The Summer Cottage (8 page)

“Of course! We wouldn’t miss it,” Jessica assured her, stepping sideways to tread
on Logan’s toes in an obvious effort to make him contribute to the conversation.

But Logan was at a loss. This wasn’t Dylan’s first engagement. His previous fiancée
had been working an angle, looking for a soft landing with a rich husband—or a heavy
payoff for leaving him alone, which was the route their eldest brother had taken to
get rid of her.

Logan knew he was the last person on the planet that Dylan would—or should—take romantic
advice from, but he couldn’t help being concerned.

“You’ve known each other for three weeks,” he pointed out abruptly, killing the conversation
around him.

Dylan’s face went hard, his eyes glittering with emotion. “Don’t start. I already
heard it from Miles. Yes, it’s fast—but when it’s right, you know it.”

“So Miles is aware. Good.” Logan seized on the pertinent information and ignored the
rest, including the small pang at the knowledge that he was the last to hear about
the engagement. So much for Jessica’s theory that Dylan was reaching out to him.

“Yeah, I called him this afternoon.” The downward curve of Dylan’s mouth revealed
that it had not been a happy conversation. Logan could only imagine Miles’s reaction
to the news that his reckless, directionless youngest brother was marrying a single
mom who worked two jobs and lived on a tiny, backwater island off the coast of Virginia.
“I’m starting to regret telling either of you. Damn it, Logan…”

Penny moved to Dylan’s side and slid an arm around his waist, presenting them as a
united front. She faced him with head held high, her eyes clear and body language
open when she said, “I understand your concerns. I truly do. The world you live in—you
have to be constantly on guard against people taking advantage, or wanting more from
you than you’re willing to give. But that’s not my world. I love your brother, and
he loves me. We want to make a life together, here on Sanctuary Island. We think we
can make each other happy. That’s my ulterior motive here. My happiness, Dylan’s happiness
and my son’s happiness.”

A small flame of respect kindled in Logan’s chest at the proud, direct way Penny spoke.
Her matter-of-fact words about love and happiness tugged at his heart in a way he
didn’t like. Unsure how to react, Logan looked to Jessica.

She gave him an encouraging smile, tilting her head as if to say,
Go ahead.

Uncomfortable, Logan shrugged and shoved his hands in the pockets of his trousers.
“Do what you’re going to do. You hardly need my approval or my blessing.”

“We don’t need it,” Dylan agreed, curling his arm around Penny’s slender shoulders.
“We’re getting married, building a life and being happy, just as Penny said, whether
you and Miles like it or not. But I guess I hoped you’d see that, for once, I know
what I’m doing.”

“Are you sure?” With Dylan’s track record, Logan had to ask.

A slow smile spread across Dylan’s face as he stared down into the upturned eyes of
his fiancée. “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life. Marriage is a big
step, a real commitment … but I spent years wandering around, not even knowing I was
searching for something until I found it. Until I found her, and Matt, and Sanctuary
Island. This might seem too fast to you—but for me? I’ve waited long enough. I’m ready
for my life to finally begin.”

Chapter 9

Jessica was a pace behind Logan all the way back to the cottage, his long legs and
quick, restless strides eating up the path.

The rest of the evening with Dylan and Penny had been … well, “disaster” was probably
too strong a word, but not by much. Logan had shut down completely after Dylan’s heartfelt
speech. He sat there at the table with an untouched piece of pie in front of him,
mouth a thin, hard line and his eyes dark and shuttered.

Jessica did her best to keep conversation flowing by offering to help Penny set up
for the engagement party and asking if they’d set a date yet, while the two brothers
glared at each other across the table in silence.

Sighing as Logan slammed into the screened-in porch and flopped down on the glider,
Jessica leaned against the doorway. The drone of cicadas rose and fell around the
cottage, accompanied by the song of crickets and the rustle of a breeze through the
magnolias. It was a beautiful night.

Too bad her plan to strengthen Logan and Dylan’s relationship was a total bust.

“That could have gone better,” she observed to the top of Logan’s head as he leaned
over his knees and fisted his hands in his hair.

