Chapter Five
In the morning, as Cassie drove to work, she dreaded the day ahead of her. She and Matt hadn’t exchanged so much as a text since he’d watched her drive off. With any luck, he’d be called to a different area of the park.
But she couldn’t avoid him forever. What would he say when she did see him? Would he speak to her at all?
Last night, she’d been so sure that speaking up would solve everything. By early morning, she was no longer sure of anything. She’d hardly slept, worrying about Matt, hating herself for hurting him. More than once, she’d taken her phone from the nightstand and almost texted him, but each time, she put the phone back with a sigh and returned to staring at the dark ceiling.
She parked in her usual spot. Matt’s truck wasn’t there, so either he had been called elsewhere or he was running late. Either way, she had some time to come up with something to say to him.
She needed to figure out what she really wanted, because she kept vacillating between wanting to take everything back and aching to have a piece of what Andrea and Tammy had. She wanted some of that romance. Just a little would do.
Yet did she and Matt even have a genuine adult relationship? Or were they just buddies who occasionally kissed?
An hour into work, she still hadn’t heard from Matt and wanted to text him to see where he’d been assigned for the day. But she decided that she shouldn’t; last night she might have given up the right to expect such courtesies. Matt might even assume that their relationship was over.
A weight seemed to be attached to her heart, pulling her downward. Her polite smile faltered, and she could hardly stand interacting with park guests.
At last her break arrived, and she nearly ran to her supervisor, John, to find out where Matt was working today. Before she could get the question out, John glanced up from some papers and said, “Sorry to hear that Matt’s under the weather. Give him my best, will you?” And he walked off.
Cassie stood there as still as stone. Had Matt called in sick? Or was it something worse? Did he get hurt on his drive home last night? Worry wormed through her, right along with the regret and guilt that had already set up camp there. She wanted to hurry to his cabin with some chicken noodle soup, and then she’d…
Do what?
She didn’t know, but she had to do something. She could take the day off, for starters. She hurried after John, but a painful thought hit her, and her step came up short. What if Matt was deliberately avoiding her? Maybe he didn’t want to see her. Maybe he needed space. If so, showing up would only make things worse.
That had to be it. Otherwise he would have told her that he was sick, right?
Maybe. Maybe not. Frustrated, she groaned. Yesterday at this hour, she would have known the answer. But a lot had happened since then. Everything had been simpler before. Boring, sure, but at least she’d been able to count on Matt to always be there. He’d been her rock in the middle of any storm.
Until today. The thought made her feet unsteady.
Her phone buzzed, startling her, and she eagerly pulled it out of her pocket, hoping to see a message from Matt. But the text was from Andrea.
You free for lunch? I’m leaving today & want to see you one last time, just the two of us. I need some advice. I can meet you in the park.
Cassie frowned at her phone. Andrea wanted advice from her, the friend who lived a backwoods, almost uncivilized life? And she even was willing to pay to get into the park and then drive almost an hour to see Cassie? The family reunion at a fancy cabin, which had power, plumbing, internet, and more, was about the closest thing to roughing it that Andrea could endure. She’d never paddled a canoe down a river or gone hiking or fishing, all activities likely to break a nail, or worse — cause her to be out in the sun and burn, making her wrinkle at a younger age.
The same woman Cassie knew as too dainty to handle the great outdoors was offering to drive into the wild.
The only explanation she could think of was that Andrea didn’t want Tammy to hear about her worries. But what could Andrea possibly need advice about? And why did she think that Cassie, of all people, could give it to her? The only things Cassie knew about that most people didn’t were a bunch of history and geological facts about the Yellowstone caldera.
She wanted to get away from the visitor’s center anyway. Every minute inside that building felt like torture when Matt wasn’t there and wasn’t communicating with her. Every time she looked through the windows, she saw the benches by Old Faithful, which reminded her again that Matt probably hadn’t come to work because of her.
