Chapter 32
Bellini
I watched Logan flick on his gas fireplace. He was tall and strong and wide and huggable. I almost giggled but resisted. The curtains were closed, and it felt like we were in our own private space of heaven, the lights low, a candle flickering. We’d had a busy night.
We’d had another dance lesson with Mrs. Kerns.
The routine was four minutes, but still, we needed help.
She told us that we were “not bad, but not good either. Stand up, get into position. Ready? You don’t look ready.
Logan, why are you standing like a football player?
Are you going to tackle Bellini? Bellini, your arms are not spaghetti, are they? !”
Afterward, Logan had bought Thai food, but before eating, we had to head to the couch, where we’d had a rousing sexual interlude. Then I pulled on my blue sweater and red lace panties, and he pulled on his sweats, and we ate.
Sitting together on the couch holding hands felt so…normal. And in that normalcy, I felt nothing but peace. And gratefulness.
Until Logan asked the question I’d been expecting.
“Any chance you’ll stay in Kalulell after your mom’s better, Bellini?”
“No.” In one second, my whole body tightened up. I wanted to stay. I so, so wanted to be with Logan.
“Okay.” He took a deep breath. “Okay.”
I closed my eyes and pulled the blue furry blanket we shared tighter around myself, as if the tighter it was, the less this would hurt.
“I… Logan…”
“You don’t owe me an explanation.” His voice was gentle but tired.
“I do.”
He didn’t say anything.
“I owe you an explanation because we are…” How to say it?
“Dating? Sleeping together? In a relationship, yet again, where we laugh and talk and dance and play chess?”
We’d played chess the other night. He won.
“We’re reading the same book,” he went on, “which is also what we used to do. It’s the same relationship and totally different, too. But if you don’t want to tell me why you’re leaving me again, okay.”
But it wasn’t okay, and I could hear it in his tone.
He was right. He was so right. I had never been able to give him the true explanation as to why I’d broken up with him.
I’d tried to sound honest with my excuses, but he’d never bought any of them.
He was too smart, our relationship too deep. I was—I am—a terrible liar.
“I’m sorry, I…” I thought of his mom, her land, that old log cabin.
It was home to Logan and the place that was filled with memories of his mom.
He couldn’t lose it. “I have a life in Oregon. I can’t live here.
I know my mom wants me to run the bar, but I don’t want to.
I almost lived in that bar for my entire childhood.
And yes, I do feel guilty all the time for feeling that way and not wanting to work there. ”
“Tell her you don’t want to work in it. Tell her no. She’s a very reasonable person, and she’ll understand.”
I shook my head.
“That’s not the reason you’re not living here, Bellini, and we both know it.” His voice got a harder edge, and I didn’t blame him.
I buried my face in my hands. No, that wasn’t the reason I couldn’t live here—if I had to, I could tell Mom I didn’t want to run the bar, and she’d understand—but even after all these years, I couldn’t be truthful with him.
“I like my quiet life in Oregon, in my cottage, writing my books. I like traveling to the schools and sharing my books with the kids, and then I come home to a quiet place. I like the…routine.”
“Bellini.” His voice was low and tight. “Are you ever going to tell me why you broke up with me?”
“I didn’t think we had a future.” My words, every one of them, sounded like a lie because they were. All lies.
“I don’t believe that. I didn’t believe it then, and I don’t now.”
“I know.”
“We could have a future if you wanted one.”
“Do you want one?” I whispered. I swear my insides twisted.
“I always have.”
I wanted to cry. Instead, I put my arms around him and hugged him, and he hugged me back.
Maybe I should tell him. I knew he would believe me.
But I couldn’t. The repercussions were severe and would rip his heart out.
He would have to choose. I couldn’t make him do that.
I heard Drake’s words ringing in my ears like knife blades.
“I’ll tell him that he can have you or the land.
Not both. Even if he chooses you, it’ll grate on him for the rest of his life, seeing condominiums, maybe a golf course.
He’ll feel the loss forever. It’ll kill him knowing he won’t have his mother’s land, the land her parents and grandparents owned, his legacy.
Eventually, one way or another, he’ll regret the decision he made to be with you over the land. You’ll lose.”
“I want to be clear with you, honey,” Logan said. “I don’t know why you broke up with me before. I don’t know why you’re leaving me again. I will always wonder. But I want to put all my cards on the table. If you want, I will move to Oregon.”
“You will?” My voice tilted up in hope.
“Yes. In a heartbeat.”
“But your dad, your mother’s land, her house.”
“My dad is a despicable man. I feel obligated to take care of him when he’s having these health issues, check in on him, but I am not going to give you up for him.
I would never do that. I will continue to pay people to go and see him and take care of him.
I will probably have to pay double the cost, as he’s so obnoxious.
As far as my mother, I know she would want me to be happy most of all.
And if that happiness means that I leave Montana and move to Oregon, that I leave her family’s land, she would be all for it.
If you want me to move to Oregon, I’ll call a moving van in January, and we’ll head out together. ”
I was filled with this serene, exciting scene of Logan and me.
