Rosalie simply didn’t love him the same way she once had, and she wasn’t going to pack up her whole life and follow him again. Instead, she went back inside and started putting together the edible cookie dough that went on top of the brownies she’d just finished. She planned to cut them, freeze them, and ship them to Lee in the morning.

  He’d get the treats the same day, and she warmed at the thought of him smiling when he opened the package and saw what it was and who it was from.

  A couple of evenings later, Rosalie checked her phone for the umpteenth time. Lee had not called or texted, and he was now a half-hour late. She dialed him, because if she didn’t need to pace in front of her window in her heels, she wasn’t going to.

  He didn’t answer, which only added fire to her frustration. She didn’t bother to leave a message, because he’d see she called.

  Once, then twice ten minutes later, then three times ten minutes after that.

  Her stomach roared at her for something to eat, and Rosalie kicked off her shoes. Her boyfriend was almost an hour late picking her up for their “special” anniversary date, and she honestly didn’t want to go anymore.

  She went into the kitchen and pulled out a container of leftovers. She didn’t even know what was inside as she tossed it in the microwave and hit the minute button. Fuming, she ran through the reasons why Lee would be so late and not answer his phone.

  His mama.

  His daddy too, for that matter.

  A family emergency.

  Something had happened on the farm.

  Perhaps he’d gotten dizzy and fallen again.

  He’d lost his glasses. Or his phone. “Or his sanity,” Rosalie muttered, the anger inside her still simmering.

  For any of the above reasons—besides the one where he didn’t have his device—he could’ve called her or answered her calls. He was so proud, always trying to handle everything himself. He did carry a lot of responsibility around Sweet Water Falls Farm, but some of that he chose to shoulder alone.

  If he was having a family emergency, he should’ve called her specifically because then he wouldn’t have to go through that alone. He’d promised he would.

  While her dinner-for-one heated, she went down the hall and changed out of her carefully chosen clothes for the evening. Whatever Lee had planned was surely ruined. No one held a table at a fancy restaurant for over an hour. Events didn’t simply wait for the mighty Lee Cooper and his date to decide to show up before they started.

  Rosalie wished her thoughts weren’t so poisoned, and as she pulled on a tie-dyed sweatshirt and a pair of loose, black pants, she released another breath, forcing all of the tension out of her muscles. She didn’t want to feel negative toward Lee. He was a busy man, and he did work hard. He tried, and he cared, and she knew that.

  “He’s also very proud,” she whispered to herself as she sank onto her bed. She studied her hands, the next question in her head too dangerous to give voice to.

  Do you think he’ll ever let you take care of him?

  Why should he? Lee didn’t need anyone, least of all her. Helplessness lashed through Rosalie, bringing stinging tears to her eyes. Somewhere outside of her consciousness, the microwave beeped, and she got to her feet to go eat.

  The container held a sausage-stuffed pepper with Tex-Mex rice, and Rosalie ate half of it before the doorbell rang. She got to her feet, her pulse pounding, especially when a fist joined the party, and Lee said, “Rose, it’s me.”

  She flew toward the door then, fueled by adrenaline and a bit of cayenne pepper. She yanked open the door to find the handsome cowboy standing there with an anxious look on his face. “Howdy.”

  Rosalie scoffed, spun on her heel, and marched away from him.

  “Rose,” he said after her.

  “Don’t,” she said, several years of holding her tongue about to be broken. She picked up her fork as if she’d take another bite of pepper, but she couldn’t. She faced him, lifted her chin, and got ready to vomit out everything.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, his eyes scanning down to her bare feet. “You’re not dressed.”

  “Sure I am,” she said. “For a cozy evening in, without my daughter, because the nanny I have to pay overtime tonight took her to a movie. So I can’t just go pick her up and save myself a few dollars.”

  Lee opened his mouth, but Rosalie held up her hand. The cowboy was smart, because he snapped his lips shut. “I called you three times,” she said. “Tell me your phone is lost or broken.”

