Becca pressed her elbow into Andrew’s, wishing the man at the microphone would take a breath so she could interrupt. But he had lungs of iron, and her patience with his complaints was going to run out before his air.

Andrew kept his arm solidly on the table too, and she didn’t have to look at him to know he was irked too.

“Sir,” Becca said, but the man barely flicked his eyes in her direction. He seemed to only want to hear another male speak, but when he finished, Andrew remained as tight-lipped as a clam.

“Sir,” Becca said again. “Your concern over the noise will be nearly solved with the introduction of the SonarBot. The decibels it emits are well within city and town ordinances for all of our mines.” She did know how to take a breath so she’d sound professional and polite though she wanted to lunge across the table and make that man move back. The line behind him at the mic was easily twelve people long and they’d been answering questions for an hour already.

Becca really was quite tired of it all. Sure, she enjoyed seeing what color Andrew’s tie would be, because he never wore the same one. She liked seeing what he’d find in that town they could both enjoy for dinner. She’d learned a lot about his eating habits being on tour with him, and if he didn’t get a hot breakfast, someone would probably lose their head by ten a.m.

He’d learned not to put onions on her burgers, and nothing but pepperoni and sausage on her pizza. She could order his coffee with perfection, no matter which shop they stopped at, and he could do the same for her.

By the beginning of the third week of the tour, Becca had reached another milestone in her life. She and Andrew had been dating for forty days, and that was one day longer than her relationship with Jarom.

She didn’t say anything to Andrew, because she didn’t want to jinx anything. The tour was tiring, that was for sure, but she hadn’t hated it.

Until tonight. She’d pegged these mining towns north of Cheyenne exactly right, and this meeting they were currently conducting had a crowd receptive rating at three.

In Becca’s opinion, she should’ve given them a one, because every person who stepped up to speak was negative. Not only that, they didn’t seem to have listened to a single thing she or Andrew had said in the presentation.

“What about our jobs?” someone asked, and Becca refrained from rolling her eyes.

“No jobs will be affected by the introduction of the SonarBot,” she said, working hard not to speak in a dry monotone. “If anything, we’ll need more people to run the robot, interpret the findings, and make decisions for the crew.”

The woman stepped away, and someone else moved up to the microphone. “Will there be certain hours for the sonar to be used?”

“Business hours,” Andrew said into the mic in front of him. “I’m sorry folks, we only have time for three more questions.”

Relief sighed through Becca’s whole body, and she let him answer the rest of the questions. They stood and followed a couple of local cops out the front of the gymnasium, where their meeting had been held.

She exited the building to find darkness had claimed the day. Quite a while ago too, if the depth of blackness surrounding her was any indication. She took in a deep breath, enjoying the fresh air out here in the more wild parts of her home state.

“Well, that could’ve gone better,” he grumbled. They hadn’t eaten for hours, and Becca understood his foul mood.

“But we did it.”

“Three more days,” he said as he started for the car.

Glinting lights across the street caught Becca’s eye. A church, with the front doors flung wide open.

“Andrew,” she said. He turned back to her and she pointed to the church. “Will you wait for me?”

“I’ll come with,” he said. He spoke to the driver momentarily, and they crossed the street together. She wanted to reach over and slip her hand into his, lean into him and giggle. Well, maybe not giggle. She was so tired she wasn’t up for giggling.

They climbed the several steps to the doors of the church and then hesitated. Singing came from inside, and she entered first and moved through the lobby and into the chapel, taking a seat on the very back row.

A choir stood up on the dais at the front, and though they didn’t wear their robes, they sang with the voice of angels. Becca’s weary soul was immediately soothed, further sighing in comfort and peace when Andrew joined her on the end of the bench.

They simply sat there and listened while the singers practiced their songs, while the director gave corrections, and as Becca’s heart filled. She could make it through the next three days. She could.

The call of her own home, her bed and puffy comforter, and her dog had never been so loud, but somehow the choir had drowned it out.

Andrew’s phone buzzed, and she glanced at him. “Be right back,” he whispered, sweeping a kiss along her forehead as he stood and left. “Hey,” she heard him say when he reached the lobby only a few steps away.

She stayed for another song, and then choir practice started to break up. She felt like perhaps she shouldn’t be caught in the back row, so she got to her feet. They protested against her heels, but she managed to tiptoe out into the lobby without anyone shouting for her to come back.

Andrew sat on the front steps, his phone still at his ear. With the country stillness and the choir being finished, she could hear him quite clearly.

“I’m sure that’s not true,” he said.

Becca paused, not wanting to interrupt him, but not wanting to eavesdrop either. She hadn’t caught the name on the screen, and it didn’t sound like one of his brothers.

“Dwight, it’s simply not true. Can you imagine anyone being attracted to Becca Collings?”

His voice struck her like a thousand-pound weight in the chest.

