Page 60 of Tempting Wyatt (Triple Creek Ranch #1)

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’s probably 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.

I spent a lot of time in friends’ and sometimes strangers’ apartments, wearing out my welcome. And even more time in my own place, with my mom whispering to some guy not to worry, that I’d go to sleep or go next door soon.

Just like Heidi whispered to Malcolm.

I was around seven or eight years old when I realized my mom was only happy when I wasn’t around.

By then, I’d learned to hide when I knew she was having company before she could lock me out.

Under my bed, in a closet. Wherever. Then I’d hear her with a man who’d come over or on the phone with a friend when she thought I wasn’t there.

Giggling. Happy. Unburdened.

I realized I was a burden to her, so I made myself smaller and smaller, until I nearly disappeared. I didn’t ask for anything if I could help it, did my best not to disturb anything.

My child mind believed if I just barely existed, if I didn’t inconvenience her in any way, she would see how little trouble I was and love me more—or at least want me around more.

She didn’t.

Going to friend’s houses only made it worse because it was a stark reminder that some kid’s parents did like to be around them, play with them, ask about their day, laugh with them. Eventually, I started trying to find anywhere else to be. The park, the library, a twenty-four hour diner.

Some nights I just rode the public transit, people watching and making up stories for them in my head.

My pain turns to anger as I remember how hard Wyatt pushed to make me admit my real feelings. To admit what we were doing mattered and that it wasn’t just a no-strings rebound for me.

He promised I was safe with him.

Was this a game to him? Make me admit it wasn’t just a casual hookup so he could vanish and shut me out? Literally this time.

I feel sick thinking he could be capable of that. He isn’t. The man I’ve gotten to know isn’t. He’s real. And kind. And compassionate to his core. Loyal and honest.

But I once thought Malcolm was a good man, too.

Part of me wants to make excuses. Maybe Wyatt is hurt or one of the animals is injured. He told me he had to pull a cow up a muddy mountainside recently.

But I saw the truth in Laurel Logan’s eyes the moment I told her he’d gone missing.

She wasn’t worried about him. And worse, she wasn’t surprised.

Maybe this is Wyatt’s MO. Maybe this is how all his relationships have ended. Isaac did say he was a clean break kind of guy.

I can’t stand myself for caring so much, for being stupid enough to think this was real after only two weeks.

Apparently I’m so damn pathetic and love-starved that I’ll spend my life believing every guy who tells me I’m special. Right up until he shows me in the cruelest way possible that I’m not.

I refuse to spend another second outside a locked door. So I go to my cabin, pack my things, and lie awake until sunrise, trying to figure out why the man who so adamantly made me admit there were strings between us severed them without warning.