Bella woke with her cheek resting against the door. The sun had long set and they were on a very dark road in the middle of nowhere. At least that’s how it seemed. She used the cover of night to look at Logan.
She hadn’t been able to stand to look at him for days now. He’d become everything she never knew she wanted. A serious man, with no edge—that had been the plan. Then one moment with him in a wine-soaked evening and she’d been changed. She may not have owned up to it that night, but she couldn’t lie to herself now.
It had taken one night to see just how much her plan had sucked. She’d denied herself the fun and thrill of Logan and then he’d gotten under her skin. She’d seen more than the rockstar face of Logan King and saw the sadness, saw the man longing to connect with someone.
She’d fallen for that man.
Now she wondered if she rewound time to that night—could she have just treated him as a one-night-stand? Could she have gotten the wild out of her system and then gotten back to the plan at hand?
Walked away from him with a good memory and a level head, then found the stable guy that she was supposed to be with. Would he have walked out of her life with his problems, and the woman that was hell bent on destroying him?
Would she still have Nic?
Still have Adam?
Still have the only family she’d ever truly known?
Her chest tightened and she knew the sob was bubbling up in her chest. How many times had she wished that?
She fisted her hand and felt the pull of freshly mending flesh tear and split. She tried to swallow the pain.
“Iz?”
She hunched toward the window. She could feel the abused skin slicken.
“What is it?” He swore and pushed a button on the screen. “Rest area or gas station,” he said.
A melodious voice said, “Working. Please choose from list below.”
The voice prompts filled the car as he maneuvered off the main road and into a town. The bright lights of a gas station blinded her.
She blinked away the fuzzy edges of sleep and saw that a few dry patches were bleeding. She must have slept through her time to use the ointment. The stiffness of her entire body told her that she’d slept way longer than she thought.
She cradled her hand against her chest and leaned over. She’d been out nearly seven hours. With even breaths, she tried to align her spine with the seat and sit up straight.
“I knew I should have woken you up.” He sighed. “So this is how it’s going to be between us? You’re never going to talk again? If you think that’s going to work then you’re delusional, babe.”
She scowled at him.
“You can give me the bratty scowl all you want. I’m not going to shut up, and I’m not going to let you shut me out. Aimee stole a lot from me, too. I loved them, too.”
She turned her face to the window.
“Yeah, go ahead and sulk. That’ll make the next few months awesome.”
He pulled up to the front of the store and went inside. He came back out holding a bag and went to her side of the car. She slapped the lock on the door and stared ahead.
“Oh, nice. What are you eight, for fuck’s sake?” He pulled the keys out of his pocket and unlocked the door.
She held her arm against her chest and wouldn’t look at him.
He reached into the car and she jerked back. He pressed his thumb into the lapbelt’s buckle and unleashed her.
Fiona sat up in the back. She tucked her big head on Bella’s shoulder and nudged her. Automatically, she nuzzled against the warm dog. Fiona backed up and sat down on her seat again with a low chuff of a bark.
Logan eased her legs out and turned her so she faced him. “Let me see.”
She tried to take the bag from him. She could take care of herself.
He dumped the bag on her lap and took out the water and stack of napkins he’d taken from the store. He wet down a few and held out his hand palm up.
His green eyes were blazing with anger and hurt. She sighed and laid her hand on top of his. He gently blotted her flesh, murmuring soft apologies as he wiped away the abused flecks of skin.
He unearthed the bag at her feet and found the silvery gel that she used as a barrier on some of the worst of the burns that had thickened. His touch was so gentle and compassionate, in direct opposition to the emotions in his eyes.
The ball of tension got bigger with every act of care until her chest felt too full, her eyes stinging with blocked tears. At the bottom of the knapsack, he took out thin cotton coverings for her hands. They looked like huge oven mitts.
Where the hell had he gotten those?
They were perfect to cover her hands and not stick to every little bit. It would also keep her from staining everything. Half her sweatshirts were ruined from the greasy ointment.
Lastly, he got out her pills. Couldn’t he have given her those first?
Why didn’t she think to ask for them?
He opened the bottles, shook out one tablet from each. “Open up.” His eyebrow rose. “Don’t give me that look.” He rattled the two pills in his cupped hand. “So you mean to tell me that your ribs don’t hurt like a bitch?”
They did.
Everything hurt, dammit. She huffed out a breath and opened her mouth.
“Good girl.” He pulled out a straw from the bag and tucked it into the water. She closed her lips over it and took a long drink. His nostrils flared and a muscle in his jaw flexed as she kept swallowing.
She finally sat back and let the straw go. The seatbelt made a sharp zipping sound as he buckled her up.
“I’m going to take Fiona for a quick walk.” He cursed under his breath. “I didn’t ask if you needed to use the restroom.”
She shook her head.
“All right.” He stepped back and slammed her door.
She flinched. She’d really ticked him off. Well good, maybe he wouldn’t talk to her the rest of the trip.
∞♦
∞
Logan opened the door for Fiona. She stared at him expectantly. One more female that wouldn’t talk to him.
“Need to do your business?”
She tilted her head and thumped her tail once. Jesus, she was a big fucker. She took up over three quarters of the seat. He unearthed her leash from the pocket behind his seat and clipped it to her collar.
Instantly she was up and out of the car.
Guess the leash was her signal.
He looked over at Isabella. He knew she was grieving and he had to get some patience shored up again. But the fact that she wouldn’t talk to him made him insane. He knew she could—she just chose to lock him out.
As if he didn’t carry a freightliner’s worth of guilt already.
