A/N – I'm so glad so many people have really been liking all the fluff in this story. This chapter is the first half of their time on the beach. The next chapter will switch back to Logan's POV again. Let me know what you think and there are a few more notes at the end of the chapter too.
Disclaimer: All original VM characters belong to Rob Thomas.
Chapter 8
"So which beach shall we go to?" Logan asked as he started to pull the SUV out of his garage.
"Cave beach!" Evie yelled from the backseat. Well she's certainly not indifferent.
"She always wants to go there," Sara added with a laugh. "I don't know why you even bother to ask."
Logan just smiled and shrugged. Less than five minutes later they were pulling into the parking lot at Neptune State Park again. Veronica looked at him curiously. "I thought she said Cave Beach?"
He laughed and nodded his head. "She did, but that's what she calls this beach. There's a small cave here, so that's why she calls it that instead of Neptune."
"You just can't escape Neptune can you?" Veronica asked with a sly grin. He smiled back and shook his head. I wonder if that's one of the reasons you stayed here too? A small reminder of home without actually coming back, or if that made it harder?
After he parked, they all piled out of the SUV and started getting things from the back. Logan was carrying the bulk of the items, but Veronica and Sara leant a hand too. Even Evie carried a small bag with her sand toys in it. They carefully made their way down the stairs and Logan gestured toward an area on the south end of the beach near some tide pools to claim as their spot. There were more families there than the evening before, but it still wasn't as crowded as the southern California beaches that Veronica was used to. A beach surrounded by large evergreen trees was also much different than she was used to. Logan had instructed Bella to heel as they started down and she dutifully walked by his side the entire time. Evie on the other hand kept trying to run off ahead and he had to keep telling her to stop and wait for them. Too bad 'heel' doesn't work on a 4 year old.
After they'd dropped off the things they were carrying, Sara and Evie ran over to look at the tidepools. "Be careful and watch for waves," Logan yelled out after them. Sara was holding Evie's hand and Veronica could easily tell she was extremely watchful and protective of her.
Logan had instructed Bella to sit while he was laying out the blanket and setting up the chairs. Occasionally Veronica caught him looking up to check on Sara and Evie while he was organizing everything. She was slightly amused by how meticulous he seemed to be at getting it a certain way. Once he had it all set up he gave her a warm smile. "Did you want to sit, or go look at the tide pools too? They aren't very full of much stuff, but sometimes they find a little fish or something."
"Sitting sounds good," Veronica responded and took a spot in one of the low beach chairs he'd set up. He sat down too and patted his leg and Bella walked over to him so he could scratch her head.
"She's amazingly well behaved," Veronica commented as she reached over and scratched Bella too.
He chucked slightly. "If only Evie was that well behaved too."
Veronica snickered thinking about Evie diving into the bean bags earlier in the day and trying to bolt on the beach. "I'm sure she's not that bad. She just seems very... spirited. And no pot- kettle comments!"
He smirked and nodded in agreement.
"Was Bella already trained when you got her?" Veronica asked as she continued to scratch her behind the ears.
Logan gave her a faux hurt expression and placed his hand on his chest. "Are you doubting my ability to have trained her myself?"
Veronica smirked and shrugged. "I suppose you did have a way with Backup."
Logan gave her a playful smile. "Well I may have had some superb tutelage. Kathleen knows a retired dog obedience trainer and hooked me up with him. It gave me something else to do besides just hanging out with Evie." Logan chucked softly. "I think Kathleen was worried that I needed something else to occupy my time so I didn't get too restless. And of course Evie loves Bella too."
Sara and Evie made their way back to them a moment later. "Did you two see anything cool?" Logan asked as the two girls flopped down on the blanket.
"I saw three fishies," Evie said with a big smile. "Can I throw Bella's ball?"
Logan reached into one of the bags and pulled out a tennis ball. Bella got excited as soon as she saw it, so Logan told her to sit. Evie grabbed the ball and threw it as hard as she could, which wasn't very far, but there was a bit of a slope so it rolled on its own a little ways.
"Release, Daddy," she said as she turned to look at him and Bella. Logan gave the command and Bella ran for the ball and picked it up and brought it back, dropping it at Logan's feet.
Evie looked down at it and scrunched up her face. "Too slimy. You throw it, Daddy." He used his foot to roll the ball around on the blanket.
"There, it's clean. You can throw it again."
Evie looked more closely at it and then shook her head. She glanced over at Veronica. "Vonica can throw it," she said with a smile and nudged it with her foot toward Veronica. Bella had her eyes glued to the ball eagerly waiting for someone to throw it. She let out a small bark, evidently to get someone to pick it up and throw it for her.
Veronica smiled and picked it up. She threw it as hard as she could across the beach. Bella ran to get it and then dutifully brought it back and dropped it at Logan's feet again.
