Page 13 of When I Fall In Love

What? Divorced? I make a turn on the sidewalk as this news sinks in, the visual of Beth’s empty ring finger teasing me. “When?”

“Oh, I don’t keep track of these things. Some time ago already.”

I take a deep breath and catch the groan in my hand. “Aunt May. Please tell me you haven’t sent me here on a wild goose chase.”

“What goose chase? You’re there to talk about the farm. What did Beth say?”

“They’re selling to the highest bidder.” And when Beth says she’s going to do something, she’s going to do it come hell or high water. That type of stubborn never rubs off.

“I bet that was because you didn’t put on the charm. You’re a Logan, you don’t need to do much—”

“Stop right there.” Good God. May and Bill have this streak in them, pure mischievous little shits when they put their minds to it. That they didn’t stop us from having underaged sex right under their noses just goes to show. I bet May and Bill had their own bit of fun as teenagers and probably smoked weed and did the whole happy hippie thing way past its expiration date.

“Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” comes Bill’s voice through the phone. “Do this for the business Hunter, if for nothing else. Charm her!”

“Nobody is going to charm Beth Anderson-O’Neill out of an extra two million dollars, I can tell you that much,” I mutter. A few seconds of silence pass and I bet May and Bill are giving each other the stare, that silent communication married couples seem to fine-tune over time.

“Well, we were hoping you’d charm much more out of her than a mere two million.”

I roll my eyes with a sigh. They didn’t sit in a boardroom with Beth today, did they?

“How is she, Hunter?” May asks now, gravity in her voice.

I look down at my brown Oxford shoes as I toe the cobbled pattern on the sidewalk. How is Beth? She’s so many things, I don’t know where to start. She’s sad, she’s angry, she’s so goddamn beautiful that for a moment there she stole the breath right out of my lungs. She is proud and fierce and has left that insecure girl behind a long time ago. Instead, she has nurtured her fast wit and quick tongue, as I always knew she would. She’s a lawyer and the way she dealt with me was on point. Until she fled to the ladies’ restroom and basically showed me her hand.

“She’s tired,” I say, filling the silence.

“Her mom’s death was quite a blow, for sure. Cervical cancer. Did she talk about it?”

Now isn’t the time to admit to them that my meeting with Beth was an aborted, short affair and that I couldn’t lure her out. Seeing each other was a shock for both of us. She didn’t expect me either, that much was clear. “No, we didn’t talk about it.”

“It would be six months now,” May says, weary. “One of Colleen’s friends in San Francisco let me know when she passed away.”

Another silent spell and then Bill clears his throat. “So, what’re you going to do, son? You’ve asked her out to dinner at least?”

I groan a chuckle. “Nope. I aimed for lunch, but nothing’s confirmed.”

“What’re you waiting for?” Bill says, exasperated. “Talking to us when you should get busy charming that sweet girl. Hang up May, Hunter has work to do.”

I laugh at their audacity but find myself staring at my phone with a cut call before I could even say sleep tight.

Rock bottom is a funny thing. I’m not quite there yet, but it’s staring me in the eye, teasing me with a wink. I’ve got nothing to lose here. For a moment I glance up at the imposing building, so out of my frame of reference. And this is where Beth now works as if she owns it. My girl. My warm-hearted country girl who used to laugh more than anything. There was no laughter today. I shake my head at the memory of us, how wild we were, how much life we crammed into the time we had together. When she was forced to leave for the west coast, we didn’t have time for a proper goodbye.

It left me broken. Totally fucking broken. For the second time in my life, someone I loved beyond comprehension had been cruelly ripped out of my life, like a page from a book. Except with her, all the other blank pages got ripped out too. Nobody else has ever made a mark in my life, not in that way, not in that chapter about love.

I have nothing to lose here and I’m in San Francisco now. There’s no spring in my step, but I make my way back to the building and take the elevator all the way to the forty-eighth floor. I smile at the receptionist. “I forgot something in the meeting room. Beth O’Neill phoned me to pick it up.”

The receptionist nods, and as she rings Beth’s office, I rock on the balls of my feet. Surely I’m not nervous. Telling white lies isn’t a strength of mine. That must be it.

“She’ll be out in a minute,” the receptionist says.

I nod and stand to the side, out of the fray of people coming and going. The law offices are busy, and none of the employees here seem to be heading home.

I’m doing this for the company, I chant in my head while I wait. There’s no ulterior motive here. I’ll turn on the Logan charm and take her out for dinner. If Beth can’t do dinner, I’ll try to confirm a lunch date. Bill wants me to charm more than two million dollars out of her and I have no clue what he meant by that, but if I can convince her to come to Vermont and see the farm one last time before she sells, I might have swayed the balance of the scales in my favor. She might concede and sell it as a going concern—I’ll get to save my supply of organic milk and not watch bulldozers thunder in and level the land for some après-ski cabin that takes five hundred people.

This is my last shot and the least I can do, given that it’s my business that’s hanging in the balance, with the livelihoods of my staff too. Yes, I’m doing the right thing here.

When Beth walks out into the lobby two minutes later, I have a few sweet seconds in which I can study her before she looks up to meet my gaze. My girl has turned into a woman, with more curves than I recall, fuller breasts, but the same ramrod straight back, the same squaring of her shoulders, her dark, silky hair framing her face and falling almost to her elbows. When she meets my gaze, those soft brown eyes tell me everything. She cried and patched it up as best she could.

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