  He said nothing.

  Rosalie folded her arms and cocked one hip. “Tell me your mama or daddy is in the hospital.”

  Lee dropped his chin toward his chest.

  “So it’s the farm.”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Fine,” she said. “I don’t care about the farm, Lee. I care that you didn’t call me.”

  “Time moves funny out there,” he said.

  “Then you need to figure out how to rope it and make it move right,” she spat back. “Or at least look at your blasted phone when it rings.”

  He looked up, some fire in the forest now. “To be honest, it was the farm, and then Mama. There’s a lot going on all the time. Something I think will take five minutes takes an hour. Then Mama needs help getting up. Then I get tied up in a conversation there. Then, then, then.”

  “One of those thens should be you calling your girlfriend and letting her know she doesn’t need to spend an hour getting ready for a date that isn’t going to happen.”

  “I didn’t want to cancel,” he said.

  “No.” Rosalie picked up her half-eaten dinner and took it over to the sink. “You just want me to be styled and ready for whenever you are.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Why did you make the drive at all?” she demanded. “You could’ve called when you got in the truck—a half-hour ago—and rescheduled.”

  “I didn’t want to reschedule.”

  They could talk in circles forever, and Rosalie was suddenly too tired to say another word. She shook her head and said nothing.

  “This is how life is on the farm,” he said, throwing the words at her. “This is what I wanted to talk to you about. If you think you can live a farm life, with my sick, crazy, loud family. Be a farmer’s wife, who might have to keep the time for her husband, because things get away from him sometimes.”

  He sucked in a long breath, and Rosalie looked over to him, finding fury and anguish on his face. She wanted to reassure him instantly that she could do what he’d just described. Of course she could be his timekeeper, and his secret-keeper, and the keeper of his heart too.

  She wanted to tell him that she’d been dreaming of moving into that cabin with him, and leaving town behind to escape into the hills and woods with him, to live the exact life he’d described.

  Autumn would have a full-time father, and Ford would complete their family on the weekends and all summer long. Heck, she was a lot younger than Lee, and she wanted more kids. Especially a child with his auburn hair.

  Lee was a good man, and he tried hard. But what if trying wasn’t enough? What if she’d always be disappointed by him?

  Her emotions tornadoed and tangled, and nothing came out of Rosalie’s mouth.

  26

  Lee sat on the edge of his bed, the world dark around him. Heck, the world was dark inside him too. He stood, a groan accompanying the twinge of pain that pulled through his lower back. He half-hobbled, half-walked into the bathroom, mentally berating himself for working himself so hard yesterday.

  Not only was it not necessary, but it didn’t drive away Rosalie or the silence between them. He wanted to call her and try to explain everything again. The first time had gone so poorly, and Lee couldn’t get his mind to focus on all he had said, what she’d said, and what the next step should be for the two of them.

  In all honesty, it felt like there was no next step for the two of them. Lee’s mood worsened, and he hadn’t even left the cabin yet. He curled his fingers into fists and pressed his knuckles against the granite countertops in his bathroom as he leaned forward to look into his eyes.

  Exhaustion ran through him. Over him. Around him. He wanted to go back to bed and forget the past five days, but he didn’t know how to do that. Dawn came every single day at Sweet Water Falls Farm, and with it came customers. Lee was responsible for making sure their commercial customers stayed up-to-date with everything, from the freshness of their products, to when the truck left with their butter, and when the delivery would happen.

  He’d started talking to someone about building a Cooper & Co app, so their customers could track everything from their phones. They could make payments, see invoices, get tracking numbers, and create new orders. Anything. Everything.

  The weight of the entire farm rested on Lee’s shoulders, and he sagged under the burden of it. Not only did he have to carry the load of the administration office, but he had to make sure Mama and Daddy were taken care of, and he had to now avoid Will and Gretchen, the happiest newlyweds who’d ever existed. He also hadn’t gone out of his way to talk to Travis, because it felt like every other word out of his mouth was, “Shay.”

