Chapter 23
Logan
I’m a drongo. A total flaming galah who’s well and truly cooked it. What kind of grade-A idiot kisses a girl right before he’s about to be emotionally flayed and left for dead, knowing full well that tiny taste won’t be enough?
The kind who knows that as soon as he kisses Savannah Blair like he wants to, he won’t have any rational thoughts running through his head except finding a wall to kiss her against. Or a counter. Basically any solid surface will do.
Anything except Lola Shafer’s front step.
How am I supposed to act normal now? I want more with this woman.
I want forever.
Dazed and not entirely in control of my faculties, I reluctantly drop my hands from Savannah’s hips and take her hand instead, forcing myself to look away from the tender look in her eyes so it can’t convince me to turn around and leave before everything changes.
If I don’t do this now, it’ll never happen, and I can’t spend my life driven by hurt and regret.
Each step toward the door is harder than the last, but somehow I make it to the porch and rap a weak knock against the wood.
Savannah gives my hand a squeeze, and her support feels like it might be enough to hold me together through anything. “Ready?” she asks.
“No,” I croak back.
The door opens, and I hold my breath.
Lola sees Savannah first and smiles, wrinkles forming around her eyes. Eyes like mine. “Savannah, hon, you know you don’t need to knock. Come…” Her smile drops when her eyes jump to me, the color draining from her face and leaving her trembling. “Oh.”
“Lola,” Savannah says gently, “this is—”
“Logan.” Lola takes half a step back, and I don’t miss the way her hand grips the door, ready to slam it shut.
I can’t let her do that. Not now that I’m here. “I know you don’t want to talk.” My voice is hoarse, rasping from my dry throat. “I’m not here for money or a place in your life. I just need to know.”
“Know?” she repeats weakly.
I nod. “Why.”
Tears fill her eyes, and she glances behind her. The house is quiet, but that doesn’t mean no one else is here. The boys could be sleeping in. Her husband might be in the other room. I desperately hope she’s here alone.
“Please,” I beg. “That’s all I want.”
Lola looks from me to Savannah, then down at our clasped hands, and hurt flashes across her features. Is she feeling cornered? Betrayed?
I step forward, realizing my mistake when Lola shrinks back.
I’m too big and imposing to not frighten her when she’s already on her guard, so I need to give her space.
And I need to make sure she understands that none of this is Savannah’s fault.
“I met Savannah a few months ago,” I say as gently as I can.
“I…” Meeting Savannah’s wary gaze, I frown and decide to stick to the truth.
“I forced her into a deal. If she got me a conversation with you, I’d help her with her business.
She never wanted to be in the middle of this. I came here on my own.”
Though I hate it, I slowly let Savannah’s hand drop from mine. “Go,” I tell her quietly. “We’ll be okay.”
Hesitating, she looks at me for a long time before her gaze shifts to Lola. “I’m here to make your meals if you still want me to. It’s okay if you don’t.”
Lola swallows, then nods without looking away from me.
Touching my elbow briefly, Savannah heads back to her car to grab her supplies.
Lola opens the door a little wider. “Do you want to come in? I don’t have a lot of time. My, uh…” She pales slightly. “My husband is golfing, but I have two boys. They’ll be home soon.”
Part of me wants to tell her that I’ve met them. Spoken to them. But I’m terrified that if she learns I crossed that line, she’ll shut the door on me and never give me the conversation I need. If she asks, I won’t lie, but I’ll keep that truth to myself for now.
“I won’t stay long,” I promise and take a tentative step inside. Then another.
Lola wanders to the nearest armchair and sinks into it, leaving the door open.
A moment later, Savannah comes inside and pauses halfway through closing the door as she takes in Lola’s trembling frame. “Are you sure it’s okay that I’m here?” she asks gently.
Exhaling shakily, Lola nods again. She waits until Savannah disappears deeper into the house, and then she clasps her hands in her lap. Her voice is thin as she asks, “You…and Savannah?”
I sit on the couch across from her and nod, allowing a quick smile because I can’t help it. “She’s brilliant. Inspiring. And she puts me in my place more often than I’d like. I never planned to fall for her, but…” But that’s all I’ll say until I can say it to Savannah first.
Lola processes that, squeezing her hands. Her eyes trace every inch of me, and I wish I knew how to read her so I could guess what she sees. Prepare myself for the words that squeak out of her. “You look so much like him.”
My heart slams into my ribcage, catching my breath in my lungs. “Braden?”
She nods. “He thought I was lying. When I told him I was pregnant.” The words seem to cost her, and she drops her eyes to her hands.
“Accused me of wanting attention because he was graduating, and I was only a junior.” As tears fill her eyes, she shrugs.
“I was seventeen, and he completely cut me out of his life when he realized I told the truth.”
I guessed as much, that my biological father chose not to take responsibility, but hearing it from Lola feels different. I can almost imagine her as a teenager, scared and overwhelmed and heartbroken. I breathe out a curse against the man, glad I haven’t tried to reach out to him yet.
