by Taylor Hart
Before she’d left the cabin, her father had pulled her in for a hug and whispered, “Just tell him the truth. Just tell him.” The words kept echoing in her mind.
When Logan had first come to the cabin, she’d thought it was ridiculous to tell him. The old Logan knew.
She’d never imagined things would end up this way. Them—both in love again. A surge of emotion hit her and she almost started crying. Maybe he would hate her.
Before, she hadn’t cared. But over the past few days, she’d realized she did love him and she did want this.
How could they have a chance if he didn’t know everything? What if he never remembered? Could she justify him not knowing?
She caught a glimpse of him suddenly, hanging around Montana and Texas and someone she thought she recognized as his agent. When had he connected with the agent?
They strode up and Logan was smiling at her. He wore dark jeans and a tight black T-shirt with the word “Wolf” on it. She imagined his agent must have given it to him, and shifted uncomfortably. He seemed so … the other Logan.
“Hey,” he said, a bit breathy. Tentatively, he leaned in and kissed her cheek.
Montana reached for her, pulling her in for a hug. He flashed a smile at Logan. “This woman’s got grit.”
Logan lifted his eyebrows, but stared at her, and it felt like he was looking at her soul. “Boy, the stories I could tell you.” He winked at her.
Nervous, happy butterflies surged inside her. He was still flirting with her, looking at her in a way that made her melt.
Texas gave her an exaggerated hug. “Looking good, Ms. Ford.” He smacked Logan in the shoulder. “But if you don’t treat her right, she knows my number.”
To her amusement, Logan gave Texas a stern look, then put his arm fully around her. “Back off, Waters.” They both laughed.
His agent gave her a skeptical look. “You must be Paris?” He put his hand out.
She took it, feeling unsure of herself at the way his eyes clung to her body as he took a closer look.
Logan cleared his throat. “My agent, George.”
Pulling her hand back, she nodded at him. “Hello.”
Montana gestured to Logan. “So you’re ready to introduce this kickoff event, right? No going into a coma on us.”
Texas and George laughed.
Logan grinned, still holding Paris close. “Yep.” His eyes flashed to Montana. “I’m good. Got my wolf yell ready.”
The men all let out little howls, then laughed again.
Logan seemed more relaxed than he’d been when they’d talked about doing this event.
Montana turned to her. “How long we got?”
She looked at her phone and heard Michelle say through her earpiece, “Ten minutes, boss.”
She’d forgotten she’d left her earpiece on speaker, and she fumbled to turn it off. “Ten minutes.”
Her eyes were locked with Logan’s again. All this want, desire, and need welled up inside of her. She thought about the past couple of days and how it’d been between them. She thought of him getting on stage, and her heart clenched at the idea that if he acted like the old Logan, he would somehow become the old Logan and she would lose him again. Mr. Hyde might come back.
Her mind flitted to her father. Did Logan need to know? She pulled in a shaky breath. He did. Her heart raced. Crap, she had to tell him.
“Pear? You okay?” Of course this Logan, the old Logan, sensed that she was still keeping something from him.
“I’m fine.” Not now. Not right now.
Logan quickly asked the guys, “Can I get a minute to talk to Ms. Ford?”
The others left, drifting toward the sidelines.
Once they were alone, he stared in her eyes and took her hand. “How’s Ty?”
She nodded, his touch making her feel electric inside. “He’s okay. His foot hurts, but he’ll stay off of it the next couple of days. Dad will be here to help, so he’ll be alright.”
“Good.” He squeezed her hand. “Are you bugged about me talking to Shane still?”
“What? No. I mean, yes. But that’s not …”
“What?” He searched her eyes. “Pear, what? I love you.”
She couldn’t say it. The words felt stuck in her throat.
He pulled her hand against his chest. “Whatever it is. It’s fine.” He smiled. “I decided this is a Hail Mary.”
“What?”
“I was thinking today that in some games you don’t see a way out of losing. The team’s been stinking it up, you’re behind, it’s the end of the game, and then it’s like the field clears and there’s this perfect opportunity and I just let the ball go and let it ride and bam! It hits the end zone and we win the game. And that’s what’s happening now.” His eyes misted. “Just like that championship game I missed. But this time, Pear, I’m here. This is it. This … we can change things. We can do it differently.”
She tried to pull her hand away. “No, we …” This was getting to be too much and she felt skittish, like she needed to bolt.
“Pear, I don’t care. I don’t care about what happened between us. I don’t care. You said the other night that you’ve been falling in and out of love with me for what felt like your whole life. Well, this is our chance to fall in love one more time, but this time we make it stick. We do it right.” He snaked an arm around her waist and pulled her in, brushing his lips to hers.
Fire burned through her. She couldn’t do it anymore. She couldn’t keep having her heart flutter and getting lost in his green eyes. Couldn’t feel his lips against hers, and couldn’t be dizzy with emotion. “At my mom’s funeral. That picture …”
“What?” He loosened his grip on her and pulled back, looking confused.
