Chapter Thirty
T hey had walked across the stone-paved street to sit on the short wall that ringed the patch of grass, away from the people gathered in front of the mission. Logan braced himself for whatever she was going to fire at him.
“Why did you run?”
He wanted to deny he had, but he couldn’t. Not when it was so obviously true. So he said nothing. And after a moment she went on.
“You show up at the ceremony then vanish, then you don’t answer the phone or my texts, you leave town and don’t tell me…I’m not saying you owe me constant contact, but a simple ‘talk to you later’ would have done.”
He went with the only part of that he had an answer for. “I know you didn’t want me there, so I…left before you saw me.”
She drew back, looking utterly perplexed. “I didn’t want you there? What gave you that idea?”
He shrugged. This, at least, was easy to answer. “You didn’t even mention it to me, let alone ask me to come.”
Her expression changed, softened. “Logan,” she said, and he could almost feel the ache in her voice. “I didn’t ask you because I didn’t want you to feel like you had to come.”
It took him a moment to process that. And no matter how he thought about it, he knew that if she had asked him, he indeed would have felt compelled to come. It had just never occurred to him that that was maybe why she hadn’t asked him. Nobody had ever worried that much about his feelings.
“I know me even talking about David makes you uncomfortable. I can see it,” she said. “I understand, but—”
“It doesn’t. It makes me…envious.” He grimaced. “Which is a hell of a thing to admit about a dead man.”
She was silent for so long, staring across the byway at the mission that had become a monument, that he was afraid this was it, that he’d offended her beyond recovery. He expected any moment now she would say a stiff goodbye, get up and walk away.
But she didn’t. Instead she finally looked back at him, and when she spoke it was in a tone he’d never heard from her before. “Contrary to what many think, my life with David wasn’t perfect, it was just more than I ever expected to find. We had our moments, like any couple does. I needed time alone, or at least quiet time, and he was always going, talking, being with people. I thought he was so wrapped up in his work everything else sometimes fell by the wayside, and he thought I spent too much time on the past, on history.”
He drew back slightly at that, thinking about all the time they had spent together on just that, history. Never once had it occurred to him it was too much time. Nor would it ever.
“See,” she said softly, “you understand. About the history, I mean. He never did.”
Another minute passed, and he couldn’t think of a thing to say. But when she went on he wished he had, wished he’d said something, anything. Because her next words went into territory he avoided at all times.
“Do you think…you’re so fascinated with history because you don’t know your own?”
“I know all I need to know.”
Like that I meant less than nothing to the mother I never knew. That she hated me so much she threw me away. That my father, whoever he was, felt the same. If he even knew I existed at all.
“And none of it’s good, is it, Logan? I’m so much luckier than you were.”
“Lucky? You loved your husband so much you’re still crying for him years after he died, and you think you’re lucky?”
A sudden understanding flashed in her eyes. “You think that’s why I was crying at the ceremony?”
His brow furrowed. “Wasn’t it?”
“I was crying,” she said, speaking slowly and clearly, “because I was really saying goodbye to him. Saying goodbye and meaning it, for the first time.”
He stared at her, again at a loss for words. He was starting to hate that part of himself, that fear of speaking at all when it came to…things like this. After a moment of watching him, as if she were reading every bit of what he was feeling, she spoke again.
“Yes, I loved David. I will always love him.” Before he could recoil she went on. “But I’m no longer in love with him. The key word there is with . Because that takes two. David knew that. He told me that, when he told me to move on, but I didn’t really accept it until…recently.”
He was still staring at her, probably looking like an idiot to those passersby that cast glances at them, but thankfully kept going. “He told you…to move on?”
“Yes. He even wrote me—”
She stopped abruptly, a look of realization coming over her face. She suddenly grabbed for her purse, digging into it and coming out with an envelope. She looked at it for a long, silent moment, then handed it to him. He saw her name handwritten across the front, in writing that looked a bit shaky. And suddenly he knew, knew that it had been written by David Carhart. His gaze shot back to her face.
“I brought that with me today as part of my own private ceremony. Of saying goodbye.”
“You don’t want me to read this. I—”
“If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have given it to you.” She managed a slight smile. “And you’re the only one I’ve ever shown it to. Not even Jackson has seen it.”
“But—”
“Please. Read it. And know that I’ve always taken his advice, because when I did, it always worked out.”
He felt an urge to shove it back at her. He wasn’t up to this, he didn’t deserve this. But she was looking at him, in that sweet way she had, and he could no more run now than he could turn back time and see those brave men walk out of the Alamo alive.
He read.
By the time he got to the end, he could barely breathe.
…please, please, when you do, when you perhaps find that man who can put joy back into your heart again, don’t hesitate. Consider it my last hope, my final wish, that you find happiness again. I cannot face this passage thinking I’m leaving you to a life of only loss and grief. Live again, Tris. Happily.
