CHAPTER2
JUNE
Pushing the hair from my cheek, I sigh, realizing I’d just spread a puff of flour all over my face and hair. Swiping my hand on my apron, I laugh at myself.
“Too late for that.” A deep voice says out loud the words that I’m thinking.
My head jerks up at the familiar voice, and I should drop the dish of signature puff pastry concoctions to the floor with my shock level, but no way will I waste the goods. The Tilt-a-Whirl bakery needs every last bit of sweet inventory to count at the end of the day.
So, I let out a startled squeak instead and place the display dish gently on the counter as I lock eyes with the one man I never thought I’d lay eyes on again.
The one-man I still dream about far too often.
“Logan.”
“Sorry to startle you, but there was really no way around that, was there?”
I nod, then shake my head, my thoughts a riot of tilting and whirling like the neon sign in the window.
“It’s good to see you.” I mean it no matter that my words sound wary. I’d sent Nicky’s letter on an impulse. A cowardly move. Maybe. But I had no idea really how to approach the man I ditched to tell him I had his baby six years ago.
No excuse for keeping it from him all this time.
Not unless you counted the fact that I hadn’t known I was pregnant until after being married to another man.
I lift my chin, my damn defiant streak kicking up. God, I need to back down. His eyes are still heart-melting, and his muscles still bulge in pure hormone-producing hunkiness, and his presence still makes me want him, want to wrap myself up in him, and never let him go.
Then he smiles. The heat in me rises to dangerous levels—the kind that got me into trouble six years ago--and I need to take a deep breath, get my mouth reconnected to my brain somehow.
“I got your letter,” he says. My heart stutters then palpitates like it hasn’t in years. Six years to be exact. How did I ever let him go?
“I was a fool.” I’m answering the question in my head, not sure why I’m saying it out loud, but I may as well start my confession and apology somewhere.
He looks mildly puzzled. Of course. Because I’m making no sense.
“We were young. Same thing as foolish.” He figures it out, reads me, a wry look on his face, but it doesn’t hide the hurt. Or hope.
Waving my hand, I realize I don’t want to continue this conversation with the counter separating us. The place is empty. It’s the dead time between lunch and dinner when no one’s thinking about buying baked goods. Thank the lord. Or thank Logan’s foresight that he showed up at the right time. It would be like him to think of the details. Part of what makes him special and so good at whatever he does.
Coming around the corner of the glass display cases, I wipe my hands on my apron again and then swipe again at my face and hair, wondering what the hell I look like.
“You look gorgeous. Same as always. Same way I remember you.” He moves to join me at the end of the counter, standing close enough for me to take in his scent, his aura, that thing about him that’s always sparked that reaction inside me that I thought was adolescent hormones, but apparently, it was more, because it’s still there. Even unfueled by any contact over the years, whatever that thing was that he had—still has--that swirls around him, that energy, his essence, still blows up into something wildly explosive when it hits me.
His eyes go dark and glassy, the way I remember, sending my heart into a race for my life, but he keeps a respectable distance between us, not enough to prevent me from feeling the heat come off him, but not close enough for me to touch or call him unfair.
Who am I kidding?Everything about him is unfair, Always was. That something he has, call it energy or confidence or charm or charisma or the million other things the girls used to call it. Still, it gives him an advantage because I’m automatically captivated before he says a word. He always did this to me. I’d been his before he touched me before we made love, and I know the effect was universal. I saw for myself how he affected all the girls in high school. It made me just a little bit insecure. But that was then, and this is now. We’re not in high school anymore. I’m a mature woman now—a mother.
The mother of his child. And I need to tell him, to explain. No matter how difficult, no matter how ashamed I feel, I need to tell-all because Nicky deserves her dad. I’ll eat whatever crow I need to in order to make it alright between us so long as he doesn’t hold my stupidity against our innocent little girl. The fear that he’ll hate me, that the look he’s giving me now will dissolve and disappear forever, almost paralyzes me. But I push through.
“And you’re the same charmer. The same way I remember you.” I lick my lips. He still affects me, hits me right between the legs with his wicked smile and those eyes that bore into a person’s soul. Or at least into my soul. “I’m hoping we can be…”
“Don’t say,friends.” He spits the word like it’s poison. “You know we can never be friends. Not the way things are between us.” His words lash me, and I rush through the pain to alleviate it.
“That was so long ago, Logan. I’m truly sorry it worked out the way it did.” He looks so unrelenting and unforgiving, and I haven’t even told him the worst part yet. Then he smiles, confusing the hell out of me.
“Relax. I meant we couldn’t be friends because of ourchemistry,June. I can still feel it. Can’t you?” His voice goes low, and the rumble of it vibrates through me. I shudder. He catches the shudder and reads me perfectly.
“I can’t lie. I do feel it. It’s not fair how dam gorgeous you are.” I give him a reluctant smile because the truth and enormity of what I haven’t told him simmers closer to the surface, and if I’m honest with myself, I’m conflicted about telling him because I want too much to kiss those lips of his, to feel his mouth on me again. Before he hates me for my lie, for hiding his daughter from him all these years, it’s been way too long to expect forgiveness.