Like Never Before

by Melissa Tagg

  To help her talk.

  But what was the use in praying when he wasn’t sure anyone was listening?

  He waited for Dad to say something, anything, in that firm but gentle way he had—to scold him or challenge him or . . . something.

  But when silence lingered, Logan spoke again. “After Emma died, I . . . I tried to cling to faith. The way you’re supposed to. I pretended I knew what people were talking about when they’d go on about ‘peace that passes all understanding.’ But I didn’t feel peace, Dad. I didn’t feel anything. And so I prayed about that, too. Prayed God would let me sense him or feel or hear him. I wasn’t asking for a burning bush or an audible voice. Just something to convince me he was there, that he heard me. And . . . nothing.”

  The numbness in his arm spread. “And all I could think was, if I can’t trust God to meet me in my deepest pain, how can I trust him at all?”

  He’d never given his doubts such an open stage. Maybe because he worried if he gave them a voice, they might finally drown out the last fragments of his faith. The piece of him still clinging to the beliefs he’d grown up with.

  That there was a God who cared.

  That he wasn’t alone.

  I’m still holding on. I don’t know why, but I’m still here. Barely.

  Dad pulled his arms away from his chair’s back, lowered his hands to his knees, and breathed deep. “Thank you.”

  Logan lifted his head. “For what?”

  “For telling me the truth. It is a privilege to be your father, Logan, and to be entrusted with what’s going on in your life and in your faith.”

  “Even if my faith has been reduced to crumbs lately?”

  “Even if.”

  “That’s it? You’re not going to try to steer me back to the straight and narrow? Give me a magic Bible verse so I’ll stop feeling the way I feel?” He hated the derision in his tone. It smacked of immaturity, and probably simple exhaustion. Three days of jetting back and forth between the office and home. Pretending to be mentally present at another meeting for Colton’s fundraiser. Waking up every couple hours at night when Charlie moaned.

  But Dad didn’t even flinch. “You’re thirty-four, Logan. You don’t need a sermon, and you definitely don’t need me telling you how to feel.”

  “I wish I knew what I needed.” At least back in LA, he’d been busy enough to avoid the cavern inside where his faith used to be. Work had made the grief easier, too. It wasn’t denial, just a coping mechanism.

  But here, even with the newspaper and the constant activity of family and . . . and Amelia . . . avoidance felt impossible.

  “When your mother’s cancer came back the third time, I’ll never forget . . .” Dad picked up the photo on Logan’s desk of him and Mom in D.C., a soft smile tugging at the lines in his face. “The oncologist gave us a few minutes in his office alone after he gave his prognosis. And I slipped back into my soldier days for a moment because I looked at your mother and said, ‘We aren’t going to lose hope, Flora. We aren’t going to despair. We’re going to fight this together and win.’”

  Dad set down the photo. “And she looked back at me, straight in the eye, and said, ‘Liar.’”

  Logan gave a mangled laugh, and Charlie stirred at his movement.

  “She shook her head. ‘We are too going to lose hope,’ she said. ‘We’re going to despair. We’re going to feel things this time around like we’ve never felt before.’”

  He stroked Charlie’s hair. “She was blunt.” And the best mom. Just . . . the best.

  Dad’s eyes turned glassy. “She said, ‘We might even break. Because we’re humans and we’re allowed. And because . . . ’” Dad’s voice cracked, and he rubbed a tear from his cheek. “‘And because I’m dying.’”

  She had known. Maybe they all had. And they’d all dealt with it in different ways. Kate had written a book. Logan had proposed to Emma. Beck had run away, and Rae had vowed never to leave.

  And Dad . . .

  He’d seemed so strong at the time, but look at him now. In the privacy of his own heart, even while taking care of his adult kids however they needed, his soldier father had broken just like Mom had predicted.

