Choices (21 page)

“I felt as if I had just come alive. It was as if my whole life had been someone else’s until I met him. Like I had just been going through the motions. Now I’ve lost him.” She whispered brokenly. Joyce sat her up and stared intently into her eyes. “He lost you Abby. He didn’t trust you enough to believe in you, to believe that you wouldn’t go back to Steve.”

“I never gave him any reason to believe in me. When we started to talk about our future, I didn’t give him any reason to think I would stay with him. I got scared because I knew he would ask me to marry him, and I didn’t want to face marriage again that fast. And that’s why I lost him. I think if I had told him how I felt, that I was planning on going to Boston and get my things, say goodbye to an old life then move back to the ranch with him, not the cabin, he would’ve reacted differently. But that’s what he thought, what I led him to believe, that I was going back to the cabin, not to move in with him, but to recuperate from a divorce.”

“If he was the man you say he is, that would’ve been enough for him until you could recuperate.” Joyce said, hating a man she had never met for making her friend feel this way.

“He would have, if I had just told him, don’t you see?” she pleaded, knowing how Joyce felt.

“No, I’m afraid I don’t. He knows where you are Abby, he has the phone number here. Why hasn’t he called?” she shot back. Abby shook her head and ran her hands through her hair. “Pride?” she offered dully.

“Well I hope his pride keeps him warm at night.” Joyce replied cattily.

Logan looked up at the knock at his bedroom door, and looked back down, scowling. “Go away Ben.” He growled
as his friend came in the door. He was sitting in the dark, a bottle of beer on the table next to his bed.

“No. I’m done going away. We’re all tired of walking on eggshells around you Logan, and you’re going to sit there and listen while I knock some damn sense into your head.” Ben replied, moving over to the chair in the corner of the room.

They hadn’t seen much of Logan since the night of the dance, and when he was around he was like a bear with a bad tooth, lashing out at everyone for even the slightest reason. Until Abby had showed up at the ranch house the next day to check out, they had thought Logan had been at the cabin with her. Then Abby walked in, eyes red from unshed tears, hands trembling, and had just handed over the key to Kassey.

She wouldn’t tell Kassey what had happened, just gave a phone number and address she could be reached at in Boston and had left. Ben had found Logan at the barn, saddling up Bridger and all he had said to Ben was that Abby’s ex-husband had come for her and it was over. Then he had ridden off, and hadn’t been around much since then.

Kassey was worried sick, especially when she couldn’t reach Abby in Boston. “You go talk to him Ben, find out what happened. I can’t believe Abby went back to her ex-husband.”

Logan got up off the bed, and Ben growled from the corner, “You better sit Logan, or so help me I’ll get up and knock your ass back down.”

Logan sent him a scowl, but sat back down. He didn’t doubt him.

“Look, Ben I don’t want to talk. It’s over, she went back to that asshole she married.” He said. The pain was still too fresh to talk about. He tried to drown it in beer and work, but nothing chased away the empty ache her leaving had left behind.

“Bullshit. None of us believe that, don’t see why you should. Logan, anybody who looked at you together would’ve seen how much she loved you.”

“Don’t say that!” he shouted, coming off the bed. “If she loved me so much, why’d she go back with him?”
He paced in front of the bed, his head down, hair in his eyes.

“She sure as shit didn’t go back with him. When she came in, she was alone, no one with her, no one in the Rover. Kassey hurried out to the cabin when she left, to look for you, and there was no one there. Logan, he had to’ve left the same night. If she was going back with him, wouldn’t they have left at the same time?” Ben asked softly, and he could see that got to him.

“Well, maybe she had the need to tell him to leave ahead of her so it wouldn’t look bad on her part.” He grumbled, but he was grasping straws and he knew it; Abby would never do something like that. “But the fact remains that she didn’t tell me she talked to him, and that just reeks of mistrust on her part.”

“True, it does sound like she didn’t put much faith in you, but Logan, she was scared.” Ben said, leaning forward and propping his elbows on his knees, his hands in his hair. God, what a mess, he thought, save us from prideful people.

Logan turned back to him, saying sharply, “What did she have to be scared about?”

“Think about it Logan, put yourself in her shoes. She comes out here to get away from a bad marriage, a marriage to a man she had known her entire adult life. Then here you come and you both fall in love with one another, and she sees in your eyes the church and baby carriage. For someone who had been married as long as she had to a man she just found out she never really knew, after 13 years, what’s she supposed to think about a guy she’s only known for two weeks? She was gun shy
, you idjit.” Ben finished in a shout.

Logan heard his words and knew he was right. All he had cared about was making her his, and wiping away every trace of a past that couldn’t be wiped away so easily, not because she still loved her ex but because of what that ex had done to her.

Logan fell back on the bed, raising his hands to his eyes. “God, your right, I am an idjit. What am I going to do?” he asked Ben, staring at him through eyes ringed with fatigue and anger at himself.

“Go after her. We have an address.” Ben said, holding up the piece of paper Kassey had pressed into his hands when he went to talk to Logan. It was a long shot, but Ben hoped that Abby would see what Logan had put himself through and be understanding.

