Chapter 22 #3
I slapped a hand to my forehead. “I should not have said that out loud, Logan.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. You look…” I paused, then decided to be honest. “You look amazingly good.”
The smile disappeared, and a serious expression came over his face. “And you, Bellini, are even more beautiful than you were before.”
I felt tears fizz in my eyes. Martin told me I was beautiful only before he married me. Afterward, I rarely heard it, and only when he was trying to appease me. But here was Logan, as always, making me feel better about myself.
“Are you okay, Bellini?” he asked.
“Oh yes. I’m fine.” No, I wasn’t fine.
“What was all the talk about lettuce? I didn’t understand. I came in a little late to the meeting.”
“Oh, it was nothing.”
“It was something.” He was too quick.
“There might have been a little incident in the bar today.”
I was not offended when Logan burst out laughing, low and rumbly.
“What happened, Bellini? Please tell me. These are the best stories.”
I tried to glare at him.
“Javier had a problem with one of the customers. She was so rude to him. You know Court Yalloway?”
Logan did. I knew he didn’t like the old witch.
“Court said Javier didn’t put enough salad dressing on her salad.
He put more on, and she told him he had also forgotten her croutons.
That salad doesn’t come with croutons. He told her he would grab her some croutons, and then…
” I stopped for a second. I was still so, so angry about it.
“Court told Javier to ‘go back home’ if he couldn’t figure out how to put together a simple salad. ”
“Home?” Logan’s voice was stunned. “What?”
“Yes. She meant that he should go back to Mexico. She yelled it at him. Everyone heard. The whole bar went quiet, then people started yelling at Court and telling her to go home.”
Logan’s face reflected his shock and disgust. “Javier was born here in Montana. So were his parents and grandparents. And why would anyone say something that hurtful and stupid in the first place to anyone? She’s awful. I have never liked her.”
“I could tell Javier was devastated and humiliated and I was livid. He is one of the best people I know. It made me so mad I thought I might smack her.”
He chuckled. “And this is where the lettuce comes in. What did you do?”
“I’m afraid my temper came out and swung itself around the room.”
“And?”
“I may have done something that was not polite or reflective of my conflict-resolution skills.”
“Ah…” he said slowly, still smiling the sexy smile.
“Perhaps I could have handled things better if we’d had time to sit down, and I could have told her what I thought of her obnoxious self and banned her from the bar forevermore instead of my impulse-control problems getting in the way.”
“And you…”
“I grabbed one of our plastic bins of lettuce. The biggest one. And I came up behind her and dumped the lettuce over her head. I told her that I didn’t like what she’d said to Javier.
That it was racist and cruel, and she was never to speak like that again.
Court was…” I thought for a second. “Surprised.”
“She deserved it.”
“She was not happy. Lettuce spilled off her head.”
“She shouldn’t say awful things.”
“Right. I also told her that since she was complaining so much about her salad, I figured she’d want to make her own salad.”
Logan laughed. “That will teach her not to say hurtful things again.”
“She isn’t allowed to return to the bar. She wasn’t happy about that either, but I don’t care.”
“Tough day. Do you want to go to Talia’s for dessert? They’re carrying Annie’s Delicious Pies now. It’s quiet and peaceful there.”
I shouldn’t. I had work to do. So much bar work. But I loved Annie’s Delicious Pies, and I loved the hunk of a man standing in front of me. “Yes. Thank you, Logan. I would.”
“Then let’s go.” He held out a hand.
Yes. Let’s.
I grabbed his warm hand, and it warmed my heart, indeed it did.
“I think there’s mistletoe over us,” Logan said.
“There’s no mistletoe.” We were standing by the town’s Christmas tree.
We had it to ourselves, as it was so late at night.
We’d gone to Talia’s for Annie’s Delicious Pies, but Logan had insisted that I have a meal first after finding out I had not had dinner.
Oddly enough, because of my earlier experience with lettuce, I ordered a salad packed with all sorts of healthy stuff.
I told him I felt “virtuous” for eating so many vegetables.
He said he felt virtuous for eating a cheeseburger and fries.
I had lemon meringue pie afterward because my virtue needed a sweet treat, and he had coconut cream. He paid, refusing to let me pay, held my coat out for me when we were done, then wrapped my pink cat scarf around my neck. The cats were wearing Santa hats.
Walking back to our trucks, he paused by the tree, the lights shining and twinkling, the mountain air cold and fresh and carrying the scent of pine.
