The Sweetest Thing

longing glance in Logan’s direction, the woman was gone.

Logan smiled at the balloons. “For me?”

“One of them.” Tara handed it over and kissed his cheek. “You’re an idiot.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“But I love you anyway.”

“Yeah.” His smiled faded. “But you’re not in love with me.”

Tara sat at his hip and looked him in the eyes. “And you are, Logan? In love with me? Truth,” she said when he opened his mouth. “Are you in love with me, the me I am right now?”

“Well not right now,” he said, brooding. “Right now you’re kinda mean.”

“How about the me who has a life now separate from yours? The me who’s now involved in her sisters’ lives, the me who can no longer drop everything and travel the world to be your greatest cheerleader without a care to her own life? That me, Logan. Are you in love with that me?”

Logan looked at her for a long beat, then expelled a breath. “I don’t know that you.”

“No, you don’t.” Tara reached for his hand. “Which means you can’t love me.”

He was quiet a minute. “I didn’t expect us to turn out this way,” he finally said. He brought their joined hands up to his mouth and brushed his lips across her knuckles. “I do see what you love about Lucky Harbor, though. It’s a cool place.”

It wasn’t the place. Tara knew that now. It was the people in it, and the relationships she’d made here. It was… home.

“So if you’re not coming back to me,” he said after a while, “what are your plans?”

“I’m moving on.”

“Moving on while staying in Lucky Harbor?”

“Yes,” she said, admitting her newfound realization. “I’m staying.”

“With Ford?”

“I don’t know,” Tara said honestly.

Logan laughed, and in it was a wistfulness and vulnerability she hadn’t expected. “I know,” he said softly.

Chapter 26

“Never do anything that you don’t want to have to explain to 9-1-1 personnel.”

TARA DANIELS

Tara left Logan’s hospital room and went looking for her next most pressing problem. When she heard Mia’s voice, she slowed her pace. Peeking in the door, she found Mia sitting in a chair by Ford’s bed.

All she could see of Ford was a set of long legs, one casted. Still standing out of sight behind the curtain, Tara smiled in spite of herself. They were playing cards. Blackjack.

“Hit me,” Ford said.

Mia dealt him a card.

“Hit me,” he said.

Mia obliged again.

“Hit me.”

“Um,” Mia said hesitantly. “You have thirty-six.”

Ford blinked blearily at his cards. “You sure?”

“Wow.” Mia giggled. “They must have given you some good stuff, huh, Dad?”

Ford went still and stared her. “Did you just-”

“Yeah,” Mia said softly. “Weird?”

“Yes.” He smiled at her dopily. “The absolutely best kind of weird. You should probably ask me all my secrets now. I’m mush and high. I’ll sing like a canary.”

Mia grinned. “What kind of secrets do you have?”

“Deep, dark ones.”

“Like?”

“Like how I watch Hell’s Kitchen. Shh,” he said, bringing a finger to his lips and nearly taking out an eye. “And I change the locks at the bar just to mess with Jax’s head. Oh, and I push Tara’s buttons cuz I like it when she gets all pissy.”

Mia laughed. “You really are high. Make me understand why you two aren’t a thing again?”

“Me and Jax? He’s engaged to someone else now, so…”

“You know I mean Tara,” she said, still laughing.

Ford looked at his cards as if they might hold the answer.

“Come on, it’s not that tough a question.”

“Yes, it is. And didn’t I tell you all this already?”

“No, actually,” Mia said. “You never have. Tara did. Well, kind of. But not you.”

Standing in the doorway, still half-hidden behind the privacy curtain, Tara covered her mouth with her fingers to avoid interrupting them.

“It’s complicated,” Ford finally said. “But that’s also a bullshit answer, and I’ve always promised myself if I ever got the chance to know you, I wouldn’t bullshit you.”

He’d thought about this, Tara realized. About getting to know Mia, being with her. He’d thought about it, and he’d wanted it.

It was to her own shame that she’d tried not to do the same, otherwise the guilt would have killed her a long time ago.

“I’m glad, cuz I have a highly sensitive bullshit meter,” Mia said.

A half-smile curved Ford’s mouth as he reached for the teen’s hand. “You get that from Tara, you know. You get a lot from her. Your inner strength, your determination, your brains. All your best parts actually, they come from her, not me.”

Tara pressed her free hand over her aching heart.

“So would you finally just tell me?” Mia asked softly. “Will you tell me about you two, how it was back then? You know, since you’re high and all.”

Ford let out a long breath. “I was bad news for her, Mia.”

Tara’s breath caught. Out of all the things she expected him to say, that hadn’t been on the list.

“Did she tell you that?” Mia asked. “That you were bad for her?”

He hadn’t been, Tara thought with a lump in her throat. He’d been wonderful. Exactly what she’d needed. She’d been inexperienced, but he hadn’t taken advantage of her. And the truth was, she’d wanted him as badly as he’d wanted her. When she’d gotten pregnant, he’d felt guilty as hell.

It hadn’t been his fault. Not all of it, anyway. There’d been two of them in his bed, and once he’d taught her how good their bodies could feel together, it’d been all she’d wanted to do with him.

“No,” Ford said. “She never said that.”

“Probably because she didn’t see it that way,” Mia said.

Ford shrugged, and hands still over her mouth and heart, Tara shook her head. She hadn’t seen him as bad for her. Ever. She’d seen past his roughness, the tough exterior, to the caring, warm boy beneath.

“It wasn’t going to happen,” Ford said. “Us. I couldn’t have taken care of her any more than I could have taken care of you, no matter how much I wanted to. Truth is, she was made for better things than being stuck with me in this small town that she hated.”