Hail Mary: Book 7 Last Play Romances: (A Bachelor Billionaire Companion)

by Taylor Hart

  That’s where the timeline ended. Playboy bunnies abound? Hmm…this bugged him.

  Nothing about Jeff. Nothing about Shane and their marriage or how that happened. Granted, he’d been piecing things together. Leaving the timeline on the table, he felt frustrated.

  The only good part was that his body felt good, barely any pain in his head, but he was also jittery, keyed up. He needed to do something. Obviously he was in shape and trained a lot. Without thinking too much, because he’d done this since junior high, he dropped into a push-up stance and began pounding out the push-ups. He wasn’t sure how many he did, because he quit counting at fifty and just kept going. It felt good to have his body so strong. Hopping up, he started into up-down burpees. When that was finished, he decided it was time for a swim.

  He tugged off his clothes, everything except his underwear, and headed to the lake. Yeah, it would be cold, probably close to freezing, but he needed the exertion of laps. He’d done it while growing up when he’d visited, especially when Shane would come out. They’d swim laps and splash and have fun. As he dove in, he felt the shock of the water. He moved into lap after lap. The water and the motion felt good—restoring and relaxing all at once.

  This new and improved body was nice. Okay, more than nice. It felt like his body would just do whatever he commanded. He had more control. Man, it would be fun to take this body out on the football field and see how far he could throw the ball. It was strange to him that though he’d lost his memory, he still could do so many things. Like making the eggs, swimming, kissing Paris. There were so many things he just did.

  Paris. Her scent, that coconutty tropical thing, burned into him. The kiss from last night, when she’d finally given into him, was similar to performing a tango. The gentle kiss just a minute ago … he didn’t know if it was right or wrong to kiss her, but it felt right. Felt like the only right thing in his life. Okay, and maybe it was ridiculous, but he wanted to ask about the first time they’d …

  Then he felt ashamed, thinking of the way she’d put “playboy bunnies abound” and thinking of the Vegas showroom bedroom he shared with Kim. What had he turned into?

  He thought of the timeline again. “We break up.” Written so plainly on the same line as his father passed away.

  That summer after his sophomore year in college. What the heck happened? Maybe it had been really hard to lose his father. The mean part of him thought he might feel some relief his father was gone. He’d been cruel in so many ways, especially in high school. Never coming to his games had been a thing for his father. He’d never watched one of Logan’s games, only sat in front of the television with a beer in his hand. It’d been unfair and hurt more than any punch his father had given him.

  He thought of Paris’s family and how they’d attended everything he was in. Even Shane’s parents came to his events. All these memories swirled into his mind.

  He didn’t know how long he swam for, but it was long enough to pucker his hands. He got out and trailed water over the dock, the gravel, to the back deck and then through the house as he went for the guest bath.

  Getting into the shower, he relished the feel of the hot water rushing over him. He rested his head against the wall, thinking more and more and more about his old life and what he knew about his new life. He knew people were looking for him. That had been part of the reason he hadn’t taken a phone with him. He didn’t want to talk to anybody. Not his agent, and definitely not Kim! How many times did he have to tell her they were not engaged?

  After he got out of the shower, he toweled off quickly, wondering if there were any clothes in the house that might fit him. He tried to think if there were old grandpa clothes, or some of her dad’s. Some sweats, maybe. He kept the towel around himself and walked through the house to the other bedrooms.

  Going into Paris’s room, he saw her closet and opened it, then realized there were Shane’s old clothes. Instant anger pulsed through him and he wanted to ram his fist into Shane’s face. How dare he marry Paris? Just as quickly, shame cooled his rage. What had made Paris run into his arms? His mind felt cloudy, murky. His mind flashed to Kim in a pink bikini, waving at him. They were by some pool. Then the memory flashed away. What the …? A wave of dizziness crashed into Logan’s head and he had to reach out to the wall to steady himself. He swore and wished he could just get his memory back.

  At the same time, he didn’t want it back if he lived in a world without Paris.

