Like Never Before

by Melissa Tagg

  “Can I come in?”

  “It’s unlocked.”

  He opened the heavy door and stepped inside, warm air tinged with a cool from above and a sweet smell that reminded him of . . . camping?

  He stopped in the middle of the living room, suddenly feeling intrusive. A cast-off pair of shoes lay in the middle of a rug. An open book on the coffee table. A sweater over the edge of the couch. An empty cup on the desk. Only a small lamp, antique-looking, with beads dangling around the shade, lit the space with dim, ocher light.

  And then she stood in front of him, her footsteps on the stairs having barely registered as he gulped in the very Amelia-ness of this house. It shouldn’t feel so . . .

  He didn’t have the word for it. Comfortable? Soothing?

  Needed.

  Her brow pinched as she studied him now, hazel eyes locked on his and probably wondering why he wasn’t saying anything. She wore pajama pants and a sweatshirt, hair in a wind-ruffled ponytail, and slippers on her feet.

  “I think you need a s’more.”

  He blinked. “Excuse me?”

  “You look like I felt today. Only one cure for that in my book. Or if not a cure, at least a pretty good pain reliever.”

  She turned to the kitchen, and like a man dazed—or maybe just hungry—he simply followed.

  She was already pulling open cupboards and twisting the dial on the stovetop. “I know you Walkers consider yourselves the experts on breakfast. Well, what you can do with eggs, I can do with marshmallows.”

  “Amelia—”

  She lifted a fork from a drawer and pointed at the kitchen table. “Sit.”

  He sat.

  “I don’t know why other people don’t get more creative with their s’mores. There’s a whole world of possibilities out there, and we settle for Hershey bars? No thanks.” She opened another cupboard.

  He gasped. “You have an entire shelf of candy bars?”

  She angled so he could see her smirk. “Two shelves. Don’t sell me short, Walker. Now what’s your damage? Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups or Milky Way?”

  He only stared.

  “O-kay. Both.” She stuck two marshmallows on two different forks. “Actually you can help. Hold these over the burner for me?”

  So this was what he’d smelled when he walked into the house. For the next couple minutes, he stood next to her at the stove, watching shades of brown curl over the marshmallows as Amelia prepared the rest of her ingredients. She used a spoon to flatten the mini Milky Way atop a graham cracker. Set the peanut butter cup on its own cracker.

  The smell, the warmth of the stove, Amelia’s ease with him in her kitchen . . .

  He could almost forget he’d launched angry words at her Saturday. Had his feet knocked out from under him today.

  They don’t trust me. Rick and Helen don’t trust me to raise my own daughter.

  “Amelia—”

  “Ooh, careful, they’re about to go black.” She pulled the forks from his hands, slid the marshmallows free, and squished them into graham cracker sandwiches. She held the plate to him. “Here you go. My version of a nightcap at the end of a bad day.”

  “How do you know it was a bad day?”

  “You didn’t show up at the office. You haven’t shaved. You’re not wearing a tie. You didn’t even scold me for my candy stash.” She waited until he took the plate and then brushed past him. “Come on.”

  And then he was following her again, practically mute. Past her desk and up the stairs and into her bedroom, where a blast of chilly air churned from the still-open loft doors. Unmade bed with pink-striped sheets. Bookshelves spilling paperbacks. White shag rug and a wooden wardrobe Lenny had probably handcrafted.

  Amelia was already sitting at the window. He moved to her side, lowering to the cold floor. Faint moonlight traced the willow tree’s drooping branches and shimmered over snow-covered fields.

  “Nice view. But don’t you freeze when you sit up here like this?”

  “Sure, but cold air helps me think. Has this way of helping me mentally and emotionally declutter. It’s refreshing. Besides, I’ve got blankets.” She pointed to a stack beside him.

  He bit into the first s’more. “You weren’t kidding. This is amazing.”

  “Glad you think so. I know it’s no fancy omelet, and it’s sticky and messy to eat and—”

  She cut herself off, laughing as he pulled stringy, melted marshmallow away from his mouth.

