Back to the 70s Ditching the Doctor for Him

Burning with fever and on the brink of death, Reese was found by the country doctor, Logan.

He saved her life.

In return, she willingly became his proxy. She let them brand her the daughter of a disgraced businessman, parade her through the streets, and subject her to public denunciation.

Then they locked her in the quarry for three years of backbreaking labor.

When she finally emerged, rumors swirled—that she’d been with a dozen men, that she was riddled with filthy diseases.

Logan didn’t seem to care. He took her home anyway.

She thought he loved her.

Then the earthquake came, trapping them both.

With his dying breath, Logan whispered:

“If I’d known she’d marry a stranger out of guilt… I never should have let you take her place…”

Reese had no time to understand. Her world went dark, then flooded with light again.

She was back. Back in the drafty cowshed where she’d first met Logan.

This time, Logan walked arm-in-arm with his cousin, his gaze sliding right past the feverish girl begging for help.

In that moment, Reese understood. She had never been anything but a scapegoat.

And now, Logan had been reborn, too.

This time, he would chase his true love.

A cold, dead weight settled in Reese’s chest. Clinging to the last shred of her will, she dragged herself to the matchmaker’s door. “The man from the Edward family,” she rasped, her voice raw. “The one they say is impotent. I’ll marry him.”

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For six long days, Reese shivered in the wind-whipped cowshed, waiting for that familiar figure.

He finally appeared—but this time, a delicate, fair-skinned girl clung to his arm. His cousin, Mary.

She was practically hanging off Logan, tilting her face up to laugh at something he said.

Logan looked down at her with a tenderness Reese had never seen. He even reached out to gently tuck a stray lock of hair behind her ear.

That look, that gesture… it was foreign to her.

But she had no time to dwell. Desperate, she clawed at the wooden fence, forcing a weak cry from her parched throat. “Logan—”

Her voice was a ghost of a sound, barely carrying.

Yet Logan seemed to sense it. His head turned.

Reese’s heart hammered against her ribs, a flush of desperate hope staining her pale cheeks.

But Logan’s gaze merely drifted over the cowshed. It didn’t linger for even a second.

Confused, Reese tried to call out again.

Before she could, Logan wrapped an arm around Mary and deliberately changed direction.

“We’re not going this way.”

Mary tugged playfully at his fingers. “Why not? I thought we were going to the store?”

“Let’s take another route. This one’s… unclean.”

Logan’s clear, cold eyes speared straight through Reese.

Mary glanced over, too. “Oh! Is there someone lying in that cowshed?”

Logan pulled her head against his chest. “Don’t look. It’s just that thieving niece of Old Reese’s.”

Reese recoiled as if struck, her teeth grinding together.

Her parents had died young, leaving her greedy uncle and aunt to seize the family home. They abused her regularly. To cover their tracks, they spread rumors throughout the village that Reese was an incorrigible thief. They even sent their own son to steal from the community supplies, then pinned the blame on her.

Logan knew all of this.

In her past life, after saving her, he had gone to her uncle’s house and given the couple a piece of his mind. Reese had always believed he was on her side.

But now, he was the one calling her a habitual thief.

It felt like a lightning bolt had struck, freezing her in place.

Mary’s saccharine voice floated over. “Was she beaten for stealing? She looks like she’s dying. How pitiful.”

Logan’s tone was ice. “Don’t bother with her.”

Then, his voice softened into a familiar, intimate cadence as he tapped Mary’s nose playfully. “My Mary is just too kind-hearted.”

*Mary!*

He called his cousin *Mary*!

Reese’s eyes widened in shock.

In her past life, in moments of passion, Logan would hold her close and murmur “*Reese*” with that same tender affection.

Now she saw it clearly. That gentle name had never truly been meant for her.

Logan began to lead Mary away.

“Wait—!”

Driven by a stubborn, dying hope, Reese stumbled out of the cowshed and lurched after him.

Logan shielded Mary, stepping aside.

Reese lost her balance. Instinctively, her hand shot out, catching Mary’s sleeve.

*Riiip.*

The delicate lace trim tore.

“Ah! My dress!” Mary shrieked. “Cousin! She ruined the dress you gave me!”

Reese tried to say it was an accident.

But when she looked up, she met Logan’s eyes—cold enough to freeze hell over. A shudder ran through her.

Before she could utter a word, Logan’s foot connected hard with her stomach.

“Ah—!”

Agony ripped through her. She cried out, staggering backward and landing with a sickening splash in a filthy puddle of mud and waste.

“Pfft!” Mary couldn’t hold back a giggle, then immediately wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Ew! It stinks!”

Logan pinched her nose playfully. “Feel better now?”

Mary nodded vigorously. “Mmhmm. She looks like a mangy stray now.”

A faint smile touched Logan’s lips as he chuckled along.

Reese listened to their laughter, disbelief turning her bones to lead. She stared up at him, dazed. “Log—”

Logan glanced down, his expression utterly detached. “I know you can’t pay for it. You ruined Mary’s dress. I ruined yours. Consider it even. Stay away from us from now on.”

That look in his eyes… it was identical to the last one he’d ever given her.

And suddenly, everything clicked into place.

Logan had been reborn, too.

The truth, sharp and cruel, finally cut through the fog in her mind.

In her past life, Logan had saved her and coaxed her into falling for him—all so she would willingly step forward and take the fall when Mary’s secret was exposed. Mary, the spoiled rich girl from the wrong side of politics.

Back then, Reese had accepted the blame without complaint: the public shaming, the denouncement rallies, the quarry. Her love for Logan had been the crutch that got her through those three brutal years.

By the time she regained her freedom, Mary had already married well and moved to the city.

Reese had thought it was the best ending, that everyone could finally be happy.

Looking back now, across a lifetime, she saw it for what it was: a delusion born of her own foolish devotion.

Logan had even blamed *her* for Mary’s distant marriage. He’d only taken her in because Mary had felt a twinge of guilt.

And in that final moment, trapped and dying, Logan had regretted it all.

Given a second chance, he wanted a different life—a life without Reese in it.

Reese wiped the muddy water from her face. A low, broken laugh bubbled up from her throat, growing until her shoulders shook.

So be it.

If that was what he wanted, so be it.

Staggering to her feet, she swayed her way to Aunt Sharon’s door. At the older woman’s gasp of shock, Reese grabbed her hand with a grip born of final desperation.

“Auntie,” she said, her voice strangely calm. “The man from the Edward family. The one they say is impotent. I’ll marry him.”