Confessing History (Freehope Book 3)

by Jenni M. Rose

  “Sounds good.” He sent her a small smile and for the first time, it was a real one, directed right at her. There was a small sparkle in his eye—not like it used to be—but still there.

  She took the few steps to the bathroom but before she closed the door, he called her name.

  “Beth?”

  She looked back at him in question.

  He seemed at a loss for a moment. “Thank you,” he finally said.

  She wasn’t sure what he was thanking her for, but it was clear that he was sincere. His face was soft, that small smile still on his lips.

  She smiled back and gave him a nod, closing the door behind her. She leaned against it, imprinting the memory so she could pull it up at will.

  Suddenly, the rest of the trip had promise, and she hurried to get herself ready, eager to continue their journey.

  “Are you done yet?” Logan whispered, afraid to interrupt.

  Beth had been staring at a picture of Jim Morrison that was, quite literally, larger than life. She looked minuscule as she stared up the late rocker’s face, as if his likeness was imparting some piece of deep wisdom to her.

  She didn’t touch it. She didn’t smile or laugh. She didn’t speak.

  She just stood, in awe, he supposed, though he didn’t get it. He’d never been a big fan of psychedelic rock, it was way too…out there, for him. But he appreciated how deep her admiration ran, so he hung back, standing just behind her, prodding her once in a while.

  Since they’d been in the museum, she’d startled at his voice more than once, so engrossed in what she was looking at. She then continued on to the next installation, reading every detail of each one.

  At this rate, they’d leave the museum sometime next month.

  “When my mom died, it took me a long time to even leave my room,” she said softly, catching his attention. Logan watched as she meandered through her thought, and he just listened. “Some days, I’d just lay there, staring at the ceiling. Others, I wouldn’t even attempt to get out of bed. I’d hide under the covers and pretend it was all just a bad dream. Andy would come in and try to talk or get me to come downstairs.” She shook her head, as she remembered those moments. “I just couldn’t. Lexi came in one day with a pile of books. A couple self-help books, a few romance novels. She just dumped them on my desk and said, Get it together. You aren’t the only one who lost her.”

  “That’s shitty,” Logan commented after a quiet moment.

  “But not wrong,” she returned. “Anyway, in that stack of books was one of Jim Morrison’s books of poetry.”

  “I’ve never read any of his stuff. Was it that good?”

  “No.” Beth laughed. “It was the most ridiculous crap I’d ever read, but it was the only thing that put a smile on my face, besides Jenna. All he wrote about was his cock and opening the universe. It was super weird but hilarious.”

  Logan raised his brows, wondering that if it was so ridiculous, why they were there, worshipping at the man’s altar.

  “It wasn’t all weird,” she conceded. “He said things that really mattered to me at the time. Things like: you can only lose something you have, not something you are or you feel your strength in the experience of pain.” She shrugged. “I kind of got into The Doors after that and the music was different, but it kept me going. This guy got me through a tough time,” she said, looking up at the picture again. “It feels important to stand here for a minute.”

  “Take your time,” he told her quietly, taking in everything she’d said. Every time they spoke, really spoke, he learned something new about her. He knew she’d been hurt badly by her mother’s death. It seemed to cloud everything about the way she lived her life, but he’d had no idea how deep that loss really cut her. Their relationship had never been one where they shared those types of intimate details, but the more she opened up, the more he thought he saw who Beth truly was.

  “It’s okay,” she said with a smile after a few more thoughtful minutes. “Let’s keep going. If I had my way, we’d stay here for a week.”

  He nearly tripped when she echoed his exact thought from a moment before.

  They casually chatted as they toured the museum, Beth still making sure to read almost everything she walked by. Sometimes she’d comment on how interesting it was or ask him if he’d heard some of the artists.

  He’d seen her take a few notes on her phone and mark down a few albums to listen to.

  He hadn’t known she was so curious about the things around her. She took a lot of the world around her in, processing it all and soaking it up.

  It was interesting, as it was a trait he didn’t know she had. He’d never seen this side of her.

  Begrudgingly, he admitted to himself that, aside from their chemistry and what he knew of her in the bedroom, he didn’t know much else. It was a relationship both of them had a hand in creating. Their knowledge of each other skimmed their surfaces. He’d told her some about his past, but nothing further than that he loved his mama and came from Louisiana. She knew he was in the navy, but nothing about why he’d joined in the first place. She had no idea how deep his fears about his uncertain future ran and how that affected him.

  And he knew nothing about her either, aside from the small things he was learning as they continued on their trip.

  She sent him a flirty smile, as he held the door open for her when they left the museum, and murmured a quiet thank you. She still had a warmth in her eyes for him; she still looked at him like she wanted him, but she made no mention of it.

  She slept in her own bed and he let her, not pushing for anything further than what they were now.

  They’d been down that road and it hadn’t ended well for either of them, so he left it alone. Focusing more on the end of the road, The Grand Canyon, and the journey of doing something he’d never done before.

  He’d expected her to be a nuisance more than anything else. Considering what had happened at his cousin’s house and her striptease, he figured she’d be looking to take up where they left off.

