Like Never Before

by Melissa Tagg

  They were outside and halfway to Coffee Coffee, quiet accompanied by the wind flapping through the awning over the flower shop, when Logan suddenly stopped. Sunlight tumbled like ribbons through cottony clouds. “I almost forgot.” He held out the folder he’d been carrying. “This is for you.”

  A breeze rustled through the papers as she opened the folder, and she clamped them down with her palm. Handwriting—Logan’s, she assumed—filled the margins of Xeroxed articles and newspaper clippings, covered pages of lined notebook paper. “Notes about Kendall Wilkins?”

  “You’re not the only one who thinks he’s interesting. Way back, I wanted to do an article on him, but he refused to be interviewed, so it never went anywhere. But Dad still has all my old boxes in his attic, and I found my notes.”

  She flipped through page after page.

  Logan laughed, and she cocked an eyebrow. “What?”

  “You gonna read it all right here in the middle of the sidewalk?”

  “Maybe. This is a gold mine, Logan.”

  “Yeah, but it’s cold.” Circles of red covered his cheeks, and specks of amber flickered in his dark eyes. He’d gone looking through his dad’s attic just for these old notes? For her?

  “He’s the reason I live here, you know. I came to town a few years ago during a hard season in my life. Felt like so many people had given up on me. So on a whim, I decided to come and thank the one man who’d somehow strangely believed in me.”

  “But he’d already passed away by then?”

  She nodded. “And yet, I ended up staying. I met Freddie that very first day and found out there was an opening at the paper. I ran across Sunny and Lenny Klassen’s advertisement for the barn-turned-house on their property. There was some fair going on in the town square.” She gazed over the street to where the river burrowed its course, sparkling blue under a matching sky. “I just stayed.”

  She looked up, suddenly surprised at where she’d let her words wander, the snippets of her past she’d let him see. He simply waited. Maybe she should tell him how lost she’d been in those months leading up to her arrival in Maple Valley. How a failed adoption and a broken marriage had shattered her.

  Things she’d never even spilled to Raegan.

  But no, it was too much. Too soon. Maybe it’d always be too soon.

  So she shook her head and lightened her tone. “Tell me the truth—it’s those emails I sent you weeks ago that really convinced you to come back to Maple Valley and stay, isn’t it?”

  He grinned. “Of course. You were just so persuasive. Not at all blunt or out of the blue or . . .” His words trailed as his focus flitted from her face. He looked over her shoulder, his expression shifting into concern. “I don’t think she’s okay.”

  “Who . . . ?” Amelia turned, seeing what he saw through Coffee Coffee’s lanky windows. Megan, alone in the shop, gripped the edge of a table with one hand, holding her protruding stomach with the other, a broken coffee cup at her feet.

  Logan was already moving toward the door.

  “I’m sorry, but if you’re not family, I can’t allow you back.” The woman behind the hospital’s ER waiting room counter leveled Logan with a look that said she wasn’t budging.

  “You don’t understand.” Logan flattened his palms on the counter. Megan, still clutching her abdomen, had been wheeled away ten minutes ago. For all he knew, she was in some room down the hallway in labor, scared and alone. “She doesn’t have any family in town. Isn’t that what you said, Amelia?”

  When Amelia didn’t answer, he glanced over his shoulder. She’d taken a seat in a burgundy vinyl chair underneath a droning TV, face almost as pale as Megan’s had been.

  “You said your name’s Logan Walker?”

  He turned back to the woman behind the desk—nurse or receptionist, he didn’t even know. “Is there a Katherine Walker with you, because if so—”

  “I’m here!” His sister, out of breath and coatless, burst from the waiting room’s revolving door.

  The nurse tapped a file with bright red nails. “Her name is on the patient’s medical file. I can let her back to see Megan.”

  Kate breezed past him. “Thanks for texting.”

  “But I didn’t—” Oh, right. Amelia had his phone. She’d used it to call the hospital on their way. She must’ve texted Kate, too.

  His sister disappeared down the corridor, and he walked back over to Amelia. “How’d you know to text Kate?”

