Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Harper
S ometime during the night, the rain stopped, and the morning dawned clear and bright. Harper woke in Logan’s big bed and stretched, feeling more relaxed than she had in days. She had never been someone who slept easily in a bed other than her own, despite how often she traveled, so she was surprised to find that she had slept through the night.
She climbed out of bed and smoothed the covers back into place, fluffing the pillows. The window beckoned and she walked toward it, stifling a yawn. The bedroom was at one end of a gabled roof, and windows made up almost the entirety of one wall.
Last night, in the rainy darkness, she wasn’t able to take in the view, but now she could see the beauty of the bay where Logan lived.
There was a jetty where a small motorboat was moored, and a tiny private beach. Harper stared and stared at the expanse of water fringed by forests and granite boulders that emerged along the shore. There wasn’t a single other house to be seen.
It was the most beautiful view she could remember seeing.
And the loneliest.
Harper wondered about the man who lived here. What was it about this place and all this isolation that beckoned to him?
She reluctantly pulled herself away from the window to use the bathroom and dress. As she opened her suitcase, she saw the red evening dress and paused, her hand smoothing the fabric sadly.
“One day at a time.” She pulled on a pair of jeans and a plain white tee shirt. The jeans were the clothing equivalent of a unicorn; they actually fit her waist and hips at the same time—something of a miracle—and she owned the style in every color available. That day’s pair was a faded blue denim.
She pulled on a loose, cropped sweater and padded downstairs in her socks to find Logan.
“Hello?”
There was a faint thumping noise coming from outside, and she followed the sound.
“Logan?”
As Harper walked through the house to the mudroom the noise got louder, punctuated with the occasional grunt.
What on earth?
Her sneakers were still wet with mud, so she grabbed a pair of pull-on rubber boots and stepped outside. The boots were huge on her—obviously a pair of Logan’s—and she walked awkwardly past where his truck was parked and around the side of the garage.
The morning was cool, not at all like the summer mornings in California that she was used to, and Harper shivered as a breeze brushed over her skin. The water lapped at the shore, evidence of the previous night’s storm shown in the debris that had been deposited at the high tide mark.
The trees overhead swayed back and forth in the salty breeze, the rustle of their leaves the only sound until the noise that pulled her outside started up again.
As she stepped around the corner of the building, the source of the noise became clear. Logan was chopping wood.
Shirtless.
Dear Lord in heaven. That man is a snack.
She paused, one hand resting on the white-painted cladding of the garage wall, as she watched him work.
He faced away from her, a huge axe in one hand. Bending to grab a chunk of wood, he placed it on a block near his booted feet. His jeans rode low on his hips and, as he spread his legs ready to swing, he hitched them up slightly on his thick thighs.
Harper held her breath, eyes wide, as he swung the axe overhead in one fluid motion. The muscles in his back and shoulders tensed before he brought the axe down onto the wood with a grunt, splitting it clean in two. He bent again, picking up one of the split halves and repeated the motion, before tossing the pieces into a wood bin to one side.
He turned to grab another block of wood and spied Harper watching him. Harper froze. The sunlight that had broken through the trees lit his sweat-slicked skin in golden hues. She couldn’t look away.
His arm lazily swung the axe back and forth as he walked slowly toward her. The waistband of his slightly too-big jeans slipped down a little as he walked. A trail of brown hair led from his navel, over stomach muscles you could wash clothes on, to disappear between the deep vee she thought only underwear models had.
Apparently not.
Harper swallowed and, realizing she’d been staring at his crotch, coughed and dragged her eyes away.
“Morning princess,” he drawled, and she flushed, her face heating as he stopped next to her.
Why did he have to stand so close?
“Princess?” She managed to ask, proud that she could look him in the eye and not ogle his muscled chest. He smelled like cut wood, leather and sandalwood. She decided breathing through her mouth was preferable to drooling over her host.
“I thought you’d sleep forever,” he said with a grin. “You know, like sleeping beauty?”
Harper blinked, stunned. Surely, he didn’t mean he thought she was beautiful? Harper had long since resigned herself to being the plain sister.
No, that wasn’t what he meant.
She shook her head and took a step backwards, looking away and over the water.
“It’s a lovely spot,” she said, changing the subject.
He hummed a response, and she knew without looking that he was still staring at her.
Harper shifted from foot to foot and darted a look at Logan. As he lifted an arm to wipe sweat from his forehead the muscles in his chest flexed. She watched as a trickle of sweat rolled from the base of his neck down the slope of his collar bone to dampen the hair covering his chest.
Her fingers itched to touch him again, remembering how surprisingly soft the hair over his very defined pectorals felt last night.
Breathe through your mouth, girl!
“Harper?”
She jolted. She had completely zoned out. How embarrassing. Caught ogling the guy who has been forced to give her a place to stay—who gave up his own bed, no less, to sleep on the couch.
“I’m so sorry,” she managed to get out. Refusing to look anywhere near Logan, she stepped backwards.
The heel of one too-large boot caught on a stick, and she fell with a squeak.
Logan darted forward with a speed that surprised her almost as much as the fall itself, catching her before she hit the ground, one large arm around her back.
She teetered precariously on one foot, leaning backward and clutching at Logan’s arm.
“You are disaster prone, aren’t you, princess?” He grinned, swinging her up into his arms, bridal style.
Harper’s mouth dropped open in shock, and she wriggled. “Put me down! You’ll hurt yourself!”
He chuckled as he carried her to the wide, sheltered porch at the back of the house. “I’m starting to think you really do need rescuing,” he said softly, his breath stirring her hair.
