Devoted to Drew

by Loree Lough

  “Do you think Maddy would mind keeping an eye on them for an hour or so?”

  “I suppose. Why?”

  “Thought I’d bring you over here, see how much progress we’ve made.”

  “Progress? Where?”

  “At the school.”

  Is that where he’d been all this time, while she sat worrying that he’d floated upriver with his house?

  “I have a meeting over here with the landscape architect. Afterward, I could swing by, pick you up and walk you through the whole place.”

  Bianca set her ire aside. He might have forgotten that she wanted to have a heart-to-heart, but she hadn’t. “Call you on my way over,” he said, and hung up.

  She found her mom in the laundry room, ironing. “Mind if I run out for about an hour?” Bianca decided to drive over to the school herself. Not only would it save time, but she’d bring lunch and surprise Logan.

  “Where’s Drew?”

  “In the family room,” Bianca said, “watching TV with Poe.”

  “He gets along great with that pup, doesn’t he?”

  She smiled. “Yes. Yes, he does.”

  “Gets along great with Logan, too. Says a lot about the guy. That he can love another man’s child, I mean.”

  Did he love Drew? Or was her boy one more step in getting the school built and filled with students…and putting his name back in the headlines?

  She felt a little guilty, thinking he’d use a child—her child—that way. They’d probably etch She Made Mountains Out of Molehills on her tombstone. It was time to get a grip. Time to quit jumping to conclusions and assuming the worst. Time to get to the bottom of things, even if it hurt like crazy.

  “I’ll have my cell phone, of course, in case he has a meltdown.”

  “He won’t.” Maddy went back to creasing a pair of Drew’s jeans. “But if he does, I’ll handle it.”

  “I know you will.” She smiled. “I’ll be at the new school. How about if I pick up a pizza on the way home?”

  Maddy nodded. “Is Logan coming back with you?”

  Fear panged in her gut. The answer to that would depend entirely on how he reacted to the questions she intended to ask him.

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Everything okay?”

  “Sure. Of course. Why do you ask?”

  “No reason. Pizza sounds good.”

  “Poe will need to go out in an hour or so. Whatever you do, don’t let Drew go with her or they’ll both get soaking wet and muddy.”

  Maddy grinned. “If we go out and make a mess, we’ll clean it up.” She stood the iron on its end and walked to Bianca’s side of the ironing board. “Now go upstairs. Put on a little lipstick. And maybe those pretty hair combs Drew gave you for Mother’s Day. They bring out the blue of your eyes.”

  The roads were littered with fallen branches and tree leaves, and every few blocks she saw one of the power company’s trucks, buckets extended high in the air to repair the downed lines. When she turned up the driveway at the school, it surprised her to see so many vehicles out front. Two pickup trucks bearing the same plumbing company’s logo, a painter’s panel van, a big white box truck that belonged to the landscaper and a plain black SUV.

  She parked between Logan’s car and the painter’s van and grabbed the insulated cooler she’d packed on the way out the door. Chilled water, sandwiches, green grapes and a slice of pie—all of Logan’s favorites. She grinned, anticipating his reaction to her unannounced visit. Slinging her hobo bag over one shoulder, she slammed the car door and jogged up the flagstone steps. Logan had replaced the big wooden entry doors with brass and glass. Bold gold letters on the left door said PERCY MOORE, and on the right, ACADEMY. It should have said Deidre O’Toole and Logan Murray in smaller print because without them, the facility wouldn’t have existed.

  The main office was the first sign on the left. She heard voices and, not wanting to interrupt Logan’s meeting, took a seat on the heavy carved wooden bench just outside the open door.

  “Who’s this woman in the photograph?” said a voice she didn’t recognize.

  “You wouldn’t know her. She’s the mother of one of the students.”

  She recognized that voice: Logan. She smiled as the other man cut loose with a wolf whistle.

  “Can’t fool me, Murray. She’s more than that. I can tell by the way you’re looking at that picture. Not that I blame you. She’s mighty easy on the eyes. Is she a natural blonde? Or haven’t you got far enough yet to know for sure?” He laughed, an annoying, juvenile titter.