  Leave it to Beth to surprise him yet again.

  He looked down at her as they strolled down the sidewalk and let out a chuckle, remembering that striptease she’d done, and marveled at her guts.

  “What?” She laughed, though she had no idea what he found so amusing.

  “I was just thinking about Holly Devine’s striptease the other night.”

  “Hollis,” she corrected automatically. “I thought she was pretty good, considering.”

  “Considering what?” he asked.

  “She’s a freelancer,” Beth explained, that sly smile still on her lips. “She’s still learning the ropes and all that.”

  “I’d say she brought the house down,” Logan said.

  “I’d say Cole and Elliot brought the house down. Besides, my real stripper name is Little Red.”

  Logan really laughed at that. “Little Red?”

  “That’s what Lexi said I should go by. I laughed at first, too. It sounded a little silly. But, it’s growing on me. I can see that working for me.”

  “Yeah?” he asked, playing along.

  Truth was, the thought of Beth stripping for anyone else made his guts churn. It would be easy to blame it on lingering jealously, from whatever it was they used to have between them, but for some reason, it felt like more.

  It didn’t feel residual. It felt like something that lived inside of him. Something that had carved out a hollow to live in and had set up shop, for an undetermined length of time.

  It was more than not wanting anyone else to see her naked. Though the thought of her opening herself up like that, being that vulnerable for someone else, ate at him from the inside out.

  “I don’t know,” she was saying. “I’d hate to admit that Lex had a good idea. She’d never let me live it down but it might not be the worst nickname.”

  They turned the corner and headed to the next block where their hotel was located.

  For the first time, Logan lik
ened their situation the same way. Maybe their relationship had turned a corner. Maybe they were delving further from the surface and exploring each other’s depths.

  The only way to test it, would be to ask her something personal and see if she’d answer. She’d been open so far, but she usually closed up pretty quickly when things got too close.

  “What’s the deal with you and your sister?” he asked. “Why are you so close with Andy and Spencer but you and Alex don’t get along?”

  She shrugged and kept walking, and for a moment he thought he’d pushed the limit. That he’d gone too far and she wasn’t going to let him in and answer the question.

  “I want to say I don’t know,” she said quietly. She looked up at him, the sun shining on her face and making her blue eyes look like the water in the clearest woodland river. “For me, I always felt like I was the only one she could push around. She’d never push Andy the way she pushes me. They’re twins, so they have a weird connection and Andy’s too nice to be mean to anyway. Spencer never took any crap from anyone, Lex included. But me? I think she saw how much it hurt when she pushed at me…” She let the thought trail off.

  “And you think she liked making you hurt?” He didn’t see Alex as being that spiteful, but he’d learned from the Walkers that siblings were weird.

  “No,” she admitted, her brows draw down. “I don’t think she wanted to hurt me. We’re like a pack,” she explained.

  “Of dogs?”

  “Or wolves.” She laughed.

  “She-wolves.”

  “It’s a dominance thing,” she concluded, her voice still unsure. “I think.”

  He shook his head, looking down at her again. “Siblings are weird.”

  “You’re telling me.”

  6

  They’d spent two days in Cleveland, both of them surprised there was so much to do. On the whole, it didn’t sound like an exciting place, but they’d both found things that interested them.

  After the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, they’d visited a civil-war monument and a submarine memorial. Beth found it all fascinating, including their stop at Lake Erie. She’d seen her fair share of America’s coastlines, but not as much inland. Logan had initially told her it was too cold, but when she’d run out onto the pier in a blisteringly cold and sudden snow flurry, he’d followed with a small smile on his face.

  He was warming to her, she could feel it.

  He wasn’t nearly as angry as he had been and he was showing interest in her. Not sexual interest, though that was there lingering in the background, but interest in a way they hadn’t explored before. They kept things low key, eating in small restaurants and making quick food stops instead of anything noteworthy or pretentious. As they ate, they chatted about their interests and things they liked.

  She’d learned that Logan, like her, wasn’t much on watching movies. She’d received her fair share of crap from her friends in her lifetime for not being a movie watcher. She just couldn’t sit still for that long, getting bored too easily. She much preferred reading, but nonfiction was more to her liking than anything else. History was interesting, and she’d read plenty of information about the places they planned to go. Logan was more mechanical and he explained that he liked to read about how things worked and were built. He also had a soft spot for noir mysteries, he admitted.

  Those types of things generally went over her head, but it had been an eye-opening conversation, and she learned things she never would have before. Before she’d smartened up and admitted to herself that she loved Logan.

  As they pulled into South Bend, Indiana, Logan at the wheel, Beth felt a strange kind of contentment nestled inside her heart. She’d spent a long time keeping people at arm’s length, even her family. Sure, they knew where she was or what she was doing, but she never talked to them about what was going on inside or how she felt.

  She and Logan weren’t exactly reading each other’s diaries, but it was freeing to let herself go a little. For so long she’d worked hard to keep things to herself.

  With Logan, she was now working to let those things out. If he was going to love her back, he needed to know who she was.

