Like Never Before (31 page)

Dad's house came into view, a blazing dusk throwing scarlet hues against its rustic exterior. He pulled in, recognizing Amelia's car parked under the basketball hoop—same spot she'd parked that first night he came home. How could that only have been a couple months ago?

She was sitting on the porch swing, Charlie by her side. They both waved when he approached, Amelia with a Sharpie in
hand. A breeze clattered through the wind chimes in the corner, and he climbed the steps, a chary slowness to his movement.

“Hey, Logan.” Amelia seemed subdued, maybe even upset. Because he hadn't returned any of her calls or texts, perhaps. Or had something else happened in the time since he'd brushed her off at the hospital?

You could've at least said goodbye to her last night
. Or responded to any one of her messages.

He just hadn't been able to get over the feeling that in the past few weeks he'd done all over again what he did right before Emma died. Let himself get distracted. Something as innocuous as music then, and it'd cost him the chance to say goodbye to his wife.

And getting lost in this thing with Amelia now? It'd sidetracked him from his career and, even worse, from the gravity of his in-laws' mistrust. Maybe if he'd been paying more attention, he'd have realized how serious they were about their doubts in his capability as a father. How far they were willing to go.

“Look, Daddy.” Charlie jumped off the swing and ran to him before he'd even reached the top of the steps. She held out her arm. Amelia had signed not far from his own name, the stem of her
A
wrapping around the rest of her name to form a heart.

“You're going to have that cast full in no time.”

“I know.”

He lifted her up, pressed a kiss to her cheek. “Do me a favor, Bug? Go find Grandpa and see if he wants to make popcorn for dinner? Sunday night tradition.”

He let her slide down him and held the front door open for her to run inside. When he turned, Amelia was standing.

“You're a hard one to get ahold of, Logan Walker.”

“Yeah, sorry about that. It's been . . . a day.”

“I didn't mean to be a bother—”

“You weren't a bother.” He hated that his silence had made
her feel that way. Hated his own reticence now, the space he couldn't bring himself to fill.

“At first, I was just checking in, but then . . .” She let out a breath, one heavy with distress. Something else
had
happened. “I stopped by the office after church today. Ledge texted—he'd left a coat in the pressroom on Friday, and he went by to pick it up and said as soon as he walked in he knew something was wrong.” She'd started pacing in front of the porch swing but stopped now. “Logan, we think the office was hit by lightning. The server's down, all the computers. None of that's such a huge deal, but the press is dead. Not jammed or in need of a new part, but completely dead. You should see the cord. Ledge says we're lucky a fire didn't start.”

Oh great.
He pinched the bridge of his nose, so far from frustrated he didn't even have words.

Maybe it would've been better if a fire had started, burnt the whole place down and left him with an insurance check instead of a newspaper on life support. Except no, because Freddie's useless insurance policy was part of what had gotten the
News
into such a hole to begin with.

“What are we going to do? I think the machine is beyond fixing this time.” She hugged her arms to herself. “Maybe we could call the
Communicator.
Maybe they'd print for us. I know they contract with some other area papers and—”

“Amelia.” Her name escaped in a murmur. “I can't . . . I can't think about this right now.”

“But we don't have time not to think about it. We've got the centennial issue this week
and
our regular issue.”

He crossed paths with her, dropped into the swing. “They may not be able to come out.”

“Logan, what are you—”

“They're just papers.” Exasperation budged into his tone.
“I asked for a sign. Maybe this is it. Lightning strike—sounds about right.”

She stood in front of him, silhouetted by the setting sun. “What are you talking about?”

“I need to sell, Amelia. I need to go back to LA.”

“But the paper, the centennial. The article we spent months on.”

He looked up at her, rubbing his stubbly cheeks, trying to convince himself it was just mild disappointment on her face—not heartbreak.

“It's not just me and my job at stake here. Think about Mae—she acts like a grump, sure, but I think the staff is the closest thing she has to family around here. And what about Jenessa? You said yourself that she's a different person since she started taking photos for us.” She sat beside him, the swing's hinges creaking. “I know you've had a hard weekend, Logan, but to make a snap decision just like that—”

“It's not a snap decision. I've been poring over the numbers for two months now, you know that. I've met with a financial advisor, a lawyer. I've talked to insurance people. I even got ahold of a former paper owner who sold to Cranford last year, just to get his take.” He ran one hand over the swing's wooden armrest. “I told Dad last night this isn't me—this guy who stalls on decisions and sabotages his own career prospects. It's just . . . not me.”

