Chapter Ten
“I know,” Logan said, feeling sick. What had he expected, though? Forgiveness?
She clicked on her flashlight and continued up the path.
Logan followed, stomach as weighted as his feet. He had been wanting to say all of that, but now he was cycling back through every word, trying to work out if there had been a better way to… What? Reach her? Inch her back toward friendship?
As they approached the porch, they had to pass Nolan’s domed tent where it was planted in the grass near the garden. Noises were coming from inside it. Very distinct groans and pants and movements.
“Wait,” a female voice said as the porch boards creaked under their feet. “I heard someone.”
“It’s my ex. She doesn’t care,” Nolan said.
Sophie snorted as they entered the kitchen and closed the door behind them.
“I really don’t,” she said. The light over the sink glowed, but otherwise the room was empty and dark.
“Water?” she offered, going to the sink.
“Sure, but should we be quiet?” He glanced to the chair where Art usually sat.
“Gramps wears earplugs.” She pointed to a closed door where snores were resounding.
“Thanks.” He took the glass she filled for him. “Can I ask you one more thing?”
“You’re determined to ruin the runner’s high I got off all that dancing, aren’t you?”
“It can wait.”
“No, go ahead.” She poured her own glass and turned her back to the sink, same as him, so they stood side by side, sipping their water.
“When you said you didn’t think it was likely you’d have more kids… I can’t help wondering if that’s my fault, too. That I made you too mistrustful of men.”
“Please don’t take this as me lashing out, but not everything is about you, Logan.” She gave him a look of exasperated patience, then nodded vaguely at the open space between kitchen and living room. “It took a lot for me to get this far, where I’m still busy as hell, but my son is flourishing and so is my bank account. It’s not a fortune, but it’s enough. All of that changes if I stop work to have another baby. The simple privilege of sleeping through the night is gone for years .”
“It’s such a simple concept,” he noted dryly. “Sleep and you’ll feel better. Why don’t babies get that?”
“They’re monsters,” she agreed. “And this might come as news, but pregnancy and childbirth suck. They say you don’t remember, but I remember. My back hurt all the time. Labor was horrendous.”
“You’re a good mom, though. You obviously love Biyen a lot. If you wanted another baby…” He pumped the brakes as her eyes widened.
She leaned away from him, wary.
“That’s not an offer,” he assured her, feeling a sting on his cheeks that he hoped she couldn’t see in the shadowy light. “I was only trying to say…” Hell, maybe he was more drunk than he realized because he didn’t know what he was trying to say. “I think it’s a shame that more kids don’t have a mom like you.” Yeah. That.
“You did. Glenda’s pretty great. After my own mom, she’s probably the person who influences me the most in how I parent Biyen.”
“I guess.” He was in a very introspective mood tonight. He didn’t know how to wear it. It felt like he’d put his clothes on backward.
“Do you ever think about being a father?” She took off her earrings and set them behind her on the counter.
“My answer to that has always been a hard no, but if Reid and Emma weren’t taking Storm…”
“You would?” She seemed shocked.
“I can’t say I wouldn’t,” he allowed. “And what you said earlier about how quickly kids grow up keeps coming back to me.” He drained his water. “I know I’ll be involved in Storm’s life forever, come hell or high water. I’m also realizing that being a brother-uncle figure is a different role than a parent. I never saw myself as a dad, but then I look at how much Reid has stepped up. Did you ever imagine he could act so—”
“ No. I mean, it’s cute. Don’t get me wrong. I love it. And Emma deserves a good guy who wants to give her a family because that’s something she has always wanted, but I thought Reid was basically Spock. Super logical and finds us humans kind of tiresome.”
“Right? I genuinely believed Dad broke our ability to be a decent father, but if Reid can do it, I can.” He heard his own arrogance and shrugged it off.
“Why are you so competitive with him?” she asked with a chuckle of disbelief. “Still, at this age? Over something like that ? Fatherhood isn’t a contest.”
“Everything is a contest with Reid.” Had she not met the man? “And my need to compete is exactly what you just said about him. He acts so superior to the rest of us.” It made him tired to think of it. “He always has. Man needs to be kept in check.”
“Okay,” Sophie snorted. “But maybe look in a mirror?”
“Hey.” He scowled at her. “I’m not as bad as he is.”
“You are exactly, equally, not any more or any less as bad.”
“God, you’re mean sometimes.” He hid his grin with the lip of his glass.
“The truth hurts, my friend.”
God that word hurt. Friend. So out of reach.
Her gaze was sparkling with amusement, though, making him almost believe it was possible. Her smile… That smile she tilted up to him—to him —was so precious he wanted to frame her face with his hands and just gaze on it.
