Read Brave the Storm, Season 2, Episode 3 (Rising Storm) Online

Authors: Lisa Mondello

Tags: #Rising Storm, #small town, #Lisa Mondello, #Texas, #Romance

Brave the Storm, Season 2, Episode 3 (Rising Storm) (8 page)

BOOK: Brave the Storm, Season 2, Episode 3 (Rising Storm)
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A feeling of sadness enveloped Ginny as she felt the baby move inside her. Little Bit could be Jacob’s baby. She so wanted it to be. Maybe. But she wouldn’t know for a while.

Max reached across the table for her hand.

Leaning forward, she gave his hand a squeeze in thanks.

“What is it?”

“I just really miss Jacob. I wonder sometimes what he’d be saying to me now after everything that’s gone on.”

“He’d be there for you no matter what. I’m just really glad you called me. I’m glad I can be here for you.”

The bell over the door rang. Both Ginny and Max turned to see who was coming through. As soon as Ginny saw Logan’s face, she snatched her hand away.

“Logan!”

His eyes were like ice as he glared at her from the doorway. It was all deserved. He’d opened himself to her completely about his struggles and she hadn’t done the same. She’d held back. She could argue that she truly believed that the baby she was carrying was Jacob Salt’s. She had no idea that Jacob was infertile.

But that was beside the point. She hadn’t been honest. She realized now that it wouldn’t have been easy for Logan to hear about her affair with Sebastian Rush. Things may not have moved in the direction they had between them. But she should have at least given Logan the chance to hear the truth and come to terms with it. Her omission was a lie even if she hadn’t uttered the words.

His eyes remained fixed on her for a moment and then turned to Max.

She stood up from the table. “Logan, have you met Max?”

“I’m not here to see you, Ginny,” he said flatly. “Or your friend.”

Her breath caught in her throat as she stifled a sob. When was it going to get easier to see Logan? Would there ever be a time when he wouldn’t hate her as he did now?

Logan walked to the counter where Marisol was busy putting out pastries she’d just taken out of the oven.

“Hi, Marisol,” Logan said. “My mother sent me over to pick up something special you were making for her?”

“It’s in the refrigerator out back. Someone having a birthday tonight?”

“Just a customer from out of town. I don’t know who it is. She wants to have a little family party at the pub tonight and you know my mother. She volunteered to organize it.”

“Well, that was nice of her. Give me a second and I’ll be right back with the cake,” Marisol said, pasting on a smile for Logan. As Marisol slipped into the back room, Ginny could see her sister struggling to remain professional even though she knew Logan’s brush-off was killing Ginny.

Ginny had done this. She’d been the one to create this. She’d brought this on the family and now her sister’s business could suffer because of it. Sure, Sonya Murphy wouldn’t hold it against Marisol that Ginny had lied to her son. But Sonya Murphy couldn’t buy enough cakes and pastries to keep Cuppa Joe afloat.

The tension in the room was palpable and more than Ginny could stand.

Look at me, Logan.
But he wouldn’t.

When it became too much for Ginny, she blurted out, “I’ll see you at home, Marisol.” Logan didn’t turn to look at Ginny or Max when they both stood up to leave. “I’ll see you, too, Logan?”

He didn’t answer. It was as if she wasn’t even there. And maybe that’s what it had come to.

“Come on, Ginny,” Max said, holding the door open for her.

She looked back once, just to see if he would turn to look at her. Then she let Max lead her out the door and walk her down the street to her car. She’d wait to cry, because she knew the tears would come again. She just wouldn’t do it in the middle of Storm where people could see her. She wasn’t about to give them more talk. She’d already given them enough to last a lifetime.

 

Chapter Eight

Logan felt the rush of hot air against his back and willed himself to keep from turning around. Who the fuck was this guy with Ginny? Had she already found someone else to lie to?

Marisol came in from the back room with a sheet cake in her hand. “What do you think?” she asked, showing him the cake.

He didn’t care about the damned cake. He wished he hadn’t even come here to pick it up. “It’s fine.”

“Fine? Since when has one of my cakes been just fine?”

Logan shrugged and pulled his wallet out of his back pocket. “How much do I owe you?”

“I’ll just put it on your mother’s account.”

“Fine.”

