Page 28 of Wilde Secrets

“They are excellent!” Exclaimed a slightly accented voice from an open doorway leading to the kitchen.

“Yeah, for dogs,” Joe called back with a grin.

They placed their orders—Logan insisting on paying for Harper, eliciting a curious brow raise from Rowan—and the trio headed off to find a table. Rowan held a chair out for Harper, who thanked him as she sat. Logan scowled and took the seat next to her.

“Why are you growling?”

“I’m not,” he grumbled, forcing himself to relax his shoulders.

She quirked an eyebrow and looked questioningly at the brothers. Rowan had sprawled in the chair opposite, his feet kicked forward with fingers laced together behind his head. A lazy grin slowly spread across his face.

Logan kicked him under the table.

“Ouch!” He jerked and dropped his arms. “That’s no way to treat your favorite brother.”

Logan smirked. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Boys, are you still unable to sit at the table and behave yourselves?”

Logan smiled in spite of Rowan’s best efforts to irritate him and stood to greet his mother. A small woman in her sixties, Amy West had weathered more than her fair share of heartbreak in her life, losing a son and a husband within a few years of each other. But you wouldn’t know it to look at her. Her hair that had once been dark brown was now streaked with gray, and cut in a shoulder-length bob, the ends tucked behind her ears and held in place with a bright yellow headband. She wore jeans and a tie-dyed tee shirt, a pair of work boots on her feet.

“Hi Mom.”

“Ah, Logan, good to see you.” She returned his hug and kissed his cheek.

“Thank you, Rowan.” She took the seat offered and proffered her cheek, which he kissed obligingly. “And who do we have here?”

Logan turned and introduced Harper. “Mom, this is Harper.”

The two women began to talk, and Logan watched as Harper charmed his mother and in turn was charmed. It turned out they both loved gardening, but Harper didn’t get much of a chance due to her travel schedule.

Then their orders arrived, and Harper looked like she’d discovered nirvana by pastry.

“This is so good!” She exclaimed after taking a bite from a fruit Danish.

Logan smiled watching her.

Amy excused herself to head back to her gardening, leaving behind a stack of notebooks and a pack of pens.

“Your mother forgot something,” Harper said, pointing at the notebooks.

Logan shrugged.

“Fancy seeing you here.” His cousin, Rhett, pulled up the chair his mom had been sitting on, flipping it around to sit on it backwards.

“Harper, this is my cousin, Rhett. He runs Wilde Outdoor Adventures,” Logan said.

Harper laughed at the name and Rhett quickly gave her his sales pitch.

“Enough! She doesn’t want to do white water rafting or hiking or?—”

“Maybe I do?”

Logan whipped his head toward her. “You do?”

“No, but it’s for me to say I don’t,” she quipped, poking him with a finger into his bicep.

Rowan propped his head in his hand and grinned, obviously enjoying the show.

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