Page 145 of Tempting Wyatt

“I said, ask her to stay, not pledge your eternal love. See if she could spend another week or two out here, so you two can get to know each other some more. Anyone can see this girl got to you. Man up and fucking tell her. It’s not rocket science.”

This time, I don’t stop working. I’ve wasted too much time on this conversation already.

“You don’t know shit, little brother. And it doesn’t matter. You want her to stay, you go ask her. Some of us have actual fucking work to do. You know, trying to save the legacy our family is about to fucking lose.” I turn and return to my post driver. Done with this conversation and done with him.

Isaac is entirely too close to me when he speaks again. “Hiding from yourself won’t save this ranch. And working yourself to death won’t do shit for our family’s legacy,” he sneers, shaking his head in disappointment. “I’d expect this shit from Caleb. But you? I always thought you were better than this.”

My breathing is labored. It’s been a decade since I’ve come to blows with any of my brothers.

But I am dangerously close at the moment.

He lifts his head, his eyes glinting beneath his cowboy hat when they meet mine.

“I’ve looked up to you my whole life, Wyatt.” He looks at the fence line like it amuses him. “Maybe even more than I looked up to Dad. But if you let her go, if you don’t at least try, then you’re not the man I always thought you were.”

His words almost reach me through my anger, through the pain seeing the truth caused, and through the steel wall I slammed down to make sure this shit never happens again. Almost.

I tilt my chin up at him. “Guess that’s why they say never meet your heroes.”

I return to my fence posts, thankful for the silence, broken only by my own grunting from the hardest labor I know how to do.

When I break a few minutes later to get more posts from the truck, my brother is driving away from me. And he’s taking the last of the sunlight with him.

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

ivy

WYATT NEVER ANSWERS MY TEXTS. Or my calls.

He doesn’t come to my goodbye dinner at the main house, just as his text said he wouldn’t.

It’s an odd thing to be ghosted by someone when you’re practically living in their home.

Over dinner, I tell Laurel, Isaac, Willow, and Sutton the details of the offer. Sutton squeals and asks if she’ll get to meet any celebrities. I promise to try and get Elena Ortega and Eli James on board for this one. I’ve been picturing them as the leads the entire time I’ve been writing.

Laurel hugs me with tears in her eyes, but her happiness is subdued when I tell her I haven’t talked to Wyatt about the offer yet because he’s gone radio silent.

“You’re staying another night, right?”

I nod. “That’s the plan. But I was going to head out early in the morning so I can get these meetings moving forward and make sure the advance is wired to the ranch as soon as possible.”

“Just give him some time,” she says softly. “He’sprobably struggling with you leaving and trying to figure out how to say goodbye.”

Isaac checks to make sure I can get myself back to the cabin, then leaves more abruptly than usual. I suspect he’s going to find his missing brother.

After another round of emotional goodbyes from the Logan women, I head toward Wyatt’s cabin. On the way, I try to plan how I’m going to explain the screenplay and the streaming deal to him.

But when I get to his cabin, it doesn’t matter what I’d planned. Because the door is locked.

I don’t have a key. And I can’t be certain, but I think I hear the scraping of a boot against hardwood.

I’m pretty sure he’s in there. And avoiding me.

Standing on his porch, on the wrong side of a locked door, triggers painful memories I’ve spent countless hours processing in therapy.

When I was little, my mom used to lock me out when she had company. She would tell me to go play at the neighbors’, whichever ones had kids around my age. We lived in apartments, so usually, the neighbor would feel sorry for me and just let me stay until she turned back up or unlocked the door.

Sometimes, that took days.