Willow Springs: A Destiny Novel

by Toni Blake

  It threw her a little, made her suck in her breath. Because she felt the kiss . . . well, in places she didn’t usually feel things in response to Logan. Like in her breasts. And her inner thighs.

  But then again, Logan had never kissed her before. Not even like this, on the cheek. As warm and long-lasting as their friendship was, their hugs were the short kind you exchange at a Christmas gathering or . . . she thought he’d probably given her one of those little hugs at her high school graduation, a year after his. Even at his father’s funeral seven years ago, the hug had been solid but . . . brief.

  Still, surely this kiss he’d just given her was . . . like a small hug. A way of expressing their closeness, a way of saying he appreciated her comfort.

  And she might have gone her whole life easily believing that—if he hadn’t then kissed her again, just above where the last one had landed. And then a third time, higher up on her cheek. And that one tingled all through her like the last glimmering bits of light from Fourth of July fireworks wafting through the sky. It had been far too long since she’d been kissed.

  It made her turn her head to look at him, meet his gaze. But she wasn’t sure their eyes, faces, had ever been that close before, and something about it was . . . shockingly intense. It made her lower her gaze—to his mouth.

  And that was when he kissed her once more, this time on the lips. She hadn’t seen it coming—firm, almost hard, and lingering—but this one felt more like the actual fireworks themselves, right at the moment they exploded in a starburst of little glowing, colored flames.

  She didn’t kiss him back really—either because she’d practically forgotten how or because she was so stunned and confused by this turn of events. But when he kissed her yet again, just as firmly yet longer this time, she found herself sinking into it, letting herself soak it up, and soon she even began to respond. It wasn’t a conscious decision—she could barely think at the moment, after all—but her mouth began moving against his, just a little, trying it on for size, trying to find the rhythm of his kiss.

  The next thing she knew, Logan was leaning against her, his chest to her breasts, lying her back onto the couch until they were stretched out there, his body angled over hers, still kissing the whole while. And the longer he kissed her, the less weird it began to feel, and the more . . . wonderful. Consuming. Almost overwhelming. In a good way.

  She couldn’t have cared less that he tasted like beer. She no longer even noticed how unkempt he was. Because this was Logan, her friend for her whole life, and that was what made this so . . . oddly easy even at the same time as it was strange. This was Logan, and with him everything was okay, always. Even kissing, it turned out.

  Though that was when he suddenly stopped, pulled back, looked at her.

  Shock overtook his expression.

  Until finally he sat abruptly up and said, “Jesus, Amy, I’m sorry. I’m so damn sorry.”

  Amy just lay there, stunned all over again, this time for a different reason. A minute ago it had made no sense that Logan was kissing her, and now . . . well, now it made no sense that he’d quit. And that his eyes appeared almost horror-filled.

  She swallowed nervously, embarrassed. Was it that awful to have kissed her?

  Yet . . . maybe that was part of why it had caught her so off guard in the first place. As close as they were, Amy just wasn’t the kind of girl Logan kissed. Logan dated girls who were prettier than her, sexier than her, all around hotter than her. And she dated . . . no one.

  “It’s . . . it’s all right,” she said softly. Mainly just to say something, fill the dead air, try to bring this weirdness to a close somehow.

  “I . . . don’t know what I was thinking. Didn’t know what I was doing. I guess I just . . . got confused and thought you were somebody else. I’m kinda drunk,” he added at the end.

  Oh good. She was only kissable if he thought she was somebody else. And when he was drunk. And even then, he regretted it afterward. She let out a sigh.

  But don’t look at it that way. He’s apologizing because you’re friends. Purely platonic friends, always. And because it was a weird thing for him to do. He’s apologizing because he cares about you. And apparently hadn’t noticed that she’d been completely into it, too.

  But she decided not to think about it that deeply right now. Right now, the important thing was to get out of this situation with their friendship intact. So it seemed like a good time to sit up, as well. “It’s okay,” she assured him once more after she was upright. She adjusted her top slightly and brushed her palms down over the thighs of her khaki capris as if to straighten them. “It’s no big deal. We’ll just . . . sort of forget it happened.”

