Always A Bridesmaid (Logan's Legacy Revisited)

by Kristin Hardy

  “We can’t, don’t you see?” She turned to him, eyes filled with despair. “Not here, not now. One of us has to lose. It can’t be you, you tell me.” She put her hand on the doorknob. “And I’ve already lost too much. Goodbye, Gil.”

  And she made herself walk out the door.

  Chapter Fifteen

  It was a shock to walk out of Gil’s building and still see the light of late afternoon. Impossible that it could still be the same day. How could she have gone from absolute bliss to utter despair in such a short time? How could everything that mattered in her life have crumbled? Even her body didn’t feel right as she walked along the street, jerky, disjointed as though she was some kind of windup toy that had been battered and bent.

  She shook her head, trying to come out of her daze. She had to call her family, call Nancy and warn them. She dug her cell phone out of her purse. But just as the call started to connect, her throat tightened and she began to shake.

  She pressed the End button and waited for composure. She just needed a couple of minutes and then she would call. But the shaking didn’t go away. It didn’t go away as she walked to the bus stop; it didn’t go away as she waited for her ride. And it didn’t go away as she text messaged David because she’d realized, finally, that it wasn’t going to go away, not for a long, long while.

  So she rode the bus home, grateful for the unspoken compact that the commuters crammed cheek by jowl would look through one another. She put on sunglasses and sat by the window, staring out as clouds swept in to mask the setting sun. And if she wept behind the dark lenses, no one commented.

  Gil sat at his desk, looking out the window at the giant blue ribbons that ran along the sides of the Portland Building. A honk from a car in the street outside made him start and blink. He’d been staring into space again, he thought, shaking his head. He’d been doing that a lot over the past few days. Something about having life go to hell in a handbasket overnight—hell, in a matter of hours—tended to do that to a person.

  Of course, he supposed it didn’t matter all that much if he stared into space a little, considering it was a Saturday. He’d come in do a final review of Jillian’s profile, which was set to run the next day. Although he was kidding himself. The article was in the can, had been long since.

  But it was a way to avoid his condo, which echoed with her angry words, and his boat, which still resonated with her laughter. It was a way to avoid the memories of her that hovered all around him. Too many for such a short time. And how was it they were lodged everywhere, ready to ambush him at every turn?

  Impatient with himself, he pulled over a manila folder his copy editor had tossed down on his desk. “Needs cutline,” read the sticky note on top.

  And he opened the folder, only to see Jillian staring up at him. It was a picture of her sitting in the chair in her office, legs crossed, a swing of dark hair framing her face. The photographer had managed to capture her in the attitude of listening, concentrating with her eyes, her face, her whole body. For an instant, she was all but present in the room.

  And the sudden ache for her surged through him.

  Why couldn’t she understand that pulling a story for personal reasons was against every principle of journalism he’d ever learned? It wasn’t as simple as protecting Robbie or protecting her. It wasn’t even as simple as violating who he was. It was bigger than that. The ripples spread out into the world, to every person who picked up the paper because they thought it was telling them how the shape of their community had changed that day.

  Not that it was telling them what was convenient for the personal life of the editor. Why couldn’t she see that?

  Because it hurt her, he thought immediately. Because she felt an obligation, a compulsion to save Robbie, to see that he was protected.

  The way she hadn’t been.

  It sliced through him, the thought of what had happened to her as a child. He’d known she had secrets, but nothing like this. He ached for her. He ached over the fact that he hadn’t known. Why hadn’t she opened up to him? Why hadn’t she let him help? Instead, she’d kept it all locked inside, then wielded it as a weapon.

  They could be so much together, he thought in impotent frustration. But he was kidding himself. How did you build a relationship with someone who blocked you out? How did you get to know someone when they kept the walls up all around them?

  What haunted him, though, was the end of it all, her expression desperate and shattered, her voice vibrating with remembered pain. All he could do was feel for her.

  Damn Robbie Logan for starting the whole mess, he thought in sudden frustration. If he hadn’t screwed up, there would have been time to gain Jillian’s trust; there would have been time to go slowly, persuade her to reveal her secrets. Instead, the issue of Robbie had catalyzed their differences.

  Over the years, Gil had been involved with any number of women. The relationships always ended, usually around the time they started wanting something more from him. In none of those cases had there been the least overlap between his work and their lives. He’d been free to commit if he’d wanted to; he just hadn’t wanted to.

  And now he’d found the woman who was right for him, the woman he’d connected with, the one with whom he’d clicked. Except that his work and her family had mixed like water and concrete to create a barrier so solid and so high it was impossible to get around.

  Damn Robbie Logan, anyway.

  And Jillian’s voice sounded in his head. He was making a new life. He was building something and you took him down.

  Like hell, Gil thought. He’d edited those stories. They’d been multisourced. Granted, the first one, the one that had gotten all the play, hadn’t had comment from the Logan camp, but they hadn’t been slanted.

  Had they?

  Shaking it off, he turned his attention back to the photograph and banged out a hasty cutline for his copy editor and sent it.

  When does a man get a chance to redeem himself? When does he get to be taken on the strength of the present, not the past?

