Blinding Rain, Season 2, Episode 7 (Rising Storm) Read online

  A wide grin spread across her face. “Well. Yay, me, huh?”

  He felt himself smiling for the first time in weeks. “Yay, you.” He moved closer, until they were only a breath apart. “I want to kiss you, Mary Louise Prager. Would that be too forward of me or would it be okay?”

  Her smile wobbled, and her chest rose and fell with her increased breaths. “No. I mean, yes. I mean...I would love for you to kiss me.”

  Those breathless words touched his heart in a way nothing had for a really long time. Lifting his hands to cradle her face, he leaned down and brushed his lips against hers. And the moment he did, he felt something inside him finally come to life.

  They were both breathless when he drew back. Her eyes sparkled as she looked up at him, and the way she licked her lips and glanced back at his mouth made him want to kiss her all over again. But this time he wanted to do it where no one else could see. “Are you still up for feeding me?”

  A wide, gorgeous smile spread across her face. “I am. How do steaks sound?”

  He opened the car door for her and helped her in. “Steaks sound great.”

  He closed her door, moved around the car and climbed into the driver’s seat. Just as he was about to start the ignition, Mary Louise put a hand on his arm. “Just one question, though.”

  He looked at her. “Yeah?”

  “Assuming you like my, uh, cooking...” She bit her lip, looking nervous and gorgeous and perfect. “I was just wondering...how do you like your eggs in the morning?”

  Heat rushed through his body, electrifying him in ways he hadn’t felt in way too long. From any other woman that would have sounded dirty and presumptuous. From her, it sounded absolutely right. Letting go of the ignition, he slid a hand in her hair, unable to keep from touching her. “I think after everything you’ve done for me today, I’m the one who owes you breakfast. Hopefully in bed.”

  Her eyes went all soft and dreamy the way he’d always wanted a woman to look at him. “I am not about to turn down that offer, Mr. Almost Mayor.”

  Neither would he. He pulled her to him and kissed her again. And this time he didn’t care who saw.

  * * * *

  “So, then,” Delia said, smiling at Logan in a familiar way that tightened his stomach before glancing back at Marcus and Brittany seated across the table from them. “My father comes barreling into my bedroom, sure he heard a male voice. I shrieked and jumped off my bed, doing my best to sound shocked and appalled that he didn’t trust me and tried to push him out the door. Meanwhile, Logan here’s pinned under my bed in nothing but his boxers, trying not to make a sound because he knows if my father sees him, he’s dead.”

  Marcus chuckled. Brittany rolled her eyes and tried not to smile as she sipped her wine. All Logan could do was shake his head and say, “Teenage hormones. I’ve got no excuse but that.”

  Laughing, Delia leaned against him in the booth at the Italian restaurant Brittany had picked and patted his knee under the table. “I’m sure I was to blame for that. As I recall, you were nervous about my parents being home and wanted to leave long before my father rushed in. I’m the one who convinced you to stay.”

  A memory of that night, when Delia had tempted him to stay with her fingers and lips, flashed in his mind. But it didn’t bring the rush of heat he’d thought it would. “So you’re the bad influence,” he said, trying not to read too much into that fact.

  “I’m always the bad influence, don’t you know that?” Delia sat up and reached for her wine. “Part of the reason I left.”

  “So are you back to stay?” Britanny asked.

  “Yep.” Delia set her wine down. “Newly divorced and back home with the folks again. It’s like a bad country song.”

  “I don’t know too many country songs that include a teacher-student romance,” Marcus muttered, lifting his wine to his lips.

  Brittany must have kicked him under the table because he flinched, looked her way, and said, “Ow, that hurt.”

  Brittany’s eyes widened and she angled her head toward Delia.

  Frowning, Marcus looked across the table at Delia and said, “Sorry. I didn’t realize I said that out loud.”

  “It’s okay.” An amused expression crossed Delia’s face, and she waved a hand. “I’ve heard it all, believe me.”

