Ben made his next move almost immediately, something she recognized as a bad sign for Logan. A few minutes later, Logan seemed to realize that no matter what move he made, there was no way for his king to escape. He shook his head.
"You got me."
"Yeah," Ben confirmed, "I did."
"I thought I was playing better."
"You were," Ben said. "Until?"
"Until you made your second move." Logan laughed. "Chess humor?"
"We've got lots of jokes like that," Ben said, obviously proud. He motioned to the yard. "Is it dark enough?"
"Yeah, I think so. You ready to play, Zeus?"
Zeus's ears pricked up and he cocked his head. When Logan and Ben stood, Zeus scrambled to his feet.
"You coming, Mom?"
Beth rose from her chair. "I'm right behind you." They wended their way in the darkness to the front of the house. Beth paused by the front steps. "Maybe I should get a flashlight."
"That's cheating!" Ben complained. "Not for the dog. For you. So you don't get lost."
"He won't get lost," Logan assured her. "Zeus will find him."
"Easy to say when it's not your son."
"I'll be fine," Ben added.
She looked from Ben to Logan before shaking her head. She wasn't entirely comfortable, but Logan didn't seem worried at all "Okay," she said, sighing. "I want one for me, then. Is that okay?"
"Okay," Ben agreed. "What do I do?"
"Hide," Logan said. "And I'll send Zeus to find you."
"Anywhere I want?"
"Why don't you hide out that way?" Logan said, pointing toward a wooded area west of the creek, on the opposite side of the driveway from the kennel. "I don't want you accidentally slipping into the creek. And besides, your scent will be fresh out that way. Remember, you two were playing out this way before dinner. Now once he finds you, just follow him out, okay? That way you won't get lost."
Ben peered toward the woods. "Okay. How do I know he won't watch?"
"I'll put him inside and count to a hundred before I let him out.
"And you won't let him peek?"
"Promise." Logan focused his attention on Zeus. "Come," he said. He went to the door and opened it before pausing. "Is it okay if I let him in?"
Beth nodded. "It's fine."
Logan motioned for Zeus to go in and lie down, then closed the door. "Okay, you're ready."
Ben started to jog toward the woods as Logan began to count out loud. In midstride, Ben called over his shoulder, "Count slower!" His figure gradually merged into the darkness, and even before reaching the woods, he'd vanished from sight.
Beth crossed her arms. "I must say that I don't have a good feeling about this."
"Why not?"
"My son hiding in the woods at night? Gee, I wonder."
"He'll be fine. Zeus will find him in two or three minutes. At the most."
"You have an inordinate amount of faith in your dog." Logan smiled, and for a moment they stood on the porch, taking in the evening. The air, warm and humid but no longer hot, smelled like the land itself: a mixture of oak and pine and earth, an odor that never failed to remind Beth that even though the world was constantly changing, this particular place always seemed to stay the same.
She was aware that Logan had been observing her all night, trying hard not to stare, and she knew she'd been doing the same with him. She realized she liked the way Logan's intent made her feel. She was pleased he found her attractive but liked that his attraction didn't possess any of the urgency or nak*d desire she often felt when men stared at her. Instead, he seemed content simply to stand beside her, and for whatever reason, it was exactly what she needed.
"I'm glad you stayed for dinner," she offered, not knowing what else to say. "Ben's having a great time."
"I'm glad, too."
"You were so good with him in there. Playing chess, I mean."
"It's not hard."
"You wouldn't think so, right?"
He hesitated. "Are we talking about your ex again?"
"Am I that obvious?" She leaned against a post. "You're right, though. I am talking about my ex. The putz."
He leaned against the post on the opposite side of the stairs, facing her. "And?"
"And I just wish things could be different."
He hesitated, and she knew he was wondering whether or not to say anything more. In the end, he said nothing.
"You wouldn't like him," she volunteered. "In fact, I don't think he'd like you, either."
"No?"
"No. And consider yourself lucky. You're not missing anything."
