by Claire Adams
I handed Chloe the water and gave her a wink. “I for one was relieved when I saw Chloe’s pies. I was afraid all we would have is that terrible cobbler Caroline makes every year.”
My mother picked up one of the pieces of potatoes off the carving board in front of her and threw it at me. It bounced off the side of my head. Chloe laughed. “She’s abusing me and you laugh?”
“I already told her that I’m the one that makes the cobbler, so she knows you deserved it. Why don’t you go watch hockey with your father and brother?”
I wrinkled my nose. “You don’t like hockey, either?” Chloe asked, shocked.
“Not particularly,” I said.
She shook her head. “Whatever do you do on long, Sunday afternoons?” Chloe was looking down at the carrots she was chopping. I grinned but before I answered her, I looked up and saw my mother looking at me. She lifted her knife and pointed it at me. I snickered and kissed Chloe on the cheek before saying,
“I read a lot. I’m going to watch hockey.” Chloe smiled at me. Mom rolled her eyes.
I escaped right into the living room where Dad and my brother were huddled in front of a roaring fire and a seventy-inch television watching the New York Rangers lose a hockey game. Personally, I’d rather poke a stick in my eye than sit in front of the television when there was a gorgeous woman in the other room.
“So, what’s new, son?” Dad asked during a break in the hockey action.
“Not much, Dad. Working hard.”
Frank looked toward the kitchen and said, “You and Chloe seem to be getting along well.”
I nodded. “Yeah, we’re doing okay.”
Dad and Frank looked at each other and Dad hit the mute button on the television. Here we go… “What are your intentions with that girl, son?”
I couldn’t help it, I laughed. “My intentions?”
“Yeah, she seems head over heels about you.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“Not if you feel the same about her,” Frank said.
“You know, I had a similar conversation with a good friend last night. What have I become, the Big Bad Wolf?”
Dad and Frank looked at each other again. My dad didn’t get involved in my life much, but I could feel the lecture coming here. “How old is Chloe?”
“Twenty-four.”
“She’s awfully young.”
“She’s an adult, Dad.”
“Yes, and you’re an almost forty-year-old man who has been married, divorced, and through half of the eligible women in New York.”
“Wow, harsh.”
“I’m sorry, son; you know I don’t mean to say anything negative about you. After you and Lisa divorced, we just wrote your dating habits off to sowing some oats you had left in you. But that was thirteen years ago, and you’re still living the same life. It’s not that any of us are judging your life, either. What we’re worried about is where this sweet, seemingly innocent woman fits in to that.”
“I don’t have any intentions of hurting her, Dad.” Another twinge of guilt. I liked her, a lot. But was I prepared to stay married? I didn’t think so.
“Good, see that you don’t.”
I chuckled. “You all like her more than you do me, don’t you?”
Frank nodded and Dad murmured a “Yep,” before turning the volume back up on the television. They were finished with me.
I leaned back into the chair and shook my head. Chloe had the ability to make an impression on people. She’d already made more of an impression on me than I’d ever thought possible. I usually loved time with my family. Today, I just couldn’t wait for it to be over so that I could have my time alone with her.
That was going to be even more difficult after the surprise I had arranged for her arrived. But strangely as self-indulgent as I usually liked to be, I was looking forward to seeing her reaction to that even more than I was gratifying my own needs. Something was happening to me, I just wasn’t sure I wanted to admit what it was just yet.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHLOE
Once Carolyn and the kids and then Whitney and Max and their kids arrived, Logan’s parents’ house was loud and chaotic – and just the way I liked it. I’d been sad all day, ever since I talked to my own mother that morning. I missed her, all of them, so badly.
I told myself I was being ridiculous. It had only been a little over a month since I’d seen them. But it was the holidays and where I came from that was a big deal.
I didn’t cry on the phone, but I had been on the verge of tears right up until the rest of Logan’s family arrived. As much as watching them together made me miss my own family, it also warmed my heart and took my mind off it somewhat.
“The turkey will be done at two o’clock,” Charlotte announced around noon. “Logan, don’t you and Chloe need to run that errand soon?”
Logan and I were on the couch watching the hockey game with his Dad and brother while Max and the boys put together a Lego set on the floor. Kimber and Whitney were painting each other’s toenails. Caroline was in the kitchen making her “secret” potatoes. I was feeling comfortable and warm, and I didn’t have any desire to leave and run an errand. I looked questioningly at Logan.
“Oh, wow! Is it that time already? Yes, we definitely have to go run this errand.”
“Where are we going?” I asked him.
“It’s a surprise,” he said.
“Why don’t you let Chloe stay here, Logan? It’s cold out there.” Whitney was trying to help, but it drew her a sharp look from both Logan and his mother.
“I want her to go with me. Okay, the surprise is that I’m picking up Aunt Mabel and Uncle Hank at the airport. I want Chloe to meet them.”
“Seriously?” Frank asked. “Uncle Hank is going to have her trapped in the car for an hour telling her about his rheumatism.”
“Frank, you be nice; it’s the holidays,” Charlotte told him. “You two get going so you can be back in time for dinner.”
