by Elena Aitken
Thankful for Lisa, Morgan wandered from one activity to another all day, only half-heartedly engaging with the kids. She needed to snap out of it and do her job, but no matter how much she told herself she was being ridiculous, Morgan couldn’t stop thinking about Bo and Ella. She remembered the way Bo had rushed into the room with Ella in his arms the day she’d tripped and skinned her knee. He’d been so concerned, so caring. How could that be the same Bo who had given his daughter to Social Services? How could the same man who had grilled Morgan for ways to connect with Ella turn around and get rid of her?
“Morgan?” Lisa’s voice broke her thoughts and it took her a moment to realize that Lisa was speaking to her. She lifted a hand in response and Lisa continued, “I thought we could do some paintings with the kids today. Could you go mix them up?”
Morgan nodded her response. Normally, it would be her asking Lisa to get the supplies ready. But nothing was normal and nothing made sense. She went to the supply station and started taking the powdered paints out of the cupboard. Without measuring, Morgan dumped some blue powder in the red cup and went back to her thoughts.
The more she went over what had happened, the more questions she had. The Bo she’d gotten to know, the one she was falling in love with, wouldn’t do what everyone said he’d done. But then again, she reminded herself, maybe she didn’t know Bo at all. Their kisses had been passionate and deep and had definitely left her craving more. And she’d been so sure that Bo felt the same way. After all, hadn’t she seen that same desire reflected in his eyes, and felt it in the way he touched her? She had. She knew she had.
A flare of anger ripped through her and she jerked back, spilling the red powder she was measuring all over the floor. “Crap!” She slammed the container down on the cupboard and tried to wipe up the mess. The powder smeared into a red smudge. “Oh, come on,” Morgan said to herself and the increasing mess. Tears flooded her eyes as she stopped and stared at the mess.
“Morgan?” Lisa appeared at her side.
“I don’t know what to do,” Morgan whispered.
“It’s just paint. It’s okay.” Lisa took her arm and led her to the private office.
“No, it’s not okay.”
Lisa sat her in the chair and handed her a tissue. “You don’t seem like yourself today.”
That was an understatement and they both knew it.
“I miss her, too,” Lisa said softly. “If you want to talk…”
Morgan shook her head.
“Okay, well, I have everything under control out there. Why don’t you just stay in here for a bit until you feel better?”
Morgan nodded and laid her head on the desk, cradling it in her arms. Of course, Lisa knew what had happened. News travelled fast at the Lodge. Everyone probably also knew about how Morgan had fallen for his act. She’d been played, by Castle Mountain’s biggest player. She’d known about his reputation, and let it happen anyway. Morgan’s tears fell on the desk, splashing against her skin. She’d been a fool and now, nothing made sense.
Chapter Nineteen
The sun was high in the sky by the time Bo blinked his eyes open and then instantly shut them again against the blinding light. He groaned and rubbed his palms into his gritty eyes. It wasn’t like him to sleep so late; then again, it wasn’t like him to drink more than his share of a bottle of tequila. Straight.
Bo groaned again and rolled over to check the time. He opened his eyes again, this time looking squarely at the trunk of a tree.
“What the—“
He pushed himself up to a sitting position and instantly regretted it as a wave of nausea swept through him. When it passed, he opened his eyes again and looked around. All he could see were pine trees and shrubs but no sign of the Lodge or any other building.
“Shit.”
Memories of the night before came to him in bits and pieces. He remembered propping himself up at the bar and downing shot after shot of tequila that the bartender, Luke, poured for him. He remembered swiping the bottle when Luke said he’d had enough. And he remembered taking Taryn, the cute blond who worked at the front desk, back to his room with him. He’d known she was a sure thing. She’d wanted him since the start of the season and hadn’t made a secret of it. Bo didn’t particularly care for her. She wasn’t his type—she wasn’t Morgan.
