Hers to Choose (Cannon Cousins) (22 page)

Funny, she thought as she
rolled to her back, how much she could sympathize with Dan. As far as she knew,
Ethan hadn’t betrayed her with another woman. But violated trust came down to
the same thing.

She felt deflated and
sad. They would leave now, and this cauldron of emotion inside her would have
nowhere to go. Her injury from Ethan had preoccupied her for over a year. Now
she was going to be abandoned by men far more exciting and wonderful and
attractive than Ethan. She didn’t see how she would recover from this. She felt
like she had been ripped into little pieces of confetti and blasted over a
five-acre field.

And it was
her own
fault. She had led herself down this path, had not
listened to her more cautious instincts along the way. The thrill of it had
swept her away from her loneliness and temporarily lodged her in an imaginary
world. His earlier words haunted her. Maybe she did need them both to want her.

Well, here she was. She
had been sated more than once, and now she would hunger forever. Her hands
found the earrings still dangling down her neck and pulled them off.

“Bryn?”
Dan’s voice was questioning. He
pulled on her shoulder to make her face him. “I hope you aren’t upset.”

“No,” she lied, “I...I’m glad
you could talk to me...that I could help.” Her voice disintegrated around the
knot in her throat. “I...” She bit her lip. She absolutely would not cry in
front of Dan.

“And?”

“And...I’m...happy you
feel better.” She sat up, urgently needing to be somewhere else than beside
Dan’s strong body on her bed. “I need to wash up.”

When she came out of the
bathroom with her face washed clean of mascara and her hair pulled back in a
ponytail, he wasn’t there. She pulled on cotton panties and jeans and a white turtleneck
and her boots over warm socks. He sat uneasily at the table, staring out the
window at the slight drizzle drifting down from low clouds. She dragged out a
chair but couldn’t make herself sit down.

“We’ll be leaving soon,”
he announced quietly. “I think Alex has a few more things to say, so we’ll stop
back by.”

He leveled his pale gaze,
so familiar by now. How could someone be so intimate one minute and back to
cold distance the next? She stared back at him, wondering.

“You’ve been good for me,
Bryn. I didn’t want it to be personal. I hope you can understand...” he trailed
off.

“You’ve explained enough,
I do understand,” she insisted. “I guess I learned a few things...about
myself.” She managed a smile. “Like, I had no idea I would enjoy such intense
discipline...” She blushed.
“A little weird, maybe.”

He leaned toward her and
took her hand.
“Maybe weird, maybe not.
What the hell
difference does it make? It worked for both of us then?”

“Yes,” she nodded.

***

Bryn paced the floors, unable to keep
herself from constantly checking out the windows to see if Alex was arriving.
Time ticked by. Drizzle had moistened everything outside. She felt like the
outside, where frost-burned grasses and bare gray tree limbs and sagging fence
wire sat helpless in the dreary cold wet. Maybe she should build a fire, but
she had no energy. She had planned to make pies and cornbread as an early start
on Thanksgiving. But she couldn’t bring herself to cook anything. Thanksgiving
would be another day and nothing else.

She imagined them packing
their gear, fastening the guns into the rack. They didn’t have that much stuff,
it couldn’t take long. What would happen? Would Alex stick his head in the door
to say a quick goodbye while Dan waited in the truck? Would he touch her?

There it was, the black
truck glistening in the rain and nosing its way up the drive. Oh god oh god,
why did she feel this way? She craned her neck to see if Alex was alone. If he
was, she had more time. So many things needed to be said, questions asked. She
needed more time when he could kiss her, hold her in his arms. My god she was a
wreck and couldn’t get a grip on herself.

Just
shut up, Bryn.
You can get a grip once he’s gone.

The truck parked. She
couldn’t see whether Dan was inside. A surge of excitement raced up her throat.
Alex eased out of the driver’s seat, slammed the door, and looked toward the
house. She paced more, wringing her hands. What would he say? Did he only want
to talk? And why did she have any right to expect anything from him?

Hadn’t she just climbed
out of bed with Dan?

Anyway, this whole frenzy
of emotion and need violated her cardinal rule:
no caring about men
. How
had she let things get so far out of control?

The door opened and he
was standing there, his thighs tight against the faded jeans and his jacket
pulled across his shoulders. His eyes blazed at her. She felt like a moth to
flame as she went to him. She threw herself into his arms.

His lips burned over her
mouth. Her body sagged against him as she wrapped her arms around his
shoulders. His hands came to her waist, pulling her close.

 “Bryn...”

She couldn’t bear to hear
a goodbye. She couldn’t face it, couldn’t think it.

“I know...you have to
leave.”

“Yes.”

“It’s been...amazing,
Alex. I never expected...thank you.
For everything.”

“I think ‘thank you’
hardly covers it, at least, from my end.
From Dan’s.”

“Yes, Dan...I’m glad he
got what he needed here.”

His face came up sharply.
“He told you that?”

She shrugged. “Yeah, and
a little about his wife, that she betrayed him. He said something about
alcohol, pills...that you had the idea to come here and work it out.”

He shook his head. “Thank
God,” he said under his voice. “I mean, that’s great. I mean, I’m sorry… Did
you two...is there something...”

What was he asking? “You
mean, in the future?”

His jaw pulsed, his eyes
shot sparks. “Yes.”

“No,
nothing like that.”

His body relaxed
slightly. “Bryn, when we made our plan, I didn’t know all this would happen. It
wasn’t supposed to be like this. Personal, I mean.”

“I’m sorry, Alex, I know
I inserted my own agenda, I hope I didn’t overstep.”

“No, actually, it’s
incredible how it worked out. We were lucky to find you.”

“I feel the same way.” He
was keeping it so distant. She could practically see him slipping away before her
very eyes.

