Crazy Little Thing Called Love (30 page)

Logan nodded, his wet hair tangled. “I'm an old high school friend of Vanessa's. Stopped by to say hello when I heard she was in town.”

“I'm Ted Topliff.”

Logan straddled the motorcycle. “You must be her fiancé. You're a lucky man.”

He put on his helmet, blocking his face from view and preventing further conversation. When he started up the bike, Vanessa stepped back onto the curb, Ted joining her.

“Why are you all wet, Vanessa?”

“I fell into the Gulf.” She stomped toward the house, her sodden boots and clothes squishing with every step. “Time for a shower.”

Let Logan drive off. There hadn't been any real goodbyes the first time. Why should she expect one now?

Was this how her mother felt when her father returned home from a long trip?

Vanessa checked her hair in the mirror again, still not quite used to the layers. Would Logan like that she was letting it grow long? Would he like the haircut Mindy had talked her into, the strands framing her face?

She pressed the palms of her hands against her stomach, willing it to settle. This was Logan, her husband, she was waiting for—not some unknown guy coming to pick her up for a blind date. She wouldn't tell him about the couple of classmates she'd had to fend off during the last semester while Logan was in Oklahoma—the ones who somehow didn't see her wedding band. Or didn't care about it.

She resisted sneaking one of the peanut butter chocolate chip cookies she'd baked in the Hollisters' larger kitchen—a treat she'd prepared for Logan. He'd be hungry and tired after a long day on the road from Oklahoma. He'd probably eat half a dozen while he unpacked. And then, who knew? Maybe they'd go have dinner at the Boathouse, or ride the motorcycle over the bridge and walk on the beach. It didn't matter. They'd be together. And after surviving the first semester apart—and Logan not even coming home once for a long weekend at Thanksgiving because he was working on some sort of huge group project—surely he was as tired of their long-distance marriage as she was. Maybe during Christmas break she could convince him to transfer to FSU.

The sound of the door opening had her whirling around, smoothing her hair away from her face.

“Vanessa? You here already?” Logan stepped inside, dropping his bike helmet at his feet.

“Yes—oh, Logan, I'm so glad—” She ran to meet him, throwing her arms around him. Inhaled the scent of his hair, savoring the feel of his arms around her. At last.

“Hey. I've missed you, too.” He pressed a kiss to her neck and laughed, low and husky.

And then someone else laughed.

What?

Her eyes flew open, and she stared into an unfamiliar pair of light brown eyes. Startled, she stepped out of Logan's embrace. “Who is this?”

Logan grabbed her hand again, moving her forward. “Vanessa, this is Brady. I met him at school this semester. He's a meteorology major like me. Brady, this is my wife, Vanessa.”

Brady nodded, offering her a cockeyed grin and a brief wave. “A lot of us couldn't believe Logan had a wife—especially some of the girls in our classes.”

“Hey.” Logan lifted his left hand. “I always wore my wedding ring.”

“And now I've met the missus, so I can vouch for you.”

“Does Brady live in Niceville, too?” Vanessa fought to keep up with the conversation.

“No.” Logan refocused on her. “His parents are stationed overseas—and he's stateside for the holidays. So I invited him to come spend the break with us.”

His words were a verbal douse of cold water to Vanessa's emotions. “He's staying here?”

“Sure. We've got the bedroom, and I told Brady that he'd have to surf the couch. He's good with that.”

Brady took a few steps back. “Let me go get our stuff off the motorcycle.”

“Don't worry about it.” Logan motioned him inside. “We can do that later.”

“Not a problem.” Brady disappeared outside.

Vanessa pulled her hand free from Logan's. “You didn't mention Brady was coming home with you.”

“Well, I wasn't sure he was until yesterday. And I knew you wouldn't mind—I mean, you of all people understand being a military kid, right? And what did your mother always say? ‘There's always room for one more'?”

“But, Logan, you didn't tell me.”

“What was I supposed to do? Leave the guy on campus for Christmas?”

“No, of course not. I'm not saying that.” Vanessa rearranged the still-warm cookies into a neater pile. Logan hadn't even noticed them. “I was just excited about seeing you, that's all.”

“And you
will
see me.” He came up behind her, slipping his arms around her waist and pulling her up against him. “I'm right here for an entire month.”

“And so is Brady.”

“He's a great guy. It'll be fun.”

Fun. Right.

•  •  •

Logan crawled into bed next to Vanessa, who lay on her side, knees pulled up to her chest, her hair spilling across the pillow. Two-thirty in the morning.
Whoa
. He hadn't expected to be out that late with Brady and a few of his high school buddies, playing video games at one guy's house. He couldn't blame her for not waiting up—but why hadn't she come along with them?

He eased closer to his wife, molding his body to the curve of her back, inhaling the familiar scent that lingered in her hair. Beautiful. He hadn't forgotten the enticement of sleeping with Vanessa, but being this close to her caused all his senses to go on heightened alert. He stroked his fingertips along the length of her neck and down her shoulder.

“I'm awake.”

Vanessa's words were spoken as a statement—not an invitation. No warmth, not even the hint of  
I've been waiting for you. Welcome home.

“I'm sorry if I woke you up—”

“No. No, I was awake when you came in.” She rolled onto her back, shrugging out of his embrace, effectively putting distance between them.