“I don’t care what someone think they saw. I’m not dating Becca.” He added a chuckle as if such an idea was utterly ridiculous. And Becca just stood there and listened, his words sinking way down deep into the soul that moments ago had felt whole.

This was far worse than anything Jarom had said to her, and Andrew stabbed a knife right into her pounding heart with, “She’s literally one of the most annoying women on the planet. I can’t imagine anyone liking her for long.”

A squeak escaped from her lips, and Andrew twisted toward her. He shot to his feet, his eyes wide. “I have to go, Dwight. I’ll call you later.”

By the time Andrew finished speaking, Becca had flown past him and was all the way down the steps. “Becca,” he called after her, but a tornado churned inside her, and she couldn’t trust herself to turn back to him and have a conversation right now.

“Can I ride in the front please?” she asked the driver, yanking open the door before he even answered. She sniffed, her tears brimming against her eyelids. She swiped at them quickly, before Andrew could see her.

“Becca.” He slid into the backseat as the driver rounded the front of the car.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” She eyed the driver. “Right now. Please.”

Andrew leaned back into his seat, pure resignation on his face. Becca folded her arms and stared out the passenger window, willing the miles to the hotel to pass quickly. They hadn’t even checked in yet, and she stood several paces behind him while he took care of everything. He’d always taken care of these arrangements, but she’d stood right next to him, accepted her key, and waited to make arrangements for dinner.

Tonight, she could barely hold back the tears.

I can’t imagine anyone liking her for long. She’d told him that men didn’t like her for very long, and he’d gone on to list all the things he liked about her. Whenever she had a moment of self-doubt, she repeated that list until she believed another one.

He turned from the check-in desk, but he didn’t extend her key to her. A tear splashed her cheek, and she wiped it away furiously. She would not cry in front of him. She lifted her chin instead, reciting how to spell great big words so she could focus on the letters instead of letting her emotions control her.

“Becca,” he said for a third time, and she held out her hand.

He took a few steps toward her. “Are we going to talk about it? It was Dwight. I had to say something.”

It had sounded so true, and Becca wasn’t sure how she could get such horrible words out of her ears. She’d given him more of herself than anyone else, and she’d genuinely started to believe that perhaps Andrew would never break up with her.

“I need a few minutes,” she whispered. “Can I please have my key?” She shook her hand impatiently, like she would for a disobedient child who hadn’t passed over something she’d requested.

He handed her a small envelope. “Room four-eleven.”

She spun away from him and snatched her bag on her way to the elevator. He let her go, and she half-wanted him to come with her, ride up to the fourth floor, and apologize again.

Wait, he hadn’t apologized at all yet.

Anger filled Becca, and she marched down the hall to her room, realizing she was going to need a lot longer than a few minutes to sort through her feelings.

As soon as the door closed behind her, she pressed her back into it and let the tears fall.

“Great, thank you Mayor Berry. I’ll be by on Monday morning. Thank you.” She hung up before she could gush out another declaration of gratitude.

She was twenty minutes late for her morning meeting with Andrew, and while that fact gnawed at her, she also had some things to take care of. Her phone rang again, and this time it was Andrew.

“I’m coming,” she said after answering the phone. “Be down in two minutes.” After zipping her bag closed, she made one quick glance around the room to make sure she got her charger and earrings from the night table.

She had refused to let Andrew come by the previous evening, instead claiming that she was simply too tired and nothing good could come from the conversation until morning.

But instead of sleeping and getting the rest she desperately needed, Becca had spent a couple of hours looking at the online job boards in Wyoming. She wasn’t sure how she was even going to survive the next three days with Andrew, let alone working on the other side of the wall from him indefinitely.

It was Dwight. I had to say something.

Yes, she thought as she left her room, her bag behind her. “But he didn’t have to use the exact thing I told him in confidence. That I’m obviously sensitive about.”

He paced in the lobby, his phone pressed to his ear, and when his eye caught hers, he looked part relieved, part sorry, and mostly irritated.

She didn’t apologize. After all, he hadn’t. And she’d needed to make the call to the Mayor’s office in Coral Canyon to see if he could use her. And as it turned out, he wanted to talk. So she’d be as late as she wanted, thank you very much.

He hung up and faced her. “Ready?”

Becca nodded, wishing her voice hadn’t abandoned her. She walked a half-step behind him as they went outside and got in their car. While the driver loaded her bag in the trunk, she scooted all the way against the door and folded her arms. She had something very important to say to him, and she wanted to do it in private. But as soon as the driver got in, they wouldn’t be alone again for the rest of the day.

Andrew could handle news like this, as he was really very talented at acting like everything was wonderful when it wasn’t. Heck, he’d probably been pretending in his feelings for her all this time.

The driver approached his door, and Becca said, “Andrew, consider this my two weeks notice.”