Page 78 of A Rancher's Heart
“I’ve never known what to do about those damn ornaments.” The words escaped Caleb like a confession, soft and low. “It’s one of the first pictures we have of the girls, and Dustin saved up his money to give them as a gift. Dare thought I should keep them because of that, but it’s never sat right with me. I always hide them in the box so the girls don’t see them every year and be reminded all over.”
Caleb stared at the ornaments in the palm of her hand. Tamara swallowed hard, throat tightening. The girls might not see them, but keeping them meanthedid.
He kept staring down, away from her gaze. “She left us.”
She knew that from the night with Emma, but he seemed to be talking about something more. Tamara sat motionless on the couch beside where he knelt on the floor.
“Emma was right. Wendy just up and left. I knew she wasn’t happy. Hell, she hadn’t been happy except for brief moments since we finished sayingI do, and instead of going away for a big honeymoon, we came back here.”
“Caleb.”
He shook his head. “No, you gotta hear this, because if things get bad tomorrow, you need to know.”
Panic shot through Tamara. “Wendy’s not coming here, is she?”
His eyes widened. “Hell, no.” Absolutely firm. “She has no rights to the girls. Gave them up completely, but sometimes she gets it into her head to call on Christmas, or their birthdays.” He gestured at the ornaments in her palm. “Like a reminder in a box that everything fell apart. I’ve never let her talk to them. She doesn’t deserve to be a part of their lives.”
Tamara took a deep breath, curling her fingers around what was pain in trinket form. She laid her other hand on his shoulder. “You want to tell me about it?”
She expected to get a gruff denial, maybe even have him walk from the room.
Shockingly, he nodded. “She wanted me to sell. I think she had a whole different idea of what it meant to be a rancher’s wife than the reality. Or at leastourreality. I couldn’t buy her every frilly thing she wanted. I couldn’t afford to make the house fancier. My sisters tried to help, but they were finishing high school, and Dusty was still a teenager, and I was having to be a father to them as well, and…” He dipped his head. “I swear I tried, I really did—”
God. He felt as guilty about this as Emma had, for as little reason. “Of course you did. Damn, Caleb that’s the last thing you have to convince me of. I’ve seen you with your family. You work yourself into the ground to try and make them happy. You’ve done so much.”
“Wasn’t enough,” he rejoined.
The unspokenI wasn’t enoughhung on the air.
With an explosion of energy, Caleb shot to his feet. He took the ornaments from her hand and marched to the kitchen, and she watched as he silently opened the trashcan and threw the mementos away. Shoulders rigid, body tense.
Tamara waited until he returned, settling on the couch beside her and staring into the fire.
She ached to find a way to comfort him, but it didn’t seem her time to talk.
He was the one to keep sharing. “Last time we had contact she was based in Edmonton with her new husband. A sixty-year-old with a well-established bank account.”
Tamara didn’t like to think poorly of a person without ever having met them, but actions spoke damn loud. Between the bullshit Wendy had pulled on Emma and leaving Caleb to find a sugar daddy, it was pretty clear this wasn’t a simple relationship misunderstanding.
Sometimes people were horrid. This was one of those times.
“As long as she’s fully and legally out of the girls’ lives, and yours, I think it’s perfectly fine to move forward.”
“I should’ve told you all this months ago,” he grumbled. “Don’t know if I was acting the fool, or trying to not overload you, or trying to protect my ego.”
Confusion rushed in. “Why would I think less of you because your wife decided she didn’t want to be married? Do you really think I care much for the opinion of a woman who would leave her daughters?”
“I wasn’t enough to make her stay, not even the girls were. She didn’t want to be a mom, she didn’t want to be my wife.” He stared at the tree sightlessly. “Hell, she didn’twantme, period.”
He turned to face her, as if shocked at all the words that had escaped him. She stroked a hand over his stubble-rough cheek as she examined him closely. A small furrow had formed between his brows, the muscles under her palm twitching lightly as he stared back.
“Trust me, Caleb, any woman who doesn’twantyou— It’s not you who’s got issues. It’s them. It’s one hundred percent them.”
She stroked her thumb over his lower lip, trembling as he snuck his tongue out to lick across the pad.
Silence surrounded them but for the music drifting from the speakers and the crackle of the fire.
He wasn’t going to say anything, and she’d pretty much said anything that needed saying, so she leaned forward and let their lips connect.