Now he could see the shadowed lines of her face, thanks to the bit of light shining in through the bedroom window. In the semidarkness, he noted the tight lines bracketing her mouth.

“You okay?”

“How can you even ask me that?” The question was a verbal smack, even as she remained motionless in the bed.

“I don't understand—”

She pressed the palm of her hand against her mouth, the sound of her deep inhale—hold—and exhale filling the room with tension so palpable Logan wanted to reach out and shove it away.

“What's wrong, Vanessa?”

“Now you ask me that—what? Four days before I leave for Tallahassee?” She stared at the ceiling. “You go to Oklahoma for college because it's your dream. You don't come home for Thanksgiving because you have homework—”

Logan propped himself up on one elbow. “Hey, we both agreed to that decision!”

“You made up your mind before you ever talked to me about it—don't deny it. And then you come home for Christmas with your buddy—and you spend all your time hanging with him and your high school friends.”

“I just want Brady to have a good time. What's wrong with that?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all.” She rolled over so he was staring at her back again.

“Vanessa, if you're mad at me, say so.”

Silence.

And then, just when he was beginning to think,
What am I supposed to do, sit up all night and make her talk to me?
she bolted upright.

“I am not going to remind you that you're married.”

“What are you talking about?”

“And I am not going to beg you to pay attention to me.”

“Vanessa—”

“But bringing a—a guy home for Christmas break when it was our first time together since we left for college . . . well, you're the biggest idiot I ever met.”

“Hey! I was being a nice guy. What was I supposed to do?”

She rounded on him, holding the blankets up around her chest. “How about talking to me first, so I'm not surprised when some stranger walks into our house?”

“It's my parents' house, Vanessa. They don't mind that Brady's here.”

She stared at him openmouthed, and then lay down on the bed, rolling away from him again.

“Don't act like that, Vanessa—”

Her words were flung at him over her shoulder. “Like what? Like my husband prefers his buddies to me? Like I'm ‘company' in his parents' house?”

“That's not what I said—”

“Then you weren't listening to yourself, Logan. I heard everything you said—everything.”

When he reached for her, she shifted away. “I'm tired. I'm going to sleep.”

“Vanessa, we need to talk about this.”

“If we had talked about it before you came home, we wouldn't be having this argument now.” She pulled the blanket up to her shoulders. “Good night.”

He lay on his back, his head resting on his hands. His turn to stare up at the ceiling. How could he make this right? It was too late to redo the holidays—and would he have made a different decision? No. He would never leave Brady alone for Christmas and New Year's. Why couldn't Vanessa understand that?

Coming events cast their shadows before.

—JAMES JOYCE (1882–1941), NOVELIST, IN
ULYSSES

“N
essa, who was that guy?”

Ted's question might as well have been a ball and chain, dragging her to a stop halfway to Mindy's front door. Were they going to have this discussion in the front yard? Did they have to talk about “that guy” at all?

“We went to high school together.”

Yes, she was hedging. Lying by omission. But she wasn't doing this here, in wet clothes, reeking of the Gulf.

Ted stalked toward her. Always-calm Ted—advancing on her, feet pounding the pavement, looking as if he wanted to shake her.

“Who is he, Vanessa?”

She shook the tangled mess of her hair, the strands stiff with salt water. “Logan Hollister, my ex-husband. Are you satisfied? Can we go inside now? Please?”

She sat on the top porch step in front of Mindy's idyllic home and pulled off her lacy half boots. Ruined. Ted's shadow fell over her.

“What?”

His hair fell forward into his eyes. “You can really ask me that? As if finding you on a motorcycle with your ex-husband is not a problem.”

“It's not a problem.” She abandoned her soggy boots on the steps and retreated to the house.

The scent of grilled fish and buttery garlic bread lured Vanessa's attention away from Ted—until he slammed the door behind them. Ted, who never raised his voice, even when they watched a football game and the Broncos were losing with the clock counting down the final minute of the game. And now he came into someone else's house and slammed the door.

Mindy appeared in the kitchen doorway, balancing a clear glass bowl brimming with green salad, red tomato slices, and thin rounds of yellow peppers. She must have corralled the puppies in the laundry room off the kitchen, their high-pitched yipping sounding behind her.

“Everything okay out here?” A bogus smile stretched across her face.

“Yes.”

Mindy scrunched her nose. “You're . . . wet.”

“I know.” The sticky-wet strands of her hair clung to her neck. “Don't ask.”

“Go ahead. Ask.” Ted stood behind her, his voice a near-shout. “She just rode up on a motorcycle with her ex-husband.”

There was no missing the way Mindy's eyes widened before Vanessa whipped around to face the man behind her.

“What is wrong with you?”

“What is wrong with me? I come down here to surprise my fiancée—and I find her gallivanting around with the man she was married to ten years ago.” He paced circles around her, his voice rising, overriding the barking of the puppies. “Soaking wet because she's fallen in the ocean. And I don't know why she's romping in the ocean with her ex-husband—”

“Ted Topliff!” Vanessa pressed her palm to her forehead, closing her eyes. This was not happening. Not happening. “I am going to get a shower. Then we are going to eat dinner like two rational, civilized people with Mindy and her husband. And then—and only then—will I discuss this with you. Is that clear?”