by Tracy Wolff
Besides, he couldn’t forget that she hadn’t tried to contact him in years.
Maybe he could get past the fact that she’d cheated on him when he would have died for her—she’d had a rough time of things and he could understand how being happy might have scared her—but he’d never be able to understand why she hadn’t picked up the phone to tell him about Luke.
Yes, he’d hung up on her sister when she’d called and that would forever be his guilt to carry. But at the same time, Paige could have tried again. On Luke’s first birthday or his second. She could have phoned him or sent him a picture, something to let him know that he was a father. That he had a son who needed him. He wanted that time with his son back, needed that time back.
But that wasn’t going to happen. He couldn’t change the past, any more than he could convince Barbara Finley to leave Graham.
His bad mood a million times worse, Logan slammed the shower off, then grabbed a towel before heading into his bedroom. So much for a cold shower—he was more frustrated now, mentally and physically, than he had been before he’d tried the time-honored remedy. As he climbed into bed and flipped out the light, he had a feeling sleep was still far off.
“WANT A SPOON?” PENNY ASKED, holding up a tube of chocolate chip cookie dough. “I just opened it.”
“You’re not supposed to eat that stuff raw, you know. There have been salmonella scares.”
“I like to live on the edge. Danger is my middle name.”
Paige raised an eyebrow at her sister, who was currently decked out in hot pink pajamas sporting white poodles on perfume bottles. “I can see that. The bunny slippers are a particularly frightening touch.”
“Bite me.”
“Careful. I might take you up on that. God knows, there’s not enough cookie dough in the world to make me feel better tonight.”
“Who rained on your parade, Little Miss Sunshine?”
Paige snorted. “Who do you think?”
“Well, sit down and tell me all about it. I’ve been told that I have a very soft shoulder to cry on.”
“I can imagine. But you go first.”
“Me? What makes you think I have any problems?”
“Besides the fact that you single-handedly ate an entire roll of cookie dough?”
“Not an entire roll. You can still scrape the sides.”
“I think I’ll pass, thanks.” Paige grabbed a bag of chips before hopping onto the counter next to her sister. “So, spill.”
“Just the same old thing. I was going through the expenses, preparing for my trip to Portland tomorrow, and there’s never enough money. I mean, there would have been, if Mike had stuck around. We had everything planned out down to the last dollar.” She shook her head. “But without his bank account, things are a lot tighter around here than I had imagined they would be.”
“I already told you I’d be happy to help, Penny. Trying to do everything yourself is stupid.”
“You are helping. You’ve laid tile and stained wood, painted walls and planted trees. And you’ve given me back my sister, which means more than all the rest put together. I don’t need your money, too.”
“Come on, Penny. I have plenty of the stuff. Being successful in Hollywood, even behind the scenes, pays pretty well, in case you didn’t know.”
“That doesn’t make it right.”
“You let me decide what’s right. How much do you need?”
“Paige. I’m serious. I can’t take your money.”
“Why not?”
“Because. How long did you struggle on your own, working two jobs and trying to take care of a baby all by yourself?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“I had everything. I had parents who paid for me to go to college, a good job and I threw it all away on a guy. You—you did everything by yourself and yet here you are. You deserve everything you have and there’s no way I’m going to be a part of taking any of that away.”
“Do you think I wanted to do all these things on my own? I would have done anything to have you with me, if for no other reason than to give me a hug and tell me everything was going to be all right.”
“Exactly. I’ve never done anything for you and you uprooted your whole life to come here this summer.”
“And I’d do it again in a heartbeat. When we were kids, you did everything for me. You saved me when I couldn’t figure out which way was up, stood between Dad and me when things got too crazy. What makes you think that I’m not being selfish in wanting to help you?”
“What do you mean?”
Paige thought quickly, tried to figure out a way to get her sister to take the money she was offering. She wasn’t filthy rich or anything, but the last few movies had paid extremely well, especially once she moved up to head set designer. “What if we became partners?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You were going to partner with Mike, right? So what if I take his place? Put in the same amount of money you do, and then we’ll have equal ownership of the B and B. I’ll be a silent partner and you’ll have to do most of the work while I’m in L.A., which means you’ll get a majority of the profits, and—”
“You would do that? You’d be my partner in the inn?”
“Why wouldn’t I? You don’t seem to understand how much I miss you, Penny. How much I want you to be a big part of Luke’s and my life.”
“I want the same thing!” Penny squealed. “So we’re really going to do this? We’re going to become partners?”
“Absolutely. Luke’s going to be thrilled.”
Penny threw her arms around her and squeezed her so tightly Paige was afraid she’d crack a rib. But she hugged her sister as tightly and tried to ignore how with every day that passed, her life seemed to become more and more tied to Prospect. Being a silent partner in a business was no big deal, but being her sister’s silent partner—that was something else all together.
She’d once sworn she’d never come back here and now it felt like she might never get away again. Penny and Logan were wrapping more invisible strings around her every day, until Paige could barely think with the need to escape. Not from them, but from the past she’d spent so long running from.