  She looked up, emotion in her eyes he could only describe as anguish. It was there and gone, chased away in a blink. And yet it pierced him all the same.

  What’s your story, Amelia Bentley?

  Reporter’s curiosity. He might’ve given up the profession years ago, but the side effects lingered.

  Or maybe she’s just the first woman to have piqued your interest since Emma.

  A distracting thought. A ridiculous one.

  Because he knew almost nothing about her.

  “Kate took Megan under her wing last fall. I’m not sure she meant to. Just happened. But I’m pretty certain Kate’s the closest thing Megan has to a support system.”

  He lowered into the chair next to Amelia. “I’m glad you knew to contact her.”

  An infomercial murmured on the TV overhead, and in the corner, a vending machine hummed against the otherwise quiet room. So different from his one experience in an ER in Los Angeles. Crammed with bodies and smells and voices. And the groan that had bullied its way through him over and over as he’d waited—five minutes feeling like five years—for a doctor to appear and tell him what he somehow already knew.

  “We did everything we could do, Mr. Walker.”

  “You okay?”

  At the sound of Amelia’s voice, his focus lurched from his knuckles, white over his knees, to Amelia—brow pinched in concern. He forced his shoulders to relax, slid his hands over his jeans. “I was just wondering that about you a minute ago. I looked over and you had your head in your hands. Not a fan of hospitals?”

  “Something like that.”

  He could tell there was something else going on behind her autumn irises right now. Maybe she was reliving a memory that stung as much as his. “Come on. Let’s go.”

  “But Megan—”

  “Kate’s with her, and there’s nothing we can do at the moment.”

  A languid sky brushed dusky shadows against the parking lot as they walked outside. Amelia sat up front this time. Didn’t say a word until after he’d passed the turnoff for Main Avenue. “Aren’t you taking me back to the office?”

  “Ah, I can. Or . . .” The sliver of a low-slung sun glinted in his eyes, and he flipped down his visor. “The rest of my family’s out at the depot now—where Dad works. You know that. The railway’s opening for the season in a couple weeks, so everybody’s helping out, getting it cleaned up.”

  It was pure impulse that led him to turn onto the road that led to the Maple Valley Scenic Railway and Museum, situated on the edge of town. But that fleeting trace of hurt he’d seen on Amelia’s face back in the waiting room, the thought of him spending the evening with a passel of family while she hung out alone in her little house . . .

  Didn’t feel right.

  “It’s just painting and polishing woodwork. Nothing thrilling. But—”

  “I’d love to.” He slid her a glance. She held on to her seatbelt with one hand, earnest desire sparking in her eyes. “If you’re asking if I’d like to hang out with you guys and help tonight, I’d love to.”

  Yes, there’d definitely been more going on in her head at the hospital than worry about Megan. He wanted to ask.

  But she wanted distraction. It was obvious.

  “All right, then. Word of warning, though—we’re a loud crowd. I guess you saw that the other night.”

  “I did.” Her eyes were on the windshield now. Ahead of them, the oblong depot building came into view, its pale blue paint silhouetted by a pastel sunset. Railroad tracks ribboned over gravel, reachin
g into the distance, where the landscape rose and fell in tree-packed ridges. Iowa wasn’t all fields and flatlands.

  Even now, with winter still clutching the landscape and only sparse hints of green grappling through muddy snow and wrinkled branches, this place had a beauty not even California and its beaches could rival.

  He parked in front of the depot, gaze traveling over the train cars lined up on the tracks. One of Iowa’s only heritage railroads, the fourteen-mile passenger ride helped make Maple Valley the tri-county tourist stop it was.

  Amelia gasped as she got out of the car. “Wait, your notes. The Kendall Wilkins ones. I think I left them at the coffee shop.”

  He met her on the other side of the car. “Eh, we’ll get them sometime.”

  “What if they’re not there? What if someone throws them out?”

  “They weren’t that great of notes. Nothing you couldn’t have learned with a little Googling.”

  He started toward the boardwalk that circled the depot, shovel tracks forming a path.

