Currently, he wanted to know if Bellini was coming back that night. But he didn’t want to push or cling. He didn’t want to be like that, and he knew that Bellini didn’t need, or want, that either.
He had given in. Given in to holding back. He knew that Bellini was returning to Oregon when her mother was well. She was not going to live here. He knew a tornado of pain was waiting for him when they split again.
He knew that Bellini believed she would end up running the bar if she stayed, and she didn’t want to do that. He couldn’t blame her. It was exhausting watching her work. Pouring drinks, getting food to tables, visiting with the customers—when they were on their best behavior and when they were crazy—and dealing with the staff and books and ordering supplies and ingredients and everything else.
She was a writer and an artist, and she would have to give that up. He agreed that no one could do both. She was, naturally, an introvert. She liked quiet. She liked her books, her art supplies, and nature. She liked to be outside. Bellini loved her family and friends, but she did not enjoy pouring whiskey and vodka, beer, and wine. She didn’t even drink.
He would move to Oregon if she invited him. He would feel terrible about letting his employees go, but he would write them excellent recommendations and then head to Oregon in his truck. But there was another reason that Bellini would return to Oregon and stay there. He didn’t understand it, could not figure it out. Maybe she would tell him one day. Maybe not.
Logan stared out at the towering blue and gray Swan Mountains, the sun rising like a golden lollipop in a light blue sky. He loved Montana. He loved his mother’s land, the same land that had belonged to her parents and grandparents and great-grandparents. Family land. That land was a part of his soul, a part of his legacy, a part of his life, his mom’s life, and the memories the two of them had made together.
She had died when he was so young, and the land was her. His mother’s soul was in the shimmering lakes, the fish-filled ponds, the meandering streams, the snowcapped mountains in the distance, the whispering trees, the animals and birds. All of it brought him peace. He would often go out to the property, park where his father couldn’t see his truck, and hike, or cross-country ski, or take photographs, or hang out and watch the birds and animals. Sometimes he’d talk to his mother. He loved the land. Bellini had loved it, too, and she knew how much that land meant to him.
Logan often drove out and checked on his father, even though he’d hired two different caregivers to take care of him. He felt obligated, but he couldn’t stand Drake. He’d been a cruel father and husband, quick to backhand and slap. He was still araving, ignorant, arrogant, judgmental man who often drank too much and became worse. He would never change. And weeks ago, when he’d found out Bellini was back, Drake had stepped up his harangues.
“You’re seeing the O’Donnell girl again, aren’t you?” Drake accused, his tone bitter as he slouched in his wheelchair in front of the fireplace in his log cabin, an oxygen tank nearby. He was weakened. It appeared that he was shrinking with age, but Logan thought it could be the bitterness in his body that was making him smaller.
“I don’t want to talk about Bellini, Dad.” His voice was clipped, but he didn’t care.
“Fine.” His father shrugged. “I will. She’s white trash, and I don’t want you to see her. She’s an O’Donnell, too. From a white trash criminal family. Worthless family. Her mother, her sisters, a disgrace, all of them. Something wrong with that bloodline.”
And that was it. “Go to hell, Dad.” Logan’s words tore like bullets through the house. “Go. To. Hell.”
His father’s head snapped up.
“Bellini and her family welcomed me into their family starting when I was in kindergarten. They were even more welcoming when Mom died, as they knew I had no functioning family at home.” Logan felt a searing rage rising in his chest as he stood. “Bellini is the best woman I have ever known other than Mom. She’s caring and compassionate and smart…” He stopped. He did not want to talk about sweet Bellini in front of his maniacal father. Logan was so furious it was a wonder smoke wasn’t pouring out of his ears. He stalked to the door before he did something he didn’t want to do. “Do not ever mention her again. She is none of your business. Keep Bellini’s name out of your filthy mouth.”
“Logan,” Drake rasped, his voice breaking because of the illness in his lungs, the mean streak still sizzling. “Break up withher, or you’ll regret it. Don’t do this to yourself. I’m warning you, son.”
He had no idea what his father was talking about, but he didn’t care. He would not obey “warnings” from his decrepit father. He bit out, emotion clogging his throat, “I will never regret one minute that I spend with Bellini. Not one. Every moment I am with her is a gift. She broke up with me. I did not break up with her. What do I regret? I regret that you have never learned to be anything but a difficult, argumentative, abusive, intimidating father and husband who has spent his whole life making everyone around you miserable, most especially Mom.”
His father closed his mouth and turned pale.
Logan ran a hand through his hair. He had avoided these conversations with his father because he knew Drake would never take responsibility, never admit what he’d done to Logan and his mom. He’d dodge and manipulate and twist and attack, and Logan knew it would be pointless. But here he was, finally letting his father have it.
“I loved your mother,” Drake croaked out, his wrinkled hands flying weakly through the air, but there was something else in his tone. Maybe…grief?
“No, you didn’t. Love doesn’t look like what I saw between you and Mom. Don’t deny it. I lived here. Did she love you, Dad? No. You scared her. You suffocated her. You were relentlessly critical of her and me. You never did anything to deserve her love.” Logan took two steps toward his father. “I know why she didn’t leave you. She was afraid you would get partial custody of me, and she didn’t want to leave me alone with you. If she had lived, she would have kicked you out when I was older, as no court would force a fifteen-year-old boy to live with an abusive father. She—” Logan stopped and manhandled his seething anger back down. “She didn’t live long enough to leave you.” He blinked back hot tears. “You were an abusive husband, a man Iwill never, ever be. If Bellini hadn’t left me, if she loved me, I would have been her husband. Do you understand that, Dad? Do you? She would have been my wife. We would have had children together. She was—she is—the love of my life. Never, ever speak to me about her again.”
His father swallowed hard, something flashed in his eyes, his hands shook, and Logan slammed the door as he left, his truck’s tires spewing dirt in their wake.
Logan took a deep breath and rapped his knuckles against his kitchen table, calming himself as he tried to put that scene with his father behind him. He took another sip of coffee, the Swan Mountains glowing in the morning sunshine, though it was freezing cold. He saw one of Bellini’s socks on his couch. It was blue with reindeer, and he laughed. One sock left, not two. Where was the other one? Thinking of Bellini, he could feel happiness emanating from his soul, making all thoughts of his father disappear. There was a little hope, too, even though their future was, in all probability, hopeless.
Ride the happiness wave,he told himself.Deal with the sadness and the loss when she leaves.
Not ideal, he knew. But he couldn’t stay away from her. He still loved her. And if this was all the time he would get with her, he’d take it.
Christmas was looking a lot better this year.
30
Bellini
At ten o’clock in the morning, Logan called me when I was playing Scrabble with my mom. She was smoking me off the board. It had snowed the night before, but the sky was now a bright blue, the sun rising above the Swan Mountains like a golden ball.
“I’ve been invited to your family’s snowwoman contest,” he said after a pleasant little chat that I kept G-rated on my end because my mother was sitting across from me, trying not to smile like a Cheshire cat who had had too much wine.
“You have?”
