Crazy Little Thing Called Love Page 18

  “Check on who?” Max joined the trio, leaning on a solitary crutch.

  “The Wrights. Logan’s concerned they might have lost some trees during the hurricane.”

  “I’m game.” Max flexed his arm.

  “You are not handling a chain saw.” Logan scanned the backyard. “And where is your other crutch?”

  “Fine. Someone else can cut stuff down. I can still haul off branches.”

  “You’re on crutches, man.”

  “I’m managing fine on just one. But to keep you happy, boss, I’ll sit and visit with Mr. Wright while you work. We got along great.” Max lowered his voice as if whispering a secret. “Do you know he thinks you and Vanessa are still married?”

  “Yeah, well, he’s a little foggy on the details these days.”

  Caron interrupted them. “So it’s a plan, then?”

  “What?” Brady joined them, eating a bowl of chili.

  “We’ll help my mom and dad some tomorrow morning.” Caron rushed in to explain before Logan had a chance to veto the idea. “Then we’ll load up a couple of chain saws and go check on the Wrights right after lunch. I’ll make sure Alex can come along, too.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  “Whatever.” Logan backed away from the conversation. “I’m going to go get some chili.”

  Vanessa probably wouldn’t be there tomorrow, anyway—she had a wedding to plan.

  That thought should be comforting—not searing his heart like a virtual branding.

  Vanessa was getting remarried.

  She was moving on—and so was he. Dreams were coming true in new ways for her . . . and his was ending. And both were his fault.

  This kind of thinking was killing him. He’d just deal with today for now—and the possibility of flying home as soon as possible. They could keep checking their flights back to Oklahoma while they swung by to see if the Wrights needed anything. Even if they wielded chain saws for a few hours, Max could visit with Mr. Wright and keep an eye on the news and the airlines on his cell phone.

  He wasn’t the only traveler whose plans had been disrupted by Hurricane Cressida. The airlines wanted to get things back to normal even more than he did.

  It would all settle out once he and Vanessa retreated to their neutral corners.

  APRIL 2004

  What had woken her up?

  With a few blinks of her eyes, Vanessa remembered she was in Logan’s parents’ apartment.

  Where she and Logan had lived for about a month.

  Somehow, she needed to start thinking of this as home now.

  The window air conditioner filled the darkness with a soft hum. She shifted onto her side, pulling the sheet up to her shoulder.

  Why was Logan’s side of the bed empty—the covers tossed back?

  They’d spent the evening eating ramen noodles and studying for their tests tomorrow. Had he gotten back up for some late-night cramming?

  She wrapped the comforter around herself and padded out to the living room. The light of the table lamp highlighted Logan on the couch, slumped forward over his knees, his hands burrowed in the strands of his long hair.

  “Logan, what’s wrong?”

  His bare shoulders shifted beneath her touch, as if he hadn’t realized she was there until she spoke. He scrubbed his palms across his face, but his red-rimmed eyes let her know he’d been crying.

  “Are you sick?” She wrapped the blanket around both of them. From the way his body shook, he must be freezing.

  “No.” Logan’s gaze focused on his hands, which were fisted against his pajama-clad thighs. “I had a nightmare.”

  A nightmare?

  She brushed back the hair from his forehead. “I’m so sorry. Why didn’t you wake me up?”

  “It’s just a stupid dream . . . I haven’t had one in a long time.” His words were guttural. Forced.

  She tried to pull him close, and after a few seconds he stopped resisting and leaned into her embrace. His head rested in the curve of her neck and shoulder, his hair soft against her skin. She pressed a kiss to his forehead and then combed her fingers through his hair. He often said how he liked it when she did that.

  Should she ask him about the nightmare? Or should she just let him relax?

  “I was back on my grandparents’ farm.” Logan’s whisper broke the silence. “The tornado was coming . . . and I couldn’t find anyone. I was running around looking for Pop Pop and Mom Mom and Caron . . . and you.”

  “What?”

  His arms tightened around her. “I couldn’t find you, Vanessa. I couldn’t find you—”

  Logan’s voice broke.