  “I didn’t know it at the time, but Flora was giving me a great gift. Permission to feel. If I couldn’t feel grief and despair and anguish, then how would I recognize peace and healing and even joy later on?” Dad cleared his throat, straightened. “She gave me something else that day, too. She reminded me that there’d always be someone hoping for me, when I couldn’t hope. And loving me, even when I couldn’t see it. And waiting for me, even when I didn’t believe it.”

  Charlie shifted against him, burying her face against his chest.

  “He’ll wait for you, Logan. Just like you’re waiting for Charlie to talk and I’m waiting for Beckett to come home. God will wait for you.”

  He’d been quiet for days.

  Amelia tapped her pen against her chin, facing away from her desk, an unfinished city council article languishing on her screen behind her. Through the window of Freddie’s office, the one Logan had been reluctant to settle into at first, she could see his profile. Stubbled cheeks and hunched shoulders, elbows bent and fingers curving around the back of his head to massage his neck.

  He hated Charlie being sick, she knew. Worried about his in-laws’ reaction to his spontaneous out-of-state trip. Too, his business partner back in LA kept calling. That presidential candidate seemed to have forgotten them.

  Was there more he wasn’t saying?

  Or was she reading into his exhaustion? Using her concern for Logan to distract her from the fact that Eleanor had retreated from her life as quickly as she’d shown up?

  Amelia had made only one feeble attempt to call Eleanor since their argument—sighed in relief when she’d gotten her sister’s voicemail.

  Maybe they simply weren’t meant to share the kind of closeness Logan did with his siblings.

  “He’s going to sell, you know.”

  She hinged toward the sound of Owen’s voice.

  “The stuff he’s doing—the ads, the website, everything—it’s just so he can get a higher price when he does sell.” Owen clicked his mouse, attention on his monitor.

  Amelia stood and swept up the pile of last week’s area papers cluttering the countertop. “Maybe, but it’s only late April. I still have a whole month to convince him.”

  “Except I don’t see you doing much convincing. Road-tripping to South Dakota and pretending you’re part of his family, maybe. But that’s it.”

  “Owen.”

  The bite in her tone was enough to make him turn. “He’s humoring you, Amelia. And you’re getting attached. But you know Cranford has called at least three or four times since he’s been here. Meanwhile, have you even asked Kat and Mikaela how we’re doing on ads for the centennial issue? Have you bothered looking at Abby’s web banner mockups? You’re the one who came up with this plan that basically doubled our workload, but what are you doing to help out?”

  He’d risen halfway through his lecture, reached around his computer to turn it off, and grabbed his leather messenger bag from a hook on the wall. Numbing surprise at his hostile words crushed any response.

  “What do you think my trip to South Dakota was for, Owen? It was for the cover story for the centennial. I’m not ignoring it.” Not that she’d gotten anywhere on it since. She’d Googled the name Harry Wheeler, and the results had numbered in the millions. Searching The Elm Society hadn’t gotten her anywhere, either.

  What if this story really wasn’t going anywhere? What if Kendall Wilkins really was just a cranky old man?

  “All I’m saying is, you’d be a lot smarter focusing on that—or better yet, spending this time polishing your résumé and looking for a new job—instead of flirting with a guy who’s already got one foot out the door.”

  She smacked the papers in her arms back to the desk, grappling for words. “Owen, we’ve been friends first and coworkers second for
a long time now. But you’re stepping over a line.”

  He slung his bag over his shoulder. “If we’re really friends, then it’s a line worth stepping over.” With that, he pushed through the newsroom door, skulking past Mae, who filled the doorframe after he left.

  “He’s in a hurry.” Mae’s eyebrows lifted behind her bifocals.

  “He’s mad at me.”

  “He’s just sore because he likes you. He’s jealous.”

  “He’s not—”

  Mae cut her off with a droll eye roll. “I may sit in a different part of the office, but I’m not blind, Amelia. Anyway, you’ve got a call. It’s my niece, actually. The one I always tell you about.”

  Right, the one who worked at USA Today. The “real journalist” Mae had brought up again just a few weeks ago.