He wanted the right to touch her. To feel her lips under his and—
Don’t.
He yanked his gaze away to Art’s empty chair and the half glass of water beside it.
If Sophie was willing to call him her friend, he would take it. And he would not screw it up this time.
“All right.” He turned to rinse his glass. “You have a big day tomorrow. You should hit the sack.”
There was a pulse of silence where she didn’t move. Then she said briskly, “Sure. Good night. Close your window on your way to bed.”
“It’s too hot—Oh gross.” He groaned as he realized.
“Yeah. They’re right below you. Sleep tight.”
*
Technically, it was Sophie’s day off. Logan was on call so she could host Biyen’s birthday party.
Logan was already at the Fraser house, taking his shift with Storm, when a call from the pub got Sophie out of bed. They needed a toilet fill valve after their busy night. Could she open the hardware store?
Gramps happily seized the excuse to get out of the house even though it was spitting rain. He trucked his Gator up to the store, made the transaction with the pub, then circled past the Fraser house for the lawn toys. He brought them back to where Sophie was making slow but steady progress on setting up for the party.
Nolan’s hookup from last night left when Sophie conscripted him into erecting a tarp over the picnic table and cleaning the barbecue. He agreed to cook, too, even though she was including classic wieners and smokies along with tofu dogs.
She was setting condiments on the picnic table with bags of cut buns, hangover finally receding, when she caught sight of Logan walking toward her with the older children.
Damned if her ovaries didn’t spontaneously burst like dandelions when she saw him carrying Cooper on his back, Imogen and Biyen happily skipping alongside him.
“Hi, Dad. Hi, Mom!” Biyen ran up to hug her waist.
“Hi, bud. Happy birthday.” She smoothed his rooster tail. “Did you have fun last night?”
“Uh-huh. Logan made blueberry pancakes for breakfast. With whip cream. Storm ate so many blueberries, he said her bum will be purple for a week.”
“That sounds about right. Where is Storm?” Sophie forced herself to look at Logan. This was her first face-to-face with him after his apology last night and their disturbing conversation about having more children.
His expression was remote, his attention on Nolan.
“Napping.” He tilted sideways to lower Cooper to the ground. “Emma said to call if you need her help, otherwise she’ll come down with Reid and Delta once Storm wakes up.”
“I think we have everything under control. Do you kids want to put the goody bags together? All the stuff is on the porch. Put the filled bags into the empty box. We need fourteen so don’t eat any of the candy until you’ve filled the bags.”
They all ran to where Gramps had come to sit in his lawn chair behind the rail.
“Fourteen?” Logan repeated with a horrified grimace.
“What can I say? Biyen is an inclusive kid. He invites the whole school. We have a big yard, though, and the shed if it starts to pour. I don’t do many parent things at the school so this is my contribution. Now that the kids are out of school and bored at home, I give them something to do for an afternoon.”
“Do the parents come?”
“A few might.” She shrugged.
“You don’t really hang out with the other parents, do you?” he said with a frown of realization. “Is that because you work so much? You and Quinley were always friends, weren’t you? Her son is Biyen’s age, I thought.”
He didn’t recall that she and Quinley had been rivals for his affections?
“People around here all have something to say about something. I can’t be bothered trying to straighten them out. I keep my distance and they keep theirs.”
“What kinds of things are they talking about?” he asked with suspicion.
“You staying in my house. Nolan staying on my lawn.”
“Oh for fu—” He stopped himself from swearing and glanced at the kids. “Really? Why didn’t you say something?”
“I did,” she assured him with a blithe bat of her lashes. “That’s why they send their kids here without setting foot on my lawn.”
“Oh?” His mouth twitched. “I’m not actually surprised by that. What happened?” He folded his arms, enjoying this, she could tell.
“I might have had a teeny-weeny tantrum at a bake sale my first year back. Not my best day,” she admitted, wrinkling her nose in self-disgust. “I mean, if certain people didn’t have gossip, they wouldn’t have anything at all, right? I should feel sorry for them. Instead, I set fire to a few bridges over a couple of remarks that weren’t untrue, just hypocritical. Hypercritical, in my opinion. Then I paid for the cake I had thrown on the floor and left.”
He was trying to stifle his laughter with his fist. “How have I never heard about this?”
“Because Quinley Banks knows I’m a crazy bitch who will murder a cake if she talks smack about me again.”
“Oh shi—eesh.” His shoulders were shaking.
“The boys play sometimes, but we keep to our corners.”
