Chapter 6

ChapterSix

‘Where you headed so late in the day?’ Logan’s grandmother caught him in the process of trying to slip out quietly.

‘Going into town. Probably won’t be back til morning.’

‘Morning?’ His grandmother’s eyebrows rose to her curly white hairline. ‘What’s got you in town until morning? A new lady friend. Or a gentleman friend. You know it doesn’t matter to me as long as you’re happy dear,’ she said with a smile, as she patted him on the arm and scooted past him into the kitchen. It would have been easier to confess that he was meeting someone in town instead of explaining that he was going on a ghost stakeout with the new owner of the PS Café, whom he’d been having a very hard time not thinking about all weekend.

He’d made it to the shop Saturday and Sunday, happy to have his usual coffee fix back in place. It had nothing to do with catching a glimpse of Jeanie behind the counter, beaming at each customer as she rang up their orders. Or the fact that she’d looked totally in her element even when every other townsperson wanted her whole life story and current business plan for the café. Or the fact that her rotation of fall sweaters hugged her curves in very distracting ways. He was just a man who liked coffee.

The reopening had a big turnout as expected, and Jeanie didn’t have more than a word or two to spare for him both days, but she did manage to tell him that she’d slept much better with the earplugs. Which was good because the sooner she went back to sleeping at night, the sooner he was off the hook for helping her.

Which was definitely what he wanted.

‘You want some dinner before you go? I got some stew in the crock pot,’ Nana asked, and Logan waited until her back was turned before he grimaced. He loved his grandmother, but her cooking was atrocious. Her crock pot was where food dreams went to die.

‘No, thanks. Already ate.’

She studied him as she scooped out a bowl of stew for herself. Her light purple sweatshirt had a wolf on the front howling at the moon, and the fluorescent, athletic pants she wore underneath it meant she’d been at her aerobics class today. Logan bit back a smile. His nana had more energy than most thirty-year-old’s he knew.

‘So, you gonna tell me what you’re up to, or you don’t tell your grandmother things anymore?’ She took a mouthful of stew and scowled, dropping the spoon back into the bowl. ‘Something went wrong with that batch.’

Logan huffed a laugh as his grandmother pulled a carton of ice cream out of the fridge instead.

‘There’s not much to tell.’ He leaned against the doorframe of the kitchen and the wood groaned. The old farmhouse was nearly 150 years old. There weren’t many parts of it that didn’t groan and creak like an old man’s joints. He liked it that way. There was history in this house. It was worn in like the perfect pair of old jeans.

‘You know I’m a cool grandma. One-night stands, friends with benefits, picking girls up at the bar. Nothing shocks me.’ She took a big spoonful of ice cream and smiled. ‘That’s much better.’

Logan stepped into the kitchen and laid a kiss on her cheek. ‘I know. You’re very cool. It’s just something Pete wrangled me into.’

‘That man is nuttier than a squirrel in spring.’

Logan laughed. ‘He sure is. I’ll see you in the morning.’ He turned to go. The sun had already set, and he’d promised Jeanie he’d be there by eight.

‘Well, I’m always here if you need to talk, my little loganberry pie.’

He never knew what the hell a loganberry was, but his nana had been calling him that as long as he could remember. At this point in his life, she was the only mother he knew; his own mother had slowly faded from his memory. Now all he had were bits and pieces, a flash of a song she used to sing, or the rose water scent she used to wear.

But Nana had always been there for him. He stooped down and gave her a hug, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. ‘If anything worth mentioning happens, you’ll be the first to know.’

She smiled. ‘That’s all I ask.’

* * *

He was greeted by the only ladies he ever understood as soon as he stepped outside. His little flock of silkie chickens were his pride and joy. He tossed them some leftover corn from his dinner as he walked to his truck, enjoying their contented clucks and coos. Chickens he could do. Chickens made sense. Chickens didn’t pretend they loved you until you proposed in front of the whole damn town at the annual Christmas-tree lighting and then suddenly changed their mind.