He shut his eyes, trying in vain to close his mind to everything else. The things he didn’t want to remember. The memories came hard and fast, like a slide show on fast forward. Stumbling down the path to his condo. Kissing Taryn up against the door. Opening the door to an empty suite. Empty because only hours earlier he’d packed her bags and given Ella to Clara Kersey and watched her walk away.
Ella.
The memory brought a physical stab of pain to his gut. With a cry of anguish ripping through him, Bo rolled to his knees and emptied the contents of his stomach.
~ ~
Once he could move without feeling like he’d be ill again, Bo stumbled along the path, using the direction of the sun to guide him back to the Lodge. It had been the ultimate in stupidity, running out into the woods alone and at night, but Bo was pretty sure he hadn’t been thinking of everything that could have gone wrong when he’d taken off from the suite. He was pretty sure he hadn’t been thinking at all. Even after walking for awhile, by his estimate he was still at least an hour away, which was good because it would give him time to sober up. And think.
The tequila may have numbed his feelings for a while, but the fuzz couldn’t last forever and with the alcohol slowly leaving his body, Bo had enough clarity to know that he’d made a terrible choice. The hole in his heart where Ella’s presence should have been ached enough that Bo struggled to get a deep breath as he remembered the day before.
When he’d walked into the lobby with Ella in his arms, he’d been taken off guard. He’d forgotten that he’d been the one to call Clara Kersey. That he’d been the one to tell Social Services that maybe Ella’s uncle would be a better guardian. A man he didn’t even know. A man he’d never even spoken to. And yet, when Clara introduced them, and reminded Bo why she was there, he still didn’t open his mouth to tell her that he’d changed his mind. He didn’t tell her that he’d fallen in love with Ella and that he couldn’t imagine not having her with him.
He didn’t say any of that. Instead, Bo had let his insecurities take over. He remembered what Jeff had said about not screwing things up with Morgan. About telling him how much an unstable childhood could harm a child. So instead of following his heart, he’d looked at Ella, still asleep in his arms and was suddenly and totally overwhelmed by the responsibility of making the wrong choices with her life. In the end, he’d been a coward. He’d bent his head and placed a gentle kiss on Ella’s forehead and then handed her to the uncle. The man he didn’t know.
When Ella’s eyes fluttered open and she’d looked at him with confusion and fear in her eyes, he’d lied to her and told her that everything would be okay. Then he’d turned away and gone to pack her bags.
He’d abandoned her. His own daughter.
With remembrance crashing through him, Bo started running. He moved his feet down the trail as fast as his exhausted body would carry him. Stumbling, tripping, and cursing, he made his laborious way through the forest, until out of breath, exhausted and tired, he arrived back at the Lodge.
Chapter Twenty
Astrid was still at work when Morgan pushed through the door of their apartment. The last thing she needed was to explain to her roommate why she’d skipped out from her shift early. All she wanted to do was curl up in her bed and forget all about Bo and Ella and how they’d both managed to work their way into her carefully-guarded heart.
She stripped off her jeans and tossed them on the floor. A flash of red caught her eye and she bent to retrieve the sunstone that she’d tucked into her pocket earlier.
“Yeah, right,” she scoffed. “Protection and attraction? So much for your stupid stone, Astrid.” She started to toss the rock in
to the wastebasket, but stopped herself and put it on the dresser. She’d give it back to Astrid later.
She was just pulling the cover over her head when there was a banging at the door. Morgan ignored it thinking it was probably just someone who wanted to party. The problem with staff residence, she’d discovered, was that someone always wanted to party. She tugged the blanket tightly over her head and willed the knocking to stop.
“Morgan!”
Her breath caught in her throat at the sound of the voice, but she didn’t move. There was nothing he could say that could explain what he’d done. Why he’d used her and then tossed his daughter aside. She willed her heart to slow its frenzied pace. She held her breath and listened.
“Open the door,” Bo called. And then softer, “Please.”
The catch in his voice and the pain behind the last word made Morgan throw the covers back, pull on her jeans, and go to him.