Her world had been knocked off-kilter. Going to a different area of the park would be a relief from being reminded of Matt at every turn. Maybe lunch elsewhere in the park with a friend would help clear her head.
She texted Andrea a confirmation and asked if she had a meeting place in mind. She wanted to be excited about seeing Andrea again, but the worries about Matt felt as if a heavy cloak of gray fog had settled over her. Could their relationship survive the rift she’d created? The whole thing was such a jumbled mess that she had no idea which way was up.
A deep voice called to her. “Cassie? You okay?” It was John approaching.
She looked up from her phone as she clicked send then began a nod that changed midway into a shake of her head.
“You’re pale,” John said, his brows drawn together. “I wonder if you caught whatever Matt has. You have plenty of sick days saved up. How about you take the rest of the day off?”
“I…” she said, not knowing how to respond. Although she’d had that very thought, when it was suggested to her, she hesitated. “Thanks, John. I appreciate it.”
“Rest up.”
“I will,” she said.
His radio crackled with an incoming message, and he headed off.
Minutes later, she’d retrieved her purse and gotten into her car. By then, Andrea had replied.
I’m sort of hanging out at Bridge Bay Amphitheater. Is that too far for you to drive?
How did Andrea know about the amphitheater? Cassie tapped out a reply. Not too far at all. On my way. Be there as soon as I can.
She set her phone aside and drove to the Bridge Bay area. Cassie parked and walked to the open-air amphitheater. Sure enough, there was Andrea sitting on the back row, gazing at the stage.
Cassie jogged over to her friend and joined her, feeling a sense of déjà vu as she sat on the bench, knowing an important conversation was about to happen. Hopefully she wouldn’t hurt anyone this time.
Andrea looked up, her face splotchy and wet with tears. She threw her arms around Cassie, who hugged her back. Andrea cried into her shoulder, murmuring something about Luke, but Cassie couldn’t make it out.
Finally they pulled apart. Andrea wiped at her cheeks with both hands and smoothed her maxi dress, saying, “Thanks for coming.”
“Of course,” Cassie said, wondering again why Andrea didn’t talk to Tammy. Maybe she had but didn’t get what she needed.
Andrea looked around them at the trees and mountains, rhwn breathed in deeply. Instead of diving into her personal problems, she said, “You are so lucky to live here.”
“It is nice,” Cassie agreed. She eyed her friend and tried to lighten the mood. “But there are trade-offs. The closest Trader Joe’s is hundreds of miles away,” she said. “It’s so far from civilization that it might as well be the moon.” She chuckled. Judging by Andrea’s reaction — or lack of one — her attempt at levity didn’t land.
Andrea’s shoulders drooped. “Trader Joe’s isn’t everything.”
“We don’t have a Target or Walmart, either,” Cassie said.
That elicited a small smile — success.
“In that case, this is the cusp of savagery,” Andrea said. But her lighthearted voice belied the sadness in her eyes and the way her mouth pulled down at the corners. “Except that you have the happiest life I’ve seen in a long time.”
Cassie let out a sharp laugh, assu
ming this was Andrea’s way of cracking a joke through her tears. When Andrea didn’t laugh, Cassie stopped. “You’re serious.”
One shoulder lifted, then fell. “At least you have a really good guy as a boyfriend. That’s more than I can say.” Andrea searched her purse for a tissue then blew her nose.
That’s when Cassie noticed that the engagement ring Andrea had so proudly displayed was missing. Cassie reached out and took her friend’s hand. “What happened?”
Andrea held the tissue to her face and shook her head back and forth.
“Is the wedding still on?”
She shook her head again.
“Oh, Andrea, I’m so sorry,” Cassie said, putting an arm around Andrea’s shoulders. “What happened?”
“I don’t know.” Andrea lowered her hands, holding them out helplessly, palms up. “We never set a wedding date, and I kept hinting that we needed one. Then last night over the phone—” She put a hand to her mouth, holding back a whimper, then looked at Cassie and said, “He said I was pushing too hard. That the only reason he proposed was because I wouldn’t back off. That I nagged him into it. Nagged!”