“Where is my phone?” he asked abruptly, glaring up at her.

That startled her into straightening away from the doorjamb. “It’s in a safe place,
don’t worry.”

“Give it to me,” he demanded.

Jessica crossed her arms over her chest as dismay trickled into her belly. “No. The
rules haven’t changed.”

“
Everything
is changing.” Standing in a controlled rush, Logan prowled the length of the porch.
“Too fast.”

Empathy tightened like a fist around Jessica’s throat. Always an introvert, Logan
had locked all his tumultuous emotions away in a box when his parents died, and then
carefully constructed his life so he never had to deal with them in any way.

Until now. The lid was coming off that box, exposing him to feelings he hadn’t ever
learned to master, and no matter how hard he worked to suppress them, Jessica didn’t
think he’d be able to close that box up again. Not entirely.

The boy who’d learned that deep personal connection only led to pain and loss had
grown into a man who did his best to hold people at arm’s length. But in the last
few days, Logan had gotten closer to his brother—and to her—than he’d been to anyone
in a long time. It was no wonder he was freaking out.

“It’s late,” she tried. “Come to bed.”

“I’m not tired.”

Heart heavy with guilt, as if she were somehow responsible for the fact that Logan
and his brothers couldn’t seem to find common ground, Jessica attempted a smile. “I
could tire you out.”

His eyes gleamed briefly in the moonlight, but he shook his head. “You’re right, it’s
late. You should get some rest. I’ll follow the rules, have some hot milk, come to
bed when I think I’ll actually be able to sleep.”

Jessica hesitated before agreeing. Those were the rules, suggested by sleep experts
who alleged that spending time lying in bed unable to sleep would only begin a cycle
of frustration that prevented a person from nodding off. Better, they said, to reset
the brain by getting up and reading for a bit, then going back to bed to try again.

And Logan was used to spending most of his time alone. If he needed a few solitary
hours to process the evening’s events, that was certainly understandable.

Still, this felt like a step backward. He’d been doing so well, falling asleep every
night in her arms, that tonight’s nervous energy and restless pacing made her nervous.

“Okay,” she said slowly. “Wake me up when you come to bed?”

He nodded, crossing the porch to cradle her face in his large, warm hands. Her pulse
fluttered like the wings of a moth, unable to resist the lure of the light.

Logan bent his head and brushed a kiss over her mouth. “Good night,” he whispered
against her lips.

“Wake me up, seriously,” she reminded him again.

“I will,” he promised.

But when Jessica startled awake hours later, as the silvery light of dawn filtered
through the curtains, she was alone in the bed. The sheets on Logan’s side were cool
to the touch, the pillow undented.

Sliding from the bed, Jessica shivered and wrapped her blue silk robe around her shoulders.
She padded from the bedroom out to the main room, her bare toes flinching from the
cold hardwood floor. “Logan?”

There was no answer but a shuffling sound from above. Still half-asleep, Jessica looked
up. Had he slept in the loft? Since they started sleeping together, the loft and its
smaller, less comfortable bed hadn’t seen much use beyond storing their empty suitcases.

Annoyed at herself for feeling a pang that Logan might be learning to sleep better
on his own than with her, Jessica started for the built-in stepladder that reached
up into the loft space.

She was on the third rung before she remembered what else was up in the loft, besides
a low, narrow bed.

Hurrying up the ladder, heart in her throat, Jessica cleared the floor already knowing
what she’d see.

And there he was. Logan crouched beside the bed with his confiscated cell phone clutched
in his hand, thumb typing so furiously and intently, she knew he hadn’t even heard
her call his name.

This was why she’d taken the phone. When Logan got embroiled with work, he lost track
of everything else. Nothing mattered but the problem in front of him.

Nothing and no one.

Gritting her teeth against the vulnerable girl inside who was hurt that she’d been
forgotten in favor of a piece of technology, Jessica climbed the rest of the way into
the loft and cinched her robe more tightly around her waist.

“All right, you checked in. Now hand it over,” she demanded.

Without looking up from the backlit screen or ceasing his lightning-fast typing, Logan
bit out, “There’s an emergency at the lab. They need me back there. I’m catching the
morning ferry back to New York.”