It didn’t seem like I had much choice in the matter, so I went along with it willingly. Logan had picked me up in his own car that morning. It was a jaguar and I wondered how we would manage to pick up anyone in that. When we got out to the garage, however, I discovered that when you’re a billionaire, you keep a variety of things handy, even seventy-thousand-dollar SUVs.
“So, what’s the real deal?” I asked him once we were on the road.
“What real deal?”
“You and your mother were acting awfully suspicious.”
“Oh, Mom’s always like that when Aunt Mabel and Uncle Hank are coming.” I narrowed my eyes at him. He kept his eyes on the road and grinned. He was obviously up to something; I just wasn’t sure what it was.
I relaxed back into the comfortable leather seats and decided I’d wait for the surprise, whatever it was. Logan turned on the radio and Christmas music came wafting out.
Once again, my eyes inadvertently filled with tears. I tried to bat them away before he noticed, but he looked over at me when we came to a stop sign and said, “Baby, are you okay?” He’d never called me baby before. Oddly, that made the tears multiply and before I could stop one of them escaped and rolled down my cheek.
“I’m fine,” I said, wiping it away. “I’m sorry. I just miss my folks.”
He gave me a sympathetic look. “I know it has to be hard for you being so far away from home for the holidays. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. I’m so blessed to have your family take me in just like I was one of them. I’d like to keep them if you and I ever… Well, I’d just like to keep them.”
“If we ever…what?”
“Well, I just meant when you and I aren’t seeing each other any longer, I’ll miss them.”
“You aren’t taking what Josiah said to heart, are you?”
“Oh no. I wasn’t even thinking about Josiah. But, well… I’m not… I mean….”
“You’re not planning on this lasting forever?”
It se
emed like such an odd question since we’d only been dating for a few weeks and when you threw in who he was, it was even odder. “I don’t really have any pre-conceived ideas about where this is going.”
“Really? None at all?”
“Logan, what are you getting at?”
“Nothing, but isn’t it normal for people to decide early on where they hope something will go? I mean, it doesn’t always work out that way, but sometimes you just know what you want as soon as you get to know someone.”
He pulled the SUV into the short-term parking lot of the airport and pulled a ticket from the parking machine. As he was looking for a place to park, I said, “So what are your pre-conceived ideas about us?”
He pulled the SUV into a spot and turned off the ignition. Without answering my question, he got out of the car and came around to open my door. When he pulled it open, instead of stepping back so I could step out, he put his hands on my hips and leaned in and pressed his forehead to mine. With his lips so close that I could almost taste them, he said, “I was thinking you and I might take this a little further than dating…someday.”
I had a deep tickle down in the center of my belly. Surely, he wasn’t talking about marriage. There was no way Logan Moreau would be talking about marriage, especially three weeks into our relationship. I’d be crazy to even suspect that. “What are you talking about?” I asked him with a quiver in my throat.
“Maybe I want to keep you – forever.”
“Logan, please don’t say things like that.”
“Why not?”
“Because you can’t possibly mean it.”
“What if I do?”
“Logan.” I had no idea what to say. What if he did? No, he didn’t, he couldn’t. There was no way a farm girl from Minnesota could come along and change his ways that quickly.
He stretched his lips out and kissed mine before he said, “We’ll talk more about this tonight. I didn’t mean to bring it up yet. We have to get in there before Aunt Mabel and Uncle Hank hail a cab.”
I nodded numbly. He hadn’t meant to bring it up “yet.” Did that mean he’d planned on talking to me about this? Was he talking about marriage? How was I going to concentrate on anything else the rest of the day?
Logan held my hand and led me through the airport to the American Airlines terminal. He asked the lady at the reception desk for directions to the gate he was looking for. I followed him like a zombie, trying both not to think about what he’d said and to figure out what he’d meant. I was so lost in my thoughts that when I heard my mother’s voice, it didn’t register it was her until she said my name again.
“Chloe?” I looked up and there she was. My dad was with her and my sister and her husband Brett and all three of the boys. I looked from them to Logan in shock. He winked at me and said,
“You should go hug them.” I hugged him first. I’m not sure what I did to deserve him, but that was the moment when I knew for sure that I wanted to keep him.
*****
By the time we got back to Logan’s family’s home with my family and a very real Uncle Hank and Aunt Mabel, they had brought in another table and now two tables were set up side by side in the dining room. Charlotte was just bringing out the turkey and while Logan’s dad carved it, the introductions were made with hugs all around. The volume in the house had gone up another ten decibels at least with the addition of the six adults and three kids. I couldn’t stop smiling.
Uncle Hank talked about his rheumatism, and Aunt Mabel talked about her garden. My dad and Logan’s dad talked about farming. Logan’s dad was retired from the parks and recreation department in Vancouver and knew a lot about plants and trees. My dad’s main crop was hay, but we did have an orchard. My mom and Charlotte went between talking to each other about their kids and grandkids and talking to one of the kids and grandkids.
