The Sweetest Thing (33 page)

Logan’s eyes narrowed, and Tara felt yet another competition coming on. She’d heard about the abs of steel contest at The
Love Shack. Part of her still couldn’t believe it, and the other part of her wished she’d seen it herself.

“Okay, you know what?” She dropped an empty bag into Logan’s hands and gave his leanly muscled, warm
body a push out the back door. “I need some apples. Go pick me some, would you?”

Ford, looking big and bad and very cocky, leaned back against the counter with a smile.

“Oh, no.” Tara shoved him out after Logan. “You too. And play nice.” She shut the door on them both, threw the casserole into
the oven, and turned and met Mia’s amused glance.

“I showed up to make sure you didn’t have any trouble,” the teen said.

“Well, the trouble part is taken care of. Other than that, everything’s the same old status quo. My life is pretty boring.”

“Yeah.” Mia laughed. “Okay, let’s work on
not
burning breakfast today.”

“I swear I’m a good cook,” Tara said, needing to be good at
something
in her daughter’s eyes. She walked Mia through the steps to make dough for fresh bread. “This won’t take long to bake and
then we can—” Tara broke off as she got a good look out the window. “Oh, for the love of God.”

Logan and Ford had each shimmied up a tree—Logan with the help of a stepladder—and were making piles of apples. Big piles.

More than she needed for the next month.

Not that they were doing it for
her
. Nope, they were competing again.

Mia joined her at the window and raised a single brow—yet another talent she’d inherited from her father. Together they watched
the guys pick apples.

“And you think your life is boring,” Mia murmured.

•   •   •

“You’re sleeping with her.” Logan repeated this grimly to Ford from somewhere inside his apple tree. With his arm injury,
he’d been slower to climb up.

Ford, having the free use of both arms, hadn’t needed a ladder to climb the adjacent tree. “This is not news,” he told Logan.
“You read Facebook.”

“Christ. I should just kill you. Or me. It’d be less painful to be dead.”

“You’re not in any real pain,” Ford said in disgust. “It’s just your fucking ego. You hate to lose.”

“Said the pot to the kettle,” Logan muttered.

Okay, that might be true, but this was more than about winning for Ford. It was about Tara, a woman he couldn’t live without.
He pulled himself up to the next branch and dropped another three perfect apples. He glanced down. Yep, his pile was bigger
than Logan’s. Even as he thought so with deep satisfaction, an apple whizzed by his ear, so close it disturbed his hair. “Hey—”

Logan flashed a grim smile and chucked another one. Ford saw this one coming and ducked again, and slipped. “Shit—”

That’s all he got out before he lost his grip, his temper, and his balance all at once.

And fell out of the tree.

W
hen Ford opened his eyes, he was flat on his back staring up at the sky.

“Jesus H. Christ,” came a horrified, disembodied voice from the next tree over. “What, you can’t hold on to a branch?”

“You beaned me in the forehead,” Ford said. “With an apple.”

“And you call yourself an athlete.” Logan was hauling ass out of his tree as fast as he could with one arm in a brace, swearing
colorfully as he went.

Ford prayed he’d fall, too, but it didn’t happen. Fucking karma.

“I didn’t even hit you that hard,” Logan was muttering. “You weren’t supposed to fall like a fucking pussy!”

“Nice,” Ford said, very carefully
not
moving. “Calling me names when I’m down.”

“Hey, you’re the one who’s always going on and on about me not being an athlete.”

That was true. He had no excuse.

Okay, he did.

Jealousy. “All I’m saying is that a race car driver isn’t necessarily as fit as say, a sailor—”

“Jesus, would you give it up already? And why are you just lying there? Tell me you’re not hurt. You’re going to fucking milk
this, aren’t you? You’re going to get laid out of this deal, I just know it. How bad are you hurt?”

Ford let out a breath. “I’m putting all my energy into
not
figuring that out.”

Logan swore again and hit the ground.

“I’m surprised to see you move so fast,” Ford said. “For someone who sits on his ass for a living.”

“I don’t—Goddammit,
shut up
.” Logan dropped to Ford’s side to look him over, his eyes widening on Ford’s legs. “Fuck.”

“No. Don’t tell me.” He already knew. He could feel the fire from his toes to his groin. And not a little baby-ass fire either,
but a to-the-bone burning that made him want to scream. But because he
wasn’t
a pussy, as Logan had accused, he refused to make a sound. Sweating, however, was allowed. He was doing a lot of sweating.
And possibly going to throw up, too.

Then came a buzzing that told him this was it. His life was fading before his very eyes—

“
Bees
!” Logan jumped up and started leaping around, running in circles, flapping his arms.

“It’s just the gunk from the bruised apples,” Ford told
him. “Ignore them and, gee, I don’t know,
help the guy you knocked out of the tree
.”

But Logan kept doing the bee dance, and it was actually kind of fun to watch. “Man, if you’d just stand still—”

“I’m allergic!” Logan yelled.

“You’re kidding me, right?”

“Fuck! Ow!” Logan slapped at his collarbone. “I’m hit, I’m hit!”

Ford wanted to ask Logan who was the pussy now, but that seemed kind of asshole-ish. And then there was the fact that Ford
was suddenly feeling weird, sort of woozy…

There were running footsteps, feet pounding the ground toward him. Ford closed his eyes as the pain began to burn a path to
his brain. Yeah, he was definitely going to throw up.

