Chapter 28 #2
The sun slid lower, flaming crimson lingering above the dusky hills. Sitting together watching the sun set was the perfect way to end the day.
‘I’m sorry I didn’t get back till late last night.’ Logan swigged his beer while keeping his eyes fixed on the reddening sky. ‘I had been hoping for, um—’
‘A repeat of the night before?’
The smile that snuck onto Logan’s face flooded Tilly with warmth.
He took another gulp of beer. ‘The other day you said you’d never thought about me as more than a friend. What changed?’
‘I think an attraction has always been there, it just took other people to point it out. Rosie, Cal, even Màiri.’ Tilly laughed as Logan’s head shot round at the mention of his ex. ‘But, honestly, Joy opened my eyes to things through her journal.’
Logan shook his head. ‘I had made her promise not to say anything to you.’
‘Technically she didn’t. She wrote down her feelings and thoughts; she just so happened to write them for me.’
‘She knew exactly what she was doing.’
‘Her dream was to see you happy.’
Tears lined Logan’s eyes as he nodded. ‘You’re tied up in that, Tilly. I just never had the guts to say anything before about the way I feel.’
It was Tilly’s turn to swig her beer, needing to drown her discomfort. She was uncomfortable being so open and honest and struggling to make sense of her feelings when they were alone again at the end of a wonderful but emotional day.
She thought about suggesting they go down to the loch and perch on the tree stump, but they didn’t need to rehash old memories.
They needed to make new ones and figure out where they went from here, something that was exciting and terrifying.
The preparation for the celebration had taken up their time and hijacked their emotions, so there’d been little opportunity to think about the fact they’d spent the night together, let alone talk about it.
Now would be a good time, but she was finding it hard to get the words out.
‘I had a long chat with Màiri today.’ That was not what she meant to say, and by the look of surprise on Logan’s face he thought the same.
Way to go to dampen the mood, she thought.
‘Were you aware she blamed me for you two breaking up?’
‘Màiri’s been pissed at me for years.’ He looked at her sheepishly. ‘And yes, maybe I allowed her to believe that you were part of the reason for me breaking up with her. It was easier than telling her outright I didn’t love her.’
‘But in a way it was true that I was a reason?’
‘You’ve always been the reason that my heart’s not been fully committed to anyone else.’
Her breath caught at his words.
Logan sighed and put his empty bottle on the grass. ‘I never put Màiri straight because it was too complicated to explain and it would have sounded like a lame excuse. She made an assumption about us and I didn’t correct her. We were never going to work out—’
‘That’s what she said.’
‘But my timing and the way I handled things could have been better. I used you as an excuse to break up with her. I was leaving to help you out, and I can see how she took that the wrong way, believing there was something between us. Although she wasn’t wrong.’
‘But nothing happened and you didn’t say a word.’
Logan leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees.
‘I’ve been afraid the whole time of losing you, because I was worried you wouldn’t feel the same and that would push you away, which was the last thing I wanted.
’ He shifted on the bench so he was facing her.
‘I wake up thinking about you and go to sleep dreaming of us.’ His eyes traced her face, then he held her gaze.
‘I love you, Tilly, I always have done.’
Tilly’s heart started sprinting… Actually, no, it was compressing under the weight of his words.
A revelation of love should have been joyous, yet what Logan had admitted and his look of longing made a shutter close over her heart.
Her inability to allow herself to give in to the feelings she didn’t yet understand was all-consuming.
An attraction to each other hadn’t felt overly risky, but this did.
It was shocking the effect three little words could have.
Desire was one thing, but love? What he’d admitted could mean the end of their friendship as she knew it.
Those words were the promise of a future, one that she’d always run from, because giving her heart to someone risked hurt and disappointment.
Instead of saying anything, she kissed him, because it was easier than acknowledging his words, accepting the truth or making her own feelings known. That was a heap of mess she couldn’t even begin to wade through, not tonight.
Their kisses turned passionate, fuelled by her desire to feel instead of talk.
As she led Logan back inside and upstairs to her bedroom, it was in the back of her mind that she’d walked this path before, combating an open announcement of love with the physical act of it, because that required less thought or commitment, because it was the pleasurable and least complicated option.
Because she didn’t know what else to do.
Things had moved so fast between them over the last week and her heart and head hadn’t caught up with each other.
She wasn’t on the same page as Logan when it came to understanding her feelings, yet she was happy to peel his T-shirt off and push him down on the bed, to plant kisses across his muscled chest and loosen his belt.
She was content to lose herself in him and his touch and taste, for them to strip each other naked and give herself wholly to him.
She was willing to do the whole damn lot.
Apart from the bit about love. She wasn’t ready to make sense of that.
Sex was her secret weapon to deflect. For tonight, it would have to be enough.