‘No one can predict the future,’ he said scornfully, and she couldn’t tell if he was angry or just unimpressed.
She reminded herself that she didn’t care. And then Logan spoke again.
‘But what is it that’s so impossible, Kat? I can’t imagine how losing Carrie must have hurt. When I think about Jamie...it just doesn’t bear thinking about.’
‘No.’ Sadness threatened to engulf her, and she was afraid she wasn’t going to be able to hold it at bay. ‘It doesn’t.’
‘But you can’t keep running away from every chance at a connection because of that one terrible experience.’
And at that moment she felt something else charge her. A little of her old fierceness. It occurred to her that Logan was deliberately provoking her. Trying to help her get past her own memories. But that didn’t make sense.
‘I do not run away,’ she bit out hotly.
‘You do. You veil it in self-sacrifice, but it’s still running away.’
‘My God, you’re so smug. You don’t know everything.’
‘Is that so? Then enlighten me.’
‘And say what?’ she demanded.
‘Tell me why you’re so frightened of opening up to anyone. What is it that makes keeps this barrier between you and anybody else? I know Carrie is a part of it, but what’s the rest of it?’
She was teetering. She could hear the words piling up in her head. Logan knew it, too. Perhaps he’d even understood it in her before she had. But that only made him all the more dangerous to her.
‘You have to trust someone, sometime, Kat. Why not me, and why not here?’
She wavered a moment longer, memories of Carrie and of Jamie interweaving. Images of Logan that she would probably hold onto for the rest of her life. And then other, less pleasant images of Kirk.
It was all building so fast that it was inevitable that when she broke, it all spilled out so fast that she could barely keep up.
‘I’ve always known that I couldn’t have children. At least, I couldn’t have biological children. I was twelve when I was diagnosed with osteosarcoma.’ She lifted one hand, almost subconsciously, to the top of her left arm, just by the shoulder.
* * *
He could barely stop himself from hauling her into his arms and holding her, as though that might somehow erase all that he instinctively knew she must have been through. But her delivery was robotic, and clipped—her way of protecting herself—so he made himself keep his distance.
‘Because it was caught early,’ she continued, her gaze still not quite meeting his, ‘I had a round of chemo, surgery to remove the affected portion of bone and a bone graft with a metal prosthetic and another round of chemo.’
‘Kat,’ he breathed.
‘By the time I was eighteen my body had gone through menopause. Back then, although they’d already begun working with cryopreservation, it wasn’t done as routinely as now. Now they can freeze a section of ovary from a baby barely a few months old, complete with all its eggs, and reimplant it during adulthood. But back then it wasn’t an option for me.’
‘I see,’ he mused, his mind searching for the right words. The words he knew Kat—his Kat—would want to hear. ‘So you think that I wouldn’t want to be with you if you couldn’t give me a child? A biological child?’
‘You said it yourself.’
She shrugged. But he could see how much it cost her to do so.
‘I want you. I want a family with you. And if we adopt, like you were going to adopt Carrie, that won’t make that child any less ours.’
‘Why would that be enough for you?’ she cried, her palms twisting around each other like she was trying to contain a decade and a half’s worth of emotions.
‘Why wouldn’t it be?’ he countered as evenly as he could.
‘Because...because...’ She pulled her hands to her chest then rubbed at her face, before staring at him with something approaching despair. ‘Because it can’t be.’
Logan didn’t answer straight away. Instead, he cupped her face and finally made her meet his gaze.
‘Why not, Kat?’
She stared at him for what felt like an eternity. Then she shook her head.
‘Please, Logan, just leave.’
A plea? Or a demand? He wasn’t sure even Kat knew.
‘What was his name?’ Logan demanded suddenly. ‘What did he do to you?’
She blinked once. Twice.
‘His name was Kirk,’ she managed slowly, and he got the impression she was testing every word before it came out. ‘He was my fiancé.’
Logan hated the guy already.
‘When?’
‘When did we split up, do you mean?’ Her lips pulled into a taut line. ‘Seven years ago.’
His brain whirred.
‘Before you started fostering?’
She nodded stiffly.
‘What happened?’
He waited a beat as the silence stretched out between them. Then another beat.
‘Logan, you don’t want to hear all this.’
‘I do,’ he gritted out.
And he saw her fight one last wave of emotion...and then capitulate.
‘We’d been together since we were fifteen,’ she began slowly, woodenly. ‘I met him in the hospital.’
There was a pounding in his chest. A roaring. A storm. But Logan held it back. He forced his voice to sound even, though he had no idea how he managed it.
‘You’d both had bone cancer?’
‘No.’ She squeezed her eyes shut. ‘But we’d been through chemo together.’
So, of all people, this Kirk should have understood Kat’s circumstances. Down at his sides, out of her sight, Logan clenched his fists. How was it he had the sense that Kirk had been the one to let her down and destroy her trust? Her sense of self-worth?
‘Go on,’ his voice rumbled, low and commanding.
He couldn’t stop himself.
‘Kirk knew about the menopause, and that I couldn’t have children naturally. We talked about fostering together. Even adopting.’