  Sucking in a breath, he went to the closet and pulled out a pair of shorts and T-shirt that clearly belonged to Shane. They actually looked like older clothes. Maybe even ones he’d seen Shane in. One of the shirts was a UC Berkeley shirt.

  Annoyed, he pulled on a beach shirt, not the Berkeley shirt. It felt like too much of a mystery if going there had been a good thing or a bad thing. He put on the shorts and spotted a pair of flip-flops and a hat.

  If he were staying, he needed to see if the boat was still running.

  Chapter 13

  Paris got back from her run to find Logan on the boat. The boathouse doors were wide open and the boat covering lay on the ground just inside the doors. The red-and-white boat Grandpa had loved and taken impeccable care of was tied to the dock. The engine cover was pulled back and half of Logan’s body was inside the compartment.

  All the memories of coming here washed over her. Seeing her grandfather out there, doing just this thing, and seeing Logan with him. Her grandfather had taught Logan everything about the boat. It hadn’t occurred to her until this moment that maybe her grandfather had done that in anticipation that Logan would one day be here, that he would be her husband and they would use the boat together. She shook her head, mystified she’d never realized that. “Grandpa.” Tears misted her eyes. Maybe Logan was right: she needed Grandpa to set her straight, or at least just tell her what to do. “I miss you,” she whispered.

  He’d trained Logan. He’d never trained Shane. Granted, Shane hadn’t been out here as much as Logan, mostly because Shane had a family and spent time with them. Logan, for all intents and purposes, felt like family. He had been here all the time. She studied him. He’d taken off his shirt and the sun glistened off his back.

  It didn’t hurt her one bit to look at the wolf tattoo on his bicep as Logan held something up. He held it to the sun and she saw the ripped muscles all along his torso and abs. Last night, even in her drugged state, all the memories had rushed through her, the ones from their youth and the other more recent ones. The ones she wouldn’t relive with him. Ones she hadn’t put on the timeline.

  Whether it was stress and heartbreak getting to her or she was just crazy, she burst out laughing so hard, she had to hold on to the deck rail. It wasn’t much longer before Logan stepped off the boat and approached. “Pear, what are you doing?”

  “I’m laughing!”

  All he did was stare at her. She noticed he had on Shane’s old swim shorts, and still no shirt. His feet were bare. Dang, he looked like a dark Greek god. He was tall enough, in shape enough. Maybe a gladiator. She erupted into more giggles.

  He still stared at her.

  Finally, she got control of herself and noticed how his eyes were locked on her. She’d seen that look. It was his smoldering look, the one she always gave into. This was the thing about Logan she’d always been attracted to.

  He took a step closer to her, closing the gap between them.

  “What are you doing?” she asked in a fiery way.

  Cocking an eyebrow, he looked her up and down. “Well, I’m about to kiss you.”

  “Excuse me?” she said, trying to get past quickly.

  Still, he didn’t move. His eyes grew piercing and intense, and she did something she hadn’t realized she wanted to do: she reached out and gently touched his chest. Even while she was doing it, she knew she shouldn’t, but there was just so much between them.

  He closed his eyes. “Pear, I’m telling you right now, if you don’t want me to kiss you, you better move your hand, b
ecause my body reacts to you. It always has.”

  He sounded desperate and vulnerable and she couldn’t stop herself from liking the fact she still had an effect on him, because he always had that effect on her. Staring up at him, she laced her hands around his neck, then pulled him down to her.

  Their lips brushed softly at first, then with more force. She felt him give in to her and they kissed as if to make up for lost time.

  Jerking back, he searched her face. “What happened to us?”

  She steeled herself. Being with Logan was like falling into a waterfall. There wasn’t anything she could do about getting swept under the falls, anything to do about crashing into the rocks, and anything to do about getting bashed and bloody and bruised.

  He cursed under his breath and pulled her closer, but he didn’t go for her lips. He pushed his face into her neck. The movement of his lips as he smiled against her skin made chills run through her entire body.

