Logan (Federal Protection Agency #9)

Chapter 22

CHAPTER 22

Clay

Dominic’s place was getting new guests. This wasn’t strange, people were always coming and going from the halfway house, but the new arrivals were apparently younger than usual. Dominic was one of the few halfway houses that employed full-time staff as well as volunteers, and he even had a few employees that were specially trained to care for young kids. This was exactly why he was expanding his facility into an apartment complex as well, so he could better separate the younger kids from the older adults, and so everyone could get more specialized care, but until the expansion was complete, he needed all the help he could get.

The actual staff were busy getting ready for the new arrivals and planning how to care for them, so I’d volunteered to get the room ready.

It wasn’t much. The room already had a bunkbed, a double closet, and a pair of matching desks. I just needed to check everything to make sure it was clean and dust free, and make up the beds with sheets and pillows so they were ready for use. The process only took me about an hour.

Just as I was fluffing the last pillow into place, Leslie poked her head through the doorway.

“The new arrivals are here. They’re downstairs talking to Dominic now.”

I smoothed out the sheets one last time, then followed her downstairs.

Before I even reached the bottom of the stairs, I could already hear Dominic’s laughter. He had a natural affinity with children and was no doubt already making them feel right at home.

Just as I suspected, when I reached the bottom of the stairs, the first thing I saw was Dominic kneeling on the floor with a boy and a girl, playing with them and making them laugh right along with him. The kids’ social service worker was standing beside them, calmly explaining something I couldn’t hear over the sound of the kid’s joy. Whatever she was saying must have been serious, because there was a frown on her face, but she didn’t seem angry. Just very focused.

Then I noticed someone else standing behind the social service worker, and my heart stopped.

“Logan!”

My shouting caused everyone in the room to jump in surprise, but I didn’t care as I raced down the last few steps and threw myself at the man I hadn’t seen in person for a year. I wrapped my arms around him and barely resisted the urge to wrap my legs around him too and cling like a baby koala to a tree.

Logan was a few inches taller than me, so when he held me, my feet didn’t quite touch the ground. His arms didn’t even tremble as they supported my weight.

“Clay?”

His greeting was surprisingly uncertain, and I pulled back just enough to see the bewildered look on his face.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I just…” He looked around the room like he was only just seeing it for the first time. “I wasn’t expecting to see you.”

“Oh.” I released my grip from around him enough for my feet to slide back to the floor. The excitement I’d felt over his sudden appearance fizzled but didn’t completely fade.

There were at least a dozen people in the front room of the facility, and every single one of them was watching us with curiosity. Even the two new kids stared at me with their big eyes.

Embarrassed, I tried to back away, but Logan’s grip on my shoulders didn’t let me retreat more than a single step.

“What, um… what are you doing here?”

Logan nodded toward the kids that were still huddled near Dominic. “These two needed a ride from Louisiana to Maryland, so I volunteered my services.”

“You drove them here?” I eyed the kids again and swallowed hard around the ball of jealousy that swelled up in my throat. I was the one that Logan had driven across the country to save. Now, these two little kids had replaced me.

Logan had a job to do. He was moving on to helping other victims. I should be happy about that, but it just made me feel bitter.

“Actually, I flew them here,” Logan said, completely oblivious to the spiteful thoughts stabbing inside my brain at that very moment. “Faster than a car ride, and cheaper than buying plane tickets last minute.”

“Oh, you can fly a plane?” I tried to sound upbeat and invested in the conversation, but my words felt wrong on my tongue, and I was certain my tone sounded off.

“Yeah. I told you about my time in the Air Force. I’m still licensed to fly, and an old service buddy loaned me his plane.”

Looking around the room, he finally noticed everyone staring at us. “Hey. I think we’re causing a distraction. Why don’t you show me around the place, and we’ll let everyone else get the kids settled in.”

Dominic’s place didn’t look that big from the outside, but it was deceptive. The building went a lot further back than it seemed from the front. It was not only a halfway house, but was also a pseudo-orphanage for young kids with nowhere else to go.

I showed Logan around, focusing on the facilities that the kids he’d brought would probably need. There was in-house therapy, an on-call doctor, and even tutors who came in regularly. I’d used the tutors myself to help get my education back on track, so I could attest to their quality.

In turn, Logan told me about his most recent mission. He couldn’t disclose all the details, but it was enough for me to get an idea of what had happened.

He was still fighting to bring down the trafficking ring that had kidnapped me, which was turning out to be a lot bigger and more powerful than I’d originally known. He’d not only caught a group of kidnappers in the act, but also pulled those two kids out of the back of a van and saved them from being spirited away.

