The Inventive Bride

by Maria Hoagland

  “Don’t tell me you’ve never had huckleberry jam?” Frankie’s eyes were wide with exaggerated shock as she handed Logan his berry.

  Memory washed over him, sweet as the taste. Sitting at a small kitchenette, a homemade yeast roll warm in his hand, Aunt Valerie’s jam running down his chin. He’d forgotten. Another experience foundational in his love for the area.

  He popped the berry into his mouth, surprised at the tartness. If his expression was anything like Harper’s, he hadn’t hidden it very well. Chuckling at their expressions, Frankie tried one of her own, wrinkling her nose.

  “So maybe they aren’t the best by themselves, but …” She stopped short for a moment, and then continued, “I have another idea how you can participate in the festival, Harper. We can make jam to sell.”

  Homemade jam. Was there nothing this woman couldn’t do? “You? Make jam?” Logan knew as soon as he’d said it, it had come out wrong, but Frankie laughed him off.

  “I’m not just a shop-owner fix-it-all, I have a background in FFA—that’s Future Farmers of America for you city slickers—a biology degree, and I’ve done more than a little canning and bottling in my lifetime. It’s something you learn to do living in the country.”

  Frankie had him at huckleberry jam, and Harper was never difficult to convince. “Let’s do this.” Logan smiled, and offered his ball cap as a sacrifice for berry gathering.

  Chapter 13

  Logan figured he had approximately seven minutes to straighten up the entire house before Frankie would be on his doorstep. It was a good thing their home was small.

  With the geocache located, a gorgeous mountain view taken in, lunch enjoyed, and huckleberries picked, the trio of hikers had decided to call it a day on the mountainside and instead move on to jam making while the fruit was fresh. Besides, the Cobble Creek Art Festival was in less than a week. Logan had dropped Frankie off at her house so she could clean up and gather a few necessities, and he’d been scrambling ever since.

  A thump at the door warned him his time was up, but Harper’s feet running to catch the door bought him enough time to dry the last of the dishes and stow the plate in the cupboard. He turned around in time to see Frankie, her long brunette hair swinging loose, freed from the morning’s ponytail, a smile to her lips as always, this time accentuated by the sun-kissed blush of the morning’s exercise.

  “Frankie!” Harper ran to Frankie’s side, giving her a hug. Frankie shifted the cardboard box of glass jars, careful not to drop the shopping bags dangling from each hand.

  Logan threw the dish towel over his shoulder and rushed to rescue Frankie. “Here, let me help.” He lifted the box from her hands and placed it on the marble island top. “Is there anything else to bring in, or did you really just try to kill yourself by carrying it all in at once?”

  “That’s it.” Frankie looked from the dish towel to his face, her eyes studying him far longer than she ever had before. After a moment, she snapped out of it. “Your house is so clean!”

  “Of course it is. What, guys can’t clean?” He wasn’t about to tell her that in the past, he hadn’t been quite this meticulous. His biggest reasons for doing so were recent developments, and only one of them had to do with James and Kathy’s threats. He pretended to be offended. “You know, I doubt I’ve ever heard a more sexist comment in my life … and coming from you …” He shook his head sadly. “I’m deeply disappointed.”

  Frankie’s cheeks tinged beautifully, and she closed her eyes a second. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  Logan let her squirm another beat before letting her off the hook. “Oh, all right.” He blew out a loud breath as if keeping their secret for a few moments had been torture. “Our house doesn’t always look this good, right, Harper?”

  His daughter wrinkled her freckled nose and then giggled. “Daddy’s been running around like a crazy man trying to clean everything before you came over.”

  “She doesn’t hold anything back, does she?” He laid a hand on Harper’s head, spreading his fingers wide like a web over her dark hair. It wouldn’t be too much longer and she’d be too tall for that kind of thing. “Before you know it, she’ll be warning you not to check the closets.”

  “Don’t check the closets!” Harper said in mock horror. For real, they were probably the most organized of the entire house, considering they’d barely moved in.

