Page 25 of Wanting Happily Ever After

Maybe she’d been wrong to keep pushing love away. There’d been more than one man over the years who’d claimed to love her. Had she actually loved them in return, but just hadn’t recognized it?

No.

Of that she was certain.

Love was a word people tossed around too easily. It was a word that could hurt. Especially when it was used frivolously. Besides, how did you even know you were in love? She’d been drawn to people before. Attracted. Even intensely attracted. But love?

No.

Right?

No.

No. Definitely not. She’d never been in love. Not even with Noah. He’d been her…guy friendin the city before she’d moved officially to Glacier Falls. He’d professed to love her on more than one occasion. And right before she’d moved, he’d started to get a little persistent about their relationship. He’d wanted more, but she’d told him before they’d even started—doing whatever they were doing—that she didn’tdorelationships. Not even a little bit. So it hadn’t really been her fault that he’d gotten attached to her.

Breaking things off with him had been for the best. But it had also been hard.

Harder than she’d thought it would be.

Faith let out a deep breath and once more forced the thoughts away.

She was just tired. It had been such a late night and she’d been working so hard that she didn’t even know what she was thinking anymore. Faith forced herself to quiet her thoughts and let the warmth of the sun and the gentle rocking of the paddleboard calm her.

It didn’t take long before she drifted off into a deep relaxation. That in-between. Where she wasn’t quite awake but not quite asleep.

She had no idea how long she’d been lying like that, but it wasn’t long enough, when a familiar voice disturbed her peace.

“Hey, beautiful.”

Faith’s eyes shot open and the paddleboard rocked violently as Logan grabbed the tip and casually wrapped his arms around it to stay afloat. Water dripped from his hair and his eyes twinkled with mischief as he hung off the board.

“Did I disturb you?”

She swallowed hard against her frustration and—although she hated to admit it—the desire that had sparked the moment he appeared. He drove her crazy, that much was certain. But also, he was so damn sexy and the way he looked at her…it was dangerous.

But not nearly as dangerous as entertaining the idea of anything, even a very little something, happening with Logan Langdon.

No way.Of all the men she could entertain such thoughts with, Logan was the worst.

Even if her feelings about love were shifting a little bit, those feelings didn’t have any business being connected to Logan.

That would be nothing but trouble.

They’d shared a kiss only a few weeks ago, and just when she’d started to entertain the idea of taking things a little further…Logan couldn’t help himself. And he just had to poke at her, the way he always did. Only he’d gone too far shortly after when he’d accused her of being a cold, love ’em and leave ’em type. Maybe ithadbeen true. But hearing it come from Logan’s lips had pissed her off. And stung a little too much. Especially right when she thought she might be softening toward him.

So much for that.

“You did.” She tried to inject as much indifference into her voice as she could, but he only grinned, as if that had been his intention all along. Which, no doubt, it was. “I’m trying to nap.”

“Late night?”

“Same as yours.”

That wasn’t entirely true. She knew for a fact that Logan had a later night than she had. After the wedding party finally wound down, she’d been dead on her feet. There was still so much cleaning up to do, but Logan had sent her back to the house to sleep, insisting that he’d handle the clean-up of anything that couldn’t wait. Everything else would be taken care of in the morning. Only, when she’d finally made her way out to the barn, everything had already been done. The chairs had been stacked. The used linens were already in laundry bags and even the dishes had been run through the dishwashers in the kitchen.

He must have been up for hours, doing all that work himself.

“Thank you, by the way,” she added after a moment.

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