Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Logan
T he color drained from Harper’s face as she looked at the ringing cell phone in her hand. Her fingers squeezed his so tightly he thought he’d lose circulation, but he didn’t say a word.
Logan smiled in what he hoped was a reassuring way. She needed to speak with this jerk of a father of hers and get it over with. He couldn’t understand how someone could treat their child so badly.
For all their faults—as nobody was perfect—his dad had loved every one of his children. Unconditionally. And they knew it.
But Harper’s father? Logan would eat his very worn and battered ball cap if that man didn’t try to manipulate Harper in some way.
He watched, lips pressed into a thin line, as she answered the call.
“Hello?”
He hated how small she sounded. There was an explosion of shouting at the other end of the line and tears welled in Harper’s eyes.
She squeezed his hand tighter and right then and there Logan swore he’d do anything he could to help this woman.
She didn’t deserve this.
All she had done was give and give to her family. And then when she made one tiny mistake—possibly the first such one in her life, knowing Harper—they tossed her away.
Logan ground his teeth together as he listened to the one-sided conversation.
“But dad?—”
More yelling from the other end of the line. Logan fought to keep his temper and not yank the phone out of Harper’s hand and tell the man how little he thought of him. Father or no, he was out of line. Nobody spoke to her like that.
Harper pulled the phone away from her ear and looked at it, stunned. She shot a glance at Logan who pointed at the speaker button on the screen. Harper nodded and a second later angry shouting blasted through the previous calm of the lakeside house.
Harper swallowed and bit her lip as she listened to her father’s yelling.
“—are you going to apologize for all the trouble you’ve caused?”
“I’m sorry dad, I really am?—”
“You’d better be. And now your sister has gone and it’s your fault!”
Harper’s mouth fell open. “What?”
A humorless laugh came down the line. “That was your plan all along, wasn’t it? Turn her against me. Make her hate me.”
Tears rolled down Harper’s cheeks.
Watching this scene play out hurt more than anything Logan had ever felt. He rubbed at his sternum with his spare hand and then tugged Harper closer, slipping an arm around her shoulders and holding her tight.
“What do you mean Isla’s gone?” She pressed her hand against her mouth, eyes wide as she stared at the phone.
“She left with that bodyguard of hers. The day after you did. I bet she’s with you right now, the two of you laughing about what you’ve done to me!”
She sank against Logan, gripping his tee shirt in white-knuckled fingers.
“I didn’t do anything, dad! You sent me away?—”
“You wanted to go.”
“What? No, I didn’t.”
There was a snort from the other end of the line.
“You need to fix this, girl. Find your sister. Get that album written and get her to the studio to record it.” He mentioned a date barely two weeks away.
“That’s impossible! I don’t know where she is.”
“You had better figure?—”
Logan had had enough. He reached over and hit the button to end the call.
“You hung up on him?” Harper gasped, staring at him with incredulous eyes.
“Yep.”
“He’s going to be awful now. He’ll think it was me who hung up on him.” She dropped her phone to the couch next to her and hugged her knees to her chest.
Logan blinked. Didn’t she see how wrong this was?
Harper snatched up her phone and dialed. “I need to talk to Isla.”
Logan watched as she sat there for long minutes, trying to reach first her sister and then King. Over and over she dialed their numbers, each time her face falling in disappointment when they didn’t answer.
Logan couldn’t take it after the third time, and gently pried the phone from her hands.
“What are you doing?”
“Come on.” He tugged her to her feet. “I want to show you something.”
Harper sighed. “Now?”
He nodded. “No better time.”
She nodded, a frown marking a vertical line between her brows that he wished he could smooth away. “Ok.”
Logan led the way out of the house through the front door. They’d come in and out of the mudroom since she’d been here, and the back sliding doors onto the deck that overlooked the water, but not the front door.
When they got outside, he turned and walked in the opposite direction to where his truck was parked and where he’d been cutting wood. He smiled as he thought of how Harper would love what he had to show to her.
Her footsteps fell softly on the ground behind him as he led her toward a path partially hidden among the trees. The path wound through the quiet of the woods, punctuated by bird calls and the soft splash of the nearby water against the rocks.
“Where are we going?”
Logan stepped into a small clearing and moved to one side so Harper could see past him. She stopped, a hand raised to cover her mouth as she looked around.
The clearing overlooked the inlet but was raised on a small headland, a rocky outcrop jutting into the water. It was hidden from view of the house, with a small shelter with a roof but no walls.
“Oh wow. This is…” she trailed off as she stared around in wonder. “What is this?” She asked, looking up at him.
“It’s where I come sometimes just to think.” He shrugged. “I thought you might like it here.”
She smiled up at him. “I love it!”
He felt a rush of pleasure at Harper’s joyful enthusiasm, watching as she explored the space. He trailed after her and took a seat on the outdoor couch that he’d brought out here, laying back against the padded seat and propping his feet up on a stool.
The peace he felt when he came here slowly washed over him. The water was much calmer today, and he spent a few minutes just staring into the distance.
At some point, Harper plopped down next to him and tucked her feet up underneath her legs.
“Thank you,” she said.
He glanced over at her. Her face was in profile, and he noticed some freckles over her nose that he hadn’t seen before. They were adorable, and he felt a sudden urge to count each and every one.
“For what?”
She turned to look at him with a warm smile. “Distracting me with this.”
He didn’t reply, just nodded and watched as she flopped back against him. He lifted his arm, and she scooted underneath it, resting her head on his chest.
