Page 62 of Destined for the Cowboy

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 acrossfrom 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 hadclenched 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?”

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