She could see the pain in his eyes, but his taunting words set off a volcano of emotion inside her.
“Oh, I won’t forget my passport, Cal.” Theatrically, she pulled it from her purse and held it in front of his face. “It’s not dynamite! It won’t attack anyone or cause a world war. It’s a passport. And for me, it’s the symbol of hope that I’ll get to keep my promise to my brother. He never held me back, Cal. He never looked at the pictures on my walls with derision in his eyes and never told me to stay put. He loved me, but he felt something else for me. Something I now see you could never understand. Something that you can’t give me, and it’s the reason you will never carry one of these!” she finished, glancing at the passport before returning it to her purse.
“And what’s that, Mabel,” Cal questioned, his gaze hard and unforgiving.
Hot tears trailed down her cheeks. She’d loved him all her life—for as long as she could remember—and she still did. But she couldn’t be what he wanted. As much as she could try, the writing was on the wall.
He’d orchestrated the demise of Bella Mae. Proof that he only wanted her on his terms.
“Trust,” she replied, pulling her gaze from Cal and setting it on the image of the Eiffel Tower that had been tacked to her wall for over a decade. “Jamie believed in me. Jamie trusted me.”
“And what should I do with this?” he asked, holding up the necklace that had meant everything to her for the last four years.
Her heart broke as she stared at it, but she knew what she had to do.
“I have loved you all my life, Cal. And I always will. But I can’t be what you want me to be.”
She steadied herself. “You can give the necklace back to me if and when you decide that you want all of me.” She closed her suitcase and carried it to the door but stopped before leaving him standing in her room. “Otherwise, it means nothing. That M could stand for Mary, Marla, Martha, or even Montana. It only means Mabel if you decide that you can love me—the farm girl and the city girl. Two parts, one person. Take it or leave it.”
Chapter 8
Cal
“My goodness! What an operation you have going here!” Margaret said, taking in Preston and Logan’s community pantry.
Cal clenched his jaw. This was the last damned place he wanted to be the day after Mabel left for the city.
Yes, New York City. She was gone. Again.
At least, this time, she didn’t climb out the window and skip town without telling a soul.
She hadn’t allowed him to drive her to the bus depot. Instead, she’d asked her father to take her. He still couldn’t believe that Elias had kept a straight face when she told him she was going back to New York for a meeting. But what was he to expect? The man’s motto was what’s done is done. He’d barely batted an eyelash the last time she’d left.
Still, it sent a surge of frustration through his body. Was he the only one who understood the magnitude of the situation? Mabel hadn’t mentioned a return flight. Would she be gone for a few days? A few weeks or longer?
Christ, how it shredded his heart to bits.
Unable to help himself, he’d gone out in the middle of the night and stared at her bedroom window, waiting for her to somehow materialize out of thin air. This wasn’t like him. He prided himself on maintaining an even countenance. But that trait had flown out the window the moment Mabel left. One minute he was livid, the next, so damned heartbroken.
He shoved his hands into his pockets, and every muscle in his body went rigid when his fingers brushed past a chain and then touched the delicate M on Mabel’s necklace.
He could still recall driving to the jewelry shop a few towns over to pick out a gift for her twenty-first birthday. Years of pent-up emotions had him near delirious. He’d been so ready to tell Jamie how he felt about Mabel—so consumed with the prospect of making her his. Grinning like an idiot, he’d even practiced what he’d wanted to say to her on the drive home. Not to mention, he’d nearly driven off the road from glancing down at the little white box that contained the gift—what he thought would be the first of many presents he’d give to her.
Somewhere deep inside him, he must have believed that his declaration of love would keep her in Elverna.
He believed it four years ago.
But was there more to it?
Had he hoped that she’d discard the pictures of Paris and London that peppered her walls and replace them with images of the two of them in Elverna?
Was she right? Did he only love the Farm to Mabel piece of her?
After Elias and Mabel left for the bus stop, he’d tried to find out about the castle page she’d been going on about. It made no sense to him. But the laptop was closed when he’d gotten back to the cottage after their fight in her bedroom. It could have been the cats. It could have been anything. He didn’t even remember if he’d closed it while they were arguing.
Maybe he’d lost his mind.
The last twenty-four hours had passed in a blur. He didn’t even know if she’d made it to New York. It wasn’t like he could shoot her a text or simply call her. They weren’t in that place anymore. She’d been as clear as a bell. He could have all of her or none of her. And he didn’t have it in him to ask Elias if she’d made it. Her father didn’t know about them. No one did. So, he had to play it cool as if her departure meant nothing when in reality, on the inside, he was a damned wreck.
And what did he do to deal with her absence? The only thing he could do. He turned to the things that never let him down.
Routine and structure.
His dedication to those traits allowed him to fulfill his dogged need for control.
He woke up early. He took care of the animals. He checked in with the Garver brothers and acted as if his entire world hadn’t crumbled around him.
But it had. The proof was the necklace tangled in his pocket. He pictured it glinting from the hollow of her neck as she smiled up at him. She was sunshine and honey-lavender kisses, and he had to pretend as if she hadn’t left him in darkness.
And he couldn’t escape her.
She was everywhere.
He couldn’t go in his kitchen without seeing her perched on his counter, phone in hand, as she cajoled him into taking a photo with Mabel the Cat. In the barn, he pictured her covered in mud as she nursed her goat back to life. And then there was Eat Elverna. Her idea. Her logo. There wasn’t a room in his house that didn’t have something with that heart-shaped lettuce leaf printed in bright green.
He’d thought it was a godsend when Margaret called and asked if he could help her and Betty run a quick errand. He’d barely ended the call before he was in his truck headed for the diner.
Little did he know that the quick errand was a casserole delivery to Chicago!
By agreeing to take the sisters into the city, he’d traded one hell for another.
As usual, Betty had been tight-lipped on the drive up while Margaret explained that she and the casserole-obsessed chef Preston had begun corresponding over email. He’d invited the sisters up for a visit, and of course, she had to accept. And because the universe couldn’t allow him to wallow in his pain, it sent a pair of nice old ladies to drag his ass back to that damned place. But what was he supposed to say? He couldn’t tell them no.