TAKE A CHANCE (Chance Colorado Series) (29 page)

This last drawer appeared to be stuck, so she put some muscle into it, realizing as a twinge of pain shot up her arm that it wasn’t stuck. It was locked.

“Weird,” she muttered, reaching for the ring of keys to search for one that might fit the drawer.

The third one she tried worked, and she pulled open the last drawer.

Not files. Stacks of letters, bound with rubber bands, redolent with the aroma of perfume even after years locked away in the drawer. Love letters? And one bulging envelope filled with photographs.

So her dad had been a sentimental man, after all. A man who’d loved his wife and children before he’d turned into that cheater who drove off the side of the mountain with some woman half his age sitting beside him.

She fingered the smooth paper of the top envelope on one stack, considering whether her mom might want to keep these letters. Her father had obviously valued them, keeping them up here in a locked drawer. Maybe they would remind her mom of all those good years before her husband had gone middle-aged crazy.

It was odd that there were so many of them. How had her mom managed to write so many in the short time they dated? She must have written to him every single day. And if not then, why would she write them later, once they were married? The only times he’d been away from home had been for a day or two at most when he’d traveled to sales conferences.

Not that it really mattered. The letters were private moments that belonged to her mother.

She skipped over the stacks to reach for the brown envelope filled with photos. Carefully, to avoid bending them, she dumped the contents on the desk in front of her, her heart pounding. That her father had kept photos of his family close at hand tugged at her heart, and she prepared herself for an emotional moment or two when she flipped over the photos to leaf through all his old family memories.

Her first emotions were anything but the pleasant ones she’d expected.

These weren’t family photos. They weren’t even photos of anyone Allie recognized. All women, all in various states of undress.

Allie quickly slapped the envelope down on top of the photographs, feeling as if she’d walked into a room she shouldn’t have.

A glance to the stacks of letters left her with an uneasy feeling of dread, and she reached for the first one, setting it on the desk in front of her.

Not her mother’s handwriting. Addressed to her father at a post office box in Denver. She reached for another stack and found they were the same. All addressed to her father at the Denver address, all with different handwriting, none of them her mother’s.

Thank goodness she hadn’t taken these down to her mother!

How her dad had managed to meet so many women in the last year or so of his life was beyond her, but it didn’t matter now. She’d burn all of these so her mother wouldn’t have her husband’s final infidelity rubbed in her face again.

Allie picked up a third stack and the aged rubber band snapped, scattering envelopes into the drawer and on the floor. She shoved back the chair and got down on her knees to pick them up, noticing as she did some of the dates on the letters.

This one was postmarked the same year she was born.

How was that even possible?

A closer look at the stacks showed dates that ranged over a thirty-year period. Here was one dated the same year her parents had married. And one from the year before that!

“What the hell was he doing?”

“I forgot about those.”

Allie dropped the letters as if they burned her fingers, looking up to see her mother standing in the doorway, her face pinched in sorrow.

“I came as soon as I remembered. I thought maybe I could get here before you found them.”

“You knew about these?” Allie asked, unable to believe her mother understood the depth of what her husband had done. “All of them?”

“All of them,” Susie confirmed. “Some men are addicted to alcohol or drugs. Your father suffered from a different kind of addiction.”

“I don’t understand,” Allie said. “You seemed like you were devastated by the circumstances of his death. By his being found with that woman in his car.”

“I was devastated. Jimmy broke our agreement. I was to turn a blind eye and he was never to humiliate me by carrying on his little indiscretions anywhere near home.”

Susie approached the desk and lifted one corner of the envelope covering the photographs, as if to confirm what she already knew she’d find. With an expression of disgust, she scooped up a handful and shoved them into the black trash bag sitting on the floor.

“Why did you put up with it for all those years?”

Susie continued to stuff handfuls of letters and photographs into the trash, pausing for only a moment to fix her daughter with a stare. “What would you have had me do? Leave him? By the time I learned about Jimmy’s little problem, I had no family to go back to. I’d used what little money my parents had left me in my first year of college, where I met your dad. Mama Odie and Papa Flynn treated me as if I were their own daughter. I didn’t want to lose the family I had found here. And,”—she shrugged, a sad smile curving her lips—“I was pregnant with your brother. At the time, staying here, making the best of my situation seemed to be the smartest thing for me to do.”

Allie shook her head, wanting to reject everything her mother had told her. “When I first heard about the accident, about him going bad like that, I didn’t want to believe it. But to know it had been going on forever—”

Susie cut her off with a snorting sound of sheer derision. “Going bad? Good grief, Allie. Are you listening to yourself? Your dad wasn’t a month-old bag of celery. He didn’t
go bad.
Jimmy had a dependency he couldn’t shake. He even tried seeing a therapist for a while, but, in the end, it was who he was.”

“I always thought you guys had the perfect story. I wanted to be just like you. To find my perfect story. I thought I had,” Allie said, her last phone call to Logan playing through her head. “But I was wrong. They all go bad sooner or later, don’t they?”

Susie came around the desk, dropped to her knees beside Allie and cupped her hands on her daughter’s cheeks. “Is that why you’re refusing to speak to Logan? Because you think he’s gone bad? Baby, men don’t go bad. They either are or they aren’t. Logan isn’t anything like your dad.”

Her mom pulled her close, stroking her hair like she had when Allie had been a little girl and had come home crying over one hurt or another. In spite of her best efforts, tears prickled in Allie’s eyes, threatening to fall in the face of her mother’s kindness.