He watched as Marisol carefully placed the cake into a box.

“It’s good to see you, Logan,” Marisol said, closing the box. She reached for the tape dispenser on the counter, cut a small piece, and secured the box.

Then she pushed it closer to the end of the counter.

He should say something. But Logan didn’t really know what to say to Marisol. She was Ginny’s sister.

“I’ve been busy.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it. You’re avoiding Ginny because you’re hurt.”

He drew in a deep breath and reached for the box, but Marisol put her hand on his, stopping him.

“She’s hurting, too, Logan,” she said. “I know you don’t believe that because you think she somehow did this on purpose. But she didn’t. I know she loved you. She still loves you.”

“Really? It didn’t look that way to me,” Logan said.

Marisol frowned. “You mean Max?”

“I don’t care who the guy is. I don’t want to know anything about it.”

“He was Jacob’s roommate and Ginny’s friend from college. As far as I know, that’s all they are.”

She let go of the box and Logan quickly retrieved it from the counter. “Well, we don’t always know everything. Do we?”

His heart pumping, Logan pushed through the door to the sidewalk and started walking back to Murphy’s. Ginny was a damned liar. There was no way to move on from that. But no matter what Marisol said, it looked like she already had.

Logan just wished it didn’t feel like a kick in the gut.

 

* * * *

 

Anna Mae glanced out the window once again at that fool of a man who still sat in the truck. He had the windows down, which meant that he wasn’t running the a/c, but it was unseasonably hot today, and she knew he had to be melting in the cab, especially since he was used to Nashville weather, and it tended to be at least ten degrees cooler than central Texas this time of the year.

Still, his comfort was hardly her problem. She’d kicked the habit of worrying about Chase Johnson years ago and she wasn’t about to start up that addiction again.

She grabbed a rag and started wiping down the counters.

Then again, it would be terribly inconvenient if he got heat stroke. After all, if she let the man die right there in front of the house, that would be terrible for the business she and her sister worked so hard to build.

Telling herself she was only watching out for the B&B, she grabbed a bottle of cold water from the refrigerator and then headed out the kitchen door. The chrysanthemums she’d planted last week in the side garden patio had taken root and were starting to grow. But she couldn’t appreciate the fruits of her labor until she got rid of Chase.

As she approached the truck, she saw that now the driver’s side door was open and one of his boots was on the pavement. The closer she got to the truck, the more he came into view. The passenger side window was open and he was fiddling with something in the front seat of his car.

Well, at least she wouldn’t find him dead. The sooner Anna Mae could get him to close the truck door and drive away, the better she’d feel.

“What the devil are you doing outside my house?” she said when she finally reached the truck. She peered in the passenger’s side window and immediately was taken aback by what she saw. It was a little kitten, probably no more than a couple of months old. Her heart melted.

“Yours?” he asked.

“What? No. We don’t have any cats here. Where did you find him… her… whatever?”

He picked up the kitten and pressed his lips to its nose. Then he inspected its parts before placing it back in the cowboy hat. “I think it’s a her. But I’m not sure. I found her running back and forth in the road a little ways down the street. If I’d been driving any faster I would have hit her.”

“What was she doing in the road?”

“Chasing a field mouse that was intent on not being caught. She wasn’t paying attention.”

Anna Mae’s irritation gone, she opened the passenger side door and inspected the little kitten who was curled up inside Chase’s cowboy hat.

“Is that bottle of water for me?” Chase asked.

“Uh, yeah, I brought it out for you. I thought maybe you were… Oh, it doesn’t matter. Here.” She handed him the bottle of water, which he opened right away. But instead of taking a sip of the water himself, Chase poured a few tablespoons in the palm of his wide hand and offered it to the kitten. The kitten stood up inside the overturned hat and went straight for the water, lapping at the liquid until it was gone.

“What are you going to do with her?” Anna Mae asked.

“I don’t know. Why don’t you take her?”

“Me? I can’t have a cat here. Some of our guests are allergic to cats. Beside, Rita Mae will have a fit if she starts scratching the furniture.”

Chase poured a little more water in his hand and offered it to the kitten. “Well, I guess I’m just going to have to take you home with me, little one.”

Feeling the sun beating down on her head, Anna Mae said, “You? What do you know about taking care of another living creature?”