  Mae must have read the direction of Amelia’s thoughts now. “Don’t worry, she’s not calling to recruit you. She’s calling about . . .” Oddly, Mae seemed to soften. “Well, anyway, she’ll tell you.”

  Amelia glanced in Logan’s office on her way back to her desk. Had he even moved in the past five minutes?

  She lowered to her chair and picked up her phone. “This is Amelia.”

  “Amelia Bentley? Hi, this is Belle Waldorf with USA Today, the Chicago office, and I can barely believe I’m making this call. Or, rather, that I’m making it to my aunt’s office, of all places.” She laughed, a tinkling sound that seemed to fit her name. “I knew your name sounded familiar when I was doing my research, and when I Googled you and realized why, my jaw dropped and my bubblegum fell out of my mouth and—”

  She finally paused to take a breath.

  Amelia twirled the phone cord around her finger, waiting for the moment when this call might make any kind of sense.

  “Anyway, I’ll just get to the point. Were you married to Jeremy Lucas?”

  The phone cord snapped against her finger. “Excuse me?”

  “Actually, I don’t really need to ask. I have the information right in front of me. I’m nothing if not a good researcher. But Aunt Mae acted surprised when I told her why I was calling, like she didn’t know and—”

  “Why are you calling?”

  Belle laughed again, completely oblivious—of course—to the tension her question had invited into this conversation, so thick it was like a third person on the call. Amelia stared at her computer screen, now asleep.

  “I write personality profiles, and my editor has been after me to get an interview with Jeremy Lucas for months. You’d think his publicist or manager or whoever would be better at responding to inquiries from the press.”

  “He’s picky about publicity.” It slipped out. Present tense. As if she’d just seen him yesterday and talked about it.

  But it’d certainly been the truth years ago. He was so picky that if he couldn’t micro-manage the story, he simply said no to the interview request. He had eagle-eye focus, knew exactly the direction he wanted to steer his career.

  And nothing—not an uncooperative reporter or a wife who couldn’t cordon her hurt—would get in his way.

  “I just thought, maybe a personal call from someone he knew might help me nab an interview. So I started looking for any kind of connection, found out he had an ex-wife—”

  “Belle—”

  “I realize this is probably completely uncomfortable, but seriously, picture an alarm clock that just keeps buzzing no matter how many times you hit snooze. That’s my editor nagging me about this story. And anyway, I just couldn’t believe it when I realized the Amelia Bentley who used to be married to Jeremy Lucas is the same Amelia Bentley my aunt’s always telling me about.”

  This conversation was giving her a headache. “You mean the Amelia Bentley she’s always trying to pawn off on you?”

  “Ha! She thinks you’re great.”

  “She thinks I’m a joke.”

  “That’s just Aunt Mae. The more she likes you, the more she grouches at you. It’s her love language. Anyhow, if there’s anything you can do to help me—make a call or write an email—I’d really appreciate it.”

  “The thing is, I’m not in touch with Jeremy. It’s been almost three years since we divorced.” And even if she did call, what were the chances he still had the same number?

  Or that he’d even answer?

  “I’d do whatever I could to return the favor. USA Today has openings all the time, and I’ve got friends at other papers if you’re looking to move—”

  “I’m not.” She twisted in her chair, wishing for a way to escape this call, the intrusion of her past.

  Logan came into view once more—Freddie’s tattered old chair, the cubbyhole of an office. Wait a second.

  “You said you do personality profiles?”

  “Yep. It’s my bread and butter.”

  “You ever interview political speech writers?” The question came out of her mouth while the idea was still percolating.

  Logan and that partner of his were frustrated because whatever presidential candidate they’d hoped to work for seemed to have forgotten them. Well, could being featured in a national publication get Logan back on the candidate’s radar?

  In other words, you want to help him leave Maple Valley?

  No. But she did want to help him. And after all he’d done for her . . . besides, maybe Owen had a point. Maybe she was getting overly attached.

  Distance. That’s what you need. Distance and space to get your head on straight.

  So she’d meddle in Logan’s career not only to help him, but also as a reminder to herself that his life wasn’t here.

