But they didn’t exactly fix anything.

That was what she was going to do. She was going to go shower and eat a pie. A whole pie.

She was stomping out of the barn when she nearly ran into another person. She stopped and looked up, her heart catching when her eyes took hold of an intense blue gaze that she would know anywhere.

“What are you doing here, Dalton?” she asked.

“I have some things to say,” he responded.

He looked beautiful, wearing a black cowboy hat and T-shirt, tight Wrangler jeans that made her want to get her hands all over him.

She wanted to stab him with a pitchfork.

“We don’t have anything to say to each other. We’re not friends. We’re not friends and I’m never going to make you toast again.”

“I deserve that,” he said. “But the trouble is, Jamie, we are friends. We’re friends, and were a hell of a lot more. In fact, I didn’t know one woman could be so many different things. It was news to me.”

“Why are you here?” Emotion rose close to the surface. She was ready to cry again. She wasn’t even ashamed. “I told you that I love you. I put myself out there. I exposed myself, and you know that nothing in the world is scarier to me than that. You know that I spent my whole life protecting myself. Because I told you. I gave you all that information about me. You know things that no one else does, and you...you abused that. You really, seriously wounded me.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was a coward—you were right. I was blaming my actions on everyone but the person who’s really responsible. Me.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Go on.”

“Really?”

“You can keep on telling me how you messed up. I’m okay with that.” She crossed her arms and cocked her head to the side.

“I messed up. You did all this work, Jamie. You figured out how to deal with the things that scared you, and fall in love, anyway, and I...I couldn’t do that. Not fast enough. You’re right. I let myself think that I was the experienced one. That I was the one who didn’t have growing to do. But I did. I blamed my parents, but I let that go. I can’t blame them, not for my choices.” He took a breath. “Jamie, I have consistently aimed beneath what I truly want for most of my life. Since that first obstacle. That first time I lost something I cared about, I haven’t tried for anything I loved again. Because I didn’t want to keep putting myself out there and keep hurting like that. Because I watched my mother do it for so many years. I buried it all. Pretended that I was like my father. Like I just didn’t care about much but me. Like the rodeo and success and anonymous sex was enough for me. But it never was. That was never me. But a coward... Yeah, that I always was. But not you. You were brave. You were brave enough to cry.”