She turned to glance at the back of the room where the Tuckers usually sat. She immediately recognized Mr. Tucker, standing tall in his black slacks and white dress shirt, his wife next to him. She was more than a foot shorter than her husband, her dark blond hair pulled back from the smooth, minimally made-up face that reminded Logan so much of her youngest son.
Logan eyed the empty pew beside Mrs. Tucker and frowned, searching the rest of the congregation. She wasn’t sure why she’d expected Cole to be here, but the realization that he may not be left a heaviness in her gut, almost like disappointment. Or maybe that was just her stomach eating itself.
At the front of the church, the music minister led them straight into a third song. Logan scanned the crowd one last time for her least favorite Tucker, her eyes finally landing on a head full of short, brown hair and familiar build in khakis and a light blue dress shirt. He was in the third row, his back toward her. But she was sure it was him; she’d recognize just about any part of Cole Tucker from almost any angle.
The weight in her stomach eased, only to settle back in heavier. A tall brunette Logan didn’t recognize stood next to him. While she couldn’t see the woman’s face, Logan could tell from her physique and the way her olive-green dress hung on her slender, tanned frame that she was gorgeous. Not that there was any reason this woman shouldn’t be pretty, but wouldn’t it have been fairer for the rest of them if notoriously sexy Cole Tucker had a girlfriend who ended up being a plain Jane…or better yet, a total cow? Or maybe she was one of those really pretty girls who had absolutely nothing in the way of brains or personality.
Cole Tucker’s stupid, bimbo girlfriend.
Whoa, where the hell had that come from? She didn’t think she’d ever thought such ugly things about a stranger before, so why on earth would she start now? And why did the weight in her stomach get heavier and heavier each time she thought the G word?
To be fair, Cole had made it clear he didn’t have a girlfriend when she first came back into town. So it wasn’t completely insane for the sight of him with this tall, Amazonian beauty—as far as she could tell from the back, at least—to throw her off so much. She just hadn’t been expecting it, that’s all. Of course, it had been three weeks since Cole admitted he was single. More than enough time for that to change.
The music ended and Pastor Joe asked everyone to sit. A few seconds behind everyone else, Logan followed suit and sat in the pew and turned her focus to the sermon.
*
Logan stood outside by the green lawn in front of the parking lot, grateful for the first time for the ridiculous heels that made it easier to see over half the heads in the crowd that came pouring out of the main doors.
She’d offered to meet her parents outside after they finished chatting and catching up with all the usual people.
“No point, really,” the chief had told her. “Your mom’s already made plans for us for lunch and then to visit a few people who missed church this morning.” Logan could tell he was struggling not to roll his eyes. “We probably won’t be home until evening.”
So, basically, they’d planned an entire day out just to avoid her. Ouch.
Daddy gave her a sad smile before pulling her into a one-armed side hug. “Why don’t you go home, baby girl? Enjoy having the house to yourself for a while.”
Logan nodded.
“Sure. You guys have fun, and I’ll see you later.” She’d pulled out of her father’s hug and slowly made her way out of the sanctuary. She’d had every intention of leaving then, but before she knew what she was doing, she’d stopped by the grass and started watching as, one by one, people emerged from the building.
She waited for one person in particular.
It wasn’t creepy, she told herself as she searched patiently for the girl in the olive-green dress. Just a healthy curiosity.
She’d tried to focus through Pastor Joe’s sermon; honestly, she had. But time and time again she found her mind wandering to the girl sitting with Cole. Who was she? And why did they sit together all comfortable and familiar looking? She tried not to stare but found herself unable to look away when he draped his arm behind her across the back of the pew. She just wanted to see the girl’s face, and then she could leave it alone. She spent almost the entire hour watching them, her eyes practically boring holes into the back of the girl’s head, and still, she never turned. Not once.
“Looking for someone?”
Logan jumped at the quiet sound of Cole Tucker’s voice in her ear, his hands catching her as she fell back into his chest with a shriek. She whipped around to see him laughing at her.