When she opened the door, Morgan’s hand instinctively reached out to Bo. His handsome face was covered in dirt and it looked like tear tracks had streaked through the grime on his cheeks. His eyes were bloodshot; his clothes were ripped and covered with grass and leaves.
“Are you okay?” she asked. Her hands flew over him, not touching, but assessing the damage.
“I let her go,” he said, ignoring her question.
Morgan stepped back as he walked forward into her apartment and she had to hold a hand to her face to protect against the stench of alcohol wafting off him.
“Bo…you…what the hell happened?” She finally settled on a question.
He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he walked through the room and sank on to the couch. Morgan crossed her arms and leaned up against the wall. A wave of rage so sudden and so intense filled her, scaring her with its intensity. She wanted to tell him to leave. Tell him to get his alcohol-soaked, cheating, child-abandoning self out of her apartment. He’d hurt her. She’d trusted him with her heart and he’d thrown it away. She wanted to yell and scream at him. But watching him sitting on her couch, broken and defeated by his own demons, she also wanted to help him and the rage melted as quickly as it’d appeared.
Morgan filled a glass of water and put it in his hand. She held all her questions and waited while he drank deep. When he was ready, he handed her the empty glass and cleared his throat.
“I gave her away,” he said. She swallowed hard against the painful tightening in her throat, but didn’t say anything. “I got scared, Morgan.” He looked up at her, his eyes shadowed and weary. “I was selfish and scared and I let them take her.” His voice hitched and a tear slipped from his eye. “I have to get her back. I need to get her back. I didn’t realize until it was too late what I’d done. But Morgan, I fell in love.”
Morgan’s heart skipped a beat at his words even though he wasn’t talking about her. She swallowed all the things she wanted to say to him but couldn’t. Instead, she forced herself to smile. “Of course you did,” she said. “You fell in love with a sweet little blond girl. You fell in love with your daughter.”
~ ~
Morgan prepared a pot of tea while Bo made the call to Clara Kersey. She listened from the kitchen while he explained to the Social Services lady how he’d panicked at the thought of being a father, and apologized for wasting everyone’s time. Morgan could feel her own heart break a little more as Bo fought back tears while he spoke, but when he finally hung up, he had a cautious smile on his face.
“She agreed to meet,” he said. Morgan put a cup of tea on the table in front of him. “Tessa’s brother has a family of his own and his wife wasn’t thrilled about the daughter of his estranged sister coming to live with them, so Clara still feels that I’m the best person to raise Ella.” A sheepish grin spread across his face. “Even if I did screw up a little bit.”
“You did,” Morgan said. “But no parent is perfect.”
He shook his head. “No, I guess not. And I still have a lot to learn.” He ran his hands through his hair, leaving it standing at wild angles. “And it’s still not a sure thing,” he said. “Clara said that there’ll be paperwork and lots of questions. Of course, they’ll need to be sure that it’s a permanent solution this time.”
Morgan raised an eyebrow. “And is it?”
He dropped his hands and leapt to his feet. “Of course!”
“I’m sorry,” Morgan looked down, “I wasn’t trying to…”
“No,” Bo said. He dropped to a crouch in front of her and took her hand. A spark flew through her, but Morgan worked to control her response before he saw it. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know you’re just trying to help, and I suppose it was a fair question.”
Morgan nodded, careful not to move her hand. She enjoyed the feel of his skin on hers. It was difficult to believe that only twenty-four hours ago that same action had felt normal and easy between them. Too soon, Bo released her hand and sat again. She tried not to let the disappointment show on her face. The last thing Bo was going to worry about was a relationship with her. He needed to focus on getting his little girl back, and so did she.
Morgan forced herself to take a sip of tea and slow her racing heart before asking, “Did she say how Ella’s doing?”
Bo’s face fell. “Clara said Ella won’t speak at all and she’s slept a lot.”
Morgan nodded. “That doesn’t surprise me,” she said. “But she’ll be okay. Once she’s back with you.”