  “But you went to all the work of finding them.”

  “It wasn’t any work at all.” Not exactly the truth. But she didn’t need to know that.

  Raegan met them outside the depot. “Megan’s fine. Kate just texted. She was dehydrated, which I guess can cause early contractions. They’ve got her on fluids and are going to keep her overnight, but she and the baby will be fine.” She glanced at Amelia. “Oh, hey, Amelia. I didn’t realize you were . . . together.”

  He didn’t miss the ragged relief in Amelia’s sigh at the update about Megan. “Oh, well, Logan was at the office, delivering some notes, and we were getting coffee when . . .”

  What was with the look passing between Amelia and Raegan?

  “He delivered the notes. Good. After making Kate and me help him look through the attic last night for hours. Needle. Haystack. Mission impossible. Come on in. We’re going to order pizza.”

  He started to follow Raegan into the building, but Amelia’s voice stopped him. “Hours? You said it didn’t take long at all to find the notes.”

  He turned. “Relatively speaking.”

  “You made your sisters help.”

  “They love me. They miss me. They were happy to do it.”

  She stepped up to him, the scarf around her neck fluttering in the breeze. “You are just as curious about Wilkins as I am, aren’t you?”

  “I’m mildly interested.”

  “You think there’s a story there.” She hid her teeth behind a close-lipped, delighted smile. Her first since arriving at the hospital.

  It shouldn’t gratify him so much. “Or I’m just really nice and I’m humoring you.”

  “Maybe.” The wind played with her hair. “But I think I just figured out how I’m going to convince you not to sell the paper. I’m going to remind you how fun it is to chase a story. Prove Maple Valley is full of interesting stuff to write about. Mystery, even. And we need a paper to preserve it all.” She patted his arm. “Good luck withstanding my powers of persuasion, boss.”

  She waltzed past him into the depot, and by the time he’d blinked, swallowed something that tasted way too much like attraction, his family members voices were already drifting from the open door, welcoming Amelia and putting her to work.

  6

  The little desk wedged into the tight space at the back of The Red Door’s kitchen wasn’t the best place to have a business discussion. Not with the racket of banging oven and dishwasher doors and Southern rock growling from the radio.

  But considering Seth Walker was giving up his Friday lunch hour to dole out free advice, Amelia wasn’t about to complain.

  “There’s a bunch of stuff you’ll need to prepare in advance to go along with your application.” Seth pulled apart a cinnamon roll he’d swiped from a tray when they’d entered the room, despite the glare of his chef. The industrial kitchen gleamed with stainless steel and copper, Tuscan tile on the floor and walls adding flair to even this less-seen piece of the restaurant.

  If anybody knew something about applying for a small-business loan—taking a leap of financial faith—it was Logan’s cousin. Bold career moves seemed to be a Walker family trait.

  Seth slid a paper toward her. “You sure you don’t want a cinnamon roll? Shan, my chef, is a culinary genius.”

  “Nah, had two Pop-Tarts before coming over here. But thanks anyway.”

  “You realize my health nut cousin would break into tears if he heard you say that?”

  “Says the guy currently licking icing off his fingers.”

  “Touché.”

  Seth was right, though. Two weeks of working with Logan and she hadn’t seen him pop so much as a Lifesaver. One day, mid-argument about a headline—because apparently he loved to change her headlines, another thing she’d learned in their short time working together—he’d announced he was hungry for a snack. Came back from the office’s kitchenette with a bag of baby carrots.

  She’d teased him for days. Partially because anyone who legitimately counted carrots as a snack deserved to be badgered. But mostly because it was just so fun to fluster the guy.

  Amelia scanned the list Seth gave her now. Personal credit history. Business credit history. Financial statements.

  The crash of breaking glass tried to cut in, followed by Seth’s voice calling to ask his chef if everything was okay.

  “Just a broken plate. No biggie.”

  Detailed business plan. Cash flow projections. Personal guarantee from principal owners.

  A groan worked its way up her throat. “I think I’ll take that roll now.”

