Chapter Eight

 

Logan checked his wristwatch before he entered the office after lunch with Thaddeus, where he informed him that he was washing his hands of the case. He had to find someone else to deal with Millicent, her disappearance and all that entailed. He was going back to what he specialized in, family law, and that was that.

It had left him with an uncomfortable feeling to talk to the founding partner in such a strident manner but he realized that his attitude toward Thaddeus had changed since he took the case. He had lost the awe and respect that he had for him in the past and he was more than a little fed up that he could not get in touch with his wayward client. Let Thaddeus handle this latest development; he was her secret father, after all.

He had a million and one things to deal with, one of them being his latest case with Denver Brooks, who should be arriving for an appointment shortly. Denver had totally eschewed mediation and wanted litigation to deal with his divorce. He wanted to do things the hard way because he suspected that his soon–to-be ex-wife had a new love interest. He also wanted custody of the four children, though he didn't live in the country.

Logan mentally shrugged off the conversation with Thaddeus Masters and his thoughts about Denver Brooks and closed his office door and pulled the blinds. Sabrina would get the message that he was not to be disturbed–or he hoped she got the message. She had smiled at him just now with more than just a little hero worship. He should never have had dinner with her the other evening and listened to her story, nor should he have had dinner with her at his house. He had crossed the line with her somehow and he had no idea how he could retrieve their former clinical relationship.

He sighed a heartfelt sigh of relief when he sat down in his chair and looked at his phone. It was a text from Melody.

They are gone. Heading home.

"Yes." He smiled to himself. She was coming back today. His rock, his anchor, his sounding board. He could count the number of times that he had spent apart from Melody since they got married, and he had hated every minute that she was away. He would only feel truly relaxed when he saw her this evening. And he was leaving the office early in anticipation of that. He felt like a parched plot of land that needed to be watered.

He closed his eyes, indulging himself again in a memory: the first time he saw Melody. He had just finished his final year of law school and his parents had just made the move to Kingston so his father could join an established practice with his friend, a chiropractor, and so his mother could head the physics department at the university. His sister had migrated to Canada that year and he had been feeling a bit despondent.

Carson had come to his doorstep early on a Sunday morning with little Mia in toe. "We are going to the beach."

"Good for you," Logan said wearily. "Have fun."

"Nope. You didn't understand me," Carson said, letting himself into the house. "You and I are going on the church beach trip for the entire day. You are going to carry food and share; you are going to laugh and have fun. You can use Mia as female bait; I won't mind."

Logan looked at Carson as if he had two heads. "Do I look like I need girl bait?"

"No," Carson mused. "Physically you are good-looking but you manage to drive all the nice girls away with your stern stare and your list of requirements. Many of the girls at church are afraid of you."

"No, they are not," Logan said. "Most of them are just airheads and are afraid to participate in any discussion that is remotely intelligent. Besides, I have no desire to bait any of the girls at church, as you put it."

"Nobody can meet your lofty standards, huh?" Carson asked. "That's your problem right there. Where are you going to find this fantasy girl, who speaks all of the languages you do or went to university and did double degrees and can discuss all of the boring things you find so interesting and has similar tastes in books, looks as pretty as a picture and is pure as the driven snow. She doesn't exist. No girl is that perfect."

"Well thanks, Carson," Logan said. "That was a thrilling pep talk. I am so motivated to come with you now."

"Please come, Uncle Logan," Mia said, batting her over-long eyelashes at him. She was just a chubby four-year-old and already she was charming.

Logan looked at Carson. "Really, Carson Bell? You are using your innocent child in this."

"Yup," Carson said, heading for the kitchen. "Your folks really did clean up, didn't they? At least they left stuff for you to eat," Carson said, rummaging around. "Lots of stuff. Come look at this, Mia, cheese cake."

"Goody," Mia clapped her hands like a starving child, which Logan knew she was not. She turned her big innocent eyes at him. "It won't taste the same if you are not there, Uncle Logan."

