The Reckoning, A Wilde Brothers Christmas (The Wilde Brothers Book 4) (4 page)

Margaret, Carrie, and Olivia moved into the kitchen and started cooking, each of them wearing a festive apron over their clothes. Logan heard Julia trying to get involved. She couldn’t help herself, of course. She loved to cook, and having someone take over her kitchen had to be making her go all kinds of crazy. Thankfully, when he poked his head in the next time he walked past, he found his wife seated in a chair with her feet resting on a pillow.

“Don’t worry, your mom’s taken over,” she said when he stepped in.

“You just make sure this is all you do.” He couldn’t help himself from leaning down and kissing her.

“Oh!” Julia hissed and broke off the kiss. “My back is pinching. I think I need to move.”

“Maybe you should go lie down and have a nap?”

She really did look tired, and she slid her hand over his cheek and turned, pressing a kiss into his palm. “No. It’s Christmas, and we’re catching up.”

“We are catching up, Logan,” Margaret said from where she was slicing pickles on a cutting board. Her long dark hair was pinned back at the sides by two of those fancy combs the twins liked. She was tall, slender, and looked great in a dark turtleneck and black slacks, and he wondered, by the glow on her face, whether she’d also added a touch of makeup. Margaret was not a fashion model. Even though she was gorgeous, she was the outdoor, clean-the-barn-out type of girl who loved horses more than people. She also had naturally rosy cheeks. Of course she was also a whiz with a knife, and he wondered if that was natural or from her days as a surgeon.

“So what’s new up in Post Falls?” Logan asked. He knew that as newlyweds, Margaret and Joe’d had so many struggles, many caused by the choices they had made to get them to this point.

“Ryan has a girlfriend,” she teased, glancing over to where Logan’s nephew, who was now fourteen, tall, and gangly, was playing with a remote-controlled helicopter with the girls in the dining area off the kitchen.

“Get out! A girlfriend? Who’s the girl?” Logan asked. The rural spread where Joe lived wasn’t far from where they had grown up as kids. It was a tight-knit community, with generations rooted in the land, and very few newcomers moved to the area. The closure of the last mill the previous year had caused a depression in the local economy.

Margaret jutted her chin to Joe’s son, her stepson, who resembled Joe in every way except the soft expression around his eyes. Those were from his dead mother, Evie. “Nice girl,” she said. “Her name is Anabelle, one of the Foster girls. They’ve known each other since they were in kindergarten.”

“Nice,” Logan said. “What about you and Joe, how are you two doing?” He’d talked to Joe just the past week. His brother had been logging some of the trees on his own property and milling the wood, but he wasn’t making anywhere near what he wanted. He was talking about getting back into felling trees for extra cash, but it was too dangerous an occupation, and when Joe’d given it up years earlier, Logan had honestly been glad. He hoped his brother wouldn’t be careless now.

“Sold Granddad’s place even though I promised him I never would,” Margaret said, and she sounded so sad. “Didn’t get as much as it’s worth.”

“Margaret, your granddad would understand,” Olivia said. “Upkeep on two places, that’s just too much work, and compromises have to be made.”

Margaret didn’t say anything, but the expression on her face was odd. The skin between her eyebrows puckered. Yeah, Logan was pretty sure his mom’s advice had done little to comfort her.

“Margaret, don’t beat yourself up,” he said. “Your granddad would be proud of you.” He hoped so, anyway. Then again, Carl Spick may very well have been rolling over in his grave at the thought of his granddaughter tossing away the property he’d left to her.

Margaret gave him a look as if he should know better.

“Sorry,” he said. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do.”

She rolled her eyes at him, but then, Margaret knew him pretty well.

Olivia didn’t appear to be listening as she bobbed between directing Carrie in the kitchen and over to Margaret. “Great!” she said. “When you’re done with the pickles, I’ll get you to chop up these vegetables for the salad.”

Olivia was good at multitasking. It had been a long time since Logan had been in the kitchen with her. She was from a farm family and knew how to put out a big meal, and she loved having family around, but she was off this visit—or maybe it was him, being together with his entire family. This would be a Christmas like they hadn’t had in years, if ever.

“I don’t know,” Margaret continued. “I always promised him I wouldn’t sell, but Joe wouldn’t budge on his place, and times are tough, you know.” She really was bothered, and Logan knew his brother was pigheaded about his property. Selling his place and moving to Margaret’s granddad’s spread would have been a kick in the ego that Joe couldn’t live with.

He could see she was bothered about something. Even his mom glanced at Margaret this time, picking up on her sadness.

Carrie was stirring something on the stove. “Is this thick enough for the sauce?” she asked. His mom stepped away and dipped her finger in whatever sauce Carrie had been stirring to taste it.

