“I wish you could tell me,” he said. “I wish I understood why.”
I swallowed hard past the knot in my throat. “I’ll wait for you. I’ll be right here. No matter how long you need to be there, I’ll be right here waiting for you.”
“I don’t want to leave you.”
“You have to. You have to go. It won’t be long. You said it yourself, a couple of months tops.” I forced a smile, but I knew my eyes spoke the truth.
“I’ll call you every day, I promise. Even if it’s just for a minute, I need to hear your voice.”
As he pulled me against him, his one hand went around my back and the fingers of his other hand slipped into my hair. I couldn’t hold it together any longer. I lost it. The tears fell fast and I gasped for air. My chest ached from the thought of him leaving. I wrapped my arms around him tightly, digging my fingers into him, not wanting to let go.
* * *
A month after Mason left and I was fit for the loony bin. Everywhere I looked, I saw him. I heard his boots in the stable. I felt his fingers in my hair.
Each day my heart shattered even more. All I had was my hope that he would call me or come back home. I had no way of getting in touch with him. No way to find out if he was alright.
Well, there was one way, but I hated the thought of it. I didn’t want to bother Mr. Abernathy to ask him about Mason, but I figured his mother had to know something. She was his mother after all.
I didn’t know if she would tell me the truth. I suspected she was happy that he went without me, even if it meant her son was gone. But I had to find out something. Even if it was just to know that he made it there and was okay.
As I walked up to the main house, I silently argued with myself.
Forget it! Turn around and stay where you belong.
She’s his mother, she’ll be able to tell you something.
She’ll remind you that you aren’t good enough to be the gum on his shoe.
Eventually the optimistic me won and I rang the doorbell. I expected Lucy to answer like she usually did, but instead a severe-looking woman with sharp features and her hair pulled tightly back from her face opened the door.
She looked through her glasses, down her nose at me in the same way Iris did. I wrapped my arms around myself and gently squeezed, hugging myself.
“I’d like to speak with Mrs. Abernathy,” I said.
“One moment.”
I stepped forward to enter the house, but she closed the door. Feeling like an idiot, I stood there staring at the door wondering if I should leave or not. After a few minutes, I turned to walk back to the stables.
“Yes? Oh, it’s you, Tara,” Iris said as she opened the door.
“Yes ma’am, it’s me.” I thought about making small talk, but the less time I needed to speak to her, the better. “I was wondering if you’ve heard from Mason.”
She threw her head back and laughed as if I told her the funniest joke. I hated how she made me feel, but I didn’t think I had a choice. Iris was his mother, she had to know something. I squeezed my arms tighter to give myself support.
“Of course I have, dear,” she said. “What a funny question. I just spoke to my son the other day. He always calls those he cares about. As a matter of fact, he told me he had spoken to Chloe. Do you know Chloe? But of course you don’t.”
Did he ask about me? Did he say anything about me? When is he coming home?
The questions piled in my head like a multi-collision car crash. I couldn’t ask any of them, but with each one, I felt even more wrecked than before.
Why did he call Chloe? Does he still love me? Did he forget about me?
Iris was blathering on, but I couldn’t make sense of her words. My mind was racing from anxiety. I was only able to catch some of what she was saying.
“Chloe...beautiful girl...Mason has known her his whole life. Upstanding family...blue bloods like the Abernathys...men sow their wild oats...I’m sure he had a good time.”
Each word that registered in my head was like a punch in the gut. I didn’t need to hear everything she said, I knew what she was saying. I meant nothing to him. I was just something to bide his time at home, a place he never wanted to be.
I forced myself into the numbness I had spent most of the past month feeling. I had to. I couldn’t take his being gone anymore. I refused to think that the past eight months meant nothing to him.
I walked away from her without saying a word. I didn’t care if it was rude, she didn’t deserve my manners. Most of all I refused to cry in front of her.
My mind spun as it tried to come up with excuses for him. Why didn’t he call me? Why didn’t he leave a message? The man I knew loved me and cared about how I felt. He didn’t want to leave. But the man I knew would have called. Had I been duped all along? Was I just a wild oat?
I stayed at Abernathy Ranch another month before I couldn’t take it anymore. I was tired of seeing his ghost wherever I looked. For my own sanity, I had to leave. I needed to move on and not waste any more time waiting for a man who couldn’t be bothered to even call.
Present Day
“Tara? Are you okay?” Mason asked.
I looked around the property and could imagine the house, the stables, everything he would build. I could see it as plain as day, but I didn’t see me there.
Mason squeezed my hand and I pulled it away. My memories had gotten the better of me. I was in the midst of the pain and sorrow I felt when he left, and I couldn’t move beyond that. How could he stand here now when I didn’t matter enough for him to even call fifteen years before?
“I can’t do this,” I said as the numbness I had once grown used to came back. “I can’t pretend there was just a hiatus and we can pick it up right back where we started. You left me.”