It was all he could to nod encouragingly. But he didn’t speak. He didn’t trust himself.
‘When we got engaged, we started the fostering procedure. Then, about three months before we were due to get married, Kirk told me that he couldn’t handle us never having biological kids together. He said that he might not have been ready for kids at that moment, but that he would be in the future. And when he did, he would need to have a child that was a real part of himself.’
‘He left you?’
For the longest time she didn’t react. And then she gave the vaguest hint of shrug.
It was enough.
Logan seethed on Kat’s behalf. If he could have laid the guy out right now, in front of her, he would have. Though he doubted she would appreciate such a gesture.
It occurred to Logan that the depth of emotion he felt for Kat went far beyond anything he’d felt for anyone—bar Jamie—before. Certainly not Sophia. Even when she’d left him for her wealthy new lover, he hadn’t felt a fraction of the contempt he felt for this Kirk guy.
It only served to confirm that he would walk over searing coals for Kat Steel. He just needed to make her realise it, too.
‘The guy was a prize jerk, Kat.’ He barely recognised his own voice. Or the man behind it. ‘You have to see that?’
She pulled her mouth into a thin line but said nothing.
‘He wasn’t worth your love. He wasn’t worth you, for God’s sake.’
‘I know.’ It was the barest scrap of a voice. It certainly didn’t convince Logan.
‘Don’t lie to me, Kat. Telling me what you think I want to hear. I need to know that you truly believe it. That you really know you deserve better than a guy like that.’
She opened her mout
h to answer, but something stopped her. As though she’d been about to lie to him again but had decided better of it.
‘I understand what you’re saying,’ she managed slowly, though he could see every word sliced her. Wounded her. ‘I think you even believe it. But the fact is that he was entitled to want a family—a biological family—of his own. It’s a basic human desire.’
‘You can’t seriously be defending him.’
She shrugged.
‘I can’t blame him for wanting something I couldn’t give him. A child. A family. One that can’t be taken away from you after years of being the only parent they’d ever known—’ sadness and bitterness interweaved through her tone ‘—just because you didn’t give birth to them.’
‘You’re talking about Carrie, and I can’t begin to understand what you went through when you lost her. But I can tell you that just because a person gives birth to a child it doesn’t make them a parent,’ Logan growled, as anger seared him, white hot and so vivid it was almost blinding.
He didn’t expect the sharpness in Kat’s expression.
‘Yes. And yet, if she came back now and wanted to play a part in Jamie’s life, she could.’
‘I’d like to see her try.’
‘You say that now because you’re angry. But take emotion out of the equation and think. You might fight it initially, and you might hate the very idea, but ultimately, once you were as satisfied as you could be that she wasn’t intending to hurt Jamie again, you would let her into your lives, Logan.’
‘No—’
‘Yes,’ she countered softly. ‘Because that’s the kind of man you are. And because, at the end of it all, no matter what has happened in the past, she is Jamie’s mum, and she always will be. I can never have that, and so I can never give it to whoever I’m with either.’
Logan opened his mouth to argue yet suddenly, abruptly, he stopped.
As much as he hated to admit it, he could concede that Kat had a point. If Sophia came back into Jamie’s life he would move heaven and earth to fight her until he was unequivocally sure that she wouldn’t hurt their son again. But if she was sincere, would he really have any right to block her from Jamie’s life?
Logan felt unexpectedly powerless. It was an alien sensation, and he didn’t much care for it.
He might not entirely agree with everything Kat had said, but now he was forced to concede that there was a kernel of truth in her words.
Kirk and then her experience with Carrie had left her battered. Bruised. Battle-scarred. Pushing her now would only force her to close those wounds over before they’d had time to fully heal.
Telling her he cared about her, that he wanted her in his life—and in Jamie’s life—was one thing. But if he truly cared for her, he should back off and let her have the space she needed so that she could heal in her own time.
It was what a good man should do. And if anyone deserved a good man, it was Kat. Without another word, Logan dipped his head and dropped a lingering kiss on Kat’s cheek before straightening up. And then he simply walked away.
As if it wasn’t the hardest thing he thought he’d ever had to do in his entire life.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHRISTMAS DAY IN Seattle General was nothing like Kat had expected. The hospital practically crackled with energy and cheer, not least because their most celebrated VIP—the man whose life Logan had saved that dull day in late November—was making a textbook recovery.
How was it possible to feel so very different from the way she’d felt barely a month ago, Kat marvelled as she stood on the gallery and eyed the festive tree in the atrium below, telling herself that she wasn’t looking out for Logan?
After their last conversation, she still felt as though a revolving door was spinning in her head. He’d walked away, exactly as she’d asked him to. He’d finally accepted what she’d been trying to tell him. Surely she deserved a sense of victory at the fact that she had been right all along? Instead, she just felt pain—more pain that she’d ever known.
She’d lost Logan, and Jamie, and impossibly it felt even worse than she’d felt when she’d lost Carrie. She felt as if she’d known them her whole life. Or perhaps it was more that she felt as if she’d been waiting her whole life for them...
