“No, Logan, I can’t,” she sobbed. “Please, please don’t ask me again.”
Gathering her close, he reversed their positions while placing tender kisses on her wet cheeks. “It’s okay, sweetheart. Everything will work out. I’ll take care of you.”
The moment he said the words, he realized he’d repeated what he had promised the night of the storm. The night she had come to him—soft, passionate, and vulnerable.
He held her until the stiffness left her limbs enough for her to relax. He now knew without a doubt it was the shadow of her ex-husband that kept her from loving him. He must have been a monster, he seethed silently. A monster who had terrorized her until she somehow found the courage to escape him.
“What do you want from me, Caryn?”
She jumped slightly at the sound of his voice against her ear. Settling her legs more comfortably between his, she shook her head.
“Nothing, Logan.”
He stiffened momentarily, held his breath, then let it out slowly. All she had to do was ask, and he would give her anything she desired. Anything within his grasp.
“You’ve given me all I’ll ever need,” she continued softly, her warm breath feathering over his throat. “And when I leave Marble Island, I want you to know that I’ll never forget you.”
He refused to think of her leaving Marble Island—leaving him. But he knew eventually the time would come when he, too, would have to leave.
“When are you leaving?” He was certain she could hear the anguish in his voice.
“I have to leave by August ninth.”
“Why so soon? Don’t classes begin the middle of the month?”
“I have orientation on the eleventh.”
“That gives us only another week together.”
Her eyes filled with a fresh wave of tears. “Then we’ll have to make it a week to remember.”
Logan swallowed the lump rising in his throat. “Yes, we will.”
August fourth—
Logan and I have been back on Marble Island for two days, and it’s not the same. We have not slept together since our first night back. I lay in my bed waiting for him to come for me, and he doesn’t. It’s as if he knows we have to pull back to prepare for our final departure.
Even Domino senses something is wrong. He’s stopped following me and now stays close to Logan.
I feel so alone, so empty. How can that be when he still lives in the house with me?
We continue to take our meals together, but there’s not much conversation. We’ve become two polite strangers who happen to share a house. He did ask me if I would go to the outdoor concert with him tonight and I said I would. It will be the last concert we’ll share. It has been billed as International Night. featuring vocalists and musicians from around the world. It should top off a wonderful summer for me.
It was apparent the days were getting shorter and the nights cooler, yet that had not lessened the enthusiasm of the vacationers who had planned to remain on Marble Island until the Labor Day weekend.
Caryn had spent the day packing. She still had another four days on the island, but she did not want to wait until the last minute to begin the onerous task. She was returning to Asheville with more than she’d left with. The clothes Logan had purchased for her for their Puerto Rico excursion added much more weight to her pullman and garment bag.
Glancing at her watch, she realized she had to rush to get dressed if she didn’t want to be late for the concert. Stripping off a T-shirt and a pair of shorts, she took a quick shower.
She was dressed and had brushed her hair when Logan knocked on her bedroom door. Smiling at him, she said, “I’m ready.”
Logan returned her smile. “You look cute tonight.”
Caryn glanced down at the forest-green, cotton, jersey, drawstring pants with a matching long-sleeve shirt, she had pulled on over a white tank top. Her deck shoes were the same forest green.
“Thank you.”
Extending his hand, he grasped her fingers. “Let’s go or we’ll be late.”
She glanced at her watch. It was seven-fifty. The concert always began promptly at eight.
Logan led her down the staircase and out to the porch. Domino, who lay in a corner on the porch, stood up. The puppy was now completely housebroken and could be trusted to have the run of the house and porch.
Logan whistled softly through his teeth. “Let’s go, boy. Inside.” He held the door open and the dog bounded into the house, standing at the screen door and whining softly. “We’ll be back soon.” He lay down even before Logan closed the door and locked it.
“I’m going to miss Domino,” she said quietly as Logan picked up a blanket from a rocker.
He chuckled. “I’m thinking of giving him to you. I have no need for a mush dog.”
Caryn looked up at him and smiled. “Are you serious?”
He gave her a long, penetrating look, then nodded. “Do you want him?”
“I’d love him.”
“Are you allowed to have pets where you live?”
“Yes. I’m renting a small house. It even has a yard in the back where he can run free.”
“If that’s the case, then he’s yours.”
She stopped, forcing Logan to stop with her. “You’d really give me your dog?”
A slight frown settled between his dark eyes. “I’d give you anything you’d want, if it would make you happy.”
“What makes you think I’m not happy?”
“There are times when I see a sadness you can’t hide, Caryn. A sadness that weighs you down—”
“Don’t analyze me, Logan,” she interrupted.
“I’m not analyzing you,” he countered angrily.
Closing her eyes, Caryn counted to three. Opening her eyes, she flashed a tight smile. “Let’s not fight. We don’t want everyone to think we’re having a lover’s quarrel.”
Leaning over, he kissed her cheek. “And, we wouldn’t want everyone to know that we don’t love each other, especially if they believe we’re married.”
