Like Never Before (16 page)

She'd let him down.

And by the time she'd thought to go to Maple Valley, find the man, both thank him and apologize, it was too late.

A sigh trundled through her, but she cut it off. She could think about this later, back home. This moment should be for awe and remembering and . . .

She looked at Logan again.

Gratefulness.

Truthfully, it wasn't even the splendor of Mount Rushmore that impacted her most—but the fact that Logan had remembered what she'd said this morning about never having been here.

While she'd been rambling, he'd been listening.

“Want to know something? I haven't been to the Grand Canyon, either.”

“Angling for another road trip next weekend?” The scarlet sunset turned his skin tawny and his eyes golden.

“I traveled all the time in my other life. But not lately.”

“Your other life? Actually, yeah, Rae mentioned something about how you used to be in marketing?” He paused in the middle of the trail, turning away from the landmark to face her. “I meant to ask you about it.”

Normally she'd skirt the question. She hadn't even listed the job on her résumé when she'd gone looking for new employment after the divorce.

But now? Under the glow of dusk, in the middle of a path cut into a ridge, only strangers, rock, and soil for company, something inside her loosened. Maybe because he'd told her about Emma last night. Or carted her across state lines. Or brought her here to see a sight that had taken her breath away.

Whatever the reason, her reserve felt as thin as spring's hold.

She stepped off the path, Logan following, and paused near a wilty evergreen, its branches bowing in the wind. “I was the marketing manager for Jeremy Lucas. Early on in his career.”

“Why does that name sound . . . wait.
The
Jeremy Lucas? The one with all the books and the radio show?”

“That's the one. I didn't just work for him, actually. We were married.”

He tried to hide his shock, she could tell. But didn't quite manage to. “Jeremy Lucas is your ex-husband. The ‘Live the life you've always dreamed' guy.”

Oh, how she hated that tagline. “Yeah, but the life he dreamed included kids. Which I couldn't give him, at least not after seven years of trying. So he . . . decided he wanted to end things.”

She shrugged as if this were a room in her life she invited
anyone into, rather than a cordoned-off chamber of secrets. And she waited—waited for the questions he had to be mentally asking. Why couldn't she give him children? What about adoption? Had she argued—fought the divorce?

But instead he only looked at her as if she were one of those presidents' heads on the mountain, worthy of unhurried scrutiny. And then he took a step toward her. He pulled her into a hug, arms reaching all the way around her and her head landing against his chest.

“Clearly the guy is an idiot and doesn't deserve you.” He spoke the words over her head.

“Thank you.” Her heart stumbled over the effect of his comforting hold.

“And I've seen the photo on his book jacket. Fake tan and teeth way too white to be real.”

“Thank you again.”

“And I bet he wears too much cologne.”

She tipped her head up. “It's true. Honestly, sometimes getting in his car was like walking into a teenage boy's bedroom.”

Laughter rumbled from Logan's chest until he stilled, breathing steady and rhythmic and . . .

She closed her eyes against the cotton of his shirt. And it suddenly wasn't all she'd lost churning through her in disarray. But what she had right now. A friend. One who'd glimpsed more of her heart in a couple days than . . . honestly, than anyone she could think of.

There was something sheltering and so very wonderful about this man.

It scared her.

It thrilled her.

“Amelia—”

But his phone stole whatever he was going to say next. He pulled away, the last sliver of sun now hidden. “It's Helen. I'd
better take it.” He lifted his phone to his ear. “Hi, Helen. How's Charlie?”

She tried to snub the rise of desire—to know what he'd planned to say, to go on with this side trip uninterrupted. But how did a person disregard what felt like cool water for a soul she hadn't even realized was thirsty?

One look, though, at Logan's face as he listened to whatever his mother-in-law was saying pulled her out of her daze. And seconds later, he'd pocketed his phone and sprung into action.

“We have to leave. Charlie's sick. Spiking fever and coughing.”

The worried look on his face pelted her heart, and she started for the trail.

“They wanted to know if she'd had a flu shot.” He froze. “I couldn't remember. What kind of dad can't remember . . . ?”

Amelia gripped both his arms. “Logan, it's probably nothing more than a little cold.” She rubbed her hands down his arms. “It's going to be fine. And I'm going to drive. I just need the keys.”

L
ogan hit
Ignore
on his cell phone for the third time today. He didn't have time for office catch-up with Theo. Not when Charlie was three days into the flu.

He leaned his head against his bed's headboard, Charlie snuggled against his torso, and his legs outstretched in from of him, sheets tangled.

A cartoon character blathered on the computer screen propped on his old desk. The one that still displayed framed photos from his high-school years, a bending lamp, a speech trophy. He'd kept Charlie in here while she was sick instead of Beckett's room, served her chicken noodle soup in bed, and kept her sippy cup filled with 7-Up.

