Panic bubbles inside me as I chase after him. The closer he gets to the truck, the sooner he’ll be gone—probably forever this time. The thought of it, despite knowing it must happen, has me running faster.