Logan wasn’t ever going to forgive her if he wouldn’t give her the opportunity even to explain what had happened.
She’d reached out to him, just as Avery had suggested. She’d taken the coward’s way out and had texted him rather than calling or showing up at his door, but she had reached out.
And then she hadn’t been able to meet him.
With good reason, but Logan clearly didn’t even want to hear her excuse.
She hadn’t been there to meet him at the bench because she hadn’t even been at the farm.
She’d been amped up about meeting Logan and was in the bathroom putting on a dash of makeup and straightening her hair, neither of which she usually bothered doing except on Sundays to go to church.
Suddenly, she’d heard a crash that sounded as if someone had dropped a dozen pots and pans, followed by a thud and a groan.
She’d rushed out to find Granddad on his back on the floor of the kitchen, a variety of pots and pans surrounding him. Apparently, he had been reaching for a ten-inch frying pan from a bottom cabinet and had been attempting to pull it out from underneath several other pans. He had overcompensated and had gone down backward.
Granddad definitely looked dazed and had a nasty bruise building on his shoulder where it had hit the sharp edge of one of the pans. Thankfully, he hadn’t lost consciousness, but Molly and all her siblings weren’t about to take any chances. It wouldn’t take much for him to get a concussion, and his bones were brittle and prone to break.
The stubborn old man wouldn’t let them call an ambulance no matter how practically they’d presented the idea to him, but he couldn’t stop them from rushing him to the emergency room. The urgent care in town was closed for the evening, and the nearest hospital with an emergency room was an hour’s drive away. Molly had loaded up Granddad and Felicity and Ruby in her sedan. Once they’d reached the hospital and gotten Granddad checked in through triage and into a room, Molly had finally looked at her phone.
Logan would have visited the bench and be long gone, and he was no doubt furious with her for not showing up. Avery, who was the only sibling who knew of her secret meeting, had offered to take Granddad in her place, but he’d specifically asked for Molly to come, and she couldn’t let him down. She’d always been the one to bandage wounds and take care of family illnesses. It was part of her giving nature.
She’d texted Logan once that evening, but it was late and he hadn’t answered, so she’d decided to wait until the following morning to get in touch with him. She didn’t want Logan’s phone to go off and wake up Judah past his bedtime. Plus, she figured waiting until the next morning to call would give Logan time to cool off if he was angry with her for not making their meeting.
Instead, she’d texted him. Sorry. Will explain later.
Apparently, that hadn’t been good enough. Not that she blamed him. If she was in his shoes, she’d probably feel the same way. Even though she hadn’t meant to, she’d essentially stood him up.
She did try to call him again—several times—but it always went straight to voice mail, which meant one of three things. One, his phone was out of battery and he hadn’t charged it yet. Two, he’d turned off his phone, because he didn’t want to talk to her. Three, he was ignoring her calls.
If she had to guess, she’d pick door number three. At this point she was going to have to hunt the man down and follow him around until he promised to listen to her.
Thankfully, Granddad didn’t have any broken bones and had returned home with only a few bumps and bruises. The hospital had admitted him overnight for observation, and Molly had offered to stay the night by his side. Avery had come the next morning to relieve her.
Molly hadn’t done much more than doze in the hospital, thanks in equal parts to worry and a very uncomfortable chair, so she went home and straight to bed, where she slept for several hours. After she woke, showered and ate, the first thing she did was try to call Logan again.
And got sent straight to voice mail.
That was two days ago. Logan still hadn’t answered his phone. She was beginning to really feel as if he wasn’t ever going to speak to her again.
She texted, hoping he’d at least read his texts from her. Please answer your phone.
She wanted to apologize for missing their meeting and explain about Granddad in person, or at least by a phone call, but not through a text. For one thing, if he got a vague message about Granddad, she knew he’d worry about him, although he’d have no reason to do so. Granddad was back to shuffling around the house being his usual grumbly-bumbly self, sporting just a few black-and-blue spots and aches and pains to show for his big fall.
She stared at her phone, willing it to ring—or at least for her to get a return text message from Logan.
Just when she thought he wasn’t going to respond, she got a text message. Meet me at our bench at 6 p.m. next Saturday night. Come alone.
Okay. What was this about? Wasn’t this similar to the message she’d originally sent him, only with a different date on it? Was he trying to joke with her? She couldn’t imagine how that could be, not with the way everything had gone down recently.
She didn’t understand.
