Always A Bridesmaid (Logan's Legacy Revisited)

by Kristin Hardy

  “Do you have bunks under there?” she asked.

  “She can sleep two. If you don’t mind being cozy,” he added as he stepped up on the upper deck. “She’s a seventeen footer, though, really more for day trips. I just take her along the river, mostly.”

  “Can I help?” Jillian asked as he began putting up the sail.

  “If you want to.”

  “Show me what to do.”

  So he showed her how to fix the sail on the boom and use the halyard to raise it up the mast. Once they’d gotten the jib up and Gil had given a push off the dock, the breeze was enough to move them.

  “Why don’t you use the motor to get out of the marina?” Jillian asked over her shoulder as she moved the sails under his direction so they could tack through the turns.

  “Motors are for wimps,” Gil said from where he sat back by the tiller. “It’s called a sailboat for a reason.”

  “You’re one of those guys who likes a challenge, aren’t you?”

  His glance was very direct. “I don’t mind putting in a little effort when it’s for something I want.”

  The eye contact lasted a few beats longer than it should have, a few beats during which she was very conscious of the fact that the cockpit was only three or four feet long and that his thigh was mere inches from where her hand rested on the cushion.

  And then they were out of the marina and into open water, the breeze fresh in her face.

  “We’ll go upriver to Ross Island and then cut back,” he said. “Okay with you?”

  “Aye, aye, Captain.” She saluted him smartly.

  The wind was strong enough to tease up small whitecaps, making the boat leap over the water. The speed was exhilarating. Along the east bank, she could see the esplanade. To the west, beyond the greensward of Tom McCall Park, rose the buildings of the downtown.

  “It all looks so different from here,” she said as they passed the pilings of the Marquam Bridge.

  “Funny how things always look different depending on where you’re sitting.”

  She slanted him a quick look. “Editorial comment?”

  “Observation.”

  They worked their way up the river to the midstream teardrop of Ross Island. A great blue heron stalked along the shore of the island, the picture of affronted dignity. “They always make me think of those old pictures of businessmen and bankers in the nineteen hundreds,” said Gil. “You know, the ones with the starched collars and monocles.”

  Jillian laughed. “They’d have to have very long trousers.”

  “I’ll say.”

  They came about a bit above the island. As they watched, first one, then another, then another of the herons launched itself into the air, like some kind of avian drill team, until they were soaring along the river with ponderous flaps of their wings.

  “They’re so beautiful when they’re in the air,” Jillian murmured. Impulsively, she reached over and squeezed Gil’s hand where it rested on the royal-blue cushion beside her. “This is wonderful. Thank you so much for bringing me.”

  “I’m glad you like it.” He moved his hand to clasp hers. “I wanted you to see it.”

  Jillian watched the approaching arch of the Ross Island Bridge. “I talked to Lisa,” she said, turning back to him. “She told me that the Blazon media thing wasn’t you, that she and Alan asked you to say it.”

  “We’re not talking about any of that today, remember?”

  “I need to. Why didn’t you tell me it wasn’t you?” Why had he let her think he had chosen to lie?

  He seemed embarrassed. “I agreed to do it. It was a stupid choice but the minute I made it, it was my responsibility.”

  “It wasn’t your idea, though.”

  He adjusted the tiller. “I wasn’t going to cry off because of that. I don’t work that way.”

  He wouldn’t, she realized. She might not always agree with his decisions, but she was beginning to realize that the decisions he made were honorable by the terms of his code.

  She looked at the downtown in the distance. “You’re right,” she said. “Things do look different depending on where you’re sitting. How far are we going?”

  His gaze on hers was steady. “As far as we can,” he said.

  The sun was setting as they walked down Glison Street in the Pearl. The long, lazy sail had given way to a lunch so late it was practically an early dinner. Now, they wandered from gallery to gallery, mostly as an excuse to keep talking. Neither was ready for the day to end.

