by Lexi Blake
He couldn’t quite catch his breath. Georgia was in New York, and she didn’t have a metric shit ton of family money behind her? She was alone in a massive city? Where the fuck was she working? Panic threatened. He knew some people in New York. Seth was in New York. He could get Seth to find her.
“Where is she? Where is she working? I need her address.”
How fast could he be in New York? There was usually a red-eye out of DFW. He could likely be there by morning. Two hours to get to whatever hellhole she was in and ten fucking seconds to pull her out of there. They could be back in Dallas by tomorrow night.
And then what?
Leo’s eyes widened. “Do you understand how creepy stalkery you sound right this second?”
Probably really creepy because the way he felt about Georgia wasn’t exactly normal. He didn’t kind of worry about her and hope she was okay. She was a gnawing guilt in his gut. He tried to force himself to stay calm. He’d gotten good at hiding what he felt. He was pretty sure no one knew he was screaming on the inside most of the time. “She’s the sister of my friends. It’s not a big deal.”
“Oh, I think it’s a huge deal. She’s the sister of your friends? Who do you think you’re fooling? Look man, you can’t consider yourself truly crazy about a woman until you’ve walked that slender line between ‘checking in’ and ‘stalking.’ Helpful tip—don’t carry a camera with you when you’re ‘checking in.’ It makes the cops crazy.”
Logan stood, running his hands through his hair. Half the time he couldn’t tell when Leo was joking and when he was serious. Leo was the most sarcastic bastard he’d ever met, and he’d met Zane Hollister. It was often best to ignore Leo’s advice when it sounded like sitcom dialogue. “Dude, do you know if she’s all right? Have Ben and Chase not been checking in on her?”
He would be shocked if they hadn’t at least made sure she wasn’t on the street.
“Chill out. She’s fine. She landed a good job, and she’s living with her boss, who also happens to be a billionaire.”
He felt his face flush, his heart drop. She’d been gone for eight fucking months and she’d already found a billionaire and made her move? He could still see the tears in those crystal blue eyes as he’d pushed her away. Had they all been for show? And who moved in with their boss? A couple of nasty names flashed through his head, but he shoved them aside. She wasn’t like that. Not deep down. She was bratty and used that rich-girl persona like a shield, but she’d been sweet and supportive with Nat and Kitten. He’d watched her when she thought he hadn’t been looking.
Yeah, he’d done that a whole lot because the minute he’d gotten a look at that girl, he’d been hooked. It was a good thing he didn’t own a camera because he really could have turned into creepy-stalker guy.
Who the hell was this billionaire motherfucker? He had to be using her. “Is she engaged to him?”
He might be able to handle it if the asshole was actually marrying her.
“Not as far as I know. According to Chase, she moved in with this guy about a month after taking the job. Maybe she’s simply being a hands-on assistant. She might not be sleeping with him. It does seem farfetched, though. She’s a lovely woman.”
She was the sexiest woman on the fucking planet. It had been the hardest thing in the world to keep his hands off her, but he’d done it because he knew he couldn’t give her what she needed. He’d done it because he cared about her. This rich bastard obviously had no such qualms. “And Chase let this happen?”
What the hell was wrong with him? Logan could see Ben screwing up like that. Ben would be all “she’s an adult and needs to make her own decisions and we should support her.” Chase was more reasonable. Chase should have put a hit out on the guy like any good brother would.
“I believe Ben and Chase are visiting her this weekend along with the rest of their brothers,” Leo explained.
Thank god. He settled back into his chair. He’d only met Win Dawson once, and he’d never met Mark and Dare at all, but Win would haul her ass out of there and he wouldn’t give a damn that it was the twenty-first century and women had rights. He would do what it took to protect his sister.
And who would save her the next time she got duped into a bad relationship? There it was. There was that nasty kernel of guilt. She needed a Dom. She needed a Master who would make sure she was all right. Her brothers couldn’t do that for her forever. She needed a lover, a keeper, a friend.
