Angel Falls (Angel Falls Series, #1), Babette Jongh [books for 6 year olds to read themselves .TXT] 📗

can’t believe you’d suck me into thinking we had a relationship, knowing it was a lie, all along.”

“Sweetheart, it was ne’er a lie.” His Scottish brogue had deepened, the low tones reflecting the pain I felt, as if he felt it himself. But how could he feel pain over this? It was all his doing. It had been his choice from the beginning. Stumbling against the closed front door, I wrapped my fingers around the cold knob.

He put his hands on my shoulders and tried to pull me into his embrace. “Sweetheart, please don’t do this.”

I shrugged away, turned my back, rattled the damn doorknob that seemed to be stuck. “Why won’t this stupid thing open?”

“We can still see each other on weekends.” He hugged me from behind, and his heart hammered against my back.

My bones weren’t connected anymore, and one deep breath would have me collapsing on the floor like a broken doll. “Why does God hate me?” I wailed to the ceiling.

“I’ll drive here every weekend.” Ian kept trying to wrap me in his arms while I squirmed away and fumbled with the deadbolt.

Finally, I yanked the door open, taking comfort from the blast of air that punched its cold fist through my nightgown. “Leave now, Ian. Leave now, before I say something really nasty.”

“Casey, don’t shut me out.” He hugged me close in the doorway while the chill night air flapped and fluttered my nightgown against my legs. “Let’s talk about this. We can figure something out.”

I shoved him away, though all I really wanted was for him to hold me close again. “Oh?” My voice dripped sarcasm. I stepped backward onto the concrete porch, feeling its cold, hard surface scrape against the soles of my bare feet. “You mean, you’ll change your mind and stay if I ask you? You’ll back out on the deal you just made and buy that big-ass house you’re renting? You’ll marry me and stay here in Angel Falls to make babies and live happily ever after?”

He let go of me. “Lass, be reasonable. I’m only doing the job I came here to do. We can still see each other—”

“On weekends, yeah. I heard that part.” I’d have been shivering from the cold if my anger hadn’t been heating me from the inside. “We both know from experience how well long-distance relationships turn out, don’t we?” I took another step back.

He stepped forward. “We can make it work if we want to.”

“Wanting isn’t enough.” I backed to the edge of the porch. “You have to leave.”

He stepped forward again, as close as he could get without touching me. “Please don’t be this way. Let’s—”

My throat tightened, as if he’d grabbed it with his long fingers and squeezed. But he wasn’t even touching me. He seemed to know now that I was beyond his reach. I couldn’t step back any farther, but I turned my face away from him. “Just go.”

He walked down the steps and stood on the long sidewalk looking up at me. “If I call you tomorrow, will you talk to me?”

“I don’t know.” I went back to the door and stood there, holding the knob. “I’ll have to think about it.”

He put his hands in his pockets, the gesture unconsciously self-protective. “Casey, I’m still trying to figure out what I want. I—”

“Don’t waste your time trying to figure out what you want,” I warned him. “You may not get it anyway.” Then I went inside, shut the door, and slid the bolt home.

His car door slammed, he drove away, and I realized I still hadn’t given him a chance to explain why that woman had been at his house late at night, wearing a slinky black robe.

And I didn’t care, or at least, I shouldn’t, because it didn’t matter anymore. Ian was leaving me, just as I’d left Ben all those years ago. This time, I was finding out how it felt to be the one left behind. But I knew something I hadn’t known back then. I knew the chances of making a long-distance relationship work were zero to nil.

I felt drained of emotion when I turned off the lights and went back to bed. Some part of me had died and gone on to another place, leaving a dry, empty shell. I crawled under the covers and closed my eyes, not caring whether I talked to Ian tomorrow. Not caring why he’d taken that woman to his house, or whether we ever got the chance to talk again.

None of it mattered, if he wasn’t going to stay.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Saturday morning, my first waking thought was of Ian, but I pushed it away. Pushed him away. There was no point in torturing myself over him anymore. If he was determined to leave, I was determined to forget him as soon as possible.

I had more immediate, if much smaller, problems, such as how to get out of the little-girl-sandwich I’d woken up in. Amy backed up to me from the front, Maryann pressed against me from behind. I managed to wiggle out without waking them both by sliding out from the top like pulling a hand out of a glove, then crawling down the channel between their bodies.

Waking them wouldn’t have been a serious tragedy, but at least I could have a cup of coffee in peace before the onslaught of children demanding breakfast. I walked past Jake’s room and looked inside. He wouldn’t wake until after noon without determined intervention. He lay sprawled under a heap of covers, extremities sticking out of the rounded pile like so many toothpicks from a marshmallow.

I turned on the coffee maker, tightened the sash on my robe and headed out to get the paper. I wasn’t going to read the stupid thing, but I had to bring it inside to toss into the recycle bin. I should suggest to Ben that they get a parrot, so they could at least line the cage with newsprint. Now that the Informer was