It occurred to her that a much younger, much less mature Logan might be playing what he considered tit for tat. Make her meet him at their bench with no intention whatsoever of showing up so she could understand how he’d felt when she stood him up.
But Logan wasn’t anything like the boy who’d broken her heart all those years ago. He was a man now, a father with a child. And whatever he was, he wasn’t cruel.
It was going to be difficult to wait two more days until Saturday evening, but she would take him on his terms. She would go and hope they could have the conversation she’d had to miss the other night. She had a story to tell, and it went far beyond taking her grandfather to the emergency room.
It was time to share the truth of her heart with him.
The whole truth.
At first, Logan couldn’t understand why Molly had dropped him like a hot potato. When Molly had texted him the night they were supposed to meet at their bench, he’d let it go without reading it. He was just too tired to deal with any kind of drama.
Then he’d about had a panic attack when he finally realized his phone had been out of battery all the next day. He’d put it on the charger as he always did in the evening, but he hadn’t realized the charger was unplugged until a whole day later. He’d been out helping his dad fix the wraparound porch and hadn’t had his phone with him. Then, when he’d checked it and had plugged the charger into the wall, he’d seen that Molly had called a number of times, and he felt terrible about it.
She obviously wanted to clear up whatever issue had kept her from seeing him the other night. But he was tired of passing like ships in the night. When he next spoke to her, he wanted it to be in person—and he wanted to do it up right.
He’d hoped to catch up with her at church on Sunday. That’s when he’d finally heard what had happened to Molly’s granddad—when the pastor asked them to pray for him and for the whole Winslow family.
He’d known it had to be something like that. He’d just known it.
He wished now he would have known what was happening. She’d needed support, but she hadn’t reached out to him until after the fact.
But she had texted him later that evening and he hadn’t responded. He didn’t have a good excuse for that. He’d been tested, and he’d failed.
But he wasn’t giving up. Far from it.
“Hey, Judah,” he said, calling his son to his bedroom. “You want to come here a minute?”
“Y-yes, Daddy?” Judah padded into the room with Rufus at his heels, a book in his hand. He’d been reading on his own much more often now that Rufus was a part of the family.
“I’ve been thinking about Miss Molly,” he said, and then waited for Judah’s reaction, which was immediate and wholehearted.
The boy smiled. “Are we going to see Miss Molly again?” he asked eagerly and without a single stammer.
“I think it’s about time we do. But I want us to do something really special for her, and I was hoping you’d help me plan out what that will be.”
“Flowers,” Judah said straightaway, without taking a breath. “Girls like flowers. Molly really likes flowers. She told me.”
“Yes, she does,” he agreed. A bouquet of flowers was a good start. “Okay, so definitely flowers. Maybe some more of those carnations she likes so much.”
Hmm. Or maybe a dozen red roses would be more appropriate for this occasion. He was going to have to think about that.
“Her favorite color is blue,” Judah supplied enthusiastically.
“Wow. You’ve really paid attention to Miss Molly,” Logan said, so proud of his son his heart welled until it nearly burst out of his chest. “What should we get her that’s blue?”
Judah furrowed his brow and the tip of his tongue stuck out of the corner of his mouth as he thought it through. “Could we g-get her blue flowers?”
“I don’t see why not. Good idea. What else do you think?”
So not roses, then. Carnations it was. He was pretty sure he could find blue carnations. She’d love them.
“Something gold for her neck?” Judah suggested. “Or a sparkly ring? Don’t girls like stuff like that?”
“Hmm,” said Logan as a light flicked on in his brain. His son really was a genius. Of course, he’d already thought of a ring. That was kind of a given, considering what his next move would be. He had actually gone shopping for one, though he hadn’t completely settled on his choice.
But a necklace—that went above and beyond. And he was looking for above and beyond. It was something special in which Judah could participate. Logan was already picturing the fine details.
He also had an idea for the bench where he planned for them to meet her, but he suspected trying to explain what he wanted to do would be too confusing for Judah, so he left that part out for the time being.
“Daddy?”
“Hmm?”
“Are we asking Miss Molly to marry us?”
Logan laughed. His son was definitely the kind of kid who went straight to the point. “Would you like that?”
Judah nodded so voraciously he almost looked like a rag doll. Rufus wasn’t sure what to do with that kind of movement. He tilted his head to the side and regarded Judah in confusion, clearly wondering if he needed to step in, or if Judah was just being silly.
That only made Logan laugh harder.
They were going to be a wonderful little family here—him and Molly, with Judah and Rufus and any other little ones God might eventually bless them with.
If Molly said yes.