Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 136507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 683(@200wpm)___ 546(@250wpm)___ 455(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 136507 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 683(@200wpm)___ 546(@250wpm)___ 455(@300wpm)
I stifle my groan. Apparently, Jon tells his wife things. “Thanks. It’s been a long weekend, and I could use some friendly faces.” It’s not a lie, even though it’s not my motivation for seeing Logan again so soon.
Annie’s brow pinches. “Any news on that poor girl?”
I shake my head. “We had a lead that fell through. We’re looking, though.” Not hard enough for Brad Whitley, but I can’t fault him for pushing. If it were Isla, they wouldn’t be able to get rid of me.
“Get these damn dogs outta here!” Holt booms from the kitchen.
“I’d better get in there before there’s an incident. Thomas, set another place at the table, please.” Annie whisks away as quickly as she came, hollering back, “You’re the one who let them inside!”
I smile at the familiar commotion.
“Is Isla coming too?” Thomas holds a fresh plate that he fished out of the antique buffet—Logan’s great-grandmother’s—that has miraculously survived the generations of rambunctious children.
“No, she’s with her father tonight.”
His shoulders sink with disappointment. I think everyone’s figured out that Thomas has a crush on Isla, except for Thomas.
“Yeah, thanks for sending Dillon here yesterday, by the way. That was fun,” Logan says, his tone dry.
“I didn’t have a choice.” And I didn’t anticipate Isla having her phone on Do Not Disturb. That’s unheard of. “Hopefully he was civil?”
“Yeah. We had a very civil conversation.” Logan’s smirk tells me a different story.
But none of that matters today. “Listen, can I talk to you for a moment?” I don’t think I need to add the “in private” part.
His chest heaves with a reluctant sigh. Turning to Macy, he says, “I gotta put you down now, kid.”
After a brief pause and with her thumb stuck in her mouth, she nods.
He sets her on her socked feet, tousling her fine blond locks with his hand. “Go and wash up.”
I’m hit with a visual of what Logan would look like as a father and my heart aches. Will he ever have kids? I’m sure he’ll find someone who doesn’t care about his record, where his past doesn’t limit their future.
I wish that for him.
And yet the thought of him with another woman, of sharing a life with someone, opens a wound deep inside me.
His Adam’s apple bobs with a hard swallow. “Okay, let’s talk about that awful mistake some more.”
I’m about to nod toward the front porch when Annie sweeps in with a heaping platter of turkey. “Sit! Before the mashed potatoes get cold! Nothing worse than cold potatoes.”
“Or cold gravy.” Sarah follows closely with a ceramic boat brimming with it.
Everyone descends upon the table as if starved, and our window of opportunity is gone.
“Can we please do this after?” Logan asks quietly.
This isn’t what he thinks it is, but I don’t want to hold up dinner. Knowing Holt and Annie, they’ll skewer anyone who touches their fork before everyone’s seated. They stand on that tradition. “Yeah. Okay.”
We find our places, Logan conveniently beside me as if orchestrated that way.
I’m acutely aware of his body heat, of the corded muscles in his forearms, of his hands, remembering how they felt on me.
“Did you hear about Logan’s heroic morning yesterday?” Annie passes a dish of glazed carrots around. “The woman he pulled from Lake Temagami.”
“What? No, I haven’t.” We’ve been so focused on looking for Holly, there hasn’t been much talk of anything else. “What happened?”
“Basically what she said.” Logan stabs at a hunk of turkey breast with the serving fork. “Went fishing with Jack and Jameson. We saw a woman floating in the lake and I pulled her out. They airlifted her to North Bay. I don’t know if she made it. She had a pulse, but it was weak.” His answer is factual, unenthusiastic. Reluctant, even.
“That water had to be, what, eight or nine degrees Celsius at most?” Holt chirps. “But Logan didn’t think twice about diving in. He gave her CPR until the paramedics arrived. If she did live, it’s ’cause of him.” His pride is unmistakable.
“That’s … incredible.” I wish my father were here to hear this. He often mused about what went on in Logan’s head that night to make him complicit and that how people behave when no one’s watching tells you a lot about who they truly are. It felt like his soft way of telling me that maybe it wasn’t just poor judgment on Logan’s part.
But I knew Logan, and I didn’t buy it.
If not for the focus on Holly, I would have heard about this already. A report would need to be filed, and Logan’s name would have caused a stir.
I reach over to squeeze his forearm—for comfort or simply an excuse to touch him again despite my best senses. Likely both. “I’ll find out what happened to her.”
“You don’t have to. I know you’ve got a lot goin’ on.” His body is tense beneath my palm, but when he meets my gaze, I see the same hopeful longing from last night.