She nodded numbly. It had become a summer of deception. They’d lied about being married, and she had lied about not loving him. Only Cynthia knew the truth, and had promised not to tell Logan. But, she hadn’t promised not to tell Hamilton. Closing her eyes, she prayed silently that Cynthia would keep her secret.
Caryn lay beside Logan, not touching, and staring up at the darkening sky. She inhaled the familiar scent of his sensual cologne, felt his warmth and wanted so much to touch him.
Touch me, Logan, she urged him silently. Make the first move. But he didn’t, and as soon as the lights dimmed, she closed her eyes, shutting him out.
Logan regretted coming to the concert the moment he heard the opening notes of the Sarah Brightman and Andrea Bocelli duet, “Time To Say Goodbye.”
Pain, sorrow, and loss merged, threatening to swallow him whole. The pain he’d experienced when he saw Nina with Wayne was nothing compared to what he was now undergoing. The pain eased, becoming a slow, seething rage. The love he felt for Caryn bordered on a loathing, a loathing for making him vulnerable.
Caryn Edwards had done to him what no other person had been able to do to him in thirty-five years. She had stripped him bare where anyone or anything could destroy him with a touch or a look.
Turning his head, he glanced down at her, his hands tightening into fists. He felt brittle, brittle enough to shatter into millions of pieces. He saw her shaking and thought maybe she was laughing, but as he leaned closer he realized she was crying. She was crying without making a sound.
His fingers unclenched as he pulled her against his body. Pressing his lips to her forehead, he cradled the back of her head.
“Oh, Caryn, don’t do this to me, to us,” he gasped, struggling for control.
“I want to go home.”
Logan also had had enough. Standing, he helped her to her feet, then picked up the blanket. There was only the sound of their breathing on the return drive to the ho
use. Each did not want to intrude on the other’s chaotic emotions.
Caryn walked into the house before Logan and raced up the staircase. She made her way into her bedroom and closed the door. She stood in the dark, unable to turn on the light. The light would reveal her luggage sitting in a corner; it would remind her of how short her time was on Marble Island. And when she put those bags in her car and turned the key in the ignition, it would be over. Everything she had shared with Logan Prescott would come to a crashing end.
She finally pushed off the door and undressed in the dark. Her movements were measured, precise as she folded each piece—even her panties. She placed the pile of clothing on the foot of her bed, then lay facedown on the bed.
“I love you, Logan,” she whispered to silent space. The four words lingered in her mind as she fell into a deep sleep.
Logan paced the porch for over an hour, wanting to go to Caryn, then berated himself for weakening. He loved her. And he’d tried every way he could to tell her, but she’d rejected him over and over.
He heard whining and knew it was time for the dog’s last outing. Opening the door, he let Domino out. He didn’t have to wait long for the Dalmatian’s return.
Logan shook his head. Now, who’s the fool, he thought, staring at his pet. He had offered Caryn his dog because she wanted him. He would miss Domino, but knew he would get an excellent home.
“She loves you more than she loves me,” he said to the dog.
He locked the front door, turned off the light, then made his way to the upper level, his footsteps heavy on the stairs.
Standing at the top of the stairs, he stared at the closed door to Caryn’s room. He couldn’t remember when he’d seen the door closed. His footsteps were determined as he walked the length of hall and turned the knob. It opened. At least she hadn’t locked it.
He stood, stunned. It could’ve been a repeat of his first night on Marble Island. Caryn lay on the bed, naked, in the full moonlight. The same surge of desire gripped him, and his knees buckled slightly.
The last time he’d taken a cold shower. But that was before he’d tasted the burning sweetness of her lush body. And he wanted her—once more before it was time for their final goodbye.
Logan did not remember removing his clothes, nor did he remember slipping into bed with Caryn. But what he did remember the moment he pushed into her moist, hot body was that he hadn’t protected her. The first and last time he would make love to her it would become a risky game of chance.
Caryn awoke to Logan’s hard flesh filling every inch of her. Any and all vestiges of sleep vanished as she curved her arms around his neck, lifted her hips, and followed his lead in a dance of abandoned desire.
He alternated the rhythm, slowing with a heavy, surging rolling of his hips before quickening to a frenzied, uninhibited thrusting that left her taking in deep gulps of air.
She felt his pulse outside of his body, heard it pounding in her head. His body pressed hers down to the mattress, his fingers entwined in the sheets in a punishing grip which would have left angry bruises on her flesh had he held her.
“Baby! Oh, baby,” he groaned over and over, the endearment becoming his mantra.
Caryn felt her heart melt and turn over as she raised her legs and circled his waist. The motion brought him closer, deeper, and with it a rush of passion as the floodgates opened, drowning both with a scorching inferno that pulled them under where they had stopped existing as separate entities, becoming one in the same.
“Darling,” Caryn sighed, her body shaking uncontrollably from her awesome release. A final, lingering shudder shook her simultaneously with the aftermath of Logan’s violent climax.
He collapsed heavily on her slight frame, gasping for much-needed oxygen to fill his burning lungs. He had taken her without his usual foreplay, and she had welcomed him into her body; the pleasure she’d offered was pure, explosive. A pleasure akin to a sweet agony where she had communicated her final goodbye.
