18
Are you sure you want to do this? Because now would be the time to back out, Jen.”
Logan held his phone to his ear while he crossed his nearly empty office. Just one more desk drawer to empty and pack away in a bank box. He could hear Charlie chattering from the reception area, where she hung out with Alena on her last day. She spoke in bare sentences in short spurts, but those words were like splashes of ocean water against his face on a hot day.
Or an Iowa breeze brushing over prairie grass.
“I’m sure.” Confidence anchored Jenessa Belville’s voice. “I’ve already got the check written. Fax me the papers and it’s a done deal.”
The papers Jenessa was talking about were spread over his otherwise empty desktop. He fished in one of the boxes he’d already packed for a pen and resisted the urge to review the documents one more time. He’d scanned them at least half a dozen times already, and Beckett had stuck his lawyer eyes on them.
It was time.
Logan bent over his desk and signed his name. “All right, it’s done.”
Jenessa’s whoop sounded over the phone. He hung up seconds later, the first real peace he’d felt in weeks settling over him.
Or maybe not the first, because there’d certainly been something easing about seeing Beckett three weeks ago. And even talking to Senator Hadley two weeks ago.
The senator had made the call herself. “I want you on staff, Logan. I want you working with me. But a police report and a potential custody suit, it’s too much for a lead position. I’ll need communications people in several key cities, though. So once I’ve got a new communications coordinator on board, we’ll be in touch.”
It should’ve ripped through him. Instead, all he’d been able to feel was relief.
Not too long after that, he’d had the conversation with Theo, sitting on the patio outside his apartment, after he’d realized he didn’t want to keep their consulting firm going without his partner.
“We ran a great business for almost six years, Theo. It’s okay to let it go now. You go to Allentown. Maybe we’ll meet up in D.C. eventually.”
Then just last week, the call from Jenessa. The one that had left him slack-jawed and stunned, but . . . strangely certain this wasn’t just chance. God had just whisked the last thing off his plate, leaving him with a wide-open and plan-less future.
Probably right where he wanted him.
Logan pulled the last drawer from his desk, and instead of carefully pulling out each item and arranging it in his last empty box, he simply dumped the thing over and then reinserted the drawer. There. Done.
He grabbed the signed legal docs off his desk and roamed into the reception area. “I’m about to admit something horrible, Alena.” Charlie sat on his intern’s desk, legs dangling as Alena arranged a necklace made of paperclips around her neck.
“What’s that, boss?”
“I never once learned how to use the new copier-faxer-printer thing we got after the new year.”
Alena spun. “You’re kidding.”
“You always jumped in when I was on my way to the machine and did it for me.” Like Amelia jumping in to un-jam the press.
He could still smell the ink she’d smeared all over her arms and face that day in the office. Picture the blush she’d tried to pretend away when she’d realized Ledge had known all along she was fixing the machine the hard way.
Alena stood and plucked the papers from his hand. “You do know you owe me an explanation, right?”
He fingered the paperclips around Charlie’s neck. “Cute necklace, Bug.” He trailed Alena to the copier. “An explanation about what?”
“The girl. I asked before Theo left for Allentown last week why you weren’t keeping the business going on your own. He did it for a couple months.”
“Yeah, there’s a difference between a couple months and a couple years.” More than a couple years, really. Even if Hadley didn’t win the election, Theo would most likely end up doing something much bigger than freelancing from a tiny office in LA.
“You were destined for a big life.”
That lawyer back in Maple Valley had said those words the second day Logan was home, and at the time, Logan had agreed—easily and maybe even a little pridefully. Because hadn’t he chased after big career goals? Hadn’t he been on the brink of seeing his hard work pay off?
But big had begun to take on a new meaning lately. And his dream, a new shape. Even if it didn’t have clear lines just yet.
“Well, anyway,” Alena continued, “when I asked, Theo said you were closing up because of a girl.”
The rat. “Not because of a girl.”
But because of a prayer. One he’d prayed more than once since that night with Beckett. If you need to take everything off my plate in order for me to hear you, go for it. If a clean slate and an invisible roadmap means I’ll learn how to trust you, then all right.
Alena stopped at the machine. “Fax number?”
Logan held out his hand, where he’d scribbled the number Jenessa had given him.
Alena punched in the number. “Well, you can deny there’s a girl, but I’m not going to believe you. You wouldn’t be grinning like you are right now if there wasn’t.”
He set the papers in the tray at the top of the machine. “Of course there’s a girl. She’s sitting over on your desk wearing your office supplies.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I do, and you don’t seem to understand that I’m politely ignoring it.”
Alena waited until the machine hummed to life, then turned to him. “Well, I’ll tell you this: You aren’t doing Charlie any favors by ignoring your own heart.”
He stared at her, felt his forehead bunch and a whisper just lately becoming familiar trek in. Listen to her. “Say that again?”
“You aren’t doing Charlie any favors by ignoring your own heart.” She sing-songed it this time and rolled her eyes. “You want to be a good dad? Kids need to know what love looks like.”
“Whoa, I didn’t say anything about love.”
The fax machine spit out the last page, and Alena pulled it from the side tray, smacking the original against Logan’s chest. “You didn’t have to.”