But Kirk? Logan had said that he was a total jerk, and that she deserved better than that. Which was why she was standing on the gallery, pretending that she wasn’t looking out for Logan.
She had to tell him that he’d been right about that much, at least.
It was odd the way she’d been spinning ever since Logan and Jamie had walked into her life. Like the fun of a fairground ride surprising and startling but ultimately giving a sense of exhilaration. Much as life with Logan and Jamie had done.
Unexpectedly, as if talking about them had actually conjured them up, Kat’s eyes slid to the doors and she watched as Logan and Jamie hurried inside. They were laughing together, looking as though they were sharing a private joke, and her heart swelled at the sight.
Then, suddenly, Logan looked up and right at her, leaving her wondering if he had somehow sensed her there, watching them. His face split into the most open, inviting and frankly sexy smile, and her stomach swooped and vaulted.
It was terrifying how much he—they—meant to her. But when it was over? What then? She could hardly stand to think about it. Stuffing those fears down, Kat pulled her shoulders back and returned his smile. She would deal with that when it happened. Not before.
So, instead, she just let herself smile as he tapped his son on the shoulder and then pointed up to her. She focussed on waving and blowing a kiss as Jamie flailed his arms around at her, sending a score of kisses her way. And she exulted in the sense of belonging—however long that might last.
Then, heads bent together, they took a handful of presents out of the bag they were carrying and set them at the foot of the tree. Surprise flooded through her when Logan stepped forward to usher his son up the winding staircase to her, whilst he remained down by the base of the huge tree. Hurrying forward, she met Jamie as he reached the top of the stairs.
‘What are you doing, coming up here on your own, sweetheart?’
‘You have to come with me.’ He slipped his tiny hand into hers and a sense of bliss filled Kat.
‘Come with you where?’ she asked. ‘Back downstairs? Were you sent to get me?’
‘To Daddy,’ Jamie confirmed.
She couldn’t have said why her chest tightened as it did. There was clearly some plan afoot, but there was no reason for it to make her breath catch in her lungs. Still, Jamie’s cheeky, mischievous grin wound around her and she couldn’t help but laugh.
‘Well, we’d better not keep Daddy waiting, then, had we?’
‘Nope.’
Together—with Jamie’s hand still fitted snugly into hers—they made their way back down the stairs.
‘You sent for me?’ She grinned wryly as Logan met them at the bottom.
‘I did. I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist Jamie’s charms.’
‘No, well...’ She licked her lips. ‘There’s something I need to...want to tell you.’
‘Us first.’ Jamie jumped up and down, unable to contain his excitement any longer. ‘We have a Christmas gift for you.’
She cast Logan a pleading look, but his expression was surprisingly secretive.
‘Us first,’ he repeated simply.
Then he reached down to the bag and selected another present, dreadfully wrapped in the loveliest dinosaur wrapping paper. Happiness bubbled inside her.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she told Jamie. ‘Thank you.’
And there wasn’t a fibre of her that didn’t mean it.
‘Open it,’ Jamie squeaked, practically beside himself.
She slid her gaze from Jamie to Logan in surprise.
‘Here?’
>
‘Here,’ Logan confirmed quietly.
She couldn’t explain the gleam in his eye. Until she unfolded the wrapping paper.
A larger version of Jamie’s pterodactyl toy peered out at her.
‘It’s a mommy Terrydac,’ the little boy cried out, clearly unable to contain himself any longer. ‘It’s for you. You’re the mummy, I’m the baby.’
Kat tried to answer but it was impossible. Her throat was too constricted and tight. Heat prickled behind her eyes. All she could was nod.
‘You’re crying.’ He wrinkled his nose at her. ‘They are the happy tears? Or the sad tears?’
‘They’re the happy tears.’ She had no idea how she managed to speak.
‘You haven’t seen my gift yet.’ Logan’s rich voice suddenly rumbled in her ear.
She lifted her head to look at him querulously, still not able to trust herself to speak.
‘But before you do, you need to know that from that first moment I spent with you, in that damned treatment room, you made me feel things. Things I’d never felt before. Things I don’t even think I believed I could ever feel.’
‘Logan...’
She had intended to tell him what she’d been steeling herself all morning to say, but he shook his head, needing to go on. And she found she wanted to let him.
‘You’ve been my salvation, and my hope.’ He hooked one finger under chin, his eyes holding hers. ‘You’ve made me believe in a future I thought would never be for me. I can’t predict the future in terms of family, Kat. But, then, no one can. I can only promise you that you will always have me, and you will always be the only one for me. I’ll never want anyone but you.’
‘I’ll never want anybody but you either,’ she whispered.
And he couldn’t stop himself any more. He slid his hand to the back of her neck and drew her to him.
‘I don’t care if we have a child biologically, or if we adopt.’ He dropped his forehead to rest against hers. ‘I don’t care if you don’t want any of it. I don’t care if you want ten. As long as we decide together.’
The Bodyguard's Christmas Proposal Page 17
