Their Second Chance Love. Kat Brookes

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СКАЧАТЬ where he was concerned.

      Logan was the kind of man who, when he loved someone, did it with his whole heart. Even after she’d gone and broken it. If only things could have been different. If only God hadn’t decided to shatter her dreams. Their dreams.

      “This really isn’t a good time,” she managed, her eyes tearing up as she spoke the words. She prayed she sounded less affected by his unexpected call than she felt at that moment. Because she was anything but unaffected. Her furiously pounding heart was proof enough of that.

      The last time they’d spoken had been after the tornado struck Braxton, taking with it his parents, his sister-in-law and their neighbor, Mr. Timmons. She’d returned home for the funerals. How could she not? His family had been like her own.

      “I had no choice,” he said. There was no missing the unsteadiness to his voice.

      “Logan, we—”

      “This isn’t about us,” he said, cutting her off. “I’m calling about Jack.”

      “Daddy?” she said, her sense of panic shifting as his words settled in. “What about Daddy?” she demanded anxiously. She had just spoken with him the evening before and he had been his usual teasing self.

      “He’s had some sort of spell.”

      “What sort of spell?”

      “I don’t know,” he said with a sigh. “I stopped by to pick up an order and found him on the floor in his office.”

      A sob caught in her throat.

      “I’ll know more once I get to the hospital,” he said.

      The hospital?

      “The ambulance just left,” he continued. “They’re taking him to County General as we speak. I’m headed there as soon as I close up the nursery.”

      Hope shut her eyes, her phone clutched tightly in her hand. “Was he conscious?”

      There was a brief hesitation on the other end of the line before Logan replied, “Not when I found him. But he was when they were loading him into the ambulance. He told me not to bother you at work, but I thought you would wanna know.”

      “I appreciate your calling,” she said, shaking as she grabbed her purse from the open drawer. Then pushing away from her desk, she shot to her feet. “I’ll be there as soon as I can book a flight,” she said with forced calm, trying to hold it together when inside she was on the verge of falling apart. She couldn’t lose her daddy. He was all she had.

      “Call when you get close to the hospital,” Logan said flatly. “I’ll make sure I’m gone before you get here.”

      His stiffly spoken words broke her heart, knowing she had made him this way. Distant, almost hard. Tears spilled down her cheeks. Before she could respond, before she could tell him there was no need to leave on her account, he was gone. The line every bit as empty as she felt inside.

      * * *

      Logan sat next to Jack’s hospital bed, feeling helpless. A feeling that didn’t sit well with him. There had to be something more he could do for his friend. Jack had given him his first job. Had taught him everything he knew about flowers and plants and trees. And after encouraging him to take his passion for those things and start his own landscaping business, Jack had gone so far as to loan Logan the money to start that business up. He had long since paid Jack back the money he’d lent him. His business, Cooper Landscaping, had taken firm root. He had no doubt that his company’s success was due in large part to Jack Dillan’s support and guidance over the years, as well as his brothers’ bringing him in on several of their company’s construction projects. If the businesses or home owners contracting work through Cooper Construction were in need of landscaping to go with their newly built homes or businesses, Logan’s company was at the top of the recommended landscaper list his brothers provided to their clients. Being the only local landscaping company in the immediate area had no doubt helped, as well.

      The steady hiss of oxygen being fed through the tube in Jack’s nose had Logan’s brow creasing in concern. He hated seeing his friend this way. Jack Dillan, at fifty-nine years of age, was still in his prime. He wasn’t the kind of man to sit around having others do things for him. He was a doer, grumbling anytime someone fussed over him. Except when Verna Simms stopped by to bring him some of her homemade chicken soup because she’d heard that he was suffering from a bout of the sniffles. He didn’t seem to mind the pretty widow and owner of Big Dogs, the local diner, coddling him. Not that Jack would ever admit to having a liking for the attention she paid to him. He was too set in his ways. But Logan knew better. Maybe he ought to give Verna a call. She’d have him back to his old self in no time. The thought of it brought a semblance of a smile to Logan’s tightly pressed lips.

      Closing his eyes, he prayed for the Lord to give Jack the strength to pull through this health crisis. It had been hard enough having to call Hope with the news that her daddy was in the hospital. Now he was going to have to stick around, despite preferring to be gone when Hope arrived. Jack had asked him to call and tell Hope he was under the weather in case she tried to reach him, sugarcoating the truth and leaving out the details, which Logan refused to do. Hope needed to know the whole of it. Dragging a hand back through his own dark, wavy hair, he took in Jack’s pale face as he lay asleep in the hospital bed. “You’d best get to mending, old man. A lot of folks are gonna be counting on you for their garden flowers with spring being just around the corner.” He was gonna be counting on Jack to be there.

      His gaze flicked to the clock on the wall, watching as the second hand made its painfully slow trip around the circle of numbers. Over and over. Tick. Tick. Tick.

      Unable to sit there listening to the hiss of the oxygen and the beeping of the monitors any longer, Logan pushed out of the hospital chair and straightened his six-foot-four-inch frame. Casting one more glance down at his friend, he turned and made his way out of ICU. He figured he’d return a few work calls that had come in that morning. Anything to fill the time and keep his concern at bay.

      The automatic doors eased closed behind him as Logan stepped out into the hallway. Digging into the front pocket of his jeans, he grabbed for his cell phone and had just settled back against the brightly lit corridor’s wall outside when a very feminine, all-too-familiar voice called out to him.

      “Logan?”

      His hand, still curled around his phone, dropped down to his side, his gaze shifting in the direction of the approaching hospital visitor. Hope. He stood frozen for a long moment, drinking in the sight of the woman he had once loved as she made her way toward him, wheeling a small floral suitcase behind her.

      “Hope,” he replied, shoving his cell phone back into his jeans pocket as he pushed away from the wall. Her wide green eyes were red-rimmed and swollen. Her normally beautiful, sun-kissed face void of color.

      “I know I was supposed to call when I got in,” she said, sounding panicked. “But my flight was delayed and all I could think about when we finally landed was getting here as quickly as I could.”

      “Your daddy’s gonna be okay,” he told her with less conviction than he’d like to have put across. He had to be. Hope needed him. He needed Jack, truth be told. The older man was like a second father to him.

      Sniffling, she brushed away a stray tear that had started down her cheek. Then she looked up, searching his gaze. “Have you heard СКАЧАТЬ