  He cocked a surprisingly endearing half grin in her direction. “Shouldn’t be a problem—since I forget a lot of stuff lately.”

  She pointed to the nearest beer can, trying to keep things light. “Drunk people often do.”

  Yet his smile faded. “I gotta stop that, don’t I?”

  She nodded. “Yes. Please.”

  “I’m really sorry, Amy,” he told her again. And her chest tightened at how sad that made her. She couldn’t believe how much she didn’t want him to be sorry.

  But what was she thinking? Of course he was sorry. Of course it was crazy for them to be kissing. Of course it was some bizarre aberration brought on by alcohol and depression and comfort. And she would forget how good those kisses had felt soon enough. She would make herself forget. Because it was the only practical move here.

  “I should go,” she said, pushing to her feet.

  “Okay,” he said. And despite herself, she couldn’t help thinking how nice it would have been if he’d tried to stop her, if he’d wanted her to stay. Clearly, they both thought it was a good idea to put this particular encounter behind them quickly.

  “In the meantime, promise me you’ll make yourself take a shower before the day is through. Maybe take a walk outside, or down to the dock. It’s nice out. You should get out, get some fresh air.”

  “Get sobered up,” he added.

  And she nodded.

  “Okay, freckles, I’ll try.”

  “Don’t just try. Promise, Logan. For me.”

  “All right, I promise. For you.”

  “I’ll call you tomorrow. And you’ll answer the phone, right?” Another thing Logan had stopped doing lately.

  He gave her a solemn nod even though he still looked drained and sad. “I’ll answer. And I’ll try to be better, do better. I know you’re right, I know I gotta shake this.”

  And it occurred to her then that, in a way, it was as if he himself had been perishing in the flames—in his mind—ever since that fire, albeit in a whole different way than Ken and Doreen Knight. And she almost wanted to hug him again—but that just seemed like a bad idea. So she simply said, “Yes, you do. And spend some time petting your dog. She misses you. We all do.”

  “You, too?” he asked. And something in her heart fluttered—just for a fraction of a second.

  Even though she knew the question really meant nothing.

  “Of course,” she said. “Me, too.”

  Amy’s commute to work every day was a short one. She needed only to exit the second floor apartment over Under the Covers—the bookstore she owned right across from the Destiny town square—walk down the steps, and unlock the front door.

  Only today, she felt weird. Like she didn’t particularly want to be around people for some reason. And Amy was a born people person, so what was going on here?

  Ever since leaving Logan’s house last night, her emotions were all over the place. She shifted from worrying about him to feeling terrible about what he’d endured. She flip-flopped from being embarrassed about the kissing to feeling almost . . . well, strangely giddy about it. Because it’s been a long time since you’ve been kissed, that’s all. And a girl needed to be kissed every now and then.

  But her giddiness had nothing to do with . . . well, with Logan himself. Right? Even if he had sta
yed on her mind constantly since the moment she’d left his place. She was pretty sure she’d even thought about him while she’d slept. Not that she’d slept much.

  Shoving the key in the lock on the front door, she gave her head a brisk shake. This was going to be a long day. A long, weird day.

  No sooner had she stepped inside than she had a pretty little tabby cat twining around her ankles, mewing like there was no tomorrow. “Yes, good morning to you, too, Austen. I’ll be happy to get you some Meow Mix if you’ll stop trying to trip me, okay?”

  The bookstore had become the unofficial drop-off center for unwanted cats over the last few years, but Amy didn’t mind—not only did she love cats, but she’d been successful in finding good homes for every stray that had made its way through Under the Covers’ front door. Austen was a relatively new arrival, showing up only a week ago—she’d heard the caterwauling outside one night while re-watching Sense and Sensibility for probably the hundredth time. And since only a cat—or maybe a kiss—would have a strong enough impact to make her pause S&S or any other Jane Austen classic, she’d decided Austen was a fitting name for the female kitty. “You’re very needy, though,” she criticized the cat now as it wove figure eights around her feet.

