Expecting to see Aunt Betty, he turned the corner, and found himself face-to-face with a woman with long, blond curls and freckles that covered the bridge of her nose. When her wide, pale-blue eyes met his, the air whooshed from his lungs. Logan was standing in front of Erin Carlisle—his best friend’s widow, and the reason he ran from town ten years ago.
“Logan?”Erin’s whispered voice cut through the silence of the kitchen.
She hadn’t seen the man who had called himself her and Jake’s best friend in years, and yet it had only taken her seconds to recognize him. The dark hair he kept cut short was a similar style to what he wore in high school. His frame was broad and muscular—so different from Jake’s in those final days—and hisbrown eyes were wide, as if he hadn’t expected to see Erin in Aunt Betty’s kitchen.
The glass measuring cup in her hand slipped from her fingers and hit the ground. The loud crash broke the moment. Afternoon sunlight sparkled off the shattered glass covering the tile floor. Erin would be finding small shards of glass for days, no matter how careful she was to clean it all. After a long day of baking pies, cakes, and cookies, she didn’t want to clean another mess. But if she didn’t do it, someone could get hurt.
She sighed as she bent to start scooping it into her apron. Seconds later, Logan crouched down in front of her, picking up the shards with one hand and placing them in his other. When their eyes met, Erin bit back the words she wanted to say.
Still, she couldn’t hold it all back. “What are you doing here?” she said, as anger replaced the initial shock of seeing him.
He lifted another piece of glass. “Aunt Betty asked me to come home and help her. What areyoudoing here?”
She lifted her chin. “I live here.”
“Mama, Mama,” Parker, her four-year-old son, screamed at the top of his lungs as he burst into the kitchen barefoot. “What was that sound?”
“Parker!” Erin’s voice came out in a loud shriek that had her son stopping in his tracks. She put her hand up and tried again, this time, her voice much softer. “Stay there, sweetie. I dropped something, and glass is everywhere.”
“Who’s that guy?” he asked when his gaze found Logan crouched beside her.
Logan looked up at her son. “My name is L?—”
“What happened?” Samantha, Erin’s seven-year-old daughter, interrupted as she, too, entered the kitchen.
“Just a little mess,” Erin replied.
“Can I help clean it up?” Samantha asked.
“Not this time, honey.”
“But, Mo-om,” she whined.
“Listen, why don’t you grab a few cookies from that plate over there”—Erin pointed to a platter on the counter near the doorway of the kitchen, safe from the glass that littered the floor—“and you and Parker can eat them on the front porch. I’ll be out in a few minutes, okay?”
Her daughter continued to watch her, so Erin cleared her throat and used a tone of voice that left no room for argument. “Samantha Jane Carlisle, if you don’t grab those cookies and eat them with your brother right this minute, you’re in big trouble.”
Samantha jerked back before she grabbed a handful of chocolate chip cookies with one hand, her younger brother’s arm with the other, and disappeared down the hall toward the front door. Once Erin was satisfied that they were a safe distance away, she got back to work cleaning the floor with shaking hands.
Logan was back in Frostford. In his childhood home.
Her mind raced at what this meant for her and her children.
After Jake died, she’d lost everything and had spent the last year trying to pick up the pieces of her broken life. Thankfully, Aunt Betty had let her live in her home rent free while she got back on her feet. The plan was for Erin to save enough money to get a place for herself after losing the house she’d lived in with Jake. Somewhere along the line, Erin got it in her mind thatthiswas the house she wanted to buy. When Aunt Betty had casually mentioned one night that she would eventually need to sell the house, Erin had started saving every penny she could. She wanted to be ready when the ‘for sale’ sign went up in the yard.
Seeing Logan made her wonder if all of that had been a pipe dream. Was Logan back becauseheplanned to buy it? It was his childhood home, after all. He had more of a claim on it than Erin and her children.
That would mean moving on to Plan B. She had enough saved for an apartment—they wouldn’t be homeless—but Erin felt like the rug had been pulled out from her again. She wished she could close her eyes and Logan would leave, this time for good. It hurt too much to see him after all this time, and she worried that with his return, he was going to hurt her again.
Dread filled her veins, and she froze, unable to pickup another piece of glass. She looked up and realized Logan wasn’t cleaning anymore. Instead, he was looking at her with a puzzled expression.
“What?” she asked.
He shook his head. “That is the first time I ever heard someone threaten their kids if they didn’t eat cookies.”
Erin was worrying about where she was going to live, and this man was going to make a joke? Her temper flared. “Oh, yeah? And what do you know of parenting?”
Erin regretted the words instantly, even before she saw the flash of hurt that crossed his features. She was angry, but to bring up Logan’s parents was a cheap shot. “I-I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. It just came out.”
