Chapter Twenty-Five
T ris wasn’t sure if she was glad she’d stopped at Kolaches, the bakery, or not. But as usual, she hadn’t been able to resist the scent of fresh-baked cinnamon rolls. She was a bit nervous about tomorrow, and the ceremony the town council had asked her to speak at, and decided it would take something that luscious to calm her nerves.
So she headed for the door, and had walked in on Lark. Which had led to sitting at one of the small outside tables, consuming one of those luscious rolls with the woman she’d wanted to talk with again anyway. Sort of.
And with her usual perceptiveness, Lark started it. “How’s Logan?”
“I…okay, I think.” She grimaced, thankful they were the only ones here at the moment. “I had to apologize to him yesterday. I got upset with him for focusing so much on his…beginning, instead of the amazing guy he is now.”
Lark studied her for a moment. “Can I deduce from that that you know more about his history now?”
She nodded. “He told me. About how they found him.”
“The dumpster, you mean?” Tris gave her a surprised look. Lark smiled. “If you already know, then I’m not giving anything away. And—” her smile turned a bit wry “—after we spoke I confess, I did a little digging. I don’t know a lot more, and what I do know is not pretty.”
“I don’t know how a toddler found in a dumpster could be anything else. But if there’s more you can tell me, I’d appreciate it.”
“Maybe a bit. It was in The Defender , and there was a lot of public buzz about it back then it seems. Everybody knew. Even before all you had to do was a web search, Last Stand’s grapevine was up and running wild about the child found out on Yellow Rose Road at the construction site.”
“Was he…hurt?”
Lark nodded again. “Not badly then, but from the bruises and scars, regularly, for a long time. No question it was abuse. Maybe since he was born.”
Tris fought down a wave of nausea. An image of Logan’s face formed in her mind, and the scar she’d noticed running along the left side of his jaw. Was that one of the marks he carried, from that time? Had it not been a fractious horse as she’d always assumed, but some hideous, ugly human who had given him that mark to carry?
“Did they ever find who abandoned him?”
Lark shook her head, her expression sad. “No. Of course, searching for such things wasn’t as easy then as it is now. Which brings me to the one other thing I know, which is that when he was older, when that kind of search got more efficient through DNA, they offered him the chance to try and find at least his mother. He said no.”
Tris let out a long, pained breath. “I don’t blame him.”
“Nor do I.”
“She—they—don’t deserve him anyway.”
For some reason that made Lark smile. “I can think of someone who does deserve the man he’s become, though.”
Tris felt heat rising in her cheeks. Sometimes Lark was too darned observant. Or maybe she was just too darned obvious.
She mulled over what she’d learned as she walked on toward the library, her original destination. It seemed a bit busy for a midday Thursday, but as much as she treasured the quiet she also liked to see people here, using this marvelous resource. An up-to-date, fully connected facility in an old, Texas stone building just made her feel good. Like things could grow and change and adapt without losing what they’d originally been.
But she seemed to be having trouble focusing today, and after chatting with the young man covering the desk for a moment, spent more time than usual searching for something that grabbed her interest.
At least, something that would keep her from endlessly going over that horrible story Lark had told her. No wonder Logan was a bit prickly, and a lot withdrawn. He had every reason and right to be.
It was sometime later that she looked up, and her breath caught when she realized who had come in.
Something had changed.
Tris had no idea what it was, but Logan was…different. Not happier, really, but…lighter. As if a burden had been lifted from him. Or he’d gotten good news. She could tell even from here, a library aisle away.
She watched him, covertly, telling herself it was silly to think that that odd tickle she’d felt at the back of her neck a moment ago had been because of him coming into the building. But she had to admit she’d felt nothing like it before, and a half-dozen people had come and gone already while she’d been here.
Not to mention he looked…great. In a pair of black jeans that looked almost new, a green knit shirt that made his equally green eyes seem to glow, and shiny black boots that showed none of the wear and tear of his work, he looked like a guy who had taken some care. She wondered if he had an appointment with a new client or something.
Or maybe a date?
She didn’t want to think about that. Because the emotion that jabbed at her at the thought felt like nothing less than jealousy. She felt almost…possessive about him, and she had no right.
He paused at the desk, spoke briefly to the assistant librarian there—Joey, the woman had told her, was at her obstetrician’s office this morning—who smiled and nodded at whatever he’d said. He turned and scanned the rest of the library. She knew he couldn’t see her, since she’d been watching through the narrow space between the eye-level books in front of her and the shelf above. Yet, decision apparently made, he started toward her.
As if he’d guessed where she would be.
Well, the history section. No big surprise there.
Still, when he came to a halt in front of her, she couldn’t help but smile at him. It was when he smiled back that she seemed to forget how to breathe.
Yes, something had definitely changed. She’d never seen this kind of openness, this obvious cheer in Logan’s face and demeanor.
“You look like someone who got good news,” she said.
“I did, in a way,” he said.
