I blinked again. “I know you don’t care about dinner, but I do. I should have cooked us something.”

A look crossed his face. If I had to take a guess, I would have said it was frustration. His jaw ticked and I waited for him to let his frustration loose, but he didn’t. Instead, he said, “I’ll cook dinner while you get cleaned up.”

His tone held no room for argument so I nodded. “Okay.”

He let me go and stepped aside to let me through. As I exited the room, he added, “And Harlow?” I turned back to see what he had to say. “When you’re finished cleaning up, I want you in the kitchen with me while I cook. I don’t know what the fuck is going on in your head tonight, but what I do know is that it needs to stop. I’ve gone easy on you over the past few months and I’m done with easy.” And there was the Scott Cole I knew well.

My bossy man.

Fifteen minutes later, I joined Scott in the kitchen. I’d had so much paint on my skin and in my hair that I’d decided to shower. He looked up from the vegetables he was slicing to give me his attention.

I slid onto the stool across from him and leant my elbows on the kitchen counter. “What are you cooking?”

“Steak and veggies.” His gaze roamed over me and butterflies fluttered in my belly. When he finally gave me back his eyes, he said, “Start talking, baby.”

I sighed. “Can we talk about this later? I want to know about your day.”

He shook his head and squared his shoulders in the way he did when he was settling in for the kind of discussion where he intended to be forceful. “No.”

We watched each other intently and my heart beat a little faster. Admitting you felt lost and like a failure to the man you loved was not an easy thing to do. I never wanted Scott to look at me in any way other than the way he always had, and I worried that if he knew I wasn’t all he thought I was, he’d look at me differently.

“Harlow, start talking.” His words came out almost as a growl and I knew my time had run out. I had to give him something.

Shit.

My head buzzed with dizzying lightness, but I pushed on and started talking. “I’m not where I thought I would be by now…” I faltered on my words and swallowed back my nervousness. At his frown, I continued. “I mean, my life hasn’t gone the way I thought it would.”

He raised his brows and placed the knife he was holding down. Resting his hands on the kitchen counter, he said, “Go on.”

God, I was making a mess of this. “That came out wrong, Scott. I don’t mean you – you’re the best thing in my life. I never want to lose you and I never want our relationship to change. It’s important to me that I don’t mess us up.” My words were coming out fast and I stopped to take a breath.

His chest rose as he also took a breath – a long, deep breath that signalled the frustration he was holding back. “Where did you think you’d be by now?”

I moved off the stool and walked around the island bench to where he stood. His eyes tracked my every movement and I knew from the intense way he watched me that I needed to find the right words to express what I was feeling.

I placed my hand on his chest and then ran it down his t-shirt before grasping his shirt in my hand; needing to maintain closeness to him. “I was raised a good country girl, Scott, and in the country we get married young, and have kids. Family is everything and it’s something I’ve always wanted. But I made so many bad choices where men were concerned -” I ignored the way his nostrils flared and the way his vein pulsed in his neck, “ – that I had begun to wonder if I’d ever find a good man. Instead, I started to concentrate on my art and thought about trying to make a living from it. But then I found you and fell pregnant, and changed course again. I was so excited to be pregnant even though it wasn’t something you and I had planned. And then I lost our baby, and well, we all know where that ended up.” I took a breath. “I feel like I’ve failed all the way around,” I admitted softly.

His brows pulled together as he processed everything I’d said. “You haven’t failed. I mean, fuck, losing a baby by no fault of your own is not what I’d call failing - ”

I tugged on his shirt and cut him off. “I’m not saying the way I am feeling is right . I’m just trying to explain to you where I’m at. I know I have a lot of work to do on my thinking, and myself, but you asked what I was thinking today, and that’s it.” Spending the day going through my journals and then painting had unlocked a range of emotions and shed some light on where the churning in my gut was coming from. Unlike I’d assumed, my unhappiness didn’t just stem from losing a baby.

“Damn straight it’s not right,” he said with force and I loved my man even more in that moment. His faith in me was astounding some days. Having a man in your corner like I did was everything, especially on the days where you felt like you’d been beaten into that corner by the blows life dealt.

I smiled. “I also need to tell you that I came to see you this morning because I was feeling down. I thought I’d turned a corner yesterday and then last night with you was amazing so I went to bed thinking today was going to be another great day. But I woke up feeling low, which sucked.”

“Fuck, it’s like a damn rollercoaster, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, but I’m not going to let it get the best of me.” And I wouldn’t; now that I’d remembered the parts of me I’d forgotten, I’d fight to find them again. Regardless of how hard the journey would be.