Tennessee Touch, Sisters of Spirit #6 (32 page)

She was mentally and emotionally distressed. Would she ever find someone she loved as deeply as she loved Logan? Every day brought bitter-sweet memories as events and words were recalled. She had started reading Proverbs and found that Logan was right...there was one for all situations. "A wise woman builds her house, but a foolish one tears it down with her own hands." This and several others fit her exactly; especially some of the ones about the fool.

His clock did the most severe damage to her guilty heart, reminding her constantly of the love she might have had. She thought once of taking it down, storing it away until she could bear to look at it again, but she couldn't do it. It kept Logan near her, even though it hurt. She sat and stared at it for hours on end, tracing with her eyes the tiny detailing.

Sunday came, and she sat down and turned on the television to watch the championship game against Dallas. Logan was sacked several times in the first quarter and he seemed to be playing in a daze. Perhaps he'd received a mild concussion the first time. It had taken him awhile to stand up. Time out was called while the coach talked to him and the rest of the players.

After that the game against Dallas went better; Logan playing with a grim determination that even the announcers remarked about. Alison sat watching, cheering on each pass, each yard gained, moaning over each mistake...twice as caught up in the game as Chantal had ever been.

It was one of those games barely won; and then won only through the leadership of the quarterback as he positioned his troops with the care and cunning of a first-rate general.

Afterwards Logan and Ken were interviewed, their faces now clearly familiar to Alison so she could recognize them on the screen. Most of the questions involved the upcoming Super Bowl and what they felt their chances would be when playing against the AFC champions, the New York Jerseys.

Logan gave the same stock answers he probably had given all season, reminding Alison of his comment about interviewers and how they always asked the same stupid questions and wanted the athlete to come up with something beside the same stupid answers.

But there was one question and answer that the announcer asked that was different. He wanted to know why Logan had so much trouble during the first quarter...if he'd been injured and if so, when?

Logan's answer was that no, he hadn't been injured; he had a personal problem on his mind and it had affected his sharpness. He realized as a pro player all personal problems had to be forgotten—completely—while out on the field. This had never happened to him before.

When asked what it was, he declined to say, but mentioned that during the time out, the coach had insisted he come to a decision and once it was made, he was able to set the problem aside and do his best.

According to the announcer it was better than his best; he had played the last three quarters brilliantly. The Skippers had been trailing 21-3 at the end of the first quarter and had gone on to win 30-27.

Alison watched all the interviews, the noisy locker room scene and the final wrap-up of the game—something she would have never dreamed of doing a few weeks ago. Also her room contained magazine and newspaper articles—all she could find—about Logan. She had read them all—some several times—trying to get closer to this man of many talents; realizing also that she knew things about him not mentioned in the articles; things he kept hidden from the prying press.

The articles revealed just how many commitments Logan had besides playing football. He was an active member of several charity and civic organizations—mainly those benefiting youth—and was involved in a program to help the elderly maintain their independence.

This in addition to his welding—one article showed several photographs of some of his work—plus his practice schedule; no wonder he was always on the go... he'd had a full schedule even before he began his visits to her.

Was he thinking of her? Would he ever come? And if he did, what would she say?

The TV station went on to other things and Alison turned it off and sat staring at a sports magazine with Logan's picture on the cover. Logan and Jake had both survived that game. They had one more—the Super Bowl—and then they were through for the year. Maybe.

Alison had read of another game in Hawaii, called the Pro Bowl, which sounded like an All-star game between the NFC and the AFC. They probably would play in that.

She read everything about them that she could, fast becoming a fan of the sport as she learned more about it. If only it wasn't so dangerous.

Real life could be just as dangerous, she decided the next day as she read about a ten-car pileup on one of Seattle’s freeways. Four dead, seven injured. There had been just enough freeze to turn the roads into an ice rink.

So if you wanted to have a safe life, did you never leave your apartment? Have a heart attack from lack of exercise?

You had to live. And all life had the inherent destination of death. Sooner or later everyone died. It was how you lived your life that mattered.

Logan was living a rich life. He was entertaining millions and helping troubled youths and the elderly. Kids in hospitals. His whole life was centered around other people.

Well, she could either sit here in the wreckage of her house or she could go out and try to build it up again by doing something about the situation. She wasn't one to chase, but when the games were all over she was going to take a trip to his family home in Tennessee and try to talk to him. It would mean a wait of almost a month, but he would no longer have the time-consuming distraction of football to take him away from her.

He had loved her once, surely that love couldn't have completely died? Given time, maybe they could enter a trial engagement to see if they would be able to make a go of marriage. She would be willing if he was.

The depressing aching loneliness that accompanied her wherever she went convinced her that she had finally fallen in love. Now it was up to her to convince him that she would be able to make him a suitable wife. She realized he was the only man for her. Now she had to convince him she was the only woman for him.