  She didn’t know if she was going insane or not. What was she doing, kissing him? Holding him?

  He kissed her softly on the lips and paused. “I feel like my life’s been stolen from me. Like I woke up and lived this life and …” He trailed off, blowing out a breath. “I really screwed it up, didn’t I?”

  This couldn’t happen, and she wasn’t being fair to Logan. She had to remember he didn’t remember. She couldn’t get caught up in this attraction between them. Reluctantly, she stepped back. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that.”

  He ignored her and pulled her back in for a kiss that was soft, slow, and lovely. It was whispers in school, and summers running through the grass, and laced hands in the hall. It was everything they’d shared over so many years.

  She let him kiss her, even though every part of her was screaming she shouldn’t. She loved feeling him against her. Loved the feel of his skin against her. She was getting lost. So lost.

  He pulled back, and his kisses stopped and he inhaled a breath.

  “What are you thinking?” she asked, feeling fragile and vulnerable.

  Before he could answer, she heard someone opening the sliding back door.

  “Hello!” her father cheerily called out.

  Startled, she rushed up the deck steps. “Daddy?” Shane had teased her for still calling him daddy like a little kid, but that’s who he was to her: someone she loved dearly. “This is a surprise,” she said, relieved he was here. She threw her arms around him.

  “Hey, princess.” He hugged her close, and then let her go. “Well, I knew I had to come chaperone, because it would only be a matter of time before Logan showed up here.”

  Logan joined them and shook her father’s hand, and then found himself pulled into her dad’s arms for a hard hug, both of them laughing.

  It mystified her how much her father loved Logan. Even through it all, everything, he’d never stopped.

  “Hey, Mr. Ford,” Logan said, like he was still eighteen.

  Her father gestured to some bags of groceries by the back door. “Logan, would you mind putting these away?” He looked at her. “Why don’t you come help me get the rest.”

  Paris knew this was her father’s way of talking to her alone, and she quickly agreed.

  “Sure.” Logan went into the house, picking up the bags and going into the kitchen.

  When they got out to his car, her father laughed, smoothing the wrinkles all over his face that had deepened with the loss of her mother. “Can you believe it?” He looked like he’d won the lottery.

  Paris was touched by the fact her father had come to see Logan, known he would be here, and was so happy. After her mother had passed, he’d lost fifteen pounds he didn’t need to lose and his hair had gone almost completely white. “Yeah,” was all she could say.

  He touched her cheek. “I heard about everything going on and I just knew Logan would be here, and I just knew you would be too.” He pinched her cheek lightly and turned for the car. “I decided I wasn’t going to miss seeing our boy, so I got some groceries and came up.” He went to the trunk, got out two more bags for her, and carried another two himself.

  “He’s not our boy,” she said, exasperated.

  He winked at her. “So you’re going to deny the fact you were kissing him in the back before I got here?”

  She’d been caught, just like she was sixteen and kissing Logan. She hesitated.

  Her father laughed. “See, don’t you go denying it.”

  “Dad.” She now had moved to “dad,” so it was serious. “He lost his memory.”

  Her dad moved to the door, dismissing this with a wink. “I heard. Or maybe he’s finally got his memory back, it looks like.” Before she could tell him he was making no sense, he grabbed her arm and spun her back around. “He deserves to know the truth, Paris. You need to tell him.”

  Anger and rage and all these pent-up emotions swirled inside of her. “He does know, Dad.” She hated the fact that tears were already surfacing. The other Logan knew.

  Her dad held her gaze, and then he relaxed his grip. “You know what I mean.”

  “Don’t,” she warned.

  Her father looked upset for a moment, then shrugged. “Fine, I guess it’s your choice. I’ll stand by you either way.”

  She relaxed and trudged toward the cabin, calming down. Her dad opened the door and held it for her.

  Logan had put the other groceries away and took the bags out of her hands. “Thanks for bringing more food, Mr. Ford. I was worried I needed to buy more.”