  “I’m right here. I’m safe.” Vanessa murmured words of comfort, enduring Logan’s crushing embrace. When his breathing evened out and his hold on her eased, she shifted so that the two of them could stretch out on the couch. “Stop thinking about it. It’s just a bad dream.”

  Logan settled against her, an unexpected laugh surprising her. “This old couch isn’t really big enough for both of us, you know.”

  She arranged the blanket over both of them. “We’ll manage, Mr. Hollister. We’ll manage.”

  “I’m sorry I woke you up.”

  “You weren’t in bed, so I came looking for you.”

  “Missed me, didja?” Another chuckle warmed her skin.

  “Yes, if you must know.” She brushed her hand down his back. “Do you have nightmares often?”

  “Not anymore.” His shoulders lifted and fell in a sigh that seemed to come from somewhere deep inside him. “I used to have them all the time right after the tornado. Mom insisted I see a counselor for a while. I kept trying to explain that the tornadoes didn’t scare me. I was just sad about Mom Mom.”

  “Would it be so bad to admit you were a little scared, too?”

  “Not to you.”

  “I won’t tell anyone.”

  “I love you, Vanessa.”

  “I know you do, Logan.” Her unspoken words hung between them. She filled the void by pressing a kiss to his lips.

  There. Didn’t actions speak louder than words?

  SIXTEEN

  Experience is not what happens to you; it’s what you do with what happens to you.

  —ALDOUS HUXLEY (1894–1963), BRITISH NOVELIST

  She would figure this out. She would. She would.

  If she kept her eyes shut, and kept repeating those words, Vanessa would convince herself—eventually.

  But then she’d open her eyes and see the massive tree that had demolished the Wrights’ back porch . . . and she’d have to repeat the eyes-shut-say-the-words process all over again.

  “It’s pretty bad, isn’t it, dear?” Mrs. Wright stood beside her, her face shaded by a straw hat decorated with fake sunflowers.

  “Yes, ma’am. It is.”

  “There was a man here this morning. It wasn’t even seven-thirty. Ringing the doorbell, offering to remove the tree for me.”

  How had she managed to sleep through that? “Oh, no. You didn’t sign anything, did you?”

  “No. I told him that I couldn’t let him do anything because my husband was still sleeping.”

  Thank you, God, that Mrs. Wright was so concerned about her husband.

  Vanessa pulled her hair up in a haphazard ponytail. No time to braid it today. All around the Wrights’ backyard, trees lay twisted and fallen to the ground, evidence a hurricane-spawned tornado had stalked through the yard. It wasn’t much better out front.

  She shouldn’t have let the older woman talk her into staying here last night, either. No, she should have ignored Mrs. Wright’s request to go look at the house and driven straight to Mindy’s, who had offered to put up all three of them.

  But she hadn’t. And so she’d spent the night at the Wrights’, without any electricity, sleeping in their daughter’s bedroom because she wasn’t abandoning the couple. It was time to speak some truth.

  “You can’t stay here another night.”

  “I know.” Mrs. Wrig
ht followed her around to the front of the house, latching the gate to the fence. “Ruth already called this morning to say she’s coming to get us this afternoon—but I hate the thought of leaving the house empty.”

  “We’ll contact the police department and ask them to drive by and make certain everything’s okay. Let your neighbors know you’re going to Tuscaloosa. Let’s go see how the home health care worker is doing with Mr. Wright.”

  Humidity sullied the air inside the house. The suitcase they had taken to the shelter still sat at the base of the stairs. Vanessa lugged it to the bedroom, where Christina’s voice mingled with Mr. Wright’s grumble.

  “I’m trying to sleep!”

  “Mr. Wright, it’s time to get up and get dressed.”

  “Oh, dear.” Mrs. Wright paused on the landing. “I need to go in and help her.”

  “That’s fine. I’ll come help you pack—”

  A loud knock on the front door stalled Vanessa’s offer. That tree guy better not be back offering to “help” with Mrs. Wright’s tree.

  “I’ll be right back. Let me see who that is.”

  Her boots clomped on the carpeted stairs, and she yanked open the door. “May I help you—Logan?”