Cassie tried to come up with something to say, but what? There was no reconciling the story about the romantic proposal and previously glowing Andrea with a cruel breakup and a crushed heart.
“I should have seen the signs,” Andrea said.
“Like what?” Cassije needed to know. If Andrea’s amazing, romantic man of her dreams had broken her heart, what hope did anyone have?
“My first clue should have been how he always flirts with other women. I used to find it charming and sweet and sexy; he could get any woman he wanted, but he wanted me. He was mine. I enjoyed seeing girls flirt with him and then look at me with jealousy in their eyes.” She sniffed. “Lame, I know.”
“It’s not lame,” Cassie said.
“I figured that once we were engaged, it would stop, but it didn’t, and it started to bother me a lot.”
“It would bother any woman.” Cassie had imagined a Prince Charming for Andrea, but the image in her head was beginning to tarnish. “Did you ask him to stop?”
“Not at first.” Andrea worried the tissue between her fingers until little balls of Kleenex fell to the ground, where Cassie knew they would stay until gathered by a bird or a squirrel for nesting material. “I was so excited that he’d picked me, you know? Me. Out of all the women out there, Luke Preston picked me. How could I risk losing him by nagging him over something so silly?”
“But that’s not a silly thing at all,” Cassie insisted.
“He thought it was.” She wiped her cheeks with the back of one hand. “When I finally mentioned getting married and picking a date, I tried to keep it light, sort of teasing. I didn’t want him to think I was mad, and I thought that maybe he’d see it as a harmless thing I was asking for. But he laughed. If I ever brought it up again, he told me to back off, to stop suffocating him.”
Cassie didn’t have a lot of experience with serious relationships, and Matt never flirted with other women. If someone were to offer him a million dollars, he wouldn’t do it.
“Luke had a girlfriend when we met,” Andrea said. “Did I tell you that? We started just with flirting. He broke up with her, and I thought I’d won.” She laughed bitterly. “I was such an idiot. Eventually, I realized that he could easily run off with some other girl like he did with me. The only way to be sure he wouldn’t was to get a ring on my finger. So I pushed for that. We starting fighting, and eventually, he finally lost it out.” She slowly quoted him. “He said,‘What can I do to get you to back the hell off?’” Andrea’s voice sounded dull, almost dead, so unlike her normal bubbly self.
“He said that?” Cassie’s heart ached. What kind of man swore at a woman, especially at one he supposedly loved?
“Yep,” Andrea said. “Those exact words. I’ll never forget them. Guess how I answered him. Guess what brilliant thing I told him to do — the one thing that would make me feel secure so I’d back off.”
Understanding dawned on Cassie, and with it came a twist in her middle.
“I asked for a proposal,” Andrea said, and she laughed bitterly. “Yeah. How dumb am I? Of course he made it elaborate so everyone would hear about how great he is, and so I’d shut up. He never wanted to get married. Giving me a ring was like giving a pacifier to a crying baby.” She closed her eyes, sending tears falling down her cheeks. “Oh, Cass, he never … He never loved me.”
“I’m sure he does,” Cassie said. He must have loved her in some way, at some point.
The Prince Charming image started crumbling. He was about to fall right off that noble steed. Cassie’s belief in happily ever after was crumbling with it.
“Last night,” Andrea went on, “I called to say goodnight, and I heard—” Her voice cut off on a high note, and she had to breathe a few times before going on. “I heard another woman’s voice in the background.”
“No.” Cassie gasped with a hand to her lips.
“He was home.” Andrea went on as if she had to get it all out. “He pretended that it was his housekeeper, but she comes on Tuesday mornings. Never at night. Plus, she’s from Mexico. I heard a French accent. She called him babe.”
Cassie tried to hide a shudder. “How long do you think he’s been…”
“Maybe the whole time.” Andrea found a fresh tissue and wiped her eyes with it. “Last night, I started to wonder. I dug around online and found his profile on three dating sites. I always wondered why he never changed his relationship status or posted pictures of us or talked about me publicly. Now I know why. He was keeping his options open.”