"But I threw it," Veronica said a bit disgruntled with Bella's loyalty.
"It doesn't matter," Sara replied with a laugh. "She only listens to him too. Although if you have treats you can get her to do things sometimes or when he's not around."
Logan shrugged and picked up the ball and threw it much farther than Veronica had. "What can I say, I'm just extremely loveable."
"Puhleez…" Sara said sarcastically. "More like curmudgeonly."
"I see someone's paying attention in AP English," Logan snarked back at Sara and she stuck her tongue out at him.
"Will you help me build a sand castle?" Evie asked Logan as she picked up her bag of sand toys.
"Sure sweetie," Logan said as he stood up from his chair, reaching down to pick up the returned ball and throwing it for Bella again. Veronica couldn't help but notice how his muscles looked under his light T-shirt as he'd thrown the ball. He's definitely been making good use of that workout room at his house. "Wanna help?" he asked Veronica with a hopeful look.
"Sure," she replied as she climbed out of her chair and followed them to a spot a little ways from the blanket that had damp sand from the earlier high tide. Evie had several different bucket shapes and little shovels and picked some out for Veronica to use.
"So…" Logan asked a little hesitantly as he helped Evie pack sand into a bucket and turn it over. "What else are you doing now that you've graduated... besides tracking down missing people?"
She gave him a small smile. I see he knows I did graduate without asking, although maybe he's just guessing. "Actually I got a scholarship to go to Law School at Stanford."
"Wow," Logan said apparently a bit surprised by that. "You want to be a lawyer?"
She nodded, "Yeah, I'm thinking I'd like to try to work for a District Attorney's office. You know, help lock up bad guys without actually being the one to have to chase them down."
"I guess I could see that," Logan said with a fond smile. "I guess I imagined you going to work for the FBI or something like that, especially since you had your internship with them."
Veronica shrugged. "I guess doing the internship with them made me decide that really wasn't the path I wanted to take. I sort of changed my focus a bit after that summer."
Logan nodded in understanding. "I bet your dad is really going to miss you though."
Veronica never thought she'd see the day when Logan could relate so closely to her dad, but now that he had Evie, she realized they may have more in common than they ever used to. Of course they had always had their desire to keep her safe in common. She nodded and returned his expression with a tender one of her own. "Yeah, he's not thrilled about me being so far away, but excited about the opportunity I've been given. He never really liked me investigating, so he's much happier that I'm making a safer career choice."
Logan gave her a questioning look. "What did he think about you coming up here to track me down?"
Veronica shrugged. "He was glad that I found you." Logan raised his eyebrow skeptically. "Well he wasn't not glad that I found you." She added and shrugged again.
"Okay…" Logan replied, seemingly not quite sure how to reply to that.
"Well he did tell me there was no rush for me to get back and to enjoy the change of scenery," she added, hoping that would make him feel a little more at ease. He gave her a quick nod and smiled a little bit.
"Let's show Vonica the cave," Evie said, apparently tired of building her sand castle now.
"You should try to say Veronica," Logan responded as he started tossing their sand toys back into the bag.
Evie let out a long sigh. "You don't call me Evelyn all the time. Just when I'm in trouble. So is she always in trouble?"
Logan and Veronica couldn't help but laugh at that. "Of course not!" Veronica tried to argue after her initial reaction. Logan gave her a skeptical look and shook his head. She reached over and poked him in the stomach. "You've been in as much trouble as I have mister!"
"Daddy's been in trouble?" Evie asked with huge wide eyes.
"No sweetie," Logan quickly answered. "Daddy's always been a perfectly well-behaved boy." He gave Veronica a not so subtle expression that she'd better not disagree. She just smirked at him and nodded her head slowly, though not convincingly at all.
Evie looked at him a little skeptically, obviously not quite buying it.
"So let's show her the cave," Logan suggested again, apparently hoping to distract Evie from the topic of him getting into trouble. Logan whistled for Bella who'd wandered over toward the tide pools sniffing around there when Logan had stopped throwing the ball and stuck it in his pocket. "You want to walk to the cave with us?" he asked Sara as he set the bag of sand toys on the blanket by where she'd started reading a book.
"Sure," she said as she hopped up. "Race you munchkin," she called out to Evie as she started to jog slowly by her. Evie laughed and started running too. Bella looked at Logan, and then ran up with the girls.
"Trying to get me in trouble are you?" Logan said playfully as they walked in the same direction that the girls had run off toward.
"You started it," she replied and gave him a mischievous grin. "Oh the stories I could tell…" she winked at him. "But of course I won't… not until she's older at least..."