  “I was actually here to offer the Wrights some help, Vanessa.” He stood on the brick doorstep, hands tucked in the back of his torn-at-the-knees jeans, a white V-neck T-shirt showing off his broad chest and strong arms. “Good morning.”

  “Good morning.”

  “How are they today?” He slid his sunglasses up onto the top of the ball cap covering his hair, revealing the warmth of his blue eyes.

  “Well, let’s see. Mr. Wright doesn’t want to get out of bed. Mrs. Wright wanted to cook breakfast—without any electricity. And there’s a huge tree in their enclosed back porch.”

  “Looks like we showed up at just the right time.”

  “We?”

  He motioned back down the driveway behind him. “We—Brady, Max, Jules, and me. And Caron and Alex. Caron brought along some food she and my mom made.”

  Vanessa stepped outside and tried to peer around Logan. “You’re kidding me.”

  “Nope. And the guys and I have a couple of chain saws. The challenge will be keeping Max away from the machinery.”

  “I can imagine. We’ll let him entertain Mr. Wright.”

  “Fair enough.” Logan stepped off the porch. “Want to come say hello?”

  “Absolutely.”

  An older truck and a four-door sedan sat in the driveway next to her rental car. Caron jumped out of the passenger side of the sedan and ran up to her, giving her a hug before she realized what was happening.

  “Oh . . . my . . . gosh, Vanessa! It’s so good to see you!”

  “You, too, Caron.” Wisps of blond hair peeked out from underneath a distressed gray flat cap. “Blond?”

  “Yeah, I know. I get bored . . . so I play around with my hair color. Right now this hair color works for me.”

  “And Logan said ‘Caron and Alex’ as if you two were connected or something . . .”

  “You don’t miss a thing, do you? Alex and I are dating. I don’t know if you remember or not, but his family lived next door to my parents for a number of years when we were growing up.”

  “Well, it’s been a long time . . .”

  “True. And back then I didn’t like him at all.”

  “No, as I recall you liked a new boy every month.”

  “True. True. But, hey, that was high school, right? Except for you and Logan—” Caron faltered to a stop. “I am so sorry, Vanessa. I can’t believe I just said something so insensitive.”

  “It’s okay.” Vanessa pointed to the picnic basket Caron had dropped at her feet. “So, what’s in there?”

  “My mom and I made sandwiches. Ham and cheese. Turkey. Tuna salad. Packed some chips and cookies, too. Nothing fancy.”

  “This is wonderful. The Wrights had a tree fall onto their back porch—”

  “Hey, Hollister!” Logan’s voice rang out across the area.

  Without thinking, Vanessa turned and hollered back. “Yeah, Hollister?”

  “Can you come show us through the house? I want to get a look at the back porch.”

  “Be right there.” Vanessa stopped at the sound of Caron’s giggle. “What?”

  “You two. ‘Hey, Hollister!’ ‘Yeah, Hollister?’ Made me feel like I was back in high school again.”

  “Oh. That. Yeah. It was . . . just . . . nothing.” Vanessa motioned toward the house. “You want to come with me?”

  “I’ll wait for the rest of the crew and catch up with you. Go ahead.”

  Vanessa took a few steps away.

  “Vanessa?”

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s great to see you again.”

  “You, too, Caron. You, too.”

  Vanessa led Logan to the Wrights’ backyard. The ground was churned up around the fallen tree’s bare roots, and the porch was smashed—cleaved in two.

  Logan stood with his hands on his hips, his ball cap turned backward on his head, sunglasses shading his eyes.

  Vanessa picked her way among the debris and broken branches. “Thank God they weren’t home.”

  “You got that right. They would have been killed.”

  “I know. I’ve thought the same thing over and over again.”

  “Why is it I can still hear that crazy cockatiel Mr. Chips?” Logan huffed out a laugh. “Always called you ‘pretty girl, pretty girl.’ Smart bird.”

  “Mr. Wright said he never taught him how to say that.”

  “That’s because he didn’t—I did.” Logan tossed a smile over his shoulder.

  “You did not.”

  “Yes, I did. Mr. Wright had tried to do it before, but he told me that he gave up. I just tried again—and Mr. Chips learned how to say it. The bird just needed the right enticement.”