  “Do you think the heat got too high and they melted?” Jillian studied the cluster of sculptures before her. They’d started out as narrow green pyramids about the height of a bowling pin but instead of tapering to sharp points, the tips bent in free-form curves like spires of melting wax.

  “I don’t know,” Gil said, pacing around them. “I like them, though. They’d go really well in my condo.”

  “What’s your condo like?” Jillian asked. “Industrial, I’m guessing, or maybe Italian.”

  “You could see for yourself if you want. We’re only about two blocks away.”

  “Really?”

  “Sure. Come in for a drink and a tour. I’ll drive you home after.” When she hesitated, he smiled. “No strings,” he promised. “You’ll be perfectly safe. Give me a minute, though. I want to buy these guys.”

  She wandered around the rest of the gallery while he completed the purchase, admiring a flame-colored glass vase and staring with wrinkled brow at what might have been a funerary mask for a wild boar, tusks and all.

  Half an hour later, they were back on the street, headed to his condo.

  It made her nervous to be heading to his space. Silly, she chided herself as they rode the elevator up. It wasn’t as if she was going to stay long, just go in for a quick drink. They’d spent the day together—shoot, they’d spent the week—and one thing she knew by now was that they weren’t likely to run out of things to say.

  The condo wasn’t decorated in industrial or Italian. It was a quietly modern loft with sleek, clean-lined furniture in blond wood and brushed aluminum. The walls were exposed brick, the floors polished maple, the ceilings high. Kitchen and living room occupied the ground floor; a curving staircase led up to what she presumed was his bedroom.

  “How long have you lived here?” Jillian asked, drifting over to the sliding-glass door that let out onto his balcony.

  “Four years,” he answered from behind the counter that separated out the space that was his kitchen. “I got in just about the time the neighborhood was starting to go upscale.”

  “Can you see the river from here?”

  “A slice. Along with the container-loading equipment at the port.” He paused. “Maybe I should have gone for industrial. Anyway, what can I get you to drink? I’ve got wine, beer, vodka. Even a bottle of brandy, I think.”

  “Red wine would work.”

  He picked up a bottle and glanced at it. “Red zin okay?”

  She nodded. “So where are you going to put the sculpture?” she asked, taking the glass he handed to her.

  “On the coffee table,” he answered, moving aside the wide glass bowl that currently sat there. “Let’s get them out and see how they look.”

  He brought over the bag from the gallery and began pulling out the cardboard-and-tissue-wrapped pyramids and laying them side by side.

  Jillian walked over to help, first standing, then perching beside him.

  “No wonder it took forever for you to buy these,” she muttered, fighting to break off ring after ring of tape.

  Tissue paper rustled as he stripped it off and set a pyramid on the table. “It wasn’t the buying, darlin’, it was the wrapping.”

  “I see that. It’s beginning to look like Christmas in here,” she observed, looking at the growing pile of paper next to the table.

  “Oh, speaking of which—” he dug in the bag and pulled out a small box “—here.”

  Jillian blinked. “For me? Why?”

  He
considered. “Because it’s a Sunday? Open it.” He went back to unwrapping the last pyramid.

  It was a small recycled paper box with a band about it. When she opened the lid, she pulled out a small bundle. She unwrapped the tissue paper inside to reveal a delicate glass dragonfly hanging from a golden cord.

  “Oh, Gil.” She breathed.

  “You like it?”

  “Of course I like it. It’s beautiful.” She held it up so that it turned and caught the light.

  “I thought it would go with your hummingbirds and things.”

  He’d noticed, she thought, shaken. He’d been in her house perhaps ten minutes and he’d seen. She set the dragonfly down. “That was really sweet of you.”

  He caught her hand and brought it to his lips. “I have my moments,” he said, lingering over her knuckles, her fingertips, eyes watching her.

  And the breath backed up in her lungs. His eyes were intent on hers. She stared into them and suddenly she was falling into that hot, dark gaze, falling into the heat, falling into him until her world reduced to those dark pools and the warmth of his lips on her hand. Her world reduced to him. And somewhere deep inside her, a slow beat of desire began to pulse.

