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“Logan, I need to explain—”
“I have your locket.” Logan holds out a hand. My eyes take a moment to adjust to the thing dangling in the space between us. Even once it comes into focus, I still blink to make sure I’m seeing correctly.
The diamond in the heart’s center sparkles. Breath whooshes out of me. “That’s my ...” My words catch on a sob.
It is. There’s no mistaking the interlockingHandBon the heart-shaped medallion. The delicate diamond stud. My locket.
“How?”
“I’m sorry I didn’t give it to you sooner. I just—I thought—” He shakes his head. “The police gave it to me while you were in the hospital, and you never asked for it. Somehow I thought returning it would be too hard on you. Like it would remind you that he was gone.” He breathes a laugh. “As if you’d ever forget.”
He puts the locket in my hand. It’s weightless and heavy, real and surreal. I close my hand around it and then instantly open it, worried it disappeared. “I was afraid of what you’d think of me if you knew I lost it.”
“I want you to be happy, Hope.”
I tear my gaze away from it to look at Logan. His eyes, which are so like Brandon’s, shine.
“I thought you were angry when you saw me with Will. I thought that’s why you wanted to talk.”
His expression hardens, and the fluttering in my stomach makes it feel as though the ground were shaking.
“Are you with him?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. He called the kiss a mistake. But last night scraping mint–chocolate chip ice cream from the bottom of the carton felt like coming back to something that I thought I’d lost for good. Not Brandon. Obviously. But something else. Something different than what I had with Brandon, which is maybe why I didn’t recognize it at first.
“We’re ... more than friends, I think.”
It takes all my strength to admit that. To Logan. And to myself. Because admitting that means admitting Brandon is gone. Intellectually, I’ve known that for two years. But grief is so rarely intellectual.
“I know that’s hard to hear,” I say, wanting to bridge the gap widening between us.
“No, Hope. It’s not.” He reaches for my hand. “I know you love my brother, and always will, but he’s not here. You can’t choose him right now. At least not without giving up yourself. It’s just ... Will. I don’t trust him.”
My throat tightens. “I know what people say about him. But he’s not that guy. At least not anymore.”
“I don’t want you to get hurt,” Logans says.
“Will won’t hurt me.”
My phone vibrates, and I know who’s texted me even before I turn the screen to face me. It’s a photo of a cat wearing a party hat and the wordsDRINKS LATER?stamped on the bottom.
I look up from the text and find Logan watching me with a gentleness that should not make every single muscle in my body tense as if I were caught red handed doing something immoral. But it does.
“You’re allowed to be happy, Hope.”
Tears spring to my eyes. If he knew the whole truth, he might feel different. “I hope you’re right.”
Logan wraps his arms around me, squeezing me with all the love I don’t deserve from him. “Just be careful. And know that if he hurts you, even a little bit, I will chase him down and tear him to shreds.”
28
WILL
The plan should have been to forget Maeve and focus on the Inn. But since Hope told me that Rory had threatened Maeve, had threatened her, it’s taking all my willpower not to march over to his place and warn him against ever speaking to Hope again. I can’t help myself—even though some part of me knows that Sheriff Wilson’s presence on these nights means Hope is safe.
I’m the last to arrive to watch the midnight flowers bloom. Bailey acknowledges me first.
She tells me she’s moving next week—earlier than planned.