“I’m glad.” She beat back the urge to ask him what it was. “Looking for something?” She gestured at the bookshelves she knew better than most, wondering what he was here for this time.
“Already found it,” he said. And he was looking at her.
“Logan.” It was all she could manage to get out.
“Can we go someplace quiet to talk?”
She refrained from pointing out they were in a library. She had the feeling he’d meant private as much as quiet. Or maybe she was just hoping that was what he’d meant. She steadied herself, took a deep breath, then the plunge.
“My place is only a block away.”
She knew he knew that, since he had, in fact, been there once before. Sort of. He hadn’t wanted to come in then. She’d told herself it was because they were ready to leave to go see the Mustangs of Las Colinas . Then she’d wondered if he just didn’t want to get any more personal with her than he already had.
A memory suddenly struck her, triggered by the thought of the mustang sculptures. If they went to her place, he’d see the photo. He’d see it, because she’d had it printed, and it was propped up on the kitchen counter, where she could look at it any time. She’d taken a lot of pictures that day, the running, splashing horses from all distances and angles. But only one of the pictures so far was one she wanted to look at all the time. It was of one of the babies of the small herd, who seemed too small to be making the leap off the edge into the water below. And beside the bronze foal crouched Logan, one hand gently touching the little one’s flank, as if he were a live one who needed his calming touch.
The moment she’d captured that image she’d known it would be special. She hadn’t counted on the strange feeling it gave her. But she knew she would treasure it, as a reminder of that day, that visit, and the man who, at the time, she’d doubted would be in her life for long.
And here they were, almost a month later, heading for…she wasn’t sure what.
She told herself not to get her hopes up. He could just be wanting to talk about Jeremy, or Jackson, or something else he didn’t want to broadcast to Last Stand in general, or risk it getting to the grapevine and thus known far and wide.
He left his truck—was there any private vehicle in Last Stand that was more recognizable than that truck?—there and they started walking toward her house. Her half of the duplex, anyway. She had new neighbors in the other half as of last week, and they were taking their time settling in. The noise at all hours was beginning to get on her nerves, and she was starting to worry that it wasn’t just settling in, that they were just…noisy. That would teach her not to worry about the quiet, because now that it seemed to be gone, maybe permanently, she craved nothing more.
She didn’t think she imagined that moment of hesitation before he stepped through her doorway. She saw him looking around the main room, and kept watching, curious to see where his gaze would snag. He seemed to notice her office alcove first, then the portrait of the wall of Jackson, Leah and Jeremy. She saw the slightly sad smile that curved his mouth.
“I’m going to have to get a new photo,” she said quietly. “So I always know he’s as happy now as he was then.”
The sadness in his expression faded, and when he met her gaze he nodded. “They are happy.”
“Yes.” A smile curved her mouth, as it did every time she thought of how true that was. “Living proof,” she added in a tone just above a whisper, more to herself than him. Proof that it could happen. But then, Jackson had always been braver than she was, plus he had Jeremy to be worried about, so it was little wonder he’d moved on. While she herself had languished in her unchanging life, the move to this place the biggest change she’d managed on her own.
At least, until now.
Even as she thought it, a loud thump followed by a child’s squeal came from the adjoined unit, seeming only slightly muffled by the wall between. She rolled her eyes.
“Maybe we should have gone to your place,” she said wryly as she walked into the kitchen. “I envy you the quiet.”
When she glanced at him, he was staring at her again, but this time as if in shock. “You…do?”
“Absolutely. My new neighbors are a bit loud. And there’s a lot of local traffic, relatively speaking. Plus, there are times when I come home from a tough day amid dozens of energetic, noisy kids and I’d give anything for that kind of peace and…separation.”
“I would have thought it was too isolated for you.”
“If I want to be around people I know where to find them,” she said dryly. “Coffee? There’s some left in the pot but it’s a couple of hours old, so I can put on fresh—”
She stopped when he shook his head. “Two hours old sounds about right.”
She got down two mugs, and was filling them when he said, in a tone that seemed half statement, half question, “You’d need a lot nicer place than mine, though.”
She looked up, saw he was looking around her living room again.
“No,” she said. “This decor is just…window dressing. Bought from a picture on a website. At the time all I wanted was to get away from the painful memories the old house held.”
She set the mugs on the counter, got her creamer out of the fridge for her own coffee, but remembering he took it black didn’t offer it to him. But she set it within reach in case her home brew wasn’t to his liking.
“If I’d been thinking straight, I would have realized I needed more privacy.”
“I definitely have that.”
He took a sip. He didn’t grimace or gag, so she guessed it must have been acceptable. Or his tolerance was high, because it was a bit too strong now for her. But a little more creamer would fix that.
For a long moment silence reigned, although his words were echoing in her head. Not the ones about wanting to talk, although that had ratcheted her tension up a bit. No, it was his answer to her question that had her rattled.
Looking for something?
Already found it.
And she couldn’t deny that he’d been looking steadily—no, intensely—at her when he’d said it.