He glanced up at her and smiled. “I grew up on a ranch, didn’t I?”

She shrugged, feeling slightly foolish for her quick judgment. “It’s been years since you worked on a ranch, Chase. Did you have a dog or cat when you were in Nashville?”

He shook his head. “I couldn’t. The hours I kept were too crazy to know when I’d be home to take care of a pet. Maybe my brother’s grandkids will have fun playing with her out in the barn. I’m sure they’d like that.”

Chase picked up the kitten again. She looked impossibly lost in his hands. She was so tiny. So vulnerable. And he held her so gently.

Oh, Lordy, Anna Mae, he was just holding a cat.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

He put the kitten on his shoulder. “I should think it’s obvious. I came to see you.”

“Again? Why do you keep doing this, Chase? I don’t know how to make myself more clear than I’ve been. What we had was over a long time ago and there is nothing left for us to say to each other. We’ve lived a lifetime without each other. I don’t want to see you.”

His smile was slow in coming, but when it finally took hold, it spread wide across his face. “If you don’t want to see me, why did you come out here?”

She opened her mouth to argue, but then closed it quickly. She didn’t have an answer to that. Well, not a good enough answer.

The truth was, ever since Chase had come back to Storm, it wasn’t that Anna Mae didn’t want to see him. She feared seeing him.

Over the years it had been easy to blame Chase for his leaving even though she’d given him her blessing to go. But deep down, she hadn’t believed he’d stay away. And then when he was gone and she found out she was carrying his child, it made it all the harder to call him and ask him to come home.

The anger that had built up over the years, that had replaced the heartache of losing Chase and their child, had kept her going. She knew that now. It was a bitter pill to swallow. But now that Chase was standing just feet away from her, she couldn’t ignore it. She’d never stopped loving him. All those feelings she’d felt as a young woman were still alive inside her. If she didn’t deal with it now, it would only crush her again when Chase left Storm.

The kitten was still climbing around Chase’s shoulders. Seeing the strong, sexy man and the adorable kitten made it hard for her to hang on to any of the anger that still lingered.

“The water was for you. I thought you were going to shrivel up and die in this heat. You know, this isn’t Nashville. It’s still as hot as hell down here. People die of heat stroke.”

“I thank you for the water and so does Patsy.”

“Patsy? You mean you’ve already named her?”

“Sure. Why not?”

He picked up the kitten and gazed at her face. The light in his blue eyes burned as bright as it did when they’d been lovers. There was a time Chase held her as lovingly and gently as he was holding that kitten. It was more than Anna Mae could take.

“She’s going to pee on you.”

The sound of his chuckle was low and rough. “I’ve had worse.”

“Gross.”

“I meant that metaphorically.”

“Oh. Well, I’ll leave you to her.”

Anna Mae started up the walkway toward the house. She did what she’d come out there to do. She’d given Chase Johnson a bottle of cold water and made sure he wasn’t dead. She didn’t have any more time to waste on nostalgia.

“Anna Mae?”

Don’t turn around again!

“What now?”

“Do you have a box?”

She turned to look at Chase then and saw that Patsy was climbing up his arm. Sighing, she waved for him to come into the house.

A few minutes later they were in the utility room going through different sized boxes that were left over from deliveries that had recently been made to the bed and breakfast. Chase wrestled with the kitten, who was a bundle of energy now that she was hydrated and out of the heat.

“This one is a good size. It’ll fit in the passenger’s seat so you can drive home.” Anna Mae brought the box out into the kitchen and put it on the floor. “Why don’t you let her try it?”

Chase gently placed the kitten in the box. She was none too happy with suddenly being confined and started to meow.

“Maybe she’s hungry,” Anna Mae said, going to the cabinet and then rummaging through it to see what she had. “We’ve never had a cat so I don’t have anything to give her.”

“Do you have a can of tuna?”

“Ah, of course. I just happen to have a few.”

She pulled out two cans of tuna from the cabinet, opened one of them with a can opener, and scooped a small portion into a small red plastic bowl that had been drying in the sink. She handed the bowl to Chase, who gave it to the kitten. Then she grabbed another red bowl and and filled it with water.

BOOK: Brave the Storm, Season 2, Episode 3 (Rising Storm)
12.87Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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