“You told me to leave,” he said, his eyes narrowing. “Or did you forget that?”
“I told you I would wait for you. I told you to leave because I thought you’d come back.”
“And what did I have to come back to?” he hissed.
“Me! I thought you loved me. I waited for you.”
“That’s bullshit, Tara, and you know it.”
“Take me home,” I said.
Mason pointed to his car and we got in, both of us slamming the doors. As he sped off the property, he gritted his teeth as he clenched the steering wheel angrily.
“Did you really think I’d never find out?” he asked. “Did you think I wouldn’t hear about him? Is he the real reason you didn’t go with me to Germany?”
My eyes widened and my stomach dropped as I turned to look at him. How did he find out? I never told anyone about him, not even Maddie.
“Just take me home. I’m done talking to you,” I said.
Chapter Nine
Mason
“No, we’re not done talking,” I said. “For months now all I’ve heard is about how heartbroken you were. I’m not denying my culpability in that, but you need to admit you were to blame too.”
“Me? I was to blame? It was my fault you didn’t come back?”
My anger burned deep inside of me. I knew how she felt reliving the past. Since I first saw her I had been reliving it too, but I could keep it in its place. But I couldn’t hold my temper back any longer.
“Yes, you are the reason I never went back to North Carolina. You are the reason I never returned home,” I growled. “I never went home because I didn’t have anything to come back to.”
“How long did you think I was going to wait for you to call? I waited months and nothing. You called your mother, you called Chloe, how do you think I felt?”
“You? How do I think you felt? You waited months? Was months how long it took you to announce your engagement?”
I sped onto the long gravel driveway of Jefferson Manor. Glancing over, I saw confusion cover her face.
“Wait, what?” she asked.
“Don’t play dumb. I never returned home after I heard you got engaged. I couldn't bear the
thought of seeing you with another man.” As I pulled up in front of the cottage, the car skidded over the rocks. “You know what, Tara? You were right all along. This was a bad idea.”
“Wait,” she said as she got out of the car. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Some things are better left buried.”
I drove away before she had the chance to say anything. I didn’t want to hear her excuses or lies. Within months of my being away, I heard the news that she had gotten engaged. That was when I stopped trying to reach her. That was when I decided to never return home.
As I reached the canyon road, my cell phone rang. A quick glance told me it was Tara, and I hesitated for a moment before sending the call into voicemail. I was too angry to have a conversation about it. It was in the past, but right now I was reliving it.
My memories of the past flooded my brain. I had my own questions about that time. I had my own hurt to deal with. But deep down I knew that whatever happened between Tara and I was my fault.
If only I had tried harder to reach her while I was away. If only I had pressed her to go away with me. I could get lost in a life of if onlys, but it wouldn’t get me what I wanted. The past couldn't be changed.
I tapped a button on my steering wheel, and a chime echoed through the car.
“Call Tricia,” I said.
After a few rings, she answered. “Yes, boss.”
“I’m going home.”
“Home? You mean the hotel?”
“That’s exactly the problem. I don’t have a home. I’ve wasted part of my life, and what do I have?”
“A lot of money.”
“I’m serious,” I said.
“So am I. You got a letter delivered to my house today. You know, the one you said you rented for me and my family. I opened it and it’s the deed to the house. You bought it?” she said, her voice full of surprise.
“It’s what I do, I’m an investor.”
“There’s no investment in a house in the middle of suburbia,” she said.
“The investment is in you and your brothers and sisters. In your father too. There’s nothing more to talk about. When I come back, I’ll sign the deed over to you. I’m going home to North Carolina.”
“Why did you do this?”
I was quiet while I considered her question. I made investments like this over the years, but not once did anyone ever ask me why.
“Because I like helping people. I think sometimes people run into bad luck and all they need is a helping hand to pull them out of it.”
“A job, a house, what you did for my dad, that’s all more than just a helping hand. What about you, Mason? Who helps you?”
No one, I thought.
“I don’t need help,” I said.
“You do. I mean I see how vulnerable you get whenever you talk about Tara. There’s a lot there. Things getting better with her?”
“We had a fight. I really don’t want to talk about it right now.”
“That must’ve been some fight to make you run all the way home to North Carolina,” she said.
“I’m not running. There’s just some things I need to take care of out there. It’s about time I went back home.”
“If you say so, boss. Do you need me to do anything while you’re gone?”
“Yes, call Gideon Kohl. He’s a local architect and the brother of an acquaintance of mine. Tell him I’m expecting to see a final draft of his plans for the ranch. I’m ready to break ground.”
“You got it,” she said. “Umm, Mason?”
“Yes?”
“A little advice, don’t stay away for too long. I don’t know what your fight was about, but if you disappear now, she’s just going to think about how you left her in the past.”
“I didn’t leave her. She told me to go.”
“Potato, potahto. You said it yourself she’s hurt about you leaving. Don’t leave her again.”
“Good bye, Tricia.”
