Page 51 of Horn of Plenty
She stared him down. “I’m not acting crazy. Crazy is taking away everything I worked for. Crazy is thinking you had the right to do it!”
He looked away. “You’re not making any sense.”
She gripped his chin and forced him to hold her gaze. “How about this for making sense, Cal? You don’t love all of me.”
He reared back. “Of course, I love you, Mabel. I’ve always loved you.”
She shook her head. “No, you don’t. You only love Mabel in Elverna. Mabel on the Farm! Freaking Farm to Mabel! But that’s not all of me. That’s only a part of me.”
It made sense. To him, his promise to Jamie was nothing more than to bring her back to Elverna and put her into a box—a box that excluded her passion for travel and fashion. He wanted that wide-eyed farm girl. But she’d made a promise to her brother as well. A promise that she’d follow her dreams—whatever they were!
She removed her necklace and held it out, feeling naked without it. But she had to do this.
“Here, you should take this back,” she whispered, staring as theMdangled from the chain.
A muscle ticked in his jaw. “So, you’re done with me and this town?”
“I’m done pretending, Cal. I can’t be what you want. Take it!” she said, tossing the necklace at him.
He caught it. “And don’t forget your passport—in case they want you to go to…” He glanced at her corkboard. “To Paris or Australia or Antarctica. Who knows! You could end up in Timbuktu!” he jeered.
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 keepmy promiseto 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. ThatMcould 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.”
