Devoted to Drew Read online

He stepped back when she closed the door and said, “Later….”

  Bianca shifted into Reverse and backed down the driveway. Turning to head toward Drew’s school, she glanced up at the house and saw Logan, smiling, one hand raised in silent farewell.

  A strange sensation engulfed her, like the one she’d always felt when Jason left for work. There was no shame in being lonely, she told herself. No disgrace in admitting that she missed loving and being loved. No dishonor in yearning for someone to share her life.

  But Logan Murray had brought the sensations to the surface—after all the hard work she’d done to repress them!

  And she resented him a little for that.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “I THINK I made a huge and horrible mistake,” Sandra said, jamming her mini-shovel into the dirt, “giving up my job to take care of Mom and the house.”

  Logan loosened his tie. “At least you and the kids are safe.”

  She wriggled a lily of the valley plant from the overflowing tray beside her. “Thanks for the reminder, Mr. Silver Lining.” Grinning, she dug a little hole and tucked the pod into it.

  He had to hand it to her. She’d gone from being Daddy’s little girl, to being pushed around by a bullying husband, to being at the beck and call of their ailing mother. All that, and meals to prepare, their folks’ house and yard to maintain and two kids to care for. Considering all that, she really didn’t complain much.

  “So what else is on your To Do list for today?”

  “It’ll take less time to tell you what isn’t on it. Suffice to say, I’ll be on the move until the kids are in bed and Mom gets her last pill. If Sam doesn’t decide to pitch a fit tonight. Again.”

  He shrugged out of his suit coat, hung it on the porch railing and got onto his knees beside her.

  Sandra’s brows rose high on her forehead. “Are you out of your mind?”

  He relieved her of the garden trowel and dug a hole exactly like hers. “Go pour yourself a glass of wine or something and park your butt in a chair until it’s gone. I’ll finish up here.”

  She sat back on her heels and stared at him. “You think because that’s a Dolce & Gabbana suit, it’ll repel grass stains?”

  He kept working.

  “Logan. Seriously. That’s a two-thousand-dollar suit. You can’t just wallow around in the mud that way.”

  “First of all, it didn’t cost two thousand dollars.” It was seven hundred bucks more than that. But no big loss. If he ruined it today, he’d have one less reminder of what Griff jokingly referred to as his I’m a Big Shot years. “Second, I don’t see any mud. And you know better than most that the only wallowing I’ve ever done was after the Willow debacle.”

  Sandra gave his shoulder a playful shove. “Yeah, you did waste a couple of perfectly good years flexing your self-pity muscles over that lunatic, didn’t you? That, and drowning your troubles in Nun’s Island whiskey.”

  The reminder of his battle with the bottle made every muscle tighten. “Sarcasm doesn’t become you,” he said, slowly releasing a tense breath. “Now get inside and put your feet up, before I change my mind.”

  She started up the porch steps, stopping at the top. “There’s a hose right behind you. Be sure to soak the plants once you get them all in the ground, or you’ll have dirtied your hands and stained your fancy duds for nothing.”

  The screen door creaked closed and he made a mental note to oil it when he finished here. Crawling along the tidy brick-lined bed, he dug and planted and tamped rich black soil around the broad-leafed plants. The work brought him back to his boyhood, when he’d helped his dad plant radishes and spring onions at the edges of the vegetable garden. Wasn’t it about this time of year when they began to sprout?

  On his feet now, he turned the hose nozzle to the rain setting, barely noticing as mud splattered on the cuffs of his pants and on the toes of his Ferragamo loafers. The shutters could use a coat of paint, he thought, as he studied the front of the house. The gutters needed a good cleaning and the window screens could use a going-over with a wire brush. He needed to make some time to get over here, take care of some of that. Sandra couldn’t do everything.

  Logan heard the unmistakable sound of water, plopping into the puddles at his feet. After recoiling the hose, he gathered the tools and carried them around back.

  The old wooden shed, like everything else about the quaint ’50s rancher where his dad had been born and raised, had seen better days. He added it to his own To Do list, thinking that if the weather was decent, he’d come back on Saturday and tighten the hinge screws and do something about the sticking latch, too.

