The Sweetest Thing
Page 33

“No. Lance brought a bunch of friends, and one thing led to another.”
So Sawyer was right. It had been a party. “I thought you can’t have sex without landing yourself in the hospital.”
“No one had sex. Or at least I didn’t.” Chloe sighed. “Bunch of stupid boys in this town.”
“Sawyer isn’t stupid.”
“And he’s not a boy, either.”
Tara watched as Chloe shoveled away the pie like she hadn’t eaten in a week. “What is he, then?”
“Hell, Tara, do I need to give you the birds and the bees talk? Why can’t you get the deets off the Internet like all the other kids these days?”
When Tara laughed, Chloe relaxed slightly. “I really don’t want to talk about it,” she said.
“A common theme amongst us sisters,” Tara said.
“What’s this?” Chloe asked. “Regret? From the most private sister of them all?” Without waiting for an answer, she took her plate to the sink and headed to the door. “I’m out.”
When Tara was alone, she sighed. “Yeah. I’d definitely call it regret.” Shaking it off, she began pulling out all the ingredients she needed for the Good Morning Sunshine Casserole, which she’d adapted from Mia’s recipe. She was grating cheese when the back door and the door leading to the hallway opened at the same time.
Logan came in one, and Ford the other.
Immediately, the testosterone level shot up and hit maximum velocity in two point zero seconds as both men stared at each other over Tara’s head.
“Well, if it isn’t the drinking buddies,” Tara said dryly. “Should I break out the mimosas, boys?”
“I just came by to help,” Logan said. “Since you keep burning meals and all.”
“How are you going to help?” Ford asked. “You actually cook?”
“Well, no, but I give real good help,” Logan said with a charming smile in Tara’s direction.
“I cook,” Ford said.
Logan’s eyes narrowed, and Tara felt yet another competition coming on. She’d heard about the abs of steel contest at The Love Shack. Part of her still couldn’t believe it, and the other part of her wished she’d seen it herself.
“Okay, you know what?” She dropped an empty bag into Logan’s hands and gave his leanly muscled, warm body a push out the back door. “I need some apples. Go pick me some, would you?”
Ford, looking big and bad and very cocky, leaned back against the counter with a smile.
“Oh, no.” Tara shoved him out after Logan. “You too. And play nice.” She shut the door on them both, threw the casserole into the oven, and turned and met Mia’s amused glance.
“I showed up to make sure you didn’t have any trouble,” the teen said.
“Well, the trouble part is taken care of. Other than that, everything’s the same old status quo. My life is pretty boring.”
“Yeah.” Mia laughed. “Okay, let’s work on not burning breakfast today.”
“I swear I’m a good cook,” Tara said, needing to be good at something in her daughter’s eyes. She walked Mia through the steps to make dough for fresh bread. “This won’t take long to bake and then we can—” Tara broke off as she got a good look out the window. “Oh, for the love of God.”
Logan and Ford had each shimmied up a tree—Logan with the help of a stepladder—and were making piles of apples. Big piles.
More than she needed for the next month.
Not that they were doing it for her. Nope, they were competing again.
Mia joined her at the window and raised a single brow—yet another talent she’d inherited from her father. Together they watched the guys pick apples.
“And you think your life is boring,” Mia murmured.
• • •
“You’re sleeping with her.” Logan repeated this grimly to Ford from somewhere inside his apple tree. With his arm injury, he’d been slower to climb up.
Ford, having the free use of both arms, hadn’t needed a ladder to climb the adjacent tree. “This is not news,” he told Logan. “You read Facebook.”
“Christ. I should just kill you. Or me. It’d be less painful to be dead.”
“You’re not in any real pain,” Ford said in disgust. “It’s just your f**king ego. You hate to lose.”
“Said the pot to the kettle,” Logan muttered.
