The Winter We Collided: A Small Town Single Dad Romance (Ocean Pines Series Book 2)
Page 21
“The Invader?” I question as he turns to the window behind him and reaches for the curtain. I would panic except I know he’ll see nothing but the side of a fire engine. He looks back at me before opening the curtain and points to his shirt.
“The Invader,” he says again. “From Star Wars.”
I smile. He calls Darth Vader the Invader. Adorable! “Oh yeah, well, he is kind of scary, isn’t he?”
“He’s a bad guy, but he doesn’t scare me,” River says. “I want to see the new movies but Ma says I’m not old enough yet. Dad agrees but he lets me watch the old ones, and I don’t get scared at all.”
He pulls back the curtain and peers out. I stand behind him, and thankfully, the view of the flaming house is still obstructed. There’s another siren getting closer now and I’m guessing it’s the ambulance. I hope Mrs. Green is okay. River looks back at me. “Is my dad out there?”
“He’s just making sure no one needs his help and he will be right back,” I promise, and he nods in agreement, but the look on his face says he’s not that sure he believes me.
“Where did you come from?” he wants to know suddenly as he turns from the window and drops down on the couch. Chewie drops onto his belly beside him and drops his giant head into River’s lap.
“Tonight?” I ask and he nods again. “I live upstairs. In the rest of the house.”
“He’s not supposed to leave me with strangers,” River says quietly. “Ma is going to be mad.”
“I’m not a stranger to your dad,” I say, and hope Logan’s ex will understand the unique situation that forced us to break the rules. “And we can get to know each other so we aren’t strangers either. Ask me anything.”
“What happened to your face?” He points up toward my forehead.
“I fell on my icy stairs and needed stitches,” I explain. “And now I have a special band-aid.”
“Do stitches hurt? I’ve never had any,” he says in an almost disappointed tone. Oh gosh, this kid would have me laughing if the situation were different.
“When it happened, yes. Now it doesn’t,” I smile at him.
He scrunches up his little face in concentration and leans a little bit toward me as he looks at the almost-healed wound. “Hockey players get stitches, so you’re like a hockey player, which is cool.”
I bite back a laugh.
“What’s your favorite Star Wars character?” he says in a dead serious voice that makes my smile reappear.
“C3PO.”
His whole mouth drops open into a giant O. “No way.”
“Way.”
“Nobody likes him best!” he argues with me and then giggles. “He’s boring!”
“He’s reliable and he thinks things through.”
“He doesn’t save anyone. He’s not a hero,” River says, his little arms flailing to prove his points and as a sign of his exasperation. “He never even gets to use a lightsaver. How boring is that. I mean, come on!”
The door opens, and a second later Logan is standing in the archway to the living room. Our conversation halts immediately, and River leaps off the couch and throws himself at his dad’s torso. It’s so filled with relief that I almost want to be offended. Logan looks at me and smiles as he rubs his son’s back. “Everything is okay, Bub.”
“I know,” River replies and lets go of his dad. “Chloe likes C3PO better than anyone else in Star Wars. How weird is that?”
Logan’s eyes move to me again and they’re dancing with humor. “It’s not a common opinion but it’s a cool one, Riv. C3P0 is smart and funny.”
“But he never uses a lightsaver.”
“It’s called a lightsaber, Bub. And not all heroes are fighters,” a voice behind Logan startles me, and suddenly Jake is there behind Logan, in his fireman gear. “Sometimes it takes a hero to use his brain, not his lightsaber.”
River rushes to him and Jake bends and swoops him up. “Unkie Jake!”
Jake turns to me and grins like an idiot. I can’t help but notice he has a rapidly bruising cheek, and I wonder if he got injured fighting the fire. “Hey Chloe. Good to see you. Terra mentioned this plot twist, and I have to say, I didn’t see it coming.”
Logan glares at Jake, who purposely ignores him, and River reaches up and takes hold of Jake’s helmet, lifts it, and plops it on his own head before giggling gleefully.
“Can I go see the truck?” River asks, excitedly.
