LITMIR.BIZ

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looked across at him consideringly for several long seconds. ‘Have you ever been in love, Logan?’

      He sat back, unable to hide his surprise at the intimacy of her question. No one had ever asked him a question as personal as this before, not even Fergus and Brice, and goodness knew, they were as close to him as two brothers!

      ‘Have you?’ he finally came back defensively.

      Darcy smiled, a less tired smile this time, the respite from the pressures of cooking, and the warming coffee, obviously reviving her slightly. ‘Once,’ she said. ‘But I don’t think it counts.’

      Logan didn’t agree. What sort of man had she once been in love with? Had he loved her in return? And if so, where was he now?

      ‘I was nine,’ Darcy told him with a mischievous smile. ‘And he was ten.’

      She really was starting to feel better if she could tease him in this way, Logan accepted wryly.

      But he wasn’t; why had it bothered him so much when he’d thought Darcy had been in love with someone else…?

      ‘An older man,’ he returned dryly to cover his own confusion.

      ‘Hmm.’ She smiled, sipping her coffee. ‘But I don’t think it’s a legitimate basis from which to judge how my father must be feeling at the moment,’ she added with a pained grimace.

      She might be right; as Logan had never been in love—even at the age of nine or ten!—he really couldn’t say. Although he was still of the opinion that his mother was no great loss to Daniel Simon’s life!

      He had listened to what his mother had had to say two days ago, and perhaps he even understood her a little better now, but too much had happened, too much time had passed, for him to be able to trust completely the things she had said to him.

      Logan shrugged. ‘I’m sure he’ll get over it,’ he said.

      Darcy gave him a troubled look. ‘I wish I had your confidence. Perhaps if I spoke to your mother—’

      ‘Whatever for?’ he burst in incredulously, putting down his coffee-cup. ‘The other evening you couldn’t even bear to be in the same restaurant as her!’

      Darcy pulled a face. ‘But maybe I was wrong about her. I’ve been giving all of this a lot of thought—with my father the way that he is, I thought I had better! And if he loves her—’

      ‘You said yourself that he didn’t, that he couldn’t know how he felt about her after only three weeks of knowing her,’ Logan reminded her. He had known his mother for thirty-five years—and even he wasn’t sure that he loved her!

      Margaret was his mother, yes, and as such he knew he should respect and protect her, but love…? He wasn’t sure.

      Darcy gave a heavy sigh. ‘I thought this broken engagement was what I wanted, but now that it’s happened—I just can’t bear to see my father so unhappy!’

      ‘Better a brief unhappiness now than a lifetime of it,’ Logan assured her.

      Darcy tilted her head to one side as she gave him another of those considering looks. ‘You really never have been in love, have you?’ she stated evenly.

      ‘I simply doubt that it’s a basis from which to build a lifetime relationship,’ he dismissed hardly.

      Darcy gave a start of incredulity. ‘What other basis is there?’ she gasped.

      ‘I have no idea—I’ve yet to see a successful relationship!’ Logan claimed scornfully.

      His mother said her marriage to his father had been happy, but Logan had been too young himself when his father had died to be able to judge the truth of that statement. And Margaret’s second marriage had been like a battlefield.

      No, he had decided long ago, if he ever took the drastic step himself of getting married—and he couldn’t conceive of a situation where he ever might!—then it most certainly wouldn’t be because he believed himself in love with a woman. Love made you vulnerable, left you completely exposed to the whims and fancies of the other person. It was not a feeling Logan ever wanted to experience for himself!

      A cloud marred Darcy’s creamy brow. ‘I find that very sad.’

      And she did look sad. So much so that Logan found he didn’t like being the cause of that sadness. ‘Hey,’ he chided teasingly. ‘We aren’t here to discuss how I see love and marriage. It’s your father you’re concerned about, remember?’

      Not the right thing to say, Logan decided as he saw her sadness deepen. But she had been getting too close, asking him questions he would rather not answer.

      ‘I really would like to talk to your mother,’ she decided firmly. ‘Do you think it could be arranged?’ She looked at him with clear grey eyes.

      Not by him it couldn’t! His mother was definitely not someone he would like Darcy to meet.

      ‘For what purpose?’ he probed guardedly.

      Darcy looked perplexed. ‘To be honest, I have no idea. It’s strange, but somehow I feel the fact that we both love my father gives us a bond of some kind…Can you understand that?’ She looked at him questioningly.

      Maybe. But—‘Have you forgotten that my mother has broken her engagement to your father?’ he reminded her. ‘Hardly the act of a woman in love!’

      ‘But that’s the whole point. I need to know why she broke their engagement,’ Darcy persisted. ‘If it had anything to do with me—’

      ‘Even if it did, what can you do about it?’ Logan insisted, still not sure himself that he believed his mother when she said she wouldn’t marry Daniel Simon, the man she professed to love, if it meant damaging his relationship with his daughter. Because if he believed that, he had to believe her regret concerning their own relationship too. And he wasn’t sure he could do that…‘My mother is a woman not easily swayed by the needs and wants of others.’ He replied.

      Logan didn’t like the way Darcy was looking at him now, knowing he must have given away too much of his own resentment and bitterness towards his mother.

      But after Margaret Fraser had rung him this morning to inform him she had ended her relationship with Daniel Simon, Logan’s one thought had been to let Darcy know it was over, too. Darcy had responded predictably by going straight to her father. Daniel Simon was the one who had altered the scenario by going away in the manner that he had. Now Darcy, after expressing deep loathing for his mother, was asking to meet her. Logan wasn’t sure he would ever understand women…Correction—most women, he had found, were all too easy to understand; it was his mother and Darcy who were enigmas!

      Darcy continued to look at him determinedly. ‘Will you introduce me to your mother, or do I have to find some other way of meeting her?’

      ‘Why can’t you just accept that it’s over?’ Logan demanded. ‘And be grateful that it is!’

      ‘Will you?’ she persisted stubbornly, totally ignoring his words.

      He stood up abruptly. ‘No, I will not!’ he roared. ‘Why can’t you just leave the situation alone? My mother will carry on acting, your father will get over his disappointment, and you—’

      ‘I won’t rest until I’ve talked to your mother!’ Her eyes flashed up at him.

      Logan stared down at her frustratedly for several long seconds. She really was the most stubborn—

      As stubborn as he was himself…?

      Probably, he acknowledged ruefully, his anger starting to fade. If Darcy really was serious about meeting his mother—and it appeared she definitely was!—then wouldn’t it be better if he were present when the two met?

      Most definitely!

      ‘Okay,’ he conceded frustratedly. ‘I’ll

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