“What’s going on, Margaret?” Logan whispered. “You two all right?” He really couldn’t help asking. They’d had so many struggles, and Joe could be pretty thick sometimes.

“Joe wanted to wait and tell everyone at the table, but why wait? I’m pregnant,” she said, loud enough that the other women could hear, and she blushed as she glanced over at Julia and then Logan.

“Congratulations, Margaret! That’s wonderful,” Julia said as she reached for Logan’s hand. He glanced down at her wide eyes. She’d obviously picked up on Margaret’s edginess, as well.

“Another grandchild on the way. Well, we’re going to have a houseful soon,” Olivia said, sliding her arm around Margaret and hugging her. Then she glanced over at Carrie, who set a bowl beside Margaret on the counter.

The girl blushed brightly as she took in Logan and then cleared her throat. “You know what? I’m going to find Ben.” She scooted out of the kitchen into the living room, where his brothers and dad were talking.

“She’s a nervous thing, isn’t she? I wonder…” his mom said, tapping her finger on her lip.

“She’s young, she doesn’t know us,” Margaret said. “I know how she feels. This is the first time she’s been with the entire family. I guarantee you she’s absolutely terrified. Joe and I just met her, and even Joe said Carrie was far from the type Ben dated. Interesting, though.” Margaret put down her knife. “What do you wonder, Olivia?” She was now studying his mom as she watched the doorway where Carrie had bolted.

“I wonder if there may be another announcement at dinner?”

“You don’t think she’s pregnant, do you?” Julia asked.

Margaret shrugged. “Maybe.”

Both Margaret and Julia exchanged a glance Logan didn’t want to study too much.

“Leave it alone,” he said to Julia. When she glanced over at Margaret, they both shrugged. “What?” he asked.

“So you had to blow off Mom and Dad, too, huh?” Samuel said, coming up behind him.

Jake swung his head around as his brother approached. Samuel’s hair was a lighter shade of brown than the rest of the Wilde brothers’. His hair was longer, too, and shaggy, touching his shoulders, mimicking Joe’s. He was also the shortest brother. They all had two inches on Samuel, and right about now, Jake was using those two inches to look down on the brother he’d not spoken with in months. Samuel’s white dress shirt was rolled up to the elbow, unbuttoned at the collar, and he held a glass of eggnog from the carton in the kitchen, which Jake had taken the liberty of spiking with enough rum that the whole family would be feeling it.

“I didn’t blow them off,” Jake said. “You were supposed to be going there. I just came to Logan’s earlier, is all.” Off course he had blown them off, but the last person he wanted to hear anything from was Samuel. He was the reason Jake was alone and didn’t have his girl, the one he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

“Look, it’s Christmas,” Samuel said. “I know you’ve been avoiding me. Maybe it’s time we clear the air and put some things behind us. It’s getting awkward. We’re family, and we’ll run into each other at family gatherings, you know.”

Jake just watched his brother, the young lawyer with a silver tongue, who could talk his way into and out of anything. That sweet talking had always been Jill’s downfall. She couldn’t resist him. Jake had never met a woman who could. Yes, Jake was good looking, too, but he didn’t have that quick, flashy tongue, couldn’t think fast and come up with just the right thing to say to a woman when she needed to hear it. No, with Jill, he’d been her shoulder to cry on. He’d taken her for lunch, walks in the park, and he’d listened. He was a great listener.

“Fine. Let’s put it behind us,” he said.

“So how’s everything going with you?” Samuel asked.

What was Jake going to tell him?
Oh, yeah, the girl who used to be with you, Jill? I fell in love with and, like a dumbass, asked her to marry me, but she’s still so twisted up in knots over you that she couldn’t say yes.
“Fine. You?”

Samuel chuckled. “You’re as easy to talk to as you’ve always been.” He shook his head and started to walk away.

“You two working things out?” Logan put his hand on Jake’s shoulder. Jake had his back to Samuel now, his hands shoved in his pockets. He stared at the Christmas tree as if it was far more interesting than anything else.

Samuel grunted. “Impossible to work anything out with that thickheaded—”

Jake glanced over his shoulder again and watched as Samuel shook his head and walked away.

“Jake, what’s going on with you?” Logan asked. “You two need to sit down and work this out.”

“Work what out? There’s nothing to work out,” he snapped, taking another swallow of his eggnog.

“You’ve allowed a woman to come between you. I’d say there’s a lot to work out,” Logan said before he was pulled away by Joe.

Jake could hear them talking behind him as he stared at an ornamental angel hanging from a branch. It reminded him so much of Jill’s sweet smile, her short dark hair and radiant brown eyes. To him, she had the perfect figure, curves in all the right places. He’d replayed the moments before he asked her to marry him over and over in his mind, trying to figure out what he’d done wrong. He’d just showered after a game and had walked into the bedroom to get dressed, the towel hanging loosely around his hips…

“I love looking at you,” she’d said.

