“That’s why I’m standing by my decision that you move on out. Ain’t no good gonna come from you living so near Ivy. Reckon you best keep your distance until you marry her.”

Until he married her? Wyatt seemed awfully confident, almost as if his being with Ivy was a foregone conclusion.

“Flynn said you could live with him until the wedding. And I’m agreeing to keep you on at the construction site as long as you need the work.”

Jericho had to set the McQuaid men straight, and fast. “I appreciate the offer to stay with Flynn as well as the offer of work. But I was serious about not being able to marry Ivy. I can’t do it.”

Wyatt folded his bulky, muscular arms. The fellow could hit as hard as Flynn, if not more so. Regardless, Jericho couldn’t lie to this man about his future with Ivy. “What’s stopping you? Another woman?”

“No. Of course not. I’m not interested in anyone else and never have been.” That didn’t come out right. It sounded an awful lot like an admission that Ivy was his one and only. Was she?

Wyatt cocked a brow.

Jericho shook his head, his frustration mounting. “I’m sorry, Wyatt. I’m not in a position in my life where I can think about marriage.”

“Why not?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Sometimes love is complicated, but you’ve gotta work through it.”

“In this case, I can’t work through it.”

Wyatt stared at Jericho as if trying to see down inside to help him figure out the problem. If Wyatt knew the danger that came with being a bounty hunter, he’d ride away with Ivy so fast, all Jericho would see would be the dust from their trail.

“Whether you’re willing to admit it or not, you love her.” Wyatt tilted his hat, as though readying to be on his way. “Reckon every cowhand this side of the Divide knows it but you. Best you untangle whatever’s holding you back before you end up losing her.”

Without giving Jericho a chance to respond, Wyatt turned and wove through the milling crowd toward his wagon and family. Not that Jericho could have responded. The whole conversation had taken him completely by surprise. From Ivy’s admission of guilt to Wyatt’s offer of his job back. Most jolting of all was Wyatt’s insistence that he loved Ivy.

Surely Wyatt wasn’t right. Did everyone else know it but him?

He tried to get his lungs working again. He was supposed to be proficient at hiding his emotions. But in the case of Ivy, apparently the only one he’d hidden his feelings from was himself.