Healed with a Kiss

It was too early in the season for planting, but Logan had the raised bed she’d requested ready for the first hint of warm weather. And already she was asking for changes? “I made it exactly to your specifications,” he said irritably.

“I know, and it looks great,” she assured him hastily. “But now that I see it finished, I just thought— Never mind, it’s great. I love it, thank you.”

And now he felt like a jerk for snarling at her. With a faint sigh, he reached out to squeeze her shoulder in apology. “Just let me know what adjustments you want. There’s plenty of time to take care of it before it’s warm enough to start planting. I’ll put up fencing after you plant to keep the rabbits and deer out.”

As was typical of his softhearted youngest sister, she moved closer to him and gazed up worriedly. “Are you not feeling well, Logan? You haven’t been quite yourself today.”

He forced a reassuring smile. “Just a little grumpy. Most folks would say I’m being totally myself.”

Her answering smile was fleeting, her strikingly blue eyes still focused on his face with uncomfortable intensity. “Does your head hurt? You’ve worked so hard this week, maybe you need some rest.”

“Bonnie, really. I’m fine. I’m sorry I snapped at you.” He was uncomfortably aware that he didn’t apologize easily, but Bonnie had a knack for making him feel guilty.

“Forget about the herb bed for now,” she said briskly. “Come inside. I made a pot roast for dinner. All I have to do is warm the bread and we’ll be ready to eat.”

“I was going to spread some mulch in the east-side rose bed before calling it quits for the day.”

“You can do that later. Come eat dinner. Rest awhile. I have cherry tarts for dessert,” she added enticingly.

He groaned. “Okay, fine. I’ll eat.”

Bonnie laughed softly. “I figured the cherry tarts would get you.”

“Oh, yeah.”

His deliberately light tone seemed to set her mind somewhat more at ease, though he thought he still detected concern in her smile. He couldn’t explain why he was so grouchy this evening. His mood had deteriorated steadily all day. Maybe his sister was right and he needed a break; he’d been working almost nonstop since returning from the Tuesday-morning hike with Alexis.

As expected, he hadn’t seen Alexis since, though he’d spoken with her briefly on the phone last night. She’d been tired from a long day of meetings and paperwork and phone calls. He’d been perturbed by a long day of things going wrong—not to mention that it had been almost two weeks since he’d visited her bedroom. Those kisses on the hiking trail had been great, but decidedly frustrating.

In past months, their work had kept them apart for considerably longer than a couple of weeks, with only an occasional phone call to keep them in touch. Maybe he was getting a little spoiled because they’d had more time to spend together during the slower off-season. As the spring passed and bookings for both of them increased, they’d be lucky to get together once a month. For that matter, he never knew when they parted if they’d get together again, considering they had no commitment, no expectations. And he was good with that.

Hell, for all he knew, she could be meeting the perfect Dr. Right at her mother’s house tonight, despite what she’d said about wishing her mom would stop trying to fix her up. Alexis had repeatedly implied that she wasn’t interested in tying herself down to anyone in particular for now, at least until she’d spent a couple years making sure her business was solvent, but who knew? Maybe Dr. Right could change her mind.

Somewhat savagely, he dried his freshly washed hands on a towel in Bonnie’s guest bath, then smoothed the scowl from his face and prepared to join his sister and brother-in-law for dinner.

“You should take a vacation, Logan,” Bonnie suggested over cherry tarts a while later. “Before we get too busy with spring weddings. The grounds look great, and none of our upcoming events are so complex that Curtis and his brother-in-law can’t handle them, especially since Butch Radnor is always available for temp jobs. When we shut down for those two weeks in January so Kinley and I could take off for our honeymoons, leaving you here to watch over the place by yourself, you promised you’d take some time off after we got back.”

Those couple weeks here by himself hadn’t been so bad, actually, though there’d been a snowstorm that had dumped quite a few inches on the grounds, requiring some quick action to prevent landscape damage. He and Ninja had been fine here on their own—and had been joined one night by Alexis. Taking advantage of having no family or guests at the inn to spot them together, she’d brought a bucket of chicken and a pan of homemade brownies and visited his bedroom for the first time, resulting in a few hours that still made him swallow hard when he mentally replayed them.

Mercifully unaware of the direction in which his thoughts had wandered, Bonnie continued, “If you don’t take off within the next few weeks, we’ll be well into the busy season and you won’t be able to get away for more than a few hours at a time for at least another six or seven months.”

Logan washed down a mouthful of tart glazed cherries with a sip of the coffee she’d served with it. “I don’t need a vacation.”

He saw her exchange a look with her husband before she said, “You haven’t had a vacation in at least three years, since we inherited the inn. Probably longer than that.”

“I took off to go hiking just this past Tuesday morning,” he reminded her, though he hadn’t mentioned who his companion on the hike had been.