Harper stopped moving and relaxed in his arms. She could hear the steady beat of his heart next to her ear. Breathing in, she gave in to temptation and let herself enjoy his scent. She marveled at how he could smell so good while being so sweaty. She had never been attracted to sweaty men—the thought had always grossed her out a little—but Logan?
Given half a chance I will climb him like a tree.
She closed her eyes, willing herself not to make a bigger fool of herself than she already had.
He’s just being nice.
Logan lowered her feet to the wooden deck, and she reluctantly stood, dusting her hands on her jeans for want of anything else to do with them.
“Uh, thank you.”
Logan smiled and took a step back, crossing his arms over his chest. The breeze picked up again and Harper shivered, but he didn’t seem to even notice.
“I checked on your car this morning,” he said.
Oh yes, how could she have forgotten? She needed to contact the rental company and organize a replacement. Oh, and contact King and her sister, get her phone fixed, find a guitar, and figure out if West—Mason—had returned from his hiking trip yet. If not, where was she going to stay? Her head began to swim with everything she needed to accomplish in the next three weeks.
She managed to control her breathing and pushed everything aside. One day at a time. And today, one thing at a time.
First: get to town and sort out the car situation. She did not want to be reliant on others for transport. “When can we go to town?”
Logan rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “That’s the thing. I’m not sure we’ll be able to get there for a few days.”
“What?” That was not the news Harper wanted to hear.
Logan reached for a discarded tee shirt draped over the porch railing and tugged it on over his head. His voice was muffled by the fabric as he replied. “The road’s flooded. We’re stuck here until the water goes down.”
“Oh.”
She turned and looked across the stretch of grass and granite boulders that sloped down toward the water. The boat on the little jetty bobbed gently on the water.
She narrowed her eyes at it.
“What about the boat?”
Logan turned to look at the boat and then back at Harper. “No motor. It’s a project boat that I haven’t managed to get around to fixing.”
“Oh.”
“Come on, I’ll show you.”
He held out a hand, and Harper slipped hers into it, savoring the warmth of his large palm against hers. He helped her down to the ground and then released her hand, leaving her feeling a little empty. Logan showed her a set of steps with a railing she hadn’t noticed before, and they followed it down to where the boat was moored.
As soon as she got close enough, she realized what Logan meant. The boat was a small motorboat, like the kind people used for fishing. There was a mount for a canopy, which was missing, and where the motor should have been, was a gaping hole.
“Ahh,” she said with a grimace.
Logan, noticing her expression, laughed. “Exactly. You want to see the road?”
Harper nodded. “Yes. I want to see what I’m up against.”
“I thought you might. And… well, I think you need to see it.”
A short while later, Harper had put on a pair of her own shoes and was back in the passenger seat of Logan’s truck. Branches and leaves were strewn across the road, and Logan carefully navigated through the debris, stopping occasionally to drag a particularly large branch off the road.
It took them much longer than the previous night to reach the area near where her car lay in the ditch. Logan slowed the truck, pulling off to one side of the road and putting the handbrake on.
The road dipped in front of them, the spot where she’d slid off the road just visible, and Logan was right. It was flooded.
What would be just a low point in the land when it was dry was awash with a raging torrent of water that rushed past. Harper watched, eyes wide, as part of a tree floated past.
“Oh, wow,” Harper breathed in awe. “That’s a lot of water.”
“Yep,” Logan agreed, turning off the ignition.
He hopped out, and Harper followed, picking her way around fallen branches until she reached the front of the truck.
Logan was staring at something, and she came to stand next to him.
“Look.” Logan pointed with one hand at something on the other side of the raging torrent.
She followed his gaze, squinting. “Is that my car?”
“Yep.”
“Oh, my god.”
There was no question it was her car, though little of it was still visible, crushed beneath the weight of a fallen tree. The little gray hatch was almost unrecognizable, the driver’s side almost entirely flattened.
“If I’d been inside…” The blood drained from her face.
“It’s a good thing you weren’t,” Logan said.
Harper turned wide eyes to him, and he must have seen something in her expression as he gave her a concerned look.
“Are you all right?” He gently tipped her chin up to meet her eyes. His hand was warm on her skin.
She nodded. “Yeah. It’s just been a rough few days.” Her broken laugh bordered on hysterical. “You know, the entire reason I came out here was because my dad wanted me out of the way.”
Logan’s brows drew together in a scowl. “What?”
Harper snorted and wrapped her arms around herself. “And now Isla won’t talk to me. My dad hasn’t really been my dad for a long time. He’s Isla’s manager, really.”
Logan let out a low growl and ran his hand through his hair, turning away.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
He shook his head, and she frowned. She would never understand men.
“He’s given me three weeks to write Isla’s next album.”
Logan turned back toward her. “Three weeks? Is that even possible?”
She shrugged. “It had better be, or I don’t know what’s going to happen. He’s made promises to Isla’s record company.” Harper shook her head, still not quite believing the impossible timeline she’d been given. “I usually work with Isla, bounce ideas off her. I’ve never worked entirely on my own. I’m not sure I can.”
Logan looked as if he wanted to say something, but he pressed his lips together and walked back to the truck. Harper followed, climbing into the passenger seat after Logan opened the door for her.
“So that’s why I came here. King sent me to your brother to get away for a few days. And then my dad told me I had three weeks…”
And now everything was piling up. One day less, and no songs written. Just when she thought things couldn’t get worse, they did. King’s words echoed. The only thing she could do was take it one day at a time.
“What are you going to do?” Logan asked.
Harper shrugged. “The only thing I can do. Write the songs.”