Chapter 19

ChapterNineteen

‘Can I get you a cup of tea while you wait, sweetie?’

‘That’d be nice, thank you.’

Logan’s grandmother, or Estelle as she insisted Jeanie call her, hustled back inside to make some tea. Jeanie was sitting on the steps outside the sprawling farmhouse Logan called home. It was beautiful. Old and for sure haunted, but beautiful. In front of her, a small flock of the funniest chickens she had ever seen pecked at the dirt. They each had a tuft of feathers on top of their head that gave them the look of having a very elaborate hairdo. They had the same tufts on their feet, which Jeanie imagined were like little fur-lined boots. Just looking at them made her smile.

This whole place made her smile. Until she remembered she hadn’t been invited.

She’d just hopped in her new rental car and shown up.

And the longer she sat here, the more she thought maybe it had been a mistake. Maybe Logan wouldn’t take kindly to her invading his home. But things had escalated in ‘the Case’ and she needed to get away from the café for a bit. Plus, she was nosy and really wanted to see where he lived and worked.

But maybe this was too much?

After their little make-out session a few days ago, Jeanie couldn’t stop thinking about him, and not just because she still had stubble burn on her cheeks from kissing him. It was more about how upset he’d been about the broken window. It had her thinking that maybe he actually had wanted to help her figure things out.

Maybe she wasn’t being too intense.

Then she’d decided to show up here and probably ruined the whole thing. Logan wanted to keep this thing between them quiet, and now she was ambushing him at home. She honestly wouldn’t be surprised if Kaori or Nancy jumped out of the blueberry bushes and started asking her why she was here.

Not that she didn’t love her new book club friends. But Logan was right: that club knew everything about everyone.

The old farmhouse door slammed shut behind her.

‘Here you go. Nice to have someone else serve you a drink every once in a while, right?’ Estelle leaned against one of the columns of the big wrap-around porch.

‘Yes, very. Thank you so much, but I was just thinking I should probably go.’

‘Go? But Logan should be back any minute.’

‘That’s okay. I don’t want to bother him. I’ll just talk to him some other time.’

Estelle raised a snow-white eyebrow, not at all convinced.

‘I’m not like everyone else in this batty little town,’ she said. ‘If you and my grandson have something going on, I don’t need to know about it.’

‘I ... we...’

‘Exactly. No need to discuss it.’ Estelle wiped her hands on the frilly apron she’d put on over her tie-dyed sweatshirt and neon-pink leggings. ‘But I do think you should stay. Logan’s been shy ever since he was small. It always makes me happy to see him make a friend.’

Jeanie smiled at the older woman. She couldn’t let this nice grandma down by running off now. Also, the thought of a shy little Logan was doing something mushy to her insides. She focused on the chickens.

‘Do they have names?’

‘I’m sure they do. That boy names everything, but I can’t keep track.’

Thinking of big, sturdy, bearded Logan as ‘that boy’ nearly made her laugh out loud. ‘Did he always like animals?’

‘Oh, yes. He used to bring all sorts of critters home. Birds with broken wings, squirrel pups without mothers – don’t need a psychology degree to figure that one out. Anyway, I had to draw the line the time he brought a bat into the house thinking it was injured. Turns out the damn thing was fine, just cold. Once it was nice and toasty in our house it shot out of the shoebox and started flying around the house shrieking like a, well, like a bat out of hell.’

Jeanie laughed, covering her face with her hand. ‘Not a bat! Terrifying.’

Estelle nodded. ‘Henry managed to chase him out, but from then on all rescues were relegated to the barn.’

‘Makes sense to me.’

The sound of truck tires on the gravel driveway ended the conversation.

‘There he is now. I’ll let you two chat.’ Estelle winked at her like she did not believe for one second that Jeanie was only here to chat. Great. Even Logan’s nana was onto her farmer-seducing ways.

Jeanie didn’t know if she should get up and meet Logan halfway down the drive or if she should sit here awkwardly and wait.

She went with sitting awkwardly.

A little fuzzy chicken hopped into her lap while she waited, making her feel a bit better. She patted its fluffy head, and it made a happy little coo-chirp sound. Meanwhile, Logan stepped out of the truck, not noticing her at all.

She watched him say hello to – what was, according to Estelle – an alpaca. Logan scratched the animal between the ears and Jeanie could swear the alpaca smiled. He made his way the rest of the way down the dirt path to the house, eyes on his boots until he was nearly to her.

By this time, she felt absurd for not calling out to him sooner, but she now had two chickens in her lap, and she was pretty sure one had climbed the steps and was looking for a way to perch on her head.

His gaze met hers and his eyes widened in surprise. He took her in, the whole ridiculous scene, Jeanie in her new, pre-torn jeans, her hair still tied back from work, with an assortment of birds twittering around her. One might have been drinking her tea. Was that bad for chickens? Oh, no. She did not want to be responsible for killing one of Logan’s chickens. Jeanie tried to shoo it away.