He’d heard her as she came up behind him, and she’d run her hands over his back, tracing the outline of his muscles. He worked every day to keep his body in the best shape he could.

She had pressed a kiss to his back and slid her hands around his waist. He loved her fingers and could still feel her touch on him now.

He had closed his eyes and breathed in, and he swore he could still smell all her sweetness. She had honest eyes that showed everything when she was hurting or happy. She’d never tried to hide it from him. He’d pulled her around and said, “You have too many clothes on.”

Of course, she had smiled and pressed up against him.

Jake had let the towel drop. “Oops,” he’d said, lifting her light peach shirt and tossing it on the floor. He had unhooked her bra and pulled off her jeans in record time, lowering her to the bed. He slid beside her and propped himself up, allowing his eyes to run over her creamy skin, taking in the way her chest rose when she was turned on by him. He put his hand on her flat stomach and ran it slowly in a circle, watching her eyes as the color deepened and she gasped as he traced his fingers over her breasts and then lower. He loved to watch the reaction he brought to Jill just from his touch, but his need to have her fast and hard overtook his sense of control.

Maybe it was because of the way she reached for him after he’d tasted her, running his tongue over her breasts, her nipples, every part of her, to brand her and mark her as his.

When he moved over her that last time, inside her, hard and throbbing, taking her over and over until she screamed out his name, he realized what he’d done. That was the first time he hadn’t worn a condom with Jill.

Logan raised his wine glass at the table. It was a boxed red table wine from someplace local, he was pretty sure. His parents swore it was the best wine they’d ever had, but Logan thought it was mighty bitter and knew that after a few glasses of this, he’d probably have a headache that would put a damper on the rest of this day. He would have preferred a beer.

Everyone was seated around the large table, a piece of plywood Joe, Logan, Samuel, and Ben had carried in to transform Logan’s kitchen table into something large enough for the entire family to sit around. A festive plastic table cloth had been laid overtop. The girls were sitting on a piano bench, and everyone else was on one of the dusted-off metal chairs they had hauled in from the shed or one of the six wooden chairs that went with the table.

“Before we dig in, I want to say a toast to the women—Mom, Carrie, and Margaret—for this amazing Christmas dinner, and for all of you who could come today,” Logan said. “It’s the first time in years that we’ve all been together, and this is me and Julia’s first Christmas together with the girls.”

Trinity and Dawn both giggled from where they were tucked in beside their uncles Ben and Samuel. Jake was across from Samuel, and Logan hadn’t missed how the two brothers, who had once been so close, could be together with the family and not say a word to each other. It was disturbing. He wondered if he was the only one who’d noticed the distinct coolness between them. “And to Ben and Carrie and Joe and Margaret,” he continued, “and the first of many firsts.”

“I think we should say grace,” Olivia added.

Logan hoped she wasn’t asking him, as he was the last person to come up with a blessing. He didn’t miss how uncomfortable his brothers appeared, as well. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d sat at a table with anyone who wanted to say grace. Seriously, what was up with his mother? He exchanged a glance with Ben, who was across from him, and Julia rested her hand on his leg. He didn’t need to look down to see her puzzled expression, because he could feel the question in the way she squeezed his leg. “Mom, you want to say grace?” Logan asked.

“Yes, I think it’s time we all give thanks for what we have, for what we’ve overcome. Life hasn’t been easy for any of us, for any of you. We’ve had our ups and downs. Logan, what you survived…getting that call still haunts me. It was every mother’s nightmare. We didn’t know if you were going to live or die. Your father and I sat by your bedside every day, watching you, and I prayed every day, telling God that if you came back, I would do better. And Ben, seeing you on the news, that oil scandal that almost took you from us, well…I’m still worried about what you’re going to do with the rest of your life.”

Ben was staring at Logan, trying to prompt him to do something. This was not how their mother behaved.

“And Joe, it was so hard when you lost Evie.” Olivia’s voice trembled. “She was beautiful, so sweet, Ryan’s mother.”

Logan took in an uncomfortable Joe, his dark wavy hair freshly cut. He wouldn’t look at Margaret, who appeared frozen, clutching her water glass so hard Logan wondered whether it would shatter. Joe gave him the same look Ben just had, as if it fell on his shoulders to get Mom to pull it together.

“Mom, would you like to say grace now before dinner gets cold?” Logan said. Julia nudged him, and Ben slid his hand up the side of his face so his mom couldn’t see the hard look he was leveling at Logan. Jake had his mouth slightly open and was staring at their mom as if she had suddenly sprouted horns, and Samuel was leaning back in his chair, holding up his wine glass with a worried look, no doubt wondering what else Olivia Wilde was about to say.

