Chapter Six

Isabella Gertrude Bradley-Banks-Crenshaw-Edison, Trudy to her friends, sipped a Mai Tai and adjusted the steamy romance novel in her lap. Jade LaRossa should have arrived by now. If everything went according to plan—well, Trudy’s plan anyway—Jade and Logan should be falling in love right about now.

Trudy sighed. How she wished she were home to oversee her carefully crafted machinations. But alas, she must rely on fate to take its course.

Trudy was no stranger to romance. She buried three husbands before she turned thirty, God rest their souls. She met husband number one, Helmut Banks, when she traveled Europe after college graduation. He was exceptionally handsome, excessively rich and exceedingly reckless. He died racing his Alfa Romeo on the Autobahn.

Husband number two, Leonard Crenshaw, she met at the ripe age of twenty-five. He'd been twenty years her senior but she'd truly loved him. He died from a massive heart attack in the middle of open heart surgery—not his, but the one he was performing. The assisting doctors managed to save the patient on the operating table, but dear old Leonard had not been so fortunate.

Number three, Marcel Edison, was a bookish, gentle soul, a whiz at stocks. Their marriage lasted three months before his ex-wife gunned him down in a brutal murder-suicide.

Three husbands, three burials, all before birthday number thirty. Deciding she must carry some heinous bad luck gene, Trudy vowed to never wed again.

She loved men, she just didn’t want to kill any more of them.

She gathered up her sorrows, traveled the world for years, and enjoyed the finer things in life. On a stop home, she checked on her younger brother Kenny, only to be told he'd been killed in a military accident in the Middle East.

She and Kenny had been inseparable when they were young, and even managed to keep a close relationship during her three marriages. But when Kenny brought Silvia home, her immediate distrust of the woman caused a rift in their relationship she thought she would never be able to repair after his sudden death.

Distraught at having missed his funeral and a chance to reconcile with her only sibling, she sucked up her pride and contacted Kenny’s widow, who painted a rosy picture of her single-handedly raising their two boys, Logan and Daniel, nephews Trudy had never even met.

Trudy ended the phone conversation feeling grim, and was shocked to pick up the phone later that evening and hear a young voice asking her if she was really his dad’s sister. Trudy assured the young man that yes, she and Kenny were indeed siblings and had once been very close. The boy lowered his voice and by the tunnel sound, Trudy could tell he'd wrapped his hand around the mouthpiece. Obviously he had something important that he didn’t want to be overheard.

His words slashed Trudy’s already bruised heart. Logan asked if she was married and when she said yes, three times but like his dad, her husbands had passed on, he then asked if she had kids. She told him that no, the Lord hadn’t blessed her with any. He asked if she had enough money to take care of one. Her three wealthy husbands had left her set for life and she assured the young boy that she could manage. Almost afraid to hear him continue, he told her that he was ten and he could take care of himself but he wanted a better life for his two-year-old brother. He confided that he was the one who fed and changed and protected Danny, as he called him. But he couldn’t guard him during the day when he went to school, and he feared what might happen to his little brother.

Her heart in shreds, she listened as Logan revealed the details of his plan. If she could just come to California, he would meet her someplace with Dan and she could whisk him away to a better life. He would make up a story of someone breaking in and kidnapping the toddler. He didn’t think his mother would care.

Trudy instantly agreed, and the relieved sigh and small sniffles that traveled clearly through the receiver broke her heart neatly in two. She set up an emergency appointment with her lawyer to draw up necessary paperwork. Next, she arranged for a seat on the very next flight to California, a return trip for three and flew out to claim her nephews.

Silvia rejected Trudy’s demand that she turn over her sons at first. A check with many zeros quickly changed her mind. Trudy bought custody of the two most precious boys in the world for a pathetic one hundred thousand dollars. She'd been willing to go as high as needed, even into the millions, but greedy Silvia had snapped up her first offer and signed the documents giving up her rights to her children without even reading it, especially the clause that said she could not contact the boys, nor could she ask for more money.

Silvia didn’t so much as kiss her boys goodbye as she raced out the door to spend her new windfall.

Trudy fought the murderous rage that coursed through her body. She would never understand why God would give a woman like Silvia, who didn’t want nor deserve kids, two when she'd not been able to have any. Oh she would have loved and cherished kids with all her heart. Ah, but God works in mysterious ways and while she did not give birth to Logan or Dan, they were hers in every other sense of the word.

Trudy began gathering the boy’s meager belongings while Logan held Dan against his chest, relief warring with sorrow on his handsome little face. He didn’t want to let his brother go but knew he must if the boy were to have a chance to survive. Trudy bent to eye level and told Logan that he didn’t have to leave his brother after all. He was coming with them. Surprise and shock registered in his ten-year-old face before it crumpled with tears of joy. He squeezed his baby brother so hard the little guy yelped.

The plane ride home had been awkward. She'd never met the boys before and now she would be their only family. At just ten, Logan had been forced to grow up early and was already jaded when he came to live with her. He proved to be a hard shell to crack. He couldn’t fathom why someone would want him around and he could not grasp the concept of unconditional love until Trudy put it into context of how he felt about his baby brother.

When the trio arrived in Bloomington, she took the boys shopping and let them pick out whatever they wanted, including the furnishings for their bedrooms. Logan had been reluctant, suspicious. He picked very few things for himself but plenty for Dan. Trudy filled in the rest, piling their carts high with toys and games and clothes.

She would never tell Logan or Dan that their mother accepted cash for giving them up for her to raise. They didn’t need to know the extent of her betrayal. She told them that in order for Silvia’s dream of becoming a movie star to come true, she needed to move to Hollywood alone. But Silvia’s loss had been her gain. She loved and cared for the boys, reared them as her own.