Caryn pushed against Logan’s shoulders and he rolled off her. She slipped off the bed and headed for the bathroom. The light from the full moon silvered the space where she did not have to turn on a light. She moved as if in a trace when she opened the door to the shower stall, stepped in, and turned on the water. She stood under the stream of the lukewarm water, crying uncontollably.
She cried for her lost innocence; an innocence to one so undeserving, and she cried for all of the times she hadn’t cried when Tom humiliated her; and finally she cried for the tiny life which was never offered the possibility of surviving to term.
But what she would not cry for was the time she’d spent with Logan. Falling in love with him had become a great source of joy. Unknowingly he had taught her she could love, and that she could also walk away from someone she loved. He had taught her more in four weeks than she’d learned in four years of marriage.
Picking up a bottle of shower gel, she lathered her body, washing away the odor of Logan’s body and the passion they’d shared. She completed her shower of renewal, shoulders squared, and in complete control of herself for the first time in her life. She knew what she had to do.
After toweling her body dry, she went through her ritual of moisturizing her moist flesh, before walking out of the bathroom and into the bedroom. She knew without her gaze sweeping over the bed that Logan wouldn’t be there—and he wasn’t. Not having him present would make her task much easier.
Caryn dressed quickly, pulling on a faded sweatshirt over pair of jeans. She methodically removed everything which could indicate that she had occupied the space. It took two trips, but she managed to load her car without making a sound. Each time she made her way up the staircase, she expected to find Logan standing at the top staring down at her. But the door to his bedroom remained shut, permitting her to slip away from him and Marble Island like an apparition.
Logan felt her loss as soon as he awoke. The sun was high in the heavens, but there was an unnatural stillness that whispered to him that she was gone.
It taunted him as he pulled on a pair of shorts and made his way to her bedroom. His frantic gaze swept around the room, lingering on the corner where she had placed her bags. They were gone. She had left without saying goodbye.
His movements were jerky and uncoordinated when he walked over to the double dresser, opening drawers to verify what he already knew They were empty. The bathroom was next. All of her bottles bearing sensual scents were also gone.
Numbly, blindly, he stumbled back to the bed where only hours before he had spilled his passion into her willing body, and fell across the mattress. The lingering fragrance of her body wafted in his nostrils, offering him his last opportunity to hold on to her.
He wanted to scream, bellow out his frustration and pain. He’d thought, hoped he would be successful, successful enough to batter down the wall she had erected to keep him out.
She had fled, not giving him the opportunity to offer sharing his life with her. She had rejected him enough in the past so if she did reject him again he would’ve added it to the mounting list.
But, dammit, she hadn’t given him the chance!
Rolling over on his back, he stared up at the ceiling. His mind was blank, and he marveled how he could be so calm. The woman he loved had just walked out of his life, and he lay there like someone numbed by a powerful narcotic.
Throwing a muscled arm over his face, he shook his head in amazement as a smile twitched at his mouth. The smile widened followed by a rumble of laughter. He laughed and laughed until spent. Then he sat up, knowing what it was he had to do. He stood up to walk out of the room, but something caught his eye. The drawer to the bedside table wasn’t closed. Reaching down, he pulled it open and withdrew a small, tapestry-covered book.
He fanned the pages, scanning one or two. He froze when he saw his name. Peering closer, he read the entry, his gaze widening. He’d found Caryn’s journal. She had left Marble Island without taking it with her.
Floating back
down to the bed, he read one entry, then another. He hadn’t realized he was holding his breath until he felt the constricting band around his chest.
Then his breathing quickened until he was hyperventilating. Putting the journal aside, he lay down to compose himself. “She loves me,” he whispered over and over like a litany.
“Hot, damn!” he shouted. “She loves me!”
Logan sat up, bracing his back against the bed’s headboard and began reading the first entry. The writing was just like Caryn—neat and delicate.
His expression changed, hardening with a loathing as he read how Thomas Duff had abused her with the methodical atrocities of an oppressor. He read of her pain and humiliation, and how she had kept it all inside as it slowly ate away at the very fabric of her being.
He read the entry three times when Tom Duff had pushed her down the stairs and she lay bleeding, the life of her unborn child seeping out of her body and onto the expensive fabric of a Persian rug.
Logan threw the journal across the room, it bouncing off a wall and landing on the floor. “The son of a bitch! I’ll kill him!” he shouted to the empty room. His gaze, flooded with rage, shifted and he stared at Domino standing outside the bedroom.
Gasping, as if he had run a grueling race, he stood up and walked over to the dog. “It’s okay. I’m okay.” Domino’s tail wagged as he took a few steps, stopped, then looked back at his master.
He smiled. He had to let the dog out.
Logan spent the morning reading Caryn’s journal—twice. Four cups of strong black coffee had fortified him as he memorized her gentle confessions, her tender words of love.
He glanced at his watch, noting the time, then reached for the small cellular phone on the table. Pressing a button, he listened for the speed dial to connect him with Jace Prescott’s private line.
“Jace, here,” came a strong masculine voice.
“Have you taken to answering your own phone now?”
Summer Magic Page 22