“Not really.” She felt the shakiness of emotion that entered her voice when she revisited that time. “Biyen didn’t take a bottle so I couldn’t leave him with anyone. Sometimes I wonder how he turned out so easygoing when he was drinking pure anxiety as an infant,” she joked faintly. “I’ll always be happy I was able to share him with her, though. We had so many laughs over my new mom adventures.” Her throat was growing raw. So was her chest.
“Janine was very funny. I always remember that about her. Whenever I was sent to the store for milk or whatever, she would make some crack about something, and I’d leave chuckling. I know Mom really misses her.”
“Me, too.” Seven years later, the grief could still rise up so intensely it threatened to swallow her whole. But wallowing in her private agony had been yet another luxury she hadn’t been able to afford. “Having Biyen forced me to get on with things after she was gone. It probably could have gone either way, but he kept me from sinking into depression. He’s so delighted by simple things. I miss him when he’s with Nolan, but he’ll come home in a week and tell me with great pride that he pooped in a hole he dug himself. It puts all of my agonies and aspirations into perspective.”
He snorted. “No kidding. Hashtag mental health hack.”
“Right?” She chuckled, embracing her love of her son to ward off all those other, difficult to bear emotions.
“Is his dad like that?” Logan asked curiously. “Is that why you fell for him?”
“Nolan keeps his life very simple, yes.” She cautioned herself not to be bitter with disappointment. “But I didn’t love him. He’s a guy I brought home from the bar because he seemed harmless, and things got complicated when I became pregnant.” She closed the wrapper from her ice cream bar over the sticky stick.
“Since when did you bring home men from the bar?” Logan’s brows crashed together.
“That smells a lot like judgment when I know for a fact that at nineteen, you spent your weekends in the bar, picking up girls. Trystan told me that’s what you told him you were doing when I asked him if you were enjoying university. Sauce for the goose.”
“Trying is the operative word that he missed when he relayed that information,” Logan said through his teeth.
Trystan had been trying to help her shake off her long and useless crush. She had not appreciated him for it.
“Either way, I’m guessing that behavior continued more or less nonstop until you got the call that Wilf was gone and had to leave your condoms on your yacht while you moved in with your brothers. So I’ll say a polite fuck-you and fuck your double standards.” She rose. “What did you want me to do, Logan? Sit here and pine for you some more?”
“No.” His jaw was locked, his mouth grim. “I’m saying it seems out of character to the woman I knew.”
The one who had saved herself for him. As if he had ever really known her or cared one way or another what she did.
“I was getting over you, Logan.” Screw him and his stirring up of all her old baggage. Now her tortured, angry emotions were leaking everywhere, especially out of her mouth. “I fucked around in empty hookups because I thought that’s how I deserved to be treated. Because that’s how you treated me.”
“Sophie.” He pressed back in his chair with shock.
“I hate you for the way you treated me,” she spat, letting the poison squeeze out at last. “But I hate myself more for allowing it. For spending so many years waiting for you. For not seeing that you never actually gave a shit about me.”
“That is not true.” He shot to his feet. “I gave a shit. I have always cared about you.”
“Oh fuck off.” She shook her head and flung out a hand, rejecting his bullshit. “You didn’t care about anyone but yourself, but I don’t care about that. I’m furious with myself because I treated myself badly. I punished myself for being stupid over you, and I wound up derailing my future. That’s not your fault. I did that to myself.” She tapped her breastbone where it was throbbing as though fractured all the way through. “But I won’t do it again, Logan. I won’t do this.” She motioned between them. “I won’t have cozy chats with you where I share my feelings and you convince me I matter. Never again. Understand?”
He stood very still, fists clenched as though he were withstanding something unbearable.
“We work together. For Storm’s sake, I’ll help you with her if you need it. Stay in my house and wash my dishes and give Gramps a laugh. He needs it. But we both know you’re leaving as soon as you can. We are not friends. We never were and we never will be.”
Chapter Seven
Storm was feeling better when she woke the next morning, but was still discontent that Emma was absent. She was moaning a nonstop, “Mumumumum.”
Logan strapped her to his chest and went down to the wharf to greet his mom as she came off the seabus.
“Hello, little love.” Glenda swooped straight for Storm, cupping her cheeks and smiling gooily at her.
“Now I understand how women feel. My eyes are up here,” Logan told her.
“Oh poor you.” She touched his arm so he would dip his head enough that she could kiss his cheek. “You brought the truck? I’ve been making food since Emma told me her family was coming.”
“Of course you have.” And of course he brought the truck. This was not his first rodeo. Still, even though he had expected her to bring food, he was exasperated by the growing pile of insulated boxes being transferred onto the wharf. “You should work for the Red Cross. Here. Take Storm. This will be a few trips.”
Storm went to her without complaint. His mother inspired immediate trust in everyone, especially children. She carried her up to where the truck was parked at the top of the ramp.
As Logan was starting up with his second stack of boxes, Sophie came down the ramp with a length of air hose coiled over her shoulder. She was dragging the portable air compressor behind her. Her coveralls disguised her figure, but it was a warm day so she had left them open at her throat. She’d rolled the sleeves back to reveal her wrists and had a pair of worn leather work gloves sticking out of her pocket.
Pull it together, he ordered himself, dragging his gaze off her collarbone as he stepped aside to let her pass.
He’d been tied up in Reid’s office all day yesterday so he asked, “Anything happening that I should know about?”
“Nope.”
“You know where to find me if you need me.”
“Yup.”
They were back to keeping things strictly about work. It sucked. He hadn’t stopped feeling as though a primal scream was lodged in his throat, but what the hell could he do about it?
“Oh hey,” he called to her back. “Mom will be cooking tonight if you and Art want to join us.”
“I’m busy, but Gramps is at the store. She’s gone to ask him.” She kept walking.
Another day in paradise.
Logan got his mother’s boxes into the truck, then collected her and Storm from the store, driving them up to the house where he unloaded everything into the basement.
