Like Never Before (23 page)

Yes, because he'd skipped. Frustrated at the night before. Sleepless from the memories it summoned. Emma. Amelia.

Helen took his coat inside the entryway, then beckoned for him to follow. The house smelled of lavender and vanilla, like always, and also like always, it was spotless. Vacuum tracks still trailed the carpet.

Rick was already in the living room when they entered, settled on a flower-printed couch with a beige blanket draped over the back. He leaned forward to shake Logan's hand as Logan lowered into the wingback chair opposite the couch. An oval coffee table filled the space between them, a display of nature magazines splayed over its surface.

Helen moved aside a throw pillow and sat next to her husband, but then popped back up. “I'm sorry, I should offer you something to drink before we . . . talk. Coffee?”

“No thanks. You've had my dad's coffee before, right? He makes it so strong, one cup lasts an entire day.”

Helen nodded and lowered once more, her obvious unease feeding his own. Was something wrong here? Was one of them sick?

Or maybe they'd heard from Waverly.

On instinct, he glanced to the wall, where a collage of photos surrounded a large family portrait. Probably nearly a decade and a half old now, it displayed a beaming Rick and Helen standing behind their daughters—Emma with those luscious curls and the braces she'd hated in high school, and a six- or seven-year-old Waverly, whose smile bent more toward a smirk even then.

Charlie's mom.

No, her
birth mother
. Emma had been Charlie's mom from the second she'd held her.

“How's Waverly?” He couldn't stop from blurting out the question. He knew Rick and Helen didn't like to talk about her. Getting pregnant in high school, frankly, had been only the beginning of Emma's sister's troubles. There'd been alcohol-infested parties, drugs, a couple arrests.

Last he'd heard, she was staying in a halfway house down in St. Louis. Did she ever think about the daughter her brother-in-law was now raising alone?

Rick's long exhale made Logan regret the question. “We tried to call her about a month ago, and the number was disconnected.”

“I'm . . . sorry.”

“We pray for her every day,” Helen added softly. “One day . . .” She let the sentence trail.

Rick cleared his throat. “Of all the bad decisions Waverly has made, though, giving Charlotte up for adoption wasn't one of them. We're very glad she went through with her pregnancy, and well, that leads into what we'd like to talk to you about.” Rick and Helen shared a look before Rick went on. “Logan, you've done a fine job with Charlotte. Many men would've buckled under the pressure of single fatherhood and a rising career.”

“We saw that
USA Today
article,” Helen interjected, forced cheer in her voice. “We're very proud of you.”

“Thanks.” Kind words, but they did nothing to quell his rising tide of concern.

“It mentioned something about you being vetted as a possible staffer for a presidential campaign. Is that true?” Rick, too, seemed to intentionally inject his tone with plastic interest.

But the pit in Logan's stomach only grew. “It's looking that way. Roberta S. Hadley's flying Theo and me to D.C. this week.”
Why did it feel like a confession? “That's not public information, by the way.”

Helen and Rick exchanged glances again, and no, there wasn't a chance he was imagining the resolve in their silent conversation. He'd just confirmed something for them. But what?

“There's no use talking around this, Logan.” Rick folded his hands as he leaned forward. “I respect you, so I'm going to lay this out on the table, straightforward-like.”

“I appreciate that.” The words were robotic as the buzz of his dread heightened.

“We think you should consider letting Charlotte stay here.”

Relief escaped in an exhale. That was all? “I know you offer your guestroom every time when we're in town, but it just wouldn't feel right not to stay at Dad's—”

“No, I mean, we'd like her to live with us permanently.”

His mental reprieve cut off—jarring and abrupt. “I don't understand.”

“You're so busy, Logan,” Helen said, an overly gentle lilt to her words. “You're successful, moving up in your career. But where does that leave Charlotte?”

“What do you mean, where does it leave her?” His volume lifted. “It doesn't
leave
her anywhere. She'll be with me, like she's always been. Whether it's in LA or somewhere else, she'll be with me.”

“Or a nanny.” Rick dropped the statement with a thud.

Logan could only stare, disbelief slicing through him. Were they really asking what he thought they were? He tried to straighten from his sunken position in the overstuffed cushions of the chair.

Helen tried again. “We can give her a home with a mother and a father figure—”

“
I'm
her father.”

“And we're her grandparents,” Rick said with force. “And
we're concerned she needs more attention than you're able to give her. I'm sorry if this sounds harsh, but we have a right to state our opinion. Yes, you're her adopted father, but we're blood relatives—”

Logan pulled himself free of the plush chair and jumped to his feet. “I can't believe I'm hearing this.”

“Logan, we just want what's best for her.” Helen's gaze was rimmed with anxiety. Perhaps apology, too.

But it wasn't good enough. They couldn't actually think he'd agree to this. “Charlie is
my
daughter. She belongs with me. I am doing the best I can—”

“We know you are.” Desperation clung to Helen's voice.

“And I will not for one minute consider abandoning her.”

Rick shifted. “You wouldn't be abandoning—”

“She's already lost one parent.” Hurt strangled his voice. “I can't believe you'd even ask . . .” He jabbed his fingers through his hair, focus shooting to that portrait again, to Emma's teenage smile. “The answer is no.”

His feet carried him to the door, shock still coursing through him along with a lurching need to see his daughter.

“What about the fact that she won't talk?”

He turned to see Rick standing.

“What about the fact that she's almost four years old and has yet to form an entire sentence?”

“We're seeing a speech pathologist. You know that. It's going well.”

