Blue Dahlia Page 0,128

she chewed at it, stewed over it, and worried about it for the rest of the day. Which, not being a fool, she deduced was exactly what he'd wanted.

* * *

The house was abnormally quiet when she got home from work. She wasn't sure she liked it. She showered off the day, played with the baby, drank a glass of wine, and paced until the phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Hi there, is this Stella?"

"Yes, who - "

'This is Trudy Kitridge. Logan's mama? Logan said I should give you a call, that you'd be home from work about this time of day."

"I... oh." Oh, God, oh, God. Logan's mother!

"Logan told me and his daddy he asked you to marry him. Could've knocked me over with a feather."

"Yes, me, too. Mrs. Kitridge, we haven't decided... or I haven't decided ... anything."

"Woman's entitled to some time to make up her mind, isn't she? I'd better warn you, honey, when that boy sets his mind on something, he's like a damn bulldog. He said you wanted to meet his family before you said yes or no. I think that's a sweet thing. Of course, with us living out here now, it's not so easy, is it? But we'll be coming back sometime during the holidays. Probably see Logan for Thanksgiving, then our girl for Christmas. Got grandchildren in Charlotte, you know, so we want to be there for Christmas."

"Of course." She had no idea, no idea whatsoever what to say. How could she with no time to prepare?

"Then again, Logan tells me you've got two little boys. Said they're both just pistols. So maybe we'll have ourselves a couple of grandchildren back in Tennessee, too."

"Oh." Nothing could have touched her heart more truly. "That's a lovely thing to say. You haven't even met them yet, or me, and - "

"Logan has, and I raised my son to know his own mind. He loves you and those boys, then we will, too. You're working for Rosalind Harper, I hear."

"Yes. Mrs. Kitridge - "

"Now, you just call me Trudy. How you getting along down there?"

Stella found herself having a twenty-minute conversation with Logan's mother that left her baffled, amused, touched, and exhausted.

When it was done, she sat limply on the sofa, like, she thought, the dazed victim of an ambush.

Then she heard Logan's truck rumble up.

She had to force herself not to dash to the door. He'd be expecting that. Instead she settled herself in the front parlor with a gardening magazine and the dog snoozing at her feet as if she didn't have a care in the world.

Maybe she'd mention, oh so casually, that she'd had a conversation with his mother. Maybe she wouldn't, and let him stew over it.

And all right, it had been sensitive and sweet for him to arrange the phone call, but for God's sake, couldn't he have given her some warning so she wouldn't have spent the first five minutes babbling like an idiot?

The kids came in with all the elegance of an army battalion on a forced march.

"We built a whole arbor." Grimy with sweat and dirt, Gavin rushed to scoop up Parker. "And we planted the stuff to grow on it."

"Carol Jessmint."

Carolina Jessamine, Stella interpreted from Luke's garbled pronunciation. Nice choice.

"And I got a splinter." Luke held out a dirty hand to show off the Band-Aid on his index finger. "A big one. We thought we might have to hack it out with a knife. But we didn't."

"Whew, that was close. We'll go put some antiseptic on it."

"Logan did already. And I didn't cry. And we had submarines, except he says they're poor boys down here, but I don't see why they're poor because they have lots of stuff in them. And we had Popsicles."

"And we got to ride in the wheelbarrow," Gavin took over the play-by-play. "And I used a real hammer."

"Wow. You had a busy day. Isn't Logan coming in?"

"No, he said he had other stuff. And look." Gavin dug in his pocket and pulled out a wrinkled five-dollar bill. "We each got one, because he said we worked so good we get to be cheap labor instead of slaves."

She couldn't help it, she had to laugh. "That's quite a promotion. Congratulations. I guess we'd better go clean up."

"Then we can eat like a bunch of barnyard pigs." Luke put his hand in hers. "That's what Logan said when it was time for lunch."

"Maybe we'll save the pig-eating for when you're on the job."

They were full of Logan and