“And at the library, or yesterday at the bridge—that wasn't you?”

He reached for her hand. “That was me.” She looked up, and oh, the hope in her eyes killed him. “But it was me getting ahead of myself.”

She lowered her gaze, slid her hand free, and after a painful moment, stiffened. “Just tell the truth, Logan. You're scared.”

“Amelia—”

“You don't want to take a risk. Not on the paper. Not on me.”

If she'd meant for the words to sting, they did the job. Enough that he couldn't stop his biting reply. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“You want to talk about not taking risks? Who's the one who insists on staying in Maple Valley even when multiple opportunities have landed at her feet? Did you ever even consider Cranford's job offer? Or how about all the times Mae has said her niece could get you a spot on a national paper?”

She stood, the swing jostling at her movement. “What's so wrong with being content where I am? Not everyone has crazy-big dreams.”

“No, everyone doesn't. But
you
do. Kendall Wilkins saw it in that essay you wrote him. I see it every time you talk about the Wilkins article. I saw it when we were in D.C. You want something different. Not better or more—but different. And you can tell yourself all you want that you're content here. But content isn't the same as stagnant.”

She turned her back on him. “You don't know what you're talking about.”

“I do because I know you.” He stood. “You're scared of leaving the comfort of what you know for the possibility of what you don't.” He stepped closer, hurling the words over her shoulder. “And you're so scared of becoming Amelia Earhart, disappearing or being forgotten, that you insist on staying in a small town where everyone knows you, everyone sees you.”

She whipped around. “Stop it, Logan.”

“You're scared of leaving the safe little world you've created here, and you're constantly scared that people will let you down.”

“Maybe that's because people
do
let me down.”

“Forget Jeremy—”

“I'm not talking about Jeremy.”

Her words parked in front of him, sour and choking. How had they gotten here? Tension suffocated the air between them. If he could take it all back—

“Well, good for you, Logan. You finally gave me one of your famous speeches.”

“Amelia—”

But she was already on her way down the steps, posture not nearly rigid enough to hide her hurt.

Dear Mary,

If you were my daughter, I'd tell you about how I met your birth mother.

She was quite possibly the most sullen person I'd ever encountered. I'd say “chip on her shoulder,” but it was more like a boulder. Tough home life. Bad grades. Few friends.

I have no idea why she came to the youth event at church that first time. A desperate grasp for something, anything, perhaps. But she showed up, and we met, and something clicked in my heart. I watched her blossom in the coming months. She'd found a place to belong, a makeshift family. On nights when her home life got unbearable, she stayed with Jeremy and me.

I think I pridefully thought we'd saved her.

Then she made a mistake at a party one night. Woke up the next morning not even certain who she'd been with. Didn't take long to discover she was pregnant. And it was as if all the hope she'd breathed in seeped from her lungs.

So we stepped in again. Tried to save her again.

Only I'm realizing now, the one I was really trying to save was myself. Dani might've stumbled in a one-night stand. But I'd been crumbling slowly for months.

And it was never fair to blame her decision to keep you for my own broken dreams and misplaced hope.

A
melia Bentley. I was almost sure you were going to turn down a job offer from me a second time.”

C.J. Cranford's clipped pace and sleek silver blazer matched the glass-accented lobby of the downtown Dixon office building—fluorescent lights overhead, vertical floor-to-ceiling windows, slate-hued paint. Metallic letters spelled the words
Cranford Communications
on the wall behind the receptionist's desk.

What Amelia wouldn't give to be facing a disgruntled Mae in the closet-sized lobby of the
News
office instead. To hear the clunky chug of their old, half-broken—no, now completely dead—press instead of this quiet hum. She could barely even pick up the smell of ink over the bowl of flaky potpourri on the receptionist's desk.

She accepted C.J.'s handshake. “Well, last time I already had a job. This time . . .”

This time the
News
was on its way to nonexistence, and Amelia to unemployment.

Had it really only been a week and a half since Logan had stood in front of their staff and announced his decision? The
cost of fixing the press was simply too steep. And it was both too last-minute and too expensive to find another area printer to churn out this week's paper.

The lightning strike had aided the decision he was probably eventually going to make all along.

Far as she knew, the sale to Cranford hadn't been finalized yet. But he'd left for LA two days ago anyway, Charlie in tow, along with her last fragile piece of foolish hope that he might still change his mind.

