Love In Logan Beach

“Rose,” he repeated, his voice barely above a whisper, yet it seemed to roar in her mind.

* * *

The benefit of the doubt. Rose heard a message her father used to give her when she was young and he’d take her to his office. When there was a problem related to people, he advised her to always give them the benefit that they might be right, or at least have a viable reason for whatever the issue was.

So she was going to believe that David had given her proposal its due when he presented it to the board.

Rose yawned. It has been a long weekend. Blinking, she tried to focus on the task list that appeared to grow with each ticking minute. Getting up, she headed for the kitchenette. She poured what had to be her hundredth cup of coffee in the last seventy-two hours. When she returned there was a note on her desk.

She picked up the white piece of paper and read out loud the three words on it.

“Go for it.”

With the paper still in her hand, she went into David’s office. She needed to know what it meant. It had only been an hour since she’d finished presenting. How could he have called a meeting, even if it was with family, and have a decision this fast?

“What does this mean?” Rose asked, extending her hand with the note in it.

David smiled. “You have a go.”

Rose said nothing for a moment. She was stunned.

“H-how?” she stammered. “I mean when? There wasn’t enough time.” She stopped because she was rambling. Her mind was rambling.

“I called the board. Or rather I emailed them. They said any changes I wanted to make were my decision.”

Rose’s mouth dropped open as the full impact of what she was hearing processed in her brain. Clamping her hand over her mouth, Rose kept herself from screaming.

“I can see that makes you happy,” David said. “Your eyes are as bright as the sun.”

Rose stifled a laugh. It came out as almost a sneeze.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized.

“No need. I know exactly how you feel.”

Rose nodded and as she headed toward her office, she knew he couldn’t possibly understand how she felt. She stopped and looked at the ceiling, but she was really looking to the heavens. Closing her eyes, she whispered a prayer. “Thank you, Daddy,” she said.

Standing there for several seconds, she thought about David. He wasn’t as bad as she initially thought. Maybe it was his family and not him who’d bought Bach’s. That thought brought her out of her reverie and she moved.

She should have been riding on air. David had just given her the go-ahead, but she’d been living on adrenaline and coffee for a few days. Returning to her office, she sat down and suddenly a long weekend of pushing herself to create and finish in time to present her ideas slammed into her like a sprinting runner bent on getting to the front of the pack.

At her desk, she rested her head and closed her eyes a moment. Sleep stole over her in seconds...

Her chair slid backward, crashing against the wall and jerking her awake.

David yanked her door open and rushed inside.

“Are you all right?” he asked, concern evident in his voice.

Rose was still trying to get her bearings and didn’t immediately focus on him. So she was unprepared when he pulled her chair around and went down on one knee so he was level with her.

Rose tried to keep the distress from her face, but she was too tired.

“I’m all right,” she said. “Just a little tired.”

“You’re going home,” David announced. His don’t-argue-with-me voice penetrated her mind, but she ignored it.

Pushing back, she said, “I don’t need to go home. I have a ton of things to do and with the addition of the—”

“Every one of them can wait until tomorrow. You’ve worked the entire weekend, night and day, it appears, so you’re going home.”

Rose accepted the argument. The thought of taking a nap seemed like the best idea in the world. But she didn’t want him to think she was incapable of handling her responsibilities.

David must have read her expression, because he answered her concern as if she’d voiced it.

“No one will think ill of you for taking a comp day. We all need them now and then.”

There was no one except the two of them, but Rose didn’t point that out. She nodded and moved to stand, but he was directly in her path. David got up and his hand went under arm, helping her to her feet. Rose felt steadier than she had before he appeared in her office, but she didn’t protest his touch. It was warm and she wanted to put her hand over his and turn to face him. Stifling the urge, she stood and pulled away, using the need to gather her purse and briefcase as a reason to remove the contact between their two bodies.

* * *

Logan Beach wasn’t a large place, even though its population swelled in the summer to thousands.

“Is it all right if I ask you a question?” Rose asked when they were driving in his car.

“Sure.”

“You’re a trained lawyer. How did you come to manage the Logan Beach store? Wasn’t the New York legal scene more your style?”

David negotiated around a tractor trailer and made a left turn before speaking. “About a year ago, my parents called a family meeting. There are five of us. My two brothers and twin cousins. The twins were raised by my parents and are more like brothers than cousins. Our parents announced their retirement.”

“Ah,” Rose commented.

“It wasn’t going to happen that fast. My mother is a visionary. She started out as a stay-at-home mom, but wanted more to life than rearing children. She loved to cook. So she started selling cakes from her kitchen in DC.”

“DC? I thought you were from New York.”

“No,” David said. He stopped at a light and glanced at Rose. She didn’t look as tired as when he’d found her asleep at her desk. “We moved to New York after she started baking. My father was transferred there and she had a few clients in Washington who recommended her to stores in New York. That was the beginning. Eventually the business grew so that she had to move production out of our house and into a small store, where she added ice cream and cold drinks to her menu.”

David remembered those days. He loved the ice cream.

“Soon it was evident she needed help. We all helped out after school and in the summer, but we were probably eating more than we sold.”

Rose laughed at that.

“My father quit his job when the store was making more profits than he made as a retail salesman. And he was tired of always traveling, especially after his brother died suddenly and my twin cousins came to live with us.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry.”