Marrying Daisy Bellamy by Susan Wiggs

officer’s commission, and she couldn’t imagine missing it. “It’s a really big deal to be an officer in the air force,” she added, wondering how much of this Charlie was absorbing. She stuck a plastic gas station by the side of the sandbox road and pushed her truck into the bay to fuel up. “They’re going to tell every body where he has to go for his job. He could be sent anywhere in the world, from Tierra del Fuego to the North Pole.”
    â€œWhere Santa lives,” Charlie said, his face lighting up.
    â€œYou never know.”
    She shook off a wave of melancholy, thinking about how hard it was going to be, seeing him go off somewhere to start his life as an officer. She was determined not to show her sadness. This weekend was about celebrating Julian’s incredible achievement, not about lamenting the chance they’d never had.
    â€œTell you what,” she said to Charlie. “Let’s go grab some lunch and you can pick out three toys to take to your dad’s.”
    â€œFour toys,” he said, always pushing for more.
    She was pretty sure he didn’t know what four was, but that wasn’t the point. You didn’t bargain with a little kid. “Three,” she said. “And they have to fit in your Clifford bag.”
    Â 
    Charlie was sound asleep in his car seat when Daisy drove up to Logan’s place. She spotted him up on the roof of the house he’d bought last fall, pounding at something. The house was old and graceful, from the 1920s, on a tree-lined street prized for its vintage architecture and quiet ambiance. The neighborhood was a haven for the upwardly mobile, close to schools and the country club. It didn’t appeal to Daisy in particular—her taste ran to funky lakeside cottages—but Logan had embraced home ownership with his usual tenacity.
    Like all older homes, the house had issues. He insisted on doing many of the renovations himself, even though he could probably afford any contractor he wanted. It was as if he had something to prove. Born to a wealthy family, he’d never had to do home repairs. With his new place, he embraced the challenge. It was a steep-roofed two-story house surrounded by overgrown rhododendrons and hydrangea bushes, with a big hickory tree in the front. He must have heard her drive up because he paused in his work and lifted his arm to wave.
    He lost his balance and wheeled his arms, and his feet came out from under him. Gathering speed, he skidded down the steep slope of the roof. It was like something out of a nightmare. Daisy opened her mouth in a voiceless scream and clamped both hands over her mouth. A part of her understood that this would be a really bad time for Charlie to awaken—in time to see his daddy fall to his death.
    Logan grabbed for a purchase, hooking onto the eaves. The old metal tore away. He tumbled to the edge and dropped like a sack of mail, crashing down on an old rhododendron bush.
    Daisy leapt out of the car and rushed over to him. He lay by the broken bush, motionless. His eyes were closed, his face chalk-white.
    A sense of unreality fell over her. No . These things didn’t happen. They weren’t supposed to happen. He looked dead. He was dead. Just like that.
    She couldn’t catch her breath. She sank to her knees beside him. “Logan, no, ” she said. “Please.”
    A terrible sound came from him as he sucked in a breath. “Please…what?” His eyes fluttered open, and he groaned.
    She cried harder, from joy now. “Are you all right? I thought you were dead.”
    â€œHey, I thought I was dead. Completely knocked the wind out of me.”
    â€œShould I call 911?”
    He pushed himself up, plucked a rhody branch from his hair. “Sorry to disappoint you, but the emergency is over.” He moved his head from side to side. “No broken neck. Extremities all intact.”
    A thin, livid scrape slashed across his