I chewed on my lip and stared at the ring on my finger. I slipped it off and tried to talk. When nothing came out, I cleared my throat and wiped my tears. “I never wanted to hurt you, Keith. But I think I’ve always known that my place was here, in Llano.”
He closed his eyes and shook his head. “You’re not marrying me because you want to stay in this town? You’re really picking Llano over me, Liza?”
I swallowed and sucked in a shaky breath. “No, I’m not marrying you because I’m…I’m…” A sob escaped my throat and I placed a hand over my mouth.
“What? You’re what?”
I closed my eyes and counted to five as I tried to catch my breath. When I opened my eyes, I extended my hand to him, offering back the ring.
“My heart belongs here, too. I’m in love with someone else. I’ve always been in love with him. I’ll always be in love with him. It’s not fair to you for me to keep pretending.”
Keith looked away for a few seconds and quickly wiped away a tear. He didn’t bother to look at me as he asked, “Walker?”
I whispered, “Yes.”
His head snapped back to me. “Did you ever love me, Liza?”
I gasped. “Of course I did. I just…I mean…I…”
He smiled, but the muscles in his neck were flexed. “You loved him more.”
I couldn’t speak. My mouth went dry. Deep in my heart I always knew Keith was not the guy I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.
Keith took the ring from me, got up, and walked around the table to stand in front of me. “I could’ve given you the world. Anything you wanted, you would’ve had. I hope you won’t look back and realize this was the biggest mistake of your life, Liza.”
I was briefly taken aback. Shaking my head I said, “The biggest mistake of my life was walking away from him in the first place.” I stood up and looked into his eyes. “I’m sorry, Keith. I never meant to hurt you.”
He placed his hand on my face and whispered, “I’m sorry, too. He’ll never love you like I love you. You’ll soon see that.” He brushed his thumb along my cheek before dropping his hand, turning, and walking away. He quickly got in his car and drove off.
I sat back down and sighed as I rested my head against the back of the chair, staring up at the night sky. I closed my eyes and a single tear escaped, leaving a hot trail on my cheek. When I opened my eyes, I just watched the sky. Someone pulled out a chair and sat down. I knew it was one of my parents, but I wished like hell that it was Walker. I brought my head forward only to see my brother Jase at the table.
“Did you break up with Keith?” He asked as he messed around with a twig.
I nodded. “Yeah, I did.”
He took a deep breath as he sat back in his chair. “I never did like that guy.”
I giggled and looked away. I wasn’t sure why I laughed—my heart felt heavy. But I wasn’t sure if it was because of what had happened with Keith or if it was the haunting look in Walker’s eyes earlier this afternoon.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, reaching for his hand.
He smiled and I couldn’t help but smile back. He had the most amazing smile. His dark hair and blue eyes made him a mini version of my father. Jase had a sensitive heart. He cared so much about people, and I wanted him to find him a girl who would make him see the man he really was.
He ru
bbed his thumb back and forth across my hand. “I came to tell you that Walker was going to leave Llano.”
My smile dropped and I sat up straight. “He just came back home, where is he—”
Jase put his fingers up to my mouth and said, “Liza, let me finish please.”
I nodded as I leaned back and tried to calm my accelerated heartbeat.
“Walker wanted to leave for a couple of days only. He didn’t want to be in town with you and Keith here together. He was pretty messed up, sis, when he called me. He wanted to head to South Padre, but I talked him into the hunting lodge.”
I scrunched my eyebrows together and said, “The hunting lodge? Here? On our property?”
Jase smiled and nodded. “Yeah, the one Dad used to take us too to camp out. He always said that was the place where he and mom finally realized they loved each other. I couldn’t think of a better place for you and Walker to get your damn shit together.”