“Sorry kiddo, but it’s still kind of crazy out there and not a place for little tough guys like you,” Jake says, and River’s face falls. “But why doesn’t your dad bring you by the station next week?”
River’s head spins around to Logan, who nods before the boy can ask. River looks thrilled. Logan reaches for him and pulls him from Jake’s arms. “You gotta get back in bed now Riv,” Logan tells his son. “Or else we’ll be too tired to go to the restaurant tomorrow to see Grammy and Grampy.”
“Okaaay…” He doesn’t sound the least bit thrilled, but he begrudgingly hands Jake his helmet and when Jake puts him down, he trots down the hall.
“I’ll tuck you in in a minute,” Logan calls after him and then looks at his dog. “Chewie, go with him.”
Chewie jumps off the couch, causing the floorboards to rattle, and trots off behind River. I point to Jake’s cheek “Did that happen at Mrs. Green’s?”
“Yes. When my fellow firefighter, her son, clocked me for not letting him go into the house,” Jake replies. Logan is scowling.
“If you don’t write him up, I fucking will,” Logan growls lowly so River won’t overhear.
Jake just shakes his head. “He thought his mom was in there, dude. I’ll talk to him when everything settles down.”
Logan wants to argue, I can see it in his eyes, but he doesn’t. Jake claps his shoulder. “Thanks for helping out.”
“Mrs. Green is okay?” I ask.
Logan and Jake both nod and Logan says, “She inhaled some smoke, so they’re bringing her to the hospital. She’ll likely spend the night, but it’s a precaution. She’s okay.”
Jake gently slaps the side of Logan’s face with his gloved hand. Logan frowns. “Get out.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Jake grins and winks at me. “You got yourself a real ray of sunshine here, Chloe. His wildly happy, boisterous spirit can be overwhelming, can’t it?”
“Shut the fuck up,” Logan mutters pushing Jake to the open door.
“I wish he’d take things a wee bit more seriously, though,” Jake keeps going. “He’s like a cheerleader on uppers isn’t he?”
I’m laughing as Logan shoves Jake out of the apartment and closes the door. He turns to me and scowls, but it’s all show. Also, it makes the space between my legs pulse with desire. “You like that? Making fun of me?”
“I like you and your family. They’re a hoot.”
“They’re also a pain in the ass,” he replies and walks over to me. His left hand circles my waist and his right gently cups the side of my face before he gives me a gentle kiss. “Thanks for helping me out with Riv.”
“Anytime,” I say easily. “Not the way I was hoping to meet River, but he took it like a champ. He’s a great kid.”
“Thanks.” He kisses me again and then a little voice interrupts us, bellowing from his room.
“Daaaad! Did you forget to tuck me in?”
Logan chuckles against my lips and I smile. “Coming, Bub.”
I step out of Logan’s arms, but it isn’t easy. “Hope the rest of your night is uneventful.”
“I wish you could stay and make it eventful,” he whispers and grins at me.
“Me too.”
“I drop River off Sunday afternoon. Do you want to have dinner that night?”
“I’d love that, but I’m working,” I explain. “At your restaurant. Doing some photos for the website.”
“I can meet you there afterward, we can eat there when the place closes up,” Logan suggests. “Just you and me. I’ll kick the rest of the family out.”
“Jake knows and now Finn knows thanks to the other night, so we might as well just out ourselves entirely,” Logan replies.
“Mrs. Green knows too,” I confess, and he looks shocked. “Earlier tonight she came by about the stupid petition she’s started and she started gossiping about your family, and I just kind of snapped at her and might have called you my boyfriend.”
“Okay, well, I’ll make sure to tell the fire marshal and save him some time,” Logan says, deadpan, and I blink in confusion before he adds, “Because now I’m certain the cause of fire was Mrs. Green updating her Ocean Pines blog. She was probably typing so fast her keyboard caught fire.”
I laugh. It feels good. “So you’re not mad?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t give a shit who knows. Trust me when I say I’ve been called worse things than your boyfriend.”
I nod, grinning. “See you Sunday night then. Night Logan.”
