Like Never Before

by Melissa Tagg

  He pushed up his glasses with one finger. Was he smiling? He felt like he was smiling.

  “Oh, I almost forgot.” Amelia reached into the bag slung over her shoulder and pulled out a silver package. “Pop-Tart? I saved you one.”

  “I haven’t had a Pop-Tart in fifteen years.” A gravel turnoff came into view only yards ahead.

  “Well, you’re missing out.”

  He took a bite. Admittedly, not the worst thing he’d ever eaten. “Clearly you’ve never experienced a Walker breakfast. We do it right. Everyone in the family has a specialty.”

  “What’s yours?”

  “Omelets. Not going to lie, they’re amazing.”

  “What do you do? Stuff them with kale and tofu?”

  “Joke all you want, but I’ll make you one someday, and you’ll eat your own words, somewhat literally, and—”

  He broke off at her sudden stare—past him, down the lane they’d reached.

  He followed her gaze to see what had to be the Glorietta. The lodge was carved into the side of a hill, two stories that jutted out from a tree-lined ridge. And it was . . . bright.

  Teal siding encased the rectangular structure. Dirt-caked windows were framed by peeling pink shutters. “Holy 1980s comeback.”

  More details came into view as they approached. The dilapidated balcony poking out from the north end. A lone car in the parking lot. An unfilled outdoor swimming pool hardly larger than a bathtub.

  It only got worse inside. Mustard-yellow shag carpet and brown walls, the scent of potpourri both overwhelming and yet not enough to cover the lingering smell of cigarette smoke.

  “And we’ve gone back another decade.” He whispered the words—not that he needed to. The woman with peroxide-blond hair behind the check-in desk had earbuds in both ears, magazine open in front of her.

  “Who leaves Maple Valley to work in a place like this? And why go from nursing to . . . whatever she does here?”

  “Didn’t you say her family owned it? People have made bigger career and geographic moves for family.” Look what his dad had done for Mom. When she got sick, he’d given up an office at the U.N. building and moved their family of six back to small-town Iowa. “Anyway, we’ve got a source to find and another nine-hour drive back home, so let’s do this, Nancy Drew.”

  She rolled her eyes at the nickname but approached the desk. When the receptionist didn’t acknowledge them, Amelia tapped the Ring for Service bell.

  The woman’s head jerked up, mouth dropping open and bubble gum landing on her open magazine. She pulled out her earbuds, then unpeeled her gum and stuck it back in her mouth. “I didn’t hear y’all come in. Need a room?”

  “No, actually, we’re looking for Marney Billingsley. We understand she works here?”

  Amelia’s tone was pure business. Did she have any idea how comical she looked, trying to play serious reporter with her hair windblown and static-y from his fleece jacket hanging past her waist?

  “That’s my sister. But she’s not on shift now.”

  “Any chance we could talk to her?”

  The woman blew a bubble with her gum. “I don’t know who you are. I’m not inclined to go looking all over the place for her on account of a couple strangers.”

  “Maybe you could call—”

  “This is the boonies, honey. Cell phone reception is still five years away.”

  “LillyAnn, is it?” Logan interrupted, clued in by her nametag. “That’s a pretty name.”

  She stopped chewing her gum and closed her magazine. “Thanks.”

  “Look, I know it’s probably annoying—us showing up and asking for a favor. But we drove nine hours to get here just to talk to your sister. If there’s any way you could help us out, I’d be so far beyond grateful, you wouldn’t even believe it.”

  LillyAnn hopped off her stool. “Okay, then. I’ll see if I can find her.”

  She disappeared from the desk.

  “Flattery? Really?” Amelia flatlined the words.

  “Got results, didn’t it?” He gave her his best self-satisfied grin.

  “Is that how you win elections, too? Bat your perfect eyelashes at female voters, sweet talk ’em into voting for your candidate?”

  “You like my eyelashes?”

  “It’s not even that great of a name. LillyAnn.” She jerked the zipper of his fleece. “Like someone couldn’t make up their mind which name to give a baby so they just smooshed two together, and—” She broke off.

