Like Never Before

by Melissa Tagg

  “Date?” The word slipped out before she could stop it, enough disbelief embedded in it she couldn’t have masked her surprise if she’d wanted to. “You thought tonight was . . . a date?”

  And now it wasn’t only irritation in his expression, but embarrassment.

  “I didn’t realize . . . we hang out lots.”

  “Rarely just the two of us. I went out of my way today to ask you and only you. You said, and I quote, ‘It’s a date.’”

  “That’s an expression.” The reply did nothing to loosen his grimace. She lowered her voice. “You’re twenty-four, Owen. I’m six years older than you.”

  “Which isn’t exactly May-December.”

  A chilly breeze slinked through the fabric of her lightweight coat and scuffed over her cheeks. “I’m flattered, really. But—”

  He cut her off with a raised hand. “Don’t.”

  She barreled on anyway. “But even if I had known what this was, you know the two of us wouldn’t work. You can’t wait to leave Maple Valley. You’re constantly saying you didn’t go into debt getting a degree in journalism to write about Division III sports and Little League forever. Me? I adore it here. I never want to move away.”

  Snowflakes dusted Owen’s shoulders and hair, disappointment lurking in his eyes. “Is it because of your divorce?”

  The flinch cut through her. Ridiculous, really. This many years after, she should be able to hear the word without feeling like the stitches in her heart were coming loose.

  “Is that why you’ve been oblivious to me? And the UPS man, who everyone knows is crazy about you? Oh, and that math teacher at the high school? You haven’t been on a date in the whole time I’ve known you.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Of course I don’t. Because I barely know you. Because as much time as we’ve spent together, you never talk about your past. It’s all the paper and Maple Valley and how much you love snow and life in this weird town. I don’t know why I thought you’d let someone close enough to actually take you on a real date.” He turned.

  “Owen—”

  He brushed her off with a wave of his hand. Wind tugged strands of hair free from her ponytail as she watched him walk away, his steps scuffing through snow until he turned the corner.

  Oh, Owen.

  The sigh feathered through her. She’d hurt him. She’d hurt him, and she hated herself for it. He’d always been so sweet. Winsome. She’d just never looked at him like that.

  But he was wrong about her. So she didn’t talk about her life before Maple Valley. So what? She’d been a different person then.

  “Amelia?”

  She turned at the sound of Seth Walker’s voice. He stood just outside the restaurant’s bright red door, the words First National Bank still etched in cement overhead. “Everything okay? I saw you standing outside by yourself . . .”

  “Uh, Owen had to leave. I was just saying ’bye.”

  “Your burger’s going to get cold. I can send it back to the kitchen if you want. Reheat it or get you a new one. I know how you love your burgers.”

  See, this was what she loved about this town. You’re wrong, Owen. People know me here.

  Seth held open the door for her as she reentered the restaurant. “So what’s up with your whole staff being here tonight? You all planning a mutiny against Logan or something?”

  She stopped halfway to her table. “What?”

  “Trust me, if you guys are surprised about Logan being the new publisher, triple it, and that’s how surprised he is.”

  Her brain fumbled to connect his words. “Logan . . . Logan Walker is the new owner of the News?”

  Seth flipped a towel over his shoulder. “You didn’t know?”

  Amelia really did live in a barn.

  Logan stared at the building set back from the road at the edge of town, where a residential neighborhood thinned out and gave way to sweeping fields. The Klassens lived in the last house on Second Street, and across the gravel drive that leaned into their yard, right next to a cascading willow tree, sat Amelia’s home. Moonlight painted a blueish tint over its red paint and glowing white trim.

  Logan cut the engine of his car and climbed out. He’d kind of thought Raegan was joking when she said Amelia lived in the barn on Lenny and Sunny Klassen’s property. Figured he’d get here and discover the older couple had turned their basement into an apartment, like Dad had for Seth, or even that woodshop out back where Lenny worked.

  But the barn?

  An owl hoo-ed from the line of craggy trees, black in the dark and shivering in the wind behind the property. A yard light buzzed and flickered on as he approached the barn. Must be motion-sensored.

