Not just what happened to his leg, but what happened to his entire team. Most days, he could forgive himself. He’d gotten the worst deal of them all, losing his leg and his career, but they had all suffered. For most of them, the injuries were minor. Some of them were still rehabbing like him, but would get to carry on with their careers.
A fucking IED. There had been, literally, no way for him to know. There had been no warnings and they were in a friendly zone.
Just bad timing, they’d said. Most likely a leftover from hostile times and the wiring degraded just as his unit’s Jeep had driven over it.
Nothing more than a coincidence, they’d said.
Due to its age, the bomb had a minimal blast, and they’d been in what was really the equivalent of a rollover accident, which was far better than being blown to bits. His knee, having already been one injury away from what his physician called a catastrophic injury, had taken the brunt of the incident, ending up trapped under a crate of medical equipment. Crushed beyond repair, there had been no choice but to take it.
He looked down at where his prosthetic leg was hidden underneath his pants, and a wave of sadness rolled over him.
Coincidence, nothing more, had ruined his future.
There’d been no way to repair the knee. His options had been amputation or a lifetime of painful procedures and disability.
Beth was still looking at him.
It was funny, because he’d always been the one chasing her. From the second he’d laid eyes on her, he’d known that she was it for him. Sure, love at first sight sounded like bullshit when you said it out loud, but when it actually struck you, when you were the intended target, it made everything fall into place.
Just over a year ago, the first time he’d set eyes on Beth Walker, his life and everything in it, fell into place. Except for Beth herself. She’d felt it too, and instead of understanding and rolling with it, she’d run out on him.
He hadn’t taken it personally. The whole thing was a big pill to swallow and she’s been skittish from the first. When he’d told her sister Andy that he intended on marrying Beth, she’d laughed outright in his face. He should have taken it as a sign that things wouldn’t work.
He still felt the connection between them now, but the love he felt before hurt more than anything else. It was all just too hard. Not just loving Beth, but loving at all.
What did he have to offer her? And if she couldn’t bring herself to be with him before, why would she bother now?
“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asked.
“Now I’m not allowed to look at you?” she returned. “Is that a thing now?”
“It’s not that you’re looking at me. It’s how you’re looking at me.”
“And how’s that?”
“Okay kids, break it up,” Alex joked, rolling her eyes. “What kind of example are you setting for Jenna by bickering like children?”
“Jenna doesn’t even have anyone to bicker with,” Beth pointed out.
“I think it’s funny,” Jenna said with a good-natured shrug. “Logan loves Beth. Beth gets scared and runs away. Beth loves Logan and Logan runs away. Beth and Logan love each other, then they both run away. Now, Beth loves Logan again.” She looked right at Logan. “I’m trying to figure out what he’s going to do this time.”
He must have been the only one that didn’t think Jenna’s assessment was funny, because his cousins and both Walker women were trying to contain their mirth.
It was a sad day when he was the one who’d lost his sense of humor, but there it was. That’s who he was now, the guy who couldn’t laugh at a kid’s joke. He might not have wanted to laugh, but he’d never want to hurt Jenna’s feelings. So, he pasted a smile on his face and hoped it looked real.
“Guess we’ll just have to wait and see. What are you up to these days, J? Still playing hockey?”
She chattered on about her most recent hockey season and Logan listened with half an ear. Jenna was a great kid and he loved when he got to spend time with her. Being so close with Owen, he could sometimes picture himself far in the future, sitting in the crowd at her graduation or watching her get married. She’d just turned thirteen, so those things were a long way off, but still there on the horizon for her.
Out of the corner of his eye, he couldn’t help but watch Beth who was sandwiched between Cole and Tucker. Cole’s arm was on the back of the couch behind her and they looked just as cozy as could be. Logan clenched his jaw against the urge to lay his cousin out flat on the floor. She was not his, but Cole could learn a lesson or two about who was off-limits and who wasn’t.
