by Tracy Wolff
He focused on her like the lifeline she was—with every ounce of concentration he had in his body. “I’m fine. Sorry I’m late. If there was any way I could have gotten here on time…”
His voice trailed off and he soaked in every detail of her. She looked good tonight—really good. Dressed in jeans that hugged her abundant curves and a hot pink knit shirt that showed off her glowing skin while also cupping her breasts, it was hard to imagine she was the mother of an eight-year-old son. His eight-year-old son.
For a minute, he was transported to high school, when they’d hung out here and talked about how much they wanted out of this town. He had never minded Prospect, but Paige had wanted out with a single-minded intensity that had bordered on obsession. He had gone along with her because—well, because he hadn’t wanted to lose her. In the end, nothing had worked out the way they’d planned, and even after all these years it was still a kick in the ass that they’d both gotten out, but it hadn’t been together.
“It’s okay, Dad. Mom and I talked about how important your job is and how sometimes you can’t get away.”
Logan froze at the sound of the nervous little voice, a million emotions and thoughts rushing through him at the same time. His son had called him Dad—something that had seemed a hundred years off even a week ago. Paige had made excuses for him—something he wouldn’t have guessed possible based on her animosity towards him. The entire ice cream parlor was looking at them, eavesdropping—something he should be used to, but that he totally resented now, as he met his son for the first time. This was personal, and no one else’s business but his, Paige’s and Luke’s.
Knowing he couldn’t avoid it any longer—not wanting to avoid it, despite his own all-consuming nervousness—Logan turned to his son. And was struck again by how beautiful he was. Luke’s silver eyes were alive with intelligence and mischief and his little face was glowing, much as his mother’s did, as if he was lit up from the inside by some vibrance, that the rest of the world could only guess at.
“Thanks—” His voice broke and he cleared his throat, tried again. “Thanks a lot, Luke. I appreciate that. I’ve been really anxious to meet you.”
“I’ve been anxious to meet you, too.”
An awkward silence spread as Logan struggled for something else to say and he threw Paige a look of desperation, though he didn’t expect her to rescue him. He figured letting him anywhere near Luke was the limits of her beneficence.
But she surprised him. “Luke’s been waiting for you to get his ice cream. Why don’t you take him up to the counter and let him pick something out?”
He latched on to the suggestion like the lifeline it was. “Absolutely. What’s your favorite flavor?”
“I loooooooove strawberry ice cream.”
“Me, too.” Instinct had him holding his hand out, and his heart tripped when Luke unhesitatingly slipped his small hand into his. “It’s my favorite.”
“Cool! I also like chocolate chip.” Luke sent him a cagey look. “Can I get a scoop of each? I ate all my vegetables at dinner.”
He started to say “sure, of course,” he could have three scoops and a milkshake if he wanted—he could have anything—but remembered Paige at the last second. He glanced at her for permission, then felt as though he’d been hit in the stomach by a sledgehammer. The way she was smiling at Luke—as if the sun rose and set on their son—turned her from merely pretty to absolutely gorgeous. It made her nearly incandescent and he felt an unwanted tug low in his belly as he remembered a time when she had looked at him that way.
It had been the happiest time of his life—until he’d learned that he wasn’t the only one on the receiving end of her looks and kisses. That had nearly killed him, especially since he’d spent most of his life watching his father fool around on his mother. When it had happened to him, it had hit entirely too close to home.
“Since we had a deal, you can have two scoops. But that’s all. And don’t think it’s going to be a regular thing, mister.”
“Awesome! Thanks, Mom.” Luke looked up at him. “Is that okay, Dad? I mean, can I get two scoops like Mom says?”
“Of course.” He glanced at Paige, his eyes drawn to her like metal to a strong magnet. “What can I get for you and Penny?”
“Nothing for me,” Penny drawled, standing. “In fact, I think I’m going to head out. I’ve been up since five this morning. You don’t mind giving my sister and nephew a ride home tonight, do you, Logan?”
“No. Of course not.”
“But—”
Paige latched on to her sister’s hand. “I thought we were going to—”
“I know. But I’m tired, sis. You understand, don’t you?”
Paige didn’t answer, but it didn’t take many of his investigating skills to pick up on the silent battle of wills being waged between the two sisters. Penny must have won, though, because Paige finally said, “Okay. I’ll see you in a little while.” There was such disgust in the words and inflection, not to mention an implied threat, that he would have felt bad for Penny if he hadn’t felt so insulted at Paige’s obvious reluctance to have anything to do with him.
It was stupid, especially considering both their past and their last interaction, but there it was. He was obviously an idiot.
As Penny exited, he was left alone with his son and his—Paige. He didn’t know what else to call her at that point. “So, can I get you anything?”
“Come on, Mom. Decide.” Luke seemed to dance with impatience beside him.
“Okay, okay. You could give a woman a chance, you know.” She grinned at her son, then turned to Logan, including him in her amusement. “I’ll take a scoop of butter pecan, please.”
The tug in his belly became a hit from a sledgehammer as he realized how much he still liked being smiled at by Paige. A little tug of attraction pulled at him, but he ignored it. Concentrated instead on how good it felt to be included—even for a while—in the obvious affection between mother and son.