  “Grow up, Vinnie. We’re not in high school anymore.”

  Bianca was tempted to lean left and peek into the office for a look at the crude man with the gravelly voice. Instead, she crossed her legs and tidied the hem of her skirt.

  “I wish some of your good luck would rub off on me.”

  Logan laughed, and oh, how she loved the sound of it! She had to remind herself that the reasons for her visit were twofold: deliver lunch, and find out what he’d been hiding from her.

  “Luck? What are you yammerin’ about now, Vinnie?”

  “You have it all. Good looks, fame, the money to get any gorgeous gal you want—like that one, there, with the cute kid in her lap. So did it work?”

  “Did what work?”

  “Buddying up to her and her special-needs kid to get the funding for this place.”

  “I funded the place. Period. No need to buddy up to anyone.” He snorted. “Besides, who are you to talk,” Logan shot back, “married to the governor’s daughter.”

  “Being married to the governor’s daughter doesn’t do me any good, and you know it. I’m little more than a puppet. I do what I’m told, when I’m told to do it. Period. I so much as think about using my connections to her daddy, and I’m as gone as a Civil War soldier.” The man laughed. “But you? You get to keep right on schmoozing with the Tinseltown crowd thanks to this place, and one of the reasons you have this place is your connection to that pretty little blonde. If that ain’t luck, I don’t know what is.”

  “Connection?”

  “Let me rephrase that. Photo op. Is that accurate enough for ya? She and her kid are insurance that this place will put your name back in the headlines for something other than being drunk and disorderly?”

  In the moment of silence that followed, things began to make sense. Why he’d insisted on taking Drew to every one of Baltimore’s top tourist spots, for starters, taking lots of pictures at every one. Was that what all the whispered phone meetings were all about? He was making Drew the poster boy for his fancy tuition-free school?

  She waited, hoping to hear Logan deny it. When she didn’t, Bianca leaped up, dropping the cooler as her shoes click-clacked across the tiles.

  “Bianca!” Logan shouted. “Bianca, wait up!”

  Tears stung her eyes as she struggled to open the heavy doors. His mother had been wrong. Dead wrong. And she’d been a fool.

  Had anything he’d said or done been genuine? Was Holly, whose death had inspired the idea for this school in the first place, a lie? Were his feelings for Drew and Maddy—for her—fiction as well?

  The moment Drew was diagnosed, people had started calling her Tiger Mama because she’d fight anything or anyone who stood in the way of what was best for her little boy.

  Not this time.

  She’d turned into a woman so desperate for affection and attention that she’d done what was best for her—not what was best for Drew.

  “Bianca, wait up. I didn’t realize you were here.”

  “Obviously,” she said, finally summoning the strength to open the door.

  “Bianca. Stop. Tell me what’s wrong!”

  He was close, too close, so she picked up the pace. Thankfully, she hadn’t locked the car.

  “Vinnie is an idiot. And he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

  So he knew that she’d overheard the conversation.

  “You’ve got it all wrong.”


  Did she?

  The truth hit hard as she slid behind the wheel and slammed the door: Logan hadn’t humiliated her; she’d done that to herself.

  The need to confront him seemed less important right now than getting her thoughts in order. And to do that, she needed to get away, far away from here.

  She threw the car into Reverse, took her foot off the brake…

  …and plowed into the passenger door of the plumber’s van, bumping her head on the steering wheel.

  “Hey, lady,” the driver bellowed, “are ya blind or just stupid?”

  Oh, stupid, for sure, she thought, and not only because I didn’t look where I was going. Come to think of it, not thinking about where she was going had caused the mess she was in with Logan, and the position she’d put Drew in with him, too.

  Bianca wanted to flee now more than ever. But trapped between two parked vehicles and the irate plumber, she couldn’t even get out of the car, let alone escape.

  Logan held up a hand, effectively silencing the guy. “Take it easy, pal,” he said. “It’s just a small dent.” He handed the man a business card and promised to take care of everything. It all happened so fast that she felt a little dizzy. And then, before she knew what was happening, Logan opened her driver’s-side door.

