Like Never Before (17 page)

“He's not—”

Mae cut her off with a droll eye roll. “I may sit in a different part of the office, but I'm not blind, Amelia. Anyway, you've got a call. It's my niece, actually. The one I always tell you about.”

Right, the one who worked at
USA Today
. The “real journalist” Mae had brought up again just a few weeks ago.

Mae must have read the direction of Amelia's thoughts now. “Don't worry, she's not calling to recruit you. She's calling about . . .” Oddly, Mae seemed to soften. “Well, anyway, she'll tell you.”

Amelia glanced in Logan's office on her way back to her desk. Had he even moved in the past five minutes?

She lowered to her chair and picked up her phone. “This is Amelia.”

“Amelia Bentley? Hi, this is Belle Waldorf with
USA Today
, the Chicago office, and I can barely believe I'm making this call. Or, rather, that I'm making it to my aunt's office, of all places.” She laughed, a tinkling sound that seemed to fit her name. “I knew your name sounded familiar when I was doing my research, and when I Googled you and realized why, my jaw dropped and my bubblegum fell out of my mouth and—”

She finally paused to take a breath.

Amelia twirled the phone cord around her finger, waiting for the moment when this call might make any kind of sense.

“Anyway, I'll just get to the point. Were you married to Jeremy Lucas?”

The phone cord snapped against her finger. “Excuse me?”

“Actually, I don't really need to ask. I have the information right in front of me. I'm nothing if not a good researcher. But Aunt Mae acted surprised when I told her why I was calling, like she didn't know and—”

“Why
are
you calling?”

Belle laughed again, completely oblivious—of course—to the tension her question had invited into this conversation, so thick it was like a third person on the call. Amelia stared at her computer screen, now asleep.

“I write personality profiles, and my editor has been after me to get an interview with Jeremy Lucas for months. You'd think his publicist or manager or whoever would be better at responding to inquiries from the press.”

“He's picky about publicity.” It slipped out. Present tense. As if she'd just seen him yesterday and talked about it.

But it'd certainly been the truth years ago. He was so picky that if he couldn't micro-manage the story, he simply said no to the interview request. He had eagle-eye focus, knew exactly the direction he wanted to steer his career.

And nothing—not an uncooperative reporter or a wife who couldn't cordon her hurt—would get in his way.

“I just thought, maybe a personal call from someone he knew might help me nab an interview. So I started looking for any kind of connection, found out he had an ex-wife—”

“Belle—”

“I realize this is probably completely uncomfortable, but seriously, picture an alarm clock that just keeps buzzing no matter how many times you hit snooze. That's my editor nagging me about this story. And anyway, I just couldn't believe it when I realized the Amelia Bentley who used to be married to Jeremy Lucas is the same Amelia Bentley my aunt's always telling me about.”

This conversation was giving her a headache. “You mean the Amelia Bentley she's always trying to pawn off on you?”

“Ha! She thinks you're great.”

“She thinks I'm a joke.”

“That's just Aunt Mae. The more she likes you, the more she grouches at you. It's her love language. Anyhow, if there's anything you can do to help me—make a call or write an email—I'd really appreciate it.”

“The thing is, I'm not in touch with Jeremy. It's been almost three years since we divorced.” And even if she did call, what were the chances he still had the same number?

Or that he'd even answer?

“I'd do whatever I could to return the favor.
USA Today
has openings all the time, and I've got friends at other papers if you're looking to move—”

“I'm not.” She twisted in her chair, wishing for a way to escape this call, the intrusion of her past.

Logan came into view once more—Freddie's tattered old chair, the cubbyhole of an office.
Wait a second.

“You said you do personality profiles?”

“Yep. It's my bread and butter.”

“You ever interview political speech writers?” The question came out of her mouth while the idea was still percolating.

Logan and that partner of his were frustrated because whatever presidential candidate they'd hoped to work for seemed to have forgotten them. Well, could being featured in a national publication get Logan back on the candidate's radar?

In other words, you want to help him leave Maple Valley?

No. But she did want to help him. And after all he'd done for her . . . besides, maybe Owen had a point. Maybe she was getting overly attached.

Distance. That's
what you need. Distance and space to get your head
on straight.

So she'd meddle in Logan's career not only to help him, but also as a reminder to herself that his life wasn't here.

“There's this guy.” She started in, told Belle all about Logan. His work at the paper, his success in California, his ridiculously good writing. “People don't really know what speech writers and political consultants do, you know?”

“Yeah, but do they want to know?” Belle's skepticism traveled through the phone line. “I mean, most people I know were jaded by politics long ago.”

“Trust me, I'm one of them.” Unfair as it was, life with Jeremy had soured her to most kinds of public-platform individuals. “But Logan's different. He's one of those sincere people who really wants to make a difference. He takes such care with his writing.”

“So he's interesting?”

“Oh, he's interesting.”

“Is he single?”

She spun back to her desk. “Uh—”

“I'm just saying, the way you said
interesting
makes me think you might have a few synonyms for the word other than Webster's standard definition.”

Amelia's feet flattened on the floor. “Would you ever consider doing a story on him?”

“Straight-up avoidance. I like your style.” Belle paused. “Look, I can't guarantee it'd make it into the print edition. But it could make it onto the website, and I've got a blog that my editor gives me pretty much free rein with. So I could feature him there.”

Oh, she hoped Logan would like this. He was so reticent about ever being in the spotlight. Look at the way he'd reacted that night at The Red Door when Raegan had asked him to sing.