  This. This was why he’d come here. Because in two years of burying himself in work and fatherhood, of feeling alone in every scarce moment in between, somehow with Amelia, the isolation crumbled.

  Oh, he’d always had Theo and his wife. Colton had been a good friend. He saw his sisters often enough, and Beckett was only ever a phone call away, even if he hardly ever saw him. And there was Dad . . .

  But Amelia was different. He didn’t know how, but she’d tunneled her way past the confident, hold-it-all-together exterior he wore like a suit of armor, his way of convincing the world—or maybe just himself—his wife’s death hadn’t shattered him.

  “Amelia.” He set down the plate, needing to say these words before he finished eating. “On the day of Emma’s accident, the day she died, I was at a friend’s recording studio.”

  Amelia opened her mouth, maybe to ask why he was telling her this, where it’d come from. But she must’ve changed her mind, because she only pressed her lips together and waited.

  “I played in high school all the time and even in college. Fiddled for a while with trying to actually do something with music. Kind of unrealistic, I guess, and Emma encouraged me to pick a focus and stick with it. I picked writing.” A bristling wind sluiced past the window. “Anyway, I’d been missing playing and got this impulse to pick it up again. I didn’t tell Emma. I don’t know why I didn’t tell her. Maybe I was embarrassed or thought she’d think it was childish. I don’t know.”

  A shiver vibrated through him, urging him on. “The point is, I held a piece of me back from her, and she died not knowing. I was carelessly strumming a guitar while she was pinned in her car.” The image—one he’d never even seen with his own eyes but that had fully formed all the same in years of tormenting imagination. “And when the police called, I was so into what I was doing at the studio, I didn’t answer.”

  “Oh, Logan.” Her voice was barely a breath.

  His own, strangled. “She died an hour after arriving at the hospital. I got there minutes too late. If I’d just answered that call, I might’ve had time to . . .”

  He couldn’t say any more, lost in the pain that racked him. For once he let the anguish heave against his ribs and escape in quiet shudders and hot tears he couldn’t see through. All he could do was feel—grief and release.

  And Amelia’s hand sliding over his back and her face burying in his neck.

  “I’m sorry—”

  She cut him off with a shake of her head, his tears landing in her hair. Her other arm wound around the front of him.

  And he didn’t know how much time passed—five minutes, ten, maybe more—as two years’ worth of heartache and remorse poured from him until he felt emptied. Bereft and undone.

  Still.

  Save for Amelia shivering against him but still holding on. Tight. As if this loft floor might tilt, and she alone would keep him from falling.

  With his free hand, he reached for a blanket, orange and wooly. Managed to drape it over their huddled form and then kept his arm around her. Waited until he could push words from hollowed lungs. “I’m sorry about Saturday night.”

  “No, I’m sorry. If I’d known . . .” Her breath was warm against his neck.

  “But you didn’t.”

  Maybe he should feel embarrassed at the way he’d broken down, cried in front of her. But somehow there wasn’t space for humiliation now.

  Only . . . understanding.

  The blanket slipped from her shoulder, and he tugged it back into place. “You’re right about
the loft and the cold.”

  “I know.”

  Silent, steadying moments ticked by, and only when Amelia shifted, moved her head to his shoulder, did he speak again. “Hey, Amelia?”

  “Hmm?”

  “I have to go to D.C. later this week.” He paused. “Want to come with?”

  “To Washington, D.C.?”

  “I want to bring Charlie along, but I’ve got a big meeting.” Was he making it sound like he only wanted her along as a babysitter? So not even close to the truth of it.

  “But the Maple Valley Market is next weekend. First big event of the spring.”

  Right, the one when all the businesses in town set up booths in the town square. This town would use any excuse for a shindig.

  “I always help with it.”

  Because she never missed a town event. And for the first time since he’d met her, that particular quirk seemed less charming and more . . . unsettling.

  This is her home. Everything she loves is here.

  Still, he couldn’t help himself. “You’ll be back in time for the Market. Promise.”