It was the last part that he wasn’t sure he could handle at this point. He could fuck her. God, he could very likely fuck her forever. He could top her in a heartbeat. He would love it.
But he wasn’t anyone’s friend now. It was precisely why he couldn’t go home, why he might never go back to his job.
Because he still couldn’t walk in that building without feeling the pain. He still couldn’t hold a gun in his hand without visions of blowing Alexei Markov’s head away.
“Good. I’m glad to hear Ben and Chase will take care of her.” Now he could try to steer Leo away from the subject.
“Do you want to tell me why you shoved Georgia away when it’s so obvious to everyone that you’re in love with her?”
Or Leo could ignore him and push through. Logan snorted. “I’m not in love with her.”
He wasn’t actually capable of that now. He sure as fuck wasn’t deserving. Something had gone wrong with him. Maybe it was his father’s DNA. His dad had been a piece of shit coward who beat his mom and sent her on the run. Only Marie Warner had been able to save them. Marie. His other mom.
How ashamed would she be if she truly knew what had happened in that room?
“So Georgia doesn’t have anything to do with why you haven’t had sex in eight months?”
Leo’s words forced him back to the shitastic here and now. “I don’t know that my sex life is any of your business.”
“It is. Everything about you is my business. I’m your therapist, but more than that, I’m your boss. You’re in a position of power as a Master in The Club, and I have to understand the rationale behind any major changes in your behavior. Before you met Georgia Dawson, you enthusiastically fucked any woman who would let you have her.”
It hadn’t been that bad. He’d enjoyed himself. “You make me sound like a manwhore.”
“If it fucks like a duck,” Leo snarked, “it’s usually a manwhore. Look, man, I told you I’ve talked to Wolf. I would have thought that maybe you preferred a ménage, but you had sex with plenty of women on your own here. So I have to wonder if you’re in love with Georgia Dawson, and then I wonder why you pushed her away.”
Because he’d never truly walked out of Nate’s office. He was still tied down and dying, and he didn’t know how to get off that fucking desk.
Leo leaned forward. “Logan, talk to me. We’ve been doing this for over a damn year, and we’ve never gotten to the heart of the problem.”
“The heart of the problem is that some asshole beat the shit out of me, and I won’t let it happen again.” He still couldn’t talk about it.
Leo shook his head slowly, leaning back. There was a calm about Leo that set him on edge. “No. That was the start. You’ve talked about everything that happened in clinical details, but you’ve never gotten down to the feelings behind it. And I’m pretty certain you’ve never once told me the whole story.”
Feelings? Loneliness. Despair. Helplessness. Weakness. “I felt pissed that I was getting my ass kicked.”
And no one needed to know the whole story. No one except Caleb. He hadn’t been able to hide anything from the doctor who had put him back together, but Caleb had kept his mouth shut.
“See, your words betray you. What happened to you went beyond a Saturday night fight. You’re still making light of it. Tell me why you don’t read comic books anymore.”
He rolled his eyes. “Because I’m not fucking twelve.”
“You weren’t twelve when you were reading comics. You read them up until that day and then you burned
your whole collection. You can’t tell me that wasn’t a defining act.”
“How the fuck did you know that?” He’d done it in his backyard a few weeks after he’d gotten out of the hospital. He’d doused three long boxes with lighter fluid and set his whole collection on fire. Twenty years of collecting up in smoke because every single one of those books had lied. There were no heroes. Or at least he’d figured out he wasn’t one of them.
“I’ve had long conversations with all of your relatives and friends.”
Betrayal bit into his gut. “What about that whole patient-client confidentiality you mentioned earlier?”
“That’s only in play when it comes to me discussing my findings with them. They can talk about you all they like. I simply called and put a few questions to them, and then I listened. They were eager to talk about you because they love you. Well, most of them. That doctor hung up on me.”
Leo listening was a powerful thing. “I want you to stay away from my friends.”
“Are they your friends?” Leo asked. “You haven’t talked to them in months. You’ve barely talked to your moms.”
