Falling for Leigh

by Jennifer Snow

  The sound of creaking on the staircase caught her attention. Glancing up, she met Logan’s gaze. She’d assumed he’d be working on new content all evening, though she had been hoping for a glimpse of him.

  “Honey, you there?”

  “Yes, Mom.” She paused as Logan came into the room. “Just Skyping with my parents,” she whispered over the laptop monitor.

  “Leigh, who are you talking to?”

  “A guest at the Brookhollow Inn, Mom. Um...I’ll email you later, okay?”

  “Oh no, I’ll leave—please continue,” Logan said, turning to leave.

  “I thought you had something important to tell us,” her mother said at the same time.

  “No!” she called to Logan.

  “You don’t have something to tell me?” Her mother’s confusion was clear.

  Logan stopped. “You sure?”

  “Yeah, come in, sit. I’ll call them later.” Then turning to the screen, she said, “It can wait. I’ll call you on Sunday night. Give my love to Dad. Take care.” In all honesty, she was relieved by Logan’s interruption. It gave her an excuse to put this off. Deep down she was nervous about their reaction.

  “Okay, darling, hugs and kisses.” Her mother blew her a kiss before the connection disappeared.

  Closing her laptop, she smiled at Logan.

  “Did you just hang up on your parents?”

  Leigh shrugged, knowing that it must have appeared odd. “They had to go, anyway. I’ll talk to them later.”

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  She picked up the baby monitor. “Babysitting.”

  “Oh.” He glanced around the room.

  “They’re asleep and the older three are at their aunt’s house.” Adjusting the volume on the monitor, she set it aside.

  “Sounds like an easy night, then.” He shoved his hands deep in the pockets of his worn jeans.

  “And how about you? How’s the writing going?” she asked. After the haunted hike, he’d claimed to be inspired. He’d seemed disappointed when she said she couldn’t help him that evening, but he’d claimed to need the time to try to write new content anyway.

  “Better.” Logan took a seat on the love seat across from her and folded one leg over the other. He leaned against the cushions and ran his good hand through his hair.

  Somehow, he made the disheveled look irresistibly tempting. He caught her staring and she glanced away. “That’s good,” she said.

  In the ensuing silence, Logan cleared his throat before saying, “So, your parents aren’t here, in Brookhollow?”

  “No. They’re missionaries. They’re never in one place for long. Currently they’re in South Africa at a small medical facility. My dad’s a doctor, and my mother is trained in first-aid administration.”

  “That’s admirable work. How long have they been doing this?”

  “Since before they had me and no, I’m not telling you my age,” she said.

  He grinned.

  “Until I was fifteen, I used to travel with them.”

  “Wow, interesting childhood.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees as he continued to study her with unconcealed interest.

  “Interesting, definitely. Stable, no.” She couldn’t remember staying in any one place longer than six months. Every move meant a new community, often a new language, a new school, a new set of vaccinations. At fifteen, she hadn’t understood her parents’ decision to send her to live with Grandma Norris, but now, an adult, and someone wanting a family of her own, she understood the importance of stability for children and over the years, she’d come to appreciate her parents’ decision. Even if it had created a gap between them.

  Logan nodded. “Moving around can be difficult on a child,” he said, his expression clouding over.

  She wondered about it. “Have you always lived in New York?” she asked, not willing to let the opportunity to learn more about him pass by.

  “No,” Logan said, shaking his head. “I was born in California.”

  “Moved from one coast to the other?”

  “And everywhere in between.”

  “Military family?” The only other family situation she knew of that moved as much as her family did.

  “No family.”

  Her eyebrows rose at the bluntness of the unexpected answer. She shook her head slowly. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled, unsure what else to say.

  He shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t even know what I’m missing. I was in an orphanage as a baby. Then I was placed in foster homes until I was fifteen and finally decided I’d had enough. I ran away and hitched a ride to New York, stopping along the way and earning money busing tables at truck stops to make it the entire way.”

  “At fifteen?” She couldn’t believe it. At fifteen, she’d stopped traveling to live with her grandmother, but she’d never have been able to do it on her own.

  “Yeah. I couldn’t take living in the foster homes anymore and I knew I wanted to be a writer.”

  “So New York was the place to be.” She eyed him. He was sharing a lot...a lot more than she would have expected, given how guarded he’d been when they first met. She was curious about his daughter, but she didn’t want to push him further than he was comfortable sharing. “So, your series—six books?” Okay, she’d chickened out, keeping to a safer topic—for his sake or hers, she wasn’t sure.

  “It hadn’t started out that way. It had originally been a stand-alone novel, but the fans wanted more of Gardener, so it just kind of spiraled. Then my ex and I separated and there were a few years between books four and the upcoming release next month. Six years, in fact.”

  “Wow, that’s quite a gap.”

  “Yeah, that’s why this comeback needs to be successful.” He shifted on the sofa, moving to the edge of the cushion, the look in his eyes suddenly intense. “So, I’ve been thinking about what you said last night—about the ending.”

  “Oh, I hope I didn’t offend. I really don’t know what I’m talking about.”

