Marrying Daisy Bellamy by Susan Wiggs Page A

cheek, and his hand was bleeding.
    â€œAre you sure you’re okay?”
    â€œOkay enough, I swear.” He wiped his hand on his shirt.
    â€œYou shouldn’t have been up on the roof all by yourself. Couldn’t you have called someone?”
    â€œNow you’re sounding like my mother.”
    â€œSorry.”
    He offered a lopsided grin. “Maybe the fall knocked the silver spoon from my mouth. Here, give me a hand.”
    She pulled him to his feet and looked into his eyes, making sure the pupils matched. “Did you hit your head?”
    â€œNope. Fell on my ass.” He laid his arm around her shoulders. He smelled of sweat and broken greenery. “I should lean on you, though. You know, just in case. Where’s my boy?”
    â€œAsleep in the car.”
    â€œI got plans for us this weekend,” said Logan. “My soccer team’s got a big match.”
    She cast another worried look at him. “You might be really hurt.”
    He stepped away from her, spread his arms wide. “Look, I’m fine, okay? I took a spill—”
    â€œFrom a two-story roof.”
    â€œAnd lived to tell the tale,” he said. “Quit worrying. Charlie and I’ll be fine. Perfectly fine.”
    â€œWhat were you doing up there, anyway?”
    â€œFixing some loose shingles. A regular home handyman.”
    â€œDo me a favor. No ladders, no roof repairs while you’re in charge of Charlie.”
    He raised his right hand. “Scout’s honor.” He unbuckled Charlie’s seat and pulled it out. Charlie stirred but didn’t wake up, so Logan carried the whole rig into thehouse. Daisy followed with the Clifford bag and Charlie’s weekender.
    â€œI could call Sonnet,” she suggested. Her stepsister was Charlie’s favorite babysitter. After finishing her studies and internships in Germany, Sonnet was back in Avalon for a few months. In the fall, she would start work at the U.N.
    â€œOr either of my parents could help out—”
    â€œEnough, okay? I didn’t get hurt. I’m perfectly capable of taking care of my own kid.” He spoke quietly, but his voice had an edge. Because of his past as an addict and drunk, people tended to tiptoe around him or assume he was inadequate. Just the suggestion of help brought out his defensiveness.
    â€œI know you’re capable. But you just fell off a roof. You’re not Superman.”
    He grabbed a Nehi soda from the fridge. “Sure, I am.” He offered her a sip.
    She shook her head. “All right. Instead of getting another sitter, I could cancel.” Thus proving once again how easily life interfered with her and Julian.
    â€œNope,” he said quickly. “No way.”
    This startled her. Logan knew she was going to the commissioning ceremony, and he couldn’t stand Julian. In Logan’s mind, Julian was the one thing that stood between them, preventing them from having a deeper relationship. Which was so wrong, but that was a different conversation. Still, she didn’t get why Logan seemed to want her to go to Ithaca.
    He must have read her mind. “You need to see him get his commission. Maybe it’ll be, I don’t know, closure for you.”
    â€œClosure?” She hated the sound of that word.
    â€œYou need to see that the air force is his life.” Logan spoke kindly. “You’ll never be first with him. Maybeafter this weekend, after he gets sent to Timbuktu, that’ll finally be clear to you.”
    It irked her that Logan assumed that was the way things would play out. He spoke as if he had some kind of crystal ball.
    â€œGreat, now you’re my relationship analyst.” God, how did I get here? she wondered. Sometimes she looked around her life and asked herself that. How was it that she was getting relationship advice from the father of her child, a guy who had come into her life through an act of bad judgment, and stayed