“Amelia, this is some incredible writing.”
Eleanor’s voice drifted from outside the changing room in Betsy’s Bridal. A mauve curtain separated Amelia from her sister and provided a backdrop for her reflection in the full-length mirror. The bridesmaid dress, a fallish shade of amber, had sheer straps that bunched over her shoulders and a form-fitting bodice. The skirt bowed at her waist before reaching to her knees.
“Did you hear me?”
Amelia pushed aside the curtain and stepped into the dressing room’s lounge area.
Eleanor dropped the flat electronic tablet she’d been reading from into her lap. “Oh my word, it’s perfect.”
“I like it. Very autumn-y.” Just right for Eleanor’s October wedding.
“It looks amazing with your eyes.” She rose from the tufted circular cushion in the middle of the room.
“Will all the bridesmaids’ dresses be the same?”
Eleanor reached out to adjust one of Amelia’s straps. “What other bridesmaids? You’re my maid of honor. Trev’s brother is his best man. Skipping the rest.”
Amelia fanned her skirt around her, the tulle underneath scratching her knees. “Really? After all those years of scolding me for eloping and missing out on all the hoopla of a big event, I’d have thought you’d go with a massive wedding.”
Eleanor laughed and stepped back, giving the dress one more once-over. “Nope. It’s taken us too long to finally make this happen as it is. We’re keeping it simple.”
The store’s owner slipped into the room. “Ah, it’s gorgeous on you. And you were worried the style would make you look short.”
“No, she was worried I’d think it made her look short and then force her to wear high heels,” Eleanor corrected. “Amelia would rather roll into the church on skates than wear heels.”
“Truth.” Amelia nodded into the mirror. “But you were right, Gabrielle. It’s a good fit.”
The woman tsked. “Never doubt me again.”
At the sound of the bells over the shop’s entrance, she disappeared again.
“Question.” Eleanor dropped back onto the circle couch. “If her name’s Gabrielle, why’s the store called Betsy’s Bridal?”
“I asked her that very thing when I did a story on her grand opening a year ago. She said it was because she wanted alliteration in the name.”
“She didn’t think of Gabrielle’s Gowns?”
Amelia laughed. “I don’t know. But you chose to shop for a dress in Maple Valley, El. You were basically asking for quirky.”
“Well, there’s nothing quirky about that dress. We’re getting it.” She poked one finger at the iPad on the couch. “And this article—you have to do something with this. It’s not just the writing, but the whole feel of the article. There’s heart and depth, and your voice just shines.”
The Kendall Wilkins story. Amelia had thought it was dead after the newspaper’s centennial issue failed to happen. Two months of following the story through history and even across state lines, for nothing.
Except not for nothing. Because even if it never saw print, that story had changed her. Reminded her of her love for history. Pulled out her taste for a different kind of writing—the kind fueled by mystery and research and even a little investigative journalism.
If it had stopped there, it would’ve been enough.
But it hadn’t. That day two weeks ago in Dani’s house, laughing at Mary’s refusal to take off her bike helmet, the pieces had finally come together in her head.
The Elm Society. Kendall Wilkins’s The Elm Foundation. Harry Wheeler’s The Elm Company.
The luck of Lindy.
And that nurse who lived in South Dakota now. That last story she had told about Kendall and his burial. “This old aviator helmet came tumbling out of his closet. From his childhood, I’m sure. He used to talk about watching barnstormers, you know. It was the one personal touch I felt like I could give him, including it in his coffin.”
T-h-e E-l-m.
H-e-l-m-e-t.
Charles Lindbergh’s helmet.
She’d about dropped the popsicle in her hand in her excitement at Dani’s. She’d asked to use a computer, Googled her way into discovering Lindy’s helmet had indeed never been recovered. In the chaos of his arrival in Paris, someone had pulled it off his head.
And it’d ended up on the head of his accidental decoy, Harry Wheeler.
She plopped onto the couch next to her sister now, the thrill of the possibility swelling through her all over again. The bridal shop’s air-conditioning pulled goosebumps from her arms.
Eleanor held the iPad in her lap now, tapping her way back to the beginning of the article. “My favorite part is how you left it a little open-ended. Like, hey, Charles Lindbergh’s helmet might be buried in little old Maple Valley, Iowa. As if, I don’t know, just thinking about it is stimulating enough. Like what other treasures are around us in our everyday lives that we don’t even realize?”
“That’s exactly what I was going for.” She spread her skirt out around her. “Plus, I kind of had to leave it open-ended. Unless someone exhumes Kendall’s body, we won’t know for sure.”
“But you’re going to send out it, aren’t you? Find a magazine or something to print it?”
“Yeah, I think so. I’ve got a list. I need to figure out how that works, probably write a query letter or something.” The only thing she knew for sure was that it wouldn’t end up in the News. Though there was still no word on whether the sale to Cranford Communications had ever been finalized.
But she fully expected the silver letters on the building just a few doors away from the bridal shop to come down soon. And for the Communicator to begin appearing in more mailboxes and newsstands by the end of the summer.