“And you were back by midafternoon,” she retorted with a shake of her head. “That’s not enough time off to really decompress.”

“She’s not going to give up, you know,” Paul murmured over the rim of his coffee cup. “She’s afraid you’re headed for burnout.”

“I’m fine. I take time off.”

“You have gone out somewhat more during the past few months,” she acknowledged. “But an evening out with friends every week or so does not count as a vacation.”

She had no idea how much he enjoyed those evenings out with friends—especially since the friend in question was usually Alexis these days. It just seemed to have worked out that way. As a matter of fact, a couple more hours with her would go a long way toward the relaxation Bonnie was convinced he needed.

Though she was almost four years his junior, Bonnie had always been somewhat maternal in her manner toward him, especially since their mother died. The most domestic of the siblings, she loved cooking and decorating and taking care of others, which made her perfect for the general manager and chef role at Bride Mountain Inn. She’d been in the habit of fussing over him ever since a tumor in his left leg had struck him down in college, when she’d still been a senior in high school. He’d been pretty sick for a year through painful and debilitating treatments, but he had long since fully recovered. Bonnie knew that, intellectually, but there were still times when he suspected she looked at him and experienced painful memories, even though she knew he didn’t want to talk about that time. As far as he was concerned, it was all in the past. No need to relive it.

His ordeal had left him more reserved than he’d been before, more prone to be somewhat of a loner—and a great deal more skeptical of promises and expressions of loyalty from anyone outside his family. He had absolute faith that his sisters would be there for him through thick and thin, whatever happened—just as he would be for them. Anyone else...well, he’d long since decided that having no expectations was the best way to prevent being disappointed or disillusioned again.

Because he could trust his sister implicitly—and maybe because she’d softened him up with pot roast and cherry tarts—he kept his tone indulgent when he said, “I’ll let you know if I decide to take your advice. Now, I’d better head back to my place. Ninja’s going to want his evening walk. Thanks for dinner, Bon. It was delicious, as always.”

“Let me send a couple of tarts home with you for later.”

He grinned. “I won’t argue with that.”

* * *

“It was nice to meet you, Alexis,” Mark Fiorina said as he held her hand a bit too snugly in a good-night shake Friday evening. “I hope to see you again sometime?”

Turning the wish into a question made it clear he was fishing for her phone number, but she merely gave him a vague smile. “It was very nice to meet you, too, Mark,” she said.

Though he’d seemed a little dense when it came to social skills during the evening, he must have picked up on her politely worded message that she wasn’t interested in going out with him. Her mother’s latest “prospect” was pleasant enough, if a little dull, but she had no desire at all to see him again. With a nod, he took his leave of her mother’s home. Alexis intended to make her own escape almost immediately behind him.

“Honestly, Alexis, what was wrong with that one?” Paula Healey demanded from behind her daughter. Her hands were planted on her curvy hips, and her penciled brows creased beneath her salon-streaked ash-blond hair, making her bafflement clear. But then, that was the way her mother often looked at her. “He’s a good man, a successful investment banker, and you didn’t even give him your number, did you?”

“No, I did not. When are you going to stop these ridiculous attempts to fix me up with someone? I keep telling you, I’m not interested.”

Predictably, her mom’s lower lip quivered. “I just want you to be happy, Alexis. You need more in your life than work, you know.”

“I have more in my life than work. I am perfectly happy. I need you to accept that and back off, Mother.”

“I blame your father. Two nasty divorces set a terrible example for both you and your poor brother.”

Alexis didn’t even bother to point out that her mom had been involved in one of those nasty divorces, not to mention the years of acrimonious child custody fights that had followed. She knew her mother would argue that her current marriage was successful, though Alexis had always considered this one a rather calculated arrangement. Her mother, however, was the type of woman who needed to be married to feel secure, so whatever worked for her.

Alexis liked her stepdad just fine, though he was the reserved, brainy type who contributed little to a conversation unless it had to do with economics or American history. Like her mom, Duncan seemed content to be married for practical, socially advantageous purposes. They got along well, though they appeared to live almost separate lives from the same home, with different friends, different hobbies, different interests. Maybe they’d stay together, if for no other reason than because it would simply be too much trouble to split up. Maybe theirs was the best way to approach a marriage. No rosy-eyed illusions, no unrealistic expectations, no bitter disappointment when it didn’t turn out to be everything they’d dreamed of in romantic fantasies.

Yet just the thought of getting into a long-term relationship with Mark Fiorina—or any of the other men her mother had paraded in front of her—made Alexis so depressed she just wanted to curl up in a corner somewhere. She would so much rather have fun with Logan for a short time than tie herself down for years to someone who didn’t excite her at all. There was no way she was going to mention Logan to her mom, of course. Her mother would insist on knowing details and meeting him, interrogating them both, which would ruin everything. Her time with Logan was like a secret gift to herself, a private respite from all the annoyances in her life.