  Seth chuckled and stood. “You might need two. We haven’t even looked at the application itself yet.”

  Owen had been the one to plant the idea of applying for a small-business loan in her head. Yesterday they’d watched Logan and Ledge mess with the binding machine in the back room through the horizontal window separating the space, Logan with his sleeves rolled up and his tie askew—he didn’t seem to catch on that this was a casual office—and his brow knit. Owen had shaken his head.

  “You’ve got about as much chance convincing that guy to hold on to this paper as you do of stumbling upon the money to buy it yourself.”

  Logan had tangled his fingers through his hair. Scowled at the machine.

  And she’d realized Owen was right.

  Amelia swiveled in her chair now to face the rest of the kitchen as Seth pulled a plate from an open shelf, then used a pair of tongs to serve up her roll. Behind him, a waiter swept up shards of broken glass and the dishwasher rumbled. “I’m in over my head, aren’t I?”

  He plopped the roll on a plate. “Amelia, when I got the crazy idea to gut this place and turn it into a restaurant, I had exactly two thousand and nine dollars in my bank account. Plus eighteen cents. I remember it to the penny because it basically haunted me.” He set the plate in front of her. “When I told Uncle Case about my idea, when I walked into that first bank meeting, when I met with the contractor . . . every time, I kept seeing two thousand and nine dollars and eighteen measly cents.”

  He lowered once more beside her, a tickly breeze from the open window over the desk ruffling his hair. “I thought I was in over my head until the day The Red Door opened. Half the time, I think I still am.”

  She dabbed one finger through the cinnamon roll’s icing. “What helped you take the initial leap?”

  There was that Walker resemblance again, this time in his grin. Almost a perfect match for Logan’s. Except Logan’s was always accompanied by those crinkles at the corners of his eyes. “I was on the verge of signing the loan papers when I reconnected with Ava.”

  His girlfriend. The one who’d finally moved to town last summer after a full year exchanging emails with Seth. Now she lived in the apartment over the restaurant and would probably be a Walker herself before too much longer.

  A wisp of longing skimmed over Amelia, like a wayward feather she’d usually brush away. But today she allowed hers
elf to grasp it. To think, just for a moment, about what it’d be like to have what Seth and Ava had. And Kate and Colton.

  A love that supported and encouraged and inspired, as Ava had Seth, to reach for what could be.

  Instead of one heavied by what couldn’t.

  “I’ll admit, though, it wasn’t only Ava’s confidence that helped me. It was also the fact that Case co-signed my loan.”

  Ava slouched in her chair. “And unfortunately, I don’t have a Case. If I do this, I’m in it on my own.”

  “Look, you may be the only one personally absorbing the financial risk. That’s true. But you’re not in it alone.” Seth took the list back from her and slid it under a stack of papers. “You’ve so firmly cemented yourself in this town, no one even remembers you’re not a native. More than that, you’ve got the support of the Walkers. After all, we all kind of owe you. You’ve put articles about my restaurant and Colton’s nonprofit on the front page. You’re friends with Raegan, who is clearly the craziest of our clan. And you’ve spent how many evenings in the past couple weeks helping out at the depot?”

  Three evenings. She’d spent three uncannily fantastic evenings with the Walker family over the past weeks—cleaning and painting and polishing the depot in preparation for its spring opening this week. She’d gotten to know Kate much more than she had before. Saw in a new light how much Rae looked up to her older siblings. Listened to Case’s stories of his former life as an international diplomat.

  And she’d watched Logan and Charlie together—the way he swung her onto his shoulders so she could “help” paint, his attention always drifting to her when he was in a different part of the room, how he communicated with his daughter even though she rarely uttered more than a word or two.

  That first night, her thoughts had strayed back to Jeremy, how she always used to imagine him as a dad. But that was only imagination, wasn’t it? Logan was the real thing. And he was good at it, no matter how much he doubted himself.

  Yes, his doubts. Another thing she’d picked up on in just two weeks. He’d mentioned Charlie’s upcoming speech therapy appointment earlier this week, his words weighty and worried. “I should have done it long ago.”