Wild Ice (24 page)

“You’re a really cool chick, Lauren. I’m sorry I was such a dick and screwed it all up for us.”

Lauren sighed. “It’s better that we found out when we did rather than five years down the road.” Five years later with a kid or two and a mortgage. Somehow Lauren could never see that far ahead with Daniel and now she knew why.

“I still love you,” he said and she knew he was telling the truth.

“I love you, too.” She could sense him relax beside her. She added, “I will probably always love you. But I’m not
in
love with you anymore.”

“I know,” he said and she believed that he finally did.

“Thanks, Lauren.” He squeezed her hand and got up. “I don’t want to end things between us with a fight. We were together too long for that. I can’t leave knowing that you’re still pissed at me.”

That was Daniel. Always thinking about
himself.

Well, if all he needed was a clear conscience in order to be on his way then she was more than happy to oblige.

“I have every right to be pissed, Daniel. But I won’t hold it against you
forever
.” Just for the next few years or so. “You probably did me a favor anyway.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He eyed her up and down making her squirm on the bench. “You met someone else, didn’t you?’

She could feel the heat rising in her cheeks and refused to dignify his intrusive question with an answer.

“You did!” He nudged her foot with his sneaker. “How the hell did you meet someone way the hell out here?”

She found herself glancing in the direction of Teal Manor, but when she remembered her last conversation with JD, she glanced away.

“Oh,” Daniel said and understood.

“Can I give you some advice for your future wife?”

He shoved his hands in his pockets.
“Sure.”

“Let her know what’s going on in your head once in a while
, okay?”

“What’s the fun in that?”

She shot him a look and he shrugged. “We were good together.”

“
But we weren’t meant to be together forever. I need a man who can’t get enough of me, only thinks about me and doesn’t wonder what it would be like to be with someone else.” Lauren sighed. They were all things that JD couldn’t give her either.

“And that’s exactly what you deserve.”
Daniel gave her shoulder a squeeze and walked back toward the cottage.

Lauren sat on the bench long after the sounds of his footsteps disappeared.

* * *

JD pulled into his driveway, his hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles had turned white. Maybe they weren’t meant to be together after all. Maybe he and Lauren had just ended up in Hayley’s Point to find themselves and reclaim their respective lives. Lauren would go back to South Oakdale to work for the wildlife service or back to school to get her doctorate and JD would return to playing hockey. Separate lives, separate ways.

JD stopped in front of the gate, threw the SUV in park and hopped out.
Damn, this was not how he wanted things to end up. For once, he thought he had some control over his life. This was not a cancer diagnosis. This was actually a situation he could do something about. Well, he
could
have, up until he screwed it all up with Lauren. He hadn’t realized his mistake until it was too late.

She had given herself to him completely and he had given himself in return. And it had been beautiful. And then he’d woken up and the full magnitude
of ramifications hit him in the gut and he panicked. Pure and simple. It was the only way to explain it. He felt like he jumped off a cliff after waiting at the edge for so long. The free-fall had been nice and then when the ground rushed up to meet him he panicked.

JD
tried with all his might to get the wrought iron gate to open. Damn gate. It was supposed to be automatic, but the stupid button wasn’t working. He was in a hurry to get inside after seeing Daniel and that lopsided smile he wore. At least he wore a smile because he sure as hell hadn’t been wearing a shirt. He looked damn cozy in the cottage and half naked to boot.

JD
cursed and wiggled the latch, but it wouldn’t budge. What an idiot he was! He’d been so excited to share his news with Lauren that he hadn’t even noticed Daniel’s pickup truck parked in her driveway.

Were they sleeping together already? He’d just been with he
r the night before. No, that wasn’t like Lauren to do something like that. Was it?

What if Daniel had found the right words to make Lauren forgive his transgressions? What if she’d found a way to forgive him.
Maybe, if she was hurting from how terribly JD had treated her, she had ran into the first arms that opened for her and they just so happened to be her ex-fiancé’s. After all, they did have a long history with each other.

