Page 24 of Under the Orchard’s Spell

“Plus,” I add, probing, “I know you weren’t exactly eager to come back here.”

Logan brings the handkerchief to my neck, uses a thumb to gently guide my chin upward. With a delicate sweeping motion, he wipes grime from the underside of my jaw. My heart seems to have lodged itself in the exact spot where his hand is lightly cupping my throat. Another shudder moves through me.

“Being here…” he says carefully, “is complicated for me.”

I don’t know how to read that, especially not with his hands on me in a way that is either completely innocent or, as the trembling of my heart would suggest, entirely indecent. “As bad as you thought?”

He considers as he folds over his handkerchief, then leans back in to work out a stubborn bead from my collarbone. “I’ve tried to put that part of my life behind me. Coming back here…I guess I’m realizing I haven’t gotten as much distance as I thought.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, trying not to sound affected by the brush of his fingers against my clavicle. He’s telling me he doesn’t want to be here, but all I can think about is the way he gently moves aside the strap of my dress to wipe the top of my shoulder. “I don’t want you to do anything that makes you uncomfortable. You can leave right now if—”

“Ali. I’ll let you know when I need to leave.”

I swallow. “Right. Okay. Thank you.”

Still holding my wrist, he looks me over again: my chin, my neck, down the length of my arm. Checking his handiwork. I feel like my entire chest has moved north to my throat. My heart is thundering so loudly I’m sure he can hear it in this deafening quiet. Then Logan clicks his tongue, pleased, and releases me.

“Done,” he says, dusting off his hands and easily turning back to searching a new box.

We get back to work in silence, although it takes several minutes for my heart to return to my chest where it belongs. As we search, we’re accompanied only by the creak of floorboards and soft thumps of shifting boxes. In the quiet, Logan’s words start to register—not just his discomfort about being here, which I still regret imposing on him, but also the differences between what has to have been replaying in his brain since he arrived, versus what’s been in mine. Over the last few hours, Logan has probably been singularly focused on his life’s central trauma. Meanwhile, my mind has been splatter-painted with our shared memories, kicked up like mud behind the spinning wheels of a tractor. He’s been in pain, and I’ve been thinking about his lips. Embarrassing, really.

The problem, I think, is that past and present have easily blurred for me. Too easily. Logan was my first boyfriend, the first man I ever loved. Although we never said those words to each other, I know that now in retrospect. We have too much emotional residue.

It’s possible—likely even—these flares of attraction I keep feeling aren’t even real. It’s been only a month since Blake and Liv left me. Maybe what I’ve been feeling is loneliness. A desire for the comfort of something familiar. Nostalgia.

Besides, given what I now know, I’m not sure how much longer Logan’s trial run is going to last. Frankly, I’m surprised he was even willing to try coming back to the orchard.

“Can I ask you something?” I say.

“Go on.”

I hesitate. “It’s personal.”

He glances over his shoulder. “That never used to be a problem for us.”

Our eyes meet and that tire swing flashes through my mind so clearly, I can feel the worn rope under my fingertips. Damn, nostalgia sure is a hell of a drug.

I avert my attention to the wooden chest by my feet.

“After high school,” I say, “you were supposed to move away.”

The floorboard creaks as Logan shifts his weight. “That’s right.”

“Did you stay because of what happened with your mom?”

He frowns and moves to a new set of boxes, lifting and replacing lids, looking so absorbed I think he isn’t going to answer. But then he swallows and says, “When she left, Dad needed help with the business, another set of hands. And my brothers, Andrew and Mason, they were little. Someone needed to help them get dressed in the mornings and brush their teeth at night. Make sure they weren’t eating cold cereal for every meal.”

I frown, trying to picture teenage Logan putting away his pencils so he could pack lunches and build barns. It’s easy to envision. Too easy.

“I’m sure that was a big adjustment for your dad,” I say. “I can’t imagine losing your wife like that is bearable, let alone easy. But he figured it out eventually, right?”

Logan lets out a hollow laugh. “Not so much. He’d always had this tendency to check out when things got hard. He’d stay out late, sometimes shut himself in the shop for hours. When she first left, I thought maybe, well, at least now Dad would have to stick to the house. But it only got worse. He started disappearing for days at a time. He’d come hours late to our jobs without a word of explanation. Eventually, he stopped showing up entirely. But we still needed money, so he ‘retired’ and I took over.”

I blow out a breath. “Damn, that’s not fair.”

Logan exhales as he squats, controlled but audible. “I did what I had to do.”

“Still,” I say, thinking of that sketchbook. His dreams. “You should have been allowed to live your own life. They left you without any choices.”