I ended the call. I wasn’t in the mood for logic. It was a perfect reason to head home.
* * *
I flew stand-by on the next flight. Car service drove me from the airport to Abernathy Ranch. I didn’t have any bags, all I had were the clothes on my back.
As I entered the house, my first thought was how everything looked exactly like I remembered. Knowing my father, I went straight to the library where he liked to hide. I was expecting to find him sitting behind his desk, but instead he was doing yoga in the middle of the room.
“Dad?” I said.
“Mason? What are you doing here?” he asked, surprised.
“I’m not sure.”
“You look like you need a ride. Let’s go, it’s my favorite time, just before the sun sets.”
We walked out of the house to the stables and everything rushed back. As we entered the stables, my eyes drifted up to the hayloft and I imagined Tara up there waiting for me. The time I spent with her at the ranch was a long time ago, but as long as I lived, I hoped to never forget them. No matter what happened between us.
After mounting the horses, I followed my father down the same path I took Tara on our first date. My memories were as vivid as if it just happened, making me understand Tara’s hesitation.
“Have you started building?” he asked as I moved my horse to trot beside his.
“No, not yet. The architect needs to get back to me with some changes I made to the plan.”
“What are you going to do about this old place? You kicking me out?” he asked, grinning.
I laughed. “No, you’ll fit in just fine. This will become a retirement facility for racehorses. They’ll have a place here where they can be cared for without any threat.”
“If you’re going to be in Canyon Cove, who’s going to take care of the place here?”
“The same person who has spent his life here. You. I think I’ll start you off cleaning the stables and you can work your way up, learn the ropes.”
“You really are a sonofabitch,” he said. “Just like your old man.”
“How are you and Mother doing living under the same roof?”
“It’s like nothing has changed to be honest. She does her thing, I do mine. As long as she’s kept in her lifestyle, she doesn’t give me any grief.”
“I don’t get it. If nothing is different, then why get divorced?”
“I felt like I was living a lie, son. I didn’t love her anymore. I’m sorry to say that because she is your mother, but it’s true. She wasn’t the woman I fell in love with. So while she might still be here, I feel different. I’m happy now.”
We entered the clearing Tara and I had our first date at and dismounted. While the horses grazed, my father paced the clearing with his hands on his hips.
“Something bothering you?” I asked.
“I was just thinking about how much your mother changed. Maybe I changed too, I don’t know.” He shoved his hands in his pockets like I often did. “You said you saw Tara? How’s she doing?”
“I don’t know.”
“She’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”
“Maybe. There’s just so much in our past together. I just don’t know anymore.”
“I really thought she was the one for you, son. Maybe she still is.”
“I think there’s too much hurt there.”
“Hurt? Nah, that’s water under the bridge. Keep it where it belongs. That’s what you build bridges for, Mason. Your road is never going to be smooth, but if you want to get from one place to the next, sometimes you need a bridge or a tunnel or even a damn airplane. The bumps in the road aren’t what matters, it’s the destination.”
“But what if she can’t get over it? What if I can’t?”
“What’s there for you to not get over? She was here waiting for you. She did the right thing by letting you go. The fact that it’s taken you fifteen years to come home isn’t her fault.”
“She wasn’t waiting, she got engaged shortly after I left.”
“Who told you that? I might be an old man, but I have a pretty sharp mind. I remember that girl was the ghost of herself waiting for you. You have no idea what she went through to leave here. She told me this was her second home and she was right, it was.”
“You spoke to her?”
“We kept in touch. When she came to me to hand me her resignation, we had a long talk. I was upset for her. I understood why she left, you gave her no reason to stay. Her heart broke every day she came to work.”
“Did she say that?”
“She didn’t have to, I saw it. You went to Germany, and lord knows what you were doing out there because you certainly didn’t tell us.”
My heart broke for her. Hearing how much pain I caused her each day I was gone was the worst thing I could imagine. It was even worse than seeing the disappointment in my father’s eyes.
“I did call,” I said quietly. “I called her almost every day. I called her here at the ranch. I spoke to Mother, she didn’t tell you?”
“No,” he grunted. “Doesn’t surprise me. She didn’t care much for Tara, but that was Iris’s fault, not Tara’s. Your mother never gave her a chance.”
I nodded as I rubbed my beard with my fingertips. I knew then my mother was up to something. But it was still my fault for not trying harder. I assumed Tara would wait for me whether she heard from me or not. I never accounted for her heartache.
“When was the last time you spoke to Tara?” I asked.
“It’s been a long time. I haven’t heard from her since she moved to Canyon Cove. I don’t blame her. I think she was trying to move forward and forget about you once and for all.”
My father’s words gutted me. How had I been so blind to my mother’s conniving ways? How did I not see what I knew was there all along--that Tara loved me as much as I loved her.
I caused her much more pain than I ever realized, and I finally understood what I could do to start making things better.
“Let’s ride back,” I said. “I need to make a phone call.”
Won’t Fall Again Page 10