Do it for both of us.
I loved you with all my heart.
David
Logan Fox could not remember the last time he’d cried. He’d learned early in his life it was useless, and usually brought more hell down upon him. So he’d mastered the ability to hold it in, to never show that sign of weakness he’d always thought it was.
Yet here he sat now, his eyes stinging fiercely as he blinked rapidly to keep tears from streaming down his face. Only the knowledge that they weren’t just out in public but sitting across from one of the most famous and popular tourist stops in the country, let alone Texas, enabled him to control it at all, although it took a sharp bite of the inside of his lip as further distraction. At least the people around them were some distance away, and mostly focused on the Alamo itself.
He handed the letter back to her, but it took him what seemed like a long time to work up to meeting her gaze. Most of it he spent trying to think of something, anything to say. Everything he did think of sounded wrong, clichéd, or full of useless platitudes.
Finally he settled for the only truth he was certain of. “He really loved you.”
“Yes,” she said, and he was a little surprised at how calm she sounded. “And I loved him just as much.” When he didn’t respond, she tilted her head slightly and added, “And if you didn’t notice, that was in past tense.”
“I noticed,” he said, his voice coming out a little rough now.
The silence spun out between them. The longer it went, the more pressure built up inside him. So much that when she finally gave in and spoke, he was so relieved it took a moment for what she’d said to register. And when it did, all the pressure slammed back into him.
“Do you really think I’m so limited I can only ever truly love once?”
His gut knotted and even though he told himself she wasn’t implying what he wished she was, he couldn’t seem to get it out of his head.
“No,” he finally ground out.
And then, when she just sat there watching him, that sweet but a little too knowing, too understanding expression on her face, he couldn’t bottle it up any longer.
“No,” he repeated. He studied his work-roughened hands. “Just that you could never love…me.”
“Well luckily for me,” she said, so cheerfully it completely disconcerted him and his gaze shot back to her face, “you don’t get to decide that. Unless…” Her brow furrowed and she looked worried. “Was last night so…awful?”
Logan’s jaw dropped. Stunned, he stared at her. “Awful? How can you say that? How can you even think that?”
“What else am I supposed to think, the way you took off and went completely silent?”
Suddenly the words he was never able to find were there, erupting in a burst. “I ran because it seemed obvious to me that you still loved…David. And I thought that even though last night was the most incredible, amazing, unbelievable night of my entire life, it was probably not that to you. Maybe just a way to get through. And when I saw you at the ceremony, when I heard you talk about him, I was sure I was right.”
“And now?” she asked softly.
He swallowed tightly. Took in a quick breath. Tried to smile, but was certain it turned out more of a grimace. Couldn’t hold her gaze and had to look away. But finally he pushed the words out.
“Now…I’m not so sure.”
“I should hope not,” she said, rather fervently. “I didn’t hunt you down, didn’t drive all this way just on the chance you were here, because last night was anything less than the same thing for me.”
His gaze snapped back to her face. He gazed into those deep blue eyes and remembered how she’d looked at him last night, as if everything she saw pleased her. And then she’d touched him, in ways he’d never been touched, with an eagerness he hadn’t quite been able to believe was for him.
He’d ridden that high all night, for those hours letting himself believe, reveling in her touch and the feel of her and the incredible way she cried out his name when her body had clenched around his, sending him soaring to a height he’d never even known was possible.
Of course reality—his reality, the one he’d built himself growing up—hit in the morning. And so he wasn’t surprised when he’d seen her at the ceremony, in fact that old, familiar voice in his head had been saying, “What did you expect?”
But the pain of it shattered the protective shell he’d built over the years, and he’d run. Just as he’d done as that scared kid, he’d run. And she’d known it, been certain enough that it was the first thing she’d said. Why did you run?
“Is it really so hard for you to believe?” she asked softly, snapping him off of the old, worn track.
“Yes,” he admitted, with a wry, self-directed chuckle.
“Well, get over it, Fox. Because I don’t give up easily.”
He looked at her then. Because he had to. “I kind of figured that out.”
The smile she gave him then was the most amazing thing he’d ever seen. She reached out and laid a gentle hand over his, rubbing slightly with her fingers, looking oddly as if she enjoyed the roughened texture of the skin there.
“Good,” she whispered. “Because I didn’t get the chance to tell you how much I love the feel, even the very thought of these wonderful, powerful hands, hands that do so much, touching me the way you do.”
He nearly shuddered under the impact of those words. And in that moment he wanted nothing more than to kiss her, a good, long kiss that would bring back every moment of that spectacular night. And she was looking at him as if she wanted the same thing.
And so he did it.