She took a breath. This wasn’t the time, but she had to tell him. She had to before he planned the rest of their life together. He had to know. “When we were talking next to my mother’s grave…”
He frowned. “Okay, what happened?”
She took in a shaky breath. “After that kiss … you told me that you knew.”
“Knew what?”
Time seemed to still, and she wanted to cry. Run. Leave. “You told me …”
“Pear?”
“You knew Ty was yours.”
Chapter 21
Logan released her, and stumbled back. All the pieces had now fallen into place. He thought of the timeline she’d written down. Thought of the way she kept things guarded, parts of it extra guarded.
Her eyes glistened with tears. “I told you when you came for spring break we had been together.”
“Then you married Shane?”
She sniffed. “Logan, you claimed you were sober and I wanted to believe you. I wanted to, but when we woke up the next morning and I found those pills, I knew I couldn’t do us. And then, when I found out I was pregnant, I convinced myself I couldn’t tell you.”
“And you came home.” Logan said it with finality.
She nodded. “And when Shane was here, I didn’t even tell him; he guessed it. I mean, he knew you’d gone out to see me and everything.”
Logan didn’t know how to process all of this. “Ty is mine?”
Music blasted into the speakers, and he could feel the place come to life. Montana was at the microphone. “Hello, Jackson!”
The crowd went wild, and some wolf calls rang through the air.
Montana laughed. “Oh, yeah. That’s right. It’s the Wolf’s hometown and he’s here tonight! Are you ready?”
The crowd erupted even louder.
Logan stared into Paris’s eyes and thought of all those pictures of Ty. Thought of how his company had hired her to do this event, which, as he understood it, opened the doors to many other huge events. Logan had been providing for his son. It all made sense. At the same time, it made absolutely no sense.
Montana’s voice blasted. “I know you’ve all been worried about him. And he’s given us all a scare. But I’ll let you talk directly to the Wolf
.”
“I’m sorry.” She wiped her cheeks and sucked in a breath.
Adrenaline shot through him. He felt like he was going into the fourth quarter, down four, and he needed another Hail Mary.
A son. A son. A son. He had a son?
“Without further ado, I give you Logan Slade!” Montana shouted.
All the howls started again.
Logan, on impulse, rushed up the stairs to the stage and went to Montana. The rush of the crowd hit him, kicking up the adrenaline already pumping through him. Taking the microphone he did the only thing he could think of. The wolf howl.
The audience roared with approval.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of zebra-print dress climbing onto the stage. Kim was there faster than he could prepare for her, ripping the microphone out of his hand and doing the wolf yell too!
She turned to him and smiled, a wicked look in her eye. “Think you could get away from me, Wolfy?” She petted his head seductively, pressing a hand to his chest and growling into the microphone.
This time the crowd was on their feet.
Stunned and repulsed, he was taken off guard. The crowd was eating it up, yelling out—“Go Kim! Get your man back!”
Kim turned to him and pressed her lips against his, pushing him back.
He felt the large, over-glossed lips on his and he stumbled, wanting to get away from her, and found himself falling off the stage.
Chapter 22
After Logan had run onto the stage, Paris had turned back on her earpiece.
“Mayday! Mayday!” Michelle was yelling. “Kim!”
Paris had watched the whole thing, stunned. She shoved her way through the crowd. “Back up!”
“Paris—what can I do?”
“Call 911!”
Logan. Logan. Logan. His eyes were closed.
She didn’t know how, but sirens were already screaming out. She got to his side, then felt a hand rip at her shoulder and push her back. “Get out of the way, he’s my fiancée!” Kim yelled down at her.
Shock and horror shot through her. Was Logan okay?
Kim’s rage-filled eyes met hers, and she jabbed a long, painted fingernail at Paris. “Get her out of here!”
Four hours later, Paris waited in the Emergency Room, staring at the police, keeping the public at a distance. She’d left her show to be run by Michelle and her team.
Every part of her was shaky and she thought about how she hadn’t eaten in a long time.
Logan’s agent, Kim, and a few others were in the waiting room, too. Kim kept shooting her periodic death glares.
Finally, a doctor came out and stared at Paris. “He’s asking for you.”
Paris ignored the anger coming off of Kim and followed the doctor.
The minute she got into his room, she knew he remembered. The look in his eye, the way he didn’t look at her like he had before.
A hollow feeling spread in her. She put her hand to her stomach, feeling nauseous.
The doctor went through everything with her. “He re-injured the previous hit.” The doctor pointed to the back of Logan’s head. “We would like to keep him for a couple of days and run a few tests. For example …”
Logan held up a hand. “Doc, please give us a minute. Then I’ll have you run through those details with my fiancée.”
The numbness of all the years before slammed into her, making her step back, bracing herself against the door. What she’d been afraid of since Logan came back into her life was happening right before her eyes. She felt herself blinking.
Logan’s lip curved into a small smile. “Pear, it’s …” He shook his head. “That was crazy.”
He looked tired. She knew this man lying before her wasn’t the man she’d been falling for. “Don’t.”