  Hopefully Amelia wouldn’t mind him showing up at this time of night—especially at her house. But when he’d gotten Seth’s text, letting him know he’d accidentally spilled the beans about Logan owning the paper, he’d figured he owed Amelia an explanation. And with it being Friday night, it’s not like he could find her in the office in the morning.

  He knocked, cold raking over his cheeks. Snow shaven from a drift that edged up to the barn swirled around his feet.

  A muffled voice sounded from inside. Did she say “come in”?

  He knocked again, and this time the door cracked open. He stomped the snow from his feet and then pushed the door the rest of the way open, stepped inside, and—

  Amelia’s squeal about stopped his heart.

  She stood in the center of what looked to be her living room, a towel slipping from her head and wet hair tumbling over her shoulders. Bare feet and legs whiter than the snow outside peeked out from underneath a pink robe.

  The door thumped closed behind him. “You . . . you said . . .” Words, why couldn’t he conjure any? “You said ‘come in.’”

  “I said ‘just a minute.’” She flapped her hands in exasperation, the belt on her robe loosening with the movement until she flung her arms around herself.

  Maybe he should just turn around and walk back out.

  Or at least stop staring.

  But it was like his feet had grown roots through her welcome mat. So he simply lifted one hand and covered his eyes.

  Only to hear Amelia burst out laughing. “What are you doing?”

  “Being a gentleman.” And hopefully hiding the fact that his face had to be the color of her barn—er, house—right about now.

  “I’m wearing a robe. I’m not naked, Logan.”

  “Please don’t say the word naked.”

  She only laughed harder. “Man, you are easy to embarrass. Imagine if I’d been wearing this last night when you hugged me.”

  A rumble of laughter escaped, surprising considering how much that hug had bothered him as he’d tried to sleep. How could Emma still—and so swiftly—walk back into his brain? Not to mention the ache that came along with her.

  Maybe he needed a break more than he realized. “Do you want me to leave?”

  “No, but let me go change. I just ran down here to turn on the teakettle after taking a bubble bath. Not that you need to know that—or that I was taking a bubble bath.”

  He couldn’t help a grin at her rambling, peeking through the crack in his fingers as she bent to pick up her towel and cinched the belt at her waist. She might’ve laughed at him, but he obviously wasn’t the only one uncomfortable at the moment.

  Still, he didn’t drop his hand until she’d started up the boxy steps that led to an open loft.

  “So what are you doing here, Logan?” she called down.

  “Just wanted to talk for a few minutes. If that’s okay.” Her living room, with simple beige furniture and an antique trunk in place of a coffee table, spilled into a narrow dining room. “Charming house, by the way.”

  The ceiling overhead creaked as Amelia walked around the second floor.

  “Cool dining-room table.” Someone—probably Lenny—had crafted it from an old door. Two long benches sat on either side. A spread of papers
covered one end of the table. Old newspaper clippings, scribbled notes. Logan picked up the top papers, ignoring the voice in his brain reminding him he’d already barged in on Amelia. Probably shouldn’t go through her things, too.

  But curiosity got the better of him. Why was she reading so many articles about Kendall Wilkins?

  “What did you want to talk—”

  The screech of the teakettle interrupted Amelia’s question from above, so he dropped her papers and walked the rest of the way past her dining room into the kitchen. Steam hissed from the kettle as he pulled it off the burner. A canister of Nestlé hot chocolate mix sat next to the stove.

  She was going to make hot chocolate with that? Instead of placing the kettle back on the stove, he moved to the sink and poured out the water.

  By the time he turned around, Amelia stood behind him. She’d traded the robe in for jeans and an emerald sweater that made her eyes seem more green than hazel. Her hair still hung damp around her face, the scent of vanilla clinging to her.

  “What are you doing with my water?”

  “You can’t make hot chocolate with this.”

  The freckles on her nose scrunched together. “Yes, I can. I do every night.”

