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Hayes’ arms tighten around me, pulling me closer into the warmth of his body, his hold possessive even when no one else is around. And that might be my favorite part about this whole night.? That it’s been just us two sharing these heated, and now quiet, tender moments where our guard isn’t up.

“You smell like rain,” he murmurs against my damp hair, voice thick with exhaustion. “And me.”

I smile, twisting in his embrace so I can face him in his bed where we’re curled up. His arms don’t loosen like he’s afraid to let go.

“Do you like that I smell like you?”

He hums, pressing his nose into the curve of my neck, inhaling deeply while my fingers sift through his hair. “Yeah,” he says, voice quieter this time. “I really do.”

We stay like that, wrapped up in each other while the last remnants of the spring storm rattle the windows, the air still heavy with the scent of rain and earth.

Our home, the place that somehow, against all logic, pulled us back together, feels different tonight.

Or maybe it’s us that’s different. Maybe something shifted in the barn, in the storm, in the way he looked at me before he kissed me like he meant it and the way he fucked me like he cared.

I don’t know what’s going through his head, if he’s overthinking everything that we’ve done, if he’s already planning his exit and our divorce for after our wedding. But something’s changed. I feel it. I just wish he’d say he feels it too.

I brush my lips gently against his jaw. “Tomorrow… we’re getting fake married. Again.”

Hayes pulls back slightly, his hazel eyes locked onto mine. There’s something there—something searching in his gaze. Is he about to tell me he wants a divorce when tomorrow is over? Oh god, I can’t handle that right now.

“Regan…”

I press my lips to his, swallowing whatever he’s about to say with a kiss.

Slow. Soft. Grateful. Because I am. No matter what happens between us from here on out, I’m grateful that he’s done this for me and for my dreams. I’ll recover from the heartbreak.

It’ll hurt like hell, but I’ll find a way through.

“Thank you for doing this. For the business, I mean. This whole thing, it’s the perfect way to showcase the business.

It’s such a fun, unique idea, and your sister was brilliant to suggest it.

” I shake my head with a breathy laugh. “I’m just so glad it’s all coming together.

And I know that this is a sacrifice for you.

I know you never wanted to get married, especially not twice. ”

His lips twitch at the corner, but he doesn’t argue it.

I exhale, running a finger down his chest, memorizing every strong muscle that’s pulsing there and the light scars that tell of a retired athlete once at the top of his career.

“If you want to divorce quietly when this is all over, we can divide up the property. I’m just so... I don’t know, emotional, and happy that Mrs. Mayberry’s dream is coming true.”

Hayes doesn’t respond. He doesn’t tell me that he wants to stay together or divorce.

Instead, he kisses me. And this kiss isn’t soft, isn’t grateful.

It’s punishing. It steals my breath, makes my pulse stutter, and when he pulls back, there’s something in his eyes I haven’t seen before.

Something wounded. I can’t tell what he’s thinking, and I feel completely out of my depth here.

I wish he’d give me something more so that I don’t feel so confused, but even that feels like it’d be asking a lot.

“I…” He hesitates, jaw flexing like he’s fighting himself. “Shortly before I retired from bull riding, my buddy from the circuit, Samuel, fell for a woman I’d casually dated a few years prior. Vanessa. They called them buckle bunnies.”

“Oh?” I blink, recognizing the name. Scarlett had mentioned that name once in passing but I wasn’t expecting him to talk about her and certainly not now.

“No bad blood or anything,” Hayes continues.

“I was happy for him. They got married. I sat at their wedding as his best man, watched them say their vows, and took shots with him afterwards.” His voice tightens slightly.

“You’re right—marriage was never something I wanted.

Not for myself. But I can appreciate why others might want that. ”

He pauses, his gaze distant now, staring at something I can’t see.

“My dad…” His throat works around the words, like they physically pain him.

“My dad wasn’t a great father. He wasn’t a great husband.

My mom left him and me when I was little.

Then he met Seth and Scarlett’s mom and got her pregnant.

Maybe he thought he’d get a do-over with her and his new kids.

Maybe he thought he could fix the mess he made the first time around, be a better man.

Or maybe he never even cared to try, but he didn’t change his stripes. ”

Hayes lets out a humorless laugh, shaking his head. “He was a shitty father to them, too. A shitty husband to their mother until she…took her own life and left all three of us to be raised by a single, fractured father.”

My chest tightens. “Hayes…” I reach up, touch his face, brushing my thumb along the sharp line of his cheekbone.

No wonder he’s closed off. No wonder he’s afraid of commitment. His only examples of family and marriage were built on abandonment and destruction. The two mothers he had, both left him in different ways and his father never showed him an example of how to be a husband.

