would take the new job she’d been offered, and life would return to a new type of normal.
Tate closed her eyes against the wave of pain at the thought of not having Ellie or Linc or Shaw in her life, but she knew it would pass, that each day would get better. Keeping it simple, being on her own, was the way she had to live.
It had worked for ten years; it would work again.
She had to do this. She had to tell him.
Linc beat her to it. He lifted a hand, his eyes steel gray. “Don’t bother saying anything, I can see the answer in your eyes. You’re going to run, because that’s what you Harper girls do.”
“It’s for the best, Linc.”
“BS! Instead of staying, talking it out, working it out, you’re running.” Linc linked his hands behind his head, the cords in his neck tight with frustration. “You kept telling me you were different from Kari, Tate.”
“I am.”
Linc shook his head and flashed her a cold smile. “Are you? You took what I offered, and when it became a little uncomfortable, a little heated, you decide to walk, run, whatever the hell you Harpers call this.”
He’s trying to hurt you, wanting and needing to lash out, Tate told herself, but his words still whipped her with the ferocity of an Arctic storm.
“It’s not like that, Linc.” she said, silently begging him to believe her.
“Funny, it feels exactly the same.” Linc strode over to the door. He placed his hand on the door frame and gripped it tight. “Can you be gone by the time Shaw comes home from pre-K? I don’t want him upset any more than he needs to be.”
She didn’t want it to end like this. “Linc—”
Linc spun around, and his lightning-filled eyes pinned her to the spot. “All I’ve ever wanted, Tate, was someone to stay. No matter how hard it got, just to stand next to me. And, because I’m such a flippin’ fool, I thought that person might be you.”
Tate, her heart cracking, watched him walk through the doorway, heard the clatter of Linc’s feet on the stairs and then, a minute later, the heavy, hard thud of the front door slamming closed.
Tate sobbed as she watched his hunched figure walk down the sidewalk away from the house, walking out of her life.
Just as she’d told him to.
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