Heat Wave(45)

“I know you would rather think the best of someone than the worst, and I know no matter how many times they disappoint you, it doesn’t make you jaded in the least.”

His eyes stay locked on mine, a thread of intimacy between us. How could he know that about me? I’d never thought of Logan as someone who watched me that closely. Sometimes it looked like he did, that intensity in his gaze, as if he was studying you, observing, taking you all in. Not quite like a lab subject, more as mystery to be solved. But even so, I assumed his thoughts were always on anything else other than me.

He goes on. “And I know that you’re damn good at your job. That’s one of the reasons I hired you.”

I frown, puzzled. “How would you know? Had I ever cooked for you before I came here?”

He nods. “Yes. You didn’t know it. I went into your restaurant last time I was in Chicago. It was around noon. I saw you back there in the kitchen, and I saw you work on it. Spinach fettucine with shitake mushrooms and parm. Best I’d ever had.”

I’m amazed. Floored, even.

“What…was Juliet with you?”

He shakes his head. “Just me.”

“You came alone? Why?”

He stares into the fire, running his hand over his strong jawline, his beard sounding rough against his fingers. Above us the rain drips on the tarp, in the distance is the ever-present roar of the stream and the angry surf. The world doesn’t seem to pause, but the everything between us does.

“I wanted to prove everyone wrong,” he eventually says.

“I don’t…I don’t understand.”

He eyes me, his gaze resting momentarily on my lips. “Your sister. Your mother. Even your own father. None of them have any idea of what you do, what you’re capable of. They just talk. They don’t see. And I thought otherwise. So I went and checked it out for myself. And I was right.”

I can’t even believe it. My brain racks back, wishing I could have remembered that day.

“Do you remember Christmas?” he asks.

I nod.

You stood up for me.

“That was just an example…of their ignorance. Everyone is always so blinded by your sister.”

“Was blinded,” I correct him, my voice barely a whisper. I’m not sure we should even be talking about her in anyway other than complimentary.

“No,” he says. “Still is. Present tense. When your sister died…she died as the person everyone loved. I know that she was what you were always measured against, and I knew after she died, that it wouldn’t stop for you. If anything, it would be worse, because she’d forever be unflawed. And you…you’re full of flaws.”

I blink a few times. My heart is thumping louder, like it’s trying to break out of my ribs. “Thanks.” As if I needed a reminder of how imperfect I was. “You were blinded too, then.”

“Yeah,” he says softly. “I was.” He sighs, then props his elbows up on his knees. “You know that’s a compliment, right?”

“What is? That I’m terribly flawed?”

“Yeah.”

I roll my eyes. “I shouldn’t be surprised that you don’t know what a compliment is.”

“Yeah? But it is one. Because you wear your flaws, proudly. You are who you are. You aren’t ashamed of it. You tell the world that you’re real and you’re trying. Why else would you be here?”

“Because I had no choice,” I mutter. “We both know it. My mother made you hire me.”

“You mother has never been able to make me do anything,” he says, his voice gruff. “She’s the most flawed of us all, and you know that. It’s what makes her weaker than you’ll ever be. Because you have strength in every dark crevice, you’ve had to fight and you have the scars. That’s why you scare her, that’s why you scared both of them.”

“Both of them?”

He breathes out loudly through his nose. “You never realized that Juliet was afraid of you, did you?”

I balk at that. Literally flinch. “What the hell are you talking about?”

He twists to face me, his dark eyes glimmering from the fire. “You marched to the beat of your own drum. Juliet never got to do that. Her destiny was controlled from the moment she was born. Why do you think she married me? It was her only chance to rebel. To escape.”

I swallow hard. All these truths coming out at once are a little hard to take, and what he’s saying is exactly in line with what my mother was saying over the phone this morning. “I thought it was because you two were in love.”

He doesn’t say anything to that. Instead, he gets to his feet and walks out from underneath the tarp. “I’ll be right back,” he says. “I should get some more wood before it gets dark.”