Deserving of Luke

A ninety-thousand-dollar BMW, someone else imparted. Of course, she’d gotten it illegally. Hadn’t they always known she was going to turn out to be a drug dealer’s girlfriend? He’d tried to put that rumor to rest by mentioning the latest movie she’d been involved with, but he’d known his protests had fallen on deaf ears when the same person asked if he thought Paige was on the run from her drug-dealing boyfriend.

Did he know why she was back?

Logan’s simple morning walk through town had turned into a nightmare. And for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why he cared.

Yes, he and Paige had been an item a million years ago. And, yeah, she’d screwed him over totally and completely. But that didn’t mean he wished her ill, didn’t mean he wanted any of the things the towns-people were speculating about to be true. Any more than it meant he wanted to see her.

Sure, he might be curious about what she’d been up to. And why she had chosen now—when he’d been in Prospect a little over eighteen months and was finally getting comfortable with his new life—to come back to town. But it didn’t matter. It wasn’t like he would be asking her any of those questions any time soon.

If they met up, when they met up—this was Prospect after all, and there were only so many places to frequent—he would be polite, courteous. Treat her the way he did any of the other people under his protection. Because that’s what she was to him—all she would ever be to him. Maybe she’d meant something to him in the past, but that was a long time ago. The present and future were a whole different story.

He was the first to admit he’d made a lot of mistakes in his life. But from the time he was a kid, he’d made a point of not making the same mistake twice.

And Paige had been more than a youthful mistake. She’d been a goddamned natural disaster that had ripped apart the very fabric of his life. And it had taken him too long to get over her to ever let her back in again.

Pasting a wide—and hopefully not glazed—smile on his lips, Logan continued toward the diner in as straight a line as he could manage. He didn’t know much about Paige anymore, but he knew he was going to lose it if he had to hear one more ridiculous rumor about her. Or her son.

Then Ruth Oberly stepped into his path and asked if he’d had a chance to see Paige Matthews’s son yet. When he’d told her he hadn’t, she’d looked at him blandly and said that she thought the boy looked just like his father.

Logan’s back went ramrod straight at this new piece of information, and he had to force himself to relax. Normally, he didn’t mind the gossip that was part and parcel of living in a small town—it was relatively harmless, after all—but Paige’s child was still a raw spot for him.

The knowledge came as a surprise, and not a pleasant one. In fact, he was so busy trying to wrap his mind around the implication that one look at the kid had given Ruth a good idea of who his father was, that he nearly missed the diner. Logan had spent a lot of hours trying to convince Paige to tell him the truth about which of his high-school classmates had gotten her pregnant and the thought that he might finally be able to find out, after all these years, had him reeling.

Which was perfectly normal, he assured himself. It wasn’t as if they didn’t have history together. After Paige had left Prospect, he’d spent weeks—months—lying awake wondering about her. Wondering if she was okay. Wondering if the father of her kid was helping her out. Every time one of the guys from Paige’s side of the river had left town, Logan had wondered if he was the one. If he was sneaking off to be with Paige, wherever she was.

Eventually he’d left himself, gone to college, and memories of her had faded to bittersweet regret. Sure, she’d creep up on him sometimes, but he figured that was normal, when all was said and done.

First love was a bitch, after all. Sure, he’d gotten over her, moved on with his life, even gotten married to a woman he’d loved. But that didn’t mean memories of Paige—memories of them—didn’t catch him off guard every once in a while. They’d sneak in when he least expected it—a glimpse of the swings at the park, the teasing scent of lilac in the woods, a stray word about her sister and the crazy house Penny had bought with the hope of turning it into a bed and breakfast—and suddenly he’d be right back there, crazy in love with a girl his parents wouldn’t let in the front door.

But that’s all they were, he assured himself. Just memories. And if hearing about her son was a kick in the ass, the sting would quickly fade. After all, her betrayal had happened a long time and a lot of women ago. He had more important things to worry about these days than ancient history.

And yet, he found himself thinking about her. The idea that Paige was here now, that the answers to all those old questions were suddenly within his reach, had him thinking about things that were better laid to rest.

Frustrated, out-of-sorts, his earlier enjoyment of the day completely gone, Logan pushed open the door to the diner. And got a hell of a start when nearly every face turned toward him, the low buzz of conversation coming to an abrupt halt.

Okay. Never comfortable being the obvious topic of conversation he reminded himself of all the positive reasons to living in a town where he knew well over half the population. There was always someone to talk to, always someone around to lend a hand.

