by Nikki Duncan
“And that’s why we’ll never see eye to eye.”
“Ashley would have liked you.”
Being compared to Ashley, someone Logan loved so blatantly, and then being told she would have liked Delancey came close to an acceptance she’d grown up craving. Discomfort moved along her spine. He understood her better than anyone she’d explained herself to, partly because she’d shared her scars with him. More than seeming to understand her, he didn’t act like he wanted anything more from her than what they’d talked about.
The tone in his voice, part awe and part happiness, struck a long-ignored nerve in her soul. Tears pricked the backs of her eyes, forcing her to take a steadying breath. Other than Chad, who was gone, and Andy, whom she possibly loved more than her brothers, no one knew everything about who she was and still accepted her. Once they found out she was from the Society Winstons, people became users. No one had ever spoken about her with such amazement.
She pulled into the cemetery and followed Logan’s directions to get to Ashley’s plot. “How do you know where she is?”
“Accountants are notoriously organized. That even means having burial plots planned in advance.” He shrugged his unburned shoulder. “And she’s beside our parents and uncle.”
She parked where he told her, getting as close as possible to Ashley’s plot. When Logan didn’t hurry to get out, she rested her hand over his scarred one. “Would you like me to come with you?”
He shook his head. “I think I need to do this alone.”
“Take as long as you need. I’ll be right here.”
“You’re nicer than I deserve,” Logan said just before getting out of the Jeep and walking to Ashley’s grave. It wasn’t a quick exit and escape, but Delancey had gotten good enough at reading him to know he wouldn’t want her to respond. She wanted to dispute his statement, but she gave him the space he seemed to so desperately want and held her thoughts.
His life seriously sucked at the moment, and his mood when she’d first gotten to his room hadn’t been the brightest. If she’d have had to guess why, she’d say he was afraid of leaving and was pulling back. Judging by the look on his face when she’d walked in, she’d expected him to reject her offer for a ride.
Surprise had been a good thing for once.
Being with Logan felt right, like she’d finally found a place to belong. He’d shaken the wall she’d built around herself and reminded her what it might be like to let someone in. She wasn’t in a hurry to let him change his mind about having her around.
In spite of the darkness in his world, he’d shown her a generosity of spirit few witnessed in their lifetime. He made her remember what it felt like to be loved.
Love?
She’d sworn off love. Refused to open herself ever again to the agony it inevitably brought.
She’d failed at love. In her family that meant she’d failed to turn out as her parents wanted.
She’d lost in love. Fire had robbed her of the man she’d planned to marry. Her life hadn’t been the same since and she’d accepted that fact.
Love couldn’t be what she felt for Logan, but what he’d shown her could only be defined as love. The kind one decent human showed another. She wasn’t sure she deserved to know him.
Chapter Ten
Puffy gray clouds concealed the sky and wept along with Logan as he stood alone at Ashley’s gravesite. He’d thought he’d cried himself out when he’d broken down in Delancey’s arms, but the moment he reached Ashley’s grave it hit him again.
The mounded dirt covering her casket was almost overgrown with grass. The headstone was pale-pink marble. Under her name, birthdate and deathdate, it read We knew love because we knew you.
Tears swept down his cheeks and he didn’t brush them away. He sat beside Ashley, stretching his legs out in front of him with most of his weight on his non-burned side. The graveyard’s silence stretched endlessly, drove home the point of his aloneness.
He brushed the grass, stroking the cool and moist blades in rhythmic sweeps. Soft as her hair had been, the grass warmed against his palm. Warmth didn’t move through him though. Only cold.
“How did a coffee run turn into this, Ashley?”
“Bad luck.” Ashley appeared at his side and lay down so her head was in his lap. She’d done the same anytime she wanted to talk something out.
Like those times, he smiled and brushed her hair away from her face. How he was seeing her, feeling her, defied the logical rules he lived by. Real or imagined, he wasn’t going to rush the moment.
“We’ve never known the good kind. It’s worse now.”
“How so?”
“They think I killed you and set the fire.”
“What?” She lurched up. “How could they think that?”
“Because I didn’t have anything to tell the arson investigator.” Ghosts were supposed to be cold, yet her imprint on his lap was warm. Maybe instead of a ghost she was little more than a memory. So how did memories talk and carry warmth?
“Tell them to look for the little dragon.”
“What? Is that a person or a thing?”
“Person.” Her eyes became troubled, like she didn’t want to tell him what she’d found. “I was waiting for Cameron when this guy came in. He had a tattoo of a little dragon on his neck. He wanted me to sign some tax documents saying I’d done his books. I refused.”
“Why? How’d he find you?”
“Said his dad was a client, but he wouldn’t name him.”
A referral who wouldn’t name who they’d been referred by didn’t make sense. “Any idea who the dad was? Is there anything you can give me to help find him?”
She shook her head. “Only a tattoo.”
“I can’t go to the cops with a tattoo my sister’s ghost told me about. Unless I want a padded room for my next hospitalization.” How had things gotten so messed up?
“I wish I had more.”
“I miss you so damn much, Ashley. How am I supposed to do all this without you?”