He could get used to this. The trust she showed him was not something he would take for granted. Ever.
“My family are a little different, I know that,” she said. She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and sighed. “I didn’t think I’d end up where I am, but I’m happy—well, until a few days ago I was.”
She frowned. Is being happy just something she told herself because the alternative was too difficult to face? If she admitted that her only parent didn’t want the best for her—that he was actively manipulating her—what would she have left?
His heart ached for her.
Logan had lost a parent. Had lost a brother. But he’d always known they’d loved him. Could Harper say the same about her father?
He frowned. He didn’t want to bet on it, that’s for sure.
Logan twisted a lock of her silky hair around his finger. The breeze stirred the air, bringing the smell of the salty ocean mixed with earth still damp from the storm. “What did you want when you were a child?”
“Hmm? What do you mean?”
He smiled against her hair and kissed the top of her head. “When you were little, a kid, you know? What did you want to do?”
She took her time to reply, but when she did, he could hear the smile in her voice. “I just wanted to make music. We used to sing along to songs on the radio while mom cooked. Isla and I were meant to be doing our homework but—” she broke off laughing. “I remember this one time we were having so much fun mom forgot about the pasta and it turned to mush.”
Logan smiled. He could just see little Harper singing along with her mom and her sister. The warmth in her voice when she spoke was clear.
“I miss her.” Harper’s voice was quiet.
“Tell me about her.”
So she did. She told him about the notes her mom would put in her school bag when she was worried about going to school. About the time when she’d really wanted a dog and her mom had tried to convince her dad to get one, ending up in an argument where neither of her parents spoke to each other for a week when her dad had point blank refused.
And she told him about the shock of losing her mom to cancer.
“It was so quick. She didn’t even know she was sick until it was too late.” Harper looked up at him with a sad smile. “Everything was different after she died.”
“Losing someone close to you turns your world upside down, doesn’t it?”
Harper nodded. “Yeah. Dad wasn’t the same after that. He hardly smiled and it was like he was trying to preserve her memory in a glass box. Everything he’s done since then has been built around some idea of what he thinks she would have wanted.”
“Has he dated at all?”
She shook her head. “Isla and I tried to suggest that to him once.” She grimaced. “He didn’t take it well.”
“Ah, yeah. We suggested that to mom once too. She wasn’t a fan.”
They shared a sympathetic smile.
“What happened to your dad?” Harper asked, turning in his arms to sit on the couch cushion next to him cross-legged. She leaned her elbow on the back of the couch and propped her chin on her hand.
Logan sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. “It’s a bit of a long story.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” She gave him an encouraging smile.
If only that were true.
“When I came back from college for summer I used to go with my dad to his construction sites. I did it because I wanted to spend time with him. So I helped out.” He shrugged. It had been fun, learning from his dad. They’d talk like they never got the chance to when he’d been a kid—raising six children didn’t leave a lot of spare time to bond with the quietest one. And Logan acknowledged that he did spend a lot of time at football training or reading.
“It all changed after Dan died.” Logan looked down at his hands. “It was the middle of summer and dad had a few days left on a job. He couldn’t just take time off work, so he pushed through. We both did. And he just didn’t stop. He took work that he wouldn’t have taken before.”
He glanced up at Harper.
“It was like he was trying to avoid confronting the fact that his son had died.”
Harper reached out and took his hand in hers, squeezing gently. “It sounds like it hit him hard.”
“Yeah.”
Harper settled back down against his chest, and they sat that way in comfortable silence for a little longer, Logan playing with her hair and watching her while she looked out across the water.
“He died a year later of a heart attack.”
“Oh, Logan.”
“When Dan had died, I spent the summer at home, helping dad at work. It helped enough that he was able to get back on his feet, and I went back to college. Everyone was just starting to deal with Dan’s death and then…” he trailed off. “Mason made it home for the funeral, but he only had 48 hours leave. Rhett was running his own business by then and didn’t have time to take over. Cassie was still in high school, and Rowan was mid-way through his art scholarship in Italy. So I took over running the business. I knew dad wouldn’t want to leave people in the lurch, he had a heap of jobs on the go that had to get finished.”
Harper turned to look at him. “He wouldn’t have wanted you to play football?”
Logan snorted. “He loved that I played football.”
Harper frowned, showing her confusion.
“He loved that I played football, which is why I played. I used it to get through college on a scholarship. Being good enough to get drafted was a bonus, but just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean you have to do it.”
Yes, he had been good at football. He enjoyed playing, the sense of family with his teammates, the feeling when a play went the way they’d planned, and he’d had a part in that. He’d loved it.
But he loved his family more.
“When dad died, I had a choice. I could sign the contract I’d been offered and spend most of the season on the bench as a rookie, maybe getting a few games in. Or I could come home and take on dad’s business and finish something he’d started.”
Harper nodded. “I bet not many people understood your decision.”
Logan snorted. “That’s putting it mildly.”
He pulled her toward him. The feel of her pressed against him was like finding the missing puzzle piece he hadn’t known was missing. He’d hidden from the world for so long that he’d forgotten that sometimes you needed to take risks.
He dropped his head and touched his lips to hers, gently. She melted in his arms, opening her mouth and kissing him back enthusiastically.
She pulled away just enough to meet his eyes with her own. “I need to finish what I started. Nothing else matters. I said I’d do this for my sister, and I’m going to.”
She smiled, and Logan didn’t have the heart to tell her he thought she was making a huge mistake.