‘No, no. That’s not for you little chicken. You don’t want to get sick, do you?’ The chicken cocked its head and stared at her with beady eyes. ‘Shoo.’ She waved her hand toward it and the chicken hopped up onto her arm like it was a perch. Well, damn it. She placed this chicken in her lap to join the others. Good thing these were weird tiny chickens, or she’d be out of room.

She looked back up; Logan was still staring at her.

He hadn’t budged. He was just frozen, watching her. His mouth tugged up in the corner.

She grinned back. ‘I think your chickens like me. These are chickens, right? They’re weird.’

‘Silkie chickens,’ he said, striding toward her, a sort of shell-shocked look on his face.

‘Ooh ... fancy,’ she teased.

He ran a finger over one of the fluffy heads in her lap. ‘Very fancy.’

‘Do they have names?’

Logan’s cheeks blazed red, and he ran a hand through his hair. ‘Uh ... yeah.’

Jeanie waited. ‘And?’

He sighed. ‘Taylor, Rihanna, Lizzo.’ He pointed to the three chickens in her lap. ‘That’s Lady Gaga and Britney over there. And this is Selena trying to climb on your head.’

‘What?!’ The laugh that burst out of her mouth startled the chickens and they flew up in a puff of feathers. Jeanie doubled over in a fit of giggles. ‘You named your chickens after pop stars?’ she wheezed.

Logan shrugged. ‘It fits the theme.’

‘Oh, my God, what theme?’

He let out a long sigh, but his lips kept tugging higher into a smile. Jeanie wanted to bite it. ‘Well, the goats are Marley and Dylan.’

‘As in Bob?’

‘Yep.’

‘And the alpaca?’ she asked, unable to hide the mirth from her voice.

Logan grimaced. ‘Harry Styles.’

‘Harry Styles?’ Jeanie shrieked with glee. ‘Amazing.’

He had lost the fight with his smile and was now grinning at her. ‘Can’t stray from the theme now.’

‘Oh, definitely not.’

Logan huffed a laugh. ‘Everything okay?’

‘Oh, yeah. Everything’s fine. Sorry to just show up.’ She stood to go, but Logan put a hand on her arm. He squeezed gently.

‘You don’t have to apologize. Is something wrong?’

‘Well, I wanted to update you about the case.’

‘Right. The case. Come with me. You can tell me all about it.’

He led her around the side of the house, past a beautiful garden of late-blooming dahlias, giving the trees a run for their money with their own golds and reds and burnt oranges. The black-eyed Susans had started to tip over on their long stems, but Jeanie could imagine how cheerful they must have been in the summer.

Jeanie breathed in the warm hay and dry-leaf smell of the farm. A hint of woodsmoke and over-ripe apples drifted through the air. The whole place smelled like Logan. Someone should bottle it. Eau de Sexy Farmer. She stifled a giggle and followed Logan to a door at the side of the house.

He let them in, and Jeanie blinked, allowing her eyes to adjust after the brightness of the day. She was standing in a tidy apartment. Logan’s tidy apartment. His perfectly made bed was right next to her. Her mouth went dry.

‘You want something to drink?’ he asked, moving to the kitchenette along the far wall.

‘Just some water would be nice.’

Jeanie looked around while he poured her a glass, trying to satisfy her nosiness without being too obvious. There was a small table next to the kitchenette, the bed that she was certainly not thinking about, which filled most of the space, and a door she assumed led to a bathroom. Two nightstands flanked the bed, but only one was covered in books. On top of the stack sat a pair of reading glasses. Dear God, did Logan wear reading glasses?! She did not stand a freaking chance with this man. She might as well just hand over her panties right now.

Logan cleared his throat and Jeanie’s gaze snapped to his.

‘It’s not much,’ he said at the same time she said ‘I like your place.’

A small frown tipped his beautiful mouth down in the corners. ‘My grandfather and I added this apartment onto the house about a year ago. He thought he and my grandmother would take it when I ... uh ... eventually moved into the big house. But there’s not much reason for me to take that whole house for myself.’ His cheeks were flushed red, a deep crease in his brow.

Jeanie flopped onto his bed and Logan’s eyes widened. ‘Well, I like it. Just the right amount of space.’ She smiled up at him, hoping it conveyed everything she wanted to say but didn’t feel like she should. Mainly that Lucy was the one who lost, the one who’d missed out on loving this sweet man and being loved by him in return. And that Jeanie wouldn’t care if he lived in the damn root cellar at this point.

She was in deep.

Way deeper than she was expecting.

Way deeper than she could hide.

Logan continued to stare at her on his bed, his expression transforming from sad to something hungrier, heavier. Jeanie could feel the weight of it in her belly.

‘So, the case,’ she blurted, breaking the moment.

‘Right.’ Logan ran a hand down his beard, leaning against the kitchen counter. ‘What’s going on?’

Jeanie sighed. Here goes. Time to spill more nonsense into this man’s lap. But he asked for it . . .