“Don’t do that!” she yelled, punching him hard in the bicep. She grinned to herself when he winced just a tiny bit. She hadn’t seen him exit through the main door, which meant either he came out a different way or her search for the girl in the green dress had gone to a scary, mind-consuming level.
Cole stopped laughing as he rubbed his arm, but his smile remained. “I didn’t know you were in there until I saw you walking out. Were you with your parents?”
She nodded. “I wanted to surprise them. What about you? Sitting in the usual Tucker pew?” she asked, feigning ignorance and disinterest.
“Nah. I usually sit up near the front now. Helps me focus.” So he wasn’t going to mention the woman he was sitting with. Two could play that game.
“Usually? You come a lot on Sunday mornings?”
He shrugged. “I try to whenever I’m not at the station. Makes my mom feel better, and it’s kind of become a Sunday ritual, going to church and then heading out to my mom and dad’s house. They like to call it our family day. Keith and Adam try to make it, too, when they can.”
“Aw,” Logan said with a genuine smile. “A Tucker Family Day. That sounds so cute.”
Cole shook his head. “No. There is no aw-ing with my family. We usually just spend the day arguing over who ate all the cornbread and shouting at whatever game we’re watching on TV.”
“Oh, come on. It can’t be that bad.” Logan wished she had a big family she could spend the day arguing with. Hell, right now she just wished the family she did have would talk to her.
“So, what about you?” Cole asked. “I assume you’re out here waiting for your mom and dad. What’ve you got planned with them?”
She grimaced. “Actually, my mom and dad have plans to get lunch and then go visit some church members, so it looks like I’m probably just hanging out at the house today. Maybe I’ll catch up on laundry or clean or something.”
“What?” he said, crossing his arms over his chest. “That doesn’t sound like the way to spend an afternoon on a day like this.”
Logan shrugged. It certainly wasn’t how she’d hoped the day would go. “Bet Tucker Family Day isn’t looking so bad now, is it?”
Cole eyed her for a second. “You know what, I have the perfect solution. Just what we need to liven up this day.”
“A challenge?”
“You know me so well,” he said, grinning. He grabbed her hand. “Come on, let’s go.”
Logan pulled her hand from his grip. “Hold up. You’re not about to use me as an excuse to get out of spending a day with your family.”
“Not an excuse,” he said, still smiling as he took her hand again. This time she let him pull her along with him. “Just a reason to enjoy it.”
Chapter Eighteen
If someone had told Logan a few years or even a few weeks ago that she would be spending a Sunday afternoon with Cole’s family—even if only for a bet—she would have laughed in their face. And yet, here she was, standing in front of the Tucker’s dark green front door.
“So, here’s the deal,” Cole said beside her. “We both go in together, and the first one to call it off and walk out loses. Simple as that.”
“I don’t know.” She wasn’t sure how long she’d be able to withstand the inevitable glares and judgment, not to mention the possible beratement when one of them brought up her and Cole’s hostile
history. In a way, this challenge was more daunting than anything else either of them had come up with so far.
“Trust me, this will be no less painful for me than you. At least if you’re here, my mom might be too shocked to remember her usual rant about how I still haven’t brought home a real girl to meet them.”
Logan frowned, remembering the woman sitting next to him at church. She forced herself to focus. This was not the time to wonder about Cole’s relationship status. “Couldn’t I have at least gone home and changed first?” she asked, glancing down at the pink dress and heels. “I look ridiculous.”
His eyes raked over her. “Not on your life.”
Her stomach fluttered, and she glanced at him by her side. His face lit up with an encouraging grin. “You ready?”
No. She felt a tremor of anxiety similar to the one and only time she’d met Jacob’s parents, only this time she knew that these parents already hated her. How exactly was she here and not the girl in the green dress? Or any other girl for that matter. Surely, she wasn’t his first choice of who he’d like to spend the day with. But it wasn’t some other girl, it was Logan. And for some reason, that fact made her smile back at him.