Kenny had been a good father, she was sure, but the military kept him away for long periods of time and he hadn’t been around to witness the abuse and mistreatment of his sons. Trudy believed with all her heart that if he'd known, he would have whisked his boys out of there to a safe place.

It took most of the winter, but Logan finally adjusted, accepted her love and returned it. He went from a somber-faced ten-year-old to a happy-go-lucky eleven. He excelled at sports, started making A’s and made several friends, including his current partner Luke Colton who had been a neighbor and a couple of years older.

When Logan left to join the Navy, she didn’t know who cried more, her or Dan. When he started earning money, he sent regular payments home to care for his brother, no matter how much she insisted that she didn’t need the help. Her pleas fell on deaf ears. She accepted Logan’s money, but she put it all in an investment fund for him when he came home. And she prayed constantly that he would come back to her and Dan.

Logan would not allow Dan to follow in his footsteps and join the military, much to Trudy’s relief. The years he spent first in the Navy and then with the SEALs had been the most frightening, worrisome years in her life. He would leave at the drop of a hat, not able to tell her where he was going or when he would return. She wouldn’t hear from him for weeks, sometimes months on end. Every time the phone rang, she dreaded answering. Then one night, the very thing she feared most in the world happened. Logan had been critically injured. They didn’t know if he would make it through the night.

Dan had been in college at the time but insisted on living at home with Trudy. The two of them jumped on a plane bound for Germany and arrived to find a battered, beaten, bruised Logan in a coma. They stayed by his bed the entire time and then flew in the plane with him when he'd been transferred to the States. While Logan’s body began to heal, his head did not. Despondent over the death of his friend, his fiancée’s desertion and the end of his career, he'd been inconsolable. Dan took the semester off to be with his brother but nothing seemed to cheer him up until his childhood buddy Luke offered him a proposition.

Trudy sighed, thinking back to that day the light returned to her precious Logan’s eyes. He had a new purpose, a reason to get up in the morning. And then a few months ago, Logan’s life changed dramatically. Trudy smiled. Little Isabella—her namesake—arrived. One of God’s many miracles.

Trudy had been honored beyond belief to learn that Logan had planned on naming his daughter after her if he ever had one, and the only thing she had to thank Celeste for was honoring that wish.

If Celeste hadn’t been killed, she would hunt her down and do the job herself for keeping Logan from his daughter for the first years of her life. Callous, yes, but no woman had the right to intentionally keep a father from his child.

Ah well, Trudy waved a dismissive hand through the air, water under the bridge. Isabella was Logan’s now. He was happy. The little girl was happy. The only thing missing was a woman to be a mother to Isabella and to keep Logan’s bed warm at night.

Trudy had tried for years, ever since his fiancée abandoned him, to set him up with a nice, loving woman. Yes, she readily admitted to having made some mistakes. Pearl, her hairdresser being one. Granted, Pearl was a little older than Logan but she was kind and loved to cook and owned several salons in Southern Indiana. She would keep Logan’s hair neatly trimmed and his belly full. Trudy shifted on her chair and grumped. Okay, she majorly faux pa-ed that one but Logan rebuked all her choices. She'd been getting desperate.

Her other chief mistake had been Charlotte, the granddaughter of one of her canasta buddies. On paper, Charlotte seemed perfect. She was adorable, outgoing and sweet. But the moment she saw Logan, stars glittered in her eyes and she fell in love, attaching herself like Velcro to his side. Logan being Logan, he'd been instantly wary. With Trudy’s coercion, he invited her to a hotel grand opening and although Trudy wasn’t positive, she was pretty sure they slept together. Logan being Logan, he declined a second date, which Charlotte refused to accept. She became borderline obsessive.

Trudy wheedled Logan into the mess, she felt responsible to get him out. Voila! Enter Jade LaRossa, aka movie star Juliet LaRue. Her nephews had no idea she was friends with the screen siren. Trudy met Jade when she was a college student and Trudy was on the board of directors of the local auditorium. Trudy had been impressed with Jade’s performance, knew she was destined for great things. They struck up a conversation and a deep and lasting friendship ensued. Trudy became Jade’s benefactor, funding her education and financing her trip to Hollywood. Jade’s parents were wonderful people, but didn’t have the means to provide the opportunities Jade needed to achieve success.

From the moment Trudy watched Jade on stage, she knew she would be perfect for Logan but over the years, something always got in the way. First Logan’s SEAL career, then Jade’s Hollywood one, then Logan’s fiancée and Jade’s marriage. Oh, how Trudy had been disappointed to learn of Jade’s nuptials with Hollywood bad boy Kyle Ashton. Trudy had all but given up any hope of getting the two together.

Then Jade called and asked if Trudy could find her a place to stay for the summer. Her marriage was over and she needed to get away. It just so happened, the family who lived next to Logan had left on a two year overseas sojourn and were looking to rent the house. Good ol' fate.

But Fate obviously didn’t take kindly to scheming aunts. When Trudy’s plans were finally coming to fruition, she'd been taken out of the game. Madge, her dear friend, had been diagnosed with a fatal disease and only had a few months to live. They had always planned on taking a cruise to Alaska and Trudy couldn’t disappoint her oldest and dearest friend. That’s how she found herself on a boat bound for the Arctic.

Maybe it was for the better. This would give Logan time to fall in love with Jade before she returned home. If he learned of her matchmaking, he would be furious and possibly ignore the love of his life out of spite.

Trudy took another sip of her Mai Tai. She would look at dresses when they arrived at the next port. She could practically smell a fall wedding.