Beth was off-limits.
“That’s great,” he told Jenna when she was done. “I’m sad I didn’t get to a game this year. Maybe next time, okay?”
“That’s fine,” she said. “I knew you weren’t up to it this year.”
No, he had not been.
They said their goodbyes and Jenna and Alex disappeared from the screen.
“I can’t believe how much she’s grown, even in the last few months,” Beth marveled. “Andy always says things like it goes so fast or she’s growing like a weed but I never really get it until I see her. She’s already taller than I am.”
Logan laughed. “That wouldn’t take much.”
“She’s taller than Andy and Alex, too,” she defended, her auburn brows slashed down over her bright eyes. “Not just me.”
He sent her a look. “None of you are very tall, Sugar, but if that makes you feel better, you run with that.”
“So, am I allowed to talk to you now?”
Logan sighed. “Beth–”
“I know,” she interrupted. “I’m a pain in the ass.”
“We can get out of your hair,” Tucker offered.
Cole’s head whipped around to his brother. “I don’t want to hide out upstairs.”
“Not hide out,” Tucker clarified, his eyes cutting to Logan and Beth. “Just, make ourselves scarce.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Logan argued. “Beth is going to be on her way soon.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Is that so?”
“Just making an educated guess based on history,” he said.
Her expression changed, the look on her face somewhere between hurt and resignation now more than humor. He knew he should feel bad for being responsible for that, but he didn’t. He didn’t like seeing it, didn’t want her to feel that, but he felt no guilt in calling it like he saw it. The less she saw of him the better off they’d both be. There was no point in getting wrapped up in each other again. She didn’t want him and he was useless to her now, nothing more than half a man.
She stood from the couch, leaving his cousins behind, and rounding it to stand in front of him. She was still dressed in her pajamas, nothing more than a plain T-shirt and a pair of yoga pants, but she still mesmerized him.
“Here’s the thing,” she told him. “I don’t really have anywhere to be. I’m not going back out on the ship, or any ship, for that matter. I gave up my contract with the cruise line, so I have no employment commitments for the foreseeable future. I never had any real intention of going back to Freehope, at least not to stay for any length of time. The only reason I came back here was for you.” She shook her head, emotion choking her words, and looked down at his leg. “I told you not to get your ass blown off, but this wasn’t what I meant.”
Without permission, a laugh fell out of his mouth. He’d shipped out last year for a short overseas detail. He still remembered the quiver in her voice when he’d called her from the transport plane. It was then that he knew she felt the same way he did, even if she couldn’t say it. She’d shakily told him not to get his ass blown off.
He hadn’t that time.
“I don’t have to stay here,” she told him. “And I get it if you don’t want me here, but I just needed the peace of mind to see you, to know you’re okay.”
“I’m fine,” he said, his words short, the lie rolling
off his tongue as easily as it had the last thousand times he’d said it.
She nodded, though she didn’t look convinced. “Yeah, I can see that. Right as rain. Hiding out here in your cousin’s house surrounded by people you don’t give a shit about.”
“I give a shit about Cole, Tucker, and Elliot,” he argued.
“Anyone else?”
“Sure, lots of people.”
“Liar,” she called him out without hesitating. “Come with me,” she whispered.
“Where is it you’re going?” he asked, noting that his cousins had taken their leave, sneaking out behind Beth when she was talking.
Beth shrugged. “Where do you want to go? I’ve got a rental car with unlimited miles.”
Back in time, he wanted to say. Back a year so he could not go to Freehope and meet her. Back before he was so far in love with her that he wasn’t sure which way was up or down. Back before he was willing to take the pain of her not loving him the way he wanted her to and fly it overseas to get his ass blown off.
“I don’t understand what you’re asking me,” he told her.
“Yeah you do,” she argued.
“You want to, what? Take a road trip?”
“Have you ever gone out into the world, searching for who you are?” Beth asked, her brow furrowed.
