“You know that’s a bunch of bull—”
“No milkshake today,” she announced to her son, to their son.
As much as Logan resented her interruption, the still-functioning part of his brain appreciated it. This was not the place—in full view of the curious patrons, of his date…of their son—to give vent to the rage boiling inside him.
“We’ll get one next time,” she continued, speaking to their boy. “We need to get back soon or Aunt Penny’s going to send the cavalry after us.”
The boy rolled his eyes. “There’s no cavalry anymore, Mom. Now the army uses tanks.” He turned to Logan. “Who are you?”
Logan had no idea where to begin to answer that, so he kept quiet. Let Paige field the question.
“He’s just someone I used to know. Back when I was in high school.” She reached for her purse. “And the fact that there’s no cavalry anymore is an even better reason for us to head home. Can you imagine a tank rolling down Main Street?”
“That’d be cool! Do you think it would point its big gun at the diner?”
“I can only hope.” With that cryptic comment, Paige stood, dropped some money on the table then herded her child toward the door.
Damn it, the child was his. Not only hers, his, too. And he had no clue what to call him. “What’s his name?” Logan demanded, loud enough for the whole restaurant to hear. Not that he cared. Worrying about what others thought seemed worse than stupid when he was watching his child walking away from him without a backward glance.
She turned then, and it was the first hint he had she might be experiencing the same anger he was. “None of your damn business.”
Then she was gone, leaving behind a silence so complete that the slamming of the door echoed like a gunshot.
PAIGE COULD BARELY CONTROL the fury as she headed toward her car.
How dare Logan try to embarrass her in public?
How dare he accuse her of not telling him about Luke when she had begged him to believe that she was carrying his child?
How dare he pick this fight in front of Luke?
If she had ever needed more proof of what an abysmal father he would make, she’d gotten it. He hadn’t cared about Luke’s feelings, hadn’t cared about anything but his own righteous outrage. Bastard. The next time he came around—if there was a next time—she would run him off with a baseball bat if she had to, small-town cop or not. No way was that son of a bitch getting anywhere near her son. Not now. Not after all this time. She’d see him in hell first.
“Mom, slow down!”
She’d been so locked in her thoughts she hadn’t noticed Luke scrambling along beside her, his short legs working overtime in an effort to keep up.
“I’m sorry, sweetie.” She stopped abruptly, tapped Luke on the nose. “I forget sometimes that your legs aren’t as long as mine.”
“Why are you so mad? Is it because of that guy?” he asked as they resumed walking, though at a much more sedate rate.
“I’m not angry. I just didn’t realize how late it had gotten. The delivery men are going to be at Aunt Penny’s any minute and I need to be there to tell them where to put the supplies. If I’m not, she’ll end up letting them put the stuff anywhere and it will be a disaster.” She paused, ruffled his hair. “Unless you want to help me haul everything upstairs to all the bedrooms?”
“Yeah, right. You nearly killed me the last time we did that.”
“Exactly.”
They lapsed into silence, but Paige didn’t delude herself into thinking that Luke was going to buy her answer about Logan for long.
Sure enough, as she hit the button to unlock the car doors Luke ambushed her. “Was that man my dad?”
She stared at him, mouth open, as her brain scrambled for an answer. She didn’t want to lie to him, knew if she did it would turn around and bite her in the ass. After all, eventually she’d have to admit to Luke that, yes, Logan was his father.
But how could she do that now? How could she blurt it out in the middle of the street as though it was no big deal? Luke might be advanced for his age, but he was still an eight-year-old boy. How much of what had happened between her and Logan could she expect him to understand?
She closed her eyes, prayed for divine intervention. Nothing. Seemed that truth was her only option. “Yes. That was the man who fathered you.”
Luke nodded, as though he’d been certain of it all along. Knowing him, he probably had been. “Why did he say you never told him about me?”
Because he’s a lying, deceitful, distrustful bastard who wouldn’t know the truth if it hit him over the head. The words were on the tip of her tongue and she had to make a conscious effort to bite them back. Jeez, and she’d thought she was over Logan’s betrayal? Obviously, denial wasn’t only a river in Egypt. It was alive and well in Prospect, Oregon, as well.
She tilted his chin up so that Luke was looking directly into her eyes. She didn’t want there to be a mistake about this, didn’t want him to think for one second that she resented him because of his father’s attitude toward her.
“I’m not sure why he said that. I suppose because things between us weren’t particularly good when we broke up and he didn’t want to believe that you were his.”
“Why not?”
Because he’s a lying, deceitful, distrustful bastard who… “I don’t know, sweetie. I spent a lot of nights staring at the ceiling trying to answer that same question myself. But you know what?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“What?”
“That’s what you were going to say. ‘It doesn’t matter.’ And you’re right. It doesn’t. We’ve done great without him so far, so who cares whether he wanted me or not?” He gave her a small smile right before he slipped into the car and closed the door gently behind him.