  Logan stood and, crossing the room, lifted her legs from the ottoman. Sitting, he placed her legs across his lap. She had trouble focusing on what he said next. “No, you were right. I reread the last few chapters today, and the ending is written all over the page. It’s predictable and not the right ending for the book.” Was she supposed to be listening? He was gently massaging her feet as he spoke—the cast didn’t seem to hinder him when it came to giving foot rubs—and she couldn’t remember the last time someone had been this close, this intimate. Did he realize the effect he was having on her? Did he even realize what he was doing? He seemed oblivious as he continued discussing the direction of his novel.

  A soft cry came from the monitor on the table next to them and Logan jumped up from the ottoman, allowing Leigh’s legs to fall.

  Oh, thank God for the interruption. She hadn’t heard a word he’d been saying and her brain had turned to mush under his touch. “One of the babies,” she mumbled, standing quickly.

  Another wail followed.

  “And there’s the other one. Excuse me for just a few minutes while I get them settled back to sleep.” She was both relieved and disappointed by the interruption. Logan’s intimate gesture had left her feeling slightly dizzy. Wrapping his arm around her on the haunted hike...then placing her legs on his... Definitely dizzy and excited. Could he be feeling something happening between them or was he just comfortable around her?

  “Need some help?”

  That made her wonder how old his daughter was. She hesitated, then nodded. “Sure, thank you.” Two crying babies would be a challenge; his help would be appreciated. Her acceptance of his offer had nothing at all to do with wanting to see how he handled a crying baby. Not at all.

  At the end of the hall, she opened the bedroom
door and smiled at the twins as she entered, and flicked on their butterfly lamp. “Hi, baby girls,” she said. “I’ll get Abigail if you could get Mackenzie.” She gestured to the crib on the other side of the room as she picked up one of the little girls and cradled her in her arms, snug against her chest.

  She softly touched Abigail’s cheek, watching as Logan gently lifted the second baby, securing her yellow blanket around her. “How do you tell them apart?” he asked, glancing back between the two. Mackenzie snuggled against him and stopped crying immediately.

  Though she’d been curious to see it, she hadn’t been prepared for the effect the sight Logan holding the baby would have on her. Few men had ever captured her interest, even fewer since her divorce from Neil. But in that tiny gesture, Logan had secured a spot in her heart. He was a natural. So assured and comfortable. She couldn’t deny the growing attraction she felt for him.

  “Um...” What had he asked? Oh, right, the difference between the babies. “Abby has a tiny freckle on her forehead,” she whispered, moving closer to him, pointing out the tiny spot on the baby’s skin above her barely visible right eyebrow. “That, and the fact that I know which crib belongs to each baby.”

  “Cute,” Logan said then, glancing at the baby in his arms, he grinned. “Mine’s asleep.”

  “Already?” Leigh leaned over his shoulder. Sure enough, Mackenzie’s eyes were closed and her breathing was steady and soft. “You made that look easy,” she said, watching him carefully place the baby back in her crib.

  “What can I say? I have a way with the ladies.” He touched her shoulder as he made his way toward the door. “I’ll wait downstairs for you.”

  Abigail wasn’t so eager to fall back to sleep, so Leigh sat in the rocking chair near the window. Rocking the little girl in the dimly lit room, she felt her heart swelling. Her adoption interview was in three days—she could have a baby of her own sooner than she’d thought. Before Christmas...it was too much to hope for. The little girl’s eyelids fluttered shut and, careful not to wake her, Leigh placed her back in the crib, tucking a tiny pale pink blanket around her. Tiptoeing out of the room, she closed the bedroom door behind her and made her way down the stairs.

  “That was easy,” Logan said when she took a seat next to him on the sofa.

  “They’re really good babies. Rachel and Nathan are fantastic parents and it shows in their children’s behavior,” she said.

  He studied her for a long moment. “Okay, I’m sorry, but I have to ask.”

  Leigh held her breath, waiting for the question she’d been asked a hundred times before.

  “Why don’t you have any of your own? You clearly love them and you would make a terrific mother.” Logan turned on the couch to look at her, resting his cast on the back of the love seat.

  What else could she tell him, other than the truth? “I can’t have children.”

  He looked down. “I’m so sorry, Leigh. It was none of my business. I shouldn’t have asked.”

  “It’s okay. I stopped trying a long time ago, well, obviously since my divorce and I’ve had a long time to accept it.”

  He looked back up but remained silent.

  “It was also one of the reasons for the divorce,” she continued. “The main reason, actually.”

  Reaching across the love seat, he placed his good hand on top of hers, his eyes never leaving her face.

  The reassurance in his firm hold on her hand helped her find the words. “Neil and I got married very young. I was twenty-four, he was twenty-five. We’d been together since high school. Small towns, I guess. Anyway, we started trying to have a baby after our second anniversary. I can still remember the day I found out I was expecting. I was at the grocery store and I must have walked down the aisle with the family-planning products a dozen times, trying to think of excuses to give whoever would check me out at the counter,” she said.

  “Avoiding small-town gossip is tough, huh?”