  “I thought I would be here by myself,” she said, but neither of them even paid any attention to her.

  “So I saw the reports. How’s the noggin feeling?” her dad asked.

  Logan touched the back of his head. “I think it’s fine. It aches a bit sometimes.”

  Paris winced. She hadn’t even thought to ask about his head.

  She and her father took charge of putting the rest of the groceries away, but Logan kept talking to her father. “Mr. Ford, would you mind updating me on my football career? Why do people call me ‘the Wolf’?”

  Her father glanced at her with a twinkle in his eyes. “Nothing would please me more than to fill you in.” Sitting at the table, they began their own timeline on paper for the rest of the afternoon, going over his college and pro career.

  Paris puttered in and out of the living room, watching them in disbelief, thinking how many times her dad and Shane had tactfully avoided each other. Even though Shane was a football guy, they hadn’t ever really meshed. Shane had a good father, she reasoned. Her father had been a father figure to Logan his whole life.

  Finally, she made dinner for them all, grilling up the burgers her father had brought and making a salad.

  They carried the food, condiments, and dishes to the patio. After saying grace, they sat around the old kitchen table.

  Logan asked quietly. “What happened to Mrs. Ford?”

  She wilted a bit as her father glanced at her, judging. “We hadn’t gotten to that yet.”

  Exasperated, her father went into her mother’s cancer, starting with how she’d been diagnosed and already stage three, continuing with how she’d fought it for three years, and ending with the fact Logan had come to the funeral.

  After her father finished, Logan hesitated, then furrowed his brow. She could tell Logan wanted to ask more questions, but all he said was, “I’m so sorry, Mr. Ford. Your wife should have been sainted. She always took such good care of me.” He sniffed and blinked. “I loved her like she was my own mother.”

  Paris was touched and felt her own eyes misting.

  Her father reached out and put a hand on top of Logan’s. “She loved you like a son, Logan.” He winked at him. “We were always Wolf fans.” He let loose a howl.

  “Oh my gosh.” She pushed her father in the shoulder and laughed.

  Logan smiled. “I don’t understand.”

  Her father quickly explained about Logan in X-Men and the new Logan movie.

  “Oh.” Logan st
ill looked confused.

  Her father pushed his plate away and asked, “So what are you going to do now, son?”

  Logan eyed her and then turned back to her father. “Well, honestly, I’m thinking I might still take a shot at your daughter.”

  Her father burst out laughing, and she saw a twinkle in his eye she hadn’t seen for a very, very long time.

  Paris’s heart ratcheted up a notch and she picked up dishes and left the table. “Oh, brother,” she said distastefully.

  A while after Logan and her father had gone to the boat to discuss some mechanical issues that had to be fixed, she heard them come into the cabin and her father holler out he was going to bed.

  “Okay,” she yelled from the upstairs loft. With nothing else to do and no Wi-Fi, she’d come up here and turned on a VHS of Ghostbusters.

  Logan came up the stairs, and threw himself on the beanbag beside her.

  She ignored him.

  “Tell me something, Pear.”

  She kept her eyes on the movie. “What?”

  His hand brushed her arm, running lightly down to her hand, ending with lacing his fingers in hers.

  She attempted to untangle her hand. “You’re engaged,” she said, tight-lipped.

  He borrowed her snippy tone. “No, I’m not.” Still, he relaxed his grip. “Man, your dad is the best.”

  She relaxed too. Neutral ground. “Yes, he is.”

  “Tell me more about your mom,” he said quietly. “Your dad told me about the cancer, but … tell me about everything.”

  She was surprised to feel the familiar ache in the center of her chest quickly turn into a stab of pain.

  “What?” he said, scooting closer.

  “I just … sometimes I think I’m fine about her, and then grief hits. You know?”

  He held her hand. “Well, I guess I don’t. I think about my dad dying and can’t. There’s no emotion. I just hate the guy. It’s kind of pathetic.”

  Her heart raced, and she hoped she could avoid talking about his dad’s death.