He slammed the door and let Fiona tell him where she wanted do her thing. She was pretty much going to sniff everything in sight, so after ten minutes, he led her over to a small copse of trees. She did her doggie spin thing and finally finished.
He loaded her back into the truck only to find Izzy had moved to the backseat. Fiona thought this was an awesome turn of events and crawled into her lap, vibrating with happiness. Logan couldn’t even hold onto his mad with the soft smile that spread across Izzy’s face as the dog loved all over her.
She pushed Fiona off her and settled back. The dog curled onto her side and put her head in Izzy’s lap with a groaning sigh of bliss. Yeah, Fiona had found her person. Isabella absently rubbed under her chin to her chest and back in a soothing gesture as she looked out the window.
He’d been effectively ignored once more.
Logan got back behind the wheel and pulled out of the gas station. While he waited to take a left out and get back on the main road, he opened a soda. He was bone-tired, but he had another hour to go and he needed to be sharp.
The roads were winding and narrow this far up into the coastal area. Aidan Roth had found them a cabin that was out of the way, but close enough to a hospital if Isabella needed something.
Needing to occupy his mind beyond his own fucked up thoughts, he plugged his iPhone into the auxiliary port and found the playlist he used for his workouts. Def Leppard, Metallica, and a little Journey got him through the last leg of the drive. It was too dark to see much more than shadowy trees, but the scent of the lake went a long way to easing his tattered nerves.
By the time he found the main lodge, Izzy was asleep with the dog in the back again. He reached into the console for his baseball cap and decided against waking them. He locked the doors as he went in for the keys.
An older man shuffled out from a small office. “Hello there.”
“Are you Richard?”
“That I am, son. That must make you…” He flipped through papers on a clipboard on the counter and put on a pair of glasses. “Madigan, John C.” Dressed in plaid and denim, he pulled the glasses off and dropped them on top of the pages.
“Jack,” Logan said easily. He’d practiced in the shower and in the car on his way to the hospital. He was used to using false names for hotels, but he’d never actually kept a name going. They usually used a pun on names or famous characters from movies.
The man scraped large, craggy fingers into his shock of white hair. “I was beginning to think you folks got lost.” His Maine accent lengthened the O and made it sound more like an A.
“My wife needed a pit stop.”
“As they do,” Richard said with a laugh. “As they do.” He turned and unhooked a key with a carved moose keychain. “This would be a little easier to navigate in the daytime, I’m afraid. You requested the most remote cabin we have.”
“Yeah. My wife and I are writers.”
“I’m not much of a reader. Anything like Stephen King?”
Logan laughed. His life hadn’t quite gotten to Stephen King levels, but it was damn close these days. He tried to think of a few authors he’d seen on Izzy’s shelves at the house. “More James Patterson meets Nora Roberts.”
“Never heard of ‘em.”
Logan figured they were safe from snooping if that was the case. “We’ve got a deadline looming so we figured we would get away from home and the intrusions.”
“Well, we’re on the fringes of the off-season here, so you’ll have plenty of time alone. And you look like the workout sort. There’s plenty of running trails through the woods.”
“Sounds amazing, sir.”
“We like it.” He handed Logan the key. “There’s a computer in the rec center off the lake if you need to do email and that kinda stuff. Not much of a signal up here for cell phones and such.”
Just him and Isabella.
Six months ago he would have killed for the time, right now he hoped they would make it through without
un
talking each other to death.
“Good to know.”
“Okay, take the main road all the way up until you can’t go anymore. You’ll know when you can’t. You’ll see a big railing that looks over the lake.”
Logan nodded. “All right.”
“Take a left and follow it up until you see three boulders about the size of your truck there.”
“Left then boulders, got it.”
“The boulders make a Y, you want to go to the right. That’s your cabin up there.”
“Sounds good. If I get lost, I’ll be back.” Logan smiled. “Maybe.”
“Just don’t get lost in December. Then there’s more a better chance of dead. Now, you’ll just have to stay in the car with a blanky.”
“Okay, then.”
Richard let out a booming laugh. “Just kiddin’, son. You’ll be fine.”
He tucked the key into his pocket. “I guess we’ll see you tomorrow sometime.”
“Night now.” The burly man turned and went back through the doorway to sit in front of the television.
The girls were still sleeping when he got back. Fiona gave a halfhearted thump of her tail but snuggled back into Izzy.
He followed the directions and his stomach actually pitched when he got to the top of the vista. The railing wasn’t much of a deterrent for going over the side. Well, at least not at first look. Once he got his breath back, he noticed that the log was reinforced with a steel beam.
By the time he navigated the pitted access road, his knuckles were white from holding onto the steering wheel so tight. When the cabin came into view, he finally relaxed. They really were in the middle of nowhere.
Trees shrouded the little cabin with its sloping roof and second level wraparound deck. Warm light spilled across the slate and stone walkway. Hearty gold flowers lined the stairs. It was just what they needed.
He got out and shut the door. Fiona sat up, but wouldn’t budge from Izzy’s side, who was still sleeping. He opened the back and gathered their bags, the dog bed, tucked the leash in his back pocket, and deposited them onto the porch. He found the moose key chain in his pocket and unlocked the front door. A small light saved the room from full dark, but he clicked a few more on to get a lay of the land.
The main living space was all natural pine, both floor and walls in an intricate post and beam set up that reminded him of home. Denim blue couches were grouped around the center of the room. A modest television stood on an entertainment center and two more faded red chairs flanked the room. The kind of chairs that Izzy loved. The sink in and read kind. They were right near a window, so he bet they got full light in the mornings.