12. Logan
— ? —
Logan
I didn’t come here to find her. I came to ask Rafael for advice.
And yes, I knew Marigold might be where she’d landed - Bree is her cousin, and family is where you run when your whole life burns down - which is exactly why I’d never let myself make this drive before.
Coming to Rafael at all meant risking that she’d be here.
I told myself I was crossing that line for the advice, not for her.
That’s the truth, even if it sounds like a lie.
I came to Marigold because Rafael is the only person I know who’s ever successfully navigated something like this, a marriage that started wrong and ended up right, a woman who deserved better than what she got, a man who had to become someone different to earn her.
Where she was living was never the question I planned to ask him.
The drive took four hours. I spent most of it rehearsing what I’d say, then throwing out the rehearsal because everything sounded hollow and self-serving.
By the time I pulled into Marigold’s single main street, I’d settled on the only approach that felt honest: show up, tell the truth, and accept whatever answer I got.
Rafael’s house is easy to find, small town, only a handful of streets, and his truck is parked in the driveway with a car seat visible through the back window. Evidence of the life he’s built, the family he’s earned. Everything I want and don’t deserve.
I park behind the truck and sit for a moment, gathering myself. My arm aches under the long-sleeved shirt I’ve worn every day since the hospital, the burns are healing, but the scars are something I’m not ready for anyone to see yet. I’m not ready for a lot of things.
But I’m here. That has to count for something.
Rafael opens the door before I can knock. His expression goes from confused to guarded in about half a second, which tells me everything I need to know about where his loyalties lie.
“Logan.” He doesn’t move aside. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to talk.” I hold up my hands, palms out. “That’s all. I just need - I need someone to tell me the truth, and you’re the only person I could think of who might actually do that.”
He studies me for a long moment. Rafael’s a friend, one of the few I’ve actually managed to keep.
We met through business years ago, but it turned into something realer than that a long time back: dinners, the odd weekend, the easy kind of friendship I’ve never been good at making anywhere else.
It’s his marriage, in fact, that put the whole idea in my father’s head, Rafael and Bree, the arrangement that somehow worked, which is its own bitter joke, that the one friendship I actually value is the reason I got handed a contract.
Right now I’m hoping it’s a thread strong enough to hold my weight.
“The truth about what?” he asks finally.
“About whether I should give up.” The words hurt coming out. “About whether there’s any chance at all, or whether I should stop and let her move on.”
Rafael’s jaw tightens. He doesn’t confirm or deny anything about Fran’s whereabouts, and I respect him for it. I didn’t come here expecting him to betray her trust.
“That’s a big question,” he says.
“I know.”
“And I’m not sure you’re going to like the answer.”
“Tell me anyway.”
He crosses his arms, leaning against the doorframe.
“I stopped trying to fix things. Stopped trying to explain or justify or make her understand. I just - did the work. Changed the things that needed changing. Showed up, day after day, without expecting anything in return.” He pauses.
“It took a long time. And there were days when I was sure it wouldn’t matter, that I’d done too much damage to ever come back from.
But I kept going, because the alternative was losing her completely. ”
“Did it work?”
“You’ve seen my family.” A hint of warmth creeps into his voice. “Yeah. It worked.”
I think about what he’s saying, the patience required, the faith that change is possible even when the outcome is uncertain. It sounds exhausting. It sounds like exactly what I need to hear.
“I’ve been going to therapy,” I say. “Three times a week. I gave up my grandmother’s inheritance, all of it, every cent.
I bought Fran’s flower farm and I’ve had the lawyers draw up an unconditional transfer, her name, no strings.
It’s ready whenever her people want to look at it.
” I’m not trying to impress him. I just need him to know I’m not full of shit.
“And I cut Sloane out. After the fire. She lied to me about where Fran was that night, pointed me the wrong direction instead of toward the house. I can’t get past that. ”
Rafael’s eyebrows rise. “That’s a lot.”
“It’s not enough.” I know that much for certain. “None of it is. But I don’t know what else to do. I can’t show her I’ve changed if I can’t even talk to her.”
“Maybe you don’t get to do that on your schedule.
” His voice isn’t harsh, but it doesn’t bend either.
“Maybe you keep doing the work without knowing if it’ll matter.
Maybe you trust that if you turn into someone she deserves, things line up eventually.
Or maybe they don’t, and you’re just a better man anyway. ”
That’s not the answer I wanted. I wanted steps, a checklist, something besides sitting with the fact that I have no idea how this ends. But he’s right. That’s not how it works.
“I miss her,” I say, and my voice cracks on the words. “Every day. I wake up and she’s not there, and I think about all the mornings I took for granted, all the times I could have-” I stop, swallow hard. “I was so stupid. I had everything, and I didn’t even know it.”
“You had a chance,” Rafael says quietly. “Whether you get another one is up to her.”
I nod, because there’s nothing else to say.
I’m about to thank him for his time, to turn and walk back to my truck and drive the four hours home with nothing but my regret for company, when something shifts in Rafael’s attention.
His eyes move past me, toward the street, and his expression changes, goes from guarded sympathy to something I can’t quite read.
I turn to see what he’s looking at.
And there she is.
Fran. Standing on the sidewalk in yoga pants and an oversized sweater, her dark hair pulled back from a face I’ve dreamed about for three months. She looks different, healthier, maybe, or just more at ease, and she’s frozen in place, staring at me like I’m a ghost she wasn’t expecting to encounter.
Everything else on the street drops away.
Then my eyes travel down, taking in the details I missed at first glance, the way her sweater drapes over her midsection, the unmistakable curve beneath the fabric that wasn’t there three months ago.
She’s pregnant.
The world tilts sideways and refuses to right itself.
I stare at her stomach, and my brain is trying to do math that won’t quite compute. Three months since she left. But that’s not, that’s more than three months of pregnancy. That’s-
She was already pregnant when she left me. She was pregnant when she walked out of that hospital, when she left her ring on her pillow for me to find, when she disappeared without a word.
She’s been pregnant this whole time, and she never told me.
I look up at her face, searching for something, an explanation, an accusation, anything. Her expression is guarded, wary, one hand moving instinctively to rest against her belly. Protecting the life inside her. Maybe protecting it from me.
“Fran,” I say, and my voice sounds like it belongs to someone else, strangled, desperate, completely undone.
She doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. Just stands there on the sidewalk, watching me with eyes that hold three months of distance and secrets I’m only beginning to glimpse.
Behind me, Rafael says something, probably offering to intervene, to give us space, to do something useful while I stand here like an idiot with my world crumbling around me.
I can’t process any of it. I can’t process anything except the woman in front of me and the truth her body has been carrying without my knowledge.
“Is it-” I can’t finish the sentence. I don’t need to.
Her chin lifts. Her jaw tightens. And when she speaks, her voice is steady in a way mine will never be again.
“Yes,” she says. “It’s yours.”
The words hit me like a physical blow. I feel them land, in my chest, in my stomach, in the part of me that’s been holding onto hope for three months without knowing what I was hoping for.
She’s pregnant with my child. Our child. And she left without telling me.
I have a thousand questions. A thousand things I need to say, need to understand, need to somehow make right. But all I can do is stand there on Rafael’s front porch, staring at the woman I love, watching her watch me back with an expression I can’t read.
“We need to talk,” she says finally.
“Yes.” The word comes out hoarse. “We really do.”