by Joanna Sims
“What you’ve managed to do is a miracle. I never imagined—I don’t know that any of us ever really imagined—that the chapel would get a new life. I think we had all kind of given up on it.”
“No...” Logan’s eyes were on the chapel. “You should never give up on something that you love.”
He continued to look at the chapel, his eyes seeming to take inventory of all the details that still needed to be tackled. She looked at him. The profile of his face was strong and handsome, but there were deep lines around his eyes from smiling and squinting, and the nose had a bump on the bridge that made him look like a prize fighter who had taken one too many hits to the nose.
“How are you with a brush?” He turned toward her and caught her staring at him.
“Not bad,” she said. “I can hold my own.”
Logan handed her a brush and put her to work. He cranked up the CD player because he knew that she liked the Temptations. While he painted, he sang to her. Every once in a while, she joined in, singing with him—with Logan, she felt like singing again. And he encouraged it; he enjoyed the sound of her voice.
When the song “My Girl” began, Logan laid down his brush, took the brush from her hand, led her to a grassy spot nearby and took her into his arms. On the hilltop, with the chapel as their backdrop, he held her in his arms and sang to her.
She loved it. She did. But it also made her feel embarrassed and shy. He was so open about his feelings. He liked her, he wanted to sing to her, and so he did.
“What are you doing?” she asked, looking around for someone who might see them.
“Dancing with my girl...” He sang the words “my girl.”
“I thought you couldn’t dance...” Was she his girl? She wasn’t sure about that.
“I can’t,” he admitted. “But I can sway back and forth like this. And I can dip you...” He surprised her by dipping her over his arm and then swinging her back up.
“Come on, Jo...” Logan said, still holding her in his arms. “It’s okay to have a good time, you know. No one’s going to see you. It’s just you and me up here.”
He was right. And so she danced with him. On the hill, in front of the chapel, with Logan singing the Temptations to her...she danced.
At the end of the song, Logan dipped her one last time and when he brought her up, he ended their dance with a quick kiss. Once the dance was done, they went back to their painting. Josephine still couldn’t quite figure Logan out—and she told him as much.
“You were so...serious that first day that I met you.”
“You mean the day that I pulled you over and wrote you several tickets?”
“And probably jacked up my insurance premium...” she added.
“I was on duty,” he explained. “I have to be different when I’m in uniform.”
“Do you want to climb up the ranks? Be a police chief?”
“Why do I sometimes feel like I’m on a job interview with you that’s not going so well?” he asked. “To answer your question, I don’t want to climb up the ranks. I’m happy with what I’m doing. And I want to retire when I’m young enough so I can do what I really love to do.”
“Which is?”
“Working with kids...troubled youth. That’s their label, but I know there’s a lot more to them than that label.”
“I think that’s admirable.”
“I got involved with the Big Brothers program a couple years after I joined the force.”
“You’re a Big Brother?”
“Yeah, I love it.” Logan put his paintbrush down so he could pull his wallet out of his back pocket. He flipped the wallet open and showed her one of the pictures inside.
“Javier’s school picture,” he told her. “He’s a big boy for eight, isn’t he?”
She nodded, then pointed to another picture. “Who’s that?”
“That’s Mom.”
“Red hair.”
“Yeah. My dad, my biological dad—not my stepfather, whom I call ‘Dad’—was a full-blooded Choctaw Indian. Got my coloring from him. Didn’t get much else.”
Josephine stared at Logan curiously. There was so much about this man that she didn’t know, yet she had nearly lost control of her reason and made love to him in the barn loft earlier that day. If Tyler hadn’t interrupted them, could she really say that she wouldn’t have gone there with Logan?
No.
“You’re a Big Brother, and you’re fifty percent Native American. I didn’t know any of that about you.”
Logan read between the lines of her statement.
“And that bothers you...that you don’t know everything about me.”
It was a statement, not a question.
“Yes. I suppose it does. In a way, we’ve crossed a few boundaries lately.”
Logan stopped painting and put down his brush. His arms were crossed in front of his body, which was a protective stance that she wasn’t used to seeing from him.
“Let me ask you this...and you don’t have to answer me. Just be honest with yourself about it. Did you really know everything there was to know about that guy Brice?”
Chapter Thirteen
The morning that they were set to leave on their camping trip, Josephine headed to the barn to meet Logan. Jordan and her mom assured her that everything for the wedding was under control, so she decided to go on an adventure. When she arrived at the barn, she wasn’t surprised that London already had two horses saddled for them and Easy Does It the mule was packed with supplies.
“Really?” Josephine asked when she saw her nemesis in mule form. “This was our best option?”
London patted the mule on the neck. “I had a talk with him and he assured me that he’s up for the task.”
Logan turned the corner carrying his rucksack. “Morning.”
“We have to rethink this whole scenario,” Josephine told him.
“What’s the problem?” Logan packed his bag on the back of the mule.
Josephine pointed silently to Easy.
“She’s holding a grudge against Easy,” London, who was mucking out a nearby stall, said to him.
“Heck, yeah, I’m holding a grudge! He left me stranded...twice! I am not going all the way up to the divide only to have him take off with our coffee.”