She glanced at Eleanor. “Thanks for being an early reader.”
Her sister tapped out of the Word doc and set the iPad beside her. “Thanks for letting me. Am I really the first one to read it? You haven’t even showed it to Logan?”
Logan. One of these days her heart might stop pinching whenever she heard his name. Or ran into one of the Walkers around town. Or drove past the library. “No, I haven’t.”
“But you want to.” Not a question.
“I want him to know all the time he spent helping me paid off. Sure.”
“Amelia.”
“Eleanor.” She whirled toward the dressing cubby. “I should change out of this dress.”
“Ignore me all you want, but I’ll get you to talk eventually.”
Amelia stopped before hiding behind the curtain. “There’s nothing to talk about. Logan went back to LA. I’m here.” For now. “And I’m focusing on other things at the moment. Like your wedding. We only have a few months to plan it.”
And trying to decide what to do now that she was no longer a newspaper editor. Go back to college and finish her history degree? Take a page from Raegan Walker and find a couple part-time jobs to tide her over?
She didn’t know. The only thing she did know was that maybe it was okay not to rush it. That there was truth to what she’d told Dani all those years ago. Instead of falling into a hurried search for what came next, she would allow herself to linger . . . think . . . pray.
Even start trusting a little. See, I am doing a new thing . . . a river in the wasteland.
It was that verse—the one from Emma’s grave.
Maybe her wasteland wasn’t a place, and her river wasn’t a job or person or plan.
But simply a hope.
Her phone cut in then, and she reached into the changing room for her purse. She didn’t recognize the number. “Hello?”
“Hey, Amelia? It’s Belle. Belle Waldorf.”
“Oh, right. The USA Today reporter.” Mae’s niece from Chicago.
“You were holding out on me.”
“Excuse me?”
“Here you get me to do a story on a guy who, sure, is nice and interesting and whoa, his headshot? Not bad. But all along you’ve got a sweet story of your own in the works.”
Eleanor glanced at her watch. “It’s been two hours since I had coffee. I’m going to run a couple doors down to that little coffee shop.”
She waved her sister off while trying to land on whatever Belle was talking about. “A story of my own?”
“This piece about this guy and this other guy . . .” The tapping of computer keys sounded over the phone. “Kendall and Harry. Two friends who saw history in the making and then went on to become part of history and yada-yada. This is some stellar writing.”
“I don’t . . . how did you . . . I’m confused.” This didn’t make sense. She hadn’t sent the article to anyone. “You have my Kendall Wilkins article?”
“Uh, yeah. Came from, let me see, publisher@maplevalleynews.com.”
No. Logan?
“You should know I’m not calling as a USA Today reporter right now. My aunt’s told you I’m part of a startup publication, right? Just something fun I do on the side, not even part-time really. Right now it’s just an online magazine, but we’ve talked about adding print someday.”
Amelia bent over to scratch her knees. Annoying tulle. “A startup?”
“It’s about the nerdiest thing you’ve ever heard of—grew out of a podcast actually. Best way to describe it is, we try to take historical events and stories and especially things like this Lindbergh deal and make them relevant for today.”
This was what Mae had been trying to get her to check out?
Belle was still talking. “ . . . totally a niche thing, and I don’t think any of us ever expected it to go anywhere. But about six months ago, NPR featured our website, and after that the History Channel actually ran with one of our stories. Ever since then, we’ve had steady advertising.”
“That sounds cool.” Amelia wandered to the high table at the opposite end of the changing lounge and snatched a butter mint. “And you’re interested in my article?”
“Yes.” Belle drawled the word. “But we’re also interested in you. Now that we’ve got somewhat of a revenue stream, we’re looking at actually hiring a writer-copyeditor-marketer-slash-someone-to-take-us-to-the-next-level. Not sure if it could be full-time yet, but maybe.” Belle took a breath.
And it was just long enough for the realization to sink in. “You think I might be—”
“A good fit? Oh yeah. Aunt Mae says you have a background in marketing. Obviously you can write, and you have an interest in history. I don’t know how you’d feel about relocating to Chicago—and who knows, maybe there’d be a way to long-distance it—but that’d almost be sad because we are a fun, fun staff and . . .”
Her article. Logan. Chicago.
Her brain spun.
“My aunt also says you make amazing cookies.” Mae knew about the cookies?
The call ended minutes later, with Belle promising to email her and Amelia promising to check out the website. And somehow she found herself outside the bridal shop, standing on the sidewalk and staring at the river, late-June air tickling over her bare skin and Eleanor’s shoes clicking toward her.
“I haven’t paid for that dress, Amelia. This might be considered shoplifting.”
The dress. Her regular clothes still sitting in the dressing room. What was she doing?
“I just . . . that phone call . . . Logan.”
Eleanor’s eyebrows popped up. “Logan? That was him?”
“No. I . . . he . . . I think he sent my article in, but it must’ve been the earlier version because he doesn’t even know . . . and now they want me to go apply for this job, and . . .” She wasn’t making any sense.
Eleanor held out her coffee cup. “Clearly, you need this more than I do.” She took ahold of Amelia’s arm and steered her back into the shop. “Talk.”