“And you don’t let her come to his party because you’re worried she’ll retaliate? Throw Biyen’s cake on the grass?”
“I paid a lot for the vegan, T-rex decal that I had to fix myself because they spelled his name wrong. Again.”
Over at the porch, laughter went up and Biyen said, “We can’t .”
“Of course, you can,” Gramps insisted, leaning forward in his chair to point at the little packages of jelly beans. “Take the black ones out and put the rest in the goody bags.”
“You can have this one,” Imogen said helpfully. “I counted. It’s extra.” She held up a package that Sophie knew held half a dozen jelly beans. “It has a black one.”
“I don’t like the other colors, only the black ones. Fetch the scissors, Biyen.” Gramps was having as much fun as the kids with this performance. “We’ll nip the corner off each of these and I’ll take the black one. I’ll eat them before the kids get here. No one will ever know.”
“No!” The kids were all giggling. “They’ll fall out .”
“So?”
“You can’t have sugar, Gramps,” Biyen reminded him.
“You came back for Art, didn’t you?” Logan said.
While she’d been grinning at the shenanigans on the porch, he’d been watching her. A sense of transparency had her folding her arms.
“He was missing Mom as much as I was. I thought I’d visit for a week or so, but I could see how much he’d aged.” A tiny tremor entered her voice as she accepted her grandfather would not be here forever. “I came pretty close to quitting when Tiffany started turning this place upside down, though. Gramps or no Gramps. Then Em showed up and she’s been such a good friend, I couldn’t abandon her.”
“Yeah, Em’s pretty great.”
“But I’m worried about Gramps. He’s been… I thought it was grief over your dad, but he’s… I don’t know. Tired, I guess. Can I ask you a favor?”
“Of course.” He sobered with concern.
“I’m going to make him a doctor appointment. He always says he doesn’t want to put me out, because I’m always busy with work and Biyen. Maybe if you said you were going over to Bella Bella anyway? Then he wouldn’t have an excuse not to go.”
“Done,” he assured her.
“Thanks. Oh. Here we go.” She nodded at the kids walking up the driveway, all carrying wrapped gifts. “Fasten your seatbelt and put your tray table up.”
*
The chaos of sugar-saturated children reigned for two hours.
Logan helped get hot dogs into them, then sparked a tantrum in Storm when he wouldn’t let her have a bite of his.
“I put hot mustard on it,” he argued, but no, he had betrayed her with his selfishness. He would not be forgiven. Ever.
“Umm-umma,” she cried pitifully and reached for Emma.
“Poor thing. Come sit with me. Look, I brought your cereal,” she said of the toasted O’s she produced from the diaper bag.
Storm settled between Emma’s legs on a blanket and chased spilled O’s while everyone sang “Happy Birthday” to Biyen and his cake was served.
The kids all sat on the grass to eat while they watched Biyen open his presents. They were a predictable assortment of LEGO kits and dinosaurs, books and a stuffed spirit bear that the Kiwi kids had picked up while away on their cruise.
“Cooper. Imogen,” Emma called softly, waving them closer.
They came over very distracted, watching over their shoulder for the last present to be unveiled.
Emma whispered something to them.
Imogen’s eyes popped wide. “ Yes. ”
“Okay, shh. Go give this to him. It’s a secret, Cooper.” Emma touched her lips.
He nodded, but his eyes were alight with excitement. Both children moved to sit right in front of Biyen.
“You already gave me the bear.” He took the mysterious little box. It didn’t rattle or jangle, though he gave it a shake to see if it would.
Sophie seemed to know what it was because she was watching closely, anticipation playing around her smile.
Cooper looked over at Emma. Emma touched her lips again in a reminder.
Logan was silently urging the kid to hurry up because his curiosity was getting the better of him.
Biyen tore the wrapping and revealed a box of baby swabs. His brow quirked up in puzzlement.
“That’s not a real box. Is it, Auntie Em?” Imogen asked.
“No, look inside, Biyen.”
“Is it a secret message?” He slid the drawer of the box and withdrew a rolled-up piece of paper with a ribbon on it.
“Read it,” Sophie urged.
“Do you want to come to Vancouver with us and see the dinosaur ex-hi…”
“Exhibition,” Sophie provided.
“Really?” Biyen didn’t know where to look. His head almost snapped off as he looked between his mom and Emma and the kids. “ When? ”
Logan felt a chuckle of pure enjoyment fill his chest. That was about the greatest thing ever, to see a kid get that excited.
“This weekend,” Reid provided. “I decided to go with Emma when she takes everyone to catch their flight. There’s room on the plane so we thought you might like to come, too.”