But if it could help his career . . .

“But just so I'm understanding,” Belle said, “I do a story on Logan and you get me an interview with your ex-husband?”

Amelia let out a sigh and then turned at the sound of Logan's office door opening. He held his cell phone to his ear, his expression harried. Yes, for him, she could call Jeremy. “I'll do my best, Belle.”

They exchanged contact information, and she hung up as quickly as she could. “Everything okay, Logan?”

He dropped his phone into his pocket. “I have to go. Kate was going to watch Charlie tonight for me—I had . . . plans—but apparently Megan's in labor and Kate needs to be there, so I guess—”

Amelia stood. “I can watch Charlie.”

“Really?” Relief and reluctance mingled in his expression. “She was pretty sick. There could still be germs—”

“I've got a great immune system. Do whatever you were planning to do tonight. I'll head over to your house right now.”

She could kick herself for the way her heart tilted when he smiled at her and when he spoke. “You're the best, Amelia.”

The best or just plain crazy. She'd just agreed to call Jeremy solely for Logan's sake. And for the sake of distance.

Her gaze snagged on the gratefulness in his magnetic eyes.

Distance. Yeah. Right.

He couldn't believe he'd actually hoped Jenessa would answer the door.

Or that he was even here, really. The brick two-story home where the Belvilles resided, once one of the grander houses in Maple Valley, seemed to sag with age. The cement steps leading to the front door were crumbling, the black metal railing rusty and crooked. The lattice that used to climb one side of the house was a knotty tangle of stripped stems.

He balanced the carefully piled stack of cake pans in his arms
and used his elbow to ring the doorbell. A battery of storm clouds gathered overhead, weighty with rain that threatened to fall any minute. Oh, he should've warned Amelia—let her know Charlie hated thunder.

Maybe he shouldn't be here at all.

Too late, though. The door swung open, and Jenessa appeared. Cheeks gaunt and sweater hanging from bony shoulders. “What are you doing here?”

He hardly knew. She'd made it clear twice already that she didn't want to see him. And the glare in her eyes told him the third time wasn't the charm in her case.

Still. He must be a glutton for punishment because he had to at least try. “I brought some meals. I've had some extra time at home because Charlie's had the flu. Raegan and Kate helped and—”

“You think I want flu-contaminated food?”

“Jen.” A few pans of lasagna and chicken casseroles shouldn't be so heavy, but the muscles in his arms pinched.

The glower didn't leave her face, but at least she stepped aside, beckoned him in. “I don't know why you felt the need to do this. I'm capable of feeding my family.”

The inside of the house was as shabby as the outside. Not dirty, just aged. The faded fabric of the couch had once been a country blue, and the blinds on the windows hung at an awkward angle. He followed Jenessa past a dining room table that looked like she was using it to dry laundry—shirts and jeans hanging over each chair. Didn't she know her wet clothes would leave rings around the wood?

In the kitchen, one of the bulbs was burnt out in the light fixture overhead, and the dishwasher gurgled under the counter. “Fridge or freezer?”

She answered by opening the freezer. Empty save for a few ice-cube trays and a stack of one-person frozen dinners.

He slid the pans in. “Kate wrote the oven temps and times in Sharpie on the tinfoil.” So awkward, this whole thing.

“We're not a charity case, Logan.”

“I know that. I just . . .” A dish clanked inside the dishwasher. “I just wanted to help somehow. And I don't know—in rural Iowa, help tends to look like food even if you don't need it. I know you're taking care of both parents right now and working full-time and—”

“Jenessa, who's here?”

Logan closed his eyes at the sound of the barking voice. He should've skipped the rambling explanation. Better yet, just handed Jenessa the pans at the door and turned around.

Brigg Belville appeared on the opposite side of the galley kitchen, at the top of a stairway that probably led down to a basement den. Gone was the brawny stature he used to wear like a uniform, though his chest seemed distended—a symptom of his emphysema? The years had paled his skin and whitened what thin hair remained.

But his voice still carried the imperious edge it had back when he was a candidate for governor and Logan a small-town reporter just beginning to develop a taste for politics.

“What. Is. He. Doing. Here?”

The window over the kitchen sink ushered in a sticky breeze, air thick with cloying moisture. “He's just leaving, Dad.”

“I don't want him in my house.”

Any ire Jenessa had hurled his way the couple times he'd run into her was nothing compared to the malice in Brigg's yellowed eyes. “Brigg—”

He didn't know what he was going to say. Didn't have a chance to say it anyway. Because a fit of coughing wracked through the narrow kitchen—harsh, cringing.

“Dad, let's get you back downstairs.”

“You ruined my life, Walker.” Brigg forced his words through
rasping coughs. “Ruined all our lives. You're just like all the other media people. Dirty, rotten.”

The man doubled over with another fit of coughing, and Jenessa hurried to his side, held his arm, and turned him to the open door at the top of the stairway. “Please just go, Logan.”

He heard Brigg's coughing holler through the house as he turned, pace nearly a jog to escape the house. But another voice stopped him, this one from the open stairway at one end of the living room.

He turned to see Mrs. Belville, straggles of stick-straight hair and a flimsy nightgown that gaped below her neck. “Who are you?” She slurred the question, the veins in her hand purple where she gripped the banister. A line of framed photographs—buildings and scenery he might've stopped to admire at any other time—tipped and shook as she rocked against the railing.