Logan was about to jump out of the truck when her phone started ringing. Jacob.
“Hey, everything okay? I thought you were working today.” She hadn’t talked to him much in the last several days, and she’d tried to tell herself it was simply because she was busy and not because she was still bitter after he’d turned down her advances after dinner.
“Everything’s fine. I just got some time during my lunch break and wanted to call and check in, see how your day is going.”
Her lips curled into a small smile. “Oh, it hasn’t been so bad. Just the normal wedding stuff…standing around in an uncomfortable dress for hours, dealing with Carly’s little sister Lyssa, who makes Stalin look like the Dalai Lama.”
“At least you’re not stuck at work dealing with incompetent coworkers. If I hear one more nurse try to tell me how to do my job…I mean, I didn’t go through med school and a residency all to have a tech school graduate think she knows more than I do about medicine. And don’t even get me started on some of the half-brained idiot rednecks I’ve seen today! One guy actually had an arrow stuck in his—”
“Jacob, as much as I would love to hear your story, I’m supposed to be meeting my dad for lunch right now.”
She could practically hear him perking up on the other end of the line. “Yeah? You going to tell him?”
“Absolutely not.”
He took a deep breath, most likely preparing his usual line. “You’re going to have to tell him eventually, Logan. And sooner’s better than later.”
“I know. But wouldn’t it be better to tell them when they’re together? If I told him and not her, there’s no way Daddy wouldn’t crack and tell Momma before I could. He hates lying to people.”
“At least give him a hint that it’s coming. Maybe if he has a heads-up he can support you when we tell her over dinner Friday night. And then, it will all be over and done with, and we can start planning our future together.”
Future. She was having a hard enough time getting through the present right now. “Maybe. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Great,” Jacob said, sounding distracted now. “My break is ending, and the patients are coming in fast today. I’ll call you tonight, okay? Love you.”
Logan hung up the phone, already regretting having answered it in the first place. She was starving and wanted fries and time with her dad. The last thing she wanted to do was think about San Francisco and the way her parents were going to react when she finally told them.
Her stomach growled again.
Logan jumped out of the truck and started making her way across the parking lot. She was almost at the main door when a familiar face came through it.
“Cole?” she called, grabbing his attention from the phone in his hand. It shouldn’t have been surprising to see him here—the firehouse was directly across the street from the police station—but the fact he wasn’t wearing his black WCFD T-shirt meant he wasn’t on duty. Instead, he was in a white T-shirt and an open, button-up green-and-white-plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. “What are you doing here?”
He smiled, putting the phone away in his back pocket. “I was actually just here to see the chief. We usually get lunch on one of my off days each week.”
Logan’s mouth fell open. “You’re kidding.”
His smile grew as he ran a hand through his short, dark hair. “Nope. It started about a year after you left. We ran into each other at Wade’s one day, got to talking. When we finished, he asked if I wanted to meet up with him again the next time I was off. It’s kind of a thing now.”
How the hell did her dad and Cole Tucker have a thing? “But he hates you.”
“I’m not so sure about that. In fact,” he said, placing his hand on her shoulder like he was bracing her for bad news, “I might even go so far as to say he likes me. I came by to see if he wanted to do lunch today, but he said he already had plans with you. So we’ll just do it another day.”
Okay, so technically it was her mom who hated Cole, while her dad just got tired of all the bullshit and trouble Logan got into because of him. But to hear that her daddy might genuinely like Cole felt like complete and utter betrayal.
Well, this certainly threw off Logan’s mood. Her dad and her enemy were pals now, huh? They probably laughed over drinks while they talked about her and the trouble she used to get into. That thought upset her more, given all the times her daddy got so angry he’d actually cussed her out for all the stupid shit they did.
As a churchgoing man, Marshall Kase almost never swore. When Logan was little, she’d never heard her daddy mutter so much as a hell or damn. But as she and Cole started going at it more and more over the years, she heard her father shout every cuss word he knew, at every decibel, on a regular basis. He never swore at anyone else. Logan just seemed to have a way of bringing that side out of him.
Which gave her an idea.
“Why don’t you come eat with us? That way you two can still do your thing, and I can still spend some quality time with my dad.”
Cole shook his head. “No, I don’t want to ruin your time. I’m sure you’d both enjoy it more if I wasn’t there. But thanks for the offer.” He tried to pass Logan, but she stepped in front of him again.
“Oh no, I insist,” she said. “And then when we’re done, I get to put an R under your name on the scoreboard.”
Now he looked intrigued. “I see. So, this is about our next challenge then?”
“Mm-hmm.” She hadn’t had much time to think about their challenge this week, which was why she couldn’t ignore it when this one landed at her feet all wrapped up with a pretty bow on top.
Cole took a step forward, his eyes narrowing. “And what makes you so sure you’re going to win?”
“Because we’re about to do something I’ve been doing for a very, very long time.” She smirked. “It’s simple. First one to get Daddy to swear is the winner.”
His head tilted as if considering it. “Seems like someone’s got an unfair advantage.”
She merely shrugged.
