Logan's Child. Lenora Worth
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in touch. I should have let him know I cared.”
“He knew you loved him.”
“Did he? Did he really know that?” she asked.
“Yes, he surely did. I kept in touch with him, you know. After all, he was my son. And, thank the Lord, we made our peace with each other long before he died.”
“Did…did he ever talk about me?”
Harlan lifted his gaze to her face, his blue eyes, so like his son’s, full of love and compassion. “All the time, honey. All the time.”
Trixie saw the hesitation in her grandfather’s expression. He seemed to want to say more, but instead he just looked away, down at the ground. At least he’d told her that her father still thought about her and acknowledged her existence. Trixie found some comfort in that.
After she’d had the baby—they’d never allowed her to know whether it had been a boy or a girl—Brant had drifted further and further out of her life. Still numb, still grieving over the twist her life had taken, she went on to college, a year late. Determined to get her life back on track, she’d soon became immersed in her studies and her somewhat vague social life. She’d gone through all the motions—the sororities, the campus parties, the whirl of college life, but her heart, her center always came back here to her father…and to Logan. Ashamed, she’d felt as though neither wanted anything to do with her, so she hadn’t made any effort to mend the shattered relationships with the two men she loved and respected most in all the world.
Logan stood now, apart from all the others, with a group of about eight children of various ages. Watching him, Trixie wondered again how this was affecting him. Brant had been like a father to him. Logan’s mother, Gayle, had come to the ranch years ago, divorced and struggling with a rebellious teenage son. Brant had given her a job as cook and housekeeper, and promptly had put her son to work on the ranch.
The arrangement had worked, since Brant hadn’t spent too much time at the ranch back then. He’d depended on Gayle and Logan to watch over things, along with some locals he hired to tend the animals and crops. By the time Trixie arrived that summer so long ago, however, Brant was a permanent resident here, and he and Logan had formed a grudging respect for each other. That mutual respect had seen them through the worst of times. The very worst of times.
Not wanting to delve too deeply into those particular memories, Trixie turned her attention to the haphazard group of children around Logan. “Granddaddy, who are all those youngsters?”
Harlan cleared his throat and glanced in the direction of the silent, solemn group. “They’re living on the ranch, Tricia Maria. They’ve been here for most of the summer.”
Shocked, Trixie stared hard at her grandfather. “Why? I mean, are they helping out with the crops as a project? Did Logan give them jobs?”
Harlan started to speak again when the preacher lifted his hands to gather the group around Brant’s casket. Harlan leaned close and whispered, “I’ll explain it all later.”
There was no easy explanation for death, especially when speaking to a child. Logan stood with the children he was in charge of and wondered again if he’d handled any of this in the right way. Granted, he’d had training in counseling youths from the minister who was about to conduct Brant’s funeral service. But talking with children was never easy. Children demanded complete and total honesty, and sometimes adults, by trying to protect them, hedged and pawed around the truth. Logan certainly knew all about that.
Looking over at Trixie now, Logan felt a stab of guilt. He hadn’t exactly been completely truthful with her, but then again, she had kept her distance, and her secret, from him all these years, too. As he watched her now, so cool and pulled together in her black linen pantsuit, he had to wonder what her intentions were. How could she come barreling in here again after all these years and rearrange his whole way of life?
Feeling a tug on the sleeve of his chambray shirt, Logan looked down to find ten-year-old Marco holding on to him.
“Hey, buddy,” Logan said on a low whisper. “How ya doing?”
Marco, a beautiful Hispanic child whose mother had abandoned him when he was three, shook his shiny black-haired head and said, “Not too good, Mr. Logan.” He put a hand to his heart. “It hurts here, inside. I miss Mr. Brant.”
“Yeah, me, too, bud,” Logan replied, his voice tight, his words clipped. “Tell you what, though. You just stand here by me and hold tight to my hand, okay? We’ll get through this together. Then later I’ll bring out Radar and let you exercise him around the paddock. Deal?”
Marco’s sad expression changed into a grin. “I get to ride the pony?”
Logan gave the boy a conspiring wink. “You and you alone, partner.”
Marco took his hand and held on. Soon, all of the children had shifted closer to Logan. Their warmth soothed the great hole in his soul and made him even more determined to hold on to what he’d helped Brant build here. Then he saw Caleb standing by Gayle. Motioning for the seven-year-old boy, Logan waited as the youngest of the group ran and sailed into his arms, then wrapped his arms around Logan’s neck. Holding the boy close, Logan decided right then and there that he had to talk some sense into Tricia Maria Dunaway. He wouldn’t stand by and let her sell this ranch. Not after everything that had passed between them. With that thought in mind, he glanced over at Trixie and held tight to the little brown-haired boy in his arms.
She chose that moment to look up, her eyes meeting his in a silent battle of longing and questions. Soon he’d have his answers, Logan decided. And maybe soon she’d have hers, too. Whether she liked it or not…
Then the minister preached to them about finding their answers through the word of God. “For the Lord is good, his mercy is everlasting, and his truth endureth to all generations.”
The truth. Could it endure between Trixie and him? Was it time to find out? Logan stared across at the woman he’d tried so hard to forget and wondered if someone up there was trying to send him a personal message.
Much later, after all the mourners had paid their respects, after Harlan had headed back down the hill to the lodge to rest a spell, after the sun had dipped behind the distant live oaks and loblolly pines, Trixie stood alone beside her father’s freshly dug grave and remembered all the good and wonderful things about Brant Dunaway.
And she cried. She’d never felt so lost and alone.
Until she felt a hand on her arm.
Turning, she saw Logan standing there, his eyes as dark and rich as the land beneath their feet, his expression a mixture of sympathy and bitterness. He didn’t speak; didn’t offer her any pretty platitudes or pat condolences. Instead, he simply stood there beside her and let her cry.
And finally, when she could stand it no longer, when he could hold back no longer, he took her in his arms and held her while the red-gold September sun slipped reluctantly behind the Arkansas hills.
“He used to bring me daisies on my birthday,” Trixie said later as they sat on a nearby hillside.
The shadows of dusk stretched out before them, darkness playing against the last, shimmering rays of the sun. Off in the distance, a cow lowed softly, calling her calf home for supper. Trixie stared across the widening valley, her gaze taking in the panoramic view of the beautiful burgundy-and-white Brangus cattle strolling along, dipping their great heads to graze the grasslands.
“He always did like wildflowers,” Logan answered. “Remind me to show you the field of sunflowers he planted just over the ridge. The wreath on his casket came from those.”
Trixie glanced over at the man sitting beside her. Logan had brought her such a comfort, coming back up here to