LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

      “You visit? You haven’t since I’ve been here.”

      “Yes, well, circumstances the last few months have changed my habits.”

      Meg saw the pain again. “Aunt Lily told me about your son. I’m sorry.”

      He shook his head. “Sorrow, blame, regrets. None of it matters except finding Travis. But I don’t go on wild-goose chases anymore, driving into the dead of night, speeding down a highway, hoping when I get wherever the road takes me I’ll find him. Now I spend my time printing more pictures and flyers, studying the computer data bases, keeping in touch with contacts on other police forces and my private investigator…and working. Working to forget.”

      Although Meg had always enjoyed her work, she knew about working to forget. She wanted to clasp Logan’s arm again, to say she understood, but touching him was dangerous. Doubting he needed her understanding, she nodded toward the house. “I’ll make sure Carmen is settled again and meet you at the bakery on Elm. Then you don’t have to drive back out here.”

      The bakery bell tinkled as Meg pulled open the door. Logan sat at one of the five black wrought-iron tables for two. She’d had second thoughts about meeting him, and thirds. Why had she accepted the offer? Because she liked Logan MacDonald, besides feeling attracted to him. If talking could ease his pain concerning his son, she’d listen.

      A mug of coffee waited at the empty place across from him, along with two doughnuts and a muffin. Meg couldn’t suppress a smile as she sat down. “Do I look underfed?”

      His gaze brushed over her quickly. “No. You look just right.”

      She felt the heat creep up her cheeks again. No other man had ever made her blush. She chose the cranberry muffin and pushed the other pastries toward him. “Aunt Lily tries to feed me constantly. She always has.”

      “She mentioned a few times that you lived with them when you were a teenager.”

      Meg had accepted Logan’s invitation expecting to talk about him, not about herself. But he was obviously fishing for her background. Picking up her coffee, she took a sip before she said, “My parents are anthropologists. For my first twelve years, I traveled with them most of the time—mainly in Central and South America, but I also spent time with my aunt and uncle. At twelve, I decided I’d rather stay in Willow Valley than globe-trot.”

      He gazed at her a few moments as if he was trying to see what she wasn’t saying. She wasn’t even sure herself about all the emotions that surfaced when she thought about those years, when she thought about her parents not wanting her. Even though she’d had her aunt and uncle, she’d still felt abandoned.

      Logan added cream to his coffee. He offered one to Meg, and she shook her head. “A purist,” he teased.

      “What’s the point of caffeine if you dilute it?”

      He grinned. “On my fourth cup, I find it more palatable. I have a pot sitting in my office all the time.” Leaning back in his chair, he broke off half of the doughnut and ate it. “So, at twelve you didn’t want to globe-trot, but for your adult life, you have.”

      “I didn’t go into this profession to travel. That just goes along with it sometimes.”

      He leaned forward again, his hand almost brushing hers as he rested it on the table. “Why did you choose to be an interpreter?”

      Instead of touching his large hand, as she wanted to do out of curiosity to see what would happen, she toyed with the paper around her muffin. “Because I wanted to help people understand each other. I had a talent for languages because of my upbringing. I was always amazed by the difference in the way people treat each other when they can understand each other. There’s less fear, less anxiety, less suspicion.”

      He pulled his hand back and wrapped his fingers around his mug. “How many languages can you speak?” His knee briefly touched hers under the table, but he moved his away.

      “Four fluently, not counting dialects.” She sipped again at her coffee.

      “You’re uncomfortable talking about yourself, aren’t you?”

      “I didn’t expect to have coffee with you and talk about me.”

      He smiled. “Why not?”

      “Because I thought you might want to talk about Travis.”

      He went silent and his jaw tensed. If she’d ever seen a man in pain, that man was Logan. She waited.

      His voice deeper, his words terse, he responded, “I think about him day and night. Believe me, I don’t want to talk about the thoughts that are running through my head. And you don’t want to know what they are.”

      They sat at a stalemate, Meg wondering if Logan kept all his feelings bottled up, not just those about Travis. She understood his need to keep a lid on his emotions. She did the same thing.

      Logan’s cell phone beeped, breaking the tension. “Excuse me, I have to take this call.”

      Meg watched Logan as he took the call. The calls for him must be a constant source of hope, but disappointment, too. His face remained neutral. As he began talking, he rubbed the back of his neck. He wasn’t getting news of his son—not good news anyway.

      After he ended the call, he said, “I have to cut this short. Cal needs me at the office.”

      She stood. “I need to get back, too.” All of a sudden, Meg knew that getting involved with Logan would be more complicated than being involved with a photojournalist who always considered his career more important than their relationship. She didn’t need involvement; she needed peace. As they walked to the door and she said goodbye, she knew the less she saw of Logan the more peaceful she’d feel.

      A few days later, Meg picked up the Willow Valley Courier. When she saw her own picture on page one, the same picture that had run in newspapers across the country five weeks ago, memories overwhelmed her. By the time she’d finished the article, the numbness had worn off and she was furious.

      Logan’s comments to the reporter about Manuel and Carmen were strictly factual. But he had included her in the mix. Inadvertently or not, he’d dragged her into their drama. He might be sheriff, but she had a right to her privacy just as Manuel and Carmen did. She sat and fumed for a few minutes, then suddenly decided to tell him how she felt.

      Meg drove to the sheriff’s department and turned off the ignition before she changed her mind. When she pulled open the door to the office and stepped inside, she saw Cal Martin, one of Logan’s deputies, sitting at the front desk.

      In a crisp tone, she said, “I’m here to see Sheriff MacDonald.”

      Cal looked her over. “And your name?”

      “Meg Dawson.”

      Cal’s gaze flashed with recognition. He pointed to the closed office in the back. “Just knock on his door.”

      She could feel Cal’s eyes on her back as she crossed the room. Seeing Logan sitting at a massive, scarred wooden desk, she rapped sharply on the glass-paneled door.

      He looked up and rose from his chair, opening the door in one quick motion. She’d stood face-to-face with him before, but today his shoulders seemed broader, his legs longer. She should have done this by phone.

      “What’s the matter, Meg?”

      No doubt her color was high. She hadn’t bothered to run a brush through her hair, and her old cutoffs and short, sleeveless knit top didn’t add to a sense of self-confidence. Boy, she really hadn’t thought this through.

      She slapped the paper on his desk and her purse on top of it. “That’s what’s wrong. Why did you mention me and Costa Rica?”

      Logan’s brows arched. “Everything I told the reporter is a matter of public record. Doc Jacobs delivered Manuel and Carmen’s baby boy in Lily and Ned’s barn. You acted

Скачать книгу