“Is there anything else
you need before I go?”

Words tumbled around in
her head, a torrent of need and grief and fear that she couldn’t possibly say.
Shouldn’t think, couldn’t feel. Any hint would be totally out of place. She
couldn’t embarrass herself any more than she already had.
“No,
thanks for asking, Alex.”

He rested his hand on the
doorknob. “I...hope you’re truly okay. It seems like we’ve taken a lot here.
I’m
sorry,
we do have to get back.” He looked down.

Couldn’t he say anything
more? Something like, maybe next year? And why did she hope for that, like some
eager schoolgirl without enough experience to know how these things always
played out? Anyway, wasn’t this perfect, that they all had their fun and now
she could get on with her life without threatening entanglements?

Perfect. Yeah.

She shook her head.
“Goodbye Alex, I’m glad things were good for you guys. I’m not kidding when I
say it’s been a real pleasure.”

He turned expectantly and
she stuck out her hand. He hesitated with another sharp glance then grasped it
with a firm shake.

“Definitely a pleasure,”
he grinned.

Damn him, that the last
thing she would see of him was that sensual mouth, those lips curling into the
teasing smile. His eyes glinted at her again, and then he had turned and in
quick strides had crossed the porch and the wet tan grass and was sliding into
the truck seat. The door slammed, the truck honked, and then she could see
hands waving at her briefly. Then it rocked up the rough drive to the pavement
and after a moment’s hesitation, turned onto the road and disappeared with a
trail of steam from the tailpipe.

***

She couldn’t cry about it. What she
felt went far past anything that could be expressed. For the rest of the day, as
their fluids kept her panties wet, she mourned and paced and tried to think of
ways to distract herself. She built a fire. She mixed cookie batter and
mechanically portioned out the dough onto baking sheets. She forgot to set the
timer and by the time she smelled them, they were burned. She scraped them off
the pan and let the lid fall back on the trash can.

Late in the afternoon she
went out and did her chores with the chickens. The temperature had dropped and
drizzle was mixed with bits of ice. The cold felt good on her face. She invited
the cat into the house and accepted its insistent paws on her lap at the couch,
combing her fingers through its yellow fur and pleasing it intensely with her
attention.
Whatever they said on the television failed to penetrate
her fog.

Somehow it got dark
outside, and the cat slept on the far end of the couch. She rummaged through
the refrigerator and reheated chili. But it tasted like sawdust and she let the
cat finish it.

She sat on the side of
her bed. It was still like she and Dan had left it. As she fanned the sheets to
straighten them, scent rose up and reminded her of the two men. How many days
would it take for the scent to die away? How many days until the last of their
essence drained from her body?

She wished she could cry.
She wished her wails would rise and fall for hours, and her tears would wash
down her neck, and she would beat her fists on the walls and tabletop until
they were swollen and bruised.

She curled up in bed and
pulled the covers around her. Her mind kept remembering the way they looked,
the way their skin felt under her fingertips. At midnight, she finally
undressed and pulled her old terrycloth robe over her pajamas and sat in the
dark at the kitchen table with cookies and milk, belatedly reminded to let the
cat out after he yowled at the door.

***

Her eyes flew open early the next
morning in spite of her lack of sleep. Sometime in the night with tears rolling
down her cheeks she had determined to take back her life and stop moping over
the Cannon cousins. Anger propelled her more than anything, anger that she
hadn’t seen this disaster coming, that she hadn’t managed to listen to her
rational self and maintain some kind of emotional discipline, anger that she
hadn’t managed to change enough from the same ridiculous needy female who had
let Ethan walk all over her.
Another fuckup, major.
Was her life always going to be filled with this kind of garbage?

The only thing left was
to get over it. She didn’t know how she would do it, but she knew it had to be
done.

She recounted the
relevant points: she had succeeded in gaining the money she needed, at least
enough to delay foreclosure. Wasn’t that why all this happened, really? And
bonus, Bryn—her sexual fantasies had been enacted in a most astonishing and
opulent manner. She should feel wildly happy.

Instead, tears bloomed at
every turn.

The sheets from her bed
hit the washing machine. It surprised her how reassuring it felt to hear the
washer’s mechanical rhythm filling some of the silence in the house. The
blankets came next, the bedspread. Then her clothes, until as the day
progressed every last scrap that had been involved in their stay sat freshly
laundered in its drawer or shelf.

Regret swarmed over her
that she had destroyed their scent, washed the fabrics they had touched, that
carried traces of their saliva, their seed. A new round of tears choked her
throat.

At midafternoon, with
light flakes of snow settling on the icy pasture grass, she shrugged on her
coat and rode the four-wheeler down to the cabin. There would be sheets to
wash, who knew what kind of mess they had left in the place. She pushed the
door open and stepped into the half-light of the room.

Sheets and blankets had
been pulled from the mattresses and rolled into bundles on the table. She
walked around. A few sticks of firewood had been stacked neatly near the stove
and the area had been swept. The well bucket and partial gallon of drinking
water remained on the shelf. The coffee pot and few food supplies were tucked
into the box.

She picked up the box and
a scrap of paper drifted to the floor. After she carried the box to the
four-wheeler and strapped down the bundle of linens, she stooped to pick up the
slip of paper, almost wadding it up before she realized it was a check.

“Alexander J. Cannon.”
An address in St. Louis.
The amount was ten thousand
dollars. “Gratuity,” he had written on the memo line.

She rushed to the cabin
door, her pulse pounding in her temples. Surely her eyes weren’t seeing
correctly in the dim cabin interior. Ten thousand dollars could not be real.
She read and reread the writing, finally reaching the point where she had
looked at it so long that none of it made any sense. She carefully folded the
check and shoved it far inside her jeans pocket before making one last tour
through the cabin.