Blame It On Your Heart (Big Timber) Read online

  Ellie's explanation that she had her mind made up about college, that she had no interest in leaving the state of Montana, fell on deaf ears. "I don't understand you," her mother opined. "On the one hand there's nothing you won't try, no crazy risk you won't take. But when it comes to one of the most important decisions of your life, you won't even consider doing something different."

  "I've already made the most important decision of my life," Ellie had shot back. "I've chosen the person I want to spend it with."

  "You know I love Damon, and nothing would make me happier than for the two of you to end up together. But I still think you should get out of Montana for a while, see what a different part of the country is like. If you and Damon are meant to be together, you'll end up there eventually."

  They were meant to be together, Ellie thought as she settled against him on the sleeping bag, her stomach fluttering with happiness.

  "I also wanted to make sure you know how committed I am to you," Damon said after a few seconds. He shifted so he could look into her eyes. "You know how much I love you, and how much I want to be with you."

  "Yes," Ellie said, nodding slowly. The too serious look in his eyes was making her uneasy. "And you know how much I love you. I've never even thought about being with anyone else."

  "Good, that's good," he said as he took her hands in his, his grip just a little bit too tight. "I hope it will help you understand what I'm about to tell you."

  Ellie smiled, her skin prickling with nerves. "You're starting to freak me out. You're not going to tell me anything horrible, like you've got cancer or that you cheated on me with Amy Simpson on one of the away basketball games?"

  His head jerked back and he gave a little laugh. "No, of course not, nothing like that. What I need to tell you is that I put my application on hold for Bozeman this fall."

  "Oh," she said, her brow furrowing in confusion. If that was all, why was he making such a big deal? "I get it, you probably need to stay and help your dad until his back is a hundred percent. And this way we'll be on the same schedule and can graduate together." She squeezed his hands and flashed him a delighted smile. "It will be great."

  Unlike hers, his face was set in grave lines. "I'm not staying in Big Timber for another year," he said tightly. "I'm joining the army."

  She snatched her hands from his. "You're joining the army," she said slowly, praying she'd misheard him.

  "Yes."

  Her blood went hot, then freezing cold at his reply. "No you're not," she said, and pushed to her feet. "I know your dad is a vet and Deck is some kind of Special Forces badass who wants you to follow in the family tradition, but we talked about this. You can't do it."

  "You don't understand," he said, his voice tight. "With the football scholarship not coming through, even with in state tuition it's too much for my parents. And they still have Dylan to think about."

  Ellie snorted at the mention of Damon's wild hell-raiser of a younger brother. "Dylan's lucky he doesn't have to repeat his sophomore year. I wouldn't worry about his college prospects."

  Damon's lips tightened at the dig. As close as she and Damon were, he didn't like anyone—not even her—pointing out his brother's shortcomings.

  She pushed aside the pang of guilt and bit back an apology. She didn't care if she came off like a bitch. She needed to convince him that this was a horrible idea. It would ruin everything.

  "You can get a job in Bozeman. Lots of people do. I'm planning to."

  He shook his head, making the knot in her stomach twist tighter. "All I have to do is two years active duty and four more in the reserves in the army, and I can qualify for the GI bill. This will be better for us. We won't have any debt, I'll be able to totally focus on my studies and get a good job out of college."

  "What about me? I'm supposed to go to Bozeman alone, just waiting for you to come back?"

  "You'll be able to visit-"

  "Not when you're deployed! Or if you get killed!" Her head flooded with memories of their family, her mom wandering the house with that tight, sad look on her face all the time. "When will Daddy be home?" she and Molly would ask. Her mother always replied with a dejected sigh and the same answer. "When he can." What hung in the air unsaid was "if he can."

  "We're not at war with anyone," he said in a calm voice that only made her more irritated.

  "Well what if they send you to Germany or Okinawa or something?"

  "Then you'll come visit me and have beer and pretzels or sake and sushi."

  His glib answer made her want to punch him. "You don't understand what this will do to us. I saw what my mom went through. I remember what my dad was like when he would come home. He couldn't deal with regular life. No matter how much my mom loved him and missed him, eventually it got to the point where it was easier for her when he was gone." And easier for him when they finally left, she thought, her heart squeezing at the memory of how easy it was for their father to fade out of their lives.

  "Your father was an explosives specialist and saw combat," Damon pointed out. "I talked to my dad and Deck about those guys, and of course they get messed up. But I'm just going to be a regular grunt—they'll probably put me in an office somewhere."

  "There's nothing you can say that will make this okay. You're not doing it."

  Something flared in his eyes as his mouth once again pulled tight. It was such an unfamiliar sight it took her a moment to identify it as anger. "Too late. I took my oath two weeks ago. I finished all the exams and I leave for basic training next week."

  The words hit her with such force she actually doubled over. Two weeks. Two weeks he'd kept this secret from her.

  "How could you do this behind my back?"

  "Because every time I tried to bring it up, you refused to talk about it! I didn't have a choice!"

  "I can't believe this. I can't believe you're doing this to me," she gasped. After everything they'd talked about, dreamed about, she couldn't believe he would make such a huge decision that would change both of their lives.