“Sure. All right, Luke. The sooner we get that ice cream, the sooner we can dig in.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
Paige laughed and Logan laughed with her. He couldn’t help it. Luke was too damn adorable for words.
A few minutes later they were sitting together, their ice cream in front of them. Luke dived into his like a starving man and Logan watched him with amazed indulgence.
“He can really put it away,” he commented to Paige as Luke shoved a particularly large bite of chocolate chip into his mouth.
“You have no idea. I’m already dreading the high school years.” But she reached out and tapped Luke on the forearm. “Let’s show your dad that you weren’t raised in a barn, hmm?”
Luke grinned. “Sorry, Mom. But this is the best ice cream ever.”
“It is,” Logan agreed. “I used to dream about it when I lived in Seattle.”
Luke looked scandalized. “They don’t have ice cream in Seattle?”
“They do. But none this good.”
“Oh.” He shoveled another bite into his mouth. “I can believe that. This is really good.”
Silence reigned for a few seconds, as Logan struggled to find a new topic. “So, what grade are you going into in the fall?”
“Third grade. Which is totally cool, because I don’t have to be on the baby side of the school anymore. Third, fourth and fifth graders get a whole separate wing.”
“That is cool. Where do you go to school?”
“I go to Seattle Prep. It’s really great, except for the fact that we have to wear dorky uniforms. None of the other kids who live near me have to wear uniforms to school, which stinks. Especially since, even on free dress days, we never get to wear jeans.”
“Rose wears a uniform to school as well, Luke, and she lives right next door to us.”
“That’s because she goes to my school, too, so that so doesn’t count. Besides, she’s a girl.” He said the last as if it was a cross between a particularly heinous br
eed of insect and mass murderer.
“Hey, I’m a girl, you know.” Paige infused her voice with mock outrage.
“But you’re a mom.”
“Oh. Is there an exemption from total girl uncoolness if you’re a mom?”
Luke flashed a grin, and for the first time Logan realized he had his mother’s dimple at the left corner of his mouth. “There is if you’re my mom.”
“Lucky me.”
“Exactly.”
Logan was struck anew by the easiness between Paige and her son. From all appearances, she was an incredible mother—something that didn’t jive with his preconceived notions about her. In fact, when he’d heard that she’d lost her kid in the supermarket, his first thought had been, of course. What could you expect from a woman who had come from the kind of house Paige had? A woman who spent a good portion of her life on her back?
Now, watching her with Luke made those thoughts feel disloyal—no matter how true they might be. Add in the fact that she was obviously doing well enough to afford to send their kid to private school, and he felt as though he was seeing a whole different side to Paige Matthews. A side that he couldn’t help respecting, despite everything that had already passed between them.
The time seemed to fly, as Logan concentrated on learning as much as he could about his son and Paige. The more he learned, the more impressed he was with both of them. Yet, in direct juxtaposition, the more his resentment of Paige also grew.
She’d deprived him of his son for eight years, deprived him of getting to know Luke as he changed from a baby to a toddler to the fun, amazing boy sitting in front of him now. He wanted those years back, wanted them with a vengeance, and it physically hurt that no matter how hard he wished, he would never, ever have them.
By the time he pulled his police cruiser in front of Penny’s house, his insides were a seething mass of emotions that he wasn’t sure how to sort out. Hell, he wasn’t sure he could sort them out. The only thing he knew for certain was that he wanted to see Luke again—and soon.
“You know, there’s a carnival coming to town next week. Do you want to go with me?” he asked his son as Luke crawled out of the car.
His face lit up. “Yeah! Will it have rides?”
“Of course.”
“And games? I love to shoot water into the clown’s mouth and try to win a prize.”
“I can’t guarantee that they’ll have that game, but I know that there will, indeed, be games.”
“Cool. I want to try and throw a ball into the goldfish bowls. Mom won me a fish that way last year, but he died a few months ago. I still have all his stuff, though, so a new fish would be good.”
Logan laughed—he couldn’t help himself. Not at his son, but at the happiness zinging its way through his system. “I’ll do my best to win you a fish.” And if he couldn’t, then he’d stop by the pet store in town. Frank would set him up with a whole aquarium full of fish if that’s what Luke wanted.
“Excellent. I’ll see you later, Dad.”
Paige cleared her throat. “Aren’t you forgetting something?” she asked her son.
“Oh, right. Thanks for the ice cream, Dad. It was great.” Then he did the most amazing thing. He reached in through Logan’s open window and gave him a big hug before turning and running up the steps and into the house.
If his heart hadn’t already been on the verge of exploding, that hug would have done him in. At least until he turned to Paige and realized she looked like she’d been sucking on a particularly sour lemon.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“I WOULD APPRECIATE IT if you asked me about taking Luke out before you invite him somewhere,” Paige said after they had both climbed out of the car, her tone as prim and proper as any schoolmarm’s.
Still buzzing on the hug he’d gotten from his son— his son—it took Luke a few seconds to comprehend that Paige was angry at him. Again. Once it sunk in, he felt an answering flare of annoyance inside him, but beat it down. No use both of them being upset—he didn’t need a replay of the other night, when they had parted only after hurling words such as lawyer and custody suit at each other.