Logan sighed. He couldn't resist Mia. Never could. He and all the guys had pitched in to raise her, and they all thought of her as their own.

He gave Carson the evil eye. "I am going to get you back somehow."

"Please do," Carson said. "Please force me to have fun when I am down in the dumps and feeling sorry for myself and feeling lonely and have nobody to call my own."

Logan kissed his teeth. His friend was right; he was feeling a bit low and lonely.

"Oh, there is another church from Kingston joining ours," Carson said slyly, "and I heard that there are all sorts of pretty girls coming over. Who knows, one of them might speak several languages, read books and like your philosophical leanings."

 

*****

Logan saw her as soon as she entered the beach area. He and Carson were sitting on individual lounge chairs. Mia had been snapped up as soon as they entered the beach park by some doting church sister, leaving them to their own devices. He had been looking at the sea, weighing in his head some options for jobs.

He had two job offers. Masters, Gilrich and Edison, needed a family lawyer. They were an impressive outfit and very well known. He had another offer from a smaller law firm. Johnson and Bridges needed a real estate lawyer for their outfit.

He could do either with ease; he preferred family law, though. It sounded more exciting, like he could make a difference in people's lives.

Carson had jabbed him in his side. "Girls at nine o'clock."

Logan snorted. "I see them."

"Pretty girls," Carson said. "Go and hunt."

"I am not leaving my chair," Logan said stiffly. "And I don't hunt, as you put it."

He was watching her, though. She was walking and talking with two other girls. Obviously, it was something interesting because she stopped to laugh, holding onto one of the girls in uncontrollable glee.

Even Carson was chuckling beside him. "I like her. She is not afraid to laugh from the very bottom of her belly. She would make the perfect foil for you and your seriousness."

Logan grunted. "We'll see."

"She's pretty. No ring." Carson prompted him.

"If you like her so much, why don't you go and check her out?" Logan said, irritated with Carson and his pushy ways.

"I am married," Carson said to Logan. He pushed up his dark glasses on top of his head. "I am shocked that you would encourage adultery—a fine upstanding law man like yourself."

Logan grunted. "Alice has been gone for years now. I could handle your divorce."

"Not interested," Carson said, pulling back down his glasses. "Still love her. I am waiting. One day Alice will come back."

"Ridiculous," Logan said in a huff.

Carson chuckled. "What is ridiculous is that they are almost upon us and you are doing nothing."

Logan looked at her as she drew closer. She was even prettier close up. She was in a white-cropped top with tight jean shorts. She was short but she had long shapely legs, and his eyes traveled up to her exquisitely flawless face. She had natural, unprocessed hair, just the way he liked it.

"Hey," Carson called out, and all three girls stopped.

Carson got up, as bold as you please. Two of the girls started giggling like ninnies, staring at his handsome physique as if they were awestruck, except her. She was looking at him curiously.

"My name is Carson Bell," he heard Carson introducing himself, "and that is my friend, Logan Moore. We are from Cedar Hill church."

She turned her brown doe eyes in his direction again. They were big, brown and guileless. Her eyes looked very much like that picture of Bambi that Mia had on her reading book cover.

"My name is Melody Blu and these are my friends, Carol and Henrietta. We are from Trafalgar Church in Kingston."

She looked over at him again and their eyes locked for a second.

"Nice to meet you." She shook Carson's hand.

When they made to move away, Carson the meddler said, "This is a nice shaded spot," he indicated the tree. "The two chairs beside me are vacant. One is my daughter's but judging from her loud squeals of delight in the water, she won't be coming back anytime soon."

"Oh goody," Carol said, gazing at Carson in instant adoration.

Henrietta shook her head. "I am here with my family. I see them coming." She pointed to a guy who was carrying a little boy and holding the hand of a little girl. "I will make my camp a little farther down there, under another tree."