“Logan Wilde.” She put down her glass and looked over at Logan, her elbows leaning on the table. “I have some things to say to this family as your mother, and you’re all going to listen.”

He had her eyes, he realized then, a lighter blue than his dad’s. Her face was etched with lines, age, and the hardships of life, heavier around her mouth from when she pinched it in disapproval. She was a strong woman. He didn’t fear anyone, but he never wanted to hurt his mother for anything.

“Olivia,” Raymond prodded from where he sat beside her, watching her warily, as if he knew what was going on in her head. Logan’s father was a tall man, with wide shoulders and a face aged from years spent outdoors, working in the elements. He had rough hands, a working man’s hands, even though he was retired now from the mill he had run for twenty years.

“No, Raymond, this needs to be said.” Olivia was leaning forward, taking in everyone. She smiled at Trinity and Dawn and then at Ryan, who was sitting in between them. “You kids are the youngest generation of this family, and we have more coming. Your mom’s having a baby, and—” She glanced over at Margaret, whose eyes had flown open in panic. Joe beamed, the lines around his eyes appearing when he smiled.

“Just in case everyone didn’t know, Margaret is pregnant,” he chipped in, sliding his arm around her shoulder. Margaret leaned into her husband.

Everyone yelled out congratulations, and Samuel and Jake both teased Joe as Ben slid around, slipping his arm around Carrie, his face taking on a teasing hint as he congratulated Joe and Margaret.

Logan slid his hand around Julia’s shoulder and rubbed his other hand over her belly. She gave him one of her looks, raising her eyebrows. She, too, was wondering what was up with his mom.

She leaned closer. “Can you do something so we can eat soon?”

He pressed a kiss to her forehead when he heard a glass clink again.

“I’m not finished yet,” Olivia said. She cleared her throat.

What was up with her? Ben turned to Logan again, his expression curious. He, too, couldn’t figure out why their mom was so interested in dredging things up now, of all times.

“Samuel and Jake, you two are my youngest. You’ve always been close, but this last while, something’s happened. Don’t think I haven’t noticed that you haven’t been speaking. You’ve gone out of your way to avoid each other. Both of you were supposed to come to our place first, and then we’d drive down to Logan’s. Your father and I were looking forward to having time with you two boys. I’m just grateful Ben decided to change his plans and come.”

“Way to go, Ben,” Joe called out, and Margaret slapped his shoulder. When he reached for the turkey, she slapped his hand. “Hey, I’m hungry,” he said. She whispered something to him, and he rolled his eyes.

“Mom, seriously, the girls are hungry. How about saying grace so we can eat?” Logan said, wishing someone would say grace and be done with it.

“Logan, I’m going to say this now that you’re all here sitting around the table. I thought a lot about this when you had to call me and tell me that both Samuel and Jake weren’t coming.” She turned her gaze, which could at times be shrewd, on both Samuel and Jake. “You are both grown men, and I’ve taught you better. Your father has, too. You both have your own lives, but when you make plans, you stick to them. You don’t just blow people off, especially your parents. We deserve better.” His mom really appeared bothered. Logan knew it hadn’t been okay for Jake and Samuel not to show, and he’d said so to them both.

Jake propped his elbow on the table, rubbing his chin. “Look, Mom, I’m sorry. Something came up, and I needed to talk to Logan.”

“I couldn’t get away. I, too, had something come up at the last minute,” Samuel said, but Logan didn’t miss that neither Jake nor Samuel would look at the other.

“More like avoiding each other!” Olivia said. “After all these years, I know you boys are so used to going to Logan—”

“Olivia, that’s enough,” Raymond said. He eased forward in his chair, touching Olivia’s arm. His fingers were long and narrow, and his gold wedding band glinted in the light.

“No, Raymond, it’s not. It’s time this was said. We’ve ignored this for too long. Logan, you were in an impossible position when you were young, and your father feels horrible, but he has paid for it over and over for years. It was a slap in the face to him that you boys always sought out Logan when you were in trouble after he came home, and you still do.”

Why was his mom bringing this up? Logan could feel Julia tensing beside him. He wanted his mom to move on, to stop this nonsense. This wasn’t the time to bring anything up. He didn’t miss Carrie as she glanced around the table, her face pink, picking up on the tension and complete dysfunction of this family. She probably wished she’d gone to her father’s or was anywhere else but here.

“Mom, you’re making everyone uncomfortable,” Logan said. “Could we please just have dinner? Whatever this is you need to address, can we do it after, when little ears aren’t glued to everything you’re saying?”

His mom glanced at the girls and took a breath, picking up her napkin and putting it in her lap. “Fair enough,” she said. “Let’s eat. Pass the potatoes, Raymond.”

So what had happened to grace? Logan was about to reach for his glass to make another toast when Julia squeezed his leg.

“Don’t,” she whispered.