two of them seeing each other? It wasn’t as if she expected Logan to spend the rest of his life pining away after her. She ended their relationship just so he could make his life with someone else. He deserved someone who could give him children. That would make him happy. Still, the thought of her best friend and the man Hope had given her heart to being romantically involved sat like a boulder in the pit of her stomach.
“Oh,” was all she could manage. She should have thought to have the taxi she’d taken from the airport drop her off at home first. Then she could have driven her daddy’s truck into Coopersville. But she’d been in such a panic that all she’d wanted to do from the moment her flight landed was get there to see for herself that he was all right.
A heavy sigh sounded at the other end of the line. “I’ll come get you.”
“No,” she blurted out in a panic. “I mean, don’t worry about me. I’ve got my suitcase with me. I’ll just spend the night here.”
“And how do you plan on getting home tomorrow?”
Hope frowned. That was a good question. There was no one else she could think to call. She had pretty much cut everyone she’d known growing up out of her life.
“I can leave the past in the past where it belongs if that’s what you’re worried about,” Logan said.
“Why are you doing this?” she replied, her guilt at what she’d done to him all those years ago pushing to the surface. “Offering to give me a ride when you of all people should wanna stay as far away from me as possible.” Her words ended on a quiver as she fought the urge to cry over his unexpected kindness.
“The easiest answer would be that I’m doing my Christian duty. But that wouldn’t be the whole truth of it,” he answered honestly. “I’m also doing it for Jack. He needs to focus on getting better, not focus his strength on worrying about you. Which, I might add, your daddy’s done every single day of his life since you moved away.”
He had? The guilt was swallowing her whole. “He doesn’t need to worry about me.”
“People tend to do that when they care about someone.”
His tone hinted that she wouldn’t understand that level of caring. She did. She had cared enough to let Logan go. Loved him enough to set him free to find the happiness he deserved. But then he wouldn’t know that. “I’m sorry I hurt you.”
A long silence fell over the line before Logan responded. “I’m sorry for not accepting your decision to end things between us,” he said. “I should’ve respected your wishes and let you go. But I was young and had a lot of false notions about what my future held for me. For us.”
“Logan...” she said, wanting to tell him that she’d wanted all the same things he had. Instead she fell silent. She couldn’t offer up any explanation that would make him understand. It was too late.
“Let me finish,” he told her. “What we had was special, but I know now that we were too young to be talking about marriage and kids. At least one of us had the sense to see that and do something about it. And you can stop worrying about being in the same room as me every time you come home, because I’ve come to terms with the fact that some things are just not meant to be.”
Like her having children. A warm trail of tears ran down her cheeks. That was hard enough to deal with, but to hear Logan spell it out so clearly. To hear it straight from him that he had gotten over her, over them, over all the hopes and dreams they had once shared for their future, that it had simply been nothing more than youthful imaginings, was almost unbearable. It had been so much more.
She swallowed the knot of emotion building in her throat. Stop being the fool, Hope Dillan. This is the way you wanted it to be. Needed it to be.
Pulling herself together, as she’d had to do so many times in her life, she replied, “If you’re sure it’s no trouble, I’d like to take you up on your offer to give me a ride home.”
“No trouble,” he assured her. “When would you like me to pick you up?”
“Would now be too soon?” she asked hesitantly. “Daddy’s finally sleeping comfortably and I need to get settled in at the house for my stay here.”
“Now works for me. I’m on my way.”
When the call disconnected, Hope brought the phone to her chest and closed her eyes. She could do this. It was only for a short time. Until her daddy got back on his feet and she could go back to the life she’d built for herself back in San Diego. Knowing that Logan had finally gotten over her helped to ease some of her guilt, even if it made her heart ache more.
Now all she had to do was keep a tight rein on her feelings for him. At the very least, keep them from being known, because she was still not the woman he needed in his life. One who could give him the future he’d always dreamed about.
There’s a good possibility you may never be able to conceive. She’d never forget those words, so gently given to her by her doctor when she was only a senior in high school, a young girl filled with hopes and dreams for her future. One with Logan. The endometriosis she’d been diagnosed with during her sophomore year had worsened, causing a buildup of scar tissue in her fallopian tubes that without surgery would more than likely cause infertility. But even with surgery, the risk of having a tubal pregnancy was greatly increased.
She’d seen what her momma and daddy had gone through after trying for another child only to see both pregnancies end in miscarriages because of the severity of her mother’s endometriosis. They’d been devastated.
She couldn’t do that to Logan. To herself. So at eighteen, with no mother to guide her, she’d made the only decision she’d been emotionally capable of making at the time. She walked away from her dreams.
Gone was the deep faith she had once held dear. How was she supposed to continue clinging to that faith when God had taken so much from her? First her mother and then her own ability to become a mother herself.
She and Logan had shared so many things. A love of family, a passion for the outdoors and the dream of someday marrying and having a handful of children of their own to raise.
Then that life-altering diagnosis changed everything and brought her perfect world crashing down around her. She would never be able to give Logan the children he deserved to have.
She had always been honest with Logan, but this was the one thing she could never share with him. If he learned the truth, she knew he would have given up his dreams for her sake.
So she kept the heart-wrenching news she’d gotten at the doctor’s that day so long ago to herself. Then she’d forced Logan out of her life by telling him she didn’t want to be tied down by a relationship when they went off to college.
Only Logan had been determined not to give up on what they’d had together, making everything so much harder for them both.
So she’d taken extreme measures—she’d lied to him. Told him that she didn’t love him. Not the way he wanted her to. Then she made it clear that he was wasting his time. To stop wishing for something that could never be. And then, with her heart breaking, she’d walked out of his life.
And now Logan was back in her life along with all those old feelings she’d tried so hard to shut off. But the damage was already done. Logan was only in her life again because of her daddy, nothing more.
* * *
Logan pulled up under the hospital overhang and threw his truck into Park. He was just rounding the front of the truck when Hope stepped through the hospital doors.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said. “Had to take a different route due to some light flooding on the main road.” Not a complete surprise seeing how much rain they’d gotten that day. And it was still coming down.
“I’m glad you didn’t try going through it,” she said as he swung open the passenger door and reached for the suitcase she had wheeled out behind her.