That action more than anything—more than the too quietly spoken, the too mature words, more than the pain in the smile—convinced her that her son missed having a father far more than she had ever known. Luke, so exuberant and full of life, only closed doors softly when he was badly hurt. Normally she had to remind him at least four or five times a day not to slam the door so hard.
They’d talked about his father through the years—of course they had. She didn’t normally bring him up, but whenever Luke had asked about Logan she’d tried to be as honest as she could, without airing all of the difficulties and arguments they’d had after she had found out she was pregnant.
It had seemed to be enough for Luke, the knowledge that she loved him more than anything or anyone else on earth. She’d done everything in her power to make up for the fact that he didn’t have a father, and she’d always thought she’d done a pretty good job of it. Luke hadn’t even known he was missing a dad until he’d gone to kindergarten and figured out that almost all of his classmates had two parents, even if not all of them lived together.
They’d talked about it then, and numerous times since, but obviously she’d missed something. Sometime between kindergarten and third grade he’d decided she wasn’t enough.
The knowledge hurt, even as she told herself she was being ridiculous. He was a boy—of course he’d missed having a father around. She’d expected that.
What she hadn’t expected was for Luke to try to keep his feelings from her, to try to protect her from his pain when it was her job to protect him.
So how was she going to fix things? She walked around to her side of the car. How was she going to make things better for Luke when he was saddled with such a no-good jerk for a dad?
Part of her wanted to blame the town, wanted to blame Penny and her stupid bed-and-breakfast, for dragging them back here. They’d been doing okay in L.A. Better than okay. They’d been doing great. They had their groove, their routine, and it had worked for them.
Coming here had disrupted all that. It had hit her hard and had obviously had the same kind of effect on Luke, though he hadn’t told her about it. But it had been stupid to think that it would all work
out. That her smart, precocious child wouldn’t figure out that in returning to her hometown, she was putting him—for the first time in his life—in close proximity to the man who had fathered him.
What had she thought? That if Logan saw them on the street he wouldn’t make the connection? Or that if he did, he wouldn’t care? After all, he hadn’t tried to contact her once after she’d left town, hadn’t so much as asked Penny where she’d gone. She knew that, because she’d asked her sister about him every time they’d spoken. Penny’s answer had always been the same—Logan acted as if she didn’t exist.
He’d cut her—and their child—out of his life so completely nine years ago that it was hard to imagine that he would suddenly have questions about that child. About her child.
Obviously, she’d been an idiot. Sighing, she opened the car door. It wasn’t the first time she’d been stupid and it wouldn’t be the last. But she was horribly sorry that her son had been caught in the middle of the whole, dirty affair.
She was about to slide into the car when Logan caught up to her.
“You think you can walk away from me like that?” he demanded, his voice low and furious. Despite herself, the tone sent shivers down her spine as it reminded her of all the fights they’d had when they’d been together. And all the making up they’d done when they’d gotten over the anger. “We haven’t settled anything yet.”
It was almost a whisper and her stomach tightened in response. Logan was one of the few people she knew whose voice actually got quieter the angrier he got. If he was yelling or cursing, it was no big deal. But the second his voice became deadly calm, she’d know she was in for it.
The day he’d kicked her out of his life, she’d had to strain to hear him.
This time she wasn’t a stupid seventeen-year-old girl who worshipped the town’s golden boy. This time she was a grown woman who was more than capable of holding her own against him, or anyone. She glanced into the car, caught a glimpse of Luke’s rapt face, and knew that even though she could, she still wasn’t going to take Logan on. Not here and not now, where her son could piece together how angry she was at his father.
“What I think is that now is not the time to deal with this. Luke is watching and the last thing he needs is to see the two of us fighting.”
“What he needs is—”
Paige could tell it was taking every ounce of willpower Logan had not to continue with what he was saying. But he bit it back, bit back all the accusations she could tell he wanted to level at her. She could see them in the darkest depths of his silver eyes, see them in his tense jaw and shoulders, in his fists.
Slowly, very slowly, his hands and jaw relaxed. Then he blew out a long breath and said, “We need to talk.”
She wanted to disagree on general principle, to tell him that there was nothing she wanted to talk to him about. But another look at her son changed her mind. Luke’s fascination with Logan was hard to miss.
Swallowing the bitterness that welled inside of her, she answered. “Yeah. I guess we do.”
“When?”
“I don’t know. In a few days—”
“A few days isn’t acceptable. I want to talk to you today.”
“Yeah, well, I gave up worrying about what you wanted a long time ago, Logan. I’m not here to see you. I’m here to help my sister. So if you want to talk to me, you’re going to have to work around my schedule.”
“Your schedule? You have my kid and you have the nerve to talk to me about schedules?”
A million responses came to her—none of which were fit for polite company but all of which she wanted to say. “How about tomorrow afternoon?”
“I want to talk to you today.” He ground out the words in a voice so harsh it hurt her ears. And still she wouldn’t back down, wouldn’t give in.
Her son was too important for her to roll over and play dead. And if his father thought differently, then he was in for a rude awakening. She’d never been one for power struggles, but on this front, she was digging in. There was no way he was going to move her.