“So what happens when you pick up and leave? Disrupt the routine Charlie's forming? You're just going to let it go? Don't you think settling in one place could help?”

“She's not the only therapist in the world.” He heard the dark tenor in his voice. “I'm not letting anything go, Rick.”

He grabbed his coat from the coat tree and walked out the door.

He didn't know why he was here.

Slushy snow, dirt-stained and slickened by the layer of sleet, spit out from today's melancholy skies, chomped under his feet, pushing against the night's frosty quiet. The third of May, and winter held on. Dogged. Cold.

Logan rubbed his palms against the ribbed sweater that did nothing to ward off the crisp air. He should've grabbed his coat.

He should've done a lot of things today after stalking away from his in-laws this morning. Shown up at the office, for one.

Instead, he'd spent the day helping Dad fix a broken pipe at the depot, shoveling snow back at the house, attending therapy with Charlie.

Pretending Rick and Helen's—what? request? offer? demand?—hadn't shaken him to his core.

And now he stood outside Amelia's house, shafts of moonlight breaking through the cloud cover and skimming over the angles of her front door. The muffled buzz of a table saw drifted from Lenny Klassen's workshop. Amelia would probably close the door in his face after the way he'd spoken to her Saturday night.

“You gonna knock or what?”

His gaze jerked upright at the sound of Amelia's voice. He stepped back and tipped his head until he could make out the open loft doors above, Amelia sitting at the edge, legs dangling over.

“What in the world are you doing up there?”

“Just thinking. What are you doing
down
there?”

Wasn't she freezing? And how had he not noticed her?

Probably the willow tree had blocked his view as he'd parked. And during the short trek from his car to the barn, his eyes had been on the ground as he'd asked himself for the fiftieth time why he'd come here.

“Can I come in?”

“It's unlocked.”

He opened the heavy door and stepped inside, warm air tinged with a cool from above and a sweet smell that reminded him of . . . camping?

He stopped in the middle of the living room, suddenly feeling intrusive. A cast-off pair of shoes lay in the middle of a rug. An open book on the coffee table. A sweater over the edge of the couch. An empty cup on the desk. Only a small lamp, antique-looking, with beads dangling around the shade, lit the space with dim, ocher light.

And then she stood in front of him, her footsteps on the stairs having barely registered as he gulped in the very Amelia-ness of this house. It shouldn't feel so . . .

He didn't have the word for it. Comfortable? Soothing?

Needed.

Her brow pinched as she studied him now, hazel eyes locked on his and probably wondering why he wasn't saying anything. She wore pajama pants and a sweatshirt, hair in a wind-ruffled ponytail, and slippers on her feet.

“I think you need a s'more.”

He blinked. “Excuse me?”

“You look like I felt today. Only one cure for that in my book. Or if not a cure, at least a pretty good pain reliever.”

She turned to the kitchen, and like a man dazed—or maybe just hungry—he simply followed.

She was already pulling open cupboards and twisting the dial on the stovetop. “I know you Walkers consider yourselves the experts on breakfast. Well, what you can do with eggs, I can do with marshmallows.”

“Amelia—”

She lifted a fork from a drawer and pointed at the kitchen table. “Sit.”

He sat.

“I don't know why other people don't get more creative with their s'mores. There's a whole world of possibilities out there, and we settle for Hershey bars? No thanks.” She opened another cupboard.

He gasped. “You have an entire shelf of candy bars?”

She angled so he could see her smirk. “Two shelves. Don't sell me short, Walker. Now what's your damage? Reese's Peanut Butter Cups or Milky Way?”

He only stared.

“O-kay. Both.” She stuck two marshmallows on two different forks. “Actually you can help. Hold these over the burner for me?”

So this was what he'd smelled when he walked into the house. For the next couple minutes, he stood next to her at the stove, watching shades of brown curl over the marshmallows as Amelia prepared the rest of her ingredients. She used a spoon to flatten the mini Milky Way atop a graham cracker. Set the peanut butter cup on its own cracker.

The smell, the warmth of the stove, Amelia's ease with him in her kitchen . . .

He could almost forget he'd launched angry words at her Saturday. Had his feet knocked out from under him today.

They don't trust me. Rick and Helen
don't trust me to raise my own daughter.

“Amelia—”

“Ooh, careful, they're about to go black.” She pulled the forks from his hands, slid the marshmallows free, and squished them into graham cracker sandwiches. She held the plate to him. “Here you go. My version of a nightcap at the end of a bad day.”

“How do you know it was a bad day?”

“You didn't show up at the office. You haven't shaved. You're not wearing a tie. You didn't even scold me for my candy stash.”
She waited until he took the plate and then brushed past him. “Come on.”

And then he was following her again, practically mute. Past her desk and up the stairs and into her bedroom, where a blast of chilly air churned from the still-open loft doors. Unmade bed with pink-striped sheets. Bookshelves spilling paperbacks. White shag rug and a wooden wardrobe Lenny had probably handcrafted.

Amelia was already sitting at the window. He moved to her side, lowering to the cold floor. Faint moonlight traced the willow tree's drooping branches and shimmered over snow-covered fields.

“Nice view. But don't you freeze when you sit up here like this?”

“Sure, but cold air helps me think. Has this way of helping me mentally and emotionally declutter. It's refreshing. Besides, I've got blankets.” She pointed to a stack beside him.

He bit into the first s'more. “You weren't kidding. This is amazing.”

“Glad you think so. I know it's no fancy omelet, and it's sticky and messy to eat and—”

She cut herself off, laughing as he pulled stringy, melted marshmallow away from his mouth.