  Not that she really minded a little neediness. Be it cats or people, she understood that the world could be a scary, lonely place sometimes, and she was happy to do what she could to alleviate that.

  What had started out as a pretty May morning in the heart of Destiny soon turned gloomy and drizzly outside, keeping most customers away. And though normally a day this slow might bum her out a little, she found that today it suited her just fine. Since she hadn’t particularly felt like being her usual social, chatty self anyway.

  On the other hand, though, she realized she must feel like chatting at least a little when she found herself curled up with Austen in one of the easy chairs near the front door, trying to talk out her confusion. “What’s going on with me?” she asked the cat. “It’s like I feel . . . wonderful and awful at the same time when I think about Logan. Which suddenly seems to be . . . nonstop. And how can I feel good at all given everything he’s dealing with? Is that terrible? For me to get all tingly every time I remember that kiss? And oh my God, Austen—this is Logan! My buddy, my pal! And I’m feeling tingly about him? That’s crazy. Isn’t it?”

  Of course, Austen couldn’t answer, so that kept the conversation short. But Amy still felt just as out of sorts when Tessa walked in to start her noon shift, carrying a pretty flowered umbrella. Tessa was in the midst of building a thriving interior decorating business, but she’d worked at the bookstore with Amy since returning to Destiny several years ago, and she continued to help her out a few days a week. “What’s wrong?” Tessa asked instantly.

  “Wrong? Why do you think something’s wrong?” Amy had had no idea it was that obvious.

  Tessa tilted her head first one way, then the other, clearly assessing her own observation. “You’re not smiling. In fact, you even look sad. And that’s not like you.”

  Amy hadn’t considered whether or not to share the Logan incident with anyone, but if she picked any of her friends to tell, it would be Tessa, who she’d grown particularly close to these past years. Still, she felt ill-prepared for such a conversation, so she decided to keep it to herself for now. “Must be the rainy day bringing me down a little, that’s all.” Then she pasted on a smile, realizing even as she did so how easy it was. To pretend everything was fine. And it made her wonder: How long had she been doing that? How long had things maybe really not been fine deep down inside her? And what was it that really wasn’t fine? “So . . . do you still love your dress?” Suddenly, wedding talk seemed the easiest route.

  And as had been Amy’s intent, the question sent a big smile unfurling across Tessa’s face. “More than love it. It’s perfect!” Tessa and her fiancé—big, bad, sexy biker dude Lucky Romo—were planning a small ceremony on the deck of her cabin, and Amy thought the wooded setting a beautiful, intimate place for their “I do”s.

  “And I still think the plan we worked out on the drive back from Cincinnati is perfect, don’t you?” Tessa went on. “You’ll be my maid of honor, I’ll be Rachel’s, and Rachel will be yours when the time comes.”

  With the three girls being equally close friends, the maid of honor situation had seemed tricky at best, and something they’d toiled over after Rachel, and then Tessa, had gotten engaged. And yeah, sure, this had sounded like a fine way to deal with it when they’d talked about it a month ago, but now, suddenly, the solution made Amy feel . . . like a loser. And she was pretty sure her face had just reshaped itself into a big, fat grimace. Right before she blurted out, “Except that Rachel’s getting a rotten deal. Because I’ll never get married!” And then she slumped in her chair, feeling doomed to spinsterhood in Destiny in a way she never had before.

  Above her, Tessa just blinked in astonishment. “What are you talking about? Of course you’ll get married!”

  But Amy just gave her a look and said, “Come on, Tessa—you don’t have to be nice and pretend. We all know I don’t date. I haven’t dated anyone since Carl, after high school.” Carl had been her only boyfriend ever, from Crestview, the next town over. And he’d been nice, and they’d been semi-serious for a year or so, but then things had fizzled—and though a guy or two had asked Amy out after that, she just hadn’t felt that zing, that charge of chemistry she knew had to be there, and she’d turned them down. And been dateless ever since.

