Cate knew the words would wreck any chance of happiness with Owen. They’d been painful to say, as if each one had been wrapped in razor wire, slicing her neatly to the bone. But the fact that they’d shred her hadn’t stopped her from saying them.

As much as it shattered her heart to break his, they were true.

“You can’t get pregnant,” Owen repeated flatly, and the emotions in her chest rose another notch, squeezing her ribs.

“No. I can’t.”

Although she’d been certain she hadn’t wanted more children well before the accident that had claimed Lily’s life, she’d waited for two years after that to seek out sterilization surgery. Even then, she’d had to go all the way to Philadelphia before she could find a doctor who would even consider it, given the fact that she was young, single, and had lost a child. She’d gone through the counseling sessions recommended by the doctor, patiently endured the waiting period after signing the paperwork. And through all of it, she’d been sure.

Owen shook his head as if he was trying to get her revelation to stick. “But having your tubes tied…God, that’s so permanent.”

“That’s the point,” Cate said. Oh, hell. Yeah, it was true, but did her non-filter really have to choose now to make an appearance? “I’m not going to change my mind.”

“Okay, but how can you be sure?” he asked, stepping back to pin her with a frustration-laced stare. “You never know what you might feel six months from now. Or a year.”

Shock moved through her chest, followed quickly by a burst of anger. “Yes, I do. At least as far as this is concerned.”

“And you never thought of bringing this up? You know how important family is to me. Christ, family and farm is my legacy, Cate.”

Cate tried—and failed—to get a deep breath past the adrenaline and emotions surging through her veins. “I didn’t bring it up in the beginning because I told you I didn’t want any strings attached, and you swore we were just casual. It hardly seemed appropriate. Then later, you said all you wanted was us, me and you. I thought…” Her treasonous voice caught, but she forced the rest past her lips. “You seemed really happy when we were together. I thought it would be enough.”

Owen exhaled, slowly and audibly. “Look. I know that losing Lily hurt you, and it makes sense that you’d be scared—”

Just like that, Cate’s last thread of composure snapped. “No, you don’t.”

“I’m sorry?” he asked, clearly confused.

But all the emotions she’d been trying to manage burst free and spilled out of her. “You don’t have any idea what losing my daughter was like for me, so don’t say you know, because you don’t. You don’t know that the first thing I thought when I found out I was pregnant with her was ‘please, God, anything but a baby’. You don’t know how the guilt of that hurt me after she was born, and you sure as hell don’t know how it wrecks me every single day now that she’s gone.”

Owen stared at her, his gray eyes round with shock, but now that she’d started, she knew she couldn’t stop until she’d laid out every last one of her feelings. “I had a child, and I lost her, and that’s something I’ll have to carry with me for the rest of my life. But don’t you dare imply that my loss is ‘clouding’ my judgment.”

Cate slung air quotes around the word with a slash of her fingers, her anger rising along with the pitch of her voice. “I didn’t make my decision because I was grieving. I made it because it’s right for me. Being childless might not be what you want”—the finality of it sunk in, stabbing into her like a thousand vicious pinpricks, but, God, this had been sitting inside of her for far too long—“but my life isn’t less important because I don’t want kids. I have a legacy, too, Owen, and it’s one I need to honor.”

“Cate,” he said, and even though it nearly tore a sob from the back of her throat, she shook her head and stepped back on the floorboards.

“I’m not the right person for you, Owen, and I should have known that all along.”

“Can’t we just talk about this for one minute?” he asked. But as much as it shredded her to say no, she knew the truth.

A man like Owen Cross wasn’t for her, after all.

“No. I can’t give you what you need, and I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if you lived a life with less than what you want and deserve. I’m going to walk out the door.” Her heart seized at the thought, but oh, God, she knew it was the right thing, even if it was the very last thing she wanted to do. “Please, just let me go.”

Cate made it all the way to her car, down the lane and onto the main road with Cross Creek behind her before she started to cry.

* * *

“Wow. I don’t mean to kick a guy when he’s obviously down, but you look like crap.”

Owen closed his eyes as if the move would change the fact that the words were very likely true. After replaying every part of his relationship-ending conversation with Cate in his head ad nauseam and—okay, fine—doing one too many shots of Jack Daniels to try and drown his sorrows before getting four hours of fitful sleep on the living room couch at the main house, he had to look as bad as he felt.

“Thanks,” he said, clearing the rust from his voice as he looked at his sister. “Want some coffee?”

“Like that’s even a question.” Marley padded over to the coffeepot, which Owen had filled twenty minutes ago in an effort to kill his headache.

His heartache? Yeah, that was going to need something a hell of a lot stronger than coffee and Jack Daniels combined.

Please, just let me go.

Owen stuffed the memory aside. “You’re up early,” he said to Marley, gesturing to her pajama pants and T-shirt, which read Namastay In Bed in big, bold print across the front.

“And you’re here at seven o’clock on a Sunday morning looking like a walk of shame just waiting to happen,” she quipped back, filling a mug to the brim before plopping down at the kitchen table next to him. “Shouldn’t you be at home in your pajamas, having a life with Cate?”

Ah, hell. He should’ve known his presence here, especially in the same shirt and dress pants he’d worn to the wedding, would raise brows. But he hadn’t been able to stay at the cabin last night, not when Cate’s toothbrush still stood next to his in the bathroom and his pillows all smelled like her shampoo. “Yeah, that’s a no,” he said, hating the words but knowing he’d have to say them at some point. “Cate and I broke up.”

Marley paused with her mug halfway to her lips. “What? What did you do to her?”

“Nothing. I don’t know.” Christ, he couldn’t think. “It’s a long story.”

“Okay.” But rather than leaving it at that and going on her merry way, Marley kicked her feet up on the chair across from her. “Start at the beginning.”