This week it had caught up to her with a vengeance. Too bad she didn’t have a clue what to do about it.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
LOGAN COULDN’T REMEMBER the last time he’d had this much fun, wasn’t sure he ever had before—at least not in his adult life. After making sure Luke was fastened and that his back was flat against the wall of the ride, he strapped himself in as well. There was nothing like going to a hokey little carnival with his son to make him remember the joy and excitement of his childhood.
Once he was fastened, he glanced over the crowd below them, hoping to see Paige. When he couldn’t find her, he felt a small flare of disappointment. It set off a whole series of alarm bells at the back of his consciousness, one that warned him that lust might not be the only thing he felt for his son’s mother.
The thought made him ridiculously uncomfortable. He tried to shy away from it, from any thoughts of her, and might have accomplished it if Luke hadn’t chosen that second to slip his fingers through the bars between them and grab his wrist.
“You okay, buddy?” he asked.
“Yeah. I just wanted to hold your hand. Mom always lets me hold hers until the ride gets started.”
“Oh.” Logan glanced at the little hand that was currently clutching his sleeve and felt something melt in the vicinity of his heart. “You bet you can hold my hand.”
He bent his arm so that he could wrap his fingers around his son’s. As those cold, dirty fingers curled around his own he thought this was what fatherhood was all about. Tiny moments such as these that he would remember for the rest of his life.
When the music started a few moments later, and the lights began flashing superbright, he wasn’t sure if he was going to be able to release Luke’s hand. It felt too
good to touch him, too real—as though he was finally becoming the father he had always dreamed of being.
But Luke squirmed a little until Logan loosened his grip, and then they were off, spinning faster and faster, the centrifugal force keeping their backs pressed tightly against the walls of the ride.
Luke called out and Logan felt an instant of alarm. It took all of his strength to fight the centrifugal force, but he finally managed to turn his head to see his son laughing like a hyena. He found himself laughing as well, through the rest of the ride and beyond, while he was helping Luke get himself unfastened.
“That was so much fun, Dad! Let’s do it again!”
“Sure. But why don’t we do a few other rides first, then come back. I think I need a little break from high-speed circles.”
“Let’s do the rockets, then.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
Time passed in a blur as he followed Luke from ride to ride. A bunch of people saw them together and stopped to probe a little, all in the guise of friendly chitchat. He didn’t make them work very hard before he introduced Luke as his son, and maybe that was a mistake, but it wasn’t as though anyone looking at them could doubt their relationship.
Besides, people in Prospect had long memories and they all knew he had dated Paige before she’d left town nine years ago. The fact that her eight-year-old son was also his couldn’t be that big a shock to anyone.
The past week had been the best of his adult life, and as he’d hung out with Luke he’d tried to let go of his anger at Paige, especially after their kiss. He wasn’t planning to pick up where they’d left off—the intervening years made that impossible—but he wanted to get along with her, for all of their sakes. Wanted to see things from her point of view.
Yes, he’d been harsh when she’d told him about the baby. Yes, he had told her he never wanted to see her again. But damn it, he’d been hurting. He had been suspended from school for fighting his closest friend, who had claimed to have slept with Paige while Logan had been out of town looking at colleges. Mark had claimed that it was all her fault, that she had caught him drunk at a party and seduced him.
Logan hadn’t believed him, had told him he was full of shit—that Paige loved him and wouldn’t screw around on him. Mark had told him he was crazy, that they’d all understood why he’d gone slumming at the beginning, but that it was getting old, fast. Especially when she kept throwing herself at his friends behind his back.
He’d punched Mark and everything had escalated, until the two of them were rolling around on the locker room floor. The coaches broke it up, but not before Mark had screamed out a whole bunch of poison about Paige.
Logan had thought he hadn’t believed it, had thought that he hadn’t believed anything Mark or the others had said in the next few days. But his belief hadn’t withstood a bunch of his good friends telling him the truth, or his mother admitting seeing Paige in town with other boys. He’d been shattered. Heart-broken and disgusted and humiliated.
When Paige had come over later that day, he had spewed his rage and embarrassment on her head. He could still see her face when she’d told him about the baby—pale and fragile and so nervous that a part of him had wanted nothing more than to pull her into his arms no matter how angry he was with her.
But he hadn’t. Instead he’d heard her trying to pass off a baby on him that could belong to half the guys in school and he’d lost it. Told her to get the hell away from him. Told her she was a slut and that he never wanted to see her again.
She’d protested, had pleaded with him to believe her, but he’d hardened his heart against her and when she left, he’d felt a vicious sort of vindication that he had hurt her as much as she’d hurt him.
Now, years later, he was ashamed of that feeling, ashamed of what he’d done to her. He wasn’t ashamed of breaking up with her—the idea of being with a woman who wasn’t exclusively with him was still anathema to him. But he should have realized that condoms weren’t a hundred percent effective, that though he’d always been careful, the odds that her baby had belonged to him were as high as they were for anyone else in town.
