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A rough exhale escapes me without my permission. I search her face, silently begging her to take it back. “You don’t mean that.”

Pain slashes over her features, like she knows she’s hurting me and it physically hurts her.

I want nothing more than to erase it from her face.

She’s felt enough pain in her lifetime, and I never want her to feel it again.

It’s why I’ve stayed away when everything in my body rebels against it.

If my leaving could keep her from hurting even a little, it was worth it.

“It shouldn’t have happened,” she says, sounding strangled. “I’m not ready for…us again.”

I swallow against the lump rising in my throat, my chest actually aching like she struck me there. Her words from two months ago come back to haunt me.

I need time. I don’t know who I am without dance. Or after…after losing the baby. I don’t know who I am at all . I need to figure myself out, get better. I can’t do that with you here.

Leaving was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but I always thought after time, she would still want me .

Scrubbing a hand down my face, I search for the right words. I feel like I’m being strangled. Frustration claws at me, and time feels like it’s slipping through my fingers. I can’t leave again. She might need time, but I need her.

“Elsie—I—” A breath heaves out of me. “It’s been two months.”

Her eyes connect with mine, the blue of the summer Montana sky. “Sixty-three days.”

The fact that she’s been counting soothes some of the hurt roaring in my chest, but it still lingers.

I need to touch her, feel her, beg her not to make me leave again.

I dare to take a step closer. She looks so small, wrapped in our comforter, shivering either from cold or pain or nerves or a mixture of all three.

“Els, please,” I beg, not caring how my voice breaks, how desperate I sound. “Don’t make me leave again. We can figure this out together.”

For a moment, she almost looks like she might give in, like she might let me stay, but I see the moment the shutters drop over her eyes, and I know I’ve lost.

Her head shakes ever so slightly, looking like the movement is taking all her strength. “I can’t.” The words sound rough, like she’s forcing them out.

I want to protest, to tell her I’m not leaving.

I want to push like I did last night, see if it makes her come alive again.

But I don’t want to risk it having the opposite effect.

I’ve never been able to stand seeing her hurting.

So I force myself to nod, even though everything inside me is screaming to do the opposite. “Okay.”

Her shoulders slump and relief colors her features. I think we both know she would have caved if I’d pressed her, but I don’t want to. I want to come back when she’s ready, when she wants me to, even if every minute apart is ripping me to shreds.

It doesn’t keep me from drawing closer, from wrapping my arms around her, breathing in the achingly familiar scent of her—amber and vanilla, leftover perfume that I can imagine her spraying onto her neck last night.

She sinks into me, inhaling the way I just did, digging her face into the crook of my neck.

We’ve always fit together so perfectly, like we were made with each other in mind.

“I made breakfast,” I say into her hair, the soft strands feeling like silk against my lips. “I can stay, if you want. Just to eat.”

She shakes her head, causing strands of her hair to get stuck in my mustache. Her voice is muffled by my neck when she says, “I have to go to work.”

I pull back, looking down at her, taking in all the familiar curves of her face—the pert nose tipped up to the sky, the blue eyes framed by lashes light enough to be almost invisible, the freckles covering her cheeks and forehead and nose, the berry-pink lips I love so much.

Her eyes connect with mine. “You got a job?”

Warring emotions fight inside me. On one hand, I’m thrilled for her. Elsie is the most driven person I know, and being without a job has been difficult for her. On the other hand, I hate that I didn’t know. That I didn’t get to celebrate with her. That her life is happening without me.

“Yeah,” she says, a hand coming up from inside the blanket to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “At the dance studio. Ballet instructor.”

My brow wrinkles. “Are you going to be okay? You’re not going to aggravate your injury?” The tear to her Achilles that permanently ended her dance career. The one that required two surgeries and months of recovery.

She shakes her head, and when she speaks, there’s sadness tingeing her voice. “No, I won’t be dancing. Just teaching.”

I want to ask more questions, like if throwing herself back into this world is going to be a good thing or a bad thing for her, but she said she wants to figure things out on her own, and I don’t want to get in the way.

So I just nod and release her, even though my hands protest at the movement, itching to return to her hips. “I’m proud of you, Els.”

A sheen coats her eyes, but she blinks it away. “Thank you, Beau.”

The ache in my chest spreads because I know I need to leave now, that I need to go back to my cabin at the ranch. Alone. When all I want is to stay here where I belong. Keep my vows to love and cherish and protect her.

But I know that’s not what she needs or wants right now, and I’m trying my hardest to do what she asks. Even though every cell in my body rebels at it.

“I guess I’ll be going, then.” My voice sounds rough, emotion clogging my throat, and I know Elsie hears it.

“Okay,” she says softly, head dipping down.

Before I can talk myself out of it, I tip her chin up so her eyes meet mine once more.

They’re wide and sad and so heartbreaking to look at that I almost wish I hadn’t done it.

But I force myself to hold her gaze as I say, “Elsie, I know you need time, and I’m fighting myself every day to give it to you, but I want you to know that no matter how long you take, I’ll be waiting for you at the end of it.

I know what I want, and no amount of time is going to change that. ”

I don’t give her a chance to respond before I turn on my heel and stride out the door of my own house, forcing myself to leave my wife for the second time.