The romantic ideal Andrea had described continued to shatter in Cassie’s mind, piece by piece. Was anything romantic also real? Were there any decent men left who had good hearts and valued loyalty?
“Can we take a walk?” Andrea said. “I’ve got too much nervous energy to sit still.” She stood, and Cassie followed her, happy to stroll through the wooded trails.
They lapsed into relative quiet; nature had a way of doing that, of calming and soothing the soul, and taking away the need for things like words, giving a measure of much-needed peace instead.
Cassie led the way along a path lined with wildflowers and evergreen trees. And as Andrea walked off her hurt over Luke, Cassie’s thoughts turned to her own questions, to Matt.
Matt was real. So very, very real. He was genuine; he hid nothing, pretended nothing.
He could be trusted. She’d trusted him for a long time and always would. He’d cared for her when she was sick, taking her to the hospital and staying by her side all night until her mom arrived. Never once had she worried that Matt would try to cross a line.
If he said he would do something, he did it. If someone asked her to trust either the eruption schedule for Old Faithful or Matt, she’d pick him every time. He was far more reliable.
The answer to the last question came with clarity as bright as the sun shining off a river: Were there any men left who had good hearts and who valued loyalty?
Yes. One, at least. Matt had a good heart, a tender heart, and she’d trampled all over it for the pathetic reason that he didn’t act like someone else. Because he wasn’t the kind of guy who brought her roses and chocolates and took her on carriage rides by moonlight.
Matt would never be that guy. Yet she loved him.
Suddenly, Cassie knew that she didn’t even want that other guy. Roses, chocolates, carriage rides, and all of the other romantic trapping she’d been spoon fed were all well and good when they showed up in and movies, but in real life, what use were they when she got sick or needed help from someone who cared?
Matt would always be there for her. She knew that in her bones. And she loved him deeply, if not in a showy, flashy way.
He might need a reminder that there were such things as engagement rings and preachers, but she had no doubt that he would be quite happy to pledge himself to her and her alone if she asked him
to.
She pictured the shattered illusion of romance lying in shards on the ground. Mentally, she swept them up and threw them away.
By the time they returned to their cars, Andrea looked ten times better. She hugged Cassie hard. “Thanks for listening to me,” she said. “I needed to be with someone who has a real kind of love. The kind you and Matt have.”
They pulled apart, and Cassie suddenly found her own eyes smarting with the beginning of tears. She swallowed against a knot in her throat. “You think?”
“I don’t know much about you two,” Andrea admitted. “But I can tell that he makes you happy. He’s the real thing, isn’t he?”
Cassie’s chest warmed at the realization of what she’d known on some level all along. “Yeah. He is.”
“You are so lucky,” Andrea said. “I swear, Ryan Gosling and Tom Hiddleston have ruined me, but you found the real thing.” She leveled her gaze at Cassie’s. “Don’t you dare let him go.”
“I won’t,” Cassie said.
Over the top of her car, Andrea called out a promise to keep in touch, to let Cassie know how things turned out, and to make sure that years didn’t pass before they saw each other again.
As Cassie watched Andrea drive off, she hugged herself. The warmth that had started in her chest grew, spreading until her body was filled down to her fingers and toes.
In that moment, Cassie knew she had to make things right with Matt. She had to apologize. And if she could summon the guts, she might even manage to throw out the childish dreams she’d held on to about the supposedly perfect proposal … and ask him the question.
Before starting the engine, she sent a text to Matt to make sure he was at home.
She’d get chicken noodle soup from the restaurant at the Old Faithful lodge, then take care of him while he was sick, as he’d done for her. She’d apologize and say how foolish she’d been, how silly and immature, and how she already had everything she wanted in him. She waited for a reply. After what felt like far too long, a text finally came from Matt.
Love Far from Home Box Set Page 9
