Moonlight on Nightingale Way (On Dublin Street 6)
Page 78I burst out laughing.
Logan stared at his daughter and me in puzzlement. “What just happened?”
“You know what just happened?” Maia sat back on her stool to look from me to him. “This.” She shook her head in amazement, a gesture that conveyed maturity beyond her years.
“What’s this?” I said.
She shrugged and started to eat again. “I’m just happy.”
Something like panic clutched my chest.
Logan stared at Maia, arrested. Slowly his gaze drifted over to me, and I saw gratitude, thankfulness, and something much more alarming in his eyes. Determination.
His determination met the worry in mine and battled with it.
But I’d been worrying my whole life, and now I had something so important to worry about not even Logan’s strength and persistence could defeat it.
I worried for Maia.
I worried that somehow Logan and I would mess this up and Maia would get her heart broken all over again.
People walked past us in a massive blur, laughing, talking, bumping into us every now and then. Princes Street was always busy, and on a warm summer day like today, it was even more so as residents and tourists and visitors shopped. Afterward they wandered down into the gardens to sit and soak up the sun, or hide in the shade of the towering Edinburgh Castle.
As I walked down Princes Street with my hand clasped tightly in Logan’s, I lacked my usual comfort, my usual perfect fit.
Logan wasn’t anonymous. Logan was Logan. He demanded you notice him, even if it wasn’t deliberate on his part. And so walking down the street, claimed by this man as his, I was aware of the looks he drew, mostly from young women, and sometimes their eyes would glance from him to me and I had to wonder if that was a question in their eyes.
Why was he with her?
“So we’re going into Topshop why?” Logan said as we neared the fashion retailer on the corner of Princes Street.
“Because I still need to buy Maia a birthday present.”
He squeezed my hand. “I told you the laptop could be from the two of us.”
“And I said, ‘Let me give you money, then,’ and you told me to bugger off.”
Logan grunted. “For good reason.”
I stopped him and turned to face him. “The laptop is a wonderful gift, and it should just be from you. I am going to buy her a bunch of non–girlie girl stuff, and you’re going to suffer through it since you insisted on spending the day with me.”
With my hand still in his, Logan put his, and thus mine, behind my back and jerked me against him. He drew me into that sexy low-lidded gaze of his. “With the arrangements for the party, Maia being on school holidays, you working a million manuscripts at a time, and me working, I’ve barely had a chance to get you to myself. I’m grabbing time with you while I can get it. Even if it does involve shopping.”
“You have seen me,” I argued quietly and pointedly, my cheeks heating at the reminder of how many times he’d “seen” me in a week. “It must be a record or something.”
“What a revelation,” I teased.
He gave me a deadpan look before leading me into the store. “Shop.”
I snorted at his demand but started looking around. Seeing the mounting boredom on Logan’s face, I moved a little faster and picked up some cute sarcastic slogan T-shirts I thought Maia would approve of, a pair of skinny jeans, some fashion jewelry, and a purse.
“You’re spoiling her,” Logan murmured as he stood at the checkout with me.
“She deserves a little spoiling. And look who’s talking, Mr. Laptop.”
Without warning, he kissed me. And not just a brush of lips against lips. It was a full-on, tongue-in-my-mouth, luscious, wet kiss.
“What was that for?” I whispered, perfectly aware of the burning stares from the retail assistant and other patrons.
Logan didn’t answer, but the expression on his face… the look in his eyes… the emotion they conveyed were so overwhelming I had to look away.
I wanted to believe so much in that look on his face, and yet I was still terrified too.
The girl ringing up my presents for Maia stared at me with open envy. I squirmed at her assessing stare and looked down at my purse.
There it was again.
My mood plummeted, the high of buying Maia gifts slowly flowing out of me as we wandered back down Princes Street.
“Let’s grab something to eat,” Logan said, and I nodded absentmindedly. “What do you fancy?”
“Anything.”
He led us uphill off Princes Street and hailed a cab. As soon as we got inside it, he gave the guy our home address. I stared at him in question.
Logan shrugged. “Maybe if I get you home you’ll relax. You’ve been tense the whole time we’ve been out.”
My lips parted in surprise at his observation. I didn’t realize he was that perceptive. “I’m fine,” I lied.
His expression darkened. “Don’t lie to me.”
“It’s nothing,” I assured him. “It’s silly. My own insecurities. I’m working on it, but I can’t work on it if you take us home.”
“Tell me what’s going on in that head of yours.”