Logan’s body went cold and then hot at the memory. It wasn’t just the devastation of losing Lucy or the absolute confusion at her answer. It was the utter humiliation of having it happen in front of everyone he ever knew. And then the damn pity in everyone’s eyes afterward. It was bad enough growing up as the town orphan, adding ‘pathetic, lonely man’ to his resume was a real kick in the nuts.

Nearly a year later and he still wasn’t over it. Not Lucy. Lucy, he was over. They never made sense anyway. They’d met while she was on some kind of girl’s weekend. She’d caught his eye at Mac’s, which wasn’t hard since she was the prettiest girl in there and the only one he hadn’t known since childhood.

Her girls’ weekend turned into a hot and heavy weekend for the two of them and Logan thought that’d be it. But she kept coming back to visit and he took time away from the farm to go see her in Boston. For a while, he thought maybe it could work.

But in the end, Lucy wanted him to be something he wasn’t. As it turned out, Dream Harbor was fun for a mini vacation, but not somewhere she wanted to stay. She didn’t like small-town life. She hated the farm, thought it was too smelly, too dirty, too old.

He should have seen her answer coming from a mile away. But she’d said she loved him, and he believed her, idiot that he was. He knew a small, quiet proposal wouldn’t have suited her. Lucy liked big and bold, loud and flashy. Everything Logan wasn’t. Another giant red flag he dutifully ignored until it was too late.

And so there he stood, on the town’s biggest night, in front of the giant tree in the middle of the town square. He’d planned it all out with Mayor Kelly. Right after the countdown, Logan would drop to his knee in front of everyone and propose.

The scene ran through his mind in horror-movie slow motion as he walked down the dusty drive to his truck. He had dropped to his knee, pulled out the ring and the entire crowd went eerily quiet. He should have noticed the alarmed look on Lucy’s face. It wasn’t the look of a woman about to say yes. It was the look of a woman ready to flee.

And that’s just what she did. He barely had the words, ‘Will you marry me?’ out of his mouth before she was shaking her head and running from the square, leaving Logan to face the stunned crowd. She was on the first commuter train to Back Bay the next morning.

His stomach clenched at the memory.

Good, he thought. Hold on to that feeling. Because that was exactly what would happen again if he got involved with Jeanie. The town was already obsessed with her being here. One, because she was new. Two, because she was serving them their life-giving coffee. And three, because she was a beautiful ray of sunshine.

Nope. Cut it out.That’s exactly the kind of nonsense that’d blinded him to reality last time. Jeanie just got here. Not to mention she had no experience running a small business. And she was used to living in Boston. Logan absolutely could not get involved with someone who had one foot out the door. Again.

No more dating flight risks. No more dating with the town watching.

Two simple rules to remember. Surely, even a man with a history of making horrible decisions regarding women could do that.

He stopped in front of the old fence that kept Harry Styles, his rescue alpaca, safely out of the driveway. Or attempted to. He was always finding the shaggy animal everywhere he shouldn’t be, including with his head halfway in the kitchen window munching on the screen.

He gave the old boy a good scratch on his head, Harry giving him a flick of his ears in thanks. His grandmother had let the small group of girl scouts, that had dropped by with her cookie order one day, name him, but Logan had to admit, it suited him. There was something very confident about this alpaca, something that said he could sell out stadiums to thousands of screaming fans, too, if he wanted. He’d just rather be here, munching grass instead.

Logan scratched him a bit longer, letting his old memories drift away before heading to Jeanie’s. It was a cool night even though it was only early October, and the wind rustled the dry leaves across the fields. The moon was full and bright overhead, with a stray cloud casting a shadow across it every now and then.

As good a night as any for a ghost hunt, he supposed.

He bid Harry goodbye and hopped in his truck. Might as well get this whole absurd night over with, he told himself, even as his stomach flipped with a new emotion he refused to identify as excitement to see Jeanie.