“Coffee?” Logan laughed. “Is that all you’re worried about?”
“I have to have coffee first thing in the morning. It’s non-negotiable.”
“We need a strong, sure-footed pack mule and he’s the best one we’ve got. We need him. Haven’t you ever heard the phrase ‘the third time’s the charm’?”
In the end, Josephine conceded that they needed the mule for the trip, but she was holding Logan directly responsible for him. After they ran through their extensive checklist for the trip one last time, they set off on their journey. Logan had the trip planned out to the smallest detail. Planning for a camping trip to a high altitude location like the Continental Divide was something that Logan took very seriously. In this, he was not easygoing or go-with-the-flow. He knew it could be dangerous, so he tried to anticipate all of their needs. She had just basically needed to show up with her clothing and toiletries and get on her horse.
They stopped at the first camping sight, a spot on the ranch that her family had used over the years, in the early afternoon. Logan’s plan called for them to take two slow travel days up to the peak, an overnight at the peak, and then two days for the return leg of the journey. She liked the slow pace that Logan had set for them. It forced her to relax and enjoy the moment. It forced her to get out of her own head, something that was very difficult for her to do.
“Do you know how to pitch a tent?” Logan asked her after he had unpacked the mule.
“Do I know how to pitch a tent? Does a duck like water?”
She had grown up on this land, surrounded by ranch hands, brothers, and a sister who was a tomboy. The only truly feminine influence on the ranch had been her cosmopolitan mother. She knew how to shoot a gun, fish, pitch a tent—she could even castrate a bull if she needed to get it done. It had been a long time since she had tapped into her inner woods-woman, but she was there.
Logan watched Josephine grab her tent and haul it over to a spot nearby. She had basically told him to mind his own business when he had offered to help her pitch her tent. When he had first met her, she was dressed like a fashionable, professional woman, with a designer dress and high heels. Now, she was in slim-fit jeans, boots, a button-up shirt with long sleeves rolled up to the elbow. Her long hair, hair that he loved to touch, was braided tightly into a thick braid down her back. Surprising to him, she now wore a large buck knife on her belt. He liked her in her business attire, but he really liked this side of her, too. He tried not to be too obvious about it, but it was hard for him not to stare at her long legs and shapely derriere in those jeans. He felt so attracted to this woman that it made him nervous. There had been no promises between them, no talk of continuing their relationship once they returned to California. Yet he had already, unintentionally, lost his heart to her. The question remained, was that a mistake?
Once she got started, her dormant camping skills came right up to the surface and she pitched her tent more quickly than Logan pitched his. She stood proudly next to her tent.
“Do you need some help over there?” she teased him.
“No, I got it,” Logan said. “Thank you.”
Josephine smiled at the rare display of Logan’s fragile male ego. While he finished pitching his tent, Josephine went on the hunt for some kindling to start a fire. Logan was finished with his tent when she returned with a pile of dried sticks in her arms.
“Coffee?” she asked.
“Absolutely,” Logan said. He had already started to assemble his fishing rod. They had agreed that they both preferred to eat freshly caught fish for dinner while they were on the trip.
“I’m going to head down to the stream. You good?”
“There’ll be coffee when you get back. Catch something good. I’m starved.”
When he returned to the campsite, he had caught something good.
“Look at the size of this guy!” Logan showed her his catch—a massive trout.
“I’d forgotten how big they could get up here,” she said, impressed. “I hope you’re hungry too, so this doesn’t go to waste.”
Without hesitation, she took the fish, put it on a makeshift cutting board and started to clean it. Logan, who usually dated women who liked the outdoors, had never been with a woman who would clean a fish just as soon as she would get a French gel manicure. It caught him off guard so much that he simply stood there and watched her.
Josephine used a sharp filleting knife to cut open the fish and in one easy, practiced motion, she gutted the fish. When she looked up from her task, bloody knife in one hand, fish head and spine in the other, Logan was staring at her with an odd expression on his face.
“Are you horrified?” she asked.
“No. Impressed.”
“Oh...well, I know my way around a campsite.”
“I’m picking that up,” he said.
She put the head of the fish down and put the edible portion into a cast-iron skillet.
“Do you want to do the honors, or should I?” she asked.
He took the heavy skillet in one hand. “I’ll cook it. You already did the dirty work.”
That night, they sat by the fire, stuffed from the freshly caught and cooked fish dinner and several cups of strong, black campfire-brewed coffee. Perhaps it was the caffeine in the coffee, or perhaps it was the feeling of privacy and seclusion that being in the mountains created, but once Josephine started talking, she didn’t stop. Not for a long time. She never used to talk very much with Brice. She had always thought that he was brilliant and what he had to say somehow mattered more than voicing her own thoughts. But with Logan—she liked to tell him what she was thinking. How she was feeling.
The moon overhead, nearly a full moon, was glowing large and bright in the expansive indigo sky. Josephine leaned her head back so she could stare up at that magical moon.
“I’ve always loved the moon,” she told him. “My mom always stands under a full moon to get a moon kiss.”
