Crazy Little Thing Called Love Page 16

  “Me? Yes.” She twisted off the plastic bottle cap. “I talked to the ER doc before you came. Christian was taken to surgery. Sounds like his appendix ruptured.”

  “So it’s a good thing we brought him here.”

  “A very good thing.” She set her soda aside, reached over, and risked resting her hand on his. “You saved his life, Logan.”

  Logan turned his hand palm up so his fingers wrapped around her hand. “I couldn’t have done it—couldn’t have driven through that storm—without you, Vanessa.” Logan’s mouth twisted. He seemed to fight against the words wanting to be spoken.

  “Of course you could have—”

  “No . . . you . . . your prayers kept me calm.” There was something dark, something unspoken, in his eyes. “You know I didn’t want to do that drive.”

  “Why? You’re a storm chaser. I knew you could do it—”

  His grip on her hand tightened, almost as if he were clinging to her because he was afraid that if he let go, he’d be lost. “Even storm chasers never forget the power of a storm. And you prayed for me.” His eyes reflected questions, as if trying to unravel a mystery. “Knowing that, I knew I could get back in that car and drive as far and as long as I needed to. Today I remembered that we make a good team.”

  His words lit a spark inside of her. “Logan, I—”

  “You’re not going to argue with me about that, are you?” His grin tugged a responding smile from her. “You know I’m right.”

  Vanessa forced herself to tamp down the emotion threatening to flame up inside of her. Eight years of silence—and now she spends less than a day with Logan, racing to save a young boy’s life, and her heartbeat falls out of rhythm. “We did something good here tonight. I do know that. Thank you for helping Christian.”

  “There’s something I have to know, Vanessa.”

  “What?”

  “If you can pray for me . . . does that mean you’ve forgiven me . . . for what happened between us?”

  The man sitting across from her—the man she’d once been married to—never looked away as she scanned his face. The teenage boy she’d fallen in love with was replaced by an adult, his blue eyes edged with faint wrinkles—or should she call those laugh lines? Logan always liked to laugh. A scar marred his forehead. How had he gotten that?

  “It’s been eight years. There’s no need to talk about what happened—”

  “You don’t think about us? About me?”

  Unfair questions. She couldn’t think of him, not when she was marrying Ted. This whole trip to Florida was to plan her wedding and prove life was no longer about Logan Hollister in any way.

  What did he want her to say?

  Nothing she had the freedom to tell him.

  “No. I don’t think about you, Logan.” And she didn’t—she hadn’t, not until she’d said yes to Ted. Until she’d made a decision to have a destination wedding in Florida. In Destin. Trying to prove what? That she wasn’t that eighteen-year-old girl anymore?

  Well, she wasn’t. She didn’t have to prove anything to anybody.

  She wasn’t lying to him—or to herself.

  One of them had to grow up. Be the adult. Acknowledge that what they had was over. Done with. That the marriage probably never should have happened in the first place.

  “We both need to admit getting married at eighteen was a mistake.” Why were her words tinged with the salt of unshed tears? “If we’re going to talk of forgiveness, then let’s forgive ourselves for being immature. For being foolish. And let’s be thankful we were able to walk away before we hurt each other any more. Or before we had children. We didn’t compound our mistakes—or hurt anyone else when it ended.”

  There. She hadn’t said what he’d asked her to say. No. But she’d said what they both needed to hear.

  But why didn’t she feel lighter? More free?

  She pulled her hand away. Picked up the plate of homemade food. “I—I think I’ll head back to the call room—try to sleep for a bit.”

  Logan rose to his feet. He didn’t ask her any more questions. Didn’t try to stop her.

  “I’ll come knock on the door if there are any developments.” Logan’s voice was flat.

  “Thanks . . . for everything.”

  “Good night, Vanessa.”

  “ ’Night.”

  Logan’s stare heated her back. It took all her willpower not to turn around. To keep walking away . . . No, not away. Forward. She was walking forward. She had to believe that.