  The scent of gasoline and motor oil, years-old dirt and rusting rakes met him when he opened the wide crossbuck door. He placed the garden shovel on the workbench, but only because there wasn’t a place for it on the pegboard above the bench.

  To his left sat the dull red lawn mower and a grimy weed whacker. To his right stood the old yellow tiller that had been the bane of his youth—and his salvation. Smiling, Logan remembered the year he’d turned fourteen, when his dad had gassed up the machine and given him instructions to till the garden. If he’d known how satisfying it would feel, turning rocky, weedy clods into straight, evenly spaced rows, Logan wouldn’t have put so much effort into finding excuses to avoid the backyard. Only one other thing in life had ever filled him with such a sense of power and purpose: football.

  Slowly, he closed the door on the shed, where shelves of screws and nuts and bolts winked from baby food and Mason jars. He’d closed the door to this—and a whole lot more—when he’d traded home and hearth for the game.

  But that was then and this is now, he thought.

  It wasn’t a long walk back to the house, but Logan took his time. If he knew his sister, she’d repay him for the half hour of R & R by inviting him to supper. And he wouldn’t say no to good food and some much overdue family time. He’d barely cleared the bottom porch step when Sandra opened the back screen door.

  “Whoa. Stop right there, little brother! If you think you’re gonna waltz in here and muddy up this clean kitchen floor,” she said, one hand on her hip, “you’ve got another think coming!”

  Logan looked down at his soggy trouser cuffs and mud-caked shoes. “You’re right,” he said. “Can you loan me a couple of trash bags?”

  “What! Why?”

  “So I won’t mess up the floor and seats of my car.”

  “You big goofball. You don’t need trash bags. You’re staying for supper.”

  “But…I can’t strip down to my skivvies. The kids will be home from school soon.” And more likely than not, his niece would bring a few friends.

  “Stay put,” Sandra said. “I’ll get some of Dad’s things for you to change into.” She started back inside, then came out again. “And as soon as you’re presentable, little brother, or we get a minute alone—whichever comes first—you’re going to tell me why you came over here in the middle of the day, in the middle of the week, ’cause much as I appreciate the downtime, I’m sure it wasn’t to plant posies!”

  Half an hour later, her kids poked fun of the too-tight borrowed short-sleeved shirt and pants, and much to his surprise, his dad joined them. Logan gladly went along with it all through supper and dessert. The outfit even roused a round of snickers from his mom, whose stage 4 cancer diagnosis had left her exhausted and with very little reason to laugh.

  “I’ve never seen anything more ridiculous,” she said, wiping tears of mirth from her eyes. “Are you doing some sort of clown act for a charity?”

  Logan only grinned, letting that be his answer. He couldn’t tell her how or why his own clothes had become soiled. Any talk of the flower gardens she could see only from her in-home hospital bed would just depress her more. Her blue-ribbon roses and chrysanthemums had been her pride and joy, but this year, she hadn’t had the strength to maintain them and had grudgingly entrusted them to Sandra.

  He pulled a chair closer to her bed and sandwiched her
hands between his. “So how’s it goin’, Mom?”

  Her lips quavered slightly as the happy smile diminished. “Oh, I’m pluggin’ along, taking things minute by minute, you know?”

  “Are the drugs helping any with the pain?”

  “Oh, honey,” she said, squeezing his hand, “stop worrying about me. You’re young and handsome. You should be worrying about finding a nice woman, one who’ll make you a good home and give you children.”

  Bianca could give him both….

  The thought rocked him because he was in no position to start a relationship with anyone, let alone a widow who was the sole caretaker for a special needs kid and a widowed mother. It was just a random thought, he told himself. A wild notion that was the offshoot of time spent with her and the hours he’d put in collecting data she’d need to get her son a dog. He had to deliver that information soon. That’s why she’d popped into his head just now. And that was the only reason.

  “You know how I hate to nag…” his mother began.