  Shay this. Shay that. Gretchen this. Gretchen that.

  Lee didn’t want to hear about how blissful everyone was when he was so terribly miserable.

  His phone buzzed back in the bedroom, and Lee had the strong desire to throw it out the window in the general direction of the pond and hope with everything he had that he’d hit the water. Hard.

  He ignored his device for now, because if there was a problem before five-thirty a.m., he didn’t need to know about it. He really didn’t.

  He showered and shaved, dressed and dropped his phone in his back pocket without looking at it. In the kitchen, he started a pot of coffee and pulled out a single-serve container of oatmeal. As he held it in his hand, he felt like the most pathetic man in the entire world.

  He tossed the oatmeal away from him and pulled his phone out again. He dialed Cherry while swiping away the texts from his other sister. It was her night to cook, and he hadn’t seen her whole message. Only enough to know she wanted him to trade her nights.

  His first inclination was to say no, but in the end, it didn’t matter. He didn’t have anything going on tonight. He didn’t have anything going on tomorrow night either. He didn’t drive to town mid-week anymore, and he’d force himself to go pick up Ford on Friday night, just like he had over the weekend.

  “Leland Howard Cooper,” Cherry said, her voice set on growly bear. “Why are you callin’ me at five-forty-five in the morning?”

  He hadn’t paid much attention to the time, though he knew it was early. “I⁠—”

  “Is it Mama?”

  “No,” he said, changing the form of his sentence.

  “Daddy?”

  “No.”

  “Is anyone we’re directly related to in the hospital?”

  “No.”

  “Then I’m hanging up, and you can call me back in two hours.”

  “Cherry, I need—” He stopped talking when something triggered in his brain that his sister had actually hung up on him. He stared at the phone as it darkened, and he immediately wanted to call her back. Her or Rosalie, and since he couldn’t summon the courage to call his girlfriend, he set his phone on the counter and pulled open the fridge.

  “She’s not your girlfriend anyway,” he muttered to himself. They hadn’t exactly broken up. He’d never said the words. She hadn’t either. Rose wouldn’t change back into her nicer clothes and go to the violin concerto with him either, and Lee had left her house only twenty minutes after he’d arrived at it.

  Of course, every other night since then had been low-key and drama-free. He could’ve driven to town any of those nights and taken Rose out for an amazing candlelight dinner with a group of musicians playing sweet, romantic songs nearby.

  He should’ve rescheduled with her. Or called her back. Or texted. She would’ve been happy with a text, and since he hadn’t done it, now Lee wasn’t sure she’d ever be happy with him in general.

  The doubts flew from one corner of his mind to the other as he made himself scrambled eggs and two slices of asiago cheese toast. He loved the nutty flavor of it, especially with a lot of butter, even if he didn’t like the burnt cheese smell in the cabin. It would air out by lunchtime, and Lee wouldn’t even be able to remember what he’d eaten for breakfast.

  His phone rang, and Lee swiped on the call from Rissa. “Yes,” he said into the phone. “I can switch you.”

  “You could’ve texted.”

  Lee pressed his eyes closed in a long blink. “I had a couple of things on my mind,” he said, not trying to hide his annoyance. “We can’t all be perfect, you know?”

  “I didn’t say you had to be perfect. I said you should’ve texted me back.”

  “I’m hanging up,” Lee said.

  “Lee,” Rissa practically yelled, and he slowed the motion of his phone away from his face. He said nothing, but he didn’t hang up, and Rissa seemed to take that as a sign to keep talking. “We all know you and Rosalie aren’t together anymore.”

  He lifted the phone back to his ear, his heart pounding through his whole body. He didn’t know what to say to that, so once again, he stayed quiet.

  “I can help you come up with some ideas to talk to her again,” Rissa said, her voice much quieter and less bossy. “Not tonight, because Spence and I have a late doctor’s appointment, but tomorrow.”