She had to talk to him, she had to. Otherwise ahead of her lay the specter of endless empty days stretching like a flat prairie road in front of her. As long as he was alive...and unmarried...there was hope for her.

She cried herself to sleep that night, but the next morning she called the Community Service that referred the work out to the free-lance interpreters and asked them to take her name off the list. She would finish up the jobs she had already lined up through this month but would take no more.

Saying that they hated to see her go, they complied, urging her to contact them whenever she was free to resume work. With that phone call out of the way, she called Chantal to tell her of her decision and to find out if she'd seen Logan on her trip.

Chantal didn't answer, and after letting the phone ring a dozen times, Alison hung up. Chantal and Jake looked like they might make a go of it; they had straightened out the Miami affair without too much difficulty. Jake was taking his time, but according to Chantal he had already given her Super Bowl tickets and asked her if she would accompany him to the Pro Bowl in Hawaii.

So if nothing else good came from Alison's stormy relationship with Logan, at least Chantal might have Jake. But to lose Logan...all because of a practical joke...

No, that wasn't fair. It had nothing to do with the joke.

It was her own suspicious mind that had destroyed her happiness. She had done it to herself and was now paying for it. To rebuild called for a bold step forward. She had been wrong in staying away from the game. She should have gone with Chantal. What she would have done there, she didn’t know, but at least Logan would’ve known that she had made the effort to see him.

Then Ryan called to say that he had flown back to meet with Logan, Jake and the FBI.

“A man tried to run Logan down,” Ryan said, “right outside your apartment.”

“When?”
This was the first she’d heard about it.

“The last time he was there.”

“Is that why he hasn’t come back?”

“I don’t know. But Logan had seen the man before, at the Seattle airport,and remembered that he had talked about the Minnesota quarterback. Logan decided the man would have picked Mason Powell as his quarterback, so we were able to narrow the search to around a hundred names.”

“A hundred?”

“Sounds like a lot, but he also had a pretty vivid recall of what the man looked like—I guess he was making a jerk out of himself and got right in Logan’s face. So Logan did a session with a sketch artist. The FBI now have a picture. It’s been sent to every airport.They’re going to get that guy pretty quick.”

“That’s wonderful.”

“Just wanted you to know.”

“Did Logan ask about me?”

“No. Sorry.”

Alison had no jobs scheduled for today or tomorrow, but the housework had suffered during last week while she had been doing so much interpreting, and some good physical exercise looked welcome right now. She stripped the bed and took her dirty clothes down to the laundry room and started them, took her rugs outside and shook them hard, got out the sweeper, cleaning solutions, scrub brushes and mop and went to work.

By five o'clock she had the interior shining. The windows needed washing—they could wait till tomorrow—and her bed needed to be remade. She'd grabbed a sandwich at noon and was suddenly exhausted and hungry.

One more trip to the laundry area to bring up her dry clothes; then she would order a pizza. Maybe tonight she would go to a movie—it was a Tuesday and Tuesdays had become synonymous with Logan—just to keep her mind occupied and away from thoughts of him.

If only she had trusted him more. If only she hadn't gone to Miami, seen what she had seen, and been so dumb as to jump to the wrong conclusions. Her suspicious heart and cutting tongue had completely destroyed her own happiness.

Angry at herself, she ran down the stairwell to the basement laundry, gathered her clean clothes and brought them back up. Entering her apartment, she carried them through and dropped them in a heap on her bed to fold. It was time to order the pizza and get a much needed shower.

A sound behind her made her spin around, her eyes immediately finding the source. Her apartment door was open—she had not closed it completely—the setting sun backlighting the tall man standing halfway in, a determined look on his face. He had on a heavy overcoat over a black suit, the fur collar up, for there was snow on the ground today, a light layer but the air was chilly.

"Logan!" The surprised cry of longing revealed her innermost feelings more than a hundred words, and the agony of the past week was there in her eyes, unhidden, for him to see. Her hand stretched out towards him even as he spoke.

"You inviting me in?"

"Did you ever need an invitation?" Her lips were burning with a deep desire for the touch of his and she moved forward as if compelled, afraid of saying the wrong thing and sending him away again.

"No, but I want to be sure of my welcome this time. No Mace." He stepped away from the doorway to meet her, the determined scowl replaced by a relieved smile as she flew the last few yards to him, and the strength of his welcoming arms as they closed around her canceled out the harsh words he had spoken when he left...such a long, long time ago.

It was not really a time for speeches. It was a time for the kind of healing that can only be done with comforting arms and questing lips. It was time to say ‘I love you’ without words.

Each gave and gave again...their heart with a searching intensity—apologizing, forgiving, comforting...all the things that can best be said by showing.

She clung to him as to a lifeline, the need for him so great that her reserve was cast away entirely as she gave herself in love to this man...this one who was a stranger no longer.