He was real damn good at one-word answers. Yes. No. Maybe. “They’re okay.”
“I don’t think so. When I talked to them, they seemed a bit fractured.”
His moms? No. His moms were solid. Always. There was one certainty in his life and that was that Teeny Green and Marie Warner loved each other. They were devoted. “What’s happening?”
He hadn’t called. He’d actually dodged their calls. And Seth’s. And Nate’s and Cam’s and Callie’s. And James’s and Hope’s. It was far easier to be here where almost no one had any expectations of him. Where no one knew who he’d been before he’d been shown who he really was.
“I can’t talk about it. I can only say that your mothers miss you and want you to come home. You know it’s their twenty-fifth anniversary.”
He knew. “Yeah. I’ll send them a card.”
“You’re not going to the party?”
Party? His momma hated parties. Marie thought they were a horrible waste of time. Of course, Teeny loved them and Marie loved Teeny so…maybe. “Are they having coffee at Stella’s?”
“They’re having a complete rededication ceremony. It’s being paid for by the same man who paid for your…” Leo stopped, taking a long breath. “It’s going to be a lovely ceremony, but it will likely be empty without you there.”
A nasty suspicion played through his head. “Paid for my what?”
“I shouldn’t have said anything, but you can’t believe I’m doing this for free. Logan, you have people who love you.”
That didn’t answer the question. “I thought I was working off my debt.”
It was why he worked five nights a week in the dungeon. Hell. That was kind of wrong. He loved working the dungeon. He would do it for free. Of course, now that he thought about it, the dungeon itself was membership-only. The other Doms either worked for Julian full time or they got reduced-rate memberships in exchange for their work.
And Leo’s services weren’t exactly cheap. Fuck.
“Who? Is it Stef?” The king of Bliss was a likely candidate. Stef Talbot tried to take care of everyone, but the thought of charity rankled.
“No. It’s not Stef.”
Fuck all. His gut was in a knot again. “My moms can’t afford this.”
“I would never charge your mothers. Initially I was going to do everything pro bono, but you have a friend out there who didn’t want you to be beholden. You have an actual lifetime membership to The Club in your name. And none of that matters. Logan, forget I said anything.” Leo waved him off. “We have other things to talk about.”
There was a loud knock on the door, but Logan ignored it as the truth swept over him. There was only one person who would swoop in and drop a wad of cash and never miss it and never mention it. “Seth.”
It was Seth. Seth, who damn well knew how he felt about taking charity.
The door opened and Wolf strode in.
Leo’s eyebrow climbed right up his forehead. “Hello, brother. Since when do you interrupt a session?”
Wolf stopped, rolling his eyes. “Dude. You’re ten minutes over time. I’ve been waiting forever, and we have a lunch meeting with Shelley, if you care to remember.”
Leo went a little white. “I remember. Jeez, don’t tell her I forgot. We’re supposed to be at Top in fifteen minutes.” He stood up. “Logan, I’ll see you on Thursday.”
Thank god. He was done. He could stop fucking talking and hang out until he could get back to the dungeon. Except that now he knew he was here on Seth’s fucking charity.
Wolf turned to him. “I don’t know about that. Logan, I got off the phone with Jamie a couple of minutes ago.”
Fuck. “What happened?”
“You know Cam and Laura and Rafe got married last weekend, right?”
He felt his jaw tighten. Yeah. He’d been invited. Cam had become one of his best friends, and he’d always had a thing for Laura, but they had gotten married in a ceremony that included Holly and Caleb and Alexei.
He couldn’t watch Alexei find his joy. He fucking couldn’t.
“Yeah, I know,” Logan replied.
“Well, Cam and Rafe surprised Laura that day. They adopted a baby. Caleb and Stef made it possible.”
Because they were billionaires and money greased a lot of wheels. But Laura had a baby. A knot formed in his chest that had nothing to do with hate and everything to do with that part of him that could still love. Laura would be a great mom. That kid was lucky. “Good for her.”