  He forced himself to pay attention. She wasn’t long for this world, and he needed to spend as much time with her as possible.

  “…but you need to put this Willow thing in the past. You threw away a whole year trying to change her. Wasted two more trying to blot what she did to you from your mind by—”

  “Mom. Please. Trust me. I’m over it. Okay?” And he was, except for that sliver of humiliation he held on to, a reminder of what happens to guys suffering from Prince Charming Syndrome.

  “All right, honey. If you say so.” She slipped one hand from his grasp and used it to cup his chin. “Much as I hate to see you go, I’m really sleepy. Could you ask Sandra to come up, bring my medicine?”

  “Will do.” Logan stood, and after tidying her covers, pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead. “Will do. Get a good night’s sleep.”

  “You’ll come back soon, won’t you?”

  “Just try and keep me away.” Tears stung his eyes, and because he didn’t want her to see them, Logan walked quickly from her room. In the hallway, leaning on her closed door, he hung his head. She’d looked so small and frail lying there against the pink-flowered pillowcases, a mere shadow of her scared-of-nothing, sturdy self. The woman who’d helped him memorize The Raven, whose tutelage had gotten him through calculus and physics, who had taught him to find earthworms on the riverbank, then bait a hook and catch a trout, was slipping away from him. And, oh, how he’d miss her when she was gone.

  You’re strong and stubborn, like me, she’d told him in rehab. You’ll beat this thing. I guarantee it!

  That unconditional love and unfailing support explained why every AA sobriety chip he’d earned was in her jewelry box. Logan was due to claim the next one in July, and according to her doctors, she wouldn’t last that long.

  The question was…would he?

  CHAPTER NINE

  HE MET SANDRA on his way down the stairs. “Always two steps ahead of everyone, aren’t you?” he kidded, nodding at the glass of water and assortment of pills on the tray she carried.

  When they were side by side, she stopped. “I don’t think I’ve ever been ahead of anyone in my whole life.” A blink or two later, she made a “Seriously?” face.

  “I get it. She sent you to remind me, didn’t she?”

  Much as he hated to admit it, his mom hadn’t exactly gone easy on Sandra. They’d gone toe to toe on a dozen issues since the divorce: the kids ate too much junk food and didn’t get to bed early enough; the laundry should be done on Tuesdays, not every single day; a good housekeeper always vacuumed before she dusted the furniture, not after. Their mom won every round, but only because Sandra was the type who’d walk miles to sidestep confrontation.

  Except with Logan.

  She narrowed her eyes. “Her doctor was very clear about when and how much medication I should give her.”

  He held up a hand, and though he hadn’t delivered his mother’s request, Logan said, “Hey, don’t shoot the messenger. You know I’m on your side. And that I believe if anyone else had been taking care of Mom, she’d be gone by now.”

  Using her chin as a pointer, she looked up the staircase. “Try telling that to her.”

  Logan believed their mom knew that Sandra was trying. But she was in pain. And bored. And annoyed that she had no control over anything—not her house or her gardens and, least of all, her health. Who better to take it out on than her youngest daughter?

  Right now, that was the last thing Sandra wanted—or needed—to hear.

  “Tell you what,” he said, winking. “Next time I stop by, I’ll have a talk with her.”

  “An exercise in futility, but whatever,” she said, climbing the stairs. On the landing, she paused. “You’re not going home yet, I hope….”

  “’Course not. Just going to talk to Dad.”

  She smiled. “I’ll be down as soon as I can.” She smirked. “Then you’re going to tell me who put that ‘I met somebody swell’ look on your face.”

  He would have denied it if she hadn’t disappeared into their mother’s room. But no big deal. Later, he’d set her straight. Meanwhile, he took comfort in the knowledge that once he delivered the dog-related info he’d dug up, Bianca would slip into the dark recesses of his memory, where she belonged. It was a good thing, he decided, jogging the rest of the way down the stairs, that she’d turned down his job offer.

  He was surprised that his dad wasn’t in the family room, watching The History Channel over the pages of the evening paper.

