Chapter Eighteen
L ogan went to the bathroom. When he came back and stretched out beside her, he exhaled pure satisfaction and reached for her.
Sophie snuggled into his warmth. It was a cool morning and the sex heat was dissipating from her bloodstream. She wanted the closeness, too, but as perfect as this felt, she was troubled. Unsure.
Did she believe Logan loved her? She didn’t disbelieve him, but she wasn’t ready to take on faith that they would last a lifetime. She couldn’t tie her whole future—and her son’s—to his. Not on one albeit wish-fulfilling declaration.
“I think…” She came up on an elbow and set her hand on his chest, kind of bracing him for what she needed to say. “I think I need to at least try some time on my own, the way you did when you left here.”
His mouth tightened with dismay.
“I know that’s not what you want to hear.” She set her lips against his shoulder. “But I came back for Gramps and I don’t regret that, but that hobbled me from exploring other opportunities or my own potential. I’ll still have Biyen, obviously, but I think it would be good for him to see a broader world than this one, too. Please don’t be mad.”
“This is one of those no-win situations, Soph.” He picked up her hand and wove his fingers through hers, bringing their joined hands to his mouth so he could kiss her knuckle. “I hear what you’re saying. I get it. I’m not going to lay a guilt trip on you or try to convince you differently, but don’t you dare take my accepting what you’re saying as me not caring. It fucking kills me that you would leave when I can’t.”
“Oh, Logan.” She dipped her head against his shoulder.
“But listen.” He cupped the back of her neck.
She lifted her face.
“I’ll wait,” he vowed.
The skewed sensation in her chest sharpened. “I can’t ask you to do that. I won’t.”
“You’re not. I’m telling you that’s what I’ll do. As long as it takes for you to come back to me.”
“I didn’t wait for you,” she reminded with a cringe of anguish. She had gone straight out and got herself pregnant with Biyen, maybe not on purpose, but the sex had been pursued out of spite.
“You did wait, though.” He shifted his touch so his thumb could trace her bottom lip. “You waited all through school, then gave me a chance and I blew it.”
“This isn’t a test, Logan.”
“I know. It’s not one for you, either. I’m telling you how it is for me now. I can’t imagine anyone else in my life. Maybe if you marry some other guy and start having kids with him, I’ll have to think about moving on, but I can’t see myself with anyone else. If you need to try another job or give Biyen more options or visit foreign countries purely for the experience, do it. Make the life you want for yourself. When I’m able, I’ll join you.”
“Just like that?”
“Why not?”
Because no one had ever given her that much consideration. She didn’t know how to accept it.
As she fought to swallow the lump in her throat, the sound of heavy footsteps landed on the porch, followed by an abrupt knock on the door.
“Soph? You home? It’s me.”
“Me” could have been anyone in Raven’s Cove, but they both recognized Trystan’s voice and shared a grimace. Busted.
*
Sophie threw on a robe, then gathered her clothes and slipped out the door and into the bathroom, calling out, “Gimme a sec.”
Logan pulled on his boxers and shorts, then shrugged on his T-shirt as he walked out to the kitchen. He would take the hit broadside to spare Sophie whatever reaction Trystan was about to have.
As glowering went, Trystan was actually better at it than even Reid. It was the scarcity of his bitchiness. Reid had a resting scowl-face and overused it, diluting its power. Logan was too vain to risk the frown lines so he avoided frowning.
Trystan was more impassive than both of them, rarely riled by anything and even when he was, he didn’t let it show. Thus, when he pulled out a sneer of profound disgust, you really felt it.
He underlined this one with a contemptuous, “What the fuck? We talked about this.”
“Swear jar’s on the counter.” Logan nodded. “That one costs a dollar. Don’t ask me to cover it. I’m tapped out.” He held up his empty hands.
“No fucking doubt,” Trystan muttered, glancing at Art’s chair and wincing. When he looked back at Logan, his demeanor was all put back together into its tidy packsack. “We need a family meeting at the house. Why are you still staying here?”
“I’m paying rent.”
“Is that what you were doing?”
“Oh fuck off. What’s the meeting about?”