I reach for the door handle but pause and turn back to face him. My hands cup his rugged face, his stubble scratching my palms, and I kiss him, long, deep, and hard. My hands tangle in his hair. His hips push into me as my back presses into the closed door.
“Daaaad!”
And just like that, we pull apart, both smiling sheepishly.
“Night.” I pull the door open and step outside, making my way to the stairs to my own front door, but I don’t feel the bite of the cold night air at all. Every part of me is warm. And as I crawl into bed, careful not to wake Stevie and Boss, who have fallen back to sleep on the rug by the bed in my absence, I think of my conversation with Denny and the guilt and pain are not overwhelming anymore. I feel like what’s happening in my life, with Logan, is the right thing. At the right time. But I also feel uneasy not clarifying my past. And I don’t know how much longer I can live with that.
22
Logan
I stifle a yawn as we make our way down the dock. I’m exhausted after the drama of last night, but luckily the little disruption in sleep hasn’t seemed to affect River. He’s as bouncy and bright as always.
My dad looks up from the back of the boat, and a smile explodes on his face. “River!”
“Grampy!” River squeals and lets go of my hand to run down the rest of the dock.
I open my mouth to yell ‘careful’ but my dad beats me to it. “No running, River. It’s dangerous on the dock.”
River stops immediately, but he’s already made it to the foot of the boat. He waits impatiently, bouncing up and down for me to get there too and lift him into the boat. My dad reaches out for him as I lift him up, and as soon as both his little feet are on the deck, he wraps his grampy in a hug. My dad has never, in the history of my life, looked as happy as he does when River is hugging him.
“I didn’t know you were bringing my favorite first mate with us today,” Dad says as I climb onto the boat.
“He insisted.”
“No complaints,” Dad replies and puts River down on the deck. He ruffles his blond hair. “Go get your life jacket, Riv. You know where we keep it.”
He nods, and I watch him make his way to the inside of the boat. Someone else emerges as River starts inside—Declan. He looks down at River. “Hey! I didn’t know you were coming. How’s it going buddy?”
He holds up his hand for a high-five, which River enthusiastically gives him before he continues down to get his life jacket with a cheery, “Hey Unkie Deck!”
I shoot my dad a WTF stare, but he just shrugs. “He insisted,” he repeats my words.
I frown because I doubt that. Declan isn’t interested in this side of the business, the heart of it. He only wants to do the flashy advertising and tally receipts. Declan gives me a tentative smile because he can probably tell I’m less than thrilled at his presence.
“Thanks,” I say and shrug it off.
Declan looks out at the relatively calm seas and the sun that only rose less than an hour ago gleaming off the water. “Thankfully, we got a great day for this.”
I nod and scan the coast myself. “Yeah. Supposed to stay good all week now. ‘Nother nor-easter hitting us on the weekend though.”
My dad grunts his disapproval. “Damn storms. This year’s Farmer’s Almanac says they aren’t letting up til May.”
“The hauls have been good though, Dad,” Declan assures him and claps his shoulder encouragingly. “I know you’re not getting out as often as you want.”
“Never do in the winter.” Dad sighs but then blinks and looks back up at us with a more pleasant expression.
River emerges from the tiny interior, life vest on. “Wanna help me steer?” Dad asks him, and he nods vigorously.
Dad leads him up to the wheelhouse, and Declan and I pull on our water proof slickers over our winter coats and tug on our hats and get ready to sail. It takes twenty minutes to get to the traps, which means I have to sit here alone with Declan that whole time.
“How’s Nova?” I ask.
“She’s Nova,” Declan says with a shrug. “She’s great.”
The wind starts to whip around us, and despite the sun, there’s no denying it’s winter when it hits my cheeks.
“I’m happy for you, getting more time with River,” Declan says and opens his eyes against the wind long enough to hold a gaze with mine. I can tell he means it. “I never thought Bethany should have been keeping you from him.”
He’s never said that to me before, and it means more than I thought it would to hear it. I give him the most genuine smile I’ve given him in years, and he returns it. We both look at Dad, who is holding River up so he can steer. Declan points. “I guess we don’t have to worry about the next generation. Riv loves being on the boat. He’ll probably happily take over one day.”