She nodded to the Jeep where Delancey waited with her head against the rest and her eyes closed. “Doesn’t look like you’ve been alone.”
He wasn’t sure if Delancey was being really patient or was that tired. Given that she would have just come off shift before coming to him, he’d guess tired. “She’s been a good friend.”
Ashley smiled that smile she gave him when she knew he wasn’t telling the full truth. He missed her smile. Her laugh. Her advice. Her companionship. Her everything. She’d been his best friend, but he had to find a way to move on. He just wasn’t sure how.
* * * * *
July Fourth moved in quietly. Logan went into the kitchen half expecting to find Ashley there baking her Star-Spangled sugar cookies. They’d eat half of them for breakfast, have toasted sandwiches for lunch and grill chicken for dinner. They’d eat the other half of the cookies while watching fireworks.
Now, instead of the pop and bang of freedom, Logan found only emptiness and heard only silence.
Having lost control over so much, he clung to the few options that remained. Cereal for breakfast and a toasted sandwich for lunch broke up the monotony of tackling the dust that had built up during his hospital stay.
There would be no grilled chicken for dinner. The one time he’d left the house to make a store run, the pointing and staring and “Oh my God-ing” encouraged him to cut his trip short. He’d cringed at every gasp or look. Pulling his sweatshirt hood farther over his face, he left the store with only the items he’d already had in his cart. There’d barely been the basics, which left him a sparsely stocked kitchen until he could bring himself to go out again or ask Delancey to shop for him.
Spending twenty-four-seven in the house where memories of Ashley assaulted him at every turn was a different kind of hell that only slightly subsided when Delancey stopped by. Moments after she arrived, the mood in his house shifted from dark to light. He looked forward to her visits as much as he dreaded them. Dreaded the
m because he was coming to depend on them and couldn’t find a reason to end them.
Her last visit had been almost a week ago, and he’d missed her every day.
They’d spoken on the phone. He’d caught her up on the boring-ass days he had. She talked about the guys at work and the plans they were making for the community July 4th party the station house was hosting.
She’d invited him to the party, and even made it sound tempting. Then he remembered his trip to the grocery store. Parties, crowds, would never be for him again. It wasn’t that he necessarily wanted to spend the rest of his life as a recluse. He didn’t.
Facing rejection, when it was something he could avoid, fit into the negative category of his life ledger. He had enough negatives.
Delancey was the only real positive he’d known in a few months now. He missed her and she was on shift tomorrow. The two following days she had patients, and he couldn’t help but wonder if she hadn’t gotten used to not stopping by. Maybe she wouldn’t want to stop by. Maybe the only way to see her, and damn it, he did want to see her again, was the fire station party.
Grabbing a ball cap, his zippered hoodie and a bottle of bravery, Logan headed toward the door. Before going out, he pulled the hood over the ball cap and reminded himself to keep his head lowered.
Part of his therapy had been to take walks. He’d resorted to taking laps around the inside of the house to fulfill the requirement. He didn’t think he was ready to ride his bike; he hoped he was ready to make the three-block walk to the station.
A neighbor mowing his lawn raised his hand in a wave. Logan waved in return, but he kept his face averted. He liked the old man too much to see revulsion on his face.
Logan’s muscles protested the changes in terrain, they trembled and burned until his limp became as aggravated as it had been at the beginning of his therapy. He pushed himself on, more eager with each tremulous step to see Delancey.
“I knew you wouldn’t be able to stay away from her.” Ashley fell into step beside him. Her voice tsked him in the smug way she had when she said I told you so.
“Don’t you have anyone else you could haunt?”
“No one else sees me. Guess that means you loved me most.”
That wasn’t a surprise. No one could ever have hoped to love Ashley like he did. He wouldn’t give her the pleasure of hearing him admit that though. “Or they’re just saner.”
“Keep telling yourself that.” No different than if she were still alive, Ashley’s voice grew stronger, and louder, with the certainty that she was right. “You going to admit to liking her?”
“No.”
“Because you’re closing yourself off or because you’re afraid? You know it’s normal to like a woman.”
“What’s normal about my current situation?”
“It’s a part of life.”
“It’s out of control.”
“Life always is.”
“It’s not a good time to start a relationship.”
“You’re alive. Do something new and give Delancey a shot. I know you’re attracted to her. And her you.”
Having lost too many people through the years, he’d never had a serious girlfriend. Ashley, being a sister capable of champion-level meddling, never let him forget it. Death, it seemed, wasn’t going to dampen her desire to see him paired off.
“It’s just not that simple.”
“Until you come up with a good reason why it isn’t, I’m not leaving. And I’m not giving up on this.”
“Of course you’re not.” He wasn’t sure he was entirely ready to give up the idea of exploring what he and Delancey had flirted with, and there had definitely been some moments.
Delancey oozed kindness. She got under his skin and soothed him while she kept him wound up. She cooked for him, which she’d had to admit to when he’d been released from the hospital. Oddly, the cooking was almost a bigger deal than the arousal.