  She glanced up at him, moonlight-speckled eyes he could lose himself in.

  “Come along?”

  Dear Mary,

  If you were my daughter, I’d tell you about Kendall Wilkins. I’ve told a few people about how he paid my college tuition for the couple years I attended. How he wrote me letters.

  But I haven’t told them how he helped me stand up to my family. My parents, you see, were not fans of my decision to major in history. “You’ll never find a job with that degree,” they said. “Why can’t you find a useful major like Eleanor?”

  I told this to Kendall in one of my early letters my freshman year. And you know what he wrote back?

  “Poppycock, Miss Bentley.” (Yes, he actually used the word poppycock.) “I’m not paying for your education so you can study something ‘useful.’ I’m paying for your education because I felt your passion in that essay you wrote. The way history enchants you. To you, it’s more than dates and facts—it’s stories and lingering mystery and legacies.

  “Don’t settle, Miss Bentley. Nurture your passion and, I promise, one day you’ll discover its purpose.”

  He was right.

  I just wish I’d held on to that advice later.

  13

  I can’t believe we’re here.”

  Amelia basked in the white light cratering down from the ceiling of the Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall in the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum. In front of her, the silver wings of the Spirit of St. Louis reached outward, its body tilted up, as if ready for flight.

  Charles Lindbergh’s plane. Right in front of her.

  “I’ve heard you say that before.” Logan stood next to her, Charlie sitting atop his shoulders. “At Mount Rushmore.”

  Twice now Logan had escorted her to a sight that took her breath away. “Can you believe how small it is? Can you imagine flying more than thirty hours over a crystal ocean, by yourself, in something so little?”

  “And I thought our coach seats were cramped this morning.”

  She turned to Logan. Speaking of things that took her breath away . . .

  They’d gone straight to the hotel after landing in D.C. While she and Charlie had jumped on the bed in her room as a cartoon played on the flatscreen, she’d heard the splatter of Logan’s shower next door, the buzzing hum of his razor.

  Thirty minutes later, he’d knocked on the door joining their rooms, and she hadn’t been able to stop the “whoa” that’d slid out. Perfectly fitted metallic-gray suit and pale plum tie—the light colors making his eyes and hair seem even darker than before. Gone was the hint of a beard that usually stubbled his cheeks, and maybe she would’ve missed it if not for the alluring spice of his aftershave.

  “Do I look worthy of a presidential candidate?”

  She’d had to cough to make her voice work. “I think she’ll find you passable.”

  He’d grinned then, and she’d suddenly loved and hated Roberta S. Hadley all at once. Loved because without the politician’s summons, she wouldn’t be here with Logan and his daughter, a part of their world, however temporary.

  Hated because Hadley’s interest meant Logan wasn’t long for Maple Valley.

  But no. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t think of that now. Just like they’d apparently made an unspoken pact not to talk about that kiss last Saturday in the janitor’s closet. And anyway, Logan had whisked them to the museum for a hurried visit before his one o’clock meeting. She wouldn’t ruin this surprise with thoughts of the future.

  “You do know this makes the four-thirty a.m. wakeup entirely worth it.”

  Logan’s hands held Charlie’s legs in place over his shoulders, apparently no care to the way his daughter mussed his rakish hair. “I just wish we could see more of it. I’ve only got fifteen minutes before I need to catch a cab.”

  She turned back to the plane. “This is enough.” To think, this small aircraft had survived not only a historic flight across the ocean, but the swell of the 150,000 people who’d rushed the French field after Lindbergh landed.

  “We’re lucky to be visiting when we are.” Logan followed her around the plane. “It’s usually suspended overhead. Only reason it’s down on the floor is because of renovations.”

  Amelia pointed. “See how the fuel tanks are ahead of the cockpit? That was for safety, but it meant Lindbergh couldn’t see directly in front of him without using a periscope. Or he’d just turn the plane and look out a side window.”

  “Just how many Lindbergh biographies have you read, Bentley?”

  “You saw the bookshelves in my bedroom. At least one is dedicated solely to Lucky Lindy.”

