Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
Logan
“ I ’m not so sure about this, Logan.”
Harper was standing next to the house, arms wrapped around herself. She eyed his truck warily, as if it was going to bite her, not take her out on a date with him.
Was it really a date though?
Logan certainly thought it was a date. He’d even ditched his ball cap for the occasion, his hair still a little damp and curling against his neck from his shower.
“We don’t have to go, if you don’t want to.” He’d be disappointed, but if that’s what she needed? He’d do that.
It had been a week since karaoke night at Brews’n’Blues, and they were due to head out to the same place again. For karaoke.
But this time, Harper was going to sing.
They’d fallen into an easy rhythm over the past week. Logan would get up early and work out in the gym he had set up in half of the garage—now that most of the wood had been cleared out—Harper sometimes coming to watch him and chat. He found himself working harder, knowing she was watching, which was all kinds of ridiculous, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself.
They’d have breakfast together and then she’d pick up her guitar, and he’d start work on the house. They’d break for lunch, and he’d ask her about her progress and listen as she described her elation or frustration.
Some days it was both.
Afternoons were spent the same way as the morning, but the evenings they spent together. They’d cook dinner, moving around the kitchen like they’d been doing it for years, not days. After dinner, they read books, or watched a movie… but they always ended up in bed, the sheets twisted and tangled and both of them replete.
Logan couldn’t remember being so happy.
He’d finished the renovations two days earlier and could have gone back to work. There was a construction project that he could have helped out on, but he found, for once, he’d listened to his assistant manager and actually took the time off.
Logan couldn’t just sit around though, so he’d worked on the boat and even headed out to Mason’s cabin to do some maintenance that his brother hadn’t managed to get to. Mason still wasn’t back in Cape Wilde. Logan didn’t think Harper would want to leave when Mason came back, but he didn’t talk about it with her.
He didn’t want her to leave.
And here she was, standing beside his truck desperately trying to find an excuse to not go and sing karaoke. And he was trying to get her to go?
There was just something about Harper Holden that had Logan wanting to be the best person he could. And that included helping her leave Cape Wilde, if that’s what she truly wanted.
“You don’t have to sing,” he said.
She shot him a scathing look. “I know that, but I also told Cassie that I would.”
Logan smiled. That was one of the things that he liked most about Harper. She said she’d do something and then she stuck to her word. But there was a problem with that as well. When the thing she said she’d do was eating her up inside.
Like this album she was forcing herself to write.
This morning, he’d found her in tears in the living room. He’d been listening to her sing while he’d been taking a break from chopping wood again.
Again, because he knew that Harper couldn’t take her eyes off him when he did it. How was it his fault if it got hot and he had to take his shirt off?
But there she was, in tears, not because she couldn’t write the songs—for a change—but because she could write songs. The wrong type of songs.
He’d gathered her into his arms and rubbed her back as she sobbed her heart out on his shoulder. He finally managed to get it out between sobs.
She was writing songs. But not ones that her sister could sing. They weren’t pop songs, they were folk songs. Designed to be sung with an acoustic guitar, not along to some backup track and played in teenage girls’ bedrooms the nation over.
Admittedly, while Harper had been staying with him, Logan had been listening to Isla sing her songs. He’d listened to the lyrics, hearing years of loneliness pour out through his headphones. It stung his heart that she’d been pleading with the world to listen to her for so long, and nobody had paid any attention.
And now he was here and the only way he could help her was to help her leave.
“She’ll understand if you don’t want to sing.”
Harper sighed and climbed into the truck, Logan following her lead and sliding behind the wheel.
“Yeah, I get that. I just don’t want to disappoint her, you know?”
Logan knew how she felt. Disappointing Cassie was like accidentally kicking a puppy—not that he’d ever done that, of course, but the feeling was the same. You hurt more than she did. Cassie would bounce back almost immediately, but you’d still feel bad.
Maybe that was because she was the baby of the family and had lost so much?
Logan yanked himself back to the present, starting the truck with a roar. He backed out and headed into town.
They chatted about nothing in particular, two people just enjoying time together. The radio was off as Logan had noticed Harper stiffen any time one of Isla’s—one of her—songs came on. Who could blame her?
“So, what are you going to sing tonight?” Harper asked.
Logan laughed. “Oh, I don’t sing.”
Harper turned toward him in her seat with a scowl.
That was a mistake.
“If I’m going to sing, then you’re going to sing.”
He groaned.
Logan hated being the center of attention. And his absolute worst nightmare was karaoke. His brothers had always given him shit about why he could play on a football field with thousands of people watching but not want to speak in public.
They didn’t understand. When he put that helmet on, the world disappeared. He was just another strong body in the uniform, working together with his team. He didn’t have an issue talking in front of the kids at the high school where he helped coach. But that was football.
This was nothing like football.
He wasn’t an entertainer. He was an athlete. Or he had been an athlete.
Logan gripped the steering wheel in white-knuckled hands. He hadn’t thought about what could have been for years. What would his life have been like if he’d stayed away?
It wasn’t worth thinking about. He’d been needed in Cape Wilde. Had a life here. Loved the place, had just finished renovating his home.
Was he actually thinking he could leave with Harper?
