She bounced on her toes. “Ash! I can’t believe you kept a secret from me. Graham must’ve threatened the hell out of you.”

The words came crashing down around him like breaking glass, cutting him on the way down. “What?”

She opened the folded letter, showing Ash his own typed words. “Don’t pretend you don’t know. I know he had to ask you for advice on which books to hide them in. He couldn’t have known.”

Ash’s heart, which had swelled to supernova size when she’d smiled his way with the letter in her hand, collapsed in on itself like a black hole. She’d read his words. His words. And she thought they were Graham’s.

There was no logical reason why she would think Graham had written them. Graham wasn’t the writer. He wouldn’t know the books to hide them in. The only way she could read those words and see Graham’s hand penning them was because she wanted that to be the case. She’d seen who she wished for.

And it wasn’t Ash.

Ash’s eyes burned and his throat had narrowed, but he managed to force a smile onto his face. “You got me.”

Her face lit up and she hurried around the desk, almost knocking him over with a hug. “Oh my God, Ash. This is the sweetest, most romantic thing anyone has ever done for me. I mean, I thought maybe he liked me, but this… I mean, wow. Graham Lowell. I’ve had the biggest crush on him for the longest time but never imagined he felt like this. Thank you for helping him and not ruining the surprise.”

Ash hugged her back, his nose in her hair, his heart in shreds. He closed his eyes, refusing to ruin this moment for her. He’d wanted an answer and now he had it. She wanted Graham.

What else could he do but let her go? She was happy. Of all the people in the world, she deserved that more than anyone. He gave her a tight squeeze. “I’m happy for you, KC.”

“Thank you.” She leaned back and then kissed him on the cheek. “I love you, Ash. You know that, right?”

He forced his smile to stay on his face and stepped back, touching her suddenly too much to handle. “I know.”

“Good.”

She loved him.

Just not the way he’d hoped.

That love was meant for someone else.

Twenty-Two

Kincaid laughed as Ash groaned at the choice of restaurant. He eyed the door. “I said I’d take you anywhere you want, anywhere at all. We could’ve gone into the city and picked from like a hundred places that have been featured on TV as the best of Texas.”

“But this is where I wanted to go,” she declared with a grin. She hadn’t felt like driving far and was craving a filling meal after the long day. In Long Acre, that meant Big Willy’s BBQ & Dance Hall. The old-school country music was already thumping when they stepped inside, and the smell of smoked meat hung heavy in the air. “What can be bad about BBQ and country dancing?”