  • • •

  What had he expected?

  Did Logan think that something as unexpected, something as . . . as minor as a hurricane could push back eight years? Undo all the damage that had been done? Did he really think helping Vanessa transport Christian and his mother to the hospital would somehow heal all the ways he’d broken Vanessa’s heart?

  Logan shifted onto his side, causing the hospital-issue blankets to twist around his legs. A faint antiseptic smell lingered in the room, probably having leeched into the walls.

  Darkness filled the room. And silence.

  After making her presence known for hours—assaulting the Panhandle, stripping the trees of branches, causing the waves to surge with the power of the storm, tossing boats up onto the roads and houses out into the Gulf—Cressida took her leave and moved north.

  And only the sound of his own breathing disturbed the darkness.

  Somewhere in the hospital—how close he didn’t know—Vanessa slept in another room.

  For months after their divorce, he’d avoided his empty bed, choosing to sleep on the couch, the TV left on, the sound turned low. Yes, they’d had a mostly long-distance marriage. But he’d always known the weeks apart would be spanned by nights when he’d fall asleep with Vanessa in his arms, her long brown hair scented of flowers, soft against his skin.

  During those days and nights, the space between them would disappear. Their times together always seemed set on fast-forward. He’d come back to Niceville and be Vanessa’s husband again. He never forgot he was married, but for most of their almost two years together, he lived as if he were single, rooming with Brady.

  What had he been thinking, allowing the lure of tornadoes to pull him away from his wife? Accepting night after night alone in exchange for too few nights together?

  If he listened hard enough . . . held his breath . . . he could almost hear the echo of Vanessa’s musical laughter that could ease the ache in his heart when he held her in his arms. The memory of the mingling of their whispers in the middle of the night still caused a sweet longing to build.

  Logan shoved away the sheets and escaped his bed, scattering the too-intimate memories.

  He’d lost her. And was left with endless nights alone. No reprieve.

  She never thought of him?

  He deserved that.

  Seeing her again seemed to ignite his memories. The colors were bright again. And one image bled into another without any effort.

  She was moving on, and he had been drawn into what they’d had . . . what they’d lost.

  God help him.

  Although she hadn’t granted him the absolution he’d sought, Vanessa had helped him realize the precious truth that he should have told his team about his decision sooner. He shouldn’t have waited until they went back to Oklahoma.

  That whole silence-is-golden belief? It was bogus. Sometimes silence was as corrosive as battery acid. Silence could eat away at a relationship. Destroy the trust between two people. If he and Vanessa had talked things out more—had some out-loud arguments that scared them into a counselor’s office—maybe they would have found a way to work things out with each other. Found a way to mean it when they’d said “for better or for worse” as two clueless eighteen-year-olds.

  They’d loved each other when they’d eloped during spring break—they just didn’t know what loving each other meant.

  But the realization didn’t do him any good now, coming eight years too late and just a few hours
after he discovered his ex-wife was remarrying.

  But maybe he could learn something from all of this . . . even if it didn’t help him with Vanessa. It was wrong for him to continue stalling with Julie and Brady and Max.

  Logan paced the dark room, wrestling with his decision, the internal battle almost as intense as the earlier one waged with Hurricane Cressida.

  No. He’d made the choice to wait, and he couldn’t undo it now. They’d go back to the shelter tomorrow and have to deal with the aftermath of the storm. Check in with his family. Hassle with arranging new flights out. Now was not the best time to drop the news. And he still didn’t know where the team stood with funding—or the lack of it—for next summer.

  His grandfather would say something about not being able to change your crop once you planted the seeds.

  Yes. He was reaping what he’d sown.

  MARCH 2004

  Why wouldn’t Logan let her talk to her parents by herself?

