“Is he really mine?” she sobbed.

“Yes, if you want him. We can pick him up tomorrow.”

“I want him,” she said. “Can I call Cheyenne and tell her?”

I hesitated. “You can, but there’s something I need to tell you first.”

I’d delivered the news, and she’d run up to her room and slammed the door.

My mother, who’d heard the exchange, gave me a sympathetic look. “Oh, Cole,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”

I struggled to keep my face impassive. “It’s fine.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No. I’m late already.” But I glanced up the stairs—I felt horrible leaving with Mariah so upset, but how was I going to comfort her? I felt the same way she did.

“Go to work,” my mother said, heading up the steps. “I’ll deal with her. We can talk later.”

“Thanks.”

During my shift, I went over the argument with Cheyenne again and again. My chest ached every time I thought about her tears, but my jaw clenched up in stubborn refusal whenever I thought about what she was asking me to do.

If she loved me the way she said she did, shouldn’t she respect my decision to deal with my baggage my way?

After work, I sat down to a late supper at the kitchen table, and my mother sat across from me. Mariah, who’d already eaten, was up in her room.

“So it was Cheyenne’s decision?” my mother asked.

“Yes.” I poked at the food on my plate, unable to eat. My stomach had been in knots all day.

“Maybe she just needs some space.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Well, what was it specifically that made her want to break things off?” my mother pressed. “You two seemed so happy together.”

“Leave it, Mom. I don’t want to talk about it. She’s gone, and it was her choice.”

She lifted a cup of tea to her lips. “Was it a choice you forced her to make?”

I glared at her across the table. “I said leave it.”

A heavy sigh. “Mariah is very upset. You’ll need to talk to her. She thinks she did something wrong.”

Closing my eyes, I set down my fork and rubbed my face. “I’ll talk to her.”

But Mariah wouldn’t talk to me. No matter how much I coaxed and begged her to open her door, she said she didn’t want to talk, and I didn’t have it in me to fight.

After work the next night, I asked her if she wanted to go pick up Buddy with me, and she said yes. But in the car on the way to the shelter, she remained silent and sullen.

“Mariah,” I said, pulling into a parking spot. “What happened between Cheyenne and me isn’t your fault. Sometimes grown-ups just decide they want different things.”

“But she wanted the same things we did. She wanted us to be a family. I know it. So either you did something wrong, or I did.”

“It wasn’t you,” I said firmly. “I said something that made her upset.”

She finally looked at me. “What did you say?”

I stared out the windshield. “I told her a lie.”

“About what?”

I turned off the engine and sat for a moment in silence. “I told her that you’d been having nightmares, not me.”

“Why? Were you embarrassed?”

“Yes,” I answered, figuring that was the easiest way to explain it to a nine-year-old. “I was embarrassed.”

“You shouldn’t be,” Mariah said fiercely. “Cheyenne loves you. She would never make fun of you for having bad dreams.”

“I know she wouldn’t.”

“You told me a lie too.”

I met her eyes. “What do you mean?”

“You said you loved her the real way.”

“I do love her the real way,” I insisted.

She crossed her arms, pinning me with an accusing stare. “Then you wouldn’t have let her go.”

Mariah cheered up when she met Buddy, and we brought him home. While my mother wasn’t ecstatic about having an animal in the house, she was happy to see Mariah smiling again. With Buddy came a tentative peace and a fun distraction, and I was grateful to the dog for providing both.

But as the days crawled by, I continued to miss Cheyenne with an intensity that refused to let up. Not only that, but I mourned the life I’d imagined for us—and holding the keys to a house we were going to share brought only sadness and regret.

I picked up Mariah and Buddy, and we drove over to our new address, where my daughter and I watched our new dog run around the snow-covered yard and check out his own little abode.

“You think he likes it?” Mariah asked as he sniffed around the old doghouse.

“I think so. Look at his tail wagging.”

She laughed. “He’s so cute. I wish Cheyenne could see him.”

At the mention of her name, my chest caved in. It was unfathomable to me that I’d never hold her again, kiss her again, make her smile, make her laugh, hear her whisper my name while I moved inside her.

Was this really all my fault? Was Mariah right? Had I not loved her the right way? Had I not loved her enough? Had I not tried hard enough to show it?

I had no idea anymore. All I knew was that I was back at the bottom of the rut with no light above me and no way out, sinking in the muck. And it felt like I’d thrown myself there.

When Griffin texted and asked me to go out for a beer that night, I almost turned him down. I was exhausted, I was behind on packing for the move, and I didn’t necessarily want to hear a lecture. No doubt Cheyenne had told her family about the breakup. Was he going to be angry with me for hurting her? He understood that it had been her choice, right?

In the end, I decided to meet him, if only to get out of my bedroom. The walls were closing in on me.

We met at the pub and sat at the bar. McIntyre came over and poured us a couple beers. For a few minutes, we nursed them in silence. Since I’d sort of felt like a kid sitting in the principal’s office waiting to get in trouble, I was a little surprised that he wasn’t talking.

“How was your trip to Nashville?” I asked.

“It was good. Blair’s family is . . . something else.”

“You got along with them?”

“I did, but four days of Beaufort will last me a while.”

I almost laughed.

“So what’s going on with you?” he asked, casually sipping his beer. It was obvious he knew.

“I take it you’ve talked to Cheyenne.”

“Yes.”

“Is she . . . okay?”

“No, Cole. She isn’t.”

I felt like he’d punched me in the gut. “Fuck.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t even know.” I straightened up in my seat. “One minute things were fine, and the next she was crying.” I felt my lip begin to twitch.

“Really?”

I slumped over again. Elbows on the bar, head in my hands. “No.”

We sat in silence for a minute. Griffin nursed his beer. “Look, I don’t want you to be mad at this, but I also talked to Beckett and Moretti.”

“About me?” Sitting back, I glared at him. “What the fuck for?”