“Why not? It’s a beautiful room.”
She was right. It was. The carpet was plush and an ocean-blue. The draperies were thick. The furniture was a mixture of tan and gray and blue-green, cushiony and comfortable. If he ever wanted to watch a game on the huge flat-screen TV, he’d feel as if he were in the middle of it.
Something Logan couldn’t define urged him to be honest with Gina. “My wife redecorated this room. I thought we’d be playing on the floor with Daniel, watching kid videos with him on the TV.”
After their gazes held for a long moment, Gina broke eye contact and let Daniel roll off the ball. She tussled with him a couple of minutes, making him laugh, then she let him sit with a few toys just to see what he would do.
“Would you rather I move Daniel into his playroom? I’d like him out of his comfort zone so he’ll have to go a distance to get to wherever he wants.”
“The room’s here,” Logan responded offhandedly. “We might as well use it.”
Their gazes locked again, and he saw something on Gina’s face that stabbed at his heart. Was it regret? Was it guilt?
He almost moved closer to her, anything to relieve the tension that had pulled between them from the moment she’d walked back into his life.
The tension was abruptly broken when Hannah came rushing into the room. “That reporter’s here again, Logan. He wants to do a story on you for the Style section of the Sunday paper. What should I tell him?”
“I’ll take care of it,” Logan assured her and strode out of the room, glad for the interruption, glad to escape the web of emotion that seemed to surround him whenever Gina was within arm’s reach.
After Logan left the family room, Hannah declared, “He doesn’t like publicity, so that makes reporters want to come after him even more.”
Before Gina could think better of it, she said, “If I remember correctly, Logan’s father didn’t like publicity, either.”
Hannah shot her a quizzical look. “You knew Elliot Barnes?”
“I can’t say I knew him. He was my employer one summer.”
Watching Daniel play with the toys Gina had given him, Hannah sat on the sofa. “Oh, I see. The two men are as different as night and day, though. Mr. Barnes, senior, didn’t want publicity because he just didn’t want to be bothered. After his stroke, he became quite a recluse. Little by little, he turned everything over to Logan. Now Logan, on the other hand, doesn’t want publicity because he thinks it’s foolish and should be saved for something important—like the charities he backs—not a dinner he’s giving or an event he’s attending. But reporters always want to know all about his life. That’s when Logan clams up.”
Gina hadn’t known Elliot Barnes had suffered a stroke. Had it been severe? She was about to ask Hannah when Daniel crawled to the housekeeper and pleaded, “Up?”
She looked down at him with a fond smile. “Oh, no. I’m not picking you up. Those are the new rules.”
Gina laughed. “I’ll bet they are. That smile of his and those green eyes could melt any heart.”
Daniel tugged on Hannah’s slacks.
“I gave him quite a workout,” Gina relented. “I think we’re finished for today.”
“We’ve gotten an official okay,” Hannah said to Daniel as she stooped over and lifted him. “Time for your supper.” She glanced at the balls, blocks and the push toy Gina had brought along. “Do you need help gathering all that?”
“Oh, no. You take care of Daniel. I’ll be fine.”
After Hannah left the room with the toddler, Gina began collecting what she’d brought. She’d been strung tight ever since she’d entered the house. Usually when she was working with a child, that baby was her main focus. Daniel had been her focus, but she’d also been aware of Logan watching her…aware of Logan. There was a vibrating energy connecting them, like a live wire. She didn’t know how to break it, deflect it or let it burn out.
When Logan reentered the room, he’d rolled up his white shirtsleeves and opened the first few buttons of his shirt. He looked strong. Totally male. Absolutely sexy.
She swallowed hard, realizing how much she was still attracted to him. “Trouble?” she asked, just to say something.
“No. Just an eager journalism student wanting to make a name for himself.”
Gina moved toward the corner of the mat she’d opened on the plush carpeting to give extra padding. As she folded it, Logan came to help her. They practically brushed shoulders. Both jerked away.
She knew she had to do something about the awkwardness between them. “Logan, I don’t have to be the one who helps Daniel.”
Logan rubbed his hand up and down the back of his neck. “No, I suppose you don’t. But he obviously relates well to you. I don’t want to mess with that. Hannah’s been the only woman in his life since he was born.”
“What happened?” Gina asked softly.
Logan’s green gaze was penetrating as he studied her, trying to decipher why she wanted to know.
Finally he answered, “One day Amy and I were on top of the world, the next an earthquake destroyed everything we thought we were building.”
As if he knew he was being cryptic, he sat on the sofa, studied the carpet for a few moments, then met Gina’s gaze. Something in his eyes drew her to him and she lowered herself beside him, though not too close.
When he started talking, Gina knew he didn’t discuss this often because his voice was strained.
“Amy was ecstatic when she discovered she was pregnant,” he began. “We’d been married a few years, and we both wanted kids. She’d been working hard at her career—she was a real estate agent and intended to keep selling properties after our baby was born. But soon after she learned she was pregnant, she had symptoms that sent us to a neurologist and then a neurosurgeon. She had a brain tumor.”