  “Get out of there,” Logan said as the van drove away, “so I can make sure you’re all right.”

  Bianca didn’t know why, but like an obedient child, that’s exactly what she did.

  She felt him, watching as she bent to run her fingers across the slight indentation in her bumper. Thankfully, it wasn’t as bad as it had sounded. And not so bad that it would require an expensive trip to the paint shop.

  Gently, Logan grasped her shoulders and stood her upright. “You’re bleeding.”

  She’d hit her lip when the impact bounced her head from the headrest to the steering wheel. She ran her tongue over it.

  “Let me have a look at it,” he said, cupping her chin in his big hand.

  Oh, he was quite the actor, all right. He’d made his voice tremble, just a little, so he’d sound sincere.

  She jerked free of his grasp. “I’m fine,” she snapped. Unless a bruised ego counts. “I need to go. Mom and Drew will wonder where I am. And I have to contact my insurance company, in case—”

  “I told the guy I’d handle it, and I meant it.”

  She stared him down. “The way you handled me so that you could use Drew as the star of your ad campaign?”

  “I didn’t. That isn’t even close to the truth.”

  “Is the truth in California?”

  His face paled as his mouth formed a small O. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. I was just trying to dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s before I—”

  Bianca got into her car and quickly locked the door behind her. And this time, she took great care backing out of the spot. The ache of a sob pulsed in her throat, but she refused to give in to self-pity. You will not cry. You. Will. Not. Cry!

  One glance in the rearview mirror was all it took to wake overwhelming sadness and regret in her because there he stood, slump-shouldered and alone in the parking lot, looking every bit as miserable as she felt. More evidence of his acting skills? Or had she misjudged the situation?

  There’d be plenty of time to puzzle it out at home.

  Home, the only place she felt truly safe.

  Bianca took the ramp to Route 100, which would take her there…

  …if she didn’t crash into something else first.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  LOGAN THOUGHT IT was Bianca calling. It surprised him to hear Drew’s voice instead.

  “How’s school, kiddo? Mrs. Peterson treating you well?”

  “Yes. But I just don’t understand why you haven’t come to visit in so long. Poe misses you.”

  “I miss her, too.” And he did. “Miss you more, though.”

  “I think she wonders if you forgot about her.”

  Since the storm had all but leveled his house, he’d been staying in one of Deidre’s guest rooms, a small, cramped little space up on the third floor that had no closet and no private bathroom. Poe would have been miserable cooped up in a place like that.

  “You tell that silly pup that I could never do that. I love her too much.”

  “Then if you love her, why haven’t you come to visit in so long?”

  And there, Logan thought, was one of the characteristics of autism: fixation on one subject. One of the most difficult…especially when the question was a tough one.

  “Remember that big storm we had the other day?”

  “When the lights went out and we couldn’t watch Mr. Action?”

  He had to tread carefully here. Too much information, and Drew would worry himself to death. Not enough, and he’d fixate on that.

  “Yeah. That night. Well, the wind did some damage to my house. Broke a few windows, blew down a couple of trees. I’ve been busy cleaning up and fixing stuff. Plus working at my regular jobs.” And jetting between Baltimore and L.A. to finalize the sitcom. “That’s why I haven’t been around much.”

  “You haven’t been around at all.”

  Good point, but there weren’t enough words in the English language to explain why a grown man was afraid to face a woman Bianca’s size.

  “Is your garage broken?”

  “A little bit.”

  “And your kitchen?”

  “And the kitchen.”

  “Your bedroom?”

  Fact was, the wind had toppled an ancient weeping willow that had all but destroyed the second floor.

  “Yeah. The bedroom, too.”

  “What about your bed?”

  “I guess you’d say that’s ruined, too.”

  “Then where are you sleeping?”

  “I’m renting a room.”

  “What’s renting?”

  “It means I pay Miss Deidre money to sleep in one of the rooms at her house. That’s why I can’t come and get Poe just yet. It’s very small and crowded, and she’d hate it here.”