  “Well, so what?” Tessa said hopefully anyway, clearly being a good, supportive, encouraging friend. “There are plenty of fish in the sea and you’ll find the right fish one of these days.”

  Amy tried to smile at Tessa’s hope—but it was hard. Mostly, she chose not to think about the lack of romance in her life. She tried to project her romantic tendencies on others—fixing them up, pointing out the obvious matches that they didn’t always see. And the rest of the time, she let herself get swept away by the romantic stories of Jane Austen, where the endings were always happy, even if fictional. It was easier to focus on other people’s happy endings than on her own loneliness.

  Finally, after a long moment, she said something so honest to Tessa that it was the first time she’d ever realized how true it was. “I used to think that. But I’m just not sure I believe it anymore. I’m not sure I’m meant to have that kind of happiness.”

  Tessa’s face fell as she instantly knelt next to Amy’s chair. “Of course you are, Ames. Everyone is. I went through a long drought myself if you recall, and felt pretty undateable. But then Lucky came along and all that changed in the blink of an eye.” Then she shook her head, obviously befuddled by Amy’s attitude. “What on earth brought this on?”

  Amy tried to swallow back all the emotion that rushed through her in response to the question even as she heard herself admit, “Something happened.”

  “Something happened?” Tessa asked.

  “With Logan,” Amy told her.

  Tessa’s eyebrows shot up as she moved smoothly into the overstuffed chair across from Amy’s and leaned forward, her gaze wide. “Start talking.”

  So Amy took a deep breath, and then she talked. She told Tessa the whole story of how Logan had kissed her but then afterward acted like she had the plague or something. Only Tessa didn’t seem to hear the part about the plague. Instead, she seemed . . . unaccountably overjoyed. “Oh my God, this is so great! I mean, could it be any greater?”

  Now it was Amy who blinked her astonishment. “Um, yes. Yes, it could be.”

  “Because you and Logan know each other so well! You’ve already got all of that behind you! You know each other’s families and backgrounds, you know who the other is deep inside, you know the kind of life each other has lived and wants to live in the future. I mean, Lucky and I had problems with some of that stuff—and it counts for a lot. All you and Logan have to do is get past the awkward friends-to-lovers transition and then you’ll have it made.
”

  Amy just stared at her friend, feeling like they’d done a role reversal. It was usually Amy who saw everyone’s relationships through rose-colored glasses, refusing to acknowledge the difficult parts. But now she was viewing things from the other side. “Except for one fairly important thing,” she told Tessa. “He doesn’t want to go from friends to lovers. Because he doesn’t see me as a lover—only as a friend.”

  “But he didn’t kiss you like a friend, right?”

  “No.” He’d kissed her like . . . like she’d always dreamed of being kissed. “But he also said he must have thought I was someone else. I think he sees me as . . . more of a sister.”

  At this, however, Tessa just made a face. “I think he said that just to cover up because it caught him off guard. And I’m sure you’re exaggerating the part about him acting like you had the plague.” Then she gave her head an inquisitive tilt. “But before we go any further, let’s back up a minute and answer the most important question here. How do you feel about him?”

  Amy expelled a sigh and let everything she’d thought and felt since that kiss play back through her head. Reliving it quickly made her heart beat too hard and her palms sweaty. Her skin got hotter, too, and she soon noticed that, at the moment, it wasn’t particularly easy to breathe. And she still suffered that same mix of happy-sad-confused that had been making her feel a little crazy ever since the kiss. And she realized that even though she knew he didn’t want her, would surely never want her, and that this whole thing was very likely going to ruin their lifelong friendship, she still felt weirdly happy and giddy inside when she pictured his handsome face in her mind.

  And then, then, she had no choice but to face the truth, the truth which she suddenly understood had probably been festering inside her for a while now but she’d just been too in denial to admit to herself. It seemed useless to keep on denying it now, though, so she finally said to Tessa, “I think I’m in love with him.”

  Two