He might as well have left the night they argued on the porch. Nothing had been the same since then. Didn't matter that she actually understood why he'd made the choice he did. That somewhere, behind the cracks in her heart, she'd seen this coming.

The logic of his decision couldn't come close to catching up with the ache wheeling through her. Oh,
she missed him. Missed Charlie.

“I know this isn't what you wanted. I get it.” C.J. pushed her low, russet ponytail over one shoulder. “You had an attachment to that paper. But I hope you'll at least consider my offer. Let me show you around.”

Logan had cornered Amelia in the office after everyone else had left. Told her he'd asked Cranford to offer her a job once the sale was complete.
“Even if they
do permanently dissolve the
News
, they'll still be covering an additional town. So it makes sense that they'd
add a position. Obviously it should be you.”

If he'd expected her undying gratitude at that, he hadn't gotten it.
“Thanks, but I already had the opportunity
to move to Dixon once, Logan. Maple Valley is home.”

His shoulders had dropped, as if she'd stuck the last pin in an already deflated balloon.
“Home or
just a hiding place, Amelia?”

The overly sweet mocha she'd downed on the forty-five-minute drive to Dixon churned in her stomach now. C.J. led
her through a glass door and into a white-lighted open room with desks displaying oversized monitors that couldn't be more than a couple years old. A whir of activity enlivened the space, fingers tapping on keyboards, the purr of printers—all of it both familiar and foreign at once.

“This is our ad and graphics department, as I'm sure you can tell by the mockups hanging everywhere. Our bread and butter, just like most papers.” Her heels clicked as she pushed through another door. “And this is where you'd spend your time.”

The
Communicator's
newsroom had to be four times the size of the
News's.
New Macs on every desk. A couple reporters looked up as she and C.J. wound through the room, but most were busy—on the phone or typing with earbuds in.

At the back of the room, they pushed through a final door, leading into a hallway of offices. C.J. let Amelia pass into her office first. None of the gleaming white of the outer offices. Instead, redwood furnishings offset mint-green walls.

“Used to be my dad's office,” C.J. explained as she sat behind the desk. “Modern wasn't so much his thing.”

“I like it.” Reminded her a little of Freddie's office—not in size so much, or even décor. But in personality.

Funny how she'd never thought anyone else could ever quite fit in Freddie's space—and how wrong Logan had proven her. He'd seemed so right in that office. So at home.

“Home or just a hiding place?”

Why couldn't she stop hearing his voice? And would she ever get over the ache of missing him? Missing Charlie? Wishing she could hear Charlie call her
Lia
again?

“So.” C.J. flattened her palms on her desk. “We could do the regular old job-interview-type questions, but to be honest, this job is yours if you want it. You're qualified. You've got the experience. I'd rather talk about what the transition is going to look like.”

“All right.”

“This is a full-time reporting position. We can throw as many of the Maple Valley–specific stories your way as possible, but you will need to help cover events or news in other communities, too. I think you'll find the salary package satisfactory.”

C.J. kept talking about the job duties—scheduling and digital news and photographers. The minutes passed in a misty blur.

“Okay, I'm just rambling now. Let's switch gears. Do you have any questions for me?”

Amelia rubbed her hands over her pants, mind clamoring for focus.

Pay attention.
Whatever she'd said to Logan, the truth was, she needed this. Needed a job and a paycheck.

C.J. tapped a pencil against her desk. Right, a question.

“Well, I guess I've got one question. There's a story I've been working on for a couple months. It's actually been percolating for years, but I just recently got serious about it.” For the first time since she'd arrived in Dixon, something close to enthusiasm fought against her apathy. She told C.J. about the Kendall Wilkins story—how it'd started out as a search for a missing safe-deposit-box item and turned into a story about Paris and World War II and a friendship that spanned decades.

When she finished, C.J. stood. “Coffee?” She walked to the Keurig machine sitting on a corner counter. “Even Dad, in all his disdain for modernity, couldn't deny the thrill of a fresh cup of coffee in thirty seconds.”

“I'm good. Thanks.”

C.J. started the machine, its gurgle filling the space until she turned. “How many words?”

Amelia blinked. “Thirteen hundred.”

C.J.'s laugh overpowered the Keurig's noise. “You're kidding, right? You know how much column space that is?”