No, Lauren wouldn’t do that to herself. Either way,
JD couldn’t wrap his brain around it. No matter how he sliced it, something just didn’t add up.

Headlights pointed toward the end of the drive
way and JD looked up and squinted into the light.

A truck pulled up and the driver rolled his window down.
“You need some help?” a man asked.

JD recognized him as the
Shirtless Wonder who’d answered Lauren’s door. “Nah, I got it,” he answered with a yank on the latch. Damn gate.

“
She’s an amazing woman,” Daniel said. “Take care of her, okay, man? I screwed up my chance.”

JD fumbled with the gate latch while the words sunk in. When he looked up, Daniel
had already pulled out of the driveway and was driving away down the dirt road.

The latch came undone and JD swung the gate open.
He got back behind the wheel and raked his fingers through his hair. So, Daniel wasn’t in the picture anymore after all. He could still tell Lauren how he felt and apologize for being such a jerk.

He would
head over to the cottage first thing in the morning and make things right. He couldn’t go over there right now. Too much had already happened and he needed a few hours to put his thoughts in order. Somehow he had to put his feelings into words and that wasn’t going to happen if he tried to wing it and be spontaneous. Everything would look clearer in the light of a new day. It always did.

She’d still be there in the morning.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Second Chances

Marsh took one look at the cat carrier and disappeared under the bed.

Lauren exhaled a frustrated sigh. After a terrible night’s sleep, this was the last thing she needed this morning. She got down onto her hands and knees and peered under the bed. “You’re not going back to the kennel, Marsh, I promise. But we can’t stay here. We’re going to a new place.”

All those weeks of building trust and making friends with the temperamental cat circled down the drain and he glared at her with contempt.

“Fine. You can take a little while to think it over. But when I’m done packing, that’s it, time to go.”

She stood up and pushed her hair back.
After her closure with Daniel, Lauren thought she’d feel a weight lifted from her shoulders, but a heavy burden still remained. And it would remain there as long as she stayed in Hayley’s Point.

It felt good to
set Daniel free. Sure, he’d flown the coop on their wedding day, but the tether connecting them had still been there, holding her to him. Love was a funny thing. Daniel had come back to her just so she could release him.

Lauren was all too familiar with Aunt Cora’s favorite saying.
“When life hands you lemons…” Well, Lauren would make lemonade, but she’d just have to move her lemonade stand to a different location. She heard Coos County, Oregon was looking for a biologist at the fish hatchery. As much as she preferred the
wildlife
part of Fish and Wildlife, unfortunately beggars couldn’t be choosers. It was a job outside of the confines of her parents’ sterile psychoanalytical world and that was all that mattered. It was far from her dream job but it would beat spending the rest of her life interning for her mother’s stuffy colleagues. She’d get an apartment nearby and she and Marsh would live happily ever after.

As much as she’d wanted to get a job here at the refuge, she was glad that no one had answered her phone calls or her e-mails. It wasn’t meant to be
for a reason.

At a time when she had more questions than answers, one thing was for certain:
She couldn’t stay here. She couldn’t look out the kitchen window each morning and see the roof of Teal Manor peeking out above the trees. She couldn’t know that JD was there, locked away with the grief he chose over her.

She first came to the cottage to move on from her life and now it was time to move on from the cottage. It would just have to sit empty until she could figure out what to do with it. That decision could wait until later.
She’d keep the cottage, that much was for sure. This patch of land had generations of history and there were too many memories here to discard because of Lauren’s stupidity. Years from now, she’d visit this place again. Until then, she’d think of it fondly. From far, far away.

Lauren couldn’t pack fast enough.
Her fingers trembled as she pulled her clothes from the closet. She’d be damned if she’d end up like her Aunt Cora, all alone in this little cottage until she took her last breath. She may not find love again—she’d already been fortunate to find it twice and that was more than most people could ask for—but she wouldn’t settle for the same fate as her aunt. Deep down inside, Lauren was a hopeless romantic and she
couldn’t
accept that fate.

What scared her most was that she could easily see herself living alone in the little cottage forever and being okay with it and that’s precisely why she had to leave.
Pronto.