  Delia seemed happy enough, but Logan couldn’t tell if it was an act, and part of him wasn’t sure if he wanted to ask if she was really okay. She’d obviously been through something big to walk out on her husband and come back to Storm. And while he was happy to see her again and was having a good time tonight, he didn’t particularly want to hear all about her sob story. At least not when he was still trying to get past his own.

  “What about work?” Brittany asked. “Have you started looking for something yet?”

  “Yeah, I actually put in an application at Pushing Up Daisies, but they’re only looking for something part time. I’d like to get something with more hours so I can get a place of my own sooner rather than later. I love my parents but...” She rolled her eyes. “You know how parents can be.”

  “Unfortunately, I do,” Marcus muttered.

  “I did notice Murphy’s is way understaffed.” She glanced toward Logan. “I left a message with your dad about it. I’ve done a ton of waitressing. Wouldn’t that be fun? You and me working there together?”

  Logan’s stomach tightened, and he pictured what she was describing. But she wasn’t the girl he’d always envisioned working the bar with him. The one he’d thought would be there with him was pregnant with someone else’s kid.

  His mood went south, just that fast, and he heard himself say, “Sure,” as he reached for his wine. But he didn’t mean it. And he knew from the pitying look Marcus sent him across the table that his friend sensed it too.

  Delia launched into a story about her last job waiting tables at a bar in Dallas, and relieved they were on to another topic, Logan refilled his wine glass from the bottle in the middle of the table, ignoring the pointed looks Marcus kept sending him. He was doing what his friend had told him to do, right? Moving on? So what if he was drinking a little more than normal. People drank when they went out and had fun, didn’t they?

  He laughed at something Delia said, laid his arm over the back of her chair, and for the rest of the evening acted like he was having the time of his life. Because that’s what people did when they moved on. It’s what Marcus and his folks and everyone had told him to do after Ginny had wrecked him. So in an attempt to push Ginny out of his head and heart forever, he forced himself to do exactly that.

  And it worked. Delia smiled and flirted with him. Brittany laughed at his jokes. Even Marcus eased up and seemed to enjoy himself. Everyone had a great time. Everyone but Logan.

  He hated every single minute of it.

  Chapter Five

  Ginny hadn’t planned to end up at the cemetery when she’d gone for a walk in the waning light of early evening, but she wasn’t surprised when she found herself standing outside the iron fence, staring through the rails toward the headstones beyond.

  Sometimes, as a teenager, when she’d been struggling with something heavy, she’d wound up here. Her parents were both buried in this cemetery, and just sitting beside their graves had calmed her when she’d been fighting with Marisol or worrying about boys, or even when she’d been arguing with Jacob.

  She moved through the gate and into the cemetery, following a familiar path, but instead of veering to the right where her parents were buried, she found herself heading left, stopping when she came to Jacob’s polished headstone.

  It wasn’t a flat marker like others around it. It was an upright arched gravestone on a concrete base, roughly three feet high and two feet wide, with the years of his birth and death etched into the granite stone beneath the words:

  In Our Hearts Forever

  Jacob Andrew Salt

  Beloved son and brother

  Ginny’s chest tightened, and tears stung her eyes as she sank on
to the new grass in front of the headstone. Swiping at the tears on her cheeks, she stared at Jacob’s name and fought back a hysterical laugh.

  “Oh, man,” she said aloud. “I can only imagine what you’d say if you were here right now.” Through her watery vision, she glanced up at the sky. “I really hope you’re getting a laugh out of everything up there, because someone should be enjoying themselves right now.”

  Sighing, she looked back at the marker, feeling like an idiot, feeling a little better just by being here and talking to him. “I know you probably won’t believe this, but I was trying to do the right thing after you...after you left.”

  She placed a hand on her belly. “I didn’t lie to protect myself. I lied because...” Even now the words felt pathetic, but she forced them out. “Because your mom overheard I was pregnant and she just assumed you and I, that we...”