“All right, fine,” he said. “You’re on.”
Chapter Fifteen
“It was very nice of you to invite Cole along,” the chief said after Lilly brought them their drinks and took their orders. He sounded pleased about it, but Logan couldn’t ignore the way his eyes narrowed. “I didn’t know he was off today until he stopped into the station.”
Logan smiled. “My pleasure. I just didn’t realize how much time you two have spent together lately,” she said, arching an eyebrow. “Seeing as you never told me.”
Her dad shrugged, picking up his Coke and taking a sip. “What’s to tell? We come to the bar, we eat, and we talk about sports and work. That’s it.” So they didn’t talk about her and Cole and embarrassing stories from when they were growing up? Good. That would make Logan’s mission today only that much easier.
“It’s true,” Cole said from his spot between them. “I’ve tried to get my dad to come along, too, but it’s not easy for him to leave the store like that.”
“Plus, there’s that little thing where he doesn’t like either of us,” she said.
“I’m pretty sure it’s just you he doesn’t like.”
Logan stared at him. “Both your parents hate me…and my parents by association.”
Her dad grimaced. “You can’t really blame him, baby girl,” he said. “As far as I know, you’re still the only person he’s ever had to ban from the hardware store.”
“Yeah, and why was that again?” She glared at Cole. “Oh right, because someone decided to pour a gallon of pink paint on my head in the middle of the plumbing aisle.” Logan still flinched anytime she smelled paint fumes. Her dad, of course, had been furious.
She looked at her father now to see if the memory had upset him, but he only shook his head. “Kids, can we just try to keep this civil? I know you two have a past, but I think it’s best if we don’t dredge it all up again.”
Lilly ca
me out then carrying the three plates of food to their table with a smile and a wink at Cole. She set the chicken sandwich and fries in front of Logan, gave a steak with veggies to Cole, and handed the chief his usual grilled Reuben.
“Sure, Dad, if that’s what you want.” Logan took a long sip of her water. “I just thought you might be interested in hearing about the time in seventh grade when Cole messed with the brakes on my brand-new bike, and I rode it right into the bottom of the creek.”
Cole’s eyes narrowed. For the last ten years, they’d had a silent understanding that they would never rat the other out for something they did, and this was the first time Logan was breaking that code. Desperate times and all that.
Her dad’s eyes slowly shifted to Cole before coming back to her. “You mean that blue and green one you told me was stolen? You never told me that was because of him.”
“There’s a lot of things I never told you about, Daddy. Like the town carnival senior year when he shoved me in a Porta-Potty and left me locked in there for three hours.”
Cole laughed. “Oh yeah, I remember that one. It was right after Big Lou was in there for twenty minutes.”
“And there’s the time Cole put superglue on my seat in American history junior year and I had to walk out of class in my underwear.” The chief did not look impressed. “Or the time he stole all my underwear from my room and put them on display in the boys’ locker room in ninth grade.”
Her dad turned on Cole, his face growing darker. “You did what now?”
Cole raised his hands. “In my defense, it was only after your daughter tried to tell all the girls in our class that I had a micropenis.”
“Logan!”
She glared at Cole. “Well, if you weren’t such a manwhore by then, maybe they would have believed me.”
“Or maybe they didn’t believe you because less than a month later you stole all my clothes at the beach and everyone saw me naked.”
“Oh, please,” Logan said. “You were just looking for an excuse to expose yourself to every girl in school.”
“At least I didn’t offer Michael Davis a blowjob to do my chemistry homework for me.”
Her dad’s red face whipped around on her, and she could practically see the torrent of expletives ready to burst through his lips.
“That was a rumor you started!” she yelled at Cole.
“Enough,” her dad’s firm voice boomed out over theirs. Logan looked at him hopefully. Getting him upset like this sucked—especially when it had to be done by divulging just how reckless and immature she’d been growing up—but it would be worth it when she won the challenge.
The chief’s eyes shifted between her and Cole, who both sat silently, waiting. “Now I don’t know why you have decided to start telling me all of this now. But I can assure you that there is very little about you two that would surprise me at this point,” he said with a sigh.
Cole smirked and grabbed his bottle to take a sip of his beer. She was running out of chances. She had to pull out the big guns.
“Cole and I had sex the night before I left for school!” she shouted before she could stop herself. The rest of the bar went eerily still as everyone inside gaped in their direction.
Cole spluttered and choked, coughing as he tried to avoid eye contact with the chief. Logan was breathing heavily, her hands gripping the edge of their table and trying not to stand up and run out of Wade’s like a red-faced, yellow-bellied coward.
With a tight jaw, Daddy took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Staring down at his plate, he said, “If you two are done, I’d like us to finish this meal in silence.”
Logan glanced at Cole, not sure what else she could possibly do. She’d pulled out all the stops, used every trick she knew, and it still hadn’t been enough. How the hell was she supposed to win now?
Cole, on the other hand, did not look shaken. Instead, he took a bite of his steak and chewed as he held a finger up at Logan, wearing a cocky grin.