Lola breathes out a laugh. “Yeah. He was awful.”
“You didn’t…” I swallow the rest of the words, not willing to speak them out loud. She carried me to term when she could have taken another way out. So I try a different question, one that sticks in my throat halfway through. “Did you ever want…”
Her smile becomes sad as her tears slip onto her cheeks.
“I wanted you from the start.” That loose piece inside me shifts, less painful now.
Like it’s settling into place. “My parents thought it was a bad idea for me to keep you, especially when Braden refused to accept that he had responsibility. But every time I felt you move, I…” Her hand drifts to her stomach as her gaze grows distant.
“I went to every appointment by myself. My mother was angry, my father was embarrassed, and I had to bring a doctor’s note to school whenever I had to miss class.
I tried so hard to keep my grades up, but sometimes I was so sick that I couldn’t make it through the school day.
I fell asleep doing homework. I was shunned by my friends, ridiculed by my teachers, and I felt so completely alone. ”
Something tickles my cheek. I brush it away, surprised to see my fingers come away wet. I’m crying. I haven’t cried in years.
“I took the bus to the hospital when I went into labor,” Lola says, still talking to her lap.
“Barely made it in time. You came so fast, ready to face the world. And when I held you for the first time and saw how small and fragile you were, I…” She looks up, and her anguish hits me hard as she speaks right to me.
“I knew I would never be able to give you the life you deserved. Who was I to raise a kid? I was scared, and alone, and I didn’t know what to do. ”
“So you let someone else take over.”
Lola nods.
I swear under my breath, and silence settles between us, broken only by the soft sounds of Savannah in the kitchen.
This is what I wanted to hear. Of all the different ways the story could have gone, this is the best case scenario for me.
So why does it still hurt? I drop my gaze to the floor, rubbing my chest and trying to breathe.
“I’m so sorry I wasn’t stronger,” Lola whispers.
Startled, I look at her again. “What?”
“I should have kept you.” She sniffles. “I should have tried harder to find a way to—”
“My parents are great.” Wincing at the same time Lola does, I berate myself for speaking without thinking.
If that was supposed to reassure her… I groan.
“That’s not… I’m saying I’ve had a good life.
I guess I’m saying thank you.” Do I mean that?
Maybe. “Patrick and Nancy, the couple who adopted me, they’re the best. Couldn’t have asked for better parents. ”
“Oh.” She bites her lip, dropping her chin. “That’s good.”
Silence falls again, as awkward as before, and I scramble to find something to say that won’t hurt as much as ‘the people who raised me did better than you could have.’ Eventually, I settle on, “They couldn’t have their own kids.
” When Lola looks at me, I offer her an uncomfortable smile.
“My mum tells me all the time how glad she was that they were in the right place at the right time to take me home with them. And she…” This might be a bad thing to say, but I want to be as transparent as I can be.
“She’s the reason I’m here. They both are. They didn’t want me to always wonder.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t let you in when you first reached out,” Lola says weakly. “I never thought… I couldn’t have expected…”
“I should have found a better way,” I admit, rubbing the back of my neck.
She chuckles, shaking her head. “How? I don’t think anyone can ease into something like that. But my reaction could have been better. I was so ashamed after I gave you up, and I never told…”
“Your family doesn’t know,” I guess when she can’t finish her sentence. She shakes her head, and I nod in understanding. It’s the sort of secret I would take to my grave because sharing it would put a spotlight on my mistakes. “I reckon I’d do the same thing in your shoes.”
“Was it that DNA test that helped you find me?”
“Yeah.”
Lola sighs. “I think part of me knew you were bound to find me if I took the test. Allen, my husband—he got me the kit as an anniversary present. I don’t talk to my parents, so he thought I might like to know more of my history.
Maybe, if I had been honest with him, he wouldn’t have pushed me to take the test. Or…
” Her lips lift in a sardonic smile. “Maybe I would have found the courage to find you first. I’ve always wondered who you grew up to be.
And look at you.” She waves a hand over me.
I can barely breathe, but I can’t decide if that’s because I’m reeling from her words or because my chest is painfully tight. “You knew my name,” I choke out. “When you opened the door. I never told…”
She looks down at her knees. “I got a notification too. I think seeing the man you’ve become helped me justify ignoring you. You’re clearly doing well without me, so what reason would you have to reach out?”
“I needed to know I wasn’t a mistake you threw away.” That isn’t something I meant to speak out loud. I haven’t let myself acknowledge the thought before now, even if it’s always been at the back of my mind.
Tears pool in her eyes again, and she surprises me by leaping forward and sitting next to me on the couch.
“Oh, Logan. You were the one good thing I did in one of the worst years of my life. Letting you go was the only thing I ever did right with you. You were never a mistake. I am so proud of the life you’ve made for yourself. ”
With that, the loose piece of my soul slides neatly into place.
And I feel whole.