Irreplaceable

When I opened the door, I was instead met with a bouquet of red roses and a cocky smile that did not belong to Luke. My face fell, confused.

“Happy Valentine’s Day,” Logan said, placing the flowers in my hands and leaning in for a quick kiss to my surprised cheek. He was dressed in light faded jeans, and his wool coat was open, revealing a casual black V-neck T-shirt.

“Um…happy Valentine’s Day to you too, but why are you here?” My face had to have shown how surprised I was to see him. “I told you I already have plans tonight…with Luke.”

“Yes, I remember, but I thought I’d stop by on the off chance that he canceled.”

I snorted. Canceled? “Yeah, didn’t happen, but thanks for the flowers, they’re beautiful.”

He looked pleased, standing there watching me as I struggled with telling him goodbye. If Logan wanted to spend time together, he should’ve asked. I did eat lunch alone a few hours earlier, and wouldn’t have shot him down had he asked to join.

“Luke will be here any minute, so if you don’t mind, I’ll see you around,” I said with a soft smile.

As I began to close the door, Logan’s hand flew up, holding it open.

“Wait, can’t I at least come in until he arrives?”

My plans for a romance-free evening were not starting off very well.

“Logan,” I sighed, dropping my head, staring down at the bouquet in my hand. “I’m sorry, but if you wanted to—”

My phone ringing from the coffee table cut me off. I looked back to the table where it sat, and then to Logan.

“You can get that,” he said, smiling a little too brightly.

I eyed him carefully and walked over, snatching it up to see it was Luke.

“Hey Luke, you on your way over?” I asked, grinning cheekily at Logan, who was bent down petting Scout wearing a smug smile he didn’t even attempt to hide.

“Actually, something came up. I need to take a rain check.”

Was he kidding? I turned away from staring at the gorgeous man looming in my doorway and dropped my voice to a whisper. “Why?”

“I’m sorry, it’s just that…I was driving over when I saw a car on the side of the road about a mile from your house. I stopped to help, and it was Julia West.”

I sighed. What were the chances? A quick glimpse over my shoulder told me it wasn’t a coincidence, by the raise of Logan’s brow. Damn it.

“Long story short, her car just needed a jump, but she insisted on taking me to dinner as a thank you for helping her out.”

“You don’t say.”

“I hate to cancel, but it turns out she and Mark broke up, so I figured why not?”

“Broke up?” That was news. I’d just talked to her yesterday, and she didn’t say a thing. Not that we were BFFs.

“Yeah, she didn’t say much aside from that she hated being single on Valentine’s, so I took that to mean they weren’t together anymore. Listen, I got to go, she’s coming back from the restroom. Sorry, I’ll make it up to you. Bye.”

Luke hung up and I did the same slowly before turning back reluctantly to face Logan, who was now strolling into the house with a paper bag in his hands that he must’ve had sitting on the porch. He shut the door behind him.

“Hope you’re hungry, sweetheart. I plan on making you a meal you’ll never forget.”

“If Julia’s playing with him, I swear to God, Logan, I will hurt you both!”

“Calm down. She and that scumbag Mark broke up last week. She won’t say why, but I did happen to catch the way your little friend looked at my sister when we ran into him and Caleb the other day.” He walked toward me, his breath warm over my cheek as his voice lowered to a husky murmur. “Hate to break it you, sweetheart, but it’s not how he looks at you.”

With a ragged breath and raging hormones, I shoved past him, annoyed at how he easily my body responded to his and that he knew it. I shook off the butterflies flittering through me.

“I told you—Luke and I are just friends.”

“And I believe that. It’s obvious he’s interested in my sister, and everything I’ve heard about him from Caleb tells me he’s not so bad. I figured why not help the kid out?”

I followed him to the kitchen, where he removed his coat and began emptying the bag of food onto the counter. He had no issue making himself at home.

“So, then, you admit to putting your sister out in the cold on the side of a backcountry road with a dead car?” I stared at him crudely, waiting for his answer.

“No, that was all Julia.” He gave a cunning smile. “She was more than eager to help me out tonight. I merely suggested distracting your date.”

With a shake of my head, I opened my small pantry in search of a vase for the flowers he’d brought.

“You’re both horrible, and that better be one delicious meal, or—”

I stopped, cut off as I stared at the rows of vases Hilary had brought home from the hospital. I knew she’d cleaned them up and put them in there, but what I hadn’t noticed was the largest vase closest to the door still had the unopened card perched on top.

It’d taken everything in me not to open it at the hospital. That damn thing had called out to me from my bed every minute of every day since it’d been delivered with the first round of beautiful flowers Logan had sent. I spent countless hours telling myself that whatever Logan had to say, it didn’t matter. Staring at it now, I couldn’t find that reason, and my curiosity was piqued.

I grabbed the vase and popped the small card into the pocket of my worn jeans before walking back to the table to set the vase next to the flowers.

Logan already had pots removed from cabinets and the stove fired up as I brushed past him in the tight space by the sink, where he was rinsing a bowl of the largest shrimp I’d ever seen. My mouth watered at the sight of them, and when I glanced up, he was staring across at me with the sweetest lighthearted smile.

“Sorry, I just need to fill the vase,” I explained.

He turned the faucet to reach me and I held the vase as still as I could in my hands that were unsteady as his gaze bore into me.

It was going to be a long night.

“Thanks,” I said after it was filled, and headed back to the table.

Carefully, I unwrapped the bundle of classic red roses. With a pair of shears from my junk drawer, I began cutting the ends off each one and arranging them in a perfect bouquet.

“So, where’s Oliver tonight?”

“At my mother’s with his cousin, Charlie. Jax will bring him home in the morning before school.”

“And Natasha? How did you escape her?”

“Thanks to your help with giving Jax the information, Natasha is halfway to Aspen right now,” he said, looking positively pleased with the thought.

“Why, exactly?”

“Because she believes that I was heading to my home there to stay a few days to think over my feelings. Jax tried to convince her she was wrong after a performance where he accidentally informed her of my plans the afternoon she got back from the movies with Oliver. As I expected, she purchased a ticket and left this morning in the hopes, I presume, of surprising me there.”

“But you’re not going?” I asked, unsure what to think and still not clear what the envelope I gave Jax contained. From the weight of it, I’d assumed cash.