  “You couldn’t possibly understand how hard. Anyway, I stole it.” She’d never admitted it to anyone before, not even Neil, and she wasn’t sure what made her confess now.

  Logan laughed deeply as he squeezed her hand, shaking his head. “You continue to surprise me.”

  “I know it was awful, but I did donate the money I would have spent on the test to a charity collecting money in the store’s entryway as I left,” she added quickly.

  “I’m sure you properly restored your karma.”

  “At home, it took me three hours to finally take the test and then I just sat there, staring. When I told Neil, he was ecstatic. He comes from a family of seven brothers and sisters.” He was already on his way to having his own big family now, she didn’t add.

  “What happened?”

  “We don’t know exactly. I started having contractions at four months, two days after we’d announced the pregnancy to our family and friends. At the hospital, the ultrasound revealed no heartbeat.” Her jaw tightened.

  Despite the following two miscarriages, that first one had been the hardest and that day at the hospital was one of her worst memories. The fear as they’d driven to the clinic and the sense of urgency and panic the doctors and nurses tried but failed to conceal. Things hadn’t been fine; things had been devastating.

  Logan’s hand tightened around hers again and he moved closer. “I’m sorry, Leigh.”

  She swallowed hard and cleared her throat before continuing. “After that, there were two more within two years. The doctors ran every test they could think of. We even did DNA testing to see if we were just not compatible...but according to the doctors there was no medical reason they could find to explain why I couldn’t carry a baby to term. That was hard to accept.” She paused. Without knowing what the problem was, they’d been unable to offer a solution on how to fix it. She looked up from their entwined hands to Logan. His sympathy and concern were too much. “Do you really want to hear all of this?”

  “Absolutely,” he said.

  “Well, after all that, conceiving became difficult, so after a year and a half of no luck, we started the fertility treatments. Nothing worked.” She swallowed hard. “And by then, Neil and I had grown so obsessed with having a child, it was all we could think about, talk about. He filed for divorce two weeks after the last round of in vitro failed. So, that’s my story.”

  “It sucks.”

  Leigh gave a small laugh, blinking back tears. “Yes, it does.”

  The silence that followed was comforting in a strange way. The only people she’d ever talked about her past failures with were her grandmother and Rachel. Even her parents didn’t know the full extent of what she’d been through. She didn’t regret telling Logan. She suspected in some way he understood her heartache.

  “Amelia is eight.”

  She knew without asking who Amelia was. “She lives with her mother?”

  “For now. I’m hoping to change that.” His jaw hardened. “Kendra—my ex,” he said in a tight voice, “is an off-Broadway actress who just recently decided that to further her career, she needed to move to L.A. We met on the set of Women Up, a play I’d cowritten when I was desperate for money fifteen years ago, before my big break. She lit up the stage with her talent. I was totally taken with her. Amelia was born the same year I signed a contract to sell my first novel. While Kendra traveled with the plays she starred in, I was Amelia’s primary caregiver until Kendra fell in love with a costar two years ago and we separated.”

  “So you share custody of Amelia?”

  “We did, until last month when Kendra took Amelia to L.A. with her.”

  “Oh no, Logan. Is there anything you can do?”

  “I’m certainly going to try. We have a court date set for next month and I’m asking for full custody so she can stay in New York with me. Until then, she’s in L.A. with her mom.”

 
; Leigh wasn’t sure which was worse, to never have a child or to have one taken away. “I don’t even know what to say Logan,” she said softly. He would have a fight on his hands, she knew that for sure, and her heart ached for him.

  “That’s why this book, this comeback is so important. I need the courts to see that I can continue to support Amelia.”

  “Don’t worry. You’ll finish the series and it’ll be wonderful.” She touched the side of his cheek. Her fingers moved along his strong jawline, and he turned his face to kiss the palm of her hand.

  She swallowed a lump in her throat as their gazes met and she leaned in for the kiss on the lips she knew was coming.

  Gently he took her by the shoulders, the move made more awkward by his cast. He studied her face. “I can’t, Leigh. I wish I could, but...I had a home, my only home, with Amelia and Kendra. I need to know I can have that again with my daughter. If I can’t...”

  Slowly he let his hands fall away from her as he put distance between them on the sofa.

  “If I can’t,” he said softly, “I don’t think I could trust making a new life with anyone else again.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  “WHERE ARE WE putting this set of lights?” Dylan asked, tangled in a set of pumpkin lanterns on the far end of the front yard.

  Leigh looked up from where she was tying a stuffed plastic bag ghost to a post on her fence. Good question. Decorating their front yard for Halloween had been Neil’s thing. She’d almost forgotten all of these decorations were still in her garage. “Um...” Where had he usually hung them?

  “Miss Leigh, the inflatable vampire in the coffin keeps floating away in the wind,” Melissa said, desperately battling to hold the inflatable eight-foot-wide lawn ornament in place by lying on it.

  “That’s because we need to secure it to the ground.” Allowing the end of the ghost to fly free, she went to help the child. “There should have been plastic spikes in the box.” She scanned the front yard. Shoot, they must have left the box in the garage.