  Of course he was right that they were married—for all of three days. But it was difficult to remember that new reality when they’d only spent one night together before leaving the motel in Alabama and heading back to Pensacola. And then Logan returned to the guys’ room at the motel. She went back to the girls’ room—sharing a bed with Mindy, who had told the group what Vanessa and Logan were doing once they were on their way to get married. The only outward difference was Logan’s school ring, which she’d managed to fit on her ring finger by taping a small, folded piece of paper torn from her journal onto the back.

  She didn’t regret saying yes to his impulsive “Let’s get married.” They just hadn’t thought about how they were going to tell their parents. Riding home on the back of his motorcycle, her arms wrapped around his waist, the minutes ticked down with every mile marker they passed. And the answer to “What do we say?” eluded her.

  And now here they sat, side by side on the plaid couch in the family room, Logan gripping her hand, her class ring that he wore on his pinkie finger pressing into her skin. Her father sat in his recliner, waiting for her mother to come in with a plate of cookies, probably expecting some sort of recounting of their spring break adventures. Surfing. Lying out on the beach. That kind of thing. Certainly not an announcement of, Surprise! We’re married!

  “You two ready to get back to school?” Her father muted the television. “Graduation will be here before you know it.”

  “Yessir.” Logan squeezed her hand. “Vanessa and I wanted to talk to you about—”

  Her mother set the plate of peanut butter–chocolate chip cookies on the coffee table in front of them. Logan’s favorite—but he ignored the treat. “Logan, your mother and I are already talking about doing some sort of combined graduation party.”

  “Well, that wasn’t exactly what we wanted to talk about—”

  “It wasn’t?” Her mother deposited a small pile of paper napkins beside the plate of cookies.

  Logan sat up straighter. “No, ma’am.”

  Her mother sat in a chair across from the couch, a large quilting hoop and lamp positioned next to it. “If this is about Vanessa coming to Colorado with me, we’ve already discussed—”

  “Mom, I’m married.”

  Vanessa’s words plunged the room into a black hole of silence for a few moments. Then—

  “What did you say?” Her mother gripped the arms of the chair.

  “I’m married. Logan and I got married three days ago, while we were on spring break.” She thought once she told her parents, saying it again would be easier, but her heart seemed to struggle to beat in her chest. The words seemed to ring louder and louder.

  “You’re pregnant, aren’t you?”

  Her mother’s accusation brought Vanessa to her feet. “No! Why would you think that?”

  “What else am I supposed to think, Vanessa? Why else would you get married?”

  “I asked Vanessa to marry me, because I love her—” Logan stood, too. Only her father remained seated.

  “You’re eighteen years old! You two don’t know what you’re talking about—what you’re doing! And how are you going to manage a baby and go to college?”

  “I’m not pregnant!”

  “I can’t believe you’ve done something so stupid—” Her mother turned toward her father. “Don’t you have anything to say?”

  “I’m waiting to hear what Logan and Vanessa have to say.”

  “They’ve already said it—”

  “Sit down, Angie.” Her father waited as her mother paced back to her chair. “Now, Logan, do you want to explain yourself?”

  Logan’s face flushed red. “Well, sir, I asked Vanessa to marry me—”

  “Why?”

  “Because I love her.”

  “And you love her so much you had to get married over spring break? You couldn’t wait to have a normal wedding ceremony with family and friends?”

  “Well, no, sir—”

  “Dad, I didn’t want to—”

  “Vanessa, I am not talking to you at the moment.” Her father never looked away from Logan. “I am talking to this young man, who had the common courtesy—the expected courtesy—to ask me if he could date you. And yet he did not ask me if he could marry you.”

  “I’m sorry, sir.” Logan’s voice diminished with each word he spoke.

  “It’s a bit late for apologies. Where and when did this wedding take place?”

  “Three days ago. In Alabama.”

  “Ah.”

  “Is that all you have to say?” Her mother rejoined the conversation. “Our daughter makes the biggest mistake of her life, and you ask where and when?”