The object of his thoughts broke the silence. “What if I said it would help me if you sang?”
Logan groaned again and shot her a look that had her suppressing a grin. “You’ve got me all figured out, haven’t you princess?”
She let the smile break across her face. “Oh no.” She shook her head.
The insincerity had Logan snorting.
She laughed and looked away. “Your secret is safe with me.”
Logan’s chest swelled at her words. He knew she meant them. Her confidences were kept close. It showed in just how much the one time she had let something slip had impacted her.
It didn’t take them long to get to Wilde Brews’n’Blues. Logan parked the truck and turned off the engine, neither of them opening the doors to get out.
“It’s going to be fine.” He reached across and took Harper’s hand in his, smoothing his work-roughened thumb over her soft skin. He looked down at her hand, so small in his. He wished he could take the hurt away.
“It doesn’t feel like it.” She gripped his fingers tightly and turned on the seat to face him. “Kiss me for good luck?”
“How could I ever refuse a lady?” Logan slid his hand into the hair at the nape of her neck and tugged her toward him, his lips settling over hers in a soft caress that brought a moan from her lips.
Why hadn’t they stayed at home again?
Logan pulled back, his forehead resting on hers.
A knock at the window had Harper jerking away and releasing a small scream.
Logan scowled at Rowan who stepped back from the truck and lifted his hands palms up, an apologetic grimace on his face.
Harper watched him walk away and then turned to face Logan. “See? They’re all expecting me. What if there’s someone here who films me? And then they find out where I am and… and...” Her breathing came fast, and she clutched at her chest, her face pale and stricken.
“Hey, hey,” Logan’s voice soothed. “Just breathe with me, Harper.”
She nodded, dots of pink appearing on her cheeks as Logan held her hands and breathed slowly in and out. He could have sat there for hours just staring into her eyes, but eventually she swallowed and took a deep breath.
“I’m ok.” She looked down. “A little embarrassed, but ok.” She forced a laugh and looked out of the windshield of the truck.
“Mason gets panic attacks,” Logan said.
Her head whipped back to him. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. He didn’t want to talk about it at first, but there’s a guy at the rehab center that does counseling. He convinced Mason.” He paused and looked out the windshield of the truck. “You ever think about talking to someone?”
“I did after my mom died.”
Logan brushed his thumb over the back of her hand where she still gripped his fingers tightly.
“Yeah?”
“It was through school. And then I graduated.” She shrugged.
He imagined a young Harper; her sister hitting the big time, leaving her behind. It couldn’t have been easy.
“What if you tried to sing here. With me.”
She didn’t pretend to misunderstand him. “I can’t.” She pulled her hand from his, shaking her head. She wrapped her arms around herself as if she was trying to disappear. To make herself small and insignificant.
It made Logan mad. Not at Harper, but at all the people who had been so short-sighted that they’d overlooked her talent.
“Harper, I’ve been hearing you sing all week.”
Her eyes widened. “You said you couldn’t hear me.”
His lips twitched. “I lied.”
She opened her mouth as if she was going to say something, thought better of it, and snapped it shut. Logan pressed forward, for once wanting to fill the silence.
“The first time it was an accident. I’d left my tape measure inside and came back to get it. You were playing guitar and humming a tune that sounded so sad and full of soul.”
She bit her bottom lip, worrying it between her teeth as she watched him talk. Encouraged that she hadn’t run screaming form the truck, Logan kept going.
“Princess, your voice is amazing. I couldn’t move when you started singing. It was like my feet were nailed to the floor.”
A small smile lifted the corner of her mouth. “Really?”
Had nobody ever told her how good a singer she was? The fire inside him raged at the injustice of a father paying attention to one child and not the other.
Put it aside, she needs you calm, not angry.
He reached out to gently tuck a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “I’m not in the habit of lying to beautiful women, Harper.”
She snorted. “So, either I’m not beautiful and you are a liar, or I am and you’re not.”
He grinned, “Exactly.”
“I’m going to go with option two.”
“Smart girl. I knew there was more to you than a pretty face and a great ass.”
She snorted with laughter and lifted a hand to her mouth to stifle her giggles.
“What? You don’t think you have a great ass?”
She smirked. “Oh, I know I have a great ass.”
“There’s my girl.”
Her smile lit up her face and he grinned back. And then she closed her eyes and started humming the chorus to Taylor Swift’s Cruel Summer . Logan smiled and hummed along, his deep baritone blending with her higher alto.
It was a miracle Logan remembered the tune, considering how transfixed he was by the beauty that was Harper as she sang.
Her head was thrown back, blonde waves shining in the fading evening light. Her newly painted pink nails tapped a rhythm on her denim-clad thigh, the silver bangles she wore jangling softly.
Logan wanted to shout to the world. Couldn’t they see how amazing she was? He wanted to find her dad and shake him for how much he’d ignored her. He was ready to have words with her sister for letting Harper give so much of herself without crediting her for the work.
He didn’t realize he’d stopped humming along until she opened her eyes, meeting his as she gave a little dance on the seat and sang the last line with laughing eyes.
He felt like he’d been punched.
I love her.
He was in love with Harper Holden. And he would do whatever he could to help her achieve her dream.
Even if it meant losing her forever.