I took in as much of it all as I could, but as often as possible my eyes fell on Logan’s face and I had to fight them to leave. No one had ever done anything like this for me before and it was one more reason for me to disbelieve that what everyone wanted to tell me about him simply using me for sex and tossing me away and one more reason for me to fall deeper in love with him.
I shuddered at that thought. I knew it was too soon. I knew people usually knew each other for months or years before they fell in love. I also knew that what I felt for him was too deep and felt too good to be anything else. I loved him and if what he’d mentioned earlier about there being a future for us was true, I knew I’d be the happiest woman in the world.
“So, Logan, how long have you and my daughter been dating?” I heard my father ask. I tried to suppress a smile at the nervous look on Logan’s face. He cleared his throat and said,
“A few weeks now, sir.”
“Hmm,” Dad said. He had to know it hadn’t been any longer than that. I’d only been in New York for about a month. Dad looked at me and I knew what he was thinking. All of this, the holiday and the family stuff, it was all too soon. It had taken him two years to admit that he was in love with my mother and he liked to say that was a part of why they had lasted so long.
“How’s the turkey, Mr. Dupree?” Charlotte always seemed to know what to say and when. I loved her.
“It’s delicious, and so is everything else,” he said. “These potatoes are incredible. What’s in them?” That prompted Caroline to start talking about her “secret” potatoes. Max said she hadn’t even shared the recipe with him. While they all talked, I looked at Logan again. He was looking at me this time and when no one else was looking he mouthed,
“Cottage?” He pointed at his watch. I looked at my father and back at him with a shrug. He gave me a horrified look, and I smiled and winked. He reached up and wiped his brow with a grin. Yep, I love him.
CHAPTER TWENTY
LOGAN
Thanksgiving this year would go down in history as the longest day ever. I had a great time and I enjoyed the hell out of meeting Chloe’s family, even though her father seemed slightly suspicious of me.
But since five a.m., I’d been looking forward to having her alone and now as I waited at the cottage for her to finish tucking in her nephews at my sister’s house where the family was staying, I was pacing a hole in the floor. I had the velvet box in my hand and when my phone rang, it startled me so much that I jumped and dropped it.
“Shit.” I bent down and scooped it up and went and got my phone off the counter. When I saw it was Mel, I almost didn’t answer it, but I knew she wouldn’t give up that easily. “Hello, Mel. Happy Thanksgiving. How is New Jersey?”
“It’s Jersey,” she said in her Jersey shore accent. It rarely came out, but when it did, she sounded just like she could fit in on the reality show. “It’s good. Folks are good. Dinner was awesome; I’m stuffed and ready for bed. Did you propose yet?”
I shook my head. “What if I’d been in the middle of it when you called?”
“I figured you would have been smart enough not to answer the phone if that had been the case.”
“I haven’t had a chance yet. We’ve been surrounded by family all day. She’ll be here any minute and then I’m going to do it. So, don’t call back.”
“Because when she says yes then you’re going to do her?”
“You’re not getting your Christmas bonus.”
“Not unless you get married, that’s for sure.”
“Good night, Mel.”
“Good luck, boss.”
I put the phone down just as Chloe walked into the house. Her cheeks were flushed from the cold but she was still smiling from ear to ear. I barely let her get out of her coat before I attacked her. I put my arms around her and pressed her into the wall. We shared a long, deep kiss and when neither of us could breathe any longer I finally broke it.
“Wow…that was…wow.”
I smiled. “Yes, it was. I’ve been dying to do that all day.”
“Me, too.” She put her arms around me again and pulled me in for a hug. “Thank
you again for bringing my family here. I can’t believe you did that. I didn’t even have a chance to ask how you managed it.”
I shrugged. “I stole your mother’s number off your phone last time we were together. She and I have been talking for a few days. I like her.”
“She likes you, too.”
“I’m not so sure about your dad, though.”
Chloe laughed. “Daddy hated Brett for the first three years my sister dated him. He’s just protective, that’s all. He’ll love you once he gets to know you, and my sister will have another reason to say I’m his favorite.”
I put my arm around her and walked her into the living room where I already had a fire roaring. I guided her down onto the couch and knelt in front of her. I took her face in my hands and kissed her again. I was trying to work up my nerve.
I knew I wanted to stay in the U.S. I knew I had feelings for Chloe. I knew that being married to her would probably be fun, at least for a while. But I was still scared to death.
When I proposed to Lisa, I’d known she and I would be together forever. By now, our kids should have been about Kimber’s age. But after worshipping everything about her for so long, she walked out of my life and left me alone. I knew that I never wanted to set myself up for that again, so I had to do this, but I also had to be prepared to end it before my own feelings got out of hand.
“Chloe, there’s something I want to ask you.”
“Okay.” Her eyes sparkled with the light of the fire. She’s so damned pretty. Sometimes, I believe that I could look at her forever.
“I’ve really enjoyed our time together and I think we really click. We have so much in common and my family loves you.” I hesitated and tried to gauge her expression. Did she know what I was about to ask her? Was she going to say no? I cleared my throat and said, “Chloe will you marry me?”
She didn’t look happy. She looked shocked and almost sick. God, did she hate the thought of it that badly? “Did you…?”