He laced his fingers through his daughter's curls, now sweat-dampened and flat. Almost twelve hours since the last time she'd thrown up.

Most days it amazed him how quickly she was growing—scared him, too. But this week, she'd seemed tiny. His little girl, wracked by a bullying flu.

His phone dinged. Another voicemail. He closed his eyes.

“Son?”

At the sound of Dad's voice, Logan opened his eyes and lifted his head. His father stood in the doorway. “How's she doing?” Dad entered the room and pulled the chair from Logan's desk. He sat backward in it, legs straddling either side, and then leaned over the back.

Logan palmed Charlie's forehead. No fever. “I'm hoping the worst is behind her.”

“I can't tell you how much I've loved having her around. Reminds me of when you kids were little.”

Logan's arm was asleep behind Charlie, muscles numb. He toed away the navy blue comforter. “You ever start to feel like you're running a hotel here? Rae and Seth and then Kate and now Charlie and me?”

Dad fingered the gold ring he still wore on his left hand. “I'd rather have a full house any day than swim in empty rooms.”

Logan looked to the largest of the framed photos on his desk. A photo of him and Mom in Washington, D.C. She'd taken each sibling on a trip on their thirteenth birthday—he'd picked D.C. The picture beside that one showed him and Beckett on Logan's graduation day. “Think you'll ever get Beck back here?” Nearly six years and counting since his little brother had returned to Maple Valley. Not for the first time—and certainly not for the last—concern for Beckett needled him.

“That lawyer thing keeps him busy.” The smile dissolved from Dad's face. “If there's one thing I've learned after having four kids, it's each of you has your own timing.” He let out a long exhale. “Beckett will come home when he's ready.”

Logan glanced at his sleeping daughter. “That's what I keep trying to tell myself about Charlie. She'll talk when she's ready.”

“Can I ask something, son? Do you pray about it? About Charlie talking?”

If anyone else had asked this, Logan might wave off the question with an easy “sure.” Because, yeah, now and then in fits
of frustration he rattled off quickie prayers. Ones with less thought behind them than the simple press releases he could whip out in his sleep.

But he couldn't fool Dad. His inner turmoil was like old glass to Dad—transparent, cracks visible. “Not really.”

He smoothed Charlie's hair, felt the sting of hollow whispers. How could he not pray for his daughter? He loved her more than anything in the world. He should be on his knees every day, begging God to keep her safe and healthy, to fill in the gaps created by Emma's loss, to right anything Logan might be doing wrong.

To help her talk.

But what was the use in praying when he wasn't sure anyone was listening?

He waited for Dad to say something, anything, in that firm but gentle way he had—to scold him or challenge him or . . . something.

But when silence lingered, Logan spoke again. “After Emma died, I . . . I tried to cling to faith. The way you're supposed to. I pretended I knew what people were talking about when they'd go on about ‘peace that passes all understanding.' But I didn't feel peace, Dad. I didn't feel anything. And so I prayed about that, too. Prayed God would let me sense him or feel or hear him. I wasn't asking for a burning bush or an audible voice. Just something to convince me he was there, that he heard me. And . . . nothing.”

The numbness in his arm spread. “And all I could think was, if I can't trust God to meet me in my deepest pain, how can I trust him at all?”

He'd never given his doubts such an open stage. Maybe because he worried if he gave them a voice, they might finally drown out the last fragments of his faith. The piece of him still clinging to the beliefs he'd grown up with.

That there was a God who cared.

That he wasn't alone.

I'm still holding on. I
don't know why, but I'm still here. Barely.

Dad pulled his arms away from his chair's back, lowered his hands to his knees, and breathed deep. “Thank you.”

Logan lifted his head. “For what?”

“For telling me the truth. It is a privilege to be your father, Logan, and to be entrusted with what's going on in your life and in your faith.”

“Even if my faith has been reduced to crumbs lately?”

“Even if.”

“That's it? You're not going to try to steer me back to the straight and narrow? Give me a magic Bible verse so I'll stop feeling the way I feel?” He hated the derision in his tone. It smacked of immaturity, and probably simple exhaustion. Three days of jetting back and forth between the office and home. Pretending to be mentally present at another meeting for Colton's fundraiser. Waking up every couple hours at night when Charlie moaned.

But Dad didn't even flinch. “You're thirty-four, Logan. You don't need a sermon, and you definitely don't need me telling you how to feel.”

“I wish I knew what I needed.” At least back in LA, he'd been busy enough to avoid the cavern inside where his faith used to be. Work had made the grief easier, too. It wasn't denial, just a coping mechanism.

But here, even with the newspaper and the constant activity of family and . . . and Amelia . . . avoidance felt impossible.