Jessica closed her eyes and gathered her patience. This was exactly what she’d tried
to avoid. “No, you’re not. You’re on vacation. Deal with it. The lab can deal with
it—this so-called emergency is nothing more than a group of employees who have been
spoiled by constant access to you, and who need to learn to self-direct and take responsibility
for their jobs.”

His head shot up, his bloodshot blue eyes lasering in on her face. “You knew about
this?”

“I’ve kept up to date with the e-mails from the lab, yes.” The increasingly frantic
e-mails, begging for more direction and next steps on the project Logan had handed
them before he left. “I told you I’d monitor the situation, and I have. You left them
with adequate instructions. They may not be geniuses like you, but they should be
able to figure this out on their own, without bothering you.”

Finally tossing the phone aside, Logan rounded the bed and dragged his suitcase out
of the space by the wall. “I’m leaving. I need to get back to my lab, my work.”

“You need to stay here and keep healing,” Jessica said, reaching to take the suitcase
from him, but Logan jerked away.

“I’m fine,” he said in a rusty voice. His swift, shaky movements told another story,
and Jessica noted all the familiar signs with a growing sense of alarm.

“You didn’t sleep at all last night, did you? Logan, you have to see how bad for you
this is.”

“It’s my job. I’d think you, of all people, would understand why that’s important
to me.”

Rocking back on her heels, Jessica didn’t have time to figure out why that felt like
a slap. “Important enough to jeopardize your recovery?”

“I’m not jeopardizing anything.” Dropping the suitcase over the side of the loft with
a bang that made Jessica jump, Logan started down the ladder after it, clearly intent
on packing.

A deep wellspring of panic bubbled up unexpectedly, goading Jessica to say, “So the
fact that once we go back to Manhattan, this thing between us is over—that doesn’t
even factor into your decision.”

She heard Logan pause halfway down the ladder, but mortification and an intense need
to hear his response kept her from walking to the edge of the loft to catch sight
of him.

When he replied, his voice had lost some of the frenetic distraction in favor of a
coolness that sent shivers down her spine. “You still want to go back to the way we
were, when we leave here.”

“I mean—that’s what we agreed.” Surprise and confusion pushed her to the loft ledge
to peek over. Logan stood with his legs braced apart, his head slightly bowed so that
Jessica’s gaze snagged on the vulnerable nape of his neck, the light brown tendrils
of his overlong hair. From this angle, his shoulders were immense, wide and strong,
before his torso tapered to the whipcord leanness of his waist.

As well as she now knew that body, and as hard as she’d worked to make herself an
expert on the man inside, this trip to Sanctuary Island had shown her how much there
still was to learn. She could spend a lifetime unraveling the complexities of a man
like Logan Harrington, and never tire of the challenge.

On the teetering, dangerous point of throwing caution out the window and telling Logan
she wanted to continue their relationship when they went back to New York, Jessica
opened her mouth—only to be interrupted by Logan.

He tilted his head back, and it was as if he’d slammed an iron shield down behind
his blue eyes, hiding everything he thought and felt. “You’re right, we had an agreement.
I won’t go back on my word. So I guess it’s over.”

And that was it. The tender green shoot of hope that had taken root in Jessica’s heart
withered and died, killed by the frost of Logan’s cool declaration. Dimly, she was
aware of the irony—that she’d been the one to put these rules in place, trying to
protect herself, and yet here she was with a yawning, aching emptiness cracking open
her rib cage.

Desperate to hide her hurt, Jessica turned to descend the ladder in a flurry of blue
satin.

“But you are going back on your word,” she argued, hoping the hoarse breathlessness
of her voice could be attributed to the effort of climbing down from the loft. “You
said you’d stay here until you were well.”

“No, I said I’d stay here one day for every question you answered honestly.” Every
distant, abstracted word flicked over her raw nerves like a whip. “I don’t have any
more questions, so I don’t have to stay. And, by the way, I’m not a child. As much
as you love to direct my life and organize my every movement, you are not actually
the boss of me.”