She saw an expression cross his face that wasn't quite what she was expecting. It was almost surprise or hopefulness, versus concern that she might actually tell some story about one of his misdeeds. Did he think I'd just vanish on him after this visit? Her heart hurt a little bit wondering if that's what he'd thought she was going to do. She really didn't know at this point what would happen when she left, but now that she'd found him again, she really didn't want to just lose him completely from her life again. She would have thought he didn't want them to just go their separate ways forever either, given he did ask her to stick around for a few days after she told him why she was here. She also couldn't imagine him asking her to come and spend time with him and Evie if he wanted her to just disappear after this. So then the look must have been more about what he thought I'd decide to do versus what he wants.
Whatever the look was about, it was quickly gone, replaced with a smile as he pointed out the cave that the other two had already made it to. "It's not really much of a cave, but she always likes to go inside. Comes in handy too if we get an unexpected shower when we're here. Like I said yesterday, the weather isn't always this nice, and there's no way we can just hide in the house during the non-summer months."
She took a deep breath as she had a flashback to a specific day at the beach with him. He'd really wanted to go surfing, even though the forecast was calling for rain and she'd still gone along to watch. The light rain turned into a downpour and they ended up finding cover under a lifeguard tower. Given the weather, there weren't really other people at the beach and one side of the tower was partly enclosed and of course they ended up doing more than just sitting there waiting for the rain to stop. She felt her breath catch for a moment thinking back to that time. Her clothes had gotten soaked before they'd made it under the tower, and he was of course soaked from being out in the water, but he had a waterproof bag with a towel in it, so he'd insisted on getting her out of her wet clothes and did an excellent job of warming her up with his towel wrapped around them.
She glanced at him and realized he had a similar expression on his face that matched what she was feeling, and wondered if he also suddenly thought of that day they'd been caught in the rain at the beach. She nervously smiled and nodded, realizing she hadn't really responded to what he'd said since she'd gotten so caught up in the memory. He smiled a little nervously in return and then looked off in the direction of the cave again as they continued to walk across the sand.
They had to climb up a bit of an incline to reach it and by the time they did the two girls were already ready to move on since they'd ran ahead and had already been inside for a little while before Logan and Veronica caught up to them.
"We're gonna climb the other rocks," Evie said as she tugged on Sara's hand and headed back down toward some really large rock formations that were on the northern half of the beach.
"Okay, just be careful," Logan called out as the girls rushed past them.
Veronica had walked into the small cave and was looking around at the various color patterns of rock on the walls. Her mind momentarily flashed back to that day with him on the beach again and she tried to push those thoughts out of her mind. However it wasn't hard to imagine what she'd like to do if they were caught in a downpour here. The cave really wasn't very big and Logan had to duck down a bit so he didn't hit his head on some of the lower parts. Since it wasn't very deep either, it was only slightly shadowed inside. "It's pretty cool," Veronica said as she touched the formation of rocks on the walls, trying to focus on something other than the thought of what the two of them had done all those years ago on the beach. "I can see why she likes to come here."
Logan smiled and nodded. He was definitely just watching her and not paying any attention to the rock walls. She wondered if he was thinking something similar by the way his eyes seemed so much darker than just the change in light from the cave would have caused. She could see out toward the beach and saw the girls were going behind a large rock formation down on the sand with Bella still following right behind them. She suddenly realized she just couldn't help herself, or maybe she just didn't want to anymore. She almost felt like she did that day at the Camelot all over again for some reason. Maybe it was seeing him in an entirely new way, this well-adjusted confident version of himself, just like the day he unexpectedly came to her rescue and she'd suddenly saw him as more than just the boy that had been tormenting her for months. Something inside her just really wanted to feel his lips against hers again, just like that day they'd first kissed all those years ago. She wasn't sure she'd actually get another chance when they'd be alone like this, so she just let the impulse she'd been trying to contain ever since she saw him again take over. Since he was leaning down to keep from hitting his head on the rocks, it closed some of their height distance and she easily leaned up and pressed her lips against his. She could tell he was totally shocked by it, much as he had been that day at the Camelot. She pulled away and saw him blink his eyes in surprise. "I'm sorry," she said and shook her head. She was about to say she didn't know what came over her but the words didn't escape her lips because he quickly pulled her back toward him and pressed his lips to hers. The second kiss didn't last very long, but it was definitely deeper than the first quick one she'd just given him, and they both seemed a bit breathless when they separated again with slightly giddy smiles on both their faces.
"We'd better…" he gestured toward the beach again and she gave him a sly smile and nodded.
"Yeah, we'd better…" she replied. Because if we stay in here, I'm sure we could easily end up in a compromising position that would definitely be a little hard to explain.
A/N – I hope you all liked this chapter! There actually is a small cave at Neptune State Park that we checked out when I was there. Please let me know what you thought of the chapter with a quick review!