“When your mother's cancer came back the third time, I'll never forget . . .” Dad picked up the photo on Logan's desk of him and Mom in D.C., a soft smile tugging at the lines in his face. “The oncologist gave us a few minutes in his office alone after he gave his prognosis. And I slipped back into my soldier
days for a moment because I looked at your mother and said, ‘We aren't going to lose hope, Flora. We aren't going to despair. We're going to fight this together and win.'”

Dad set down the photo. “And she looked back at me, straight in the eye, and said, ‘Liar.'”

Logan gave a mangled laugh, and Charlie stirred at his movement.

“She shook her head. ‘We are too going to lose hope,' she said. ‘We're going to despair. We're going to feel things this time around like we've never felt before.'”

He stroked Charlie's hair. “She was blunt.” And the best mom. Just . . . the best.

Dad's eyes turned glassy. “She said, ‘We might even break. Because we're humans and we're allowed. And because . . . '” Dad's voice cracked, and he rubbed a tear from his cheek. “‘And because I'm dying.'”

She
had
known. Maybe they all had. And they'd all dealt with it in different ways. Kate had written a book. Logan had proposed to Emma. Beck had run away, and Rae had vowed never to leave.

And Dad . . .

He'd seemed so strong at the time, but look at him now. In the privacy of his own heart, even while taking care of his adult kids however they needed, his soldier father had broken just like Mom had predicted.

“I didn't know it at the time, but Flora was giving me a great gift. Permission to feel. If I couldn't feel grief and despair and anguish, then how would I recognize peace and healing and even joy later on?” Dad cleared his throat, straightened. “She gave me something else that day, too. She reminded me that there'd always be someone hoping for me, when I couldn't hope. And loving me, even when I couldn't see it. And waiting for me, even when I didn't believe it.”

Charlie shifted against him, burying her face against his chest.

“He'll wait for you, Logan. Just like you're waiting for Charlie to talk and I'm waiting for Beckett to come home. God will wait for you.”

He'd been quiet for days.

Amelia tapped her pen against her chin, facing away from her desk, an unfinished city council article languishing on her screen behind her. Through the window of Freddie's office, the one Logan had been reluctant to settle into at first, she could see his profile. Stubbled cheeks and hunched shoulders, elbows bent and fingers curving around the back of his head to massage his neck.

He hated Charlie being sick, she knew. Worried about his in-laws' reaction to his spontaneous out-of-state trip. Too, his business partner back in LA kept calling. That presidential candidate seemed to have forgotten them.

Was there more he wasn't saying?

Or was she reading into his exhaustion? Using her concern for Logan to distract her from the fact that Eleanor had retreated from her life as quickly as she'd shown up?

Amelia had made only one feeble attempt to call Eleanor since their argument—sighed in relief when she'd gotten her sister's voicemail.

Maybe they simply weren't meant to share the kind of closeness Logan did with his siblings.

“He's going to sell, you know.”

She hinged toward the sound of Owen's voice.

“The stuff he's doing—the ads, the website, everything—it's just so he can get a higher price when he does sell.” Owen clicked his mouse, attention on his monitor.

Amelia stood and swept up the pile of last week's area papers cluttering the countertop. “Maybe, but it's only late April. I still have a whole month to convince him.”

“Except I don't see you doing much convincing. Road-tripping to South Dakota and pretending you're part of his family, maybe. But that's it.”

“Owen.”

The bite in her tone was enough to make him turn. “He's humoring you, Amelia. And you're getting attached. But you know Cranford has called at least three or four times since he's been here. Meanwhile, have you even asked Kat and Mikaela how we're doing on ads for the centennial issue? Have you bothered looking at Abby's web banner mockups? You're the one who came up with this plan that basically doubled our workload, but what are you doing to help out?”

He'd risen halfway through his lecture, reached around his computer to turn it off, and grabbed his leather messenger bag from a hook on the wall. Numbing surprise at his hostile words crushed any response.

“What do you think my trip to South Dakota was for, Owen? It was for the cover story for the centennial. I'm not ignoring it.” Not that she'd gotten anywhere on it since. She'd Googled the name
Harry Wheeler
, and the results had numbered in the millions. Searching
The Elm Society
hadn't gotten her anywhere, either.

What if this story really wasn't going anywhere? What if Kendall Wilkins really was just a cranky old man?

“All I'm saying is, you'd be a lot smarter focusing on that—or better yet, spending this time polishing your résumé and looking for a new job—instead of flirting with a guy who's already got one foot out the door.”

She smacked the papers in her arms back to the desk, grappling for words. “Owen, we've been friends first and coworkers second for a long time now. But you're stepping over a line.”

He slung his bag over his shoulder. “If we're really friends, then it's a line worth stepping over.” With that, he pushed through the newsroom door, skulking past Mae, who filled the doorframe after he left.

“He's in a hurry.” Mae's eyebrows lifted behind her bifocals.

“He's mad at me.”

“He's just sore because he likes you. He's jealous.”