Gina desperately wanted to reach out to Logan, to touch his arm. Yet she couldn’t. She had no right. “I’m so sorry.” She was. She’d never wanted anything but happiness for him. That was why she’d left.
Logan didn’t seem to hear her. He stared across the room and explained, “Her doctor wanted to treat the cancer aggressively, but Amy wouldn’t let him do surgery or put anything in her body that could damage Daniel. She decided if she survived the pregnancy, she’d have treatment after our baby was born. But that day never came. She had a stroke at thirty-two weeks. The doctors performed a C-section and she died shortly after.”
One look at Logan’s face and Gina knew he was reliving that time in his life. Did he want comfort? Did he want sympathy? Or did he just need to look forward?
Gina didn’t want to trample over sacred ground so she asked, “How long was Daniel in the hospital?”
“Eight weeks…a terrifically long eight weeks.”
“Who was his doctor?”
“Francesca Talbott. I think it’s Fitzgerald now.”
“Yes, it is. She shared the house with me until she got married,” Gina said softly.
“It really is a small world, isn’t it?” he asked, finally looking at her.
“It can be.”
After a silence-filled pause, Logan asked, “Did you marry?”
His question surprised her. “No.”
What would he say if she told him what had happened? It really made no difference to their relationship. She’d left him, no matter what had happened afterward. “I’ve been focused on my work all these years, trying to make a name in my field.”
“So why come back to Sagebrush now?” He looked genuinely perplexed.
“I’m not exactly sure. I began missing my family more. I knew I needed something different—closer friends, bonds, actual fun.”
The lines on Logan’s face told her he hadn’t had fun in a long time, not since before his wife died. Daniel might bring him joy, but Gina had the feeling it was fleeting.
“We really don’t have to work in here, Logan. I understand how memories can suck the air out of the room.”
Logan shrugged. �
��If I get used to seeing Daniel playing in here, crawling in here, maybe eventually walking in here, it will be fine.”
She could only imagine what Logan had been through—his wife’s diagnosis, losing her and at the same time dealing with Daniel’s hospital stay. “It takes a while to recover from any trauma.” She knew that all too well. Counseling sessions and talking and crying and just putting one foot in front of the other, even when you thought you couldn’t, took energy, motivation and sometimes steel will. Logan had all of those. Still…
Logan stared at a picture of Daniel on a side table.
Gina assured him, “He’s a wonderful little boy. Quick and learning more each day. When I arrived, I suggested to Hannah if you fill two of the bottom cupboards in the kitchen with pots and pans, colorful containers, anything Daniel might feel he’d like to get into, that might give him more motivation to explore his world.”
Logan was quiet a moment, then he turned his focus to her. “I guess parents are always supposed to teach their kids to explore the world.”
“That gets scarier for both the parents and kids as they get older. Learning to walk across the room suddenly becomes all-day kindergarten and then piano lessons, and then driving and dating!”
Logan remarked, “Your parents encouraged you to explore your world. Your education was as important to them as it was to you.”
“It wasn’t just my education,” Gina said quietly, hoping she could break through the icy wall Logan had constructed between them.
“I know. There was your younger sister. Did she eventually go to school?”
“Yes, she did. Angie is a nurse and I’m proud of her.” If only they could keep talking—
Suddenly Logan stood. “It’s good you don’t have any regrets.”
She hadn’t said she didn’t have regrets.
Logan went on, “This is bath night and it’s one of the things I enjoy doing most with my son, at least until he gets old enough to ride a horse. I’ll help you gather this up and walk you out.”
As he stuffed a toy elephant and lion into one of her drawstring bags, she asked him, “Are you still angry that I left?”
His answer was slow in coming as his gaze finally met hers. “I’ll probably always be angry that you left. But…if you hadn’t left, I wouldn’t have Daniel. I love him more than anything in this world.”
There was nothing she could say to that.
A few days later, when Gina stopped in at the Target that had recently opened in Sagebrush, she ran through the baby department. It was a habit, keeping her eye on the latest trends in toys and car seats, in strollers and play furniture. Tonight, she pushed her cart around the corner into the toy department. There, she stopped cold.
Logan stood in front of a shelf, holding a remote-control car in one arm, studying the RC truck directly in front of him.
For a nanosecond, Gina thought about turning around and going the other way. Logan didn’t have to know she’d seen him. He didn’t have to know she was here. But that was the coward’s way out. She was no longer a coward. At least she hoped she wasn’t.
Rolling her cart up beside him, she asked, “Looking for a new hobby?”
He went still, then he turned to face her. “No,” he drawled in that Texas deep baritone that had always curled her toes. “I thought Hannah and I might take bets on who could run their car across the yard the fastest.”
Gina laughed at his wry tone. “I bet Daniel would enjoy that. He might even chase one.”
“That’s the idea,” Logan assured her.
At that moment, they both understood the motivation Daniel needed to learn to walk. It was the first tension-free moment she and Logan had shared.
He nodded to her cart filled with three pairs of shorts and a few knit tops. “New wardrobe for summer?” he joked.
Actually it was. She didn’t owe him any explanations but she explained anyway. “I lost a few pounds so I needed something that fitted a little better than what was in my closet.”