“I want a lot of things. I always have. But part of growing up is realizing that you can’t always have what you want. Isn’t that what our mothers always used to tell us?”
For a second she thought Logan was going to lose the stranglehold he had on control and she regretted taunting him. Not because she was afraid of him—the Logan she knew would never hurt her physically and she’d kick his ass if he tried—but because Luke was watching. He didn’t know what they were saying, which probably only made the tension between them look scarier.
Sure enough, his door cracked open a little. “Mommy. Are you okay?”
He never called her Mommy anymore, and she saw the second his words registered on Logan, the second the sheriff realized his son was afraid of what he would do to his mother. She watched as he forcibly made himself relax.
“I’m fine, sweetie. I’ll be ready to go in a second.”
“What time tomorrow afternoon?” Logan demanded.
She knew it cost him a lot to ask her that, to give in without a fight simply because it would be easier for Luke. And she gave Logan credit for it, though it was hard. She’d spent so long loving him and wishing he’d call, so long hating him because he hadn’t, that it was almost impossible to give him even the slightest benefit of the doubt now. Especially when he was still as arrogant and gorgeous and out of line as he’d always been.
But she would. For her son’s sake, she would give Logan a chance and pray to God that she wasn’t making a mistake. “Why don’t you come by Penny’s house tonight, after ten? Luke usually goes to sleep around nine-thirty. We can talk then.”
He nodded. “I’ll see you at ten.”
“Okay.”
There was nothing left to say, and yet neither one of them made a move to leave. Instead they stood there looking at each other, the past yawning like a chasm between them, until Luke’s door opened one more time.
“Mom?”
“I’m coming, Luke. We’re done here.”
Logan nodded, and left without another word. As she watched him walk away, Paige prayed again that she wasn’t making the biggest mistake of her life. That she wasn’t making the biggest mistake of Luke’s life.
CHAPTER THREE
“HOW WAS TOWN?” PENNY ASKED as Luke and Paige lugged their grocery bags into the house almost an hour later.
“Pretty damn awful.” Paige blew a stray hair out of her face. “I swear, I don’t know how you can stand to live here. Nothing changes.”
“That’s not necessarily a bad thing, you know.” Penny relieved her of a few of the bags.
“Easy for you to say. They don’t look at you like you should come with a warning label—and a decontamination chamber—attached. I don’t understand why you want to—” She broke off, refusing to ruin her time with Penny by bringing up an argument that dated to when they were kids. If they were going to fix everything that needed fixing—Penny’s seaside house, her self-esteem after her boyfriend dumped her with this monstrosity, their sibling relationship, which hadn’t been the same since Paige had left town nine years before—she needed to tread carefully.
“I stay here because this is home to me. I like it here,” Penny blithely answered the unfinished question. “I know Prospect wasn’t good for you, know you’ve done amazing things since you left. But this is the only place I’ve ever wanted to live. When I moved away, I missed it.”
Paige’s nod was stilted, but she was saved from responding when Luke found the treasure he’d been searching through the bags for. “Look, Aunt Penny. Mom bought me a totally cool comic book. Do you want to see it?”
“Of course I do. Maybe you could read it to me while I put these groceries away.” She reached into a bag and pulled out a jar of pickles.
“And we ran into my dad in town. He was dressed in a policeman’s uniform and he seemed really mad at Mom.”
The jar of pickles slipped from her sister’s hand and shatter
ed as it hit the kitchen’s hardwood floor.
“Why don’t you sit down?” Paige said, tongue firmly in cheek. “I’ll put the groceries away.”
“You saw Logan and that’s all you have to say?”
Shooting a warning look from her sister to her son, Paige nodded. “It’s not quite as eloquent as dropping a jar of pickles, I know, but I do what I can.”
“Right. Of course.” Penny sounded as though she was being strangled, but she didn’t say anything else as she started cleaning up the mess.
“Do you know my dad, Aunt Penny?”
She succumbed to a major coughing fit. When she finally recovered, she said, “Um, I guess. A little bit. Why?”
“Because I don’t think I like him. He was mean to Mom. On the way home, she said it was because he was surprised to see me, but I don’t know. So I thought, if you knew him, you could tell me if you thought he was as bad as he seemed today.” Luke said the last words in a rush, his breath running out from trying to say everything in one fell swoop. She could see the hope shining in his eyes, along with the fear and prayed that Penny could as well.
Tenderness for her son welled up inside Paige all over again, even as she felt torn apart by the fact that she was going to have to see Logan in a few hours. Luke was so sweet and he wanted this so badly, that she wanted to want it, too. But she couldn’t. She just couldn’t—not when giving him his father meant allowing Logan in her life again.
He’d done so much damage the first time around it had taken her years to stop reeling.
“I don’t think your dad is awful, Luke,” Penny finally said after an awkward silence. “I’m sure he wasn’t trying to be mean to your mom. He was probably shocked to see you. He didn’t know you were coming.”
“He says he didn’t know about me at all.”
Penny’s eyes darkened to forest green. “Well, then, he must have been confused.”