“Imagine there is mistletoe, Bellini,” he said.
I didn’t want to. No, I did want to, but I shouldn’t.
What was the point? I should not kiss Logan.
The problems between us were still between us.
I was going to be here for Christmas and would leave in January for Honeysuckle Pink in Oregon, where I would continue to be a cat lady and an odd hermit.
I shouldn’t have looked at his face. Hard planes, cheeks darkened with a slight beard, thick black hair.
Yummy. People get confused by Logan’s appearance.
They see the manly man, the tough cowboy, the giant, but there is so much more to Logan.
He is deep and sensitive, and he loves coconut cream pie and chess and books about explorers’ adventures.
He went through years of terrible hardship as a kid, and it simply made him stronger, more independent, and more compassionate toward other people.
All his splendid characteristics blended with his general white-hot sexiness, and I couldn’t help myself. I took a step toward him and tipped up my chin, and he took a step forward and bent his head toward me, and I did not resist at all.
In fact, I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him close, and we kissed as if we hadn’t missed a kiss in years, as if we’d had a passionate interlude, a night of lovemaking madness, or an afternoon romp just the other day!
His body, pressed close to mine, was familiar, oh-so-familiar, but different, too. Hard and tall and warm.
The kiss deepened, and there might have been a few groans and moans and heavy breathing, and it became more passionate, and we stopped only because we were outside and in public, though no one else was around.
I did not want to find that someone took a photo of us naked and making out in front of the town Christmas tree, so it was well and good that we controlled ourselves. My whole family would have found it hilarious, but I would still be hearing about it when I was a hundred years old.
“Maybe you’d like to come up and see my home,” he said, his voice gravelly and low. “We would not have to walk far…”
I put my forehead on his chest. “I would not be able to resist you if I came up to your place, Logan.”
He cupped my face with his huge palm. “Then that’s exactly why you should come up.” He dropped a kiss on my lips.
I shook my head. “No. I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m leaving after Christmas.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I do.”
“Why?”
“Because I live in Oregon now. I have a home. I work there.”
Lame answers.
He kissed the top of my forehead and pulled me closer. He did that a lot when we were together. He said the kiss was for me to remember that he loved my brain and the way I thought.
“Okay, honey. I’ll walk you back to your truck.”
I leaned on him for three more seconds, then pulled away. “No, thank you. I mean…” I stuttered about. “Thank you.”
“Is it a ‘no, thank you’ to coming to my place or a ‘yes, thank you’?”
It was a yes, thank you. For sure. “No, thank you.”
He offered me his hand to hold, and I took it as naturally as I’d done for years, since kindergarten.
Logan and I strolled back to the bar and our trucks through the serene downtown, an inflated Frosty the Snowman swaying at the far end of the square.
The atmosphere was electric between us, too charged with runaway passion, but then Logan said, “You’re still going to dance with me, right?
Even though I made you kiss me under imaginary mistletoe? ”
“What?!” I mocked, stopping in my tracks. “There wasn’t any mistletoe? I was sure I saw it. I think it was hanging from a string attached to a star.”
“Now that I think about it, there was some mistletoe attached to a star.”
“That’s why I did what I did when I kissed you back. I wouldn’t have unless there was mistletoe.”
“Of course not. You would have shown admirable restraint. But I think I’ll get mistletoe and put it in my pocket in case the stars aren’t dropping any down on another night.”
I smiled up at him in that cool, crisp Montana air. “Maybe I’ll get some, too.”
All was well between us by the time we got to our trucks, and I was so relieved.
Logan was a gentleman, he truly was, and he did not play games.
There was no silent treatment, no simmering anger, no resentment, which is what I’d gotten from Martin all the time.
No, Logan wanted me to go back to his place with him.
But when I said no to stripping off my clothes with reckless abandon and straddling him in his bedroom, he was gracious and didn’t push.
He opened the door to my truck. “See you later, Bellini.” He made a sweeping bow. “M’lady.”
Ah, I remembered when he called me m’lady. We’d read a book together on King Henry the Eighth. “See you later, King Logan the Seventh.”
He smiled at me through the window. I smiled back. Both smiles held so much—regret, passion, longing, confusion…and a secret that could not be shared.
I watched him as he strode around the back of his truck and sighed. Then I tapped my head on the steering wheel in an attempt to bang a little wisdom and rational thoughts into my brain. How on earth was I going to resist that man?