Chapter 10
TEN
Vivian
Five Years Later…
The porch creaks softly beneath the rocking chair as I push it back and forth with the tip of my sandal.
For a long moment, I sit there and breathe it all in.
The mountain air is cool and clean, carrying the scent of pine and damp earth.
Late afternoon sunlight filters through the trees, turning everything gold.
In the distance, birds chirp, the wind rustles through the leaves, and from somewhere behind the cabin comes the steady thunk of Logan working in his shop.
It’s my favorite sound in the world.
Five years ago, this place terrified me. Now, it’s the place that taught me what peace feels like.
I glance down at the laptop balanced on my knees and finish typing in the last number on the spreadsheet in front of me.
Saving the file, I close the lid with a small sigh of satisfaction.
Logan’s business books are done for the month, and the expense report for Midnight Haven is almost finished.
I still need to double-check one reimbursement and make sure the emergency housing fund transfer went through, but most of it is done.
Not bad for a Thursday afternoon.
“Mommy!”
I look up to see a blur of dark curls and chubby little legs come barreling across the yard toward me. Laughing, I set my laptop aside on the table next to me as my daughter crashes into my legs.
“There’s my girl,” I murmur, smiling as I scoop Rosie into my lap.
She’s four years old and all wild curls, rosy cheeks, and boundless energy. She has Logan’s green eyes and my dark hair, and from the moment she wakes until the moment she falls asleep, she is in constant motion. She also has Logan completely wrapped around her tiny finger.
Rosie throws her arms around my neck, grinning up at me. “I made somethin’.”
“Did you?” I ask, pressing a kiss to her temple. “Let me see.”
She wriggles around in my lap and proudly holds up what appears to be a wooden bear with three legs and one ear that’s slightly bigger than the other.
My heart melts on the spot. “Oh, Rosie.” I take it carefully, like it’s the finest treasure in the world. “This is beautiful.”
She beams. “Daddy helped.”
“I can tell.”
From behind the cabin, I hear the workshop door open and close. A second later, Logan steps around the side of the house, and my breath catches a little, the same way it always does.
Five years later, and he can still steal the air from my lungs with a single look.
He’s bigger somehow than I remember when I first stumbled into his yard.
Maybe not physically, though the man is still six-foot-three and built like a wall, but in presence.
He fills every space he walks into, all broad shoulders and thick muscle and dark hair that’s gotten a little longer over the years.
He has a streak of sawdust across his black T-shirt, his forearms are dusted with fine wood shavings, and the sight of him makes something deep inside me soften.
His green eyes find me instantly. They always do.
The second he spots Rosie on my lap and me in the rocking chair, his expression shifts. The hard focus he wears when he’s working melts into something warm and possessive and unbearably tender.
“Thought I told you to stay in the shade,” he says as he walks up the porch steps.
I roll my eyes, smiling. “Hi to you too.”
His gaze drops to my stomach, rounded beneath my sundress, and softens even more. “I mean it, Vivian.”
“I am in the shade,” I point out.
He glances overhead like he’s personally evaluating the angle of the sun, then grunts.
Rosie giggles. “Daddy, you’re bossy.”
Logan reaches down and brushes his fingers over the top of her curls. “That right?”
She nods very seriously. “You’re always tellin’ Mommy to sit down.”
“That’s because Mommy forgets how to rest.”
I snort. “Excuse you. I know how to rest.”
Both of them look at me with identical expressions of disbelief.
Traitors.
Logan steps closer and leans down to kiss my forehead first, then my mouth. It’s soft and slow and familiar, and even after all these years, it still makes my heart flutter.
“Hey,” he murmurs.
“Hey.”
His hand settles possessively on the curve of my belly for a second, and the baby gives a tiny kick. His whole face changes. Every single time. That rough, grumpy, stoic man melts the second one of his babies reminds him they’re there.
“There you are,” he murmurs to my stomach, a smile tugging at his mouth.
Rosie immediately sits up straighter. “He kicked again?”
“Yep.”
She puts both hands on my belly with great seriousness. “Hi, baby brother. I made a bear.”
Logan huffs out a quiet laugh and crouches in front of us. The porch creaks beneath his weight as he settles one forearm across my knees and looks up at me. “You done working?”
“Almost.”
His eyes flick to the closed laptop on the table beside me, and one dark brow lifts. “Vivian.”
“What?”
