When You’re Ready (Ready #1)(18)
Author: J.L. Berg

"All set, princess?" I asked, giving her a wink.

"Yep!" Maddie sang, bouncing in the air like a jackrabbit.

"All right Ladies, let’s go!"

~Clare~

He picked the perfect restaurant. It wasn’t too fancy, but just enough that Maddie felt like she was given the royal treatment. He again carried Maddie into the restaurant, all of her teal colored tulle balled up in his masculine arms. It was quite the sight. And God, he looked handsome tonight.

That man filled out a suit flawlessly. The dark charcoal tailored jacket fit him perfectly and the steel blue tie he had chosen matched his eyes. After I had put on the cocktail dress Leah insisted I buy I felt overdone and out of my element. It had been years since I’d worn something so fancy. But when I came downstairs and saw those beautiful blue eyes widen in surprise, and then smolder with heat, I made a mental note to call Leah and thank her for her wisdom. I felt empowered and beautiful. It was exactly what I needed.

Maddie had insisted on sitting next to him. He laughed and said "Of course, princess!" I think he had developed his own nickname for her. I tried not to think about how that made me feel.

The waiter gave Maddie a kids menu and a small box of crayons, which sent her into her own world. Settling on a dish of light angel hair with shrimp and a glass of white wine, I placed my menu on the table and found Logan staring at me. This, of course, made me blush from the sudden attention, but he just kept staring.

"Your parents must have brought back a bit of Ireland with you when they came back from their honeymoon. Your eyes are the exact color of the Irish hillsides."

“You’ve been there?”

He nodded with no explanation.

"Where else have you traveled?" I questioned.

"I’ve been all over. My father wasn’t big on holidays, so instead of putting up a tree or carving turkeys, he would send me on a trip. I would have hired chaperones and could pretty much go wherever I wanted as long as I wasn’t home," he causally answered with a shrug.

“Are you an only child?”

“Uh, no. I have a sister, Evangeline, but she grew up with my Mom. My real mom, I mean, not the Stepford wife my father is married to now,” he explained.

“So, you didn’t spend holidays with your Mom and sister?”

I couldn’t imagine not having a place to go for the holidays. Being shipped off, a big burden no one wanted to deal with.

“No, my Mom gave me up when my parents divorced. Full custody went to my father. And I don’t see Eva much at all. I barely know her.”

"Oh." I didn’t know what else to say.

"It is the way it is. But I did get to see the world. I’ve been everywhere. Spain, Italy, China, and Russia.” He abruptly stopped as the waiter brought us drinks and took our dinner orders.

Alone again, I asked "Not that I’m not thrilled you’re talking, but why are you opening up all the sudden? You devoured half a bowl of jelly beans to avoid that family question last week."

Logan stared into his wine glass, taking a sip as he quietly pondered my question. His gaze finally drifted back up to me, and our eyes locked.

"I don’t know. I feel like you see through me. The normal facade I put out there to the rest of the world? It doesn’t work with you. I tried it on Sunday, and you called my bluff. When you asked about my family, I was still so stunned by how clearly you saw me. You seemed to know that was the one of the few questions that would get under my skin. I’ve thought about it since then, and I don’t know, I guess I decided if you see through it all, what’s the point?"

He shrugged, “It feels good to be honest with someone for once in my life."

I was breathless for a second, stunned by his candor. I didn’t know what to say, so I took the easy way out and changed the subject.

"I’ve never even been out of the country," I confessed quickly. God, I was a coward.

Understanding flashed across his face, and he eased back into our first conversation.

Thank you, I silently told him.

"Really? Never?" he replied.

"No, Ethan and I were supposed to honeymoon in Italy, but I was offered a teaching position in the history department at one of the local high schools. I couldn’t get the two weeks off mid-semester, so we canceled. We had always planned on going, but then well…Maddie came, and then he got sick."

Nice Clare. Excellent dinner conversation. Much better than the last one.

My eyes reached across the table until I found Maddie and smiled. I gently ran my hands over her fingers as she colored. She, of course, didn’t notice, still stuck in her own little world of crayons. I don’t know what I would do without her.

"She looks like you," Logan said, his eyes traveling between Maddie and me, comparing mother and daughter.

"She definitely got my hair, a lighter version, but it’s still mine. But her brown eyes are all Ethan.” I said, with snort, "Red hair, freckles, and pale skin. That’s all me. Poor kid, she’s gonna hate me as a teenager."

"She’ll be a knockout, just like her Mom."

~Logan~

I’ve never had more fun in a restaurant. I laughed when Clare told stories about Maddie’s younger years. Clare’s face lit up when she explained that Maddie hated diapers as a baby and she would find her crawling all over the house buck naked. Four-year-old Maddie did not find this nearly as funny and told her Mommy saying the word "diaper" at the dinner table was "imappropriate". I had to hide my laughter behind my napkin over that one.

When our food was cleared, Maddie announced that we couldn’t leave until Mommy had tiramisu. Apparently she was well aware of her mother’s sweet tooth. So I ordered one for us all to share. I helped Maddie color her menu while we waited for dessert. Coloring is not a talent of mine, and Clare jokingly pointed out this fact out to me several times.

"Oh come on, it’s not like you could do better," I taunted.

"Didn’t you know? I’m the Picasso of menu art," she bragged, grabbing the menu to her side of the table, and began creating her own masterpiece.

A few minutes later, our dessert arrived, and Clare handed her menu back to our side of the table. I took one look and burst out laughing.

She’d drawn a plate piled high with tiramisu. It’s disturbingly detailed. This woman knows her desserts. Above the drawing, she spelled out "Back away from my tiramisu and no one gets hurt!"

I looked up. Clare had confiscated the dessert and was already three or four bites in, a wide grin of mischief spread across her face.

"Ah, what? Your Mom just stole our dessert!"