He looked at her steadily, not saying anything. Remembering the way she had shut him down earlier, she supposed. She brushed away a few strands of hair that had fallen into her eyes, wondering whether to go on. "Do you want to hear about it?"
"Only if you want to tell me," he offered.
She felt her thoughts drifting from the present to the past and sighed. "It's the oldest story in the book… I was a nerdy high school senior, he was a couple of years older than me, but we'd gone to the same church for as long as I can remember, so I knew exactly who he was. We started going out a few months before I graduated. His family is well-off, and he'd always dated the most popular girls, and I guess I just got caught up in the fantasy of it all. I overlooked some obvious problems, made excuses for others, and the next thing you know, I found out I was pregnant. All of a sudden, my life just… changed, you know? I wasn't going to go to college that fall, I had no idea how to even be a mother, let alone a single mother; I couldn't imagine how I was going to pull it all off. The last thing in the world I expected was for him to propose. But for whatever reason, he did, and I said yes, and even though I wanted to believe that it was all going to work out and did my best to convince Nana that I knew what I was doing, I think both of us knew it was a mistake before the ink was dry on the marriage certificate. We had virtually nothing in common. Anyway, we argued pretty much constantly, and ended up separating soon after Ben was born. And then, I was really lost."
Logan brought his hands together. "But it didn't stop you."
"Stop me from what?"
"From eventually going to college and becoming a teacher. And figuring out how to be a single mother." He grinned, "And somehow pulling it off."
She gave him a grateful smile. "With Nana's help."
"Whatever it takes." He crossed one leg over the other, seeming to study her before he smirked. "Nerdy, huh?"
"In high school? Oh yeah. I was definitely nerdy."
"I find that hard to believe."
"Believe what you want."
"So how did college work?"
"With Ben, you mean? It wasn't easy. But I already had some AP credits, which gave me a bit of a head start, and then I took classes at the community college while Ben was still in diapers. I took classes only two or three days a week while Nana took care of Ben, and I'd come home and study when I wasn't being Mom. Same thing when I transferred to UNC Wilmington, which was close enough to go to school and make it back here at night. It took me six years to get my degree and certificate, but I didn't want to take advantage of Nana, and I didn't want to give my ex any reason to get full Custody. And back then, he might have tried for it, just because he could."
"He sounds like a charmer."
She grimaced. "You have no idea."
"You want me to beat him up?"
She laughed. "That's funny. There might have been a time when I would have taken you up on that, but not anymore. He's just… immature. He thinks every woman he meets is crazy for him, gets angry at little things, and blames other people when things go wrong. Thirty One going on sixteen, if you know what I mean." From the side, she could sense Logan watching her. "But enough about him. Tell me something about you."
"Like what?"
"Anything. I don't know. Why did you major in anthropology?"
He considered the question. "Personality, I guess."
"What does that mean?"
"I knew I didn't want to major in anything practical like business or engineering, and toward the end of my freshman year, I started talking to other liberal arts majors. The most interesting ones I met were anthropology majors. I wanted to be interesting."
"You're kidding."
"I'm not. That's why I took the first introductory classes, at least. After that, I realized that anthropology is a great blend of history and supposition and mystery, all of which appealed to me. I was hooked."
"How about frat parties?"
"Not my thing."
"Football games?"
"No."
"Did you ever think you missed out on what college was sup' posed to be?"
"No."
"Me neither," she agreed. "Not once I had Ben, anyway."
He nodded, then gestured toward the woods. "Um… do you think we should have Zeus find Ben now?"
"Oh, my gosh!" she cried, her tone slightly panicked. "Yes. He can find him, right? How long has it been?"
"Not long. Five minutes, maybe. Let me get Zeus. And don't worry. It won't take long."
Logan went to the door and opened it. Zeus trotted out, tail wagging, then wandered down the stairs. He immediately lifted a leg by the side of the porch, then trotted back up the stairs to Logan.
"Where's Ben?" Logan asked.
Zeus's ears rose. Logan pointed in the direction Ben had gone. "Find Ben."
