Page 61 of The Pumpkin Spice Cafe

He didn’t find any of those things. He found something a thousand times worse.

He found Jeanie sitting on the floor, her back against the bakery case, knees pulled up to her chest, tears streaming down her face. TEARS.

He dropped to his knees in front of her.

‘What is it? Are you hurt?’ His words were gruff, angry. Like he was mad at her tears.

She looked at him, her nose pink from crying and the highly offensive tears still streaking down her face and shook her head. ‘Not hurt,’ she sniffled.

‘Well, then what is it? What happened?’

She dropped her head to her knees and let out the saddest little moan he’d ever heard in his life. It burrowed into his heart. It knocked the wind from his lungs. It destroyed him.

Why had he stayed away from her for a week? Why had he let Lucy continue to ruin shit for him? He liked Fall Festival. He liked this damn town.

And he really freaking liked this woman in front of him in the hedgehog pajama pants and ratty old cardigan.

‘Jeanie,’ he said, his voice firm now, serious. He had to know what the hell was going on so he could make sure it never happened again. ‘Look at me.’

She sighed and lifted her head.

He couldn’t take it. He gently took her face and brushed her tears away with his thumbs. Jeanie’s eyes fluttered closed at his touch.

‘Tell me what happened. Please, Jeanie. Maybe I can help? Or maybe not, but ... please let me be here for you. I know I screwed up the other day.’

She opened her eyes. ‘That’s not it.’

‘Good.’ Logan caressed her face one more time and then let his hands fall. He sat back on his heels in front of her, waiting.

Jeanie wiped her face with the back of her hand, blowing the wisps of hair from her face. ‘It’s stupid, really.’

‘I’m sure it’s not.’

She gave him a watery smile. ‘Everything’s just going wrong today, that’s all. And it’s the Fall Festival, and I know it’s a really big deal and I just wanted everything to go right.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I’m trying hard, you know? To make this work.’ She gestured around the café and maybe at him, too, like she was including him in whatever bullshit was making her life harder right now, and he hated that.

‘You are. You’re doing a great job running the café, Jeanie.’

She shrugged. ‘Today’s a disaster.’

‘Tell me. What happened?’

‘Crystal and I were supposed to run the festival tent for the first half of the day, until I had to judge the contest, and then Joe was going to take over. But Crystal’s kid threw up last night so she called in sick and Joe can’t get here until noon. And I can’t get a hold of Norman at all, which is really weird.’ She sighed again, but at least the tears had stopped. ‘I think they hate me.’

‘No one could hate you.’

She raised an eyebrow, an amused smile teasing him. ‘I’m sure that’s not true.’

‘I’ll help you run the table this morning.’

‘You will?’

‘Sure. As long as I get free coffee.’

She laughed. ‘We’ll see about that.’

‘And once this festival is over, we’re going to figure out what the hell is going on around here, once and for all. Okay?’

She sniffled again, but her smile was growing. ‘Okay, thanks.’