She nodded.
Cole put his hand on the doorknob, her own hands shaking though she was failing to come up with a single place she’d rather be at this moment.
And that scared the hell out of her.
“Mom, Dad?” Cole called as he opened the door and stepped in. Logan reluctantly followed him into the foyer. She took in the room’s light green walls and the dark wood floors. It was large, warm, inviting. She tried to imagine Cole growing up here as a boy. How had she gone more than ten years knowing him and never once stepped foot in his house?
Her eyes swept over to the stairs on her left and froze. Hanging on the wall over the steps was a large oil painting of a single sunflower. She’d not only seen it before in Ms. Snyder’s gallery, but it had been her favorite piece to ever hold residence there.
There was something about the detail of the brushwork and the focus on a single flower that drew her in every time she saw it. It was as incredible as she remembered. But what she didn’t understand was how it had ended up here in the Tucker house, of all places.
Heavy footsteps came from the back of the house. “Cole, that you?” Mr. Tucker’s voice called. “We were wondering what was taking so long. Keith and Adam are out back waiting for you.”
Logan whipped around just as Mr. Tucker appeared from a hallway in the back with a wide grin on his face Logan didn’t think she’d ever seen and found surprisingly endearing.
The older man stopped in his tracks. “Oh,” he said slowly.
Logan’s heart beat chaotically. “Hi, Mr. Tucker.”
His eyes darted between her and Cole for a moment. “Hello, Logan,” he finally said, focusing on her. “I didn’t realize you’d be joining us today.”
“Logan mentioned after church that she didn’t have any plans, so I thought I’d invite her along,” Cole said casually.
She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I told Cole this was probably a bad idea. I don’t want to intrude.”
Mr. Tucker’s questioning look transformed into a friendly smile. “No intrusion. We’ve got plenty of food. We can certainly share with one of Cole’s friends.”
“Careful, Dad. You might offend her. Lo here has made it very clear that we are not friends,” he teased.
She rolled her eyes, and Mr. Tucker said nothing. Instead, he turned and called out over his shoulder, “Suzanne, better set another place at the table. Cole’s brought a…guest.”
“I would hardly call Cowboy a guest at this point, the way he cleans out my entire pantry each time he’s here,” Mrs. Tucker yelled from what Logan assumed was the kitchen. “If I’d known he was coming I would have made double of everything.”
“Not Cowboy,” her husband called back.
There was a sound of dishes clattering together. “Is it a girl? Did my baby boy finally bring one of his girls home to meet us?”
Cole gave Logan a told-you-so smirk. Logan returned it with a just-how-many-girls-have-you-had? one.
Before anyone could answer her, Mrs. Tucker came around the same corner her husband had. Her mouth fell open. “What are you doing here?”
“I—”
“I invited her,” Cole stepped in. “She didn’t have plans, and I thought Tater could use the female company.”
“Did someone say my name?”
Logan looked up to find the last person she’d expected to see at the top of the Tucker staircase. Though the olive-green dress was gone, this girl was without question the same one Logan had spent the entire church sermon staring at. Finally seeing her face only confirmed Logan’s suspicions. She was gorgeous, her long, dark hair perfectly framing her prominent cheekbones and jaw. But instead of the dress Logan had thought flattered her tall, slender frame, she was now wearing jean shorts and a T-shirt that made her look stunning in that girl-next-door sort of way.
The girl stared down at them. “Logan?” she squealed.
“Tater, is that really you?”
The girl bounded down the steps two at a time and crashed into Logan with a painful hug. Multiple feelings flooded Logan at once: excitement at seeing the girl she’d come to know very well in her final year in Willow Creek, wonder at how she could possibly have grown so much in the last four she’d been gone, and a combination of embarrassment and relief that the girl she’d been obsessing about all morning was only Cole’s little sister.
Logan stepped back to get a better look at her. “Oh my God! You look amazing, Tater!” Gone were the glasses she’d worn in middle school, leaving behind a beautiful, tall, tan young lady. She still had the same deep accent and spray of freckles across her nose from when she was a kid.