“No,” he said, limping past her and into the kitchen for a cup of coffee. He’d gone straight from high school and into the navy. He hadn’t had the luxury of aimlessly soul searching. Beth on the other hand had done it her entire adult life. “How’s it working out for you?”
She smiled and shrugged a shoulder. “Life gives and takes, you know. It’s a nebulous goal.”
He wanted to laugh because Beth wasn’t usually so poetic about things. She was more of a tell-it-like-she-saw-it kind of girl, but he didn’t laugh because something about what she said had struck home.
The things people want or need in their lives were always changing. A year ago, he’d found love even though he hadn’t been searching. Months later, everything had changed for him. He’d been focused on healing and wondering where he’d end up. He’d been surviving and not doing much more.
He had a feeling he hadn’t moved on from that state of mind.
Maybe it was time to move on from that goal.
“I’m leaving after lunch,” she said, taking a step away from him. “I don’t want to take up space here, but I want you to know, Logan, that above all, we’ve always been friends.”
“We’ve never been friends,” he disagreed.
She looked like he’d hurt her by saying it, but she didn’t argue.
“Maybe that’s true,” she said. “But I’ve always wanted what’s best for you and that hasn’t changed. Holing up here, hiding from life, isn’t helping you, Doc. Come with me,” she said again. “Come see what kind of trouble we can find and when we’re done, if you never want to talk to me again, I’ll walk away.”
“What are you talking here? A week? Two?” he asked, considering her offer. He’d been crashing with his cousins for months. Maybe getting off his ass would help him find some direction and get him out of their hair.
“We can play it by ear,” she offered. “If after a week, you’re done, we’ll head back or I can bring you wherever you want to go. If you think there’s more you want to do or see, we keep going. I’m easy.”
He raised a brow at her, a silent pun on her statement, and suddenly felt lighter.
He was going to go with her. It was too good a chance to pass up, and a year later, he was wiser than he’d been before. He knew, above all else, he wouldn’t fall into Beth Walker’s web again.
He’d take this trip with her because she was right. He needed some new direction in his life and to find out who the new Logan was.
But he’d be damned if he was going to let himself fall in love with her again.
3
“I think it sounds fun,” Cole said as Logan threw a duffle bag in the back of Tucker’s car. Somehow, Beth had talked his cousin into lending her his car for their trip, while he returned the rental car for her. Tucker had a work truck and agreed that it made the most sense. Beth’s bags from the cruise ship were already in the car.
Elliot scoffed and crossed his arms across his chest. “Yeah, sounds like a real barrel of laughs. Can I come? I’ve been looking for new ways to torture myself. This seems right up my alley. Maybe we can drag a few of my exes along for the fun of it.”
Tucker bumped his shoulder against Elliot’s and sent him a silent, scathing look.
Logan knew that Cole and Tucker wanted him to take this trip with Beth. He wasn’t sure if they wanted him gone because he was taking up space or because they wanted it for him.
He wasn’t sure what it was, beyond getting out of the house, but there seemed to be something intangibly promising on the horizon. He and his cousins stood in the driveway while she used the bathroom before their departure.
“It’s okay,” Logan told them. “It might not be the perfect situation, but the idea has merit. I should get out in the world and figure out what my next steps are.”
“And you think the fake stripper is going to show it to you?” Elliot asked with a scowl.
Logan shook his head. “Don’t call her that.”
“I like her,” Cole said. “She’s got a backbone of steel, if you ask me.”
“No one did, as usual,” Elliot shot back. “Not that it’s ever stopped you before.”
“Why would I let that ugly-ass mug of yours hold me back?” Cole deadpanned and looked back to Logan. “She showed up here, and even after you were a complete douche, stayed. I’m team Beth.”
“Thanks for that,” Logan said sarcastically.
Tucker slapped a hand on his back. “I’ve always got your back, you know that, but I see where Cole’s coming from. She’s not your average woman, is she?”