  They’d covered the news, he thought, staring at Jillian’s eyes in the photograph. They’d done their job. Restlessly, he drummed his fingers on the desk.

  And without even quite deciding to do it, he found himself searching out one Robbie Logan story after another on the Gazette Web site. Settling back, he began to read.

  Two hours later, he rubbed his chin thoughtfully. The stories hadn’t changed since he’d first reviewed them and yet somehow they looked different. Read different. Sure, they’d covered the who, what, when, where, why and how, but they hadn’t shown the people involved. They hadn’t said anything at all about the bigger issues or the mitigating circumstances. Things look different depending on where you’re sitting, he’d once told Jillian.

  And, boy, they sure looked different now.

  Quick and sure, he reached for his keyboard and began to type.

  Jillian sat out in her garden, tying up her clematis onto their trellises. She’d waited too long with some of them, she thought, carefully unwinding the curving tendrils that had seized onto the stems of neighboring plants.

  “Let go,” she gritted as she unwound one. That was the danger. It was always harder to let go when you latched on too quickly to something. Or someone, said a little voice in her head. Like Gil Reynolds. She’d thought she was so smart, keeping him at arm’s length, keeping him out, never realizing all the while that he was sneaking under her guard. And while he’d been sneaking under her guard, he’d sneaked into her heart.

  No, she thought immediately, not into her heart because that would mean she was in love with him and that would be pure idiocy. Ridiculous. Impossible. So what if she found herself missing him with an almost physical ache? It didn’t matter. What mattered was that he’d sabotaged Robbie. He’d sabotaged Robbie and thought it was just fine. And he’d had the gall to blame her for not understanding, attack her for not opening up to him.

  Trust issues? Hell, yeah, she had trus
t issues with the likes of him. He’d had sex with her, taken her virginity, knowing the whole time that the story on Robbie’s disappearance was going to run in the Gazette. Knowing what it would do to her. Yes, she bore some responsibility for pushing him to go ahead. She still couldn’t stop the anger. He’d never apologized, he’d only defended.

  And accused her of holding out on him.

  The anger flickered through her. What the hell business was it of his, the painful, humiliating details of her past? Why did he have to pry? What right did he have to find out her secrets, to crawl inside her mind?

  Because he could help, a voice inside her whispered. And that quickly, she remembered talking to him on the couch, feeling the warmth of his hand holding hers, the acceptance, being held in the safety of his arms.

  But he’d betrayed her. And she’d walked away from the betrayal because she’d had to, because there were no easy answers. She’d walked away knowing she might never find that particular feeling again.

  Loss boiled up, threatening to overwhelm her. She squeezed her eyes shut. Focus on the anger, she told herself for a whirling moment, clenching her fingers into the earth. Focusing on the anger would let her avoid the things she didn’t want to think about. And as the minutes crawled by, she felt the urge to scream ebb away. She opened her eyes and dusted off her hands. The anger would get her through that minute and the next. And the next. And eventually, the feelings would fade away and she’d be able to wake without dreading the day ahead.

  “I have some birth parent letters to show you,” Jillian said, two days later to Alison. “Remember, this is just to give you an idea of your options. This isn’t to pressure you into any decisions, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Now, this one’s from John and Anne Sternwood.” She handed the document over.

  The girl read, frowning a little as she read.

  “I know they sound stiff,” Jillian said apologetically. “They really are nice people, though. They’re committed to providing a good, stable home. You’d be able to meet them, of course, draw your own conclusions. And you’ll see they’ve indicated that they’re open to sending a yearly letter and photo to the mother of their child.”

  Alison nodded, clearly unconvinced. “I just want the baby to be happy,” she whispered.

  Jillian nodded. “I know. Try this one. It’s the birth parent letter for Doug and Shelly Dolan.”

  “A letter?” Alison took the padded binder. “It looks more like a scrapbook.”

  “That’s Doug and Shelly. They don’t do things the way you’d expect but they’re good people. It’s important to them that you understand who they are and what they’re about,” Jillian said.

  But Alison was already paging through the book, laughing delightedly at the photo of Doug covered in soapsuds, washing the car with one of his young nephews.

  “We found each other late,” she read off the page.

  “That meant both of us had gone through tough times and disappointments. It took us a long time to trust that what we had between us was real but it is and it’s lasted. That’s why we want so much to share our lives with a child, or hopefully two or three.

  “And it doesn’t matter if that child is ours biologically or ours as a gift. We have love and a home. Now, we want to fill it with family.”

  Alison was silent for a moment. When she looked at Jillian, tears shimmered in her eyes. “This is them,” she said shakily. “These are the parents for my child.”

  “You need to meet them,” Jillian said. “Make sure you’re sure.”

  “I will and I am,” Alison said. “The people who made this book will know how to love a child and let it be who it is. They know how to trust to love.”

  Trust to love.

  Jillian stared into space, tracing the letters on a pad of paper. They’d stayed in her head all the previous night. She had work to do, she knew, but somehow her mind just kept circling around Alison’s phrase.

