Chapter 90
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I say to Riley.
She just laughs as she puts Logan’s cell phone on my office desk. “You two need some quality time together, don’t you think?”
She and Blake turn and give each other a high five.
“Y’all fucking planned this?” Logan reaches through the bars to grab the key from Blake, but he keeps his fist closed around it.
“Well, now you’re stuck.” Blake’s eyes brighten as he carefully places the key on my desk, right where I can see it but far out of my reach.
“Blake, get the fuck back here!” Logan shouts as Blake and Riley head for the liquor room door.
“Have fun, kids. Don’t let the ghost of Jane Austen scare you,” Riley calls back as she and Blake laugh and exit the room, closing the door behind them.
I curse and turn back to face Logan.
His whiskey eyes burn with irritation as he throws out one last insult at Blake.
Pushing my face against the prison bars, I look out at my desk.
The chair is empty because of course I’m not sitting in it, but everything about my makeshift office looks so…
tiny. And old. Almost like I could turn and walk away from it with my laptop in my arms and there would be nothing else of me I’d be leaving behind.
“Looks like we’re stuck in here until Ben or somebody comes by.” Logan’s slow drawl breaks my train of thought.
“True. Riley and Blake are just going to hightail it out of The Cowherd.” I shake my head. “So what do we do now?”
Logan takes a seat on the floor of the jail cell. “We wait.”
His long legs stretch out before him, and he suddenly looks more relaxed than he has all summer.
He pats the floor next to him. “Come on,” he says as he crosses his legs at the ankles and looks up at me.
I walk over and take a seat next to him on the concrete floor. “What a mess,” I say.
“No doubt. You and I are stuck behind bars together.”
At his words, last night’s dream abruptly floods my mind.
I inhale and try to erase from my thoughts the image of Logan and me naked inside this very cell.
But I can’t.
I can’t help sneaking a peek at him next to me. At his tight jeans, at what I know his chest looks like underneath that fitted green t-shirt, at his tanned skin…
His eyes burn into mine as we look at each other.
The ache between my legs is so intense…
I turn away from him and start riffling maniacally through my purse. I’m looking for something—anything—to distract me.
My diary peeks out from underneath my wallet. I grab it in relief and wave it in the air.
“How about I read another one of these entries to pass the time?”
“Mace…” he warns.
“One that’s not too…intimate,” I promise.
“How about the last one?”
“My last entry? You mean the one from Vegas?”
Logan’s cheeks go red, and his eyes flash. “No. I don’t want to hear that one.”
I raise my eyebrows in surprise. “Why not?”
“Because. I just don’t.” He clears his throat. “I meant why don’t you just go in order from where we were?”
“Okay. Great.” I exhale in relief that I have something to do with my mouth other than kiss Logan like I’m craving. I whip open to a page, not paying attention to what entry it is. “Let’s try this one.”
Daddy was passed out at a table, and Mama slumped in the corner booth. She started rambling to me about last weekend’s bar brawl and how the police came an hour ago and took The Cowherd’s liquor license away.
“Your father and I just made our divorce official today. But with another lien on our house, who knows when we’ll actually split up…
we’ve already been living here two weeks.
” Mama started to cry. “And we’ll have no customers after tonight.
Of course we won’t—we’re a bar with no liquor!
Remember when this happened before and you were the only one able to get the mayor to change his mind? ”
I reassured Mama I would do my best, and then I sent her off to bed in the chapel pews before helping my father into his own pew and putting a blanket over him.
I walked into the liquor room and made sure I saw six eyes blinking back at me just like Mama taught me the last time we lived in the saloon.
I sat down on Riley’s cot. “Y’all are still awake.”
“We waited for you.” Ben’s face peered up at me from his sleeping bag on the floor. “Can you believe it? A bar with no beer?”
“We’re totally screwed,” Riley said.
“One story, please Macey,” Free begged me.
I laughed. “Y’all are too old for bedtime stories.”
Free sniffled. “It’s been a terrible day. I want the story. Please?”
Pity made me forget to feel sorry for myself, and so I told them the same story I used to tell them every night when they were much littler. “A long time ago, a witch was paid off by a jealous wife to put a curse on Jane Austen’s ghost…”
I looked over at the cell and wondered how much longer we’d all have to live here. At least Mama and Daddy get to sleep in the chapel where I’m certain holy ghosts reside, not cursed ones.
I told my siblings to go to sleep and kissed them each good night.
This entry wasn’t the best choice. It’s probably the hardest one for me to get through emotionally. Remembering that night and how burdened I felt…
“Sounds like the killing of innocence.”
Logan’s voice surprises me, and I jump.
I jerk my head up to look at him, and he touches my bare knee gently. “I’m sorry. You don’t have to read this one.”
I shake my head. “I’m fine.” I turn back to the diary.
I closed the door tightly, secured the booby trap of a hanging pail that only our family knew about, and went back to check on my parents. Mama was sitting in a booth, her permed hair limp and disheveled, and overall looking forlorn. I felt guilty walking away.
But I’d already missed tonight’s Pep Rally and Homecoming Dance, thanks to being the only bartender my father can afford to keep because I’m the only one who will work for free. I’m also underage, but that’s been overlooked in this town for years, so what’s one more year till I turn eighteen?
I was dressed for the dance and that made me feel okay for being a bit selfish, so I slipped out the door without Mama seeing me and walked through the fields behind the bar until I reached the Wild Ranch house. I stopped outside Logan’s bedroom window.