  “What?”

  “To Have and Have Not. That’s the movie you were referencing. Where Lauren Bacall tells Humphrey Bogart how to whistle—that iconic line. Can’t believe it took me this long.”

  “Maybe you were too distracted by my eyelashes to think of it.”

  Man, he liked it when she attempted to glare at him. And completely failed.

  “Here she is.” LillyAnn ambled behind the desk, an older woman trailing behind her. Oh yes, he recognized Marney Billingsley. She’d been a nurse at the clinic when he was a kid. Unlike her sister, she hadn’t tried to hide the gray of her hair, nor the lines on her face. Her pink cardigan ended at her elbows, purple-ish veins extending down her wrists.

  “How can I help you?”

  “Hi, Marney? I’m Amelia, and this is Logan, and we’re here to talk to you about Kendall Wilkins.” Excited energy fueled Amelia’s hurried words.

  Confusion tinted Marney’s expression. “Kendall Wilkins? From Iowa?”

  “I know it’s going to sound crazy, but we’re following up on that safe-deposit-box mystery, and I thought you might be helpful.”

  “You came all the way from Maple Valley?”

  Amelia’s nod was eager.

  But Marney only sighed. “Then I’m afraid you’ve come all this way for nothing.”

  “Wow.” A single word released in a whispered gasp. Amelia couldn’t stop staring.

  A lazy sun crouched behind the ridges of Mount Rushmore, craggy orange light rimming the etched faces and reaching into the sky in a blaze of sizzling color. She stood beside Logan on an outlook that gave a panoramic view of the full landmark.

  “I can’t believe we’re here.” Wind and dust had caked her hair into stringy waves, and fatigue pulled at her limbs. But wonder awakened her senses. A husky breeze marked trails over her cheeks even as Logan stepped closer, his warmth and shadow like insulation against a day that’d ushered in a returning cool.

  “We had to do something to cheer you up after that interview.”

  The interview, he meant, that shed little light on Kendall Wilkins’s life or death or that empty bank box. Marney had the same impression of the man as everyone else did: prickly, aloof. And not above taking a shot at the town on his way out.

  “Sorry we don’t have time to do a full tour or eat in that cafe.”

  “Logan, you agreed to an eighteen-hour round-trip drive. Humored my wild goose chase. Sat through a pointless interview. Brought me to Mount Rushmore. And you’re apologizing?”

  He blinked against a piney breeze, one that billowed through the oversized jacket she’d worn nearly all day. They started walking again. “But it wasn’t entirely pointless. You found out Kendall Wilkins belonged to some society or other. What did she call it?”

  “The Elm Society.”

  “Right. You learned he did have at least one long-time friend. Harry Somebody-or-other.”

  “Wheeler.”

  “And you learned he was buried with an aviator’s helmet from his childhood.”

  Yes, that’d been the one part of the interview during which she’d felt like she’d gotten at least a glimpse into the man she’d thought she’d known.

  “So you didn’t have any clue what was in that box? What it might’ve had to do with Lindbergh?”

  “We weren’t close. I took care of him. Drove him around. Ran his errands. But he didn’t talk to me. He didn’t really talk to anyone. Do you know the only true time I felt in any way a significant part of his life is after he d
ied, when I helped . . . prepare him?”

  Marney had shaken her head. “He truly didn’t have a single family member, so it fell to me to follow the instructions he left. He wanted to wear a particular suit, so I had to search around. When I went looking, this old aviator helmet came tumbling out of his closet. From his childhood, I’m sure. He used to talk about watching barnstormers, you know. It was the one personal touch I felt like I could give him, including it in his coffin. But other than that . . .”

  “It just doesn’t match up.”

  Logan’s arm brushed against hers as he led the way around a curve. “What doesn’t?”

  “The man Marney describes. The man everyone else in Maple Valley knew. Or didn’t know. I don’t see how he can be the same man who wrote me all those letters when I was in college. He was funny and personable and wise.” A little laugh escaped. “He even had this love for anagrams. You know, where you take a word or phrase and change the letters around to see what other words and phrases you can come up with?”