  “As much as I wanted to impress you, you’re not the only reason.” He looked seriously at Frankie, knowing she would know where he was going with this without having to say it in front of Harper. “Remember what we said the other day about people looking over my shoulder—I need to be ready on a moment’s notice.”

  “I’m sure even on one of your normal days, it’s totally fine.” The sincerity of Frankie’s confidence in him made him feel like he could do this. She was a good person to have around.

  “Ready?” Harper always brought them back to the task at hand, and both adults snapped their attention back to her.

  The open kitchen and living area made it obvious which direction they would go, but Logan led the way to the kitchen island where he’d lined up everything she’d mentioned they would need. A saucepan and large enamel bowl, as well as some measuring cups and spoons, sat on the island, a sack of sugar off to the side.

  Frankie set a couple of fabric bags on the counter. Thawing blackberries and raspberries sweated in baggies next to the bowl of fresh huckleberries he’d washed and set out. “Since we won’t have enough huckleberries to make an entire batch or two, I figured we’d make bumbleberry jam instead. It’s sweeter than straight huckleberry anyway.”

  The pint and half-pint glass bottles clinked against each other as Frankie moved the cardboard box to near the sink. “I did wash these once, but we’ll still want to sterilize them in boiling water while we work.” She crossed her arms, looking over everything. “We should be set.” Stuffed in between several of the jars were boxes of what he had to assume was the pectin she’d mentioned.

  Looking completely at home in someone else’s kitchen, Frankie instructed Logan and Harper, explaining and guiding each with tasks while she flitted from one to the other. Logan was assigned preparation duties while Frankie helped Harper with the production—teaching Harper how to stir and when to add the next thing, but never even so much as touching the spatula herself. The perfect instructor, taking a back seat and allowing the student to shine.

  “Logan?”

  Busted. Logan hadn’t realized he’d been staring at her. “Yes?”

  Frankie chuckled. At least she looked pleased at finding his attentions focused on her rather than measuring the sugar. “We still need one more cup.”

  “How about adding something unexpected—like jalapeño or orange or pomegranate … or chocolate.”

  “Eww, chocolate in jelly?” Classic Harper. He had anticipated that reaction as much as she should have anticipated him suggesting something strange. With one hand clutching the spoon in the pot, she placed the other one on her hip. “The sugar?”

  “I’ve got it.” Sufficiently humbled, Logan hurried to fill her request, but she didn’t know he had an idea, something he wanted to slip in. A trick of Aunt Val’s.

  “Go ahead and pour it in, then, Dad.” Her confidence bordered on bossy. “I’ll keep stirring so it doesn’t burn.”

  Hiding the bottle at his side, Logan reached around his daughter’s tiny frame and dumped about a teaspoon of vanilla extract in before adding the sugar, pouring slowly as Harper stirred. When he felt Frankie come up behind him—presumably to check his progress—he slowed down further, closing his eyes as he breathed in the sweet berry smell and feeling Frankie’s body heat behind him.

  “You two make a great daddy-daughter team,” Frankie said, her words and breath tickling his neck. Clearly, the woman had no idea what she was doing to him. A second later, she backed off again, a cold feeling replacing the warmth she’d brought to him.

  “Keep stirring, Harper. Your dad and I
will get the bottles ready.” With her back to Harper, she worked at the other counter. Logan took his cue and joined her, working elbow to elbow and hip to hip as they spread towels and set out scalding bottles with tongs.

  “Any more dates with Paul?” Logan teased, only loud enough for Frankie to hear. “Anthony said you guys were pretty chummy.” He wiggled his eyebrows at her.

  For that comment, he received a painful jab from her elbow. “We’re not dating.”

  She didn’t sound annoyed, so he pushed, playing dumb. “I don’t know … you go to a restaurant, only the two of you, for the whole town to see. That’s pretty much declaring yourselves an item. Especially when the whole community has been cheering for you.”

  “They are not,” she scoffed. “It was convenient. We had things to talk about before the committee meeting.”

  “Oh, so now it was a dinner of convenience. Poor guy.” He didn’t feel sad for the bloke in the least, but he tried to sound like he did. “You’re probably breaking his heart, stringing him along like that.”