That left Melody and Carol.

Carson sat beside Carol in the seat he had set up for Mia, doing it casually and giving Logan the eye.

Logan ignored him, feeling a little shiver of excitement as Melody laid out her beach towel on the chair beside him. She didn't say a word. He watched as she stretched like a sinuous cat.

"Is your surname blue as in the color blue?" he asked after five minutes of silence.

She turned her head slowly and looked at him through thick, stubby eyelashes. "Or bleu as in cordon bleu, the dish?"

She smiled. "B-l-u, so neither."

"Oh." An uncomfortable silence followed while he checked her out from the corner of his eyes. "Do you read?"

Carson got up and gave him a frown. You can do better than that, he read in his friend's eyes but for the life of him, this particular girl/woman—he didn't even know how old she was—made him nervous. And when he was nervous he came across as rigid and inflexible.

Carson headed to the water with Carol in tow.

"Maybe I should follow them," Melody said after they left. "And yes, I do read. Doesn't everyone?"

Logan heard the feisty tone in her voice and grinned. "I wasn't thinking the daily comics."

"Snob," Melody said, grinning to take the sting out of her words. "Those are good too. I love Archie comics and the never-ending saga of Betty versus Veronica. I think Archie should go for Betty and Veronica should stick with Reggie."

Logan grimaced. "If you say so."

He took up his book, Philosophy is Fun. Carson had warned him against taking it to the beach but it was what he found fun to read, that and his old well-thumbed case study of law text.

"Seriously?" Melody said, looking at the cover and then at him skeptically. "Philosophy is fun for you, or are you studying?"

"Yes, it is fun," Logan said, not glancing over at her anymore. She liked comics. It was a major turn-off for him.

"That book is ridiculously dull and long-winded and it introduces the various philosophers in a really boring way."

Logan looked up sharply. "You have read this?"

"Yes," Melody snorted, "but only because I had a Philosophy lecturer in university that everybody said was hard. So I read ahead. I can't believe you are reading it for fun." Melody looked at him as if he had suddenly grown two heads. "And you carried it to the beach?"

Logan contemplated her. "Yes. So?"

"It's unusual." Melody got up and wiggled out of her shorts. "But then again you live here; you take this wonderful white sand beach for granted. See ya."

Logan slammed the book shut. Maybe he was being a spoilsport and, as she implied, super boring. He watched as she headed to the water, whooping with unfettered joy. She was so carefree and looked like a person who was lighthearted and fun. He watched as she swam over to Carol and Carson.

She had a conversation with them and splashed Carol, laughing at the top of her voice when Carol tried to dunk her. She smiled with Carson and a shaft of jealousy hit him out of nowhere. He wanted her to smile at him exclusively, not his friend.

Where did that thought come from? He barely knew her, except that she loved comics and thought philosophy was boring.

He got up and headed into the water. She had swum away from Carson by the time he reached her, and was heading away from the group into another direction, probably avoiding him because he was such a bore. She probably thought he was going to lecture her about laughing at the beach.

He still looked for her, though, and when he lost sight of her he became concerned and swam in the direction he saw her last.

He realized instantly what was wrong the minute he saw the white foam between waves. She was caught in a rip current and she was rapidly being carried farther out to sea.

"Don't fight it!" he yelled. A few other persons heard him and had come swimming in his direction, but he was the closest to her.

Melody didn't hear him yell. She was frantically flailing her arms in the direction of the shore.

He swam alongside the tide and made a grab for her, missing the first time but catching her arms the second and moving them expertly alongside the tide.

"Thank you," Melody sobbed when they were ashore, kneeling on the sand. "Thank you so much." She hugged him to her, not realizing that she was pressing her small perky breasts into his chest.

Logan allowed her to sob out her panic on his shoulders, and somewhere during the time it took her hot tears to wet his neck and her curly hair to tickle his nostrils, his heart had cracked a little.