  The sun was barely a shaving now, wedged behind rock.

  “I wish somebody else could’ve seen that side of him.”

  Logan’s gaze dipped, and his steps slowed. “Maybe somebody did. Maybe that Harry Wheeler guy. Or maybe it’s enough that you did. For some reason, he connected with you. It’s kind of cool if you think about it—you sorta filling a place in his life no one else did.”

  Yes, but look what she’d gone and done with that cool thing. Drifted away. Got so caught up in her romance with Jeremy that she’d slowly stopped responding to Kendall’s letters. Hadn’t even finished the education he’d paid for.

  She’d let him down.

  And by the time she’d thought to go to Maple Valley, find the man, both thank him and apologize, it was too late.

  A sigh trundled through her, but she cut it off. She could think about this later, back home. This moment should be for awe and remembering and . . .

  She looked at Logan again.

  Gratefulness.

  Truthfully, it wasn’t even the splendor of Mount Rushmore that impacted her most—but the fact that Logan had remembered what she’d said this morning about never having been here.

  While she’d been rambling, he’d been listening.

  “Want to know something? I haven’t been to the Grand Canyon, either.”

  “Angling for another road trip next weekend?” The scarlet sunset turned his skin tawny and his eyes golden.

  “I traveled all the time in my other life. But not lately.”

  “Your other life? Actually, yeah, Rae mentioned something about how you used to be in marketing?” He paused in the middle of the trail, turning away from the landmark to face her. “I meant to ask you about it.”

  Normally she’d skirt the question. She hadn’t even listed the job on her résumé when she’d gone looking for new employment after the divorce.

  But now? Under the glow of dusk, in the middle of a path cut into a ridge, only strangers, rock, and soil for company, something inside her loosened. Maybe because he’d told her about Emma last night. Or carted her across state lines. Or brought her here to see a sight that had taken her breath away.

  Whatever the reason, her reserve felt as thin as spring’s hold.

  She stepped off the path, Logan following, and paused near a wilty evergreen, its branches bowing in the wind. “I was the marketing manager for Jeremy Lucas. Early on in his career.”

  “Why does that name sound . . . wait. The Jeremy Lucas? The one with all the books and the radio show?”

  “That’s the one. I didn’t just work for him, actually. We were married.”

  He tried to hide his shock, she could tell. But didn’t quite manage to. “Jeremy Lucas is your ex-husband. The ‘Live the life you’ve always dreamed’ guy.”

  Oh, how she hated that tagline. “Yeah, but the life he dreamed included kids. Which I couldn’t give him, at least not after seven years of trying. So he . . . decided he wanted to end things.”

  She shrugged as if this were a room in her life she invited anyone into, rather than a cordoned-off chamber of secrets. And she waited—waited for the questions he had to be mentally asking. Why couldn’t she give him children? What about adoption? Had she argued—fought the divorce?

  But instead he only looked at her as if she were one of those presidents’ heads on the mountain, worthy of unhurried scrutiny. And then he took a step toward her. He pulled her into a hug, arms reaching all the way around her and her head landing against his chest.

  “Clearly the guy is an idiot and doesn’t deserve you.” He spoke the words over her head.

  “Thank you.” Her heart stumbled over the effect of his comforting hold.

  “And I’ve seen the photo on his book jacket. Fake tan and teeth way too white to be real.”

  “Thank you again.”

  “And I bet he wears too much cologne.”

  She tipped her head up. “It’s true. Honestly, sometimes getting in his car was like walking into a teenage boy’s bedroom.”

  Laughter rumbled from Logan’s chest until he stilled, breathing steady and rhythmic and . . .

  She closed her eyes against the cotton of his shirt. And it suddenly wasn’t all she’d lost churning through her in disarray. But what she had right now. A friend. One who’d glimpsed more of her heart in a couple days than . . . honestly, than anyone she could think of.

  There was something sheltering and so very wonderful about this man.

  It scared her.

  It thrilled her.