He exhales slowly, pressing into my touch like he needs it.

“Yeah. So, watching Samuel and Vanessa get married? I was happy for them. Genuinely. And it felt like a new beginning for me too. I retired shortly after, started medical school and left the whole bull riding world behind.” His eyes darken.

“Then a few months later… I got the call that he’d been killed on a ride. ”

My stomach plummets and I press a firm hand to his chest. “Oh my god.”

Hayes nods once, staring at the ceiling like he can still hear the echoes of that phone call.

“It sucked. It was tough.” He swallows hard.

“It was my ride, too. Well, would have been. That bull was a mean one, Samuel didn’t know how to handle him.

He shouldn’t have been on it. I told him not to take the ride if it was with that one, but he clearly didn’t listen. ”

I go still. “You were supposed to be on that bull?”

His eyes flick back to mine. “Yeah.”

I don’t know what to say. What could I possibly say to that? I do the only thing that feels right. I wrap my arms around him, press my forehead to his, and hold on.

“Well… after that, Vanessa and I kind of got back together.” Hayes’ voice is quiet, almost reluctant, like he’s pulling the words from a place he doesn’t visit often.

“I think we were just thrown into it—grief does that. We were both wrecked over what happened with Samuel. I was in med school, working my ass off in Charlotte and she was in town. Despite feeling a connection with her, I knew it wasn’t going anywhere because the connection was to Sam, not her.

But she wanted more. So much more, and I knew that too. ”

His hand flexes against the sheets, like he’s gripping something invisible.

“And I felt guilty. Constantly. For not being able to give it to her. Or maybe… for not wanting to.” He exhales sharply.

“I always figured I’d be a shitty husband.

A shitty father. So, I didn’t want to subject any woman or kids to that, but I felt like I had to be there for her while she recovered from Samuel’s death. ”

I nod my head, because now I feel like I’m finally starting to understand him better. The deep, unresolved wounds that Hayes has been carrying since childhood. The reason he keeps women at arm’s length, always afraid of letting them know.

“When I ended things with Vanessa, she told me I’d never be able to give a woman what she really wants,” he says, voice flat, detached. “Because I’m too damaged and that I shouldn’t have started a relationship back up with her again if I didn’t know I could commit to marrying her someday.”

I freeze.

That might be one of the most fucked-up things a woman—one who was supposed to love him, who once loved his friend—could have ever said to him.

And it doesn’t take much to see how deeply those words cut but also, I hear the hurt in the words she shared.

I’m sure she was acting in her own pain too.

A mistake made she made because she wanted to feel closer to her husband.

He shrugs like it doesn’t matter, like he’s long since accepted it.

“So, you know… she ended things. And honestly? It was the right thing for her to do. Last I heard, she got remarried a year ago. Probably happier. Probably with some guy who can give her everything she’s dreamed about that I couldn’t.”

He rolls onto his back, staring at the ceiling, his expression unreadable.

I watch him in silence, my chest tight with things I don’t know how to say. The loss of his friend. The guilt that he carries which feels misplaced, but real. And Vanessa—someone he obviously cared for, maybe even loved, but could never let himself fully have.

And then there’s me.

Us.

What we did last night. What we did tonight. What we are to each other.

Will I be another Vanessa? Will I get too close and fall hard, only for him to push me away?

Will he ice me out so hard that I’m forced to be the one to walk away first?

Will I end up finding my real person, my true love, and look back at this time with him as just another mistake I needed to make?

Will I be like that woman in the brewery, talking about years gone past and how he was the best fuck of my life?

Maybe.

But for now, it’s a risk I want to take. Even as I tell myself to keep my guard up.

I stay curled on my side, watching him as he stares at nothing, both of us lost in thoughts we won’t share aloud. Tomorrow, we get remarried. And after that? I have no idea. I know what I want but it doesn’t seem like he’s capable of giving it to me and I don’t think he knows what he wants either.

In the meantime, will we date? Will we keep hooking up, chasing these brief moments where we can’t get enough of each other until one of us finds someone better? I’m not sure.

If anyone’s going to leave first, it’ll be me, won’t it? I’ll be the one who has to force the divorce. Because Hayes doesn’t see himself ever getting married. But I can also see him having a hard time seeing me with someone else.

He never even responded to my comment about divorcing once this wedding is done. What is he thinking?

I exhale softly, exhaustion pulling me under, eyes drifting shut as the storm outside fades to a quiet drizzle.

These are questions for another day.

Because tomorrow, I’m getting married in front of half the town of Whitewood Creek and I need rest so that I can look beautiful on my wedding day to the man with his arms wrapped around me tightly tonight.