Lauren felt like she was letting Aunt Cora down by not
staying. Deep down, she hoped her aunt would understand her reasons for leaving. Aunt Cora always had a way of understanding things that Lauren’s mother didn’t. It didn’t take a seasoned psychologist to understand matters of the heart. Just someone who knew the pitfalls and peaks of it.

JD was just as emotionally unavailable as Howard had been.
He held a lot of things right beneath the surface, passion being one of them. But passion wasn’t enough. Lauren needed to be the only woman in his life and not the ghost of one who was never, ever coming back.

When s
he pictured herself standing at the church all alone, Lauren shook her head and shoved her clothes into her suitcase with more force than necessary. Hopeless indeed.

She thought about leaving a note for JD
, but decided against it. What was there to say?

It didn’t take long for her to
change her mind and went to the notepad by the door—the one where JD had written his phone number so many weeks ago—and picked up the pen beside it.

I’m moving
back to South Oakdale. I wish you well, Lauren.

She crumpled up the paper and started again. How could she sum up their time together in a quick goodbye note?

No. She wouldn’t leave a note; she’d just disappear like a bird flying south for the winter. It would be better this way. It wasn’t necessary to tell him anything. Hadn’t he basically told her goodbye the morning after they made love?

Lauren
looked around the one-room cottage, knowing she’d never see it as clearly as she did now. Aunt Cora’s photographs on the wall captured the beauty of this place and held it in time, perfect and unchanging. Lauren would take her camera with her and would continue to try to capture birds on film. Whether she was a successful photographer or not, it didn’t matter. What mattered was that she would always keep trying. Aunt Cora had taught her that.

The journal that Lauren left tucked in the nightstand by the old wrought iron bed
would serve as a reminder of the past and how love, even if it wasn’t returned, was still as magical as the wild birds that called this place home. The faded quilt and the chipped teacups and the worn slippers told the story of a woman who took comfort in those around her and not in material things.

Lauren looked down at her suitcase and knew she was making the right decision. She had to leave
Hayley’s Point. There was no reason to stay. It would be hard to leave the refuge as it started coming to life with migrating birds, but there were other refuges in other towns. They might not have the magic of this place woven in their reeds and swamp grass, but there were others just the same.

Lauren thought things would be different with JD. They had been, for a while anyway.
His grief was like quicksand. She’d reached out to help pull him from the sinking sand, but he’d refused to take her hand. She couldn’t bear to continue loving him more than he loved her—
if
he even loved her at all. He probably only liked the
idea
of loving her, of being able to be with someone else after Darla, but Lauren wouldn’t be his second choice.

Lauren had allowed herself to be a fool for long enough. She could only blame
her foolishness on being on the rebound from Daniel for so long. Now it was time to face the facts, face the music, face the harsh reality that JD didn’t love her in return.

It was a three hour drive back to South Oakdale and
Lauren was eager to get it over with. These last few months felt like a speed bump in the middle of what was supposed to be the road to her future. But there was one last thing she needed to do first.

With h
er bags packed and sitting by the door, she slowly walked outside. She had some place to be and all the time in the world to get there.

* * *

JD hadn’t slept a wink. There was too much riding on today for him to waste
precious time sleeping. He was up before the crack of dawn and showered, shaved and dressed in a clean T-shirt and jeans. It was early when he went next door, but he couldn’t wait a minute longer. He’d instructed Mel to stay home and so far he was obeying orders. He should have gone over to the cottage last night, but he was too much of a coward.

He went around to the front of the cottage and walked down the long driveway.
The sun was coming up over the mountains, washing everything in pinks and yellows. By the time he reached the front porch, he realized he could have used the side path that Lauren always used. He smiled at the thought of her feet wearing a dirt path into the grass that stood between their houses. He wondered how many times she’d walked that path before he first saw her in the field that day. It was just like the path she’d made to his heart.

When no one answered his knock, he pushed the
cottage door open to find a suitcase and a cat carrier sitting in the middle of the room.

“Lauren?” he called but there was no answer.