“You’re right. I had such a good time with him tonight that I didn’t think. I’m sorry.”
Paige froze, as if his apology was the last thing she was expecting to hear. But it obviously mollified her as she relaxed, took a deep breath. “He had a really great time tonight, too.”
“You think so?” He hated that he sounded so anxious, as if he was in search of validation. But to be honest, he was.
“Are you kidding me? Luke’s a talker, don’t get me wrong. But he surpassed himself tonight. I’m shocked he let you get a word in edgewise.”
“I liked listening to him. He’s a great kid.” He paused, then said what he’d been thinking since arriving at the ice cream parlor. “You’ve done a great job with him.”
“Despite losing him in the grocery store?” There was no defensiveness in her tone, only an underlying amusement that had him returning the smile.
“Despite that. After meeting Luke, I guess I could see how it might be hard to keep track of all that energy.”
She laughed. “That’s an understatement. But usually I do a better job of it.”
Silence descended and he cleared his throat. “I should go.”
“Probably.”
Neither of them moved. He didn’t know why he didn’t climb in the car and drive away—it would be the smart thing to do. The right thing to do. But with the moonlight casting Paige’s face in shadows and the light wind bringing the scent of lilacs—her scent—straight to him, they might still have been teenagers in her parents’ driveway. For a minute, he wanted to return to that time when he could have pulled her into his arms and kissed her the way he was suddenly aching to do. Wanted to go back to when they were both too young and too stupid to realize that the future wasn’t necessarily theirs for the taking.
Of course, if he could go back, he would probably shake the hell out of himself, warn himself that nothing and no one was really what it seemed—especially not the girl he had loved above all else. But that eighteen-year-old kid would never have believed him, not when he had been so completely starstruck.
How many times had he ignored the warnings his parents, his friends, her own father had delivered to him?
How many times had he told himself that he was different—that what they had together was different?
Too many.
And she’d made a fool of him in front of his friends and teammates and he hadn’t been able to see past it.
Or maybe it was more like he hadn’t wanted to see past it. Though he’d told her, and himself, that her past hadn’t mattered to him, he’d known that that wasn’t strictly true. He hadn’t liked that she’d had sex with so many people, certainly more than he had at the time. Most days he’d avoided thinking about it, but at strange moments the numbers had come back to him—along with the fear that one of those others had been better than him. A better listener, a better boyfriend, a better lover.
There was a part of him that had almost been relieved when his friends had told him what she was doing. It had given him the excuse he’d needed to get away from Paige, and the feelings of inadequacy he didn’t know what to do with. He’d spent most of his life at the top—of the football team, the class rankings, the boyfriend scale. Playing second fiddle hadn’t come easily to him.
His thoughts made him shift uncomfortably, had him blurting out his intentions instead of working up to them. “I want to see Luke again.”
“I kind of figured that when you invited him to go to the carnival with you.”
“The carnival doesn’t come to town until next week—I want to see him before that.”
Her smile faded, her face growing wary. “All right. When do you want to see him?”
“Every day. I have a lot of catching up to do and I don’t want to wait any longer than I already have to get started.”
“YOU DON’T WANT TO WAIT? F
unny how this all keeps coming back around to what you want, Logan.”
“Don’t start, Paige. We agreed I’d have a chance to get to know Luke.”
“Getting to know him is one thing, spending every moment of your free time with him is another. I mean, sure, it’s great to be you. You waltz in here after eight years and take him for ice cream and to the carnival and I’m sure you’ll think of a lot of other great places to go in the next few weeks—”
“What’s wrong with that? I want him to enjoy himself, to be happy.”
“Well, good for you that you want to make Luke happy. But children’s happiness doesn’t always come from eating buckets of sugar and throwing up on rides. It comes from structure, from a schedule. From knowing he can count on you to be there to make sure breakfast is on the table or that his teeth get brushed or to read him a book at bedtime.”
“I want to do all that, too.”
“Do you, really? Because it’s not fun, Logan. Being a parent isn’t all fun and games. It can’t be. And I think you’ve got a lot of nerve offering up nonstop good times at him without even talking to me about what I want for him.”
Logan’s eyes narrowed, but she was too caught up in her diatribe to care. “Yes, he’s your biological son. Big deal. I’m the one who’s raised him, who’s walked the floors with him when he was teething and slept next to his bed when he was sick. I’m the one who’s sat through hours of homework and projects and really bad piano recitals. And I’m the one who is going to have to be there in two months, when we leave Prospect and Luke suddenly realizes that his dad isn’t interested in being anything more than a present on his birthday and at Christmas.”
She flung the last accusation at him and it hung between them for long seconds. Paige could tell from the stiffness in Logan’s shoulders that she’d gone too far, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. All the resentment she’d carried around was pouring out of her. All the times she’d sat up with her son, alone, worried that she was doing something wrong. Worried that she wasn’t doing enough. Worried that…just worried. Worried, worried, worried. Sometimes she’d felt it was a full-time job on its own.