  In some ways, she needed to know who she was. She’d been hiding for so long, she wasn’t sure she even knew anymore.

  It was fun relearning who she was and what she wanted. Maybe, it was just fun to be with Logan so many hours of the day.

  Sharing hotel rooms had been interesting. They kept to their own spaces, two beds in every room and no nighttime mischief. It was just as much a relief as it was frustrating, but they were getting closer.

  She wasn’t sure how he felt about it or if he felt it at all, and she wasn’t about to ask. She was just going to go with the flow and see where this thing led them.

  “I think it’s the next left,” she instructed after consulting the map on her phone.

  They’d both expressed interest in stopping by the Notre Dame campus while they were going through Indiana. The weather had turned warm for March and it seemed like a good day to stroll around and take in the sights.

  Logan turned into a lot that was empty for the weekend and parked. She watched him out of the corner of her eye as he got out of the car. He’d never ask for help, but she’d be damned if she wasn’t going to be right there if he ever needed her. So she watched, just in case.

  He unfolded himself easily though and stood, stretching his arms above his head. He looked mouthwatering in the waning sunlight, his thick arms high above his head as he moved around, loosening the muscles in his body.

  Driving was more exhausting than she’d realized, hours behind the wheel physically demanding. Now, when she looked at eighteen-wheelers on the highway, she marveled at the stamina of the drivers and finally understood, just barely, how taxing their occupation really was.

  The air was cooling off, but still smelled of warm grass and fresh trees, finally thawing out after a long winter.

  Logan used his fingers to comb his hair off to the side, longer than it was when they’d first met by a long way and not nearly navy regulation.

  “You need a haircut,” she commented with smile.

  He ran his fingers through his hair again. “I think I’ll leave it for awhile.” His eyes looked troubled when he said it and she tilted her head, taking in his vibe.

  “You should grow a beard,” she told him, finally voicing the thought that had been banging around her head since they’d had dinner at the casino.

  Now his hand ran down his face, his green eyes cutting to her. “You think?”

  “If you’re letting the hair go, might as well go all the way and do the beard, too. Hell, once we get somewhere warmer, we can camp out and you can pretend to be a mountain man or something.”

  She warmed at the sound of his laughter and when his eyes cleared, she felt downright triumphant.

  “Camping, huh?” he asked.

  “Well,” she conceded. “There has to be bathrooms, but other than that, I’m willing to help out if you need to play Paul Bunyan.”

  “Probably won’t be doing any lumberjacking,” he said, meeting her at the hood of the car and leading the way into the Notre Dame campus. “I don’t think they let you do that.”

  “We could do one of those insane hikes. Like that book Wild. What was that one? The Pacific Crest trail? Or we could hike the entire Appalachian trail.”

  “Definitely no bathrooms out there,” he commented.

  “No, but for a trip like that, I’d adjust. Those are once-in-a-lifetime kind of things. Camping at Old Pappy’s Grand Canyon Park and Ride isn’t worth braving the woods for.”

  Logan unconsciously looked down and frowned as they walked. “I don’t think I’m up for a trip like that. Who knows if I’ll ever be.”

  Beth felt a sudden rush of sadness for him and what must be an overwhelming sense of loss.

  “I’m not exactly prepared for a trip like that myself. I have a friend that did a super-long hike and even her training didn’t pre
pare her for what was out there. The weather was the worst or at least, that’s what she said.” She looked up at him, questions ping-ponging around her brain. “Are there different prosthetics you could get to be more comfortable doing something like that or would the one you have work?”

  When his eyes met hers, they were assessing. Searching for what, she didn’t know. She made sure her curiosity was the only thing he saw, burying that sadness he sometimes made her feel.

  “I could do it with this one,” he admitted. “I’m not sure I want to, but I probably could.”

  “Well, if you get the wild hair and need a hiking buddy, call me,” she said, turning to admire the architecture of the hulking building in front of them.

  The Basilica was enormous and truly majestic. It was what she thought of when she imagine Notre Dame, as probably most people did.

  “Wow,” she said simply.

  “Want to go in?”

  “No,” she murmured. “They probably wouldn’t even let me in.”

  “Who is they?” Logan laughed. “We can go in if you want.”

  She shook her head. “I just want to look at it.”

  He shrugged. “Fine with me.”

  After a quiet moment of admiration, they walked on, through trees that were just now considering growing their leaves back, tiny buds on the end of their branches. It was a meandering path they took, turning here and there and letting the walkway lead them wherever it may.

  They passed a narrow path that squeezed them past a science building and an art building. The campus was empty, save a few students here and there. She and Logan were off the beaten path, enjoying their exploration in near seclusion.

  She pointed to a building ahead of them. “This would be your jam if you went here,” she told him.

  “My jam?” He looked at the building and then conceded. “I bet they have some cool stuff in there.”

  Cool stuff. She wanted to laugh at his understatement. She bet Notre Dame’s engineering building held some mind-blowing gadgets and gizmos. She also bet, Logan would love to play with some of those things.