Hello Stranger

I relaxed.

She relaxed.

We lay together and breathed, and I wondered where the hell this was going, for both of us.

But it didn’t matter.

I didn’t care.

Not in that moment.

All that mattered to me was having her there in my arms.

She was the one who broke the silence with another bout of positive thinking.

“I saw your mum’s bucket list,” she said. “I heard about Wellington, the elephant. That’s super cool you got to touch him.”

I smiled back at her. “Mum loved it. Yes, it was pretty cool.”

She laughed. “Super cool?”

I couldn’t stop myself laughing to match. “Yes, Chloe. Super cool.”

She rolled onto her front and rested her chin on her hands. “You know what else would be super cool?”

“Please tell me.”

Her eyes lit up like glitter on sunbeams.

“Doing the others. The other things on her list.”

I brushed some stray hair from her forehead. “We’ve barely had time to plan them. They would take some organising. Some of them might not even be possible.”

The little sparrow shrugged at me, “Won’t know until we try.” And she laughed again, and that’s when I knew it for certain.

I was in love with her.

I was in love with everything about her, even the things I didn’t know.28ChloeIf I didn’t know I was in love with him before spending some time with his mum, I sure as hell knew it after.

He was right.

He wasn’t leukaemia or chemotherapy or one kidney or missing hair.

He was him.

He was Logan.

I was in love with Logan Hall.

His warmth at my side was more warmth than I’d ever known. The way he looked at me was nothing I’d ever felt from Liam – not even when he said I was the love of his life. And it wasn’t just him I was addicted to. Not anymore. I loved Jackie, too – even though I’d only just met her.

“Honestly,” I said, “there’s no time like the present. My gran always used to say to me, if you want anything done, my girl, you get up and do it now.”

Logan laughed. “You want to climb a mountain right here and now, do you? Push a wheelchair up a hillside and get Mum singing hallelujah at the top?”

He wasn’t expecting it at all when I stared back at him, cool as a cucumber. “Why not?”

I kept my smile as my words registered, and he was thinking. I could see him thinking.

“Seriously, Chloe, there is no way we’ll get a wheelchair up a mountain. Not without hiring one for crazy terrain, and working on training to get her up there.”

I tipped my head, the smile still on my face. “Ok, so maybe not a mountain. Not like Everest. But what about some smaller ones? Ones that make you feel like you’ve climbed Everest?”

He was still thinking, but I guess I thought quicker than him on this one.

“I did it when I was a little girl,” I told him. “My auntie lives near Wales, where they have the Malvern Hills. Have you heard of them?”

Logan’s face was so serious. “Maybe, in passing.”

“They’re super cool,” I said. “A whole row of them, and they feel mega high, and it’s brill being up there, and I’m sure they have paths we could push your mum’s wheelchair up.”

He was looking for reasons to shoot my idea down as unfeasible, I know he was, but I kept smiling, kept nodding, and he couldn’t stop himself. Eventually he smiled back.

“It would be a long drive, and quite a climb.”

I shrugged. “So what?”

“And we’d need to prepare her…”

I shrugged again. “So, let’s go ask. See what she says.”

His smile stayed on his face, and he tipped his head, staring right back at me. “You’re serious? You want to drive with me across country to some hills you climbed up as a kid, and push my mum’s wheelchair up a pathway until we reach the top?”

“Yeah, that’s what I want,” I told him. And I was serious. I was as serious as it ever gets.

He propped himself up on his elbows. “It would take some planning.”

I rolled my eyes at him. “I’m sure that together we would plan it well.”

“I suppose it’s feasible,” he said

“Let’s do it then,” I said, and he laughed.

“We can’t do it today.”

“Tomorrow, then.”

He laughed again. “Then you’d best go ask my mother.”

I was up like a shot, bounding out onto the landing on skittish legs, not giving a shit anymore about being naked in front of him. I threw myself into Jackie’s clothes before I reached her doorway, and I couldn’t stop myself, I was straight in there, jolting her out of a crossword.

Logan was behind me, footsteps loud and calm, but I jumped right in, heart racing fast.

“Do you want to climb a mountain tomorrow?”

She put her pen down and leaned closer. “What, sweetheart?”

I pointed to the list on the wall.