She had to be a junior in high school, at least, though she looked much more mature. And she may possibly even have been tied with Cole in the looks department. “Sorry, I mean Tatum. I know you hate that nickname.”
She shrugged. “Nah, Tater’s fine. Especially compared to the other nicknames I’ve heard over the years.”
“Bad?”
“Well, there was Fried Tater, Tater Tot, stuff like that. And then the ever-popular Tater Salad,” she huffed.
Logan grimaced.
“I’ve missed you so much!” Tater practically shrieked. “I can’t believe how long it’s been.”
“Henry, would you go get the boys and tell them lunch is ready? And you three can go ahead and sit at the table,” Mrs. Tucker said, not looking at all impressed by the happy reunion in front of her.
“Come on,” Tater said, pulling Logan by the arm to the back hallway. They took a left into a beautiful blue dining room with a large table already set for six. Tater sat in what Logan guessed was her usual seat, patting the chair next to her.
To Logan’s surprise, Cole moved to pull the chair out for her to sit before going around the table to take the seat across from her. “I didn’t realize you two were so close.”
Tater grinned at her brother. “Oh, me and Lo go way back,” she said. “Ever since I helped her put glow-in-the-dark paint stuff on some of your clothes.”
Cole’s mouth fell open. “You helped her? What are you, some kind of traitor?”
“Oh, that was nothing,” she sneered. “There was also the time we shrank all your boxers.”
“You said that was an accident.”
Tater ignored him. “Or my personal favorite, when I put a laxative in your Coke right before your date with Melissa Walsh.”
Cole’s eyes went wide. “That was you?”
Tater laughed. “It was her idea, not mine,” she said, pointing at Logan. “Though it was my idea that she spend the whole day with her mom so she’d have a solid alibi.”
Her brother shook his head and said very slowly, “I will kill you.”
Tater stuck her tongue out just as two grown men Logan immediately recognized as Adam and Keith
Tucker walked into the room.
“Who’s Cole killing?” Keith asked. He was the middle brother of the three and, according to the chief, had started his own construction company. He was tall just like the others, with dark hair and a bit of scruff on his face that suited him. He took the seat beside Cole. “Because, given their history I’d be willing to bet it’s this stunning vixen sitting before me,” he finished with a wink that Logan couldn’t help but smile at.
Adam grabbed an extra chair from the wall behind him and pulled it up on the other side of Cole before plopping down. Unlike the rest of the Tucker children, Adam had lighter hair like his mother. And he was by far the bulkiest. Adam had been a high school football star in his own day and went on to become one of Willow Creek High’s assistant coaches.
“Could we maybe hear how the infamous Logan Kase came to be eating lunch at our humble table before you kill her? I bet it’s a really good story.”
“It’s not,” Cole said dryly. “And I’m not going to kill her. At least not today.”
Keith perked up. “Oh good, it would be a shame to kill someone looking as lovely as she does today,” he said. “And I do mean that with all sincerity, Lo. We all knew you’d age well, but we had no idea how well. I mean, in that dress…” Keith whistled as he made a show of observing her legs under the table.
Logan’s cheeks flooded with heat just as Cole punched Keith hard in the arm.
“Ow!” he yelled, rubbing the spot. “Don’t tell me you’re getting jealous.”
Cole shrugged. “Not at all, just a friendly reminder that you’ve already got a girl…I believe you call her your wife.”
“What about Adam?” Keith cried, pointing an accusing finger at his older brother. “He’s the one with a kid on the way. Aren’t you gonna hit him?”
Adam’s head shot up. “Did I say anything?”
“You were thinking it!”
Cole glanced at his two brothers before punching Adam in the arm for good measure.
“Dammit, Cole!” Adam yelled before hitting his brother back. Logan watched in stunned silence as the three of them proceeded to strike each other over and over.
Keeping Score Page 12