Sophie came out of the bathroom and said, “Don’t give Logan a hard time. I’m a grown up and make my own choices.”
Trystan flicked a look between them, maybe trying to decide whether to condone this affair or continue to give his brother grief about it. He decided to go back to glowering, this time at Sophie.
“What is this I hear about you leaving?”
“Is that why you’re here? I thought you were the sex police doing random stop and frisk. Who told you?”
“Randy was on the dock. I asked him how you were doing, and he told me you’re leaving. That was news to me, and I wanted to know more before I chat with the Brothers Grimm about something else.” He flicked another look at Logan.
“I’m thinking of leaving,” she stressed, but sent Logan a fresh grimace of apology. “I didn’t mean for it to get all over the island. Nolan has a big mouth and Biyen’s been processing a lot of feelings about a lot of stuff. It’s not something I’m doing tomorrow, but, you know, maybe before school starts? I realize that could make it harder when you sell the resort. Randy is a great mechanic, but he doesn’t have the management skills. Logan will be here, though.”
“ Will Logan be here?” Trystan turned a cool look on him, one that judged him no matter which way he jumped. If he went with Sophie, he was abandoning his family. If he stayed, he was screwing with Sophie’s heart all over again.
“I would love it if you minded your own business.” Logan folded his arms. “Try it once. For me.”
“Your business is my business when it’s a fucking mess on the floor that I have to clean up,” Trystan snapped.
“Wow. Since when—”
“Oh stop it.” Sophie waved her arm between them to break their locked stare. “You’re both big men who can pee really far. Do you want coffee, Trys? We have some leftover cabbage rolls from last night. Mrs. Sokal made them. They’re really good.”
“No, thanks. I texted Reid that we need a meeting. You might as well join us. Hear it from us instead of the grapevine.”
“Something about Tiffany’s sister?” Logan asked with concern.
“No, I caught up with Eli Schooner in Ocean Falls. His mother is on the tribal council here in Bella Bella. Things are moving forward with their Truth and Reconciliation settlement. He told me they want to make an offer for the resort.”
“Holy shit.” Sophie’s eyes went big.
“We have to do that.” Logan was equally stunned by the news, but he immediately knew there was no other option. They already leased the land from the Heiltsuk Nation, but the buildings and business had always been run by settlers.
“My thought exactly,” Trystan said. “We need to talk with Reid about what that might look like.”
“It looks like us being hobbled by bureaucracy,” Logan said with anticipated frustration. “What if we need the money sooner than government wheels can turn?”
“That’s a given,” Trystan muttered while they put on their shoes to follow him up to the house.
*
“Biyen will turn up here soon,” Sophie told Emma as she came into the kitchen with Logan and Trystan. “I texted Quinley to tell him I was here.”
“Oh sure.” Emma was sprinkling seasonings over a raw, plucked bird that was already in a roasting pan. “Do you want to stay for dinner? I expected Trystan to join us so I took out this chook and look at it. It’s a monster. I’m starting to think it’s a turkey. How do you tell?”
“You read the label when you buy it.”
“The label said it came from a farmer’s market in Port Hardy. Glenda must have brought it.”
“Helpful.” Sophie leaned closer to give the bird a sniff, but only caught a noseful of thyme and rosemary. “We’ll find out when you cook it, won’t we?”
“Soph?” Logan’s hand squeezed her waist as he came up beside her. “You want something to drink? Beer? Wine?”
“Day drinking on a Sunday sounds like a nap before dinner, but sure. White, please.”
“I could have sworn you two already had a nap,” Trystan said under his breath, but not really, as he reached into a cupboard and handed a glass across to Logan.
“You got something to say, sailor?” Sophie challenged.
“Wouldn’t dream of it. Em? Wine?”
Emma was swinging her head like she was watching a tennis match.
“Thanks.” She nodded at Trystan.
He passed a second glass to Logan and closed the cupboard. “Where’s Reid?”
“Getting up from his own nap, I imagine,” Logan drawled.
“Getting Storm up from hers,” Emma corrected indignantly. Then in an aside to Sophie confided, “But I have made the bed twice today.” Her gaze flickered curiously between her and Logan.