  “Do you hate it?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I guess I do.” What he hated more was the way the conversation seemed to be agitating Drew. “But it’s okay. It’s only temporary. Before we know it, everything will be back to normal.”

  Including the rift between him and Bianca? Logan didn’t know how that could happen if she refused to let him explain.

  “Where’s your mom?”

  “She’s in the kitchen. Painting.”

  That blasted portrait again. Well, maybe she’d finally succeeded in giving Jason the face of a loving father.

  “How’s she doing?”

  “She’s sad. I don’t know why. But it makes me sad, too.”

  He felt like a heel, because he knew why. She’d misunderstood the conversation between him and Vinnie. At first, he’d about worn a callus on his finger calling to explain and to tell her the truth. Then things had heated up out in L.A., and he thought maybe it was better this way. Putting time and space between them would make it easier for her to accept that she’d linked herself to an idiot. He felt bad, knowing she’d waited three years to start a new relationship. Who knew how long it might be before she risked it again. So he’d go to California, do the show, invest every dollar earned in the Moore Academy, so that indefinitely, Drew and kids like him could attend a school built from the ground up with their needs in mind. Bianca would get over this. Even her mom talked about her toughness, her resilience.

  “I have to go,” Drew said. And just like that, he hung up.

  Another characteristic of autism: when you’re done with something, you’re done. Period. It made him grin a little, wondering what the world would be like if everyone just told the plain truth, all the time, the way kids on the spectrum did.

  *

  “MOM?”

  “Shh, Drew,” she whispered, pointing at her cell phone. “I’m talking.”

  “I know. I can see the phone. And I can hea
r you talking.”

  Bianca turned slightly, hoping to improve her concentration on what his teacher was saying. “That’s great news, Mrs. Peterson.”

  Drew tugged at her sleeve. “Logan’s house is broken.”

  She nodded and aimed her pointer finger at the ceiling. “Give me a minute, Drew, okay?”

  “Okay. But Logan’s house is broken, and I don’t want him sleeping in a crowded room at Miss Deidre’s. Poe and me, we want him to stay in my room.”

  Mrs. Peterson had called to share her excitement at Drew’s success taking the same tests as the rest of the kids in his class.

  “I can’t thank you enough for all you’re doing,” she told the teacher. “None of this would have been possible without your dedication. He’s very lucky that you decided to teach second grade this year.”

  Now Drew took Bianca’s hand. “If Logan slept in the extra bed in my room,” he continued, “Poe could be with him and me. And they wouldn’t miss each other.”

  “Drew, please. I’m on the phone, remember?”

  “Yes. I remember. I can see it. So can he? Can Logan sleep in the extra bed in my room? So him and Poe could be together and not miss each other?”

  Mrs. Peterson was outlining this year’s plan for Drew. It would include more time with the class, and less one-on-one with his aide.

  “All right, Drew!”

  He ran from the room, chanting happily as he picked up the house phone. “Mom said yes,” he said, dialing Logan’s number. “Mom said yes!” he said when Logan answered. “Mom said yes. Mom said yes!”

  *

  “TO BE HONEST,” he said when Maddy led him upstairs, “I was shocked when Drew called with the news.”

  “Well, Bianca didn’t say anything to me about it, either. She’s been swamped at work lately, and putting in a lot of volunteer hours at Drew’s school. I keep telling myself that’s why she’s seemed, I don’t know, a little off these past couple of weeks. I hope she’s not coming down with one of those bugs that are going around.”

  So Bianca hadn’t told her mom what had happened at the school, he realized. Maybe it meant she’d thought things through, realized she’d jumped to conclusions, but didn’t know how to reconnect after so much time had gone by. In Drew’s room, Maddy opened the closet door. “I cleared space in here for you to hang a few shirts, and emptied the nightstand drawers in case you want to put your socks and underwear in there. You’re only steps from the bathroom across the hall. It’ll almost be like a private bath because Drew uses the master bath to shower and brush his teeth. So that Bianca can supervise, you know?” She chuckled quietly. “If you need something in there and don’t find it, let me know, okay?”