  “If you call that stringing him along …”

  “It is if it’s a date.” The hypocrisy of that statement didn’t escape him.

  “It wasn’t a date,” she insisted, hip checking him.

  “Are you back to that?” He meant to give her a full-on are-you-really-that-naive look, but it turned into something more. A moment of intense longing. Did she feel it too?

  She was the first to turn away. Looking down at their task, she said finally, “Paul and I are not dating.”

  She whirled around to check on Harper and the jam, and the moment was gone.

  By the time they finished cleaning up their mess, accompanied by the satisfying clicks of the jars sealing, Logan was exhausted but nowhere near ready to allow Frankie to leave. The thought left him empty.

  This realization brought on a case of the guilts—he shouldn’t be coming up with excuses to hang out with Frankie if he was dating Tess—but he pushed the thought back. It felt good to spend time with someone not wishing she were someone else. For the first time, he’d spent the entire day with another woman and hadn’t felt as if he was betraying Christina. He’d been caught up in the here and now, enjoying every second with Frankie. Being with her brought a sense of fun, of companionship, a deep sense of well-being, and of being, well … enough. Someone with whom he didn’t have to pretend to be more than he was.

  “What do you girls think of something simple for dinner? I could call for a pizza.” Logan didn’t feel he could stand for one more minute, and messing up the kitchen again sounded torturous.

  “PB&J,” Harper suggested.

  “I’m good with that.” Frankie shrugged. “It’ll give us a chance to try out the jam. If that’s okay with you.”

  He could probably swing that. The last of the jam that wouldn’t fill another jar had been poured into a plastic container currently chilling in the fridge.

  Typical Harper finished her sandwich and was munching on an apple, walking toward her room, before Logan and Frankie finished constructing their own sandwiches. “Can I watch a movie on the tablet in my room?”

  Harper was taking full advantage of Frankie being there, pushing Logan’s limits, but with the movie downloaded and the Wi-Fi turned off, he wouldn’t have to worry about it. Harper’s eyes were drooping already anyway, and she probably wouldn’t make it halfway through the movie before drifting off.

  “Uh, hug?” Scrawny runt couldn’t run off without giving her old pa a hug, now could she? He may give in on the tablet in her room, but he wasn’t going to allow nighttime hugs to fall by the wayside. She ran to him, snuggling under his arm full of warmth and giggles. “Don’t forget to brush your teeth before climbing into bed.” He paused to appreciate the sweet feeling of her arms around his neck and picked her up with his arms around her waist, pretending to buckle over backward under her weight. “One movie, then bed.” He set her back down and was surprised when she went to Frankie for a shy hug as well.

  Frankie didn’t hesitate for a moment, free with her hug and generous with her smile. “Thank you for teaching me to geocache today, Harper. I had a lot of fun with you and your dad.”

  “Thanks for teaching us to make jam.”

  In a flash, Harper was gone, and Logan and Frankie were alone in the kitchen, the space feeling empty and open while at the same time feeling intimate as they stood side by side at the counter once again, this time Logan closing the bread bag and Frankie replacing lids on the jars.

  “What would you say to a starlit dinner, m’lady?” Logan poured them each a glass of cold milk, and they took their plates and glasses onto the deck. Taking a few minutes, Logan lit a fire in the built-in pit, and then settled into the chair next to Frankie.

  “Now that you’ve been here a while, what do you think of Cobble Creek?” Frankie put her feet up on the stone wall of the fire pit and balanced the plate with the sandwich on her knees. “Is it everything you’d hoped it would be?”

  “And then some.” Logan watched Frankie take a bite and waited for the reaction. Would his vanilla have any impact?

  Frankie chewed slowly, concentrating, and then swiped a finger through the jam and tasted it again. “Do you taste a hint of something beyond the berries?”

  “It’s good, whatever it is.” Logan took another bite to prove it.

  “It is good.” She took another nibble, savoring it. “It’s almost … vanilla, but …”

  She pegged Logan with a look.

  Uh-oh. The moment of truth. “Okay, I admit it.” He told her about how he’d slipped it in, and he was pleased his gamble had paid off. “You asked if Cobble Creek is what I’d been looking for.”