“I only make it when I put clean sheets on it,” Sophie said. “Otherwise, I’m wasting time I could spend sleeping in it.”
“Ta.” Emma smiled at Logan as he set her filled glass within reach.
“I’ll get the beer then?” Logan said to Trystan. “Since you’re going to stand around sulking because you didn’t get your own nap today?” He turned and went down the stairs.
“Sometimes I feel so sorry for Glenda,” Sophie said to Emma as she rolled the stem of her glass between her fingers and thumb. “Can you imagine eighteen years of these three locking horns?”
“She’s a saint. Is the oven hot, Trys? Can you—Oh, thanks.”
He opened the oven and took the roaster from her, sliding it onto the rack.
“Hopefully we’ll eat by six. Who wants scalloped potatoes?” Emma asked.
“Who doesn’t?” Sophie asked, eyeing Trystan, trying to tell if he was genuinely annoyed at her and Logan hooking up or using it as an excuse to needle his brother.
“I’ll start those in a little bit, then.” Emma washed her hands and was drying them on a tea towel when Reid walked in with a sleepy Storm.
“Oh, hello,” Sophie said warmly.
Storm wasn’t interested in a bunch of people, even the ones she loved. She turned her face away and sucked her fingers, head resting trustingly on Reid’s shoulder.
“She hasn’t had her coffee yet,” Reid joked, rubbing her back. “How are you, Soph?”
“Well enough.” She kept to herself that she cried every morning when she woke and remembered all over again that Gramps was gone.
He nodded and asked Trys, “So what’s up?”
“Let’s sit down.”
Logan returned with cans of beer and handed them out as they all took seats in the living room. Logan sat on the floor in front of Sophie, resting his back against the front of the sofa, something that Reid noted with a glance toward Emma.
There was a round of pop-hisses as they opened their cans, then Trystan caught them up on what he’d learned. “I’m confident they’ll pay market value,” Trystan wrapped up, speaking to Reid. “I know you were hoping we’d be turning a profit by end of season, and that competing bids would drive up the price once we put it up for sale.”
“I was, but there’s no other option now. We have to sell to them. It’s the right thing to do,” Reid said matter-of-factly.
“I agree.” Logan nodded. “Let’s set up a meeting with the council to tell them we agree in principle. Do you want one of us to make that call?”
“I can do it,” Trystan said.
They all sat in silence for a minute, absorbing this sudden new direction.
It made sense that the Heiltsuk Nation take over the resort, which was smack-dab in the middle of their traditional territory, and provide opportunities for their own people to run it. Sophie would happily provide any support they needed through the transition. This development also relieved her of any sense of disloyalty toward Wilf and the marina, but did it also spell freedom for Logan sooner than either of them would have expected?
A bubble of pressure began to form inside her, one filled with expectations she wasn’t sure she could meet. He had promised to wait for her, but she was still really, really fearful of trusting him.
The silence had Storm picking up her head with curiosity. She held out one arm toward Trystan.
“Tst.”
“Show him what you can do.” Reid sat her on the floor.
Instead of crawling to Trystan, she grinned at Logan and clambered against his leg, clumsily trying to crawl up him until he gathered her to stand on his thigh. His big hands caged her stiff body, supporting her as she practiced her wobbly balance.
“Where would we go?” Emma asked Reid with a worried look.
“This does shake things up, doesn’t it? We have to stay in BC until…” He nodded at Storm. The gesture encompassed the finalizing of Emma’s residency so she could adopt Storm with him. “Then… I don’t know.”
“Do you have any sense of timing?” Logan asked Trystan.
“It’s the government. Took twenty years for them to get this far,” Trystan said with a twist of his lips. “Two hundred and twenty, if we’re being honest.”
No kidding. Sophie experienced a pang of white guilt and hurt on Trystan’s behalf. He had never talked much about how the residential school system had affected him and his mother’s family, but she knew his grandmother had been taken in the Sixties Scoop. As a mother herself, Sophie couldn’t fathom having her child snatched from her home or what it would do to Biyen to be wrenched from all he knew.
The Truth and Reconciliation process with the federal government was intended to repair some of the damage done by colonial settlers to the many Indigenous nations across Canada, but it was a slow, painful process.