“A long time ago, Allie, you told me that you had to leave Chance because Logan was the love of your life and you couldn’t stand being here and not having him. Do you still feel that way? Do you still love him?”

Fighting back the tears, Allie nodded. “More than anything. But when I called him, Shayla answered his phone. He was with her.”

Again. Like history repeating itself, she had lost him to Shayla once more.

“Then don’t cut your nose off to spite your face.” Susie pulled away from her, reaching out to tuck a strand of her daughter’s hair back behind her ear. “You’re so much stronger than I ever was, Allie. You’re a fighter. If you love Logan, don’t let your wounded pride keep you from going after what you really want. Talk to him. See if there isn’t a way to work things out. Don’t flounder around trying to recreate someone else’s perfect story. Take a chance and create your own. I’ve seen the way he looks at you, baby. I don’t think you’ll have to fight too hard.”

“You really believe that?”

“I do,” her mother assured her. “You’ve never been afraid to work hard for what you wanted. It would be pretty sad to see you start being afraid now.”

Her mother was right. She was rolling over like some pathetic quitter. She was dealing with Logan in exactly the same way she’d dealt with Drake. Only Logan wasn’t Drake. Logan was the man she wanted for the lead in her perfect story.

“Thanks, Mom,” she said, kissing her mother’s forehead before standing and walking to the door. “Will you be okay finishing this off by yourself?”

“Go!” her mom answered, flapping her arms in a shooing motion.

Not that Allie needed any more urging. Talking to her mother had opened her eyes. If Shayla Jenkins-Gold thought she was just going to waltz in and steal Logan out from under Allie’s nose, she had another think coming. That wasn’t happening. Not without a damn good fight, anyway.

Allie loved Logan. She always had. And right now, she was going down to the fire station to tell him that. She was going to do her best to convince him that he loved her, too.

Ten minutes later, she turned into the parking area at the fire station and hopped from the old pickup she’d borrowed from her grandmother. Though Logan’s pickup was parked outside, she knew the minute she opened the door to the darkened station that she wouldn’t find him here.

The big red fire truck was gone.

Back outside, she stood by her car, trying to decide what to do next. If she knew where he’d been called to, she’d have a better idea of how long he might be gone. She could call him, but private calls had no place in a firefighting scenario. She’d never risk distracting him when he might need to have his full attention on his work.

Besides, what she needed to say needed to be said in person.

As she buckled her seat belt, she noticed a haze on her windshield and flipped on the wipers. With their first swipe, a fine gray powder floated into the air and quickly settled back on the glass.

Though it had been years, she’d seen this stuff before. Ash.

“Oh, Lord,” she muttered, rolling down her window to stick her head outside.

Wood smoke. What a fool she’d been to even consider that someone might be using their fireplace on a day like this. From the strong scent, she’d bet everything she had on a forest fire. A quick scan of the sky and she spotted what she’d totally ignored earlier. A huge white cloud billowed on the western horizon, unmistakable proof that she would have won her bet.

A big one, from the looks of all that smoke. And wherever it was, she had no doubt that her Logan was right smack dab in the thick of it.

Cody would know. As sheriff, Logan’s brother would be well aware of any emergency in the county.

By the time Allie reached the sheriff’s office, Cody was just getting into his SUV. With a spray of gravel, she pulled across the driveway, blocking his exit. She jumped from her truck before the engine had even stopped knocking.

“Where’s Logan?” she asked breathlessly as she reached the spot where he waited, engine idling. “He’s at that fire, isn’t he?”

“It’s a big one,” Cody said, confirming her worst fears. “All departments in the county responded after they lost control of it with the winds the first night. The out-of-state guys started arriving this morning and they’re hoping to have the big sky-tankers making drops later today if the wind dies down.”

“Will he be back tonight?” she asked, fearing the answer she’d get.

“I wouldn’t count on it. They’ve set up a forward command at the mouth of the canyon but they’re closing down the highway to keep traffic out just in case. That’s where I’m headed now, to man the roadblock.”

If the fire made it to the highway, there was no telling how long it might take to get it under control.

“Is there anything I can do?”

Cody patted her shoulder. “Go home, Allie. All you can do is wait. Chance should be fine, but it wouldn’t hurt to check the emergency reports every so often. Just in case. And try not to worry. Logan is good at what he does.”

Allie returned to the pickup and backed it out of the driveway to allow Cody to leave, lights flashing as he headed for the highway entrance.

Cody’s reassurance did little to calm her nerves. She’d lived in the mountain community long enough to have witnessed the power of the big forest fires. Over the years those infernos had taken down more than one firefighter who was good at his job.

All she could do now was wait. Wait and pray that Logan wouldn’t be added to that list.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

The noise of a crowded dining room met Allie’s ears before she reached the front door of the Hand.

Good. Lots of people to distract her might be just what she needed.

After talking to Cody, she’d dropped off the borrowed pickup and walked home. She’d done her best to take her mind off her worries, but to no avail. Not even her favorite book could distract her for long. Vivid images of Logan, shrouded in smoke, battling the monster blaze in the canyon, kept invading her thoughts, pushing away any story she hoped to lose herself in.

After a couple of stomach-twisting hours, she gave up even trying. She slipped into her work uniform and headed for the coffee shop, hoping a brisk walk would help rid her of the nagging fear that wouldn’t leave her alone.

It hadn’t.

“Could you use an extra pair of hands?” she asked as she approached the counter.

Dulcie’s grateful look was all the answer she needed.

“They’re all worried,” Dulcie said quietly, placing slices of her latest bakery treat on plates.