  A lump formed in her throat, and she swallowed hard. “And the thing is, I wanted that. I was in love with you for a very long time, Jacob Salt. The night you and I spent together, it was like...perfect. If it had been up to me, there would have been a lot of other perfect nights between us. I only started seeing the senator because I was depressed that you and I, that we weren’t...that you weren’t interested in me like that. The first time with him, I was feeling self-destructive because I couldn’t have you. It’s not an excuse but it’s the truth. After that...” She shrugged. “After that, it was nice to feel wanted, you know?”

  She swiped at the stupid tears again. “But I knew it was wrong. And I’d already broken it off with him the night you found me upset. I wanted to tell you about it but I felt wretched. And I was still so in love with you. I was afraid you’d be disgusted by what I’d done. And then you kissed me, and it was like none of it mattered. Everything was right for one perfect night.”

  She drew in a shuddering breath. “The whole way home from college, the night I was driving, just before the accident, all I wanted to do was tell you I loved you and beg you to give me a chance. And then that deer stepped into the road and everything changed in an instant.”

  The tears flowed faster down her cheeks, and she swiped at them again, forcing herself to go on, needing to purge the words once and for all. “I shouldn’t have lied to everyone in the hospital. I know that. But I was devastated after they told me you were gone. I wanted to die too. And then when I found out I was pregnant, it was like...like a tiny miracle in the middle of Hell. I didn’t even think. I just said the words.”

  She rubbed her belly again and choked back a sob. “This baby is yours, Jacob. It has to be yours. I have to believe it’s yours because the alternative is just...it’s too awful to comprehend. I love you. You were my best friend. You are still my best friend, and I would give anything to have you back right now, even yelling at me and telling me what an idiot I am.”

  Emotions overwhelmed her, and she dropped her face into her hands and cried. She cried over her lost youth, over her mistakes, over losing her closest friend. But mostly she cried because she knew she had to stop hiding behind excuses. She had to stand up for herself so she could stand up for her child—whoever its father might be. And she had to let go of Jacob, once and for all, so she could have a shot at happiness and some kind of future, even if that future wasn’t at all what she’d planned.

  Sniffling, she swiped at her nose and eyes and stared at Jacob’s headstone again. “You must think I’m totally pathetic.” She drew in a deep breath and slowly let it out, until she knew the sobfest was over. “I think I’m pathetic. Though...did you see me talk to your mom yesterday in the flower shop? I don’t know what got into me.”

  She sighed again, feeling steadier, knowing Jacob would have gotten a kick out of that scene with his mother. A wry smile tugged at her lips. He would have told her “Good job. Way to finally stand up for yourself.” And he would have meant it.

  “I’ll make things up to your mom,” she said softly. “I don’t know how, but I will. And I’m trying to make things right with Marisol. But the one person who won’t give me a chance is Logan.”

  She felt a little strange talking to Jacob about Logan, especially now when she was pregnant, but she pushed the feeling aside and reminded herself she’d talked to Jacob about a lot of guys, and that Jacob had always been right there for her when she’d needed advice.

  “I love him,” she whispered. “I love him in a way that is very different from the way I loved you, and I don’t know why. I just know...he came into my life at the moment I needed someone, and I can’t help but think that you sent him. I know that sounds silly but you always knew what I needed. You were always the one person who could tell me the truth and make me listen. And I felt good about dating him because I knew you’d have told me to go for it. But now...”

  Her heart pinched as she thought of Logan. “I miss him. And I don’t know what to do to fix things with him. I never should have lied to him. He’s the one person I should have trusted, but I’m scared he’s never going to give me another chance.”

  A wave of emotions washed over her—pain, regret, heartache, and sadness—and though it didn’t leave, it did ease enough so she could look up at Jacob’s headstone and frown. “You could say something encouraging, you know. I’d be up for anything right now. Even just a sign that says I’m not a total loser and that everything’s going to be okay. It would help a lot if I knew you were on my side and that you believe I’m going to make it without you.” She placed a hand on her belly. “That we’re going to make it. Because, honestly”—she shook her head—“sometimes I’m just not sure anymore.”

  The wind whistled through the trees around her. A bird cried somewhere in the sky. But otherwise there was no sound. No answer. Nothing but her sitting silently in front of the gravestone of the boy she’d loved and lost.