Okay, that might be true, but this was more than about winning for Ford. It was about Tara, a woman he couldn’t live without. He pulled himself up to the next branch and dropped another three perfect apples. He glanced down. Yep, his pile was bigger than Logan’s. Even as he thought so with deep satisfaction, an apple whizzed by his ear, so close it disturbed his hair. “Hey—”
Logan flashed a grim smile and chucked another one. Ford saw this one coming and ducked again, and slipped. “Shit—”
That’s all he got out before he lost his grip, his temper, and his balance all at once.
And fell out of the tree.
Chapter 25
“Families are like fudge—mostly sweet with a few nuts.”
TARA DANIELS
When Ford opened his eyes, he was flat on his back staring up at the sky.
“Jesus H. Christ,” came a horrified, disembodied voice from the next tree over. “What, you can’t hold on to a branch?”
“You beaned me in the forehead,” Ford said. “With an apple.”
“And you call yourself an athlete.” Logan was hauling ass out of his tree as fast as he could with one arm in a brace, swearing colorfully as he went.
Ford prayed he’d fall, too, but it didn’t happen. Fucking karma.
“I didn’t even hit you that hard,” Logan was muttering. “You weren’t supposed to fall like a f**king pussy!”
“Nice,” Ford said, very carefully not moving. “Calling me names when I’m down.”
“Hey, you’re the one who’s always going on and on about me not being an athlete.”
That was true. He had no excuse.
Okay, he did.
Jealousy. “All I’m saying is that a race car driver isn’t necessarily as fit as say, a sailor—”
“Jesus, would you give it up already? And why are you just lying there? Tell me you’re not hurt. You’re going to f**king milk this, aren’t you? You’re going to get laid out of this deal, I just know it. How bad are you hurt?”
Ford let out a breath. “I’m putting all my energy into not figuring that out.”
Logan swore again and hit the ground.
“I’m surprised to see you move so fast,” Ford said. “For someone who sits on his ass for a living.”
“I don’t—Goddammit, shut up.” Logan dropped to Ford’s side to look him over, his eyes widening on Ford’s legs. “Fuck.”
“No. Don’t tell me.” He already knew. He could feel the fire from his toes to his groin. And not a little baby-ass fire either, but a to-the-bone burning that made him want to scream. But because he wasn’t a pussy, as Logan had accused, he refused to make a sound. Sweating, however, was allowed. He was doing a lot of sweating. And possibly going to throw up, too.
Then came a buzzing that told him this was it. His life was fading before his very eyes—
“Bees!” Logan jumped up and started leaping around, running in circles, flapping his arms.
“It’s just the gunk from the bruised apples,” Ford told him. “Ignore them and, gee, I don’t know, help the guy you knocked out of the tree.”
But Logan kept doing the bee dance, and it was actually kind of fun to watch. “Man, if you’d just stand still—”
“I’m allergic!” Logan yelled.
“You’re kidding me, right?”
“Fuck! Ow!” Logan slapped at his collarbone. “I’m hit, I’m hit!”
Ford wanted to ask Logan who was the pu**y now, but that seemed kind of asshole-ish. And then there was the fact that Ford was suddenly feeling weird, sort of woozy…
There were running footsteps, feet pounding the ground toward him. Ford closed his eyes as the pain began to burn a path to his brain. Yeah, he was definitely going to throw up.
“Ford,” Tara breathed. “Oh my God. Your leg.”
He felt her drop to her knees and had the vague thought that he wished she was going into that position for a different reason altogether.
“Is he dead?”
This from Chloe, and Ford huffed out a laugh. “Not yet,” he assured her.
Tara whipped out her cell phone, punched in 9-1-1, and glared at Chloe.
“What?” Chloe asked innocently. “Look, some sisters help you move, but a real sister helps you move bodies.” She patted Ford’s shoulder. “Glad it’s not necessary, Big Guy.”
“Me too,” he muttered.
“Help,” came a whisper.
Everyone looked over at Logan. He was sitting on the ground, hands clasped around his throat. His face was sweaty and beet red.