  "I'm not doing this to you," he snapped. "I'm doing this for us. This will be better—"

  "We talked about this! You knew I wouldn't be okay with this. You're ruining everything for me!"

  "And it's always about you and what you want, isn't it? Where you want to go to school, where and how we'll live when we're married," he snapped.

  "You said you wanted that, too," she said, her chest crumpling under the force of doubt. "You said you wanted the same things I do."

  "And I do," he said, some of the anger fading from his eyes. "Eventually. But I want this too. If I don't do this, I'll never get out of Montana. This is a way for me to get out in the world, experience something different before we settle down back here."

  She shook her head frantically as though she could erase the words from existence. "We decided—"

  "No, you decided. And then whenever I brought up the subject you shut me down. This isn't just about the money, Ellie. It's about my family heritage. It's about what it means to be a man in the Decker family."

  "You think running around in camo shooting guns makes you a man? What about keeping your promises?"

  "I've never broken a promise to you and I'm not doing it now. I'm laying out what I want. And I expect you to love me enough to understand and support me."

  How could she possibly support him when it felt like her own world was getting ripped out from under her? The idea of having him sixty miles away in Bozeman was horrible enough. But halfway across the world? She wouldn't be able to bear it.

  Even more soul crushing, he wanted to do it. He wanted to be away from her. Grief warred with fury in her chest. She seized the latter, afraid if she gave into grief she'd start crying and never stop. "You think you can abandon me and come back whenever you want?"

  "I'm not abandoning you, Ellie! I'm just asking you to wait for me. That's why I gave you the ring so you know how serious I am."

  Her vision became a red haze as she yanked the ring
from her finger. "You think this pitiful little ring is enough to make me wait for you?" she cried and threw it at him. "If you do this, we're done, Damon. If you don't fix this, right now, we are over."

  A heavy silence settled between them. As her emotions eased back from a fever pitch, Ellie saw the look of stunned hurt on Damon's face. He opened and closed his mouth a few times as though he was trying to form words, but nothing came out.

  Her stomach clenched and an apology bubble up her throat. Of course she didn't really mean it. She loved him, needed him too much to let him go, even for this.

  But she shoved the apology back. He needed to think she was serious to put a stop to this ridiculous plan of his. She knew if she held her ground, it wouldn't be long until he came around to her way of thinking.

  He always did.

  He drove her back to her house, the silence oppressive in the cab of the truck. Determined not to break it, she kept her gaze fixed out the window, watching as the sky turned from indigo to star-studded blackness behind the ridge of the mountains.

  When he pulled up in front of her house she opened the door, then turned, hesitating to get out. The dome light illuminated his features, and it struck her how hard he looked, suddenly older than his eighteen years. "I can't believe you're really this selfish," he said.

  Ellie's eyes stung with tears. She once again shoved back the urge to babble how sorry she was, how she didn't really mean it when she said they were through, that she wasn't really that selfish, just terrified that if he left now he'd never come back. She waited for him to continue, to crack, to tell her he wouldn't go through with it. That she was too important to give up, even for this.

  But he didn't say anything, and finally she couldn't help herself from filling the void. "Believe it."

  When he turned to face her, the remote, expressionless look in his eyes made goose bumps prickle up and down her arms and legs. "Goodbye, Ellie."

  He curled his fingers around the steering wheel. She tried not to panic at the way his gaze focused out the windshield, away from her. As though she was already dismissed.

  He would come around, she told herself even as he peeled away from the curb the second she shut her door.

  It was always that way with them. From the very beginning. Damon was always there for her, willing to do whatever it took to make her happy. And all it ever took was him.

  He would come around, she told herself for the next three days, even as she was dying inside. This was the longest she'd gone without seeing him, talking to him for six years.

  She walked around feeling like half of her had been ripped away. God, if she felt like this now, what would it be like if he actually left?

  He had to give in. If he felt anything like she did right now, he would.

  Another day passed, and still no word. Ellie borrowed her mother's car and went all over town, planting herself in spots where she was most likely to run into him, to no avail.

  Finally she realized she was going to have to swallow her pride and apologize. Either that or walk around feeling like she was going to die every second.

  She went home and put on a sundress, the blue one with the tiny buttons down the front that she knew Damon loved.

  He'd like what she had on underneath even better. She'd had him in mind when she'd bought the baby blue bra and matching panties on her last shopping foray in Billings.

  Hopefully by this time Damon would be as miserable as she was. And now that he got a taste of what it was like to be apart, he'd see what a terrible idea it was for him to go ahead with this stupid army plan.

  All she had to do was get him alone, apologize, and eventually show him what was under her sundress, and everything would go back to the way it was supposed to be.

  It had to.

  She pulled up to the Decker's house. Her heart fluttered with a combination of relief and nerves when she saw Damon's truck parked in the driveway. He was here.

  The soles of her sandals made a tapping sound on the flagstones of the front walkway as she approached the house. She took a deep breath to settle herself and pushed the doorbell, shaking her head a little at the sound of a German shepherd barking.