  He turned up her hand to kiss her palm. She made a soft, helpless sound. Her fingers curved around his cheek, the slight roughness of his beard counterpointing the softness of his mouth. Then he turned her wrist to press his lips against the tender skin on the inside where her pulse beat, making her shiver a little.

  And he leaned in to take her mouth with his.

  It wasn’t the tentative exploration of their first kiss, nor the urgent, reckless demand of the second. Instead, it was confident possession, patient with the knowledge that, this time around, there was time enough. Their other kisses had been snatched in the open, standing, grasping, waiting for interruption. Here, now, there was to be no disturbance. Here, it was just the two of them with all the time in the world to concentrate, to savor, to find all that a kiss could give.

  He kissed her as though he’d be content to just browse on her mouth endlessly, now nipping, now dipping deep. He was touch, taste. Seduction. And, oh, it was extravagant, glorious to lean back against the soft cushions of the couch and immerse herself in him.

  His flavor seeped into her, the tartness from the wine overlaying a more complex flavor that was purely male. And Jillian took what she’d learned from him, changing the angle of the kiss, rubbing her lips against his until he was the one who made an impatient noise and pressed harder against her.

  Time became immaterial. Long minutes slid by with the sound of breath, the feel of mouth on mouth, the smoothing of hand over skin. Pleasure rippled through her.

  When his hand ran up her bare thigh, she felt the trail of desire. It had been so long since she’d felt the touch of another. In delight, she felt him break the kiss and begin to explore her face, nibbling his way up her cheek to drop kisses on her eyelids, cruising down along her jaw. And then he dipped lower, pressing his lips to the long line of her throat.

  She’d never known her skin could be so sensitive. The kiss had generated pleasure but this was something different. This evoked a dark heat somewhere deep inside her. Instinctively, she let her head fall back while he feasted on her, pressing his lips to the hollow at the base of her neck. And dropping lower.

  A slow tension began to build in her and she twisted against him. The heat of his mouth moving down her chest into the vee of her open collar brought her closer to the peak of desire. His hand moved up over her hip, then along her side and up to cover her breast.

  This was it, Jillian thought to herself. This was the time. She’d waited too long, she’d lived on the outside. This was her chance to join the rest of the human race.

  And she slid her arms around him.

  He tugged at her shirt, slipping it out from her shorts so that he could move his hand beneath it to slide possessively up over her breast. She could feel the heat of his hand through the cloth of her bra. Then his mouth went lower, pushing her shirt aside, licking the fragile skin on top of her breast. And arousal dragged her down into hot wanting until her hips were moving without volition, until she was gasping and straining against him, until she was desperate with the desire for more. Until she was—

  Out of control.

  And suddenly the good tension shifted somehow, pleasure lost, morphing into agitation, anxiety. Suddenly, her chest felt tight with panic and she broke the kiss, pushing away.

  “What’s wrong?” Gil asked, trying to just hold her but every nerve in her body was now screaming to get loose.

  “Let me up. Let me up,” she said breathlessly. “I need up.”

  She stood and walked across the room, panting as though she’d just run a mile. Blindly, she stared out the window to the lights across the river. Where home was. Behind her, she heard only silence, then the sound of Gil standing and walking across to her.

  “What’s going on?” he asked quietly.

  “I just—” How could she tell him nothing? Or nothing that she knew of. She knew he expected a story, some grand trauma like they showed in the movies. How could she tell him that there was nothing she remembered, only the panic that hung in the wings. She moved her shoulders. “I’m sorry.”

  He came up behind her, put his hands on her shoulders. And she flinched before she could stop herself. “Okay,” he said stepping back.

  “I’m sorry,” she said again, her voice shaking. “I should go.”

  “Just let me say one thing, okay? You’re special, Jillian. I mean that. What we’re doing here—” He was silent for a long time. “This matters to me,” he said finally. “Tell me what’s going on.”