“No, she’s not,” Logan said. “Your average woman doesn’t run as far as she can when love smacks her over the head.”
“Hey, we don’t all have voodoo mama’s that teach us about the magic of love at first sight when we’re knee high to a grasshopper,” Tucker explained.
“So, it’s all my mother’s fault?” Logan asked with a laugh.
“Don’t tell her I said that.” Tucker chuckled. “She’d skin my hide.”
“After she fed you,” Elliot added.
“And read your tea leaves,” Cole said.
“The point is,” Logan interrupted their laughter. “Beth and I aren’t going to happen, no matter who’s team you’re on. I’ve been on team Beth. It’s a lonely place because even Beth isn’t on it.”
“Now that’s just not true,” the woman herself said as she came down the porch steps and into the driveway. “I’m team Beth, all the way. Problem is, team Beth is kind of a mess, you know. No coach, no stadium, no teammates.” She threw a small bag into the trunk and faced them, a smile on her face. “We have like, concessions and the plane with a banner that flies overhead once in a while, but not a whole lot else.”
Elliot’s usual stoic face dropped a notch and he almost softened. “That sounds shitty.”
He wasn’t known for being a man of many words.
She shrugged and slowly shut the lid of the trunk with a click. “It’s fine. It’s what I’m used to, but you get to a point where you know you’re a bit screwed up.” She looked to Logan, regret shining in her eyes. “It took hearing about Logan getting hurt to make me want to get my life figured out, not that I’ve gotten far, but the thought is there. Imagine my surprise when I get here and I find out he’s just as messed up as I am right now.”
“I am not,” Logan argued.
“Okay,” she said easily, not wanting to start an argument. “The point is, sometimes we all need to reset or take a breath.”
“Since when are you the authority on…” he struggled to find the right word.
“Anything?” she finished for him, her brows raised in question. “I’m not. Yo
u ready to go?”
Logan said nothing at her abrupt subject change, confused by the woman standing in front of him. Her red hair was wavy and blowing the breeze, her sweater’s thick turtleneck framed her face, and her cheeks were pink from the cold. She looked like the same old Beth, but she spoke differently, more introspective than she’d been before.
It had been barely twelve hours since she’d been back in his life and her effect on him was strange. He’d spent so many months being angry at not just her, but everything around him, she almost brought a sense of calm.
That alone pissed him off. If he did finally find a sense of calm, he didn’t want it tied to Beth in any way, shape or form. In the end, she’d run out on him and he’d be back at square one.
He needed to get straight with himself first. That was his number one goal.
Beth being in the middle of that mission was just a fact he was going to have to ignore. He couldn’t let her get in the way of him getting his life back.
“Logan?” Beth prompted. “Are you ready to go?”
He was. With much more emotion than they had ever done before, he said goodbye to his cousins. They had been a great source of strength for him when he’d run out of gas on his own. They’d given him not just a place to stay, but a support system to rely on.
In the navy, he’d been lucky enough to find men and women who he called family. They were brave and strong, reliable and always there when he needed them.
After taking his discharge, he hadn’t called on them. He’d suddenly felt like a burden, like he wasn’t one of them anymore.
The Williams brothers had walked him through one of the most difficult times in his life.
Finding the words to tell them that was an impossible task.
“Hey, guys,” he said, trying to clear the emotion from his throat.
“Don’t do it, bro,” Elliot said, shaking his head. “No need.”
“Yeah,” Tucker agreed. “Come back when you’re ready. You’ve always got a home here.”
“Thanks, you guys,” he said simply.
“Come on, Doc,” Beth said, a smile on her lips as she stood in the driver’s door of the car. “Let’s get this show on the road. Thanks for the hospitality.” She tipped her chin to his cousins. “I hope to see you all again someday, but if not, you’re not the worst bunch of apes I’ve ever met.”
Confessing History (Freehope Book 3) Page 4
