Heartsong (Logan 2)

"No."

"Really?" I teased.

His face went from red to cherry-blossom white, especially around his lips. "No! I'm not like Adam Jackson. I don't trick girls into believing one thing and then trap them or something," he said, his voice cracking with indignation.

"Okay. Then, it just happened."

"Yes," he said firmly.

"Think it will happen again?" I asked hesitantly, not sure myself how I felt about our new relationship. He turned, surprised.

"I don't know."

"Do you want it to?" I pursued.

"Do you?" he countered.

"Maybe," I said, thinking that at least with Cary I could be myself, that he wouldn't take my confusion as a sign of weakness.

He stared at me and then he began to lean toward me, his lips slightly parted and wet. I inched toward him and we kissed, softly, quickly. I immediately turned onto my stomach and lowered my chin to my arms as I gazed at the bog. He turned on his back beside me and neither of us spoke for quite a while.

"I came right out and asked Kenneth if he knew who my father was," I said finally, breaking the uncomfortable silence.

"You did? What did he say?"

"First, he said he didn't know. Then he said he couldn't tell me." I turned on my back. Cary braced himself on his arm and gazed down into my face.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I don't know. I think it means he knows but he doesn't want me to be hurt, or maybe it means he can't face the truth himself. Oh Cary," I said, nearly in tears. "I just know there's something terrible left to discover, even more terrible than the things I've already learned."

"Then maybe you should stop asking

questions," he suggested. "It's like when you didn't want me to open the door to that closet in the studio. You were probably right. Some doors are better left locked."

"I didn't want it unlocked, but once it was, I wanted to go in and look, and I didn't want you to pull out those pictures, but once you had, I looked too."

He nodded and then swallowed hard and looked away.

"What?"

"You're like Lot's wife in the Bible."

"I forget who she was."

"Lot told her not to turn around and look because if she did, she would turn into a pillar of salt."

"And?"

"She looked," he said, and it was as if thunder had clapped across the sky. The heat that moment before had been flooding my body disappeared instantly, leaving a cold, hard ball of fear in the pit of my stomach.

Maybe he was right.

Maybe I should stop asking questions.

4

To Grandmother's