  Even though everyone in town knew each other and thus knew the Deckers didn't have a dog, Damon's mom had bought the doggie doorbell years ago, convinced it would deter burglars.

  Damon's reminder that there hadn't been a burglary in Big Timber in a decade only elicited a shrug.

  There was one thing about Vivian Decker—she knew her own mind and didn't back down for anyone.

  The door swung open and Ellie's bright smile froze, and she took a step back when she was greeted by Damon's mom.

  She'd never been greeted with anything but a warm smile and open arms, but today Vivian's mouth was pulled into a tight line, her dark eyes swimming with so much anger and disappointment it made Ellie want to curl up and disappear.

  "I guess Damon told you what happened," she said when she could finally get her tongue unstuck from the roof of her mouth.

  Vivian nodded.

  "Can I talk to him?"

  "I'm afraid not."

  Had he told his mother he didn't want to see her? Ellie pushed down the panic. Vivian was her mom's best friend and loved Ellie and Molly like her own daughters—no way would she let Damon get away with shutting her out. "I know he's angry with me. I deserve it, but please let me talk to him. I need to apologize."

  The stern visage faltered, the accusation giving away to plain old sadness. "If he were here, I'd get him."

  "Well when will he be back? I'll wait in the car if you can't stand having me in the house," she replied, her voice pitched too high.

  "Oh, Ellie, of course I'd never bar you from the house," Vivian replied. She wrapped her hand lightly around Ellie's wrist and tugged her over the threshold.

  Ellie felt a modicum of relief, knowing she wouldn't have to battle too hard to get back into Vivian’s good graces. "So when will he be back?"

  Vivian shook her head. Ellie felt a pinch of dread as she watched the woman's eyes well up. "It will be at least fourteen weeks. That's how long basic training lasts. Damon left for Fort Benning two days ago."

  Ellie felt like all of the oxygen had been sucked out of the room. Her head spun and she gasped for air, unable to pull in a full breath against the weight crushing her chest.

  He left her. Without a word. Without saying goodbye.

  She must have said some of that out loud because Vivian said, "I told him he should talk to you before he left, but he didn't want to hear it." She pulled Ellie into her arms and patted her back. Ellie hung in her embrace, every limb rubbery as all the life seemed to drain from her body.

  She said some other things too, but it all faded into the blurry background, unable to penetrate the one thought clanging through Ellie's brain.

  He left me. He wanted to leave and he left. He didn't even care about me enough to say goodbye.

  She sipped mindlessly at the glass of water Vivian pressed into her hand. Nodded absently at her assurances that maybe a break was good for them. That if she wanted to write to Damon she was sure he'd reopen the lines of communication.

  She scribbled Damon's new address on a slip of paper, and Ellie blindly accepted it. When she got home, she held it over a candle and watched it turn to ash.

  Write him a letter? Screw that! She'd swallowed her pride, been willing to give him another chance after he'd decided to turn her—their—world upside down.

  But he'd left her, without a word. Without goodbye. She'd given him everything—her heart, her body, her soul, her future.

  And he'd left it all behind like it was nothing.

  She would never forgive him for that.

  After a few days the numbness started to wear off, and Ellie seized hold of that self-righteous anger. Clung to it. Nurtured it. Whenever she felt herself starting to miss him, reminded herself that he'd abandoned her.

  But she wouldn't let him turn her into someone cold and hard
and bitter. And she knew if she went to school in Bozeman like they'd planned and came back to Big Timber that's what would happen.

  She was strong enough to survive his leaving, but not enough to continue to live the life she was supposed to have with him.

  Following Mrs. Harper's advice, and with her mother's encouragement, she'd applied for scholarships at schools all over the east coast. In the end, she'd been delighted—well, as delighted as she was capable of feeling anymore—to get a full ride to Cooper Union a small engineering and art school located on Manhattan's Lower East Side.

  From the moment she got off the plane that summer, it was almost easy to put her life in Big Timber behind her. Though she talked to her mother and sister nearly every day, life in Manhattan was so different, so alien, it was like the life she'd lived before could have happened to another person.

  Focused on her studies and working nearly full time to pay her bills, she didn’t have much time to think about Damon. To wallow in the hurt. To think about what might have been.

  Then, just into her Freshman year at Cooper, the Twin Towers were hit.

  Her mother begged her to come back home, and while Ellie briefly considered it, ultimately she knew she couldn't face it. Especially not now that the US was at war. A war which Ellie knew, thanks to Adele, Damon would be fighting very soon not just as a regular soldier, but as an Army Ranger.

  As the months progressed the country got itself back on its feet, and Ellie, too, continued with her life in New York. But now she couldn't keep her memories of Damon at bay. And now when she thought of him, along with the hurt that churned inside her like a living thing came something else.

  Guilt.

  As the reality of the news coverage sank in, story after story about what the troops were dealing with—especially the Special Forces, deployed to the most deadly spots in the conflict, Ellie had to deal with the very real possibility of Damon's death.

  As she contemplated that, she couldn't help but remember everything that had happened that horrible night, and the memories leading up to it.