I saw him in my little cottage, Honeysuckle Pink, in my bed, in my life.
He would open up another architectural firm.
He would do well. He’d love Oregon and my property, the sunrises and sunsets and my four cats all over the place.
Knowing that Logan was there in my cottage would make me so happy, so utterly, completely happy.
I could feel my face lighting up as I envisioned that life.
But.
He would have nowhere in Montana to return to.
I knew vengeful Drake. Vindictive Drake.
In a rage, he would sell off that property so fast Logan wouldn’t even have time to argue with his dad or try to buy it himself.
Drake had been very clear about his intentions.
Logan would be enraged, but underneath, it would be a lifelong loss.
He would always miss that land. The bitterness would only grow.
“Logan…” I started to cry, hugging him tight.
“Bellini,” he whispered. “Don’t cry. Please.
” He kissed the top of my head. “I knew when you returned for Christmas that I should avoid you, but I couldn’t.
I couldn’t stop myself. I wanted to see you, to talk to you.
I was hoping that everything I felt for you years ago would be gone.
It had been a long time. I was hoping I’d see you, and we could be friends, talk, and then go our separate ways.
I would go on with my life and be happy you were in it for as long as you were.
I was hoping that I would feel nothing for you except friendship and caring that you were well, but it didn’t work out like that.
“I saw you, sweetheart, and it was like I was hit in the chest. Again. You were—you are more beautiful, inside and outside, than ever. And in the bar that night breaking up a fight? You were fiery and brave and daring, and I was lost. Dancing with you, talking with you about books and everything else under the sun, being at the hot springs, I knew it would hurt when you left again, but I took the chance anyhow.”
“We shouldn’t have done this.” My body started to shake.
I had loved Logan to the core of my being, then I’d lost him, and I’d seriously wondered if I wanted to live.
I came home, we got back together, and I was going to lose him.
Again. I felt an overwhelming sense of loss and loneliness.
Why had I done this to Logan? I loved him.
I didn’t want to hurt him, but I couldn’t resist him.
I was a selfish, stupid, greedy person. He did not deserve this.
“I know why I wanted to be with you, Bellini, but what did you want? A Christmas romance? A fling with an old boyfriend? Are you rebounding from someone else?”
“No.” I tried to stop shaking. “I wasn’t looking for a Christmas romance, or a fling, and I’m not rebounding from anyone. If you don’t want to see me again, I understand. There’s a week until the burlesque show. We can manage until then. We have two more practices, and then…”
“Then what? That’s it?”
I thought I was going to die. I thought I was going to have a heart attack the way my heart seemed to have joined in the trembling. “Yes. That’s it.” My voice was raspy, and it cracked, too. I thought I might crack.
He stood and stalked away, his chest bare.
He ran a hand through his hair. “You’re not staying here in Kalulell.
You don’t want me to move to Oregon. We’re going to be together for a couple weeks, then you’re gone shortly after New Year’s, right?
Your mom will be healthy and back to running the show. ”
“Yes,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry, Logan. I know I’ve hurt you. I did not want to hurt you.” I wrapped my arms around my legs and tried to will them to stop shaking.
“Hurt me?” He was so mad, but I saw the shimmering tears. “Yes, you’ve hurt me, but I allowed it. I couldn’t resist you. That’s what it comes down to.” He threw his arms out at his sides in frustration. I wanted those strong arms around me. “I don’t get it. I never did and never will.”
He couldn’t get it. He didn’t know the truth.
“Logan, you are the best man I have ever known.” The best man I would ever know. I knew I would never love any man like I loved Logan. I was in love with Logan during my marriage. My whole marriage.
Logan stared at me, then he closed his eyes for long seconds. “What you want is a few weeks of sex for Christmas with an old boyfriend, right?”
“That’s not what I want.”
“Yes,” he snapped. “That is clearly what you want. I’m a grown man, and I walked straight into this, and now that you’re here, I don’t think I can walk out of it. You’re going to have to do the walking.”
“I am so sorry. We’ll end…this. I shouldn’t have done this. I should have known better. Let’s break this off. I’m sorry,” I said again. I got up, pulled on my jeans, grabbed my purse, and walked to the door, even though my legs were wobbly.
“So, we’re done, again, right, Bellini?”
I nodded, even though I felt like screaming.
He swore, and I tried as hard as I could not to run over and hug him, hold him, and tell him the truth about what Drake had done. I wanted to tell him that I loved him, that I’d always loved him, that I would always love him, but why confuse everything even more? It would make no sense to him.
“Goodbye, Bellini,” he said, and I froze. He never wanted me to say “goodbye” to him. He had already told me to say, “see you later.”
I couldn’t speak for long, utterly miserable seconds because all my tears were lodged in my throat, combined with the same black, looming depression that had hung over me for years after we first broke up.
“Bye, Logan.”
He let loose a string of swear words, not at me, but because he was aching and angry and upset, and our worlds had crashed together again and splintered apart.
It was snowing, light and fluffy, when I climbed into my truck. I drove to the end of the block, then pulled over and cried until my ribs hurt and my throat was raw.