He came out after just one stone hit the pane.
Logan breaks into laughter. “Can’t believe you never shattered the glass. Your stones weren’t dainty pebbles.”
I smile. “Hey, there was no such thing around your yard.”
I looked at his shaggy hair underneath his Spurs hat, his Howdy t-shirt and his ripped jeans, and I smiled at him wearily. He pulled on his cowboy boots and followed me away from the house.
“How’d the wall-building effort go?” I asked him.
“It’s done.” He shrugged. “Mama got her separate nighttime quarters like she read about in those Regency romance novels. Daddy asked the contractor to saw their bed in half, too, but he refused. So Mama got the king, and Daddy has Reid’s old twin bed.
” He rubbed his head. “Shit. My father’s not even drinking anymore, and they still hate each other. ”
I touched his arm. “I’m sorry.”
He nodded. Then, he looked at my outfit. “Who are you trying to impress? Did you have a date for tonight?”
I shook my head. “No, but I thought I’d be able to go to Homecoming, just for fun. Like a normal seventeen-year-old girl. I forget my life isn’t close to normal.”
“How long do you think y’all will have to live there this time?”
“I don’t know. Daddy defaulted on the mortgage again. He still swears he’ll get the house back, but you know, he just got out of rehab and now we lost our liquor license.”
“Rehab,” Logan said flatly.
“Yeah, he was doing a shot with some blond bimbo before the police came and shut us down, so rehab looks like a smashing success from where I’m standing.”
Logan took my hand and led me to his truck. “Let’s go to the creek.”
Once we got there, we stood side by side, staring out at the water with even the ducks sleeping at our feet, and I turned to Logan. “Do you think we’ll be the last two virgins in Darcy?”
Logan looked at me, startled. “Do you want to lose it?”
“Of course. Don’t you?”
He nodded. “But only to you.”
“Crap.” I raise my eyes from the page. “I forgot that this entry spills past my family issues and goes into details of us...” My hormones are dancing again, and I cross my legs together tightly.
“That’s okay. I want to hear about another year in the life of Austen Macey Henwood.” Logan’s tone may be light, but the intensity of his statement hangs heavy in the bar air.
I scrape my nail along the cement floor of the jail cell and don’t answer him for over a minute.
When I finally look up, he’s watching me.
I whisper, “You know what this part is going to be about, and…”
You’re pretty much the undisputed star of the rest of the entry.
Logan’s hand touches my knee again. “I want to hear what was in your head,” he says.
“Okay.” And I keep going…
My face burned, and I tried to walk away, but Logan caught me by the arm and turned me toward him.
“What do you think?” he asked.
I looked at him, about to cry for some reason. And then, I did start to cry, and I couldn’t stop. And Logan put his arms around me and kissed the salty tears off my cheek.
I pulled my head back to look at him, to look deep into his eyes.
I leaned forward until I could kiss him gently on the mouth.
He put his hand on the back of my neck and pulled me closer until I didn’t remember anything about house liens and liquor licenses.
All I remembered was Logan’s lips on mine, insistently kissing me until I opened up and let his tongue inside.
I dragged my head back from his. “Only if we make a pact,” I said in an almost desperate voice.
“A pact? You mean like a no commitment pact?” He nodded. “I like that idea. That way we can go right back to being friends after.”
“Exactly. No strings, no attachments, no pressure. No dates, no beds, and no commitment. Ever.”
He stared at me. “Seriously? I’m on board with the no strings and no commitment. I don’t want that kind of stress either. But what does ‘ever’ mean?”
“Forever.” I shrugged. “We never get married—to each other or to anybody else.”
“Why no one else, Mace?” His eyes danced with amusement like he knew.
I went silent for a moment.
Because I want to keep you for myself, and casual is all I can ever handle. Casual is all I ever deserve.
“Wait. Stop for a second.” Logan puts his hand on my thigh. “That’s not what you said to me then.”
“I know. I said this, ‘Because you and I aren’t made for marriage, Logan. We’re free spirits, and we have to make sure we don’t get trapped. So if we make the promise to each other, we’ll keep each other safe from prison. Deal?’”
Logan’s hand is still on my leg. “Yes, we’re free spirits. But is the truth that you don’t think you deserve a real relationship? Is that what you still feel?”
I shake my head. “No. Of course not. I’m just meant to be single. Can we please continue?”
He nods but keeps his hand on me.
Logan’s eyes glowed in the moonlight, and his full mouth twisted into a sort of smile, a sort of frown. “So a lifetime pact to always be alone.”
“A lifetime pact to always be independent, and to never hold each other back. We’ll always let each other go afterward.”
Logan’s eyes locked with mine. “So if we make this pact and have sex, can we have sex again as long as we let each other go after?”
Every hormone in my body vibrated. “Yes.”
“But if it’s hard to let go, we’ll have to pull back and do it less often,” Logan said.
“Okay. That makes sense. Once a year, maybe?”
“Yeah, once a year sounds good,” he said. “Granted, you and I are crazy, right? We think we can control sex.”
“And feelings,” I whispered. I could hear the franticness in my voice when I added, “But I have to control them. Or else, I can’t do this with you.”
Logan looked at me for over a minute in silence. Just when I was sure he’d say no, he stuck out his hand, and I shook it.
He nodded once at me. “I think this will work. At the very least, I’m willing to try. Let’s make the pact.”