Logan liked to hear Josephine’s thoughts. He liked to listen to the sound of her voice, to watch her facial expressions and the way her lips moved when she talked. No matter what time of day it was, he thought she was beautiful. To him, she was beauty personified. The firelight, and the light from the moon, only enhanced her natural beauty.
Silently, he stood up and extended his hand to her. She took it and he helped her stand up. Without pretense, he kissed her. He encircled her body with his arms, pulled her in, and gave her a sweet, gentle kiss. When he felt her arms tighten around his waist, when he felt her body sway into his, he deepened the kiss. His tongue danced with hers, one hand on her lower back, the other hand cradling her head.
Josephine loved Logan’s kisses. She waited for them, looked forward to them. But even though he never hid his desire from her, he always held back. He had never tried to fondle her breasts or slip his hands between her thighs. There was a line he refused to cross. Even when she crossed that line, cupping the hard-on that was pressing against the material of his pants, he always kept his hands in “safe zones.” His kisses, perhaps deliberately on his part, always left her wanting. Always left her needing more. Tonight was no exception.
Logan wasn’t playing a game. He wanted her to come to him. He refused to push her into a sexual relationship with him. When it happened, it would be because she was ready. And it was not like she hadn’t thought about it. She had. The idea of making love with Logan was very appealing. She knew the feel of his hard shaft through his clothes, but she had imagined what it would feel like, skin on skin, to hold him in her hands, to take him into her mouth—to have him inside of her body. She wanted that. And she had come close that day in the barn when she had almost let her libido take over. But perhaps that moment scared her, because they hadn’t been that close since.
Just outside of her tent, Logan stopped to give her an enticing good-night kiss. Did she wish, in a way, that he would have at least tried to talk her into his sleeping bag? Yes. But that wasn’t Logan’s style. When it came to sex, she was the one who was in control. And even though it was an unspoken desire between them to make love on this trip, she still wasn’t certain that she would.
“Good night, Jo.” Logan’s lips lingered on hers on last time, his fingertips touching her face.
“Good night.” She unzipped the flap of her tent. “5:30?”
“5:30,” he said. He waited for her to duck inside of her tent and zip it shut, and then she heard his tent flap zip shut.
Josephine climbed into her sleeping bag, but didn’t fall asleep right away. She tossed and turned and kicked at her sleeping bag and pushed on her pillow. She couldn’t get comfortable, but not because she was sleeping on the ground. She couldn’t get comfortable because she was sexually frustrated and conflicted. She was having a silent debate, in her tent, in the dark. Should she get up and go to Logan’s tent? She knew he would unzip his sleeping bag and welcome her without question. And, after much debate, she actually kicked her legs out of her sleeping bag, unzipped her tent and took a step toward Logan’s tent. But then she heard the soft sound of his deep breathing, signally that he was already asleep. Obviously, he wasn’t as bothered by his frustration as she was, and that made her doubt getting out of her sleeping bag in the first place. Quietly, she turned around, went back to her tent and crawled back into her sleeping bag. It wasn’t the right time; it wasn’t the right night. Perhaps it never would be.
/> The next morning they broke camp early and headed to their second camp location farther up the mountain. They both liked to ride in silence, enjoying the sounds of nature surrounding them that could only truly be appreciated if talking was kept to a minimum. They stopped for lunch, and to water the horses and the mule, and then they were back on the trail. Very quickly, they established a system for their trip, one that worked for them both. As with the first day of the trip, they made camp in the late afternoon so they could prepare the campfire for dinner, make a fresh catch, and make the sure the horses and Easy Does It were well rested for the toughest part of the climb to the peak.
As with the night before, Logan caught the fish, she cleaned it, and he cooked it. They had piping hot coffee after dinner and toasted marshmallows, toasted on a stick Logan carved for her. It was, in her memory, one of the best nights she had ever had. There was an easiness to their relationship, with the way they moved around the camp, that made her feel like she was part of a couple that had been married for years. It was the kind of easiness she saw with her parents, as if they could read the other’s thoughts and anticipate the needs of the other without words. How had she managed to achieve this with Logan, a virtual stranger, when she hadn’t managed to achieve it with a man she had been with for over five years? If she had been able to carry out her plan to marry Brice, would she have ever achieved that with him? Why had she been so willing to settle for less than the relationship she had always wanted just because she had put so much time into the relationship and Brice fit the criteria she had created in her mind about what “husband material” should look like? It scared her, and shook her confidence, to think how close she had come to possibly making a major life mistake. She went to sleep that night, with the very real awareness that marrying Brice would have been exactly that—a major life mistake.
* * *
After they broke camp the morning they were going to make the trek up to the Continental Divide, Logan checked the girth on her saddle and lifted the stirrup length on both of her stirrups before he tended to his own horse. This morning, more so than any other morning, Logan was focused and had few words to say. She knew why—this leg of the journey could be treacherous. They had to be prepared. They had to respect the climb they were about to ask their horses to make. The ascent to the divide would take them up another eight thousand feet. The air was thinner, which would make it harder to breath, and the temperature would drop thirty degrees. Cell phone service for emergencies would be limited to none.