His mind jumbled with a dozen explanations, but there was only one. He was too late. She’d already made up her mind. She’d rather leave this place that she loved so much rather than live next door to him.

No
he couldn’t accept that. He wouldn’t let her go. He couldn’t.

“Lauren?” Again, only silence answered him.

There was only one place she could be.

JD bolted through the back door and ran as fast as his legs would carry him.

* * *

Lauren stared out at Teal Manor and could picture JD inside surrounded by its impenetrable darkness. She wanted to rush back into his bedroom and rip him away from the darkness. To bring him outside into the sunshine and let the rays of warmth heal him like they had her. But she couldn’t save him. She’d tried. Oh, how she’d tried. She’d brought back his smile, if only temporarily, and uncovered his laugh and reminded him what it felt like to be touched by another human being. She’d even helped him dust off his passion for hockey. She’d done all she could. The rest he would have to do for himself.

She wished him comfort and happiness. He deserved to be happy.
He deserved to find peace. He deserved all the things she couldn’t give him and the things he wouldn’t accept from her. Maybe it was impossible to get over the kind of loss he’d experienced. At one time, she thought it was possible, if you loved enough. But he couldn’t and she didn’t blame him for that. She’d expected too much from him and had only set herself up for disappointment. She’d known that from the start, hadn’t she? Couldn’t she see from that haunted look in his eyes when she first laid eyes on him that he belonged to someone else? She supposed she had. She’d thought…Well, it didn’t matter now what she’d thought at the time. All she knew now was that she was standing alone on the outside looking in. The exact same place as she’d started.

She guessed she’d known it all along. JD didn’t have room for her in his life. He was too full of memories from the past. She’d just hoped… Well, hope was a funny thing. It caused you to see past the starkness of reality and fix your eyes on something that wasn’t there.
And might never be there.

It wasn’t like they had exchanged any promises. She’d just hoped that the time they spent together would be enough to open his heart. But it wasn’t enough and Lauren was rational enough to accept that. It wouldn’t be easy
, but then again, love never was. If it was, it wouldn’t be a four letter word.

She didn’t regret what happened this summer. The good memories would
always outweigh the bad. Not that there had even been many bad ones. Just the way JD had looked at her and then out the window the morning after they made love. That tormented look had told her all she needed to know. Those heartbroken eyes said more loudly and more clearly than any words ever could.

Lauren reached way down deep for the strength and courage she needed in order to do what she had to do. Somehow she
had found the strength to get out of bed after Daniel had left her alone on their wedding day and never returned. Somehow she would find the courage to pick up her suitcase and Marsh and leave the cottage. Somehow, someway, she’d lasso up that courage and tie it around her like a bulletproof vest.

Lauren turned from the mansion
and started toward the creek.

* * *

When
Lauren arrived at the waterfall, there was no one there. No egret fishing, no deer drinking from the steam, no hawks circling in the sky. Besides a robin chirping in the distance, the only sound was the steady trickle of water. It was just as well. So much for saying goodbye.

Her heart ached and her throat was scratchy and tight. How was she going to wake up in the morning without hearing the
marsh wren call across the clearing from his perch nestled amongst the reeds? How could she get out of her bed in South Oakdale when there was no trail to be walked and no weavers to search for through her binoculars?

Lauren took a deep breath and pushed down the rising panic. She would find a way. There were other places like this
, she reminded herself. Other birds in other trees, other geese and ducks on other ponds. She’d find them and study them and marvel at their unique beauty because that’s what she did.

She’d return to the cottage eventually.
Years from now, when it wouldn’t hurt so bad to see the mansion in the distance, she’d come back here and see the beauty of it again. Someday.

This place would always remain in her heart. Maybe she’d come back to it one day when everything was different and made more sense. Right now it just hurt too damn much and Lauren was sick and tired of being reminded of the rejection. Hadn’t she already endured her fair share of rejection? Sooner or later she’d find the place where she fit in. Three months ago, she thought that place was here. Things changed and she could roll with the punches as long as she believed there was a silver linings.