“It was originally going to go in our anniversary issue.” The
one that should've come out last week. Instead, she'd spent her days going from business to business, apologizing that none of the scheduled ads would run in the special issue . . . because there wasn't going to be a special issue.

“Even if it was normal length, I'm not sure how it's a story. You didn't figure out what was supposed to be in the box and where it is now?”

“That's kind of the point of the story—we started out looking for one thing and realized the story was more about friendship and heart and community.” Maybe it sounded sappy and saccharine. But Amelia had poured her heart into that article.

“But there's nothing that makes it newsy, relevant.”

“There was when it was part of an anniversary issue.” She couldn't manage to keep the frustration from her voice.

C.J. retrieved her coffee mug and circled her fingers around it, then studied her for a long moment. “Amelia, why did you come here today?”

“I don't know.” Her words were soft and quick, out before she could tug them back.

“You don't know?”

“I really don't.” She stood. “And I'm really sorry, C.J. Thanks so much for giving me a chance—a second time. But I don't think I'm the right person to work here.”

C.J. set her cup on a coaster, nodded. “Fair enough.”

Amelia started for the door.

“Amelia?”

“Yeah?”

“That girl from the coffee shop who was going to have the baby. The one all the people were wearing ribbons for. Did she have the baby?”

Amelia glanced over her shoulder to see C.J. holding two ribbons—one green, one yellow. Of course. She'd voted for twins.

“They're my Maple Valley souvenirs.”

“Yeah, Megan had her baby. A girl. Healthy and big despite being a bit early.”

“Glad to hear it.” C.J. closed her fingers around the ribbons. “See you around, Bentley.”

“What on earth possessed you to make that call?”

Theo's voice sounded distant with the hum of Logan's fridge in his ears. Logan reached past a jug of milk that'd expired so far back he couldn't bring himself to empty it out. Forty-eight hours back in LA and so far he and Charlie had existed on pizza and takeout.

“You could've at least given me some advance warning.”

He found a lone bottle of water near the back, then closed the refrigerator door and held the bottle toward Theo.

Theo only crossed his arms. Fine. Logan uncapped the bottle and took a swig. He didn't have time for this. He needed to get groceries and clean and unpack their suitcases.

Find a way to settle back into life in LA. Pretend the goodbyes he'd said in Iowa—one in particular—hadn't cut clean through him.

“Talk to me, Walker.”

“I had to do it, okay? It was the right thing to do.”

Making that call to Senator Hadley's campaign manager had been a thousand kinds of uncomfortable.
“I just think you
should know there was a police report filed on me a couple weeks ago. Alleged assault.”

And oh, by the way, he might be facing a custody battle against his in-laws in coming months. Just saying the words had sent anxiety clawing through him.

The open patio doors off his apartment's kitchen ushered in
the sounds of his busy street—cars motoring down the road and kids playing in the complex's outdoor pool. And heat—sticky and baking. He should be running the air-conditioner.

But something about closing up the place—shutting windows and sliding the patio doors—made him feel hemmed in. And it wasn't only that. It was the constant noise, the claustrophobic traffic, that always-in-a-rush feeling that'd swept over him as soon as he and Charlie had stepped off the airplane into the crush of LAX.

In the span of two months, LA had stopped feeling like home.

But he'd had to come back. It was the only thing that made sense. He just wished he could've brought a piece of Iowa with him.

Theo was right, though. He could've given him some warning. “I'm sorry I didn't tell you first.”

“You weren't even formally charged. We don't know that it ever would've come up if you hadn't said anything.”

“But if it had? If it was primary season and the other party was looking for something, anything, to use against Hadley, and they dug deep enough? Do you know how awful I'd feel?”

“So what happens now? Do we still have a job?” Theo leaned one hand on the peninsula counter that divided Logan's kitchen from the living room, where Charlie sat at the coffee table coloring. Poor thing, her cheeks were red from the apartment's warmth.

Logan capped his water bottle and crossed over to the patio doors, sliding them closed. He tapped the A/C on his way to the living-room window.

“You have a job no matter what, Theo. Even if the campaign decides I'm not a good fit, that doesn't mean you're out.”

“But . . . we're partners. I guess I always pictured us doing this thing together.”

Logan closed the window and turned his gaze to his daugh
ter. The curls that'd stopped at her chin two months ago now reached nearly to her shoulders. Freckles dotted her cheeks from so many afternoons out in Dad's backyard, and she wore a series of too-large bracelets on one arm—Raegan's.