He let out a long breath. “Well …” He paused to fish for more words, which was ridiculous, because he hadn’t been able to shut up the past few days. Their eyes met, searching.
She put her hands up. “I’m glad you’re okay. I better go.” She turned, feeling like she was getting dumped. It hurt. Pain ripped through her chest. She had to get out of here. Traitorous tears filled her eyes and she wanted to claw them out to stop the downpour. She hated herself for revealing so much in this moment.
“It’s all hazy, but I remember it all. I remember everything.”
“Okay.” She said it like the one time in fifth grade when she ended up going to the principal’s office for fighting. Another kid had walked by her in the lunch room and hit her in the gut, for no reason. She’d had to stand there and explain it to the principal. That had been when she was a lot nicer of a human being and she’d been terrified of getting in trouble because of what her mother would say; even though it was all a misunderstanding, she’d barely been able to squeak out a breath.
That was exactly how she felt in this moment. Even by the simple, piercing look he gave her, she was folding in on herself.
He squeezed his eyes shut for a second. “Look, Pear, I don’t know what the last couple of days were, but it wasn’t … I mean, that couldn’t be our life, right? I mean …” He flinched and pain fluttered over his face. “You and Shane, you’re doing the kid thing, right? And that’s going good for you. And if you need money, you can have whatever you want.”
She felt like she was in a courtroom and Logan was justifying why he never paid child support. It made her skin crawl, like she was begging for something she didn’t want. “Go to hell, Logan.” She rushed out past the waiting area and Kim, who she didn’t even look at, and ran out the doors, past the snapping cameras and to her car.
Shane waited at her car, opening the passenger door for her and shielding her from the press.
She couldn’t even feel bad or refuse his help because people were following them, pressing in on her car, trying to get a picture. All she could do was cover her face and cry and let Shane save her from the effects of Logan … again.
Chapter 23
A week later, Paris lay in bed at the cabin. It was morning. She didn’t know what time. She could lie in bed, because her father was still there. It hadn’t been necessary to ask him to stay.
For all intents and purposes, no one worried about her not going into work; she told them she was spending time with Ty. And she was. She tried to act normal, tried to put on a smiling face when she ate meals with them or sat out on the deck when she surfaced from her bedroom.
Most of her time she spent in her bedroom, crying her eyes out. She was exhausted. Every part of her had been ravaged, like one of those towns by the sea that gets hit by a tsunami every couple of years and has to rebuild. She always watched documentaries on that stuff and she always wanted to yell at those people, You idiots! Why do you keep rebuilding in a town that will get hit again?
Yet, here she was. The tsunami had raged and she was broken. Fractured. Left to rot in the hot, stifling wake of Logan Slade. This was why she’d didn’t want him back in her life. Why she’d made the initial decision not to tell him when she’d found out. She couldn’t handle it.
And Shane. He’d been so nice the past week. He’d come to check in at the cabin and brought her chocolate and given her a sad look. Shari had come with him and they’d both played games with her and Ty all evening, and it’d been better than she thought.
Paris didn’t notice anyone had come to the cabin until she heard Ty yell out, “Dad’s here!”
Jerking up in bed, she yanked the covers back over her head. She didn’t want to see Shane today. She hadn’t showered yet. She really didn’t want to see Shari, either. They were getting along but it was too hard to have others watch her when she was melting down. No, no, no.
Before she knew it, there was soft knock at the door. “Paris, we need to talk.”
Shane had always said her name as two syllables, she just realized. Par-is. Not like Pear. She didn’t like thinking this. She didn’t get out of bed or even say he could come in.
He let himself in the room. Sh
e could just imagine him looking at all her clothes thrown around and loathing the disorder. “Paris,” he said again, softly. Next thing she knew, he sat on the edge of the bed.
Hating it, she pulled the covers down. It was useless to hide the fact she was a mess from Shane. Part of her felt indebted to him at the moment, for saving her at the hospital from all the press last week. “What?”
His brow was furrowed. “Logan called me last night.”
At the mention of his name, she felt the pain behind her left eye flare into a migraine. She put her hand over her eye. “Don’t even say his name.”
“We talked for a long time.”
This made her take pause. “O-kay.”
Shane sighed. “He told me he was sorry and he thanked me.”
That was shocking. “What?”
“For taking care of you. And Ty. For putting up with him all those years before.” Shane sounded tired, but there was also something else in his voice. “He told me he wants to be friends again and that he wouldn’t try to take Ty away from us. But he wants to be part of his life in some way.”
Paris closed her eyes, pressing her hand further into her eye. “Will this ever end?”
Shane got up. “Let me get you something.”
Before she knew it he’d left and returned with Tylenol and water. She sat up and took the pill. Handing back the water to Shane, she realized that Shane had always taken care of her. She thought of Shari and the affair. Well, except there was that.
Shane seemed to sense her thoughts and looked guilty. “What?” he asked her.
She let out a long breath. She’d been angry at him for a year over the affair, and now she didn’t have the energy. “Nothing.”