Sophie was glad the Fraser boys were willing to make a deal so unhesitatingly, though. No amount of money could erase the history and damage done, but it was a step in the right direction.
Logan lifted Storm to growl into her stomach, making her release a baby giggle that was highly infectious, putting smiles on all their faces.
Poignant ones, though.
These siblings had finally come together into something like a family. Now they were talking about leaving the place that had been their childhood home and fragmenting again.
The front door suddenly flung open. Biyen burst in, panting as though he’d run across the entire island. “Is my mom—Oh. Hi, Mom.”
“Hi, bud. Knock first when you come in here, okay? Close the door and take off your shoes. Did you have fun with JayJay?”
“Yup.” He toed off his shoes and came around the sofa to drop on his knees beside Logan, ignoring all the adults to say, “Hi Stormin’ Norman McDoorman.” He touched Storm’s hand, inviting her to grab his finger.
Storm toppled herself straight at him, steadied only by Logan’s firm grip on her.
“Oh no, I’m being attacked. Help, help!” Biyen folded himself to the floor and pulled Storm onto his chest, hugging her there while he rolled his head as though helpless. “She’s going to eat me and kill me. Logan,” he gasped. “Save me.”
“I’m paralyzed by baby spit, bud. You’re on your own.” He kept a hand outstretched, though, ready to protect Storm’s head if she rolled off Biyen and into the edge of the couch.
“Mom. I’m your only son.”
“That we know of.”
Biyen giggled and Logan sent her a pithy look over his shoulder.
She thought, This is what I want. It was simple and maybe even clichéd, but she wanted that man and that boy and a baby who would turn into another child who played silly games with all of them. She wanted these people around her, maybe not keeping her safe from the hardships of life but buffering her from the worst of them. Supporting her through them. She wanted all of this so badly, she could hardly see straight.
“Ack!” Biyen turned his face and stuck out his tongue. “Why does she always put her fingers in my mouth? And why are they always wet ?”
“She’s looking for food,” Logan teased. “Don’t you have some old gum in there she could have?”
“That is so gross. I changed my mind. I don’t want a baby brother or sister.”
There was another potent silence.
“I’m just kidding,” Biyen said, misinterpreting the reaction around him. He snuggled Storm more closely. “I wish Storm could be my sister.”
“Then I would have to marry Reid and I think Emma would have something to say about that,” Sophie said lightly. “Biyen and I have been talking about a lot of different things lately, while we consider our next steps, haven’t we?” She spoke to Biyen, but she was addressing the high interest that was charging the air around them.
“Yeah. I kind of want everything to stay the same, but I guess it can’t,” Biyen said.
“Mouths of babes,” Emma murmured.
“What do you mean?” Biyen gave her his quizzical look, then looked at Storm’s mouth.
“It’s just a saying.” Emma smiled. “But Storm is probably hungry.” She rose to lift her off Biyen. “Would you like a snack, too? Dinner won’t be ready for a few hours.”
“Yes, please. Can I feed her?” Biyen stood up to follow Emma into the kitchen.
“You can try. She thinks she can feed herself so it gets pretty messy.”
“That’s okay. We’re all bad at stuff until we learn. We still need to try.”
“That kid is a walking fortune cookie,” Reid said, watching him go.
“Right? He’s smarter than the three of us put together,” Logan said.
“I would love to argue with you,” Trystan said. “It’s kind of my favorite pastime, but I gotta agree with you on that one. You’ve done good, Soph. You know that, right?”
“Oh, don’t,” she said, starting to choke up. She snatched up her wine and shuffled her legs past Logan so she could rise and follow Emma to the kitchen.
“No, listen.” Logan caught her hand, keeping her from walking away. “We’re serious. He’s got Nolan, we know that, but we’re here. Anytime. No matter what.”
No matter whether she was involved with him or not, that’s what Logan was saying, and it really meant so much to her, she could hardly bear it.
“Seriously, my emotions are right here these days.” She pulled her hand free and set it in front of her nose. “Please don’t do this to me right now.” She took a step, then made herself say, “But also thank you.” She hurried away.