“You said you were done an hour ago.”
“I said I was almost done.”
“That was an hour ago.”
I smile sweetly. “Accounting takes time.”
He gives me a look. There was a time when that look would’ve scared me. Now it makes warmth bloom through me because I know exactly what’s behind it. Concern. Devotion. Love so big that he can’t always hold it inside his chest.
I pull the laptop toward me protectively as he reaches for it. “Don’t you dare.”
“Then close it for the day.”
“I just need to finish the Midnight Haven report.”
“It can wait until tomorrow.”
I shake my head. “No, it can’t. Jameson needs the numbers tonight so they can finalize housing for that woman and her little boy coming in from Asheville.”
Logan’s expression changes. Some of the stubbornness leaves him, replaced by understanding.
Midnight Haven started as a sanctuary for people needing safety from the cult, but over the years, it’s become something more.
The cult that once terrorized this area is gone, dismantled for good, but trouble didn’t disappear with it.
Women still run. Children still need protection.
People still arrive in Night Grove Falls bruised, frightened, and desperate for somewhere safe to land.
So Midnight Haven opened its doors wider.
Now we help whoever needs it. People fleeing abusive homes.
Young mothers escaping dangerous men. Teens with nowhere else to go.
Women who need a fresh start and a locked door and a soft bed and someone to look them in the eye and promise them they’re safe now.
I know what it means to need that, and maybe that’s why this work feels so important to me.
I handle Logan’s books, but I also manage the accounting for Midnight Haven.
Emergency funds, grants, payroll, supply reimbursements, housing support, transportation arrangements.
It’s not glamorous, but it matters. Every number I enter means somebody gets a room for another week.
A child gets clothes that fit. A frightened woman gets to sleep without wondering if the man she fled will find her.
Five years ago, I arrived here with nothing. Now I help make sure no one else has to start from zero.
Logan studies me for another beat, then sighs. “Ten minutes.”
I grin. “You drive a hard bargain.”
He grunts, which in Logan language means I’m lucky he’s in love with me.
Rosie slides off my lap. “Can I play with Daddy now?”
“Please do,” I say.
She launches herself at him with all the dramatic flair of a child who has never once doubted she’ll be caught.
Logan stands with Rosie in one arm and the lopsided bear in the other hand, examining it like it belongs in a museum.
“Looks good,” he says, smiling softly at our daughter.
“Thanks,” she says proudly.
She throws her arms around his neck, and just like that, the big, grumpy bear shifter who once wanted nothing more than to be left alone is standing on our porch holding our daughter like she hung the moon.
I watch them for a second too long, emotion crowding my chest, because there are still moments like this, even now, where it all feels unreal.
I spent so much of my life feeling unwanted, out of place, like I was an inconvenience to the people who were supposed to love me.
Then I ran through the woods, half-starved and terrified, and collapsed at the feet of the one man who would spend the rest of his life proving I would never be unloved again.
Rosie points toward the yard. “Can we go by the creek?”
Logan looks at me first. Always me first. It’s such a little thing, but it still gets me every time.
He could just say yes. He could make the decision himself.
But Logan has never once treated me like I don’t get a say in my own life.
Protective? Absolutely. Territorial? Without question.
But never controlling. Never dismissive. He guards. He doesn’t cage.
I smile. “Stay where I can see you.”
Rosie cheers.
Logan sets her down, but before she can bolt away, he catches the back of her shirt. “No running near the rocks,” he tells her.
“Okaaay.”
“And don’t go in the water unless I’m there.”
“Okaaay.”
“And if you see a snake—”
“Daddy,” she says, annoyed. “I know.”
He lets her go, and she races down the porch steps with her bear in hand, little sandals slapping against the wood.
Logan watches until she reaches the edge of the yard, then finally turns back to me. “Ten minutes,” he repeats.
I smile up at him. “You already said that.”
“Just making sure you heard me.”
“I heard you.”
He narrows his eyes, and I laugh softly as I open the laptop again.
The next few minutes pass in companionable silence.
Logan settles into the chair beside me, one big hand resting on my thigh while I finish the report.
He doesn’t say anything, just sits there warm and solid and steady, watching Rosie in the yard and me in the chair like he was born to keep an eye on both of us at once.
Maybe he was.
When I finally hit send, I let out a small sigh and close the laptop for good. “There,” I say. “Done.”
“Good.”