Darkness was in full force when he limped slowly up to the front of the stationhouse. The first few fireworks shot into the sky. Cheers from what sounded like a large crowd erupted behind the house. Logan’s pulse pounded. Sweat pooled at the base of his back.
He hadn’t planned on showing up at the party. He hadn’t even been fully convinced when he’d left the house that he would go all the way. The party meant seeing Delancey, but it also meant seeing whoever else from the community had shown up. Seeing them meant they saw him.
His stomach knotted.
Logan pulled the edge of the hoodie farther forward to better hide his face and moved into the shadows on the side of the building. The crowd was indeed not small. There had to be two hundred people gathered in the backyard.
He froze, unable to step into the fray, into the path of stares and gasps and judgments.
A long line of folding tables held mounds of food. No less than ten large coolers formed a line at the far end of the tables. People, young and old, dressed in varying styles of red and white and blue, were spread out on picnic blankets or hovered around the tables. Men, women and children of all ages filled plates from platters of food, grabbed drinks or ate straight from the platters.
Smiles and laughs, adults and kids, rowdy and tired alike, covered the picnic-blanket-filled space. Logan couldn’t make himself take another step. He wasn’t ready. Not even Delancey was temptation enough to venture into the fray.
Then, as if thinking about her held some kind of summoning power, Delancey stepped away from a group of men near one of the tables. She headed toward him. She was smiling and laughing, looking one hundred percent like she belonged, while she passed people of varying ages who waved or called out to her.
Her circle of friends reached beyond Lexi and her coworkers. Judging by the smiles on the faces looking back at her she was loved. Loved and respected. She was surrounded with the kind of friends and happiness Ashley had wanted them to find in the community where they’d bought their home.
She was embraced by a large group of people coming together for a celebration of life, but he would never be so accepted. Discomfort spread across his skin, making it more impossible to step out of the shadows.
More pops sounded with the release of fireworks. Another round of cheers and oohs and aahs followed.
It was the kind of scene Ashley would have loved. One she would have dragged him to and made him enjoy. It would have been easy with Ashley, because she’d have hung with him until he’d found a rhythm in the crowd.
He wasn’t a complete idiot when it came to meeting people, but walking into a crowd and acting like he belonged had never been a skill he managed to master. Doing it now that he was scarred and likely to be seen as a repulsive leper…no way.
Logan gripped the edges of his hood, pulling it tight over the bill of his cap. He turned to leave and then stopped, dropped his head. He couldn’t join the crowd, but he couldn’t make himself walk away. Walking away from the crowd meant walking away from Delancey, and he didn’t possess the strength to do that.
His skin began to tingle, raising gooseflesh on his unburned side. Delancey. He always sensed her moments before she arrived.
“Logan,” she said from close behind him, “you came.”
He didn’t turn. Facing her might just change his mind and have him joining the crowd. “I’m leaving.”
“The show’s just beginning, and we have a ton of food. Quite possibly literally.”
Beginning or ending, it didn’t matter. He pointed toward the front of the building and quickly fisted his hand when it shook. “This was a mistake.”
Delancey moved into his path. She was more effective at stopping him than her size would suggest. He couldn’t pretend it surprised him.
“Are you hungry?”
Starved, and the food smelled delicious. “No.” He stepped left. “I have to go.”
She stepped right to block him. “I cooked. What have you eaten today?”
Her hand brushed his wrist. Faster than if he’d slammed into an invisible wa
ll he jerked away. The warmth of her touch survived the separation as vivid as a living, breathing entity. Then she spoke and damn if his heart didn’t tremble.
“You’ve seen so much darkness. You deserve some light…” She reached into a bag he hadn’t noticed hanging from her shoulder and withdrew a silver stick. “Even if it’s only a sparkler’s worth.”
He stared at the sparkler. A silver stick that sparked with fun and life when lit. Ashley had loved sparklers and had always chased him around the yard with one. He imagined Delancey doing the same.
The smile stretched his cheeks before he could stop it. Like every other time she made him smile or laugh, the pain was worth it, which was all the more reason he shouldn’t have come.
“You’re nice, and I appreciate your help.”
“But?”
“But…” Logan licked his lips as his gaze rested on the unlit sparkler. Self-preservation was a woeful weakness that according to Ashley was a chicken-shit maneuver to keep people at emotionally safe distances.
“But you should forget about me. You belong with people who know how to have fun.”
She handed him the sparkler, closing her fingers over his. She held firm when he went for an instant retreat. Red, blue and green bursts of color exploded in the air, casting a halo of color around her.
The pops and booms penetrated the space between their locked gazes and deepened the hue of her hazel eyes, making them even more captivating than usual. The air grew thin, so thin he became lightheaded and canted forward.
“You’re not as forgettable as you may want to be,” she whispered.
Oxygen was a commodity in short supply. Tightness spread through his body and commandeered control of his muscles, drawing him closer.
“Not forgettable at all.” She licked her lips, moved in.
This was not like the other moments they’d shared where one or the other of them instantly pulled back. They were close enough for their breath to brush each other’s lips—warm and moist.
“You either.”
“There you are,” a male voice said from behind them.
