Healing Hearts: A Second Chance, Small Town Romance Novel

Chapter 16

Logan

How could I let her go? It ripped me singing those songs knowing it would evoke all those memories of our past. Damn it. Why can't I let it go? Perhaps I'm lonely. I know I'm lonely. Anyone who has lost someone they love would be lonely and bereft. Am I looking to fill that void? Should I fill that void? Do I deserve happiness again? According to Daisy, who believes she is the oracle on matters of the heart, yes I do.

I'm not so sure. All I know is that right now I am so damn confused and conflicted. Torn between running off stage to follow Sage out the door after my set and feeling hugely guilty for what feels like deceiving my wife's memory. Oh God. I hate this. I hate it so much but I can't help myself.

There's only one place I know that Sage would have gone to if she hasn't gone back to her folks house. And trust me, I know Sage very well. After spending all our childhood years together, it's like knowing the back of my own hand.

My heart was in my mouth the whole time I was up there singing. My eyes never left hers and I saw the way she looked at me. There was a distinct look of longing in those eyes of hers. Something I've not seen for a while.

She's sitting there right by our tree, nothing but moonlight and stars lighting up the area where she sits. Alone. Small. It takes all my strength not to rush to her and put my arms around her. From the fact that Sage has come to our place, I know my songs had an impact on her. I don't even know why I sang them. Out of all the hundreds of songs I know and have written, on my own – I could have played anyone of them. So why the hell did I opt for our songs? Why indeed.

"Hi." I say. She doesn't say anything for a while. I bet she's holding her breath. She used to do that frequently when we were younger. Like she's counting to a hundred before saying anything. It's the way she dealt with anything that made her mad. Am I making her mad being here? No doubt. After all she has avoided me for the past ten years. No word of a lie, even when I know she's come back to visit we have never bumped into each other. Sure, I have stayed up at the cabin with Hector but even when I've gone down to the practice I have never laid eyes on Sage. The woman is as covert as a top spy.

Still she does not respond. I'm standing here for what seems like eternity. I cough and shove my hands into my pockets feeling like a complete ass having followed her to our favourite place.

"What do you want?" Sage finally says, her voice is cold. Did I expect open arms and warmth? Er, no. Of course not but still. It makes me shiver.

"I came to see if you were okay." I inch forward to be closer to her. She senses I have moved.

"Just stay where you are. Don't come near me. What the fuck were you thinking up on stage? Why plays those songs? They mean nothing now, Logan. Nothing." Her voice makes me feel like I'm standing naked in a winter's storm. Jeez-us when did she become so hard and cold?

This isn't the Sage I knew. The warm, loving and giving woman. The woman who went off to Michigan state and left me with a broken and wounded heart.

"You're right. I shouldn't have done. I'll be off. It was a mistake. A huge mistake. I shouldn't have followed you out here." And it's true, what an idiot. Now I just feel stupid and like a prize jerk. I turn away and begin to walk my head hanging low. Why do I feel like my heart is having a seizure? Why do I feel so empty and hollow, like I'm reliving a decade ago the day she left me and waved goodbye from the back of her parent's car?

That day has scarred me. There was no changing her mind once she had decided she wanted to get out of Willowbrook and live in the bit city. A different state. I mean, she could have gone easily to Virginia. They offered her a position. What was so wrong with Willowbrook? What was so wrong with me that I couldn't get her to stay? The truth. I didn't try hard enough. I loved Sage so damn fucking much that her happiness is all that meant anything to me. There was no way on earth I was going to force her to do something she didn't want to do. Sometimes in life if you love someone you have to let them go, not keep them to become sad and depressed. It had to be her choice, not mine. But. We could have had a long-distance relationship.

I shake my head as I walk and hear her voice, still like steel. "Just stay as far out of my way as possible. I won't be here long. As soon as I get a new job I am out of this damn town." That woman has no heart. She can't have. Still the wanting to get out of Willowbrook.

If I was half a man, I'd turn back to her and wrap my arms around her and bring those angry lips to mine and crush them and draw her breath out of her body and fill it with something warm and heartfelt. I'd sling her over my shoulder and drive her to my cabin and make mad love to her. Where the fuck has that come from? I walk faster. I need to get away from Sage. She's dangerous.

I haven't got time to be thinking these thoughts about her. It's the last thing I need. What I need more importantly is to move on with my life, get myself another doctor in the practice since I'm over-stretched as it is with the town folk and those coming in from nearby towns where there is no practice.

"Fine." I shout back at her. "Whatever you want."

"Always having to have the last word eh, Logan." And here we go like old times, she says something, I say something back. Only back then, we'd end up making love after an argument. Not me walking away as if I have daggers being thrown at my back.

"That's right. You got it." I march off as fast as I can with one ear out to hear if she says anything more. There you go, I got the last word in. So childish, so utterly ridiculous but damn it, Sage brings out the very worst in me right now.

I'm going home to my cabin and flinging myself on the bed with Hector. At least he never hurts me or lets me down. As for Sage Bennett oops, Dr Sage Bennett – let's get it right, she can stay out of my damn way too. The sooner she high tails it out of Willowbrook the better.