Even with the good points outweighing the bad, it didn’t mean it was always easy. Especially not when people were interested to see what his reaction would be to the knowledge that Paige, and her son, were back in town. Well, they’d learn soon enough it was no big deal. He and Paige were nothing to each other anymore.

Glancing around the diner with a friendly smile, he breathed a small sigh of relief when his gaze landed on Joni. There was nothing like a date with one woman to lay old gossip about another to rest.

Grinning for real this time, he started toward her table. There was nothing wrong with him, a hamburger, a piece of peach pie and some time with Joni wouldn’t fix.

Focused on his target, Logan didn’t see Paige until he was almost on top of her. And when it finally registered on him that the pretty woman at the next table was the grown-up version of his high-school sweetheart, it was too late to do anything but stare.

And stare he did, his mind cataloguing all the differences between this woman and the girl he remembered. Her platinum-blond hair was a lot shorter, cut into a sassy style that suited the woman, but not the vulnerable young girl who’d once confided to him that she liked him because she didn’t have to play a part for him.

Her heart-shaped face was thinner, her cheekbones more prominent, her green eyes darker and more wary than they had ever been. Only her lips were the same—lush and a little lopsided, their raspberry color as tempting as ever.

She was wearing a violet tank top that showed off curves much more lush than he remembered and, though he told himself to move on, to pull out a chair at Joni’s table, he didn’t move. Instead, he stood there, willing Paige to look at him.

At first, he didn’t think she was going to, thought she was going to pretend to be oblivious to his presence. But as he contemplated doing something stupid to get her attention, she met his gaze with her own unflinching stare. For one long, indefinable second, it was as if they were back in high school, when it had been only the two of them no matter how many other people were in the room.

He heard her catch her breath, felt his own hitch in his chest. His hand reached out to her of its own volition and it took every ounce of self-control he had not to trace the familiar dusting of freckles on her cheeks, as if nine years and countless arguments didn’t lay between them.

He started to say something, stopped. Tried again, stopped again. Then the moment was gone, her attention diverted by a young voice asking, “Mom, can I get my milkshake now? I ate all my green beans.”

Her expression appeared stricken before she turned her attention to her son. For a second Logan couldn’t figure out what was wrong. Then he looked toward the boy sitting across from her, his black curls gleaming under the restaurant’s warm, yellow lights, and Logan’s entire world caved in.

He felt his jaw slacken and his eyes widen as a thousand different questions exploded in his head. As he looked over Paige’s son, Logan told himself that it couldn’t be. That he had to be mistaken. That Paige wouldn’t have his child without telling him.

The words circled his brain, a particularly ineffectual mantra. Because even as he was talking to himself, even as he was trying to convince himself that he was wrong, that he was making a huge mistake, he knew he wasn’t. This child—this lively, eight-year-old boy with the silver eyes and small birthmark on his right cheek—was his son and he didn’t even know the kid’s name.

The realization was a blow that nearly brought him to his knees. Shock and sorrow warred within him, followed by the beginnings of a rage so powerful it made him shake.

His child had existed in the world for eight years and he hadn’t known.

His child had grown and laughed, hurt and played, for eight years and he hadn’t known.

His child had—

“Hello, Logan.”

Screw pleasantries. There was only one thing he wanted from her. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Paige raised one blond eyebrow, smiled serenely, coolly as if the same moments that had just blown Logan’s world to hell and back had barely affected her.

“I did tell you. You chose not to believe me.”

That was it. No explanation, no plea for forgiveness, no acknowledgment of guilt. A few simple words that did nothing to lower his blood pressure, and nothing to set this situation to rights.

“You know that’s a bunch of bull—”

“No milkshake today,” she announced to her son, to their son.

As much as Logan resented her interruption, the still-functioning part of his brain appreciated it. This was not the place—in full view of the curious patrons, of his date…of their son—to give vent to the rage boiling inside him.

“We’ll get one next time,” she continued, speaking to their boy. “We need to get back soon or Aunt Penny’s going to send the cavalry after us.”

The boy rolled his eyes. “There’s no cavalry anymore, Mom. Now the army uses tanks.” He turned to Logan. “Who are you?”

Logan had no idea where to begin to answer that, so he kept quiet. Let Paige field the question.

“He’s just someone I used to know. Back when I was in high school.” She reached for her purse. “And the fact that there’s no cavalry anymore is an even better reason for us to head home. Can you imagine a tank rolling down Main Street?”

“That’d be cool! Do you think it would point its big gun at the diner?”

“I can only hope.” With that cryptic comment, Paige stood, dropped some money on the table then herded her child toward the door.