“And stay at a hotel,” Imogen said with suitable awe. “Do you want to?”
Biyen looked up at Sophie. “ Can I?”
“Your dad and I already talked about it and agree, yes, if you want to. Do you?” She was beaming at him, enjoying his thrill as if it were her own.
“ Yes. Wait, are you coming?” he asked Sophie.
“I have to work.”
“Dad?”
“Just you, little dude.”
Logan opened his mouth, ready to find a way to send Sophie if necessary, but Biyen shrugged.
“That’s okay. I’ll still have fun.”
“You will,” Sophie agreed. “It’s a pretty cool present, isn’t it? What do you say to the kids? And Reid and Emma?”
“Thank you.” He shyly hugged everyone.
“When did you cook this up?” Logan asked Reid as the kids went back to playing.
“Yesterday. Emma wasn’t feeling good about leaving Storm again. I said I’d go with them so we could bring her. Then she asked me if I would take the kids to the dinosaur thing in case Storm wasn’t loving it. Cooper mentioned Biyen had been wanting to go so Em called Sophie. We didn’t want to tell the kids until Sophie had cleared it with Nolan and Em had checked with Delta.”
Reid sent a brief side-eye to where his mother-in-law sat next to Art on the porch.
“She likes having Biyen around,” Reid said with fatalistic lift of his brow. “The kids bicker when it’s just the two of them, but that boy has a career in diplomacy if the paleontology thing doesn’t work out.”
“True that. So I’m covering for you again?”
“Only on Friday. The weekend should be quiet. You’ll have the house to yourself, too. No parties. Hear me?” He held up a warning finger.
“Between last night and this, I’m done with parties for a while.” He wasn’t so much hungover as lacking sleep, definitely looking forward to some quiet time after all this socializing.
Apparently, the birthday party had run its course. Sophie called out, “Okay, everyone. Biyen is going to hand out your goody bags before you walk home.”
“Subtle,” Reid said with a smirk. “I heard from the owners of the MissionaryII , by the way. They’re talking to the insurance company about it. When will you have a proposal put together? And how are the designs coming along?”
I need a space to work , Logan would have said, but he noticed Emma had started chatting to one of the other kid’s moms. Storm was trying to scale Emma’s thigh to go after Emma’s abandoned plate of cake. Logan stepped closer to the blanket and leaned his hands down.
“Come see me?” he invited.
Storm looked up at him and grinned, their disagreement over the hot dog forgotten. Her arms came up so he could grasp her torso and gather her into his chest as he straightened.
“Thanks,” Emma said absently and began collecting gift wrap and other litter from the blanket. Reid helped Delta take leftover watermelon and hot dogs into the house, and within a few minutes, nearly everyone had left, including Delta who was being chauffeured home in Art’s Gator.
“Immy, Coop,” Emma called. “Time to walk home.”
“Biyen wants them to come to the beach with us,” Sophie said. “You guys go home and put your feet up. I’ll bring them home later. Thanks for coming.”
She waved and turned back to whatever Nolan was saying to her.
Logan wasn’t trying to eavesdrop. He only moved closer because he was picking up the diaper bag, but he heard Nolan say, “…and said not to come back. I’d rather move here anyway. If I could stay until—”
“No,” Sophie said, quiet but firm. “It’s Gramps’s house, not mine. He said only until Biyen’s birthday. Plus, it would be confusing for Biyen. He would think you and I are together.” She glanced for Biyen, who was playing tag over by the shed with Imogen and Cooper. She stiffened as she realized Logan had come close enough to overhear them.
Nolan looked at him, too.
“Art let him move in.” He cocked his head at Logan. “Does Biyen think you two are together? Are you?”
Perhaps he wasn’t a clueless as he seemed, if he could sense the possessive hackles that were rising across Logan’s shoulders.
“Logan pays rent,” Sophie said flatly. “If you need a loan for a damage deposit so you can get a new place, I can front you that, but no. You can’t move in with us. I’ll ask Gramps if you can stay on the lawn until Biyen leaves with Reid and Emma this weekend, but that’s it.”
“Come on, Soph.”
She didn’t even shake her head. Only stood with her shoulders straight and her face impassive.
“This was fun,” Logan said with firm cheer as Storm tried to crawl from his arm onto his shoulder. “Thanks for having us.”
“Uncle Logan.” Imogen came running up. “Are you going? Can Storm come to the beach with us?”
That sounded like a recipe for sand from scalp to diaper, but he said, “She’d probably like that. Are you ready to go?” he asked Sophie, offering her a reason to walk away from Nolan.
“Let me get the rest of the food put away. One minute.”