Page 21 of My Cowboy Salvation
I turn toward her, noticing the sly smile on her lips as she keeps her eyes on the road in front of us. “Logan and I are just friends,” I say, starting in the perfunctory explanation of our relationship.
“For now. But I see the way you look at him and the way he looks at you. With a little nudge the right way, I’m sure you can convince him otherwise. Come on. You can tell me. I won’t tell anyone.”
I don’t see any use in lying, especially since it doesn’t seem like I’ve done it convincingly up to now. And it might be nice to get another person’s perspective on this. “All right. You’re right. I definitely would love to be more than just friends. But it’s complicated.”
“Lay it on me. What’s so complicated about two people who are so clearly into each other engaging in a consensual relationship?”
Just bite the bullet and tell her. “Obviously, you can see there’s a sizeable age gap between us. He’s nineteen years older than me. Old enough to be my dad. And in fact, he actually is the dad of someone I was once close with.” She glances over at me, patiently waiting. “I used to date his son, Parker. In high school. We dated for two years. That’s how I know Logan.”
She nods as she considers this. “But you’re not dating his son now, right?”
“No. I broke things off after we left for college. I cared a lot about him, but I knew deep down, he wasn’t the one for me.”
“Okay. I guess I can see how a relationship with your ex’s dad might be more complicated than most new relationships.” She glances furtively over. “I have to ask… did you and Parker sleep together?”
I close my eyes, heat flushing up my neck. “He was actually my first. We were each other’s firsts.”
She whistles. “Yeah, definitely complicated. And you may not want to start introductions that way. Hello, this is my boyfriend, Logan. And this is his son, my ex-boyfriend, Parker.”
She laughs, and for a second, I join her because I can imagine the looks people would likely give us. I mean. Sleeping with father and son—even if not at the same time or even in the same year is kind of… taboo.
“But,” Hope continues, “what if Logan is the guy you’re meant to be with? It would be shortsighted not to explore what you could mean to each other simply because you dated his son first. That was years ago. You’re a different person now—or at least I imagine you are, since I know I am compared to who I was back in high school.”
So much has happened to me in the years since high school. Most of it in the past year. I don’t know if I would recognize the naive girl I was back then. I thought playing my music was the only thing that mattered, and that as long as I had my cello, everything else would fall into place.
It definitely did not.
However, everything Hope is saying is what I’ve been telling myself. She’s preaching to the choir. “Try telling all of this to Logan. He’s insistent that it can’t happen. Well, not any more than it has.”
“Oh, my God. I want details.”
Man, it felt good to have someone to confide in, and within a few minutes, she was mostly up to date with what had taken place between us—save for exactly what I was doing in that mortifying moment he caught me in the tub. That I’m keeping to myself.
“You have to go to the festival then. Show him a little of what he’s missing out on. I told you, I saw how he looks at you, and he’s just kidding himself if he thinks he can hold out.”
“Easy for you to say. It might be easier for me to believe I can tempt him if I didn’t look like such a mess.” I pull at my hair, holding it toward her. “Your hair isn’t the color of mud.”
She smiles. “I kind of wondered. Well, that can easily be fixed with a quick stop at the salon. Deanne is a genius and will figure something out. And while we’re in town, maybe we can do a little shopping,” she adds in a conspiratorial tone. “Find just the right something Logan McCall can’t say no to.”
It’s silly really. Of all the things I have to worry about in my life, getting a makeover to seduce my ex-boyfriend’s dad should not be a priority.
Then again, there’s been so little joy in my life, why shouldn’t I try to obtain a little more happiness—and pleasure—for as long as I can?
Chapter 11
Logan
“What didyou think of my double chocolate rocky road brownies, Chief?” Rainey Mills asks, stepping in my path as I head to the john on Saturday evening. The look of determination on her face and the way she’s planted her feet into the ground tells me I won’t be escaping any time soon.
I’ve been in Town Square nearly the entire day doing my Harvest Festival duties, which mostly involves judging food that ranges from pickles to huckleberry pie and smiling and playing nice to everyone. I would love nothing more than a moment of peace to myself, even if I have to head to the bathroom to get it.
Not that I haven’t enjoyed myself. Being part of this community—of any community—was one of the many reasons I sought this job. Maybe it was from my years in the service, drawing strength and kinship from the small group of soldiers in my unit, where I first learned to appreciate the importance of community. Maybe it was from the lack of feeling like I belonged anywhere before I turned eighteen and enlisted. But whatever it was, I’ve found a sense of happiness and peace belonging to this community here in Castle Falls.
Rainey Mills, whose husband walked out on her two years ago and left her tending a petulant teenage daughter all by herself, is one such member of that community and who is entitled to my respect—even if it’s hard to miss the light in her eyes that tells me she’s looking for more than I’m comfortable giving her.
In fact, it’s been a while since any woman has driven anything in me until Dylan Harper waltzed in my life and left me aching with a need for someone I shouldn’t want.
I shift my stance to ease my bladder’s cry as Rainey continues to explain how she went all the way to Kalispell to get the right Dutch chocolate. From the corner of my eye, I spy two more women with hopeful gazes heading our way.