He’d blown her off and now he was paying the price. He’d spent eight years without his son, eight years missing out on all the amazing little details that made Luke the amazing kid that he was. And while part of him blamed Paige for not making him listen, for not serving him with paternity papers when Luke was born, he couldn’t ignore his own culpability. As he’d stared at the ceiling last night, he’d forced himself to face the truth.
He’d made the decision to cut her out of his life.
He’d made the decision to reject any chance that the baby she carried might be his.
And not once in nine years had he ever doubted that conviction. He’d thought of Paige off and on through the years, but not once had he thought of the baby she’d carried. Of his son. Of Luke.
He’d been an idiot, not to mention the bastard that Paige had called him. The realization didn’t fit and he was frowning by the time he and Luke finally found her, standing near the Ferris wheel, where they’d left her.
She looked so beautiful in her artfully faded jeans and expensive silk sweater, her hair blowing in the slight breeze working its way through the carnival. He had the urge to run his hands through it the way he used to, soaking up its softness as he leaned down to kiss her sweetly pink lips.
She was a far cry from the Paige Matthews who had left this town broke and alone, and for the first time he wondered how she’d made the transition. How she’d landed so firmly on her feet when most teenaged mothers without support systems usually sank deeper and deeper into hell.
He might have issues with the way things had gone down years ago, but he couldn’t say that he had any complaints about how she had raised his very happy, very well-adjusted son to date. His concerns from a week ago—about her fitness as a mother—had all but disappeared.
As Luke ran ahead and gave her a hug, she laughed and squeezed him tightly against her. Logan felt himself grow hard at the sound of her laughter. At the incandescent joy on her face and the wide smile that stretched across her beautiful mouth. As he shifted, trying to adjust himself so his arousal wasn’t so obvious, he was desperately afraid his animosity toward her was disappearing as well.
He knew better than to fall for her, knew better than to care about her in any context but as the mother of his child. They’d nearly destroyed each other once. He wasn’t going to be party to that again.
And yet, as he moved closer to her, he found it nearly impossible to look away from her. There was something about her that touched him in a way he hadn’t been touched in nine years, in a way his ex-wife had never managed to do.
She looked up as he approached and the smile on her face grew even wider. “So, you survived?”
Logan practically shook himself into coherence, forcing his thoughts from matters he shouldn’t be contemplating and into the present. Everything would be so much easier if he maintained the status quo. “I did. It was touch and go for a few minutes, especially on the Witch’s Wheel, but I muddled through.”
“I’m so glad to hear that.” She held out a drink container toward him. “I figured you’d be thirsty after all those rides, so I bought you a soda.”
He felt his heart melt a little at the realization that she’d been thinking about him—even inadvertently—and his hand trembled as he reached to take the drink. His fingers brushed against hers and a jolt of electricity ripped through him. Suddenly, he was transported to when she used to wait for him after football practice, a huge, ice-cold water bottle in her hands. Back then, all he’d been able to think about was getting her alone. Today he was having the same problem.
“Thanks,” he said. His voice came out huskier than usual, and from the darkening in her eyes, he knew Paige heard the difference. She didn’t say anything though, just stepped away hastily.
“So,” she said in a voice that was a shade too bright, “What should we do now?
”
“I want to play some more games,” Luke cried. “Dad promised to try to win me a fish again.”
She glanced at him questioningly, and Logan tried to shake off his thoughts—and the arousal he was having more and more difficulty fighting. “I sure did. Point me in the right direction.”
The rest of the carnival passed in a montage of lights and dollar bills as Logan tried his best to win prizes for his son. He didn’t win him a fish, despite spending enough money at the booth to buy ten fish from the local pet store, but he did win him a gigantic dog that the kid christened Roscoe almost as soon as his small, tan arms wrapped around its neck.
“He’s a big Dukes of Hazzard fan,” Paige said with a laugh. “During the school year, he DVRs the reruns and watches one every day when he’s done with his homework.”
“The kid’s got good taste. That was one of my favorite shows when I was his age.” He high-fived his son. “Luke and Bo Duke rock.”
“I thought you’d be partial to Daisy.”
“I always preferred blondes,” he said jokingly, then stopped abruptly as the sensual tension between them ratcheted up another notch.
She didn’t say anything for long moments, and it became obvious she was as lost in the past as he had been earlier. But she seemed to push it aside with an eye roll and a sassy little flip of her head. “What man doesn’t?”
He might have left it at that, except as they worked their way toward the fairground exit, he saw the hurt she hadn’t managed to hide lurking in the corners of her eyes.
He felt bad that a careless joke he hadn’t even meant had hurt her and couldn’t help wanting to make it right. But at the same time, he wasn’t sure that was such a good idea. Things were shifting beneath his feet—beneath their feet—and he felt as though he balanced on the edge of a gigantic precipice. A wrong move would have him slipping and hurtling toward instant death.
And yet— “I didn’t mean that the way it came out,” he said as he pressed the button to unlock his truck’s doors.
“Don’t worry about it.” Her voice was stilted, a surefire way to tell that he had, indeed, hurt her feelings. It was amazing how much he remembered from the old days, and how much came back to him the longer he was around her.