Chapter 23 Logan
Twenty Three
Logan
I take a minute to lean against the side of the salon, watching the ladies inside pamper Sierra. It’s heartwarming to see.
“Logan LaSalle,” a voice greets me.
I look up, internally grimacing. If given a choice, I’d never see Rick Dawson’s shaved-bald head and pasty, bloated face ever again.
“Loitering?” His words are teasing, but his expression and tone are not. He’s wearing his navy town marshal uniform and gold badge, so he must be here for official law enforcement reasons.
“I’m waiting for someone.” I think about leaving it at that.
I don’t like Rick Dawson. I will never forgive him for how he handled Sierra’s disappearance.
Marshal Dawson and his deputies were so ineffective at times that I wondered whether they were actively hindering the case just because I was pushing too hard for answers.
Dawson told me over a quarter of a million women and girls go missing in the US every year, implying that Sierra, as one of hundreds of thousands, wasn’t worth the effort I was demanding, but merely another stat in the hopeless fight against crime.
My family and I ended up taking over, acting as detectives and search-and-rescue teams to try to solve what happened to Sierra, all without help from our local law enforcement.
Ethan came home on the weekends to use his deputy skills to interview her neighbors and others who may have seen her, while Cole and Emily spoke to kids at school to see if any of them knew anything.
Seth and I combed the mountain, rock by rock, while my parents visited homeless shelters and posted her picture at local grocery stores and gas stations.
But despite our best efforts, it wasn’t until we found Blackstone’s cave and were able to hire that PI that we learned that she was alive. Even still, we were the ones to find her, not him.
The memory of his weaponized incompetence spurs me to say something. “I’m waiting for Sierra Howard,” I say.
He tilts his head. Something flickers in his eyes, but it’s too fast to read.
“Is that so?” he finally says, his tone even. “I hadn’t realized she was back.”
“Yep. Alive and well. No thanks to you.”
He narrows his eyes. “Glad to hear it,” he says crisply. “What have you got there?” He nods toward the flyers tucked under my arm. “Does that say Futon Drift?”
“Oh.” I peel one loose and show him. “Futon Drift will be playing an acoustic concert in the Blackstone Cave.”
He takes it from me before I can stop him. “They’re one of my favorite bands,” Dawson says when I raise an eyebrow at him. “Stay out of trouble.” He disappears down Main Street.
It doesn’t take long for Sierra to come out of the hair salon, and she stops me in my tracks.
Her hair is still long, but now it frames her face softly.
More than that, though, something about her looks brand new.
Her eyes are shining, her cheeks tinged a pleased pink.
She looks happy—lighter, younger, more vibrant than ever.
I mentally check off “community” on my Operation Triple-S list, thrilled at its success.
“You look beautiful,” I say, tucking a strand behind her ear.
“Thanks.” She takes a deep breath. “That wasn’t as bad as I thought.”
I hesitate, then decide to push it. If I can help her nip this silly fear in the bud, better sooner than later. “Let’s try another old local place. The bookstore.”
If there’s any place in Sagebrush that could secretly be a time-travel portal, it’s the Jesus Wept Bookstore.
Dusty coral-and-turquoise-patterned walls, aged-sour PineSol scent, threadbare carpet, and so many tall shelves, that to go down any aisle would feel like walking into a suffocating time capsule.
A nasally electric bell peals when I push the door open.
“Logan! Welcome in. You heard about our Bible sale?”
Caitlin O’Hare went to school with us back in the day.
She looks almost exactly the same, even wearing the same half-up hairstyle and camo pants she wore nearly every single day at Sagebrush High.
Her personality is roughly the same too—her smile looks pained as she tries to greet me politely, but I can see her dislike in the way her chin wobbles to hold the expression.
Caitlin does a double-take when she registers who stands next to me. “Sierra Howard, back in Sagebrush! I can’t believe it.” Her tone turns wary. “Visiting? I thought your mom moved away a few years ago. Bisbee, was it?”