“You know,” he said calmly once he finally swallowed his mouthful, “Adam and I were just talking the other day about Coach Sanchez over at the high school, and he seems to think he’s got a real shot at getting them to the state championships this year.”
“Bullshit!” The entire restaurant looked their way as the chief yelled. “The only way Willow Creek is getting its ass to state is with a new coach! Now I know your brother is the assistant coach and looks up to Mark Sanchez—and I have all the respect in the world for that man as a person—but, as a high school football coach, Sanchez is a grade-A, shit-for-brains idiot.”
Logan stared at her father, completely lost for words. Seriously? Word straight from the horse’s mouth that his baby girl had slept with Cole years ago wasn’t enough to start her daddy on a tirade of curses, but that was? She didn’t know whether to be amazed or insulted.
Logan’s heart sank as she turned her head to find a very smug look on Cole’s face. “I was pretty sure you’d say something like that,” he told the chief before winking at her. “If you’ll excuse me, I have something very important to take care of.”
Cole stood from his seat and crossed the floor to the bar. He said a few words to Lilly, who looked Logan’s way before shaking her head and picking up a piece of chalk.
“What’s that about?” her dad asked.
“We were trying to see who could get you to swear first. And, obviously, I lost,” Logan said, almost growling as she watched Lilly add the R to her name.
“You mean to tell me this was all part of that bet y’all have going?”
“You know about that?” She expected him to be furious, but he didn’t look at all upset by the fact that there was a bet or that he’d clearly just been used in it.
“Of course I know about it. Everyone knows about it, not to mention that I come in here at least twice a week for lunch. Half the town has money down on who’s going to win. Including me.”
Logan’s jaw dropped. “Daddy, there is no way Momma let you bet money on this!”
The chief huffed. “I’m a grown man who can make his own decisions.” He watched Cole circle the bar, high-fiving people and boasting his victory. “And besides, what your momma doesn’t know won’t hurt her. So as long as we keep our mouths shut, you win, and I get my money back, she’ll never have to find out,” he said with a smile.
“You bet on me, Daddy?”
“Of course I did. You’re my baby girl, and I know for a fact you can run his arrogant ass into the ground.”
She couldn’t remember a time her daddy had been so supportive. He’d always sided with her momma when Lo acted up. But knowing he bet money on her, on the girl she used to be—she wanted to wrap her arms around him and never let go.
Instead, she smiled at him and took a bite out of one of her fries. At least with the challenge over she could eat her meal and enjoy the time with her dad rather than continue yelling her personal secrets to half of Willow Creek.
Daddy leaned in close. “You were just kiddin’ about all that stuff earlier, right? About you and him having…you know. You just said that for the bet, right, to upset me?”
Logan hesitated. Could she really be this lucky?
“Of course, Daddy. You know I wouldn’t do anything that stupid.”
His eyes shot to the tattoo on her wrist. Eventually, he smiled. “I knew it,” he muttered, letting out a puff of air. He took a bite out of his sandwich. They ate in silence for a while as Cole continued to tell Lilly and the other patrons the story of his success as if they hadn’t heard half of it being yelled from only a few feet away.
The chief just wiped his mouth with his napkin. “Now about those other things you two mentioned—”
“It was a long time ago, Dad,” Logan said. “Just let it go.”
“Fine.” He shrugged. “Just promise me your mom doesn’t hear about my part in this. Or else I’ll be sleeping on the couch for a week.”
“So, you’re not mad about the bet?”
He took another bite of his sandwich. “Don’t see why I should be, as long as you aren’t doing anything stupid or dangerous that could get you killed.”
“You don’t think I’m just going to mess everything up with Jacob?” It was what everyone else was thinking. Her mom, Carly. Even Cole knew she’d be screwed if she lost this bet and Jacob found out the kind of girl she really was.
“I’m not going to lie to you, baby girl. It could rough up the waters between you two. But I also think he has a right to know who you are and the truth about your past. That’s how it’s supposed to be going into a marriage. You both need to be able to accept the girl you are, not just the girl you’ve been trying to be.”
He made it sound so easy, and yet she knew that nothing about Jacob knowing the truth would be easy. “But what if he can’t accept that side of me?”
He held his hand out to her on the table and she put her own in it. He squeezed. “If he can’t accept all of you,” he said, “he was never the right one to begin with.”
Chapter Sixteen
“If she tries to change my seating arrangement one more time, I swear I will strangle her with the cheap, fake pearls she insists I wear on my wedding day!”
Logan winced as Carly’s shrill voice pierced her eardrum through the cell phone. She’d never heard her sound so pissed. Logan had been on the job search website again, this time looking for positions around Willow Creek that could give her some extra cash and experience. She would have asked Ms. Snyder if she knew of any nearby openings, but she was still out of town.
Logan was growing restless, search after search leading to nothing but dead ends. She felt trapped in a cycle she couldn’t escape from and was on the verge of running to Wade’s for a drink she knew would take some of the edge off. So when Carly had called two minutes ago, she was more than happy to slam the computer shut and focus on anything else.
Keeping Score Page 10
