turtleneck.
At sixty years of age, Leslie could easily have been mistaken for someone much younger. A native mid-westerner, she had always been plainspoken and down-to-earth. She’d met Terrence Logan in college, and, as family lore held, it had been love at first sight for both of them. Leslie had earned her degree in social work and had worked in the field for some time before giving birth to Robbie. His kidnapping had been understandably difficult on both elder Logans—it had even put their marriage in jeopardy for a while—but Leslie, Bridget knew, had been hit hardest. Although it had all happened before Bridget was born, she knew her mother still grieved for her stolen and murdered child and always would.
And although Leslie had ultimately found happiness in her other children, Bridget felt confident that much of her mother’s work at Children’s Connection stemmed from her still-unresolved feelings about Robbie’s death. Leslie herself had been aided by Children’s Connection in adopting Bridget’s brothers Peter and David and David’s twin sister, Jillian. And those successful adoptions, too, had contributed to Leslie’s desire to volunteer so much of her time for the organization. But it was Robbie’s death that had started it all, and that, Bridget felt certain, still colored much of what her mother felt and did today.
At thirty, Jillian was five years older than Bridget. And although she and David had been adopted after Bridget was born, it had been when Bridget was only a year old, so she couldn’t remember a time when Jillian hadn’t been her sister. Still, Bridget knew, as everyone else in the family did, that Jillian and David had come from a situation that was as far removed from the Logans’ lifestyle as it could possibly be. The children of a drug-addicted mother, they’d spent the first six years of their lives with an infirm grandmother who’d had difficulty caring for them. As a result, they’d required a lot of tender loving care during those early years following the old woman’s death, when the Logans had taken them in. Eventually, though, through love and attention and therapy, they’d blossomed. To this day, the twins enjoyed a unique closeness and intimacy precisely because of those early experiences. And Bridget had often wondered if it was Jillian’s loving treatment during that time that had led her to become a therapist herself. She did wonderful work at Children’s Connection.
But where the rest of the Logans were outgoing, Jillian was something of an introvert. She was shy and quiet, and embraced only a small circle of friends. Girlfriends, anyway, since Jillian dated only very sporadically, and never one man for very long. Her clothing today was in keeping with her quiet nature, a full skirt patterned in pale blue flowers and an even paler blue sweater that hung loose on her curvy frame.
They had no trouble getting a table at the bistro, since it was well past the lunch hour by the time they arrived. Although a few brave souls had thumbed their noses at the chilly afternoon by opting to dine alfresco, the Logan women compromised by taking a booth inside near a window. That way, they could watch the bustling activity of downtown Portland but still stay warm and dry. After giving the waiter their orders and getting drinks, Leslie looked at Bridget and smiled.
“So, how’s married life treating you?” she asked, her eyes fairly twinkling with mischief.
Bridget smiled back. “I’m afraid the honeymoon’s over,” she said with a sigh of feigned melancholy.
“So soon?” Jillian asked, playing along. “Gee, and here I’ve been working under the impression that marriage was supposed to be bliss. You and Sam just seem so perfect for each other.”
Oh, sure, Bridget thought. Sam Jones was everything she was looking for in a life mate: arrogant, surly, uncommunicative and coarse. What wasn’t there to love?
She sipped her coffee and tucked a stray strand of hair behind one ear. “Yeah, well, marriage probably is bliss under other circumstances. Circumstances like…oh, I don’t know. Like, say, when you’re in love with your husband. Or when you even know him, for that matter.”
Leslie’s smile grew broader as she said, “Well, I certainly wouldn’t kick Agent Jones out of bed for eating crackers.”
Bridget and Jillian both gaped at the comment. But it was Bridget who offered the exclamation, “Mother!”
“Well, he’s very good-looking,” Leslie said.
Oh, sure, Bridget thought, recalling Sam’s thick brown hair that just begged a woman to run her fingers through it, and those blue, blue eyes that made a woman want to wade so deeply into them that she never found her way out again, and that sexy mouth that she was sure could wreak havoc on a woman’s body, and those sturdy, broad shoulders that seemed capable of holding the entire world at bay, and those strong arms that promised limitless shelter and infinite embraces, and—
Well, she just agreed with her mother, that was all. But just because Sam was easy on the eye didn’t make him husband material, phony or real.
“Oh, I’m teasing you, sweetie,” Leslie said as she lifted her own cup to her mouth for an idle sip, scattering Bridget’s errant thoughts. “Honestly, are you so wrapped up in your work these days that you don’t even recognize a joke when you hear one?”
“Not when it’s a sexual innuendo coming from my mother, no,” Bridget said.
Leslie laughed. “Then you’ve been away from home for too long.”
Bridget opened her mouth to deny it, then remembered that since leaving Portland to go to college, she could count on one hand the number of times she’d been home to visit for any length of time. How could it be that she spent so little time here? she wondered. She was just too busy to manage any more visits home than the occasional Christmas trip. Her life was so full. Full of work, she thought. Full of work and…and more work. And also…work. But she took time off from work, she reminded herself. And when she did, it was always to…work. Because even when she managed to get away for a weekend here or there, she always took her laptop with her and checked into HQ regularly.
But that was because she was so dedicated, she reminded herself. She liked her work. And she was good at it. She didn’t work so hard because she didn’t have anything else to occupy her life. Work was her life. And she liked it that way.
“I’m sorry,” she told her mother in spite of her little pep talk with herself. “You’re right—I should come home more often. But you guys all get to D.C. fairly regularly, especially David and Dad.”
“Mm,” her mother replied noncommittally.
“And there’s always the phone,” Bridget added.
“Mm,” her mother said.
“And e-mail.”
“Mm.”
Bridget narrowed her eyes at her mother. “Why do I feel a lecture coming on?” she asked.
“No lecture,” her mother told her. “Just…concern.”
“About what?” Bridget asked.
Leslie expelled a soft sigh as she settled her cup back into its saucer, then she braced both forearms on the table. It was a posture that belied her words, because it was her lecture posture. Bridget recognized it well. After all, she’d probably received more of Leslie’s lectures over the years than any of the other Logan offspring had, thanks to her having traveled an alternate route than the rest of them when it came to things like, oh…life in general.
“About the fact that you’re only twenty-five years old,” Leslie said, “and if it