  He moved past her toward the fridge. “You’ve got milk, don’t you?” He pulled it open and found a half gallon of two percent behind a pile of Chinese takeout containers. “Good.”

  Amelia stood with her hands on her waist now. “Make yourself at home, why don’t you?”

  He opened a cupboard. “Spices?”

  “Next one over.”

  Cinnamon and nutmeg. Perfect. He turned away from the cupboard. Couldn’t tell if that was amusement or annoyance flickering in Amelia’s smirk. Probably both. “My mom was very particular about hot chocolate.”

  “Clearly she passed on the trait.” She brushed her fingers through her damp hair.

  He ignored her wry tone. “Mom, however, used cocoa extract and sweetened condensed milk. We’re going to do our best to re-create it, but it won’t be exactly the same.”

  He found a pan under her oven and poured in a couple cups’ worth of milk, then set it on the still-warm burner.

  “You’re awfully comfortable in my kitchen, Logan. Much more so than you were in my living room.”

  She stood beside him now, hands in her back pockets while she watched him work, and that vanilla smell—her hair, maybe—grew stronger as she moved close.

  “Well, you know, you’re wearing clothes now. That helps.”

  She had a nice laugh, low and lilting.

  “So what’s with all the reading material about Kendall Wilkins?”

  She leaned over the counter, chin propped on her fists. “You barge into my house—”

  “I knocked.”

  “—take over my kitchen, and you were snooping through my stuff?”

  “I was admiring your table, and your stuff just happened to be there. Whisk?”

  She pulled it out of a metal-ringed cylinder full of utensils. “If you must know, I’m doing a story on Kendall.”

  “A story about the dead town loner?

  “Why does everybody call him that?

  Logan started scooping Nestlé cocoa powder into the milk. “Because he lived in a mansion and never participated in a single town event and—”

  “—and donated ridiculous amounts of money to the town, had a life history that belongs in a biography, met Charles Lindbergh, and paid for my college.”

  He set down the canister. “He paid for your college?”

  She nodded. “He had a scholarship fund. Anybody in Iowa could apply, and you had to write an essay about something that made an impact on you when you were younger. I wrote about this Amelia Earhart picture book I checked out from the Des Moines library over and over, and how I used to lie about being named after her.”

  Logan tsked. “You lied?”

  “Some kids lie about missing homework. I lied about a historical namesake. Weird, I know. But it did end up impacting me because that book spurred a love of history. So that’s what I wrote about. And I guess Kendall Wilkins liked it because I won the scholarship and got to go to college because of him. He even wrote letters to me my first two years there.”

  Logan lowered the burner heat as the milk began to bubble. “No kidding?”

  “Handwritten and everything.”

  “And here I always thought he was just a grouchy old man.” The sweet smell of the cocoa glided up from the stove, tinged with the extra spice of nutmeg and cinnamon. “What’s the story angle?”

  “The empty bank box. I’m going to figure out what was supposed to be in it. Because unlike the rest of Maple Valley, I think he was actually trying to do something nice.”

  He flicked off the burner and turned. Her eyes twinkled with something like anticipation, maybe even mischief, as she waited for his reaction—lips pressed into a half grin that dared him to counter her.

  Instead he moved the pan off the stove and pulled two mugs from the mug tree on her counter. “Marshmallows?”

  A minute later, he handed her a mug, warm around its edges. “Drink up. You’ll never settle for water and powder again.”

  He waited until she acquiesced, watched as the pile of mini-marshmallows bumped against her nose, and lifted his eyebrows when she swallowed. “Well?”

  “Okay, it’s good.”

  “Just good?”

  “Fine. Kind of amazing.”

  He took a drink of his own. “It is amazing. You’re lucky I happened by tonight, Miss Bentley.”

  “Yeah, about that . . .” She lowered her cup to the counter, blithe expression drifting from her face. “You came to talk.”

  He did. But sometime between seeing Amelia in her robe and right now, he’d lost the desire to talk business. Wanted, instead, to . . . he didn’t know. Maybe talk more about that Wilkins mystery she couldn’t possibly solve? Ask her how she’d ended up living in a barn in Maple Valley?