“Right now, Jake’s profession is his favorite, but the more time he spends with Dad, the more I think that might change,” I pause and then walk through the door he inadvertently opened. “Guess you and Nova have to work on a little business man or woman to take over the marketing side.”
He chuckles, which I think is a good sign, but then he shakes his head. “Nah. I’ll leave that to the rest of you. Terra’s probably our best bet for another grandkid. I’m more than happy to teach them all I know.”
“You don’t want kids?” I say, and he glances over at me with a confused look on his face.
“You know that,” he says and his voice is firm but not terse. “Everyone knows that. I have been crystal about it for a while now.”
“Nova feels that way too?”
I shouldn’t have said it. I know…but I don’t stop myself. Declan’s blue eyes grow stormy, and he stands up, legs wide apart to manage the shifting of the boat as it cuts through the choppy water. “Nova hears her biological clock ticking. It’s natural, and it’s also not logical. Trust me, Nova understands where we stand, and she’s good with it.”
He starts toward the wheel house and I open my mouth to stop him, to apologize, but nothing comes out but a weird sound. He spins back around to face me. “Scratch that last part. I know you don’t trust me. So ask her yourself. And for the record, it does fucking irk me that you and Finn always seem to care more about Nova’s feelings than mine.”
He marches across the boat deck and into the shelter of the wheelhouse next to River and Dad. I throw on my sunglasses, pull my hood up over my head, and lie flat across the back bench Declan vacated. This was not the easy, relaxing morning on the boat with my dad that I’d hoped for.
Twenty-five minutes later, Declan and I are doing what we’ve been doing since we were River’s age—pulling the Hawkins’ traps up. River squeals with delight as the first one hits the deck. He scrambles closer and leans over the trap to inspect the haul. “Riv, give me the rules.”
“They gotta be between three and a quarter inches to five inches in the body,” he says proudly. “Any bigger or smaller and we toss ‘em back. If it’s a girl and she’s got eggs
on her, we scratch a little mark onto the end of the tail. That doesn’t hurt her at all. It’s like scratching your toenail.”
He looks up to my dad for reassurance. This was his big thing last month when he saw my dad do it to a fertile female. He was very concerned she didn’t get hurt. Dad nods and River continues, “And then she goes back in to have babies, and when someone else pulls her out, they’ll know she’s a mama and let her stay in the water, not in someone’s belly!”
Dad claps his hands and beams at River. “Good job Riv! Now Logan, open ‘er up and tell me what we got.” Dad pulls his knitted hat tighter on his head as I open the first trap.
Because it’s winter, my dad only goes out two times a week and only one of those days do we use the majority of our traps. Today is a small trap day. In the summer, we’re out every day with triple the traps we have in the winter. By the time we’re halfway done, even River’s glee for tossing back the lobsters we can’t keep has dwindled in the cold wind, and he’s disappeared to go play in the quarters underneath with the matchbox cars he keeps there.
When River’s gone, the mood darkens and after the tenth trap, my father finally can’t take it anymore. “So this little family outing is going just like I thought it would. Are you two ever going to get out of each other’s way and be brothers?”
Declan and I freeze. He’s got a lobster in one hand and the measuring stick we use for them in the other. I’ve got the bander machine that puts rubber bands around their claws in my hand. My dad is standing on the other side of the deck, working to rebait a now-empty trap. “You know, I’m gonna be dead one day and so will your ma, and her biggest fear is that once we’re gone you two never speak again,” he says and then snaps the lid on the trap closed with more force the required. “She didn’t have so many kids so you’d take care of her when she’s old. She had so many kids so you’d take care of each other.”
“I can take care of myself,” Declan mutters.
“I’m not going to abandon anyone,” I reply. “In an emergency.”
Dad points a gloved finger at me and then shifts to Declan. “Don’t you two do that to your ma. I’ll have to hear about it in the afterlife every damn day. Don’t think I won’t haunt your asses.”