Zeus turned and started trotting in wide arcs, nose to the ground. Within seconds, he'd picked up the trail and he vanished into the darkness.
"Should we follow him?" Beth asked.
"Do you want to?"
"Yes."
"Then let's go."
They'd barely reached the first of the trees when she heard Zeus emit a playful bark. Right after that, Ben's voice sounded in a squeal of delight. When she turned toward Logan, he shrugged.
"You weren't lying, were you?" she asked. "What was that? Two minutes?"
"It wasn't hard for him. I knew Ben wouldn't be too far away."
"What's the longest he's ever tracked something?"
"He followed a deer trail for, I don't know, eight miles or so? Something like that, anyway. He could have gone on, too, but it ended at someone's fence. That was in Tennessee."
"Why did you track the deer?"
"Practice. He's a smart dog. He likes to learn, and he likes to use his skills." At that moment, Zeus came padding out from the trees, Ben a step behind him. "Which is why this is just as much fun for him as it is for Ben."
"That was amazing!" Ben called out. "He just walked right up to me. I wasn't making a sound!"
"You want to do it again?" Logan asked.
"Can I?" Ben pleaded.
"If it's okay with your mom."
Ben turned to his mother, and she raised her hands. "Go ahead."
"Okay, put him inside again. And I'm really going to hide this time," Ben declared. "You got it," Logan said.
The second time Ben hid, Zeus found him in a tree. The third time, with Ben retracing his steps in an attempt to throw him off, Zeus found him a quarter mile away, in his tree house by the creek. Beth wasn't thrilled with this final choice; the unstable bridge and platform always seemed far more dangerous at night, but by then, Ben was getting tired and ready to call it quits anyway.
Logan followed them back to the house. After saying good night to an exhausted Ben, he turned to Beth and cleared his throat. "I want to thank you for a great evening, but I should probably be heading home," he said.
Despite the fact that it was close to ten o'clock, part of her didn't want him to go just yet.
"Do you need a ride?" she offered. "Ben will be asleep in a couple of minutes, and I'd be glad to bring you home."
"I appreciate the offer, but we'll be fine. I like to walk."
"I know. I don't know much about you, but I do know that." She smiled. "I'll see you tomorrow, right?"
"I'll be here at seven."
"I can feed the dogs if you'd rather come in a bit later."
"It's no problem. And besides, I'd like to see Ben before he leaves. And I'm sure Zeus will, too. Poor guy probably won't know what to do without Ben chasing him."
"All right, then…" She hugged her arms, suddenly disappointed at the thought of Logan's departure.
"Would it be okay if I borrowed the truck tomorrow? I need to ran into town to get a few things to fix the brakes. If not, I can walk."
She smiled. "Yeah, I know. But it's not a problem. I have to drop Ben off and run some errands, but if I don't see you, I'll just put the keys under the mat on the driver's side."
"Fine," he said. He looked directly at her. "Good night, Elizabeth."
"Good night, Logan."
Once he was gone, Beth checked on Ben and gave him another kiss on the cheek before going to her room. She replayed the evening as she undressed, musing on the mystery of Logan Thibault.
He was different from any man she'd ever met, she thought, and then immediately chided herself for being so obvious. Of course he was different, she told herself. He was new to her. She'd never spent much time with him before. Even so, she reasoned she was mature enough to recognize the truth when she saw it.
Logan was different. Lord knows Keith wasn't anything like him. Nor, in fact, was anyone else she'd dated since the divorce. Most of those men had been fairly easy to read; no matter how polite and charming or rough and unrefined they might be, everything they did seemed like transparent efforts at getting her into bed. "Man crap," as Nana described it. And Nana, she knew, wasn't wrong.
But with Logan… well, that was the thing. She had no idea what he wanted from her. She knew he found her attractive, and he seemed to enjoy her company. But after that, she had absolutely no idea what his intentions might be, since he seemed to enjoy Ben's company as well. In a way, she thought, he treated her like a number of the married men she knew: You're pretty and you're interesting, but I'm already taken.