She had to be kidding. “You want me to tell you my breakup story?”

“You slept in your dress clothes and you smell like a distillery, not to mention looking like the unhappiest human being I’ve ever clapped eyes on. So, yeah.” She pinned him with a stare. “I want you to tell me your breakup story. It can’t make you feel any worse, right?”

Well, shit. She had a point. “Fine,” Owen said, certain she wouldn’t let it go until he did. “Things had been going great between us lately. I mean, I guess they’d always been kind of great,” he amended, and hell if that didn’t make his heart sink even lower. “I asked Cate to move in with me last night.”

“Wow.” Marley’s brows lifted. “Did she say no?”

“No. Not exactly.”

He relayed the conversation as clearly yet generally as he could, wanting to get the point across without spilling Cate’s personal business in too much detail. Marley took it all in, waiting for him to finish before tipping her head at him to say, “So, you never said you wanted kids, and she never said she didn’t.”

“Yep. I guess,” Owen said, the ache in his chest spreading out a little bit farther at the words.

Then Marley surprised him with, “Okay, but do you want kids?”

“Family and farm are my legacy,” he replied. “They’re the two most important things in my life.”

“I know. But that’s not what I asked you.”

He blinked once. Twice. Yeah, still no. “I’m not sure I understand the difference.”

“I get that family and farm are your thing,” Marley said, shifting in her chair to look at him more fully. “But look at Eli and Hunter. They’ve both got ties to family and farm even though they’re not doing the same stuff in the same way.”

“No, but they both want to have kids one day, and it’ll happen for both of them.”

Marley lifted a slim shoulder in a shrug. “That may be. But isn’t it possible that you’re looking at this legacy thing just a little too rigidly?”

“It’s not a legacy thing,” Owen said, battling the frustration and irritation in his chest. “It’s important, Marley. It’s what my mother wanted.”

Marley frowned, showing off some irritation of her own. “Don’t get your panties in a twist. I hauled myself here from Chicago knowing full well our father didn’t want me just so I could fulfill my mother’s dying wish,” she reminded him. “I know all about how important those are.”

Damn it. Damn it. “You’re right,” he said. They’d have to tackle her issues with their father another day, but Owen knew she understood why this was important to him. “It’s just…I don’t know how to fix this. Cate doesn’t want kids at all. Ever.”

“Let me ask you a question. Did your mother actually tell you she wanted you to have a bunch of kids one day?”

“Well, no.” Owen paused. “Not in those words, exactly. She just wanted us all to be happy, and she wanted family and farm to be a part of that.”

Marley said, “Okay, but families aren’t one size fits all, and they’re not always what you think they’ll be. God, I’m living proof. I’m sitting here, having coffee and giving love life advice to a grumpy, hung over older brother I didn’t even know I had a year ago. But that doesn’t really make you and I less of a family, does it?”

“No,” Owen said, his chin lifting with the force of his realization. “It doesn’t. But…” He trailed off, trying like hell to sort through the surge of thoughts suddenly crowding his brain. “I always thought my adult family would involve having kids.”

“Hmm. Close your eyes.”

If Marley had asked him to put on a clown suit and teach her to juggle, he might have been less surprised. “What?”

She rolled her eyes and gave up an exaggerated sigh. “I don’t have to do this, you know. I could be back in bed, catching up on Game of Thrones. So, are you going to humor me here, or what?”

Owen resisted the urge to tell her he knew damned well that if watching Netflix what she really wanted, she wouldn’t hesitate to leave his sorry ass in the kitchen. “Fine,” he grumbled. Settling in against the ladder back of his chair, he let his eyes drift shut.

“Good. Picture what you want in your head. No limits or anything. Just whatever you want in life.”

For a second, he nearly protested. He was about as far from a touchy-feely, dive-into-your-inner-light kind of guy as you could get, and he really didn’t know how thinking of things he wanted but couldn’t have was supposed to make him feel better.

As if Marley sensed his hesitation, she added, “Trust me. Just do it.”

With that, Owen gave in. He got the crazy, if-I-won-the-lottery stuff out of the way first, like a fishing boat and a new truck. A second later, he moved on to his father and brothers and Marley, picturing them all as a family, happily running the farm together. He saw Eli’s and Hunter’s kids, saw kids of his own. But he saw Cate most clearly of all, wearing that light blue sweater dress that had driven him crazy on her very first day at work and a smile so full of joy, he could look at it for hours, and oh, Christ, he missed her.

“Got it?” Marley asked softly. Owen didn’t trust his voice with a reply, didn’t want to let go of the image of Cate quite yet, so he nodded.

Marley continued, “Good. Now picture everything you can’t live without.”

The easy stuff fell from his mind’s eye quickly, the boat and the truck disappearing like smoke in a strong wind. Not surprisingly, his old man and siblings and their extended families stayed firmly in place, as did Cate, who was front and center.

But his own kids weren’t there.

Startled, Owen bolted upright, searching his mind’s eye more carefully and forcing himself to be sure. He’d been so certain that family meant children, he’d never even considered the alternative.

He never realized he might not need children as much as he needed a family that fit his heart.

And that family was him and Cate.

Oh. Oh shit.

“I’ve gotta go,” Owen blurted, scrambling up from the table and knocking his chair to the floor in the process. He reached down to right it, but Marley laughed and waved him off.

“I’ve got this. Go.”

Gratitude slipped past all the urgency in his brain—how had he been so thick-headed?—and he turned to scoop Marley into a hug so fierce, she let out a soft “oof”.

“Thank you,” he said. “Really. I owe you one.”

“I’ll collect someday,” she promised, although her trademark sass had been replaced by a strangely goofy grin. “Now, get out of here, would you? Your forever is waiting.”

Right. Now all he had to do was figure out how to win it back.