“And you.”
She froze, the teacup halfway to her lips. Hope and uncertainty fluttered through her. “Me?”
Bo opened his mouth to say something, but stopped himself. He took a drink of his tea and then said, “At the Cub’s Club. She’ll be with you there, and Ella just loves you so much, it’ll be good for her.”
Morgan looked down, desperate for the disappointment she felt to not show on her face. This wasn’t about her or whatever it was she thought she had been developing with Bo. Morgan swallowed hard. She needed to put her feelings aside for Ella’s sake.
Unable to sit across from him any longer, Morgan pushed up from the couch and collected the empty teacups. “More tea?” she asked.
“No,” he said, “I should probably go get cleaned up and get moving if I’m going to get to the city in time.”
Without turning around, Morgan nodded. She needed him to leave. To get out of her space so she could breathe again. Every time she looked at him, her heart hurt a little more and her stomach clenched tighter against the pain of being tossed aside. Only hours ago, it had been easier to be angry with him. But now that she’d seen him and seen his own anguish at what he’d done, the anger was gone, replaced with heartache.
She still had so many unanswered questions for Bo. But she couldn’t ask any them yet. Maybe never. And it no longer mattered. Clearly, Bo didn’t feel the same way. That was evident by the half-naked girl in his condo. Morgan took a deep breath and fortified herself. No, she wouldn’t say anything. Bo needed to focus on Ella. On being a parent. A problem she knew all too well that she would never have.
“Morgan?”
She froze at the soft touch of his hand on her shoulder. She didn’t want to turn around. Didn’t want him to see the hurt that undoubtedly shone in her eyes. “Yes?”
He moved her slowly, so he was looking straight in her eyes. One look at him, and Morgan could see that all of his energy was focused on Ella. Whatever she was feeling about their relationship was most definitely one-sided. She blinked hard, waiting for him to speak.
“Will you come with me?” He spoke the question so softly, and with so much need that she couldn’t say no.
Chapter Twenty-One
Bo didn’t know how Morgan would react when he’d asked her to come with him, but he did know he couldn’t imagine making the trip without her. Without even thinking about it, or wanting it, Morgan had slipped into his life.
He snuck a glance at the passenger seat and looked at Morgan, really looked at her, for the first time since the craziness had started.
She looked tired, as if she hadn’t slept, and there was something different about her. A sadness. Bo felt a flash of guilt and turned away. He wasn’t stupid. He’d done that to her. He’d made her sad.
After having time to think about it, he’d decided that it hadn’t been fair for him to kiss her at the campfire and then continue their, whatever it was, at Forgotten Falls. He was smart enough to know that she was as attracted to him as he was to her, and it wasn’t right for him to act on it when he couldn’t follow through. And he couldn’t follow through. Not when he didn’t know how.
“So what do you think will happen now?” Morgan asked, pulling him out of his thoughts. It took him a few minutes to realize that she was talking about Ella and not the two of them.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Obviously I hope that I’ll be able to have full custody. But I know that it won’t be as easy as it was before. I really screwed up when I let her go.”
At the memory of Ella’s scared eyes when he’d walked away, Bo’s stomach turned and he pressed down on the gas pedal a little harder.
“Why did you do it?” Morgan asked the question he’d been hoping to avoid. The atmosphere in the car charged up and she asked again. “Why would you let her go?”
He swallowed hard. She deserved an answer. After all, he’d involved her in this whether she’d wanted to be or not. “I got scared,” he said.
“Scared?” Bo could feel her eyes on him, and he had to force himself to keep his eyes on the road. He didn’t think he could face her when he told her the truth. “That’s what you said earlier, but I still can’t believe that you gave your child to a stranger because you got scared.”
“I don’t blame you if you think I’m a coward,” he started.
“A coward? I don’t think you’re a coward at all,” she said, her voice much softer. Bo risked another look at her. Morgan’s eyes glistened with tears and he felt another pang in his chest at the thought that he had put them there.