He found himself not caring if she spoke any other languages or liked comics more than philosophy or if she was pure as the driven snow. He just knew that he wanted her to be in his arms forever. She was the one for him.

 

*****

 

Logan's phone rang and he realized that he had been swinging in his chair and staring off into space for minutes.

He picked up the phone.

"Mr. Moore," Sabrina said huskily, "Mr. Brooks is on his way up."

"Thanks, Sabrina," Logan said, a smile in his voice. Memories of that first meeting always left him smiling. They had dated long distance for two years, though they were vastly different people.

The last time she came to Montego Bay to stay for a weekend he couldn't bear for her to leave him to face another bleak week without her; she had cried when she was leaving that Sunday. He had made up his mind then that long distance was not going to cut it. He had proposed the minute she got out of the car the next time.

He shook hands with Denver as he came into the office, focusing his mind now on the business at hand. He hated litigating a divorce, an appalling fact that he couldn't share with the partners of the firm because litigation was so much more lucrative than mediation, but he always advised mediation to his clients, regardless.

"Seriously, Denver," he said after the pleasantries. "This is not an ideal situation. You and Simone have four children."

Denver fidgeted a bit in his seat. "I can't let her have everything. She lives in my house; she has my kids; she is seeing this guy from her workplace, her old boyfriend, bringing him to my house that I worked so hard to build. Introducing my kids to a stranger and having him sleep over. No, it's not going to work."

Logan sighed and leaned forward. He had taken a few counseling courses years ago when he realized that his job as family lawyer would overlap the counseling world. He was about to talk when Denver pointed to his family picture.

"Nice family. Your wife is gorgeous."

"Thanks," Logan said.

"She looks familiar." Denver was no longer thinking about his family problems. He was staring at the picture on the desk. "This is just a wild guess," he said eagerly to Logan, "but is her name Melodious."

"Yes," Logan said, "that's right."

"Man," Denver said shaking his head, "she is still good looking. We used to tease her about her name back in high school at St. Ann High. She used to ignore us mostly, but we all had a little crush on her."

"Melody never went to St. Ann High." Logan leaned back in his chair and regarded Denver dubiously. "She was home schooled through high school."

"Yes, she went to high school," Denver said. "Her parents were really famous back in the day. I remember them from that variety television show. They ruled theatre. When they moved to St. Ann it was the only thing everybody in the district used to talk about. We had our own celebrity family living in our backyard. Man, it was something else."

He laughed. "They lived at the great house on top of the hill in our district, Orchid House, beside that white family, the Rileys. We used to walk up the hill just to see if we could spot one of the Blus.

“When Melodious actually came to school, everyone wanted to be her friend. She only spent one semester, though. After that tragic incident at the Riley's, Melodious dropped out of school, and her parents packed up and left St Ann."

Logan was staring at Denver, appalled. "What tragic incident?"

"That thing with Greg Riley," Denver said, shrugging. "I never really got the story straight but apparently he did drugs. I am not sure if he and Melodious did it together but you know rich people's kids. They lived beside each other and she was the one who found him."

Logan straightened his tie. Melody found him doing what? He felt like shaking the information from Denver, but Denver was staring at the picture and shaking his head. "She really is gorgeous."

"Denver," Logan said impatiently.

"Yes... um. We were talking about Simone," Denver said. "I want her out of my house and I want primary custody of the kids and I want back all the money I lent her mother to put in her business and I want to sell the two cars. She is giving one to her new boyfriend to drive. Unacceptable. I bought them. Oh, and I want back every single stick of furniture that I bought before we were married. Those were good, expensive pieces.

"Can you imagine my horror when I saw Simone posting a picture on social media of her new guy sprawling out on one of my custom pieces?"

Logan focused on his client; his head was still reeling from the revelation that Denver just made about Melody. It was intriguing that Melody never mentioned that part of her life, and here he was thinking that they told each other everything.