My teeth ground together so hard my jaw ached.

Why were they lucky enough to be saved when I wasn’t?

Where had all this effort been when I was taken?

My brother had been forced to use his own time and money to hire private investigators to look for me, and I was only found after my captors had already let me go.

A monstrosity of a playground stood at the very center of the building, surrounded with walls like a courtyard. It had been built to look like a massive tree, with the playground built in like a tree house.

Logan guided me over to the swings that hung from one of the branches, convincing me to sit in one of the plastic seats before claiming the other for himself.

The structure was made for kids, so our knees came up ridiculously high when our feet were planted on the ground. Logan stretched his legs out over the ground and crossed his ankles as he swayed back and forth on the swing.

“Hey, Clay? Are you really all right? You seem… more subdued than usual.”

Rather than copy his posture, I stood on the seat of the swing and gripped the chains in both hands to keep my balance.

“To be honest, I’m jealous.”

Standing on the seat while he was sitting had the advantage of putting my head far above his, so I didn’t have to look directly into his eyes. It almost gave me the courage to admit everything I’d been feeling.

Almost.

The words were right on the tip of my tongue, but at the last second, I chickened out and swallowed them again.

Instead, I tapped his shoulder with my foot and adopted a joking tone.

“I’ve never ridden in an airplane before. If you’ve got access to a plane, how come you’ve never offered to take me for a flight?”

“Okay.”

His easy answer nearly knocked me off the swing, and chains rattled as I clung to them to stay upright.

“What?”

Without even looking, I knew Logan was smiling up at me.

“I’ve got to fly the social worker back when she’s done here, but it’s going to take several days to get the kids settled into their new place, so I’m stuck here for the time being. If you want to go for a flight, then sure, I can take you. Just say when.”

Climbing down from the swing, I sat on the seat properly instead, so this time my eye line was equal with his.

“When.” My joke went over his head and he looked at me with the confusion of a puppy dog that didn’t understand why its treat had disappeared. “You said ‘say when’. So… when.”

It was a lame joke, but once Logan understood what I meant, he laughed anyway.

“You want to go right now? Sure. Just let me get checked into my hotel and I’ll come back to pick you up in about an hour.”

When we left the playground, the hallways were suspiciously absent of people. I suspected that everyone else was keeping out of our way to give us space. I would have been embarrassed, but I was too grateful for the illusion of privacy.

At the front door, just before he left, Logan turned back to me and grabbed my hand. “Since you were honest with me, I should be honest as well. I lied to you earlier.”

My hand clenched tight around his.

He’d lied?

Was he not happy to see me, or had he changed his mind about taking me on his plane?

Still holding onto my hand, his other hand rubbed nervously at the back of his head. “I didn’t know for certain that you were going to be here, but I also wasn’t surprised. I just had a feeling that if I made this trip, I’d run into you. It was part of the reason I volunteered. I hope that’s not weird.” Pink colored his cheeks at the admission.

My heartbeat was still in my ears when I bumped our shoulders together.

“It’s not weird. I’m glad you wanted to see me.” I flashed him a smile.

With his confession out in the open, Logan seemed much happier, and walked away from the building with smile on his lips and a bounce in his step.

I watched him leave, wishing I could feel as carefree as he looked, but my own thoughts still weighed heavily on me.

He’d said I was honest with him, but that was a lie. I hadn’t been honest at all. If I were truly honest, I would have told him the real reason for my jealousy. I didn’t care about the plane ride. I just wanted his care and attention all to myself.

Logan wasn’t the only one I was lying to. I’d been lying to myself for a year now. Every time he called me, and we spent hours just discussing our day, every time I felt a thrill just from hearing his name, I lied to myself about my feelings for him. I insisted that what I felt was friendship, and anything else was just gratitude from the way he helped me.

Ever since my disastrous date with Kenneth that lie had slowly been eroding.

I couldn’t keep lying to myself. What I felt for Logan was beyond friendship. I was in love with him, and worse, I was attracted to him.

The thought nearly made me laugh out loud.

Who would want someone like me lusting after them?

My desires had no value. If anything, I’d just end up tainting him.

He’d surely leave and never come back if he knew the way I thought about him sometimes, and how the feeling of his arms around me made me feel.

I would just have to keep these thoughts to myself. Our friendship was too important to be spoiled by my impure thoughts.

My hand felt cold despite the summer heat. I was already missing his touch after only a few minutes apart.

This was going to be a very difficult vow to keep.