  “I did not make a mistake—I made a choice.” Vanessa moved closer to Logan. “I know this . . . this is sooner than expected, but Logan and I know what we’re doing. We’ve got it all figured out. We’ll be going to FSU together in the fall.”

  Her father was silent for a few moments, looking first at Logan, and then at her. “Am I correct in assuming this . . . marriage was to ensure that Vanessa didn’t have to go to Colorado?”

  “Logan loves me—”

  Her father ignored her outburst. “You checked the state laws regarding marriage licenses?”

  “Yes, sir, I did.”

  “Vanessa, how could you do something so foolish?” Her mother’s voice struck out from across the room.

  Footsteps pounded down the hallway as her brother ran into the room. “Are Vanessa and Logan back—”

  “Go to your room, Rylan.” Her mother didn’t even look at her younger brother when she spoke.

  “But I wanted to ask Logan—”

  “To your room. Now.”

  The four of them stared at each other for a few moments after Rylan left, muttering under his breath. Her mother spoke first.

  “What are we going to do, Jerome?”

  “There’s nothing we can do. Logan and Vanessa are married—legally. And it appears they’re going to Florida State University in the fall—paying their way themselves.” Her father took a measured breath. “And where will you live until then?”

  “With my parents, sir.” Now Logan’s answer sounded overly loud, as if he were relieved to finally have something to say. “They have a small, separate grandmother’s apartment behind their house that we can stay in.”

  “And do they know that you two are married—and that they’ll be providing a honeymoon suite?”

  “Jerome!”

  Logan cleared his throat. “We came to talk to you first—”

  “Thank you for that, I suppose.”

  “Vanessa is going to pack up her things while I go talk to my parents. I’ll be back in a couple of hours with my father’s car to pick her up.”

  “Well, then, son, I suggest you go talk to your parents and find out if you do, indeed, have someplace to take my daughter tonight.”

  • • •

  Logan carried Vanessa’s suitcases into the small stand-alone brick building out behind his parents’ house. She f
ollowed behind him, not saying a word, her eyes red, her face blotchy.

  What could he do to make this right?

  “So, this is it.” He let the suitcases drop beside the rust-colored floral couch. How long ago had that been banished from his mother’s living room? “My parents said we could stay here until we go to FSU.”

  Vanessa stood just inside the room, her arms wrapped around her waist.

  “What did they really say, Logan?”

  “I told you what they said. We can stay—”

  “No—when you told them that we were married. Did they think I was pregnant, too?”

  “No. No. I mean, they were surprised, sure.” Logan wasn’t going to tell her about how his father had yelled—and his mother had cried. “You know my parents like you.”

  “Yeah. Sure. But that doesn’t mean they wanted you to marry me.”

  “Vanessa—” He grabbed her hand, tugging her to him until she stopped resisting and came into his arms with a groan. “We knew our parents might be upset. So what? We made this decision—and we’re going to be fine because we love each other. Right?”

  She buried her face in his shoulder, tears dampening the cotton material of his Pensacola Beach T-shirt, her words muffled.

  “Hey—” He nudged her chin up so she had to look at him. “I can’t fix this if I don’t know what you’re saying.”

  “Oh, Logan . . . did we make a mistake?”

  “No.” His arms tightened around her. “No. They’ll come around when they see how happy we are—how right this is. Is it a little rough right now? Yeah. But that doesn’t mean we did anything wrong. Your parents were wrong to try to force you to go to Colorado with them.”

  “How could my mother think I was pregnant . . . ?”

  There was no way he was going to tell Vanessa his parents had asked him the very same question.

  “We know the truth—that we got married because we love each other. Why wait until we were in college or after we graduated?”

  She shrugged out of his arms, turning a slow circle in the room.

  “So what do we do now?”

  “Well, I guess we unpack.” He surveyed the area again. “It’s not too bad, is it?”

  A small living room–dining room area. A kitchenette, with outdated appliances. And straight back, a bedroom with a small bathroom that only had a shower. The carpet was threadbare, but clean.