  “I might die today,” Lee whispered. Deep down, he knew he wouldn’t. He’d broken up with women before. He’d had them lie to him, cheat on him, and misunderstand him. He knew the depths of despair keenly, and that was precisely why he’d given up dating.

  But this separation from Rosalie felt deeper and more personal. He completely felt like he might expire later that day if he didn’t speak to her soon. He knew in that moment that he was in love with Rosalie Reynolds, and he had to do something about it.

  “I’m coming over,” Rissa said.

  Lee’s phone beeped and vibrated, and he pulled it away from his ear to see his other sister’s name on the screen. “You don’t need to come over today,” Lee said. “I’m okay.”

  “You’re a liar,” Rissa said.

  “Cherry’s calling. I have to go.”

  “This early?” Rissa sounded suspicious, and Lee needed to get her off the phone, quick. “Tell her I want that pumpkin pancake mix!”

  “’Bye,” Lee said, hanging up by swiping over to get his older sister’s call connected. “It hasn’t been two hours.”

  “I have learned through the grapevine that you’ve broken up with Miss Rosalie.”

  Lee’s chest caved in on itself. “No hello?”

  “I’m assuming she’s why you called me before six o’clock this morning.”

  “It’s been five days,” Lee said. “I’m dying, Cher. Help me.” He wasn’t above begging, not with Cherry. They’d been through so much together, and Lee would help her in any situation. “Please help me.”

  “Start at the beginning,” Cherry said, with a huge sigh. “You’re on speaker, and Mister Whiskers gets yowly for breakfast about seven. I can’t be responsible for what you might hear.”

  Lee smiled to himself, because Cherry could always make him smile. “Doing your hair?”

  “If I’m up this early, I might as well go into work with perfectly straight hair.”

  “Is Doctor Freeman going to be in the office today?”

  “There may or may not be a meeting,” Cherry said with plenty of self-righteousness in her voice.

  “What about you and Jed?”

  “What?” Cherry asked, and a loud crash came through the line. Speaker phone. Lee stirred sugar and cream into his coffee, thinking Will would never add calories to his morning caffeine. “There is no me and Jed.” Cherry’s voice held plenty of acid.

  “Yeah, well, you flirted your face off at the picnic.”

  “That’s called practice,” Cherry said. “For Doctor Freeman.”

  “Flirting is what you’re calling practice now?”

  “Did you think we were together?”

  “I thought you might be interested in him, yes.”

  “How are we talking about me?” Cherry asked, and Lee knew there was something to her and Jed. Cherry wouldn’t talk about it until she was good and ready, that much he knew, and he didn’t press the issue at the moment. “Tell me what happened with Rosalie. Don’t leave anything out.”

  Lee wasn’t sure if he could start at the beginning and get through everything by seven a.m. Still, he thought he better try. “I think it started when Mama went into the hospital when she had that infection…”

  To his credit, he finished only twenty minutes later. Cherry remained silent, and that didn’t give Lee much hope. “Cherry?”

  “First off, I just want to say that I love you, because you’re my brother. But Lee, seriously? The Good Lord put us on this earth in the day and age where we have cellphones. You should’ve called her.”

  “I didn’t ask for a lecture,” Lee said. “I need you to help me get her back.”

  “I’m going to need some time to think,” Cherry said. “This is bigger than a fancy restaurant.”

  “I was going to take her to the violin concerto, but it ended over the weekend.”

  “Does she like classical music?”

  “Yeah,” Lee said with a sigh. “And sour candy, her daughter, the beach, baking, and all of her cute pencil skirts. I don’t know how to take all of that and make something for her that tells her I love her.” Lee only realized what he’d said after the words had come out of his mouth. He couldn’t take them back, and the best he could do was hope Cherry had gone temporarily deaf.

  “Lee,” she whispered, all traces of her annoyance and exasperation with him gone.

  “I know, okay?” He didn’t want to repeat it, though the love he felt for Rosalie flowed through his bloodstream. “Help me, Cherry. Think fast, please.”