  “Did you ever think of doing something with your slightly over-the-top love of this stuff?”

  “What, like work in a museum?”

  Charlie’s feet knocked against Logan’s blazer, and he crouched to let her down. “Or write for a historical magazine or become a biographer or . . . I don’t know. Just makes me a little sad that you’re stuck in Maple Valley writing about street repavings and the occasional petty crime instead of indulging your . . .”

  “History geek side?”

  He grabbed ahold of Charlie’s hand. “You said it, not me.”

  “Well, I appreciate the concern, Logan, but what I write about back home is important to the people who live there, my friends and neighbors. So it’s important to me, too. It may not be the kind of stuff that’s immortalized in museums and books, but it matters.” She paused. “I’m not discontent.”

  She meant what she said. And yet, she couldn’t deny the flicker of passion this museum had flamed to life. There was an aura here—something both mysterious and satiating.

  How much more amazing would it have been to witness history in real life? Like Kendall Wilkins had, watching this plane land, experiencing the throng and thrill at Le Bourget Field.

  And he hadn’t been alone. There’d been somebody who’d shared the memory.

  “You’re thinking about Kendall, aren’t you?” Logan asked

  “I’m thinking about Kendall and Harry Wheeler. And how crazy it’d be to be mistaken for someone like Charles Lindbergh. For a few minutes, to have so many eyes on you—to feel that kind of adoration. If he’d ever felt small or unseen, I bet he didn’t in those moments.”

  Even as Charlie tugged on his hand and tourists filtered around them, Amelia could feel Logan’s gaze on her.

  “But the adoration wasn’t meant for him.” Thoughtfulness layered his comment. “They weren’t really seeing him, only who they thought he was.”

  “I guess . . .”

  He shrugged. “I just think one person seeing you for who you really are is better than 150,000 people who’ve got it wrong.”

  But what if that one person chose to stop seeing you? What if you could feel yourself disappearing from his world? “I thought Jeremy saw me,” she said. She hadn’t meant
to let it out. Hated that she did.

  But Logan would’ve heard it even if she hadn’t said it.

  “I’m going to make a guess that Jeremy only ever saw himself.” He tipped his head to one side. “Because when you really let people see you, Amelia—all of you, not just the snow-obsessed reporter—it’s impossible to look away.”

  Her breathing hitched, his sincerity, the depth of what he’d just said . . . the way he looked away when he said it, as if surprised by his own honesty.

  “Daddyyyy. Swim.” Charlie’s voice poked in then, not breaking the moment so much as adding to it. Because at the sound of her voice, Logan’s eyes filled with delight. She wasn’t speaking in sentences yet. But clearly just a couple weeks in therapy was already helping.

  “You’ll get to swim soon enough, Charlie. First we need to let Amelia ooh and ahh a little more over the plane.”

  “See how the window curves over the cockpit? Even though it was cold and icy during his flight, Lindbergh kept it open to help him stay awake.” She circled the plane a second time, stopped at its nose and lifted her phone to take a photo. “Thirty-three hours of flight. What if he’d dozed off?”

  “You must’ve read those Lindy books as many times as my last editorial.”

  She snapped a photo. “I never should’ve told you about that.”

  “Don’t be embarrassed. You know good writing when you see it, that’s all.”

  He twirled Charlie in a dancing turn with one arm as he teased, and oh, those crinkles at the corners of his eyes could set aflight a thousand butterflies in a girl’s stomach. “I wonder when he finally got to get some rest. When he landed, he was immediately whisked off. Later, he came back to look at the plane to make sure the crowd hadn’t destroyed it. The plane survived, but it was definitely damaged—that’s why he looks so unhappy in some of the photos taken the next day.”

  “Or maybe he was just jet-lagged.” Charlie had clamped onto his leg now, sitting on the museum floor.

  “Your poor daughter is bored to death. And you’ve got a meeting. We should get back.”

  “You don’t have to leave. I was going to catch my own cab. Stay here. See the rest of the museum. There was another plane you wanted to see. What was it? Long name, starts with a T.”