He bought a cup of coffee from a snack counter inside the lodge and looked around for a few minutes. Huge timbers, rustic Old West feel to it. As beautiful as he’d imagined.
A huge wooden sign set up like a clock in the lobby showed Old Faithful would go off in fifteen minutes.
That must explain the crowd gathered outside.
He walked down the path to join them on the boardwalk. The benches were filled, so he stood behind them, waiting as the geyser decided to make up its mind and erupt. He glanced around, tourists from every walk of life and more than a few nations.
He caught sight of a woman standing alone at the edge of the crowd and watching him. She wore a baseball cap pulled down over her face and dark sunglasses, the afternoon sun casting a shadow that concealed her features. When he looked again, the crowd had shifted and he didn’t see her.
He turned back to the geyser.
I will not think of her! I won’t ruin my fucking vacation thinking about that woman.
God knew he’d wasted enough time on her.
Now he couldn’t shake the feeling he was under surveillance. The last minute geyser crowd swelled as people hurried over to watch. Then it erupted, taking everyone’s attention as steam and water shot into the air with a gurgling blast.
I wish Daph were here.
He blinked away tears and tried to summon his anger again. Only his anger and taking care of Jerald got him through the past almost year and a half.
Without her.
As the crowd thinned, drifting away along the boardwalk, he sat when a section of bench opened up. He needed to get his head on straight before he returned to the cabin to Jerald. Needed to get her out of his heart for good. He hoped this trip would do the trick. Just him and Jerald and the great outdoors with no fucking reminders of Daphne Peres every time he turned around.
He was buried deep in thought when he realized someone had sat on the bench next to him. He looked.
The same woman. Her dark green baseball cap bore a National Park Service emblem. When she turned to look at him, his heart wanted to explode.
He tried to stand but she reached out and grabbed his wrist. “Please, don’t go.”
He wanted to scream, to rage, to yell.
He sat.
His brain shut down as he tried to cope with her presence. “What do you want?” he hoarsely asked. “Why can’t you leave us alone? He’s finally happy again.”
She took off the sunglasses and he hated that he had to fight the urge to take her into his arms and hold her and love her tears away.
“I’m sorry, Alan. I never read his letters. Not until after I was on the plane when I left the courthouse that day.” Her voice didn’t even sound right, even more quiet and sad than when he first met her, if that was possible. Like she never laughed anymore.
Joyless.
“I hadn’t read them. I felt so angry and hurt and abandoned, the way he turned me over to the marshals. It felt like he’d lied to me. But I couldn’t throw them away either. Then on the plane out here that afternoon, I finally read them. I never knew how he felt until then. I didn’t understand. I was too angry.”
“What letters? What are you talking about?”
She opened her purse and handed him a sheaf of papers. “Didn’t he tell you?”
Alan took them with numb fingers and thumbed through them, scanning them, photocopies of letters in Jerald’s handwriting. “No.”
“I didn’t have my head on straight. I admit it. I felt abandoned and hurt. I thought he was mad at me for you getting shot, picking you over me. I couldn’t see the truth at the time. I refused to read the letters then. I wish like hell I had.”
She twisted her hands in her lap as she started crying again. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I told the marshals to tell him to stop sending them, and he did. So I figured that meant he really was done with me. I never stopped loving and missing you guys. Until I read the letters, I thought he had.”
“You came by after Christmas? While we were gone?”
“I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to see you guys. I’d hoped…” She sniffled and wiped her eyes. “The new house is beautiful. I drove by before I returned to Tampa that night. I was going to stay the whole week if you’d have me. When the woman at the old house told me you guys were gone, I couldn’t bear to stay. I didn’t have a reason to stay.”
He couldn’t focus on her and the letters at the same time, so he read. Jerald’s words, his love and pain pouring off the page. He’d known the tough guy had loved her and ached for her, but this was a side he hadn’t openly seen of his lover until just recently.
“You could have said something that day in the courthouse.”
“I tried. You ordered me out. When I saw how angry you were I…” She took a deep breath. “I didn’t want to hurt him when I saw him like that. I never wanted to hurt either of you. You made it pretty obvious you wanted me to leave.”
His shock somewhat waning, he finally addressed the obvious. “How did you know we were here?”
“I work over in town, at the travel agency your trip was booked through. I saw the paperwork come through and knew I couldn’t waste the chance to see you. I also work here a couple of days a week in the park.”
She watched him as he read the letters. She couldn’t bear to reach out to him, afraid he’d rebuff her. He looked good, his hair a little shorter and less shaggy than it had been. He must have gotten up way early that morning, because she spotted the faint shade of stubble already shadowing his cheek.
She remembered how it used to feel nuzzling against him after he came in from a day on the water. Rough sandpaper skin that tasted sweetly salty.
That thought nearly took her nerve away. She slowly inhaled, trying to fill her lungs with piney Yellowstone air to clear her head and get hold of her emotions, but she caught a whiff of his cologne, too.
He’d made no attempt to touch her, to hold her.
He really had moved on.
At least now she had her answer.
When she stood, he never looked up from the papers in his hand, made no move to stop her. She felt what little hope existed in her heart rip loose and die.
“I’m so sorry, Alan,” she whispered, struggling not to cry. “I love you, and I love him. I’m never going to stop loving either of you. There hasn’t been a single day I haven’t missed you. Once I got my head on straight and realized he did the right thing, it was too late for me to come back and make it right. If you want to tell him that for me, please do.”