“Ford,” Tara breathed. “Oh my God. Your leg.”

He felt her drop to her knees and had the vague thought that he wished she was going into that position for a different reason
altogether.

“Is he dead?”

This from Chloe, and Ford huffed out a laugh. “Not yet,” he assured her.

Tara whipped out her cell phone, punched in 9-1-1, and glared at Chloe.

“What?” Chloe asked innocently. “Look, some sisters help you move, but a
real
sister helps you move bodies.” She patted Ford’s shoulder. “Glad it’s not necessary, Big Guy.”

“Me too,” he muttered.

“Help,” came a whisper.

Everyone looked over at Logan. He was sitting on the ground, hands clasped around his throat. His face was sweaty and beet
red.

“Logan, not now,” Tara said. “Ford’s hurt.”

“I was… stung by a bee,” he rasped out and fell over.

Tara gasped and abandoned Ford, crawling over to Logan. “He’s allergic!”

Great, Ford thought. Fucking great. Even while passed out, Logan could upstage him.

The ambulance came. Tara burned breakfast again. And within thirty minutes someone had already updated Facebook with:

Tara nearly kills both of her men!

Mia saved the day, coming up with pancakes that she’d learned to make in Home Ec class. She served the guests with Maddie’s
help while Tara rode in the ambulance with both Ford and Logan.

An hour and a half later, Tara was sitting in the hospital waiting room with Mia on one side, Chloe on the other. Maddie had
taken over inn detail.

They hadn’t had any news on either Logan or Ford, and Tara felt herself losing it. “What’s taking so long?” she asked for
the tenth time.

Chloe sat calmly reading
Cosmo
. She turned the page, eyed the very good-looking, half-naked guy there, and hummed her approval. “Maybe they’re surgically
removing their
In Love with Tara
gene.”

Tara narrowed her eyes. “What does that mean?”

“It means I
still
don’t get it. How is it that you have those two guys falling for you? You’re grumpy and bossy and demanding and anal—not
to mention slightly obsessive compulsive.” She paused. “No offense.”

Tara looked over at a quiet Mia. “Still glad you found your parents?”

A smile curved her lips. “I have my moments.”

Chloe laughed. “I really, really like you.”

Tara elbowed her, then turned to Mia again. “Thanks for your help in the kitchen during the fiasco.”

“No problem. I’ve been wondering something.”

Oh God. Another question, Tara thought.

“Amy, the waitress at the diner, told me you never burned anything over there. Ever.”

“That’s true,” Tara said over Chloe’s snort.

“Why is that?” Mia asked.

“I have no idea.”

Finally, a doctor came out to talk to them. Logan had been treated for his severe allergic reaction to the bee sting and was
going to be fine. Ford had a broken leg and had been drugged up to have it set. He was loopy, but would also be fine—in six
to eight weeks.

Mia went in to see Ford first. While she did, Tara called the B&B and checked in. According to Maddie, their guests were fine
and out for the day. Two more people had checked in but all was well.

Taking a deep breath, Tara walked down the hall, stopping to buy two balloons. Both the men in her life had acted like children
today; so she figured what the hell.

Logan’s room came first. He was sitting up in his bed, flirting with a pretty nurse who was hovering over him taking his pulse.
“I’ve always wanted to meet a real-life NASCAR driver,” she was saying.

Tara rolled her eyes and knocked on the jamb. “Am I interrupting?”

The look on the nurse’s face said yes, she was absolutely interrupting, but she was professional enough to shake her head.
“I just have to get the doctor to sign his forms and then he can be released.” With one last little longing glance in Logan’s
direction, the woman was gone.

Logan smiled at the balloons. “For me?”

“One of them.” Tara handed it over and kissed his cheek. “You’re an idiot.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“But I love you anyway.”

“Yeah.” His smiled faded. “But you’re not
in
love with me.”

Tara sat at his hip and looked him in the eyes. “And you are, Logan? In love with me?
Truth
,” she said when he opened his mouth. “Are you in love with me, the me I am right now?”

“Well not
right
now,” he said, brooding. “Right now you’re kinda mean.”

“How about the me who has a life now separate from yours? The me who’s now involved in her sisters’ lives, the me who can
no longer drop everything and travel the world to be your greatest cheerleader without a care to her own life?
That
me, Logan. Are you in love with
that
me?”

Logan looked at her for a long beat, then expelled a breath. “I don’t know that you.”

“No, you don’t.” Tara reached for his hand. “Which means you can’t love me.”

He was quiet a minute. “I didn’t expect us to turn out this way,” he finally said. He brought their joined hands up to his
mouth and brushed his lips across her knuckles. “I do see what you love about Lucky Harbor, though. It’s a cool place.”

It wasn’t the place. Tara knew that now. It was the people in it, and the relationships she’d made here. It was… home.

“So if you’re not coming back to me,” he said after a while, “what are your plans?”

“I’m moving on.”

“Moving on while staying in Lucky Harbor?”

“Yes,” she said, admitting her newfound realization. “I’m staying.”

“With Ford?”

“I don’t know,” Tara said honestly.

Logan laughed, and in it was a wistfulness and vulnerability she hadn’t expected. “
I
know,” he said softly.