  And she needed to get this conversation back on track.

  “So what do we have back here?” Alex walked around the side of the house, Brady following close behind.

  The appearance of the two men stalled the conversation while Logan discussed what needed to be done and then Brady and Alex disappeared around front once more. Probably a good thing. Vanessa was off-kilter again—and she and Logan had only been talking for all of five minutes.

  “What we have is a destroyed back porch. Nothing we can do about that—except start removing the culprit.” Logan paced back and forth. “No electricity, right?”

  “Right—not sure when it’ll be restored. The Wrights are going to stay with their daughter in Alabama. I’m expecting her sometime later this afternoon.”

  “And where are the dogs?”

  Vanessa blinked away the slight sting in her eyes. Must be overtired. “Mrs. Wright doesn’t have them anymore, Logan.”

  “I guess that’s one—or two—less things to worry about. Those two were a handful.”

  “You liked those dogs, Logan Hollister—I know you did. I caught you sneaking them pieces of food all the time!”

  “Guilty as charged—but Mr. Wright did it all the time, too.”

  “Both of you ignored Mrs. Wright’s strict order not to feed those dogs!” Once again, Logan had her laughing when she shouldn’t be.

  “And they loved us for it.”

  “You’re impossible.”

  He winked. “I never said otherwise, love.”

  Her smile trembled for a moment, and her laughter stopped, his offhand endearment as effective as a noose strangling their easygoing banter.

  “Hey, boss, you requested these back here, right?” Brady appeared around the corner of the house hauling a chain saw. Alex followed close behind, carrying the second chain saw.

  “You would be correct.” Logan pulled a pair of work gloves from where they were tucked in his belt. “Where’s Max?”

  “Right here.” The other man shuffled through the damp grass on his crutches, Julie by his side.

  “I told you to stay clea
r of the chain saws.”

  “Do you see me carrying a chain saw? Turning on a chain saw? Going after the tree with a chain saw?”

  “No—but there’s no need for you to be out here around this mess.”

  Julie shrugged. “That’s what I tried to tell him.”

  Vanessa figured this was her cue. “I’m having some problems with Mr. Wright this morning, Max—”

  “I’m not a babysitter—” Max stumbled as Julie pulled away one of his crutches. “Hey!”

  Julie pointed the crutch at Max. “Stop talking before you fall flat on your face and embarrass yourself even more. No one’s asking you to babysit that wonderful old gentleman. I loved talking with him while we were in the shelter. In fact, he promised to teach me how to play chess—and I’m going to see if he’s up to doing that now.”

  Julie stalked off, disappearing to the front of the house.

  Brady made a slicing motion across his throat with his free hand. “Oh, dude, you made the great and powerful Julie angry.”

  “Yeah—she took off with one of my crutches, too.”

  “If I were you, I’d hobble on after her and apologize.” Logan nodded toward the house. “And let her win a few games of chess.”

  “You’re probably right.” Max lifted his crutch a few inches off the ground in a brief wave and then made his way back around to the front of the house.

  Vanessa didn’t know if she should stay here or follow Max. “Is Julie going to give him his crutch back—without bruising him?”

  “Those two will be fine.” Brady waved him away. “Jules knows how to handle Max—and Max likes it.”

  “Oh. That’s how it is.”

  “Yep.” Logan lowered his voice. “Seems like the Stormmeisters have a bit of an ‘office romance’ going on.”

  Vanessa shared a smile with Brady and Logan. When would Julie realize Max was interested in her?

  For the next few hours, Logan, Brady, and Alex worked on the fallen tree, cutting it down, limb by limb and branch by branch. They assessed the more dangerous parts of the job, leaving it for the professional tree company that Vanessa had called. But by lunchtime they’d removed most of the branches and debris from inside the house and the backyard.

  Vanessa and Caron worked on hauling away branches, stacking them in a corner of the yard to be run through a commercial wood chipper, with Julie joining them midmorning. And Max played chess with Mr. Wright—coming out on occasion to complain that the elderly gentleman was faking his mental confusion because he’d won every single chess match.