  Maybe make her laugh again.

  But those hazel eyes of hers brimmed with questions.

  “Well, Seth texted. I guess he told you . . . that is, you know . . . I mean I only found out myself . . .” He looked down at the globby mess of melting marshmallows in his cup.

  “Better at writing speeches than giving them?” There was kindness in Amelia’s voice. But also a hint of pleading, too. And then she made the request he’d dreaded. “Please don’t sell the paper, Logan.”

  5

  Release the ducks!”

  The mayor’s voice warbled through a megaphone from his spot at the foot of the Archway Bridge. The curving bridge reached over the Blaine River, where a splash of plastic yellow ducks rained into the cobalt water.

  Logan shook his head. “This town is so weird.”

  Kate laughed as she slid her arm through Logan’s, nudging him to join the crowd now migrating from the main bridge connecting both halves of town south toward a smaller bridge. “It’s hilarious and fun, you mean.”

  Logan burrowed his chin into the high neck of the navy blue puff vest he’d found in the hallway closet at Dad’s house. Probably Seth’s. He should’ve packed warmer clothes for himself and Charlie.

  Or skipped pilfering through the closet and stayed inside altogether. Figured out a way to let Amelia down easy so he could get the News off his plate and enjoy the rest of his time at home before falling back into the hectic pace that was his life in LA. He needed to call his in-laws, too. Let them know he and Charlie were in town. He should’ve contacted them by now. It was just that he knew the second they found out, the tug of war would begin. He loved Rick and Helen because they were Emma’s parents. But they’d never made a secret of resenting how far away he and Charlie lived.

  Anyway, Kate had refused to let him miss the annual duck race. She’d practically dragged him from the house, insisting Charlie deserved to experience as much of Maple Valley life as she could while they were here.

  Logan’s feet sunk into patchy snow and
damp ground as they walked along the riverbank. Cars packed the street that bordered the river.

  “It’s barely above freezing, and we’re all standing outside, watching a hundred plastic ducks float down a river that’s still half-jammed with chunks of ice.” He buried his hands in his pockets. “I bet most of the people here don’t even know what we’re raising money for.”

  “I sure don’t.” Kate tugged her stocking cap over her ears. Or, rather, Colton’s hat—the LA Tigers logo wrapped around its rim. She pointed a gloved hand up ahead. “But take a look at your daughter. Tell me that plastic duck wasn’t worth twenty bucks.”

  Several clumps of people away, Charlie rode atop Dad’s shoulders. She wore a pair of white earmuffs that were way too big for her head and matching mittens, along with a coat as bright pink as that robe Amelia had been wearing last night.

  “Now you’re smiling.”

  Yeah, but Kate only knew half the reason why. No way was he repeating the story of barging in on Amelia to either of his sisters. They’d never let him live it down. “Charlie’s having the time of her life, isn’t she?” His daughter turned her head to look back at him. Waved. The sunlight made her green eyes more luminous.

  “I don’t think she’s the only one. Dad hasn’t stopped beaming since you got here.” Kate sidestepped a puddle of mud and melted snow. “He’s got three of his four kids home and his granddaughter. If a miracle happened and Beck showed up, he’d be in heaven.”

  It would take a miracle to get Beckett here from Boston. He always said it was work that kept him away. But did any of them actually believe that? “So you’re pretty confident you and Colton are sticking around the Valley?”

  His sister’s smile told an entire story, one he’d only heard about from afar but could actually take some of the credit for. After all, he was the one who’d asked Colton to come back to Iowa with him last fall after the tornado hit, stick around town and help Dad repair the depot when Logan couldn’t stay himself.

  He hadn’t realized Kate would end up home from Chicago at the same time. Never would’ve guessed Kate and Colton would form the kind of friendship that shifted into love before they knew what hit them. They’d had a fair amount of bumps—one that had even landed Kate in the hospital—but looking at her now, watching the joy spread over her face, he’d bet she’d say it had been worth it, broken bones and all.