  Cobble Creek was the idyllic, happy place for Harper that he’d hoped. What he hadn’t expected was to find that for himself—especially in the woman sitting by his side.

  “But something’s still missing.” He paused, unable to express it because he didn’t know himself.

  “It’ll get better, I promise.” Frankie placed her empty plate on a side table and reached for his to stack on top. “It tends to grow on people.”

  “Not Tess.”

  Frankie shuddered next to him. Whether it was the temperature dropping or the choice of topic, he felt a coolness wash over him as well. Frankie continued, “Maybe if you got involved in something in town. Politics?”

  He laughed derisively and then stood. “I’ll be right back.” Logan collected their dirty dishes and deposited them in the sink before grabbing the fuzzy throw blanket off the couch. Back in his chair, he threw one end of it over Frankie’s lap and lifted his side over his arms and hands. “It’s amazing how quickly it cools off in Wyoming.”

  “Especially considering it was so warm today.” Were they back to discussing the weather? “What do you mean about Tess?” Frankie almost looked afraid to bring her back up, but he was relieved she had. He needed someone to discuss this relationship with, and he had no one else.

  “Half the time, I think she likes me because I came from a big city, and the other half I think she’s trying to get me to take her back with me.” He shook his head and tugged the blanket up to his chest because he’d noticed Frankie trying to cover her outside shoulder. “She doesn’t get it that I moved here for a reason, and I’m not going back.”

  It was a stronger way of saying it than he had in the past, and a second or two ticked by before Frankie asked what he knew she’d been wanting to since they met. “Why did you move here?”

  “The part I said about needing to get away from Christina is true. She and I had a beautiful, strong relationship.” How much did he want to go into it? Did he want to tell this woman he was attracted to that he’d been so deeply in love that he feared he’d never be able to love again? “And then it was all over in minutes.”

  He struggled to breathe as the memories muddled his mind. The phone call summons to the hospital. The wreckage of her car. The one responsible being sentenced to prison for DUI mans
laughter. Logan shook his head to obliterate the images.

  “He was a teenager. He didn’t mean to.” He choked back a sob. “But that doesn’t mean I can set aside the hurt he inflicted on my family and excuse him because he didn’t realize … because he was afraid of being grounded by his father or reprimanded by his mom.”

  Frankie was quiet. Gone was her happy animation. Gone were her smiles and encouragement. “I’m so sorry, Logan.”

  He could see her swallowing against the tears filling her eyes. Tears she was going to shed for him, for Harper, for the woman she’d never even met. Seeing her pain, he shoved his own aside. He’d had years to deal with it, and most of the time it was a dullness, a hole left in his heart that maybe he could finally fill. He placed his hand over hers, squeezing slightly, and then leaving it there. It felt good, right.

  “I came here every summer as a kid, and it became my happy place. I’d thought about visiting regularly to give Harper the opportunity to experience it herself, but then decided that it was time to leave the ghosts of the past behind and make a clean start. The problem is that Christina’s parents don’t exactly like the decision. They think I’m trying to run away from them.”

  “Are you?” Frankie’s voice was soft, soothing. She shifted in her seat, snuggling further into the blanket, but it slipped off her shoulder, and Logan reached behind her to pull it up, leaving his arm around her to hold it in place.

  He cringed at the question. “Honestly, yes, I guess I am. Kathy’s been great to help out so much over the past couple of years, but there are a few things I wanted done differently.” He stopped himself from saying anything bad about his mother- and father-in-law. “The McAfees are super great people, and I’m not planning to ever shut them out of Harper’s life—at least, I didn’t plan to. I hope they don’t get too ugly about this whole visitation thing. I feel it’s time to take on more of the responsibility myself. I don’t know if it makes sense, but I wanted us to stand on our own feet, and Kathy made it impossible for us to do that. She complained that we used her as a crutch, but then wouldn’t let Harper stay for after-school care instead of going to her house, having Kathy run her to all her practices, make dinner, help her with homework. By the time I finished work, Harper was already done with everything, and I’d been left out.”