  “I don’t know what’s going on,” she said, a thread of desperation in her voice.

  “Did someone hurt you?”

  She whirled and stalked back to the couch. “I told you I don’t—”

  Any words she might have said were cut off by an electronic bleat that she recognized as her cell phone. She crossed to the kitchen breakfront and her purse, relieved at the interruption. With shaking hands, she pulled out the phone and flipped it open. “Hello?”

  “Jillian?”

  “Eric?” He sounded odd, she thought, his voice tense and higher than usual. “Is everything okay?”

  “I think so. I hope so.”

  “What do you mean you hope so?”

  “Get yourself down to Portland General. Jenny’s having her baby.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Gil pulled up to the front of the hospital emergency room area and stopped. Portland General was a matter of blocks away from his condo. Taking Jillian directly there instead of back to her house in Ladd’s Addition had simply made sense.

  Even though the last thing he wanted to do just then was let her go.

  “Are you sure you’re going to be okay?” he asked.

  “Of course.” Her response was too quick. She didn’t look at him.

  She wasn’t okay. Nothing was okay. One minute, she’d been like a naked flame in his arms. The next, she’d shut down and the air was thick with tension. Something was very wrong but he was damned if he knew what.

  And he was damned if he knew how to get at it.

  “I’d go in with you but I don’t want to get lynched by a pack of Logans.”

  The smile came and went too quickly. “We’re not that dangerous.”

  “Want to bet? Probably best if I leave you to it. Call me when you need a ride home, okay?”

  “Thanks for the offer but it could take all night, you just never know. I have a lot of family here. I’m sure someone can give me a lift.” She hesitated. “Thank you for today. The dragonfly is lovely.”

  “No problem.” He watched her as she opened the door. “I had a good time.”

  “Me, too.” She did look at him then, her eyes dark and enormous.

  Even as he lectured himself to give her space, he reached out and brushed her hair back from her face. “Take care. Give
my best to your sister-in-law.”

  And he watched her walk away.

  As the lights of the hospital faded behind him, Gil shook his head. She’d made it clear that she wanted to be as far away from him as she could. She was going to be okay, he told himself, she was going to be with her family. But something in the set of her shoulders had looked fragile and vulnerable as she’d stepped through the sliding doors to the emergency room.

  No matter how much everything in him rebelled at leaving her while things were still so up in the air, now wasn’t the time. And a part of him, he didn’t want to admit, felt relief at not having to face her family.

  He’d always done his best to live an honest life. Not perfect, by any means. After all, there had been the incident of the plaster of paris and the history teacher’s Thermos, but that had been in junior high. Overall, he’d always done his best to live a life that he didn’t have to make excuses for.

  And yet somehow, obscurely, he felt that he needed to now. Even though he stood by the Gazette’s coverage of Robbie Logan, it was a break not to have to walk into that hospital with Jillian and create a mess.

  Because the reality was, it could be. Suddenly, he was putting a personal face to the news, always a dangerous thing for a newsman. Sure, there had been one with Lisa’s story, but the damage done hadn’t been by his hand; he’d been able to correct things.

  In the case of Robbie Logan, the situation was far more ambiguous. Now, Gil had begun to see the damage his coverage could do to people’s lives. To Jillian’s life. Now, the journalistic remove he’d always prized had begun to evaporate. Sure things were quiet right now but there would be more stories, and not just Jillian’s profile. How would he do his job at the paper? How would he make the decision on whether to run a Robbie Logan story or not, knowing that it could disturb the fragile connection forming between him and Jillian?

  What was between them wasn’t done, not by half. She wasn’t just another woman; what he felt for her was strong and real. He’d already known there were secrets. He’d sensed them even before the incident in his condo. She’d been hurt, some way, somehow. One moment, she’d been heat and excitement, her mouth avid against his. The next, she’d been tense and withdrawn. Something was going on, something they needed to talk about, but the barriers she’d put up were thick and high.