  “There’s this guy.” She started in, told Belle all about Logan. His work at the paper, his success in California, his ridiculously good writing. “People don’t really know what speech writers and political consultants do, you know?”

  “Yeah, but do they want to know?” Belle’s skepticism traveled through the phone line. “I mean, most people I know were jaded by politics long ago.”

  “Trust me, I’m one of them.” Unfair as it was, life with Jeremy had soured her to most kinds of public-platform individuals. “But Logan’s different. He’s one of those sincere people who really wants to make a difference. He takes such care with his writing.”

  “So he’s interesting?”

  “Oh, he’s interesting.”

  “Is he single?”

  She spun back to her desk. “Uh—”

  “I’m just saying, the way you said interesting makes me think you might have a few synonyms for the word other than Webster’s standard definition.”

  Amelia’s feet flattened on the floor. “Would you ever consider doing a story on him?”

  “Straight-up avoidance. I like your style.” Belle paused. “Look, I can’t guarantee it’d make it into the print edition. But it could make it onto the website, and I’ve got a blog that my editor gives me pretty much free rein with. So I could feature him there.”

  Oh, she hoped Logan would like this. He was so reticent about ever being in the spotlight. Look at the way he’d reacted that night at The Red Door when Raegan had asked him to sing.

  But if it could help his career . . .

  “But just so I’m understanding,” Belle said, “I do a story on Logan and you get me an interview with your ex-husband?”

  Amelia let out a sigh and then turned at the sound of Logan’s office door opening. He held his cell phone to his ear, his expression harried. Yes, for him, she could call Jeremy. “I’ll do my best, Belle.”

  They exchanged contact information, and she hung up as quickly as she could. “Everything okay, Logan?”

  He dropped his phone into his pocket. “I have to go. Kate was going to watch Charlie tonight for me—I had . . . plans—but apparently Megan’s in labor and Kate needs to be there, so I guess—”

  Amelia stood. “I can watch Charlie.”

  “Really?” Relief and reluctance mingled in his expression. “She was pretty sick. There could still be germs—”

 
“I’ve got a great immune system. Do whatever you were planning to do tonight. I’ll head over to your house right now.”

  She could kick herself for the way her heart tilted when he smiled at her and when he spoke. “You’re the best, Amelia.”

  The best or just plain crazy. She’d just agreed to call Jeremy solely for Logan’s sake. And for the sake of distance.

  Her gaze snagged on the gratefulness in his magnetic eyes.

  Distance. Yeah. Right.

  He couldn’t believe he’d actually hoped Jenessa would answer the door.

  Or that he was even here, really. The brick two-story home where the Belvilles resided, once one of the grander houses in Maple Valley, seemed to sag with age. The cement steps leading to the front door were crumbling, the black metal railing rusty and crooked. The lattice that used to climb one side of the house was a knotty tangle of stripped stems.

  He balanced the carefully piled stack of cake pans in his arms and used his elbow to ring the doorbell. A battery of storm clouds gathered overhead, weighty with rain that threatened to fall any minute. Oh, he should’ve warned Amelia—let her know Charlie hated thunder.

  Maybe he shouldn’t be here at all.

  Too late, though. The door swung open, and Jenessa appeared. Cheeks gaunt and sweater hanging from bony shoulders. “What are you doing here?”

  He hardly knew. She’d made it clear twice already that she didn’t want to see him. And the glare in her eyes told him the third time wasn’t the charm in her case.

  Still. He must be a glutton for punishment because he had to at least try. “I brought some meals. I’ve had some extra time at home because Charlie’s had the flu. Raegan and Kate helped and—”

  “You think I want flu-contaminated food?”

  “Jen.” A few pans of lasagna and chicken casseroles shouldn’t be so heavy, but the muscles in his arms pinched.

  The glower didn’t leave her face, but at least she stepped aside, beckoned him in. “I don’t know why you felt the need to do this. I’m capable of feeding my family.”