“Logan, not now,” Tara said. “Ford’s hurt.”
“I was… stung by a bee,” he rasped out and fell over.
Tara gasped and abandoned Ford, crawling over to Logan. “He’s allergic!”
Great, Ford thought. Fucking great. Even while passed out, Logan could upstage him.
The ambulance came. Tara burned breakfast again. And within thirty minutes someone had already updated Facebook with:
Tara nearly kills both of her men!
Mia saved the day, coming up with pancakes that she’d learned to make in Home Ec class. She served the guests with Maddie’s help while Tara rode in the ambulance with both Ford and Logan.
An hour and a half later, Tara was sitting in the hospital waiting room with Mia on one side, Chloe on the other. Maddie had taken over inn detail.
They hadn’t had any news on either Logan or Ford, and Tara felt herself losing it. “What’s taking so long?” she asked for the tenth time.
Chloe sat calmly reading Cosmo. She turned the page, eyed the very good-looking, half-naked guy there, and hummed her approval. “Maybe they’re surgically removing their In Love with Tara gene.”
Tara narrowed her eyes. “What does that mean?”
“It means I still don’t get it. How is it that you have those two guys falling for you? You’re grumpy and bossy and demanding and anal—not to mention slightly obsessive compulsive.” She paused. “No offense.”
Tara looked over at a quiet Mia. “Still glad you found your parents?”
A smile curved her lips. “I have my moments.”
Chloe laughed. “I really, really like you.”
Tara elbowed her, then turned to Mia again. “Thanks for your help in the kitchen during the fiasco.”
“No problem. I’ve been wondering something.”
Oh God. Another question, Tara thought.
“Amy, the waitress at the diner, told me you never burned anything over there. Ever.”
“That’s true,” Tara said over Chloe’s snort.
“Why is that?” Mia asked.
“I have no idea.”
Finally, a doctor came out to talk to them. Logan had been treated for his severe allergic reaction to the bee sting and was going to be fine. Ford had a broken leg and had been drugged up to have it set. He was loopy, but would also be fine—in six to eight weeks.
Mia went in to see Ford first. While she did, Tara called the B&B and checked in. According to Maddie, their guests were fine and out for the day. Two more people had checked in but all was well.
Taking a deep breath, Tara walked down the hall, stopping to buy two balloons. Both the men in her life had acted like children today; so she figured what the hell.
Logan’s room came first. He was sitting up in his bed, flirting with a pretty nurse who was hovering over him taking his pulse. “I’ve always wanted to meet a real-life NASCAR driver,” she was saying.
Tara rolled her eyes and knocked on the jamb. “Am I interrupting?”
The look on the nurse’s face said yes, she was absolutely interrupting, but she was professional enough to shake her head. “I just have to get the doctor to sign his forms and then he can be released.” With one last little longing glance in Logan’s direction, the woman was gone.
Logan smiled at the balloons. “For me?”
“One of them.” Tara handed it over and kissed his cheek. “You’re an idiot.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“But I love you anyway.”
“Yeah.” His smiled faded. “But you’re not in love with me.”
Tara sat at his hip and looked him in the eyes. “And you are, Logan? In love with me? Truth,” she said when he opened his mouth. “Are you in love with me, the me I am right now?”
“Well not right now,” he said, brooding. “Right now you’re kinda mean.”
“How about the me who has a life now separate from yours? The me who’s now involved in her sisters’ lives, the me who can no longer drop everything and travel the world to be your greatest cheerleader without a care to her own life? That me, Logan. Are you in love with that me?”
Logan looked at her for a long beat, then expelled a breath. “I don’t know that you.”
“No, you don’t.” Tara reached for his hand. “Which means you can’t love me.”
He was quiet a minute. “I didn’t expect us to turn out this way,” he finally said. He brought their joined hands up to his mouth and brushed his lips across her knuckles. “I do see what you love about Lucky Harbor, though. It’s a cool place.”