Chapter 92
Logan
“Macey.” I stand up and face her.
That entry revved me up. Physically and emotionally. I work to tamp down my intensity as Macey shifts so I can see her face. Her eyes are bright and alive like always, but her expression is…different.
“You know, I think this is the first time ever I have no damn clue what you’re thinking,” I say softly.
“You always say you know me better than you know yourself,” she teases me. “And that you don’t always like that fact, but it’s true.”
“Well, right now, I’m kind of flying blind.”
“Bullcrap,” she says. “Try harder, Wild.”
I smirk as I lean back against the cell. “Being surrounded by bars is kind of perfect for us. We always did like to shut out the world, didn’t we?”
She points at me. “That’s exactly what I was thinking. See? You still know me.”
An ache fills my throat. “I guess I do.”
She shoots me a second glance, and then hesitates before she steps closer to me like she’s made a decision. “And I still know you like the back of my hand.”
I blink in surprise. “What am I thinking right now?”
“You’re scared,” she says, cutting right to the heart of the matter. “About getting married.”
“How come I’m scared?” I feel like I’m daring her to call out the truth, but I can’t stop.
“For the same reason you were always so good at reading me. You never wanted to look at yourself as closely as you look at me. It scares the fuck out of you. So does the idea of being in a real relationship where you’ll be more vulnerable than you’ve ever had to be in your life.”
My face heats, but she’s off-base as much as she’s on. I can’t tell her that, though.
“Yes, I’ve always been afraid to be in a real relationship,” I say carefully. “Just like you have been.”
“What am I scared of?” she asks in a tone that tells me she actually wants to know. She wants something from me right now. And I do my best to give it to her.
“You’re scared to leave the dysfunctional Henwood nest.”
Her whiskey eyes widen. “I am?”
I put my hand on her cheek. “You’re afraid to stop running this bar and become an author because you think it will make you different from your family, so different you’ll no longer fit in with them.
So different maybe you’d actually want to get married.
And so different you won’t need a ghost to keep your heart beating. ”
Her breath is hot and smells like chocolate. I resist the incredible urge I have to grab her and kiss her on the mouth.
“You know what’s really scary?” she says quietly. “How you can hit the mark so effortlessly.”
I brush a stray hair behind her ear.
“I heard Gigi’s saving herself for marriage.” Macey stares at me. “Is that true?”
I swallow. “Yes.”
“So you haven’t had sex since…” Long pause. “Vegas?”
“Yes.”
She gently bangs the heel of her hand against her forehead. “None of my freaking business. Gosh. I need to learn to stay the fuck out of everyone else’s relationship, don’t I? It’s just I’m so fucking single. Sometimes I get…”
Long pause.
And I can’t help but bite.
“You get what?”
“I get…” Her voice drops to a whisper. “Lonely sometimes.”
My heart cracks in half.
She’s never told me that.
In all these years, Macey Henwood has never showed me her hand around how she feels about her choice to be alone.
I stare at her like I’m seeing her for the first time. “You’ve always said you hate marriage and everything about it, but now you’re saying…that you’re tired of having a quota for intimacy?”
“Once a year with no bed, no dates, nothing but a truck or a barn, and I’m out of there as fast as possible.” She sighs. “Sometimes it’s exhausting.”
And I forget everything but right here, right now. Macey is all I see. She’s all I know.
I don’t know who moves first—if it’s me or if it’s her. But somehow, we end up so close together I can hear her breath coming in short gasps.
I wrap my arm around her waist and pull her against me.
I suck in a breath as her lips come so close to mine I could trace them with my tongue.
Her hands are hot, and their heat seeps through the back of my shirt.
Her breasts press up against my chest, and as my jeans make contact with her belly, she no doubt feels the proof that her diary entry broke through the wall I’ve had to put between us all summer.
I’m so turned on I have no rational thought in my head.
“You drive me so freaking crazy, Logan,” she says as I stare at her pink, sexy mouth. “So freaking out of my mind.”
I shift my gaze from her mouth to her eyes, studying her like I can decipher her heart. Her lips are a fraction away from touching mine, her tongue tantalizingly close to tasting…
When Mr. Henwood bursts into the room, Macey leaps back like a fire alarm just went off, and I exhale, realizing I’d been holding my breath.
“What is going on in here?” her father asks. “No one should be in the cell!”
“Riley and Blake locked us in here,” Macey says. “They thought they were being funny.”
“Good Lord.” Mr. Henwood shakes his head. “Let me get you out.”
As soon as he unlocks the cell, Macey stumbles out like she can’t get away from me fast enough.
I thank her father and make for the exit. Within a minute, I’m on my motorcycle and peeling away in the direction of the fishing hole.
Jesus. I almost kissed her.
I pull up to the fishing hole and sit by the water.
And my phone rings.
I would let it go to voicemail, but it’s Luke.
“Hey,” I say, trying to sound normal. “Everything okay?”
“Don’t you think I should be asking you that question?” he says.
I can hear commotion in the background. “Where are you?”
“In my office in the barn.” He curses. “The place is a mess.”
“You need help,” I tell him. “You’ve needed it for a while.”
“I know. But I hate inviting a stranger into the family business.”
“An assistant would be there to assist, not screw things up,” I say. “Maybe then you could actually have an hour to yourself now and again.”
“Maybe. So.” He lowers his voice. “You sound off. Did Macey find out?”
“No. I almost screwed everything up though.”
“You kissed her.”
“Not quite.”
“You almost kissed her.”
“I used to be okay with the way things were,” I say without planning on it.
“What do you mean?”
“Our…arrangement. It worked for us. Casual and only once a year or so.”
“And now?”
“Now, it feels like a lifetime ago. Ever since Vegas, things felt like they sped up a thousand-fold.”
“Things changed,” he says. “That makes sense.”
Now every single time I see Macey, I want to kiss her and make her mine again. Bring her up against a wall, or a desk, and run my tongue over her soft skin that always smells like wildflowers. Bury myself inside her and hear her cry out in bliss.
Every. Single. Time.
“I guess it does. But the timing is shit. With what I’m in the middle of…”
“Just a few more months, and you’ll be able to give her everything,” Luke says to me. “You’re doing the right thing, Logan. It may not be the conventional solution, but it’s the cowboy one. Which means it’ll work.”
I look out at the water. Just a few more months of this misery. Gigi and I will exchange vows, she’ll turn twenty, and then we’re done.
Then I can go to Macey and tell her how I feel. That I’ll take her any way she’ll have me. I always would. And I always will.
“Remember why you’re doing this.” Luke’s reminder comes through the line loud and clear. “For Macey.”
“Right.”
For Macey.
And I have to keep it together until then. Remember why I’m doing this in the first place. For her. And that’s always worth it. Even if I lose her in the end, she deserves to be free.
Because nobody deserves to be happy and to have someone looking out for them more than Macey Henwood does.
I’m not trying to rescue her. I’m just trying to make sure she doesn’t have the chance to rescue herself taken away.