“And for Christ’s sake, take a shower. You smell like the bear you’ve been.”

Joyce had just poured herself a glass of Chardonnay, and was settling in for a night of jazz and a good book when the pounding started on her door. She frowned, then scowled when she heard a man say, “Abby! Open up, I know you’re in there.” She pressed her eye to the peep-hole and yelled through the door, “No she’s not. Go away.” So the cowboy had come to chase Abby down? Not if Joyce Caldwell had anything to do with it.

“Who is this?” the Voice asked from the other side of the door and Joyce replied tartly, “Abby’s watch dog. Now go be a good cowboy and ride off into the west.” She turned away from the door, happy with her parting salvo, when he spoke again, his voice low and ragged. “Please, I need to see her.”

She stopped at the pain in his voice and tried to resist the urge to turn back to the door, but lost it. She opened it, and there he stood, his arm propped up on the frame, his head hung low. He was a sexy thing, she thought to herself, even with eyes red from fatigue and at least a day’s growth of beard on his chiseled jaw.

She remembered then how torn up Abby had been and crossed her arms over her chest, cocking out a hip. “Why should I let you see her?” she asked, not ready yet to tell him that Abby was already gone. Those smoky gray eyes rested on hers, and she knew then that no matter what happened between him and Abby, it had all been a horrible mistake. Those gray depths were as full of pain and unshed tears as Abby’s had been when she came back from Montana.

“Can I just see her? I need to apologize, to make things right.” He said, shifting to stand upright. Joyce was tall, but still had to look up at him.

“How did you get here?” she asked, turning to get her purse from the table.

Logan looked puzzled, trying to peer past this woman who was pushing him out the door.

“I flew. Where’s Abby?” he asked again, having no choice but to follow her down the hall to the bank of elevators. She gave him a sarcastic look over her shoulder as she punched the down button repeatedly.

“Well, cowboy, I didn’t think you rode your horse here. Do you have any luggage or did you fly out here with just the clothes on your back?”

“Who are you?” Logan asked incredulously. She reached out and flicked his chin with a long finger nail. “I’m getting you back to your girl. We’ll talk in the car. Do you have luggage?” she asked again, stepping into the elevator, barely waiting for him to follow her before hitting the lobby button.

Logan stepped into the elevator just before the doors would have closed on him, leaning against the back wall. “Yes, I have a bag and it’s in the cab I kept waiting downstairs. Now would you please tell me where Abby is and who you are?”

Joyce looked at him again, taking in the disheveled hair, t-shirt and jeans messed up from a long flight across country. Those eyes though, they told the true story. They were filled with hope and wariness, and Joyce wanted to turn the screw a little more, just one last parting shot.

“My name is Joyce Caldwell, nice to meet you.” She said, sticking out her hand, but
still not telling him where Abby was. Logan eyed her hand, as if it were a snake about to bite him, but took it gingerly and gave it a quick shake.

“Look, Joyce. I just got off a long flight, I’m dirty, I haven’t shaved, and I just really want to know
, where is Abby?” he asked, his voice rising on Abby’s name. The elevator door opened, and before he knew it, she was out the door, striding for the main entrance of her building.

Again, Logan had no choice but to follow her, wanting to wrap his hands around her skinny neck. She stood with the cab door open, ushering him to get in. Logan drew himself upright, and made a sweeping gesture with his hand.

”On, no, after you.” He smiled sarcastically, and Joyce purred, “Ooh Abby told me you were a true gentleman.” Logan grabbed her arm as she bent to get in the cab, but gently. Joyce stopped and looked back at him. “Lady, I don’t know you, but I just need to see her.” She took pity on him finally and said softly, “I’ll tell you everything in the cab. Get in.” Logan got in behind her and sat back in the seat as the cab moved forward.

“Where to?” the cabby asked, and Joyce leaned forward and said “Logan”.

“What?” he asked. Joyce gave a trill of laughter that grated on his nerves.

“Not you Logan; Logan Airport.”

“What? No! I told you, I need to see her, I need to tell her I was wrong. Stop the cab!” he shouted to the driver, leaning forward. “No, don’t stop, keep going.” Joyce said, turning to Logan and pressing him back down into the seat. “She flew out for Montana today. I dropped her off at the airport this morning. She was probably landing in Bozeman as you were flying out.”

“Is she…”he started to ask if she was going back to him, but he could see from the sad look that came into her eyes that she wasn’t.

“Is she going back to her parents?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t she fly into Kalispell then?” he asked, hope flaring despite what Joyce said. She would fly into Kalispell if she was going to see her parents, so why else would she fly to Bozeman if not to come back to him?

“She left her vehicle in the long term parking at Gallatin Field, rather than try to drive back as upset as she was.” It was her final dig, and it hit him hard.

“I’m going to make it up to her, Joyce, if I have to wait forever.” He said desperately, looking out the window at the passing city. To fly all this way, just to have to turn around a fly back. She was worth it.

“I think that’s all she wanted Logan,” she told him, “was to know that you didn’t need the whole package right away.”