Page 61 of A Summer Mismatch
To his surprise, her eyes welled with tears. “It’s like having you back again after you’ve been gone for a year.”
Logan swallowed, and he knew they were both moments away from bawling like babies. So he turned to the kids and widened his eyes.
“Maybe my playfulness is a side-effect from dog-pee poisoning infecting my brain!” His tone got higher and more freaked out with each word, and it set the kids to giggling again as he grabbed his head and shook it back and forth.
Willow groaned. “Don’t tell me Gatsby had more accidents.”
“Three this time,” Amelia said. “Uncle Logan bought a carpet cleaner.”
“Sorry.” Willow winced. “I can pay you back for the carpet cleaner.”
“No way.” He stopped acting like he was in the throes of illness, and shrugged. “It’s not theworstanimal pee I’ve had to clean up.”
Nonna gave an exaggerated sniff and left the doorway to head downstairs. She had only ever had so much patience for potty talk, as she called it.
“It’s nice to see you smiling again,” Logan said. “Maybe we should both be silly a little more often.”
Her smile turned wistful. “I’d like that.”
While Willow put the kids in bed, Logan finished the dinner dishes.
“Thank you, Logan.” Willow walked out of the kids’ room, her hand covering her huge yawn. “I couldn’t have survived this week without you.”
Logan could sense the tears coming on again, and as she rapidly blinked back the moisture, he resisted the urge to hug her, knowing that the gesture would probably make it impossible to hold back the tears like she was so valiantly attempting to do.
Nonna came down the hallway with her bag. Willow threw her arms around Nonna, who held her tight and whispered into her ear for a while. Willow nodded and nodded some more, and then promised to do something.
Logan kissed Willow on the cheek, told her he’d call her, and then he and Nonna got into his truck, and Willow watched them drive away.
“It’s hard to leave,” he said.
“It is. But your sister will get through this.” She patted his arm. “And you will too.”
“I’m not going through anything hard.”
From the corner of his eye, he saw Nonna lifting a brow at him. “We’ve all been going through something hard for the last year. But it gives me hope that we can be here for each other now.”
He swallowed the lump in his throat and nodded. He couldn’t agree more.
“Now, how’s Smitty doing with me being gone? I talked to him every day, but he seemed evasive. Why?”
Logan laughed. “I have no idea why he’d be evasive. Maybe he was just tired. The kids kept him busy all day. I don’t think Grandpa has spent that many consecutive hours at the beach in his entire life.”
Nonna let out a short laugh herself. “I’m sure it was good for him. And how is Julia?”
He cleared his throat. “Um, Julia Peters?”
“Of course. Is there another Julia?”
“No. I’m just not exactly sure why you’d be asking about her.”
“Aren’t you? Come on, Logan. I’m old, not unobservant. You two have sparks coming off of your sparks.”
He tried to fight off his grin, but he couldn’t. “Okay, fine. I really like her, but it’s complicated because of Grandpa and Horace. She doesn’t want to do anything that would upset her grandpa. And I’m not too keen on messing things up on my end, and risking you and Grandpa moving away.”
“I don’t want that either.” Nonna leaned back on a weighted exhale.
“They were in a room together without an explosion, so that was an improvement.”