She choked back a sob. “I promise I’ll leave you alone. I won’t contact you guys again. I don’t want to hurt you anymore. I never wanted to hurt you, I just wanted to love you.” She laid an envelope on the bench next to him, the letter she’d written them in case they wouldn’t talk to her at all.
She quickly headed for the parking lot. Her hands trembled so badly she almost couldn’t fit the key into her truck’s ignition. She didn’t dare look back.
* * * *
Too stunned to stand, much less follow her, Alan sat there and read the letters Jerald had written. Then he looked at the envelope she’d left. Nothing written on the outside.
He finally opened it. In her handwriting, it wasn’t very long.
I’m so sorry. Jerald, I do know, now, that you did the right thing. I’m so sorry I didn’t see it before. I was too upset and hurt to see the truth. I was stupid, yes. I know apologies don’t change the fact that I was a moron for not trusting you and your judgment. I should have known how much you loved me and how much that decision hurt you as much as it did me. I thought you were mad at me. I didn’t read the letters you wrote me until after that day in the courthouse. I never threw them away but I couldn’t bring myself to read them before then.
I didn’t know how you felt, that you still loved me and wanted me. I thought you were getting rid of me for good.
I was already a new person by then, thanks to the government. I was already in the program.
I would give it all up to have you both back. I would do anything to be with you again. I’ve never stopped loving either of you and I’m so sorry I didn’t trust you enough to understand why you did what you did. I thought you were choosing Alan over me, not that you were trying to protect me.
I wish you both nothing but happiness and love. I don’t regret loving both of you, but I know I will never again find the kind of joy in my life that I had when I was with the two of you. The peace I felt. I just wish I hadn’t fucked everything up with us. I wish I’d refused to go with the marshals in the courthouse that day and stayed and listened to you guys and talked to you and told you how I felt. I wish I’d read the letters when you first sent them to me so I knew.
I understand now why Alan acted so angry that day, and rightfully so. I know it looked bad. I didn’t know you expected me to come home once the trial was over or I never would have asked to join the program. I threw away all that time we could have had together and nothing can ever bring it back and I’m so sorry.
I’ve hurt you guys so much, and if it’s just a fraction of the pain I feel for causing it, then I know there is no way I can ever make up for it. And you both deserve so much better than that.
I’ll always love you. Both of you.
D.
As the shadows lengthened in the valley, people were once again gathering for the next eruption. How long had he sat there? At least ninety minutes, by his best guess. He realized he’d been crying. He stood and looked around and didn’t see her anywhere.
What had she said? She worked over in town. But Jerald had booked their trip through a local agency in New Port Richey, not here.
Fuck!
He didn’t know what town she meant, and Jerald had the reservation information.
He ran back to their cabin and rummaged through Jerald’s bag until he found the paperwork and the agency’s name and number. He tried to call them, but realized not only did he not have a cell signal, but that it was nearly eight o’clock in the evening in Florida.
Jerald heard him and woke up. “What’s wrong?”
How did he tell him? He’d been so angry that day in the courthouse, he remembered holding Jerald and ordering her out of the room. She’d been trying to talk and he didn’t want to hear anything she had to say. Especially nothing that would hurt Jerald more.
He sat on the bed and handed Jerald the note she’d left him.
It took him a moment, between his exhaustion and confusion, to realize what it meant. “Where did you get this?” Jerald hoarsely asked.
“She found me over at Old Faithful.”
“And you didn’t come get me? Where the hell is she?”
Alan shook his head. “I don’t know.”
Jerald stood, his voice rising. “She was
here
, and you let her fucking
leave
?”
He nodded.
“We’ve got to find her! Where does she live?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did she change her appearance?”
Her hair had been tucked under the ball cap. He couldn’t have sworn to the color or the length. He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Please tell me she told you her new name!”
Alan shook his head. “I was in shock.” He looked up at Jerald and showed him the letters. “Why didn’t you tell me you wrote her?”
“Because I didn’t want you to get upset that she never answered. I figured she was done with us. I blamed myself for it, that she was mad at me for sending her away.”
Alan started laughing. He laughed so hard he fell back onto the bed and his whole body shook. A moment later, Jerald realized Alan was sobbing.
He sat next to Alan and tried to soothe him. “Jesus, I fucked up!” Alan screamed. “She tried to talk to us that day and I ran her out! I was so fucking mad, and I told her to go! If I’d just let her talk, she’d be with us now.”
“We’ve got to find her.”
“How? The agency in Florida is closed for the night.”
“And I didn’t bring the info for the local agency with me. I can’t remember who or where it was. Dammit!” Jerald grabbed the itinerary from Alan and scanned it. “The fishing guide. He’ll know which local agency booked him.”
“No cell phone reception.”
“We’ll find a damn phone. It’s Yellowstone, not outer Mongolia.” He pulled on clothes. “Come on, let’s go.”
They found a pay phone in the main lodge and made calls. The guide, when they finally reached him two hours later, didn’t know either, because he worked for an outfitter company who took his bookings for him.
They were closed until the next morning.
At least it was narrowed down to one town—Cody, to the east.
Neither man could sleep. They were supposed to spend the next three days sightseeing on their own. Around three a.m. they gave up, got in their rental car, and drove to Cody. They sat in an all-night restaurant drinking coffee until six in the morning, when they left the restaurant and parked outside the outfitter’s office. They waited by the door when a young woman unlocked it at six-thirty.