  “I’m out here, son. On the patio.”

  He stepped up beside his dad and pocketed his hands. “Nice night.”

  Carl’s gaze remained on the starry sky. “Yes. Yes, it is.” Nodding, he turned slightly to ask, “How’s your mother?”

  “As well as can be expected, I guess.” Logan leaned forward slightly to get a better look at his dad’s face. “She isn’t asleep yet. You can ask her yourself.”

  “I’ll… I…” He drove a hand through his hair. “I’ll go up after supper.”

  Was it his imagination, or was there an unspoken ‘maybe’ at the end of that sentence?

  Carl leaned on the wrought-iron railing that surrounded the patio. “It’s getting harder and harder to know what to say to her.”

  Logan got it. Finding non-cancer-related topics had become a real challenge for him, too.

  “I can only imagine how tough it is for you,” Logan said. Because she was the love of his father’s life, and soon, he’d lose her. “But you’ve never dodged a tough situation in your life, and I know you won’t dodge this one. Bring the newspaper up there and read it to her. Better still, get one of her romance novels. She’d get a kick out of hearing you read it out loud.”

  That inspired a quiet chuckle. Then his dad turned and took a few steps away from Logan. “I’m a lot of things, son, but I’m not a hypocrite.”

  He didn’t understand, and he said so.

  “There are things I can’t get into right now, because…because your mother asked me not to tell you kids, and I gave her my word.”

  How bad could it be? he wondered.

  Pretty bad, if the somber silence was any indicator. The mood surrounding the patio reminded Logan of the night he’d told his parents he’d made the high school football team. We can’t stop you from playing that barbaric sport, they had said, but we won’t help you hurt yourself…or anyone else. He was on his own, they’d added, for sports physicals and any other expenses connected with the Centennial Eagles. Balancing school, homework, practice and a part-time job hadn’t been easy, but Logan loved the sport enough to sacrifice time with his buddies to earn every dollar and maintain a 3.8 GPA. Four years later, his folks’ reaction had been eerily similar when the University of Maryland had offered him a football scholarship, and again when the Knights had picked him in round one of the NFL draft weeks after graduation. Oddly, they were nothing but supportive when the concussion ended his career, and his parents had remained his staunches
t allies all through rehab…and every day since.

  “Mom doesn’t expect anything from us,” he said, gripping his dad’s shoulder, “except to be there.”

  “You, Sandra and Sarah, maybe, but not me.”

  He sounded defeated. But there was something more in his sad, strained voice. Shame?

  “Dad. C’mon. She’s in pain. And scared. And we both know how vain she is. She probably just doesn’t want her best guy to see her looking—”

  He met Logan’s eyes. “Let it go, son. There are things you can’t possibly understand. And I can’t explain them because I promised not to. I owe it to her to keep my word about that, at least.”

  Times like these, Logan wished he could read minds. There was a hidden message, a warning of some sort in his father’s peculiar words. He shouldn’t have been surprised because his parents had always kept secrets from their kids. About money. About job changes. About illness. The best example of all was waiting until the surgeon had removed fourteen inches of his mom’s colon before sharing the bad news: she’d die before the year was out.

  “Well,” he said, giving his dad’s shoulder a slight squeeze, “when you’re ready to talk, if you’re ever ready, I’m here.”

  Carl nodded. “I know.” He placed his hand atop Logan’s. “Thanks, son.”

  His dad turned suddenly and faced the patio doors. “I’m going to bed,” he said, his voice laced with regret and profound sadness. “Don’t be such a stranger, okay? Your mother needs you now.”

  Logan nodded, knowing his father needed him, too. Long after his dad had gone inside, Logan sat on a creaking lawn chair, elbows on knees and head down, trying to puzzle out what had just happened between him and his dad.

  Movement behind him caught his attention, and he looked up as Sandra stepped onto the patio.

  “I feel the same way after five minutes with either of them,” she said, handing him a steaming mug of coffee. Taking the seat beside him, she tugged her sweater around her. “Aren’t you cold? It can’t be more than forty degrees out here.”