She licked her lips, and he could have sworn he saw her hand tremble on Libby’s hair as his daughter cuddled against her. “What about us, Hank?”

Well, there was an easy answer for that. “You come with us.”

Becca stared up at him. “To Foxtail?”

He nodded.

She looked over at her business, then at him. “Is it a big town?”

“Foxtail is. Couple hundred. But I don’t live directly in there. I’m about an hour away, more or less.”

Her face was pale. “More or less?”

“Everyone’s kinda spread out. There’s a couple houses clustered together along the road, but most of us are off on our land. You’d like it. The mountains are beautiful.”

She didn’t look as if she liked the idea, though. In fact, she looked . . . kinda hurt. “And where would I set up my salon? Are there enough people to warrant a business like mine?”

Hank was silent. Most of the people that lived around Foxtail were trappers or men that enjoyed living off the grid. There were a few women, but none like Becca. They were just as rough-and-tumble as the men there, and there sure wasn’t demand for a business like hers.

“So I’m supposed to give up my business—my life—to follow you to Foxtail,” she said patiently. There was such hurt in her tone that he would have preferred her screaming instead of this cold disappointment. “What am I supposed to do all day?”

“I haven’t figured that part out yet.” She could cook for him and Libby and his brothers, but even just thinking that seemed dismissive. Being up in the north would change her, too. She’d go from soft, gentle Becca to a woman with calloused hands and a roughened attitude to go with the land. She’d have to give up her friends and her business, her love of frothy coffees and shopping and Netflix and running hot water. Their cabin was pretty rudimentary, powered by a solar grid, and what that bit of energy didn’t provide, manpower did.

She shook her head slowly. Kissed Libby on the forehead, and handed his silent, teary-eyed daughter back to him.

He said nothing. He didn’t like where this was going. There was a resigned look on her face that made his gut go cold.

“I love you,” Becca said softly to him. “I love you, and I love Libby.”

She loved him? Pure joy burst in his chest, and he felt like grabbing her and kissing the hell out of her—except he had his sniffling daughter in his arms. A smile curved his mouth. She loved him. Everything was going to be okay.