  Nearly a week had gone by since Gil’s bitter words about trust. Nearly a week, and she’d managed to survive. Work helped, anything that would keep her busy, preferably leave her exhausted and wiped out at the end. Her house, always spotless, now positively shone with cleanliness. The wood gleamed with beeswax, the air held the scent of fresh pine sachets. But no matter how much she polished and scrubbed and tidied, she couldn’t wipe away the memory of Gil standing in her hall.

  And no matter how hard she worked at her office, she couldn’t ignore the specter of him sitting in a corner, tapping on his computer or watching her with that lazy smile on his face. Sometimes, she swore that she could even smell him. Ridiculous, she lectured herself. Self-indulgent. She was a therapist, she knew better than this. He was gone and she needed to forget him.

  In the daylight hours she could mostly manage. There were enough distractions to keep her from being paralyzed with misery. It was the nights that remained unbearable. At night, she had no defense for the loss and emptiness that swept in. In the darkness, between the sheets, she remembered what it had felt like to press against him. She remembered the weight of his body on hers, the feel of him inside her. She remembered the sheer immensity of the pleasure.

  And the immensity of the tenderness. In the circle of his arms, for that brief time, she’d felt safe in a way she never had before. She’d felt cared for, protected.

  Loved.

  Not love, she thought immediately, veering away from the thought. Sure, he’d said the words, but he couldn’t possibly have meant them. If he had, he couldn’t have done the things he’d done. She’d forget she’d ever heard them. She’d grown resigned to the fact that she never would.

  And if she worked hard enough, she could convince herself that none of it had ever been real. So what if she still had a tendency to shake and weep without warning? So what if her emotions felt flayed? Too much had happened to her in too short a time, and she was still so worried about Robbie. They all were. She was too intelligent to confuse emotional turmoil with love.

  Wasn’t she?

  Anyway, what was the point? It wasn’t possible. Too much stood between them and she had to accept it. Maybe they had had some exquisite moments together. Not everything that felt right was meant to work out. Sometimes what seemed right was still just wrong.

  And you had to figure out a way to live with it.

  Her phone rang, a welcome interruption from her thoughts. “Hello?”

  “Hi, Jillian? It’s Scott. Logan, I mean. Your cousin.”

  “I think I remember you. The investigation, right?”

  “Right. I’ve got some news.”

  Instantly, she was alert. “Robbie?”

  “Yes. I’ve found him.”

  The relief had her smiling, for the first time in nearly a week. “Good news. Where is he?”

  “Staying at a fleabag hotel in downtown Vegas. Turned out that letter he sent was a tip-off, after all.”

  “Have you contacted him?”

  “Hell, no. You’re the shrink. That’s your job. I’m just the P.I., remember?”

  She pulled a pad of paper toward her. “Who else knows?”

  “You’re the first. I’ll leave it up to you to decide who else hears about it and when.”

  “First, I need to tell Nancy and my parents. Then we need to get everybody together right away. I’d like you to be there, too.”

  “Where?”

  She thought a moment. “Probably here at the clinic, don’t you think? Most of us work in the area. It’s central.”

  “Good. I can stop and see Alicia,” he said, pleased. “It’s, what, nine-thirty now? Let’s try for ten.”

  “Perfect. I’ll spread the word.”

  Lois wasn’t in her office so Jillian walked down to the day care center to find Nancy supervising a group of children working with finger paints. In the week since Jillian had seen her, Nancy had grown even thinner, her smile a pale imitation of the sunbeam grin that she usually unleashed on the world.

 
Jillian stepped forward. “Nancy, do you have a minute?”

  Nancy wiped her hands on her apron. “Of course. What’s going on?”

  “Good news,” Jillian said. “Robbie’s been found.”

  Nancy’s face went absolutely white and she swayed.

  “Sit down.” Jillian guided her to a chair and pressed her head down between her knees. “Breathe.”

  “They’ve found him? Where is he?”

  “I just heard from Scott. He’s in Las Vegas. I didn’t get the details on where—”

  “I’ve got to go to him.” Nancy straightened.

  “Nancy, be smart about this. I haven’t even told my parents yet. I wanted you to be first to hear. Yes, we need to go find him but we need to be cautious.”

  “There isn’t any ‘we’ about it,” Nancy snapped. “He’s my husband and I’m going to bring him home.”

  It was the first time Jillian had heard her say a cross word to anyone. “We’re not your enemies, Nancy. We all want him home.”

  Nancy gave her a despairing look. “Dawn Bruce, his probation officer, came to the house this weekend looking for him.”

  Jillian sucked in a breath. “What did you tell her?”

  “That he was gone. What else could I say?”

  “Did you tell her why?”

  Nancy nodded. “I showed her the note and his resignation. She understands. She really seems to care about him but there’s only so much she can do. She says she can delay as much as possible but if he’s not in her office by tomorrow, he’ll almost certainly have to do jail time.” She stood. “So I’m going to get him, now.”

  Jillian shook her head. “This has to have been so hard for you. I can’t imagine how worried you’ve been. But you can’t just go rushing off. I didn’t even get the hotel name from Scott, and we need to work out the right approach. If we just jump him out of the blue, there’s nothing to stop him from bolting again.”