“Nate’s alone at the station right now. He forced Cam to take paternity leave, and there’s no one else qualified. Rachel is pregnant again, and she’s having a rough time. Rye won’t leave her. Nate’s been living at the station. I’m going to head back to Bliss. I have to help out.”
Wolf was going to Bliss to do Logan’s job? Nate had kept it open, but he’d known he wouldn’t go back. Except that the thought of Wolf sitting at his desk kind of pissed him off.
Leo stood. “You can’t leave. We have the engagement party in two weeks. Do you know how long Shelley has been planning this? She’s going to be devastated.”
Shelley. She’d been so sweet to him, inviting him to dinner, taking care of him. Was he going to let her engagement party get ruined because Wolf felt like he had to do his job? And then there was his moms’ party. Twenty-five years of pure love and devotion should be acknowledged.
“I have to go. I owe these guys,” Wolf argued.
Wolf didn’t owe anyone, but Logan fucking did. Nate had helped him out when anyone else would have fired his ass and washed his hands of him. Cam had been a true friend. Hell, he owed James and Noah’s wife, Hope, more than they could know. He owed Bliss.
“I’ll go.” The words dropped out of his mouth like a lodestone, dragging him down.
He owed his moms everything.
Wolf’s whole demeanor changed, relaxing and showing some joy. “Are you serious? Because that would make my life so much easier. Shelley would be upset if I wasn’t here for the party. Are you sure, man?”
He owed Wolf. It was time to man up and help out his people. He would survive it. He would go to his moms’ party and help at the station, and when he left this time, his head would be held high.
And he could leave and not go back. And he damn straight would figure out how to deal with Seth.
“I’m sure.”
Leo and Wolf looked at each other, having a silent conversation that only brothers understood. Jealously nearly split Logan in two because he knew what that felt like. He and Seth had that kind of communication once.
“If you’re sure, then I’ll have Kitten book the ticket out for you instead of me,” Wolf said, but his tone had turned hesitant.
God, he hated that. He hated the whole sympathy-pity thing. And he was going to have to call Seth because he also didn’t take fucking charity. “I’ll be fine.”
&
nbsp; Because he was headed back to Bliss. Back home. God. He was going home.
He started out the door to go and pack. As he glanced behind him, he was almost sure he saw Leo and Wolf high-five each other.
Chapter Three
Logan turned the truck into town and drove right past the Trading Post. It was the store his moms ran and one of Bliss’s great meeting spots. He’d grown up in that store, watched it go from a place where the people of the town could buy food and simple supplies to a one-stop shop for everything from eggs and milk on the first floor to clothes, camping gear, and sporting goods on the second. The Trading Post had grown as he had, his moms gaining more and more confidence in their business abilities every year.
He couldn’t go there yet, hadn’t even called to let them know he was coming. He’d had a single conversation with Nate where he’d arranged for his truck to be brought to the airport and then asked Nate to keep the whole thing on the down low. Only Nate and Zane knew he was coming back to town. They thought he was trying to surprise his moms, but the truth was he didn’t want anyone to know until he’d figured out how it was going to work.
Cam had six weeks of paternity leave. He could survive six weeks. He had to.
And maybe he wouldn’t even go back to Dallas. Maybe he would take off and find someplace where he didn’t have to talk about shit and no one cared what had happened to him. He could start over since he’d fucked up this particular life.
Stella’s was up ahead. He knew the roads like the back of his hand, but the sight of Stella’s had him choking up. The sign was the same as it had been since he could remember seeing it. White letters on a red background. A little cup of coffee. Stella’s Diner. Bliss, CO since 1970.
He remembered vividly the first time he’d eaten here without his moms at his side. He’d been with Seth. He’d been nine and Seth ten, and he could still recall how adult he’d felt sitting there and eating a turkey sandwich and fries with his best friend and paying for it himself. He’d been a real big man.
The sight of the sheriff’s station up the street turned his stomach.
