had to handle a delivery shipment or pay the bills. My landlady’s not going to appreciate it if rent doesn’t get paid. Plus, I don’t want him to be alone on Christmas.”
Rick’s voice was quiet, his eyes locked on the road. Every single muscle in his arm was tensed.
“You’re breaking up with me.” She didn’t even need to phrase it as a question. Lana hadn’t said the words accusingly, but Rick still flinched.
“It’s not because I want to,” he told her, voice lowering to a rough whisper.
“And yet, here we are, full of too many carbohydrates, and you’re about to end things.”
Finally, he looked at her.
“Is there a reason why? Or should we call an end to a good thing and say we’ll still be friends?”
Trying for breezy and light only fell flat. Rick pulled off the road, hitting the hazard lights. “Lana, we both know the reason.”
“It’s because of Silas’s power play, isn’t it? Rick, I swear I’m going to fix—”
He cut her off with a shake of his head. “That’s not why. Am I worried about what might happen? Yeah. But I’ve been worried every day for years about whether my business will keep afloat. If I’m screwing up by not taking tourists’ money. If I’m screwing up with Diego after all. I worry all the damn time, Lana. What’s happening with the group is just more of the same.”
Rick’s hands gripped the steering wheel too tight as he sat there staring out at the expanse of snowy crop fields. “That’s how it’s always been. When you live in Moose Springs, you never have control of what happens to you. You just have to survive what’s constantly being thrown at you.”
“Like me.”
Hazel eyes found hers, despite her attempts not to look at him. “You are the best thing to happen to me. You’re amazing, Lana. Which is why this isn’t going to work and why I’m not going to hurt both of us by dragging it out.”
“I don’t understand,” she said softly. “You told me you loved me last night. I refuse to believe that wasn’t what you truly feel. So how does ‘I love you’ turn into ‘let’s break up’ by the next morning?”
“Your shoes click.”
She had no idea what that meant.
“I never noticed it before.” Rick pressed on in a gruff voice. “I mean, I did. But when you were with your family, every woman’s shoes clicked on the floor. Every man was wearing slacks.”
“You’re ending this because of my shoes?”
“No. I am just starting to realize that we live in different worlds. Your world is a lot bigger and a lot more important than mine. Being with me…your loyalty to my town…it’s costing you.”
“Whatever my mother said—”
“What she said was you might lose control of the Montgomery Group. A multibillion-dollar company. Lana, this is just a holiday fling. I didn’t realize what the stakes were at play. I can’t cost you that.”
“The choices I make in my professional life are my own, Rick.” Lana’s voice caught on his name.
“I know. And I have the choice to make things harder for you or to walk away.”
He made a soft, soothing noise in his throat, as if she were a deer about to shy away. Lana didn’t feel like a deer; she felt like a lion, digging its claws in, desperate not to let something good slip out of her hands.
She didn’t want to lose him.
“We don’t have anything in common, Lana. And this has been so good…” Rick’s voice choked, and he stopped talking. He cleared his throat roughly before continuing. “I’ve loved every minute with you. You make me laugh, and you make everything so much better. But one day, you’re going to wake up and realize the guy at the pool hall in some nowhere town doesn’t wear slacks on a Tuesday.”
“You’re being amazingly insulting to both of us.”
“Sweetheart, we don’t fit. And when you realize it, I don’t want to be a decade in and too far gone to survive watching you walk away. The first time gutted me, but you…I don’t think I’d get over it. You don’t know the damage you could do without even trying.”
Anger flared inside her. “Don’t you think I’m scared too? Rick, I’ve never told a man I loved him in my life. I don’t do flings, because I don’t want temporary. I want real. I want permanent. I want a home and a family and a life with someone. And I thought…”
She stopped midsentence because it