  “Amelia—”

  But his phone stole whatever he was going to say next. He pulled away, the last sliver of sun now hidden. “It’s Helen. I’d better take it.” He lifted his phone to his ear. “Hi, Helen. How’s Charlie?”

  She tried to snub the rise of desire—to know what he’d planned to say, to go on with this side trip uninterrupted. But how did a person disregard what felt like cool water for a soul she hadn’t even realized was thirsty?

  One look, though, at Logan’s face as he listened to whatever his mother-in-law was saying pulled her out of her daze. And seconds later, he’d pocketed his phone and sprung into action.

  “We have to leave. Charlie’s sick. Spiking fever and coughing.”

  The worried look on his face pelted her heart, and she started for the trail.

  “They wanted to know if she’d had a flu shot.” He froze. “I couldn’t remember. What kind of dad can’t remember . . . ?”

  Amelia gripped both his arms. “Logan, it’s probably nothing more than a little cold.” She rubbed her hands down his arms. “It’s going to be fine. And I’m going to drive. I just need the keys.”

  9

  Logan hit Ignore on his cell phone for the third time today. He didn’t have time for office catch-up with Theo. Not when Charlie was three days into the flu.

  He leaned his head against his bed’s headboard, Charlie snuggled against his torso, and his legs outstretched in from of him, sheets tangled.

  A cartoon character blathered on the computer screen propped on his old desk. The one that still displayed framed photos from his high-school years, a bending lamp, a speech trophy. He’d kept Charlie in here while she was sick instead of Beckett’s room, served her chicken noodle soup in bed, and kept her sippy cup filled with 7-Up.

  He laced his fingers through his daughter’s curls, now sweat-dampened and flat. Almost twelve hours since the last time she’d thrown up.

  Most days it amazed him how quickly she was growing—scared him, too. But this week, she’d seemed tiny. His little girl, wracked by a bullying flu.

  His phone dinged. Another voicemail. He closed his eyes.

  “Son?”

  At the sound of Dad’s voice, Logan opened his eyes and lifted his head. His father stood in the doorway. “How’s she doing?” Dad entered the room and pulled the chair from Logan’s desk. He sat backward in it, legs straddling either side, and then leaned over the back.


  Logan palmed Charlie’s forehead. No fever. “I’m hoping the worst is behind her.”

  “I can’t tell you how much I’ve loved having her around. Reminds me of when you kids were little.”

  Logan’s arm was asleep behind Charlie, muscles numb. He toed away the navy blue comforter. “You ever start to feel like you’re running a hotel here? Rae and Seth and then Kate and now Charlie and me?”

  Dad fingered the gold ring he still wore on his left hand. “I’d rather have a full house any day than swim in empty rooms.”

  Logan looked to the largest of the framed photos on his desk. A photo of him and Mom in Washington, D.C. She’d taken each sibling on a trip on their thirteenth birthday—he’d picked D.C. The picture beside that one showed him and Beckett on Logan’s graduation day. “Think you’ll ever get Beck back here?” Nearly six years and counting since his little brother had returned to Maple Valley. Not for the first time—and certainly not for the last—concern for Beckett needled him.

  “That lawyer thing keeps him busy.” The smile dissolved from Dad’s face. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned after having four kids, it’s each of you has your own timing.” He let out a long exhale. “Beckett will come home when he’s ready.”

  Logan glanced at his sleeping daughter. “That’s what I keep trying to tell myself about Charlie. She’ll talk when she’s ready.”

  “Can I ask something, son? Do you pray about it? About Charlie talking?”

  If anyone else had asked this, Logan might wave off the question with an easy “sure.” Because, yeah, now and then in fits of frustration he rattled off quickie prayers. Ones with less thought behind them than the simple press releases he could whip out in his sleep.

  But he couldn’t fool Dad. His inner turmoil was like old glass to Dad—transparent, cracks visible. “Not really.”

  He smoothed Charlie’s hair, felt the sting of hollow whispers. How could he not pray for his daughter? He loved her more than anything in the world. He should be on his knees every day, begging God to keep her safe and healthy, to fill in the gaps created by Emma’s loss, to right anything Logan might be doing wrong.