  Her heart sank, and she closed her eyes. And just when she was ready to get up and leave, Little Bit kicked hard, right at her belly button.

  Blinking damp lashes, she glanced down and watched her shirt move as the baby kicked out again.

  Her gaze shot up to Jacob’s gravestone, and something light and hopeful filled her chest. Something that hadn’t been there moments before.

  Her eyes filled with tears again, this time not from sadness, but from joy, and she couldn’t stop the smile pulling at the corners of her lips. “I hear you,” she whispered. “I hear you loud and clear, Jacob.”

  Her legs ached as she pushed to her feet and headed back toward the gates of the cemetery. Dusk was fading to early evening, and the streetlights were just flickering on as she stepped onto the sidewalk and headed home. Some people might say Little Bit kicking at that moment was a coincidence, but she knew it wasn’t. No matter what the paternity test said, she believed this baby was Jacob’s. It was Jacob’s baby, and through it he was telling her that everything was going to work out all right. It might not work out the way she wanted. It might not be the perfect happily ever after she’d always dreamed of. But it would all be okay in the end. She’d survive. She and her baby would thrive.

  She headed back into downtown Storm and was just about to turn toward home when the door of the new Italian restaurant off Main opened at the end of the sidewalk and Brittany and Marcus stepped out in front of Logan and...

  Delia.

  Tall, slim, gorgeous Delia Bruce Phelps. Logan’s ex-girlfriend. Who, with her arm wrapped around Logan’s as they moved onto the sidewalk, was laughing and smiling up at Logan as if he were the center of her universe.

  As if he weren’t an ex any longer.

  * * * *

  Brittany drew to a stop when she spotted Ginny standing still at the end of the block, staring at the four of them with wide eyes.

  Wide, heartbroken eyes.

  Something in her chest tightened, just as it had the other night when Marcus had driven her home and they’d talked about Ginny. At her side, Marcus squeezed her hand, and behind her, Delia’s laughter died down, and she sensed Logan and Delia draw to a stop. Ginny’s
gaze shot from Brittany to Logan then back to Brittany, then in a rush she turned back around and disappeared around the corner, heading away from her house instead of toward it.

  That pressure in Brittany’s chest increased because she knew what betrayal looked like. And even though she knew she had nothing to feel guilty about, she did. Her heart sank.

  “Was that Ginny Moreno?” Delia asked. “I saw her the other day at the florist shop but didn’t realize it was her. I heard about her little scandal all the way in Dallas. Now there’s someone who’s a worse influence than I am.”

  Brittany ignored Delia’s comment and turned toward Marcus, an urgency she didn’t quite understand but needed to listen to pushing at her. “I’m sorry to do this, but do you mind if I cut our date short?”

  “I don’t mind at all.” Marcus smiled down at her and squeezed her hand again. “Do you want me to go with you?”

  She rose on her toes and kissed his cheek. “I think I need to do this on my own. Thank you for understanding.”

  “Call me after.”

  She smiled at him once more, then turned toward Delia and Logan. Delia looked confused. Logan looked...conflicted.

  “Sorry, guys. I gotta go. Dinner was fun.” Brittany glanced toward Logan and caught the uneasy look in his eyes, but she didn’t care what he thought. This wasn’t about him and Ginny. It was about her and Ginny. It was about that broken look she’d seen in her friend’s eyes just before she’d turned away. A look she knew well because she’d seen it in her mother’s eyes for years.

  With one last smile at Marcus, she let go of his hand and moved away from the group, following Ginny around the corner. She didn’t know where Ginny was heading, but she had a hunch, and considering how slow Ginny was these days, Brittany figured she should be able to catch up with her before she got too far ahead.

  The lights were on when she reached the park. It wasn’t dark yet, but it would be soon. She scanned the playground but didn’t see Ginny. Her heart sped up as she narrowed her gaze and looked across the grass and through the oak trees. And when she spotted Ginny sitting at the base of one, leaning against the large trunk, her feet moved forward all on their own.