“Intentionally?”
“What?” she asked, lost in his eyes for the moment.
“Did you lose weight intentionally?”
He was looking at her in a way that made her nerve endings dance. She hadn’t felt that way when a man looked at her for a very long time. “No, not intentionally. With the move, a new job, a new life really, it just happened.”
“Are you glad you moved back here?”
Standing here face-to-face with Logan, she wasn’t quite sure how to answer. Finally she responded, “I like the life I’m building. I like the new friends I’ve made. My practice is rewarding and it’s good to be near family again.”
“You stayed away a long time.”
“Yes, I did, in part because I didn’t want to face you.”
For a moment, Logan’s guard slipped and he looked astonished. Was he surprised she’d been so honest? Maybe that was what they needed between them, some old-fashioned honesty. Just how far was she willing to go with it?
“You didn’t have to face me,” he said evenly.
“We live in a small town, Logan. I knew eventually I’d run into you.”
“Why didn’t you send someone else from Baby Grows to evaluate Daniel?”
She expected this question had been bothering him since the night she’d appeared at his house. “As I told you, I do all the evaluations. I wasn’t going to shirk my responsibility.”
He seemed to mull that over. “You’re an expert in your field.”
“Some people would say that.”
“And now that we have come face-to-face?” he asked, his voice challenging.
“I’d like you to forgive me,” she blurted out, without considering the consequences.
There seemed to be a sudden hush all around them. Then Logan shifted, adjusting the toy under his arm. “I don’t know what to say to that. When you left, the bottom dropped out of my world in more ways than one. I’ve never forgotten how that felt. I’ve never forgotten how you didn’t even have time to have a conversation when I called you in Connecticut.”
She couldn’t deal with this here. What had she expected when she’d started this? That it would be easy? That he’d forgive her and they’d go on being friends?
“Logan, things had happened…”
He gave a short laugh. “Yes, I’m sure they had. You probably met someone at school and—”
“No, nothing like that.”
He looked startled at her vehemence. “You’re not the same Gina you were fourteen years ago.”
“I certainly hope not.” She tried to keep her tone light. They hadn’t spent enough time together to know how each other had changed.
Logan cocked his head, studying her with those penetrating eyes that had so often seen right through her. But not tonight. She held secrets he’d never know about unless they could find more common ground than this.
If she brought the conversation back to Daniel, maybe the tension between them would ease. “I was thinking…” she said slowly.
He waited for her to go on.
“Can you bring Daniel to Baby Grows on Saturday? I’d like to ask Tessa to stop in with her two children and I want to watch Daniel react with them, play with them. We have more equipment there, too.”
“Tessa won’t mind giving up her Saturday morning?”
“After rounds, she usually takes the kids to the library. She said she’d just bring them to Baby Grows instead.”
“All right, I can do that. Do you have appointments before Daniel, or do you want me to pick you up?”
Logan had always been a gentleman, and thoroughly polite. He was being courteous now and she shouldn’t read any more into his offer than that. “I do have other appointments, but thanks for offering.” Before she saw more recriminations in his eyes, she pointed to the shelf. “So, which one are you going to buy?”
“You have a car when you work with him. I think I’ll go with the truck.”
“What about Hannah?”
/> He rewarded her with a small smile. “Maybe she’d like the motorcycle.”
Gina laughed. “She probably would.”
After he stacked the motorcycle on top of the truck, he asked her, “Are you finished shopping?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll walk you out.”
More courtesy? Her heart was already in overdrive and now it sped up a little more.
Walking beside Logan, she was reminded just how tall he was, just how broad his shoulders were, just how slim his hips were in his black jeans. He kept enough distance between them that their arms wouldn’t brush. She didn’t glance at him, but she felt him looking at her. She pretended not to be affected either by his presence beside her or his gaze on her, but she was.
At the checkout line, they didn’t speak as she used her credit card, then picked up her packages. He went through and paid in cash.
Then he took her bag from her. “I’ll carry this to your car for you.”
Being with Logan was a combination of bittersweet and exciting. She knew he’d be relieved if he went his way and she went hers, yet she didn’t want to leave his company. Just like so many years ago.
At her car, she used the remote to unlock the doors and pop the trunk. They went around to the back and he dropped her purchases inside. There was a duffel bag there.
“Do you belong to a gym?” he asked as if he was curious about her life now.
“No, but I walk whenever I can. In Lubbock at lunchtime, sometimes I do a couple of laps around the center. In Sagebrush, I like to take the trail around the lake.”
“You always did like the outdoors.” He slammed the lid of her trunk.
“I still do. I hiked a lot in New England. Here, I’d like to take up riding again. Francesca and I have gone on a couple of trail rides at her ranch. I’ve ridden at Tessa’s, too. I’d forgotten how wonderful it feels to be on horseback.”
Logan walked to her car door and stood very close, so close she could reach up and touch his jawline, so close she could see that the lines around his eyes and his mouth weren’t superficial. They’d been carved from pain. All she wanted to do was ease them away.
The Texas Billionaire's Baby Page 3