“I’m sure,” Sierra says.
I wonder if she actually knows or is just smoothing the conversation over. Her mom left Sagebrush not long after she did. I remember how frustrating that was—her mother shrugging and saying Sierra was a free spirit, not to worry. Turned out she was right, but that didn’t make it easier at the time.
“I’m just here for a few weeks, working with Logan’s family,” Sierra continues. “We’re promoting some events at the mine.”
I hold out a small stack of flyers for Caitlin to take.
“Oh, another cave event.” She plucks one from the bunch and immediately places it face down on the crowded counter. “Fun. Well, it was good of you to stop by. I can’t believe you’re back, Sierra. Take care.”
It’s a waste of time, but oh well. I never know which events or causes will be embraced or rejected by the O’Hares, but it never hurts to try. They’d be far angrier to be skipped anyway.
We step outside, and I immediately grab the back of Sierra’s shirt and drag her back into the shop again. “That’s the mayor,” I whisper, eyes wide.
Down the street, a polished, dark-haired woman in a crisp violet linen suit and heeled boots walks the sidewalk, greeting people by name. She always looks like she belongs in Los Angeles—or at least downtown Scottsdale—not in sleepy, touristy Sagebrush.
“Why are we hiding from the mayor? Did you guys date or something?” Sierra asks.
The absurdity of that makes me snort. “What? No. She’s like ten years older than me. And married.”
Hmm. Jealous Sierra is hot. I brush my fingers through her shiny, silky hair. “Besides, she’s not my type. You are.”
A sweet blush colors her cheeks. She turns back to look through the smudged glass door. “She’s coming closer,” she whispers. “Seriously, though, why are we hiding? Do we need to run through the back?”
I flatten us against the Christian romance shelves. The air is heavy with the musty smell of old paper and long-gone-stale potpourri sachets.
“She always wants me to help present her big budget plans to the council,” I whisper. “She’s done amazing work with delegating funds, but I don’t want to get roped into that. I’m not into politics.” I can’t help myself as I murmur, “I’m into you.”
Caitlin must have headed to the back after we “left.” The store is quiet now except for the faint hum of the air conditioner trying and failing to circulate, so I can hear her breath catch at my words very clearly.
I lean closer to her and wrap my arm tightly around her waist. Each inhale brushes my chest.
Sierra reaches up behind her head and plucks a book off the shelf.
She traces the cover with her fingertips, her intense attention on the frontier woman simpering at a cowboy-hatted man, half-obscured by a lens flare, is almost comical.
I’ve started peppering our conversations with more sweet declarations like this to get her used to the romantic love goal for Operation Triple-S, and her reactions are always so endearing.
Pleased, panicked, then desperate for distraction.
“It’s always funny to me that they add a white lens flare to every Christian romance to warn everyone that Jesus is going to make an appearance,” she murmurs, tapping on the white glare.
“Although I suppose it’s more subtle than sneaking an anachronistic, robed, Middle Eastern man into the background like a religious Where’s Waldo. ”
I laugh softly. “But probably a lot less fun. You should reach out to this publisher and suggest it.” I take the book from her hands and shove it back onto the tightly packed shelf.
“Is she gone?” she asks as I wrap my arms back around her.
I don’t even look. “Not yet,” I whisper against her ear. Jesus, I love her ears. I run my lips along its delicate curve, tasting the tip softly. It’s warm and stuffy in the bookstore, but I feel a shiver run through her body.
“This seems dramatic,” she whispers back, humoring me. “Couldn’t you just tell her no?”
“Have you heard me say no to anyone today?” I whisper.
“No. But it’s something you should work on.”
“Let’s practice. Ask me something I should say no to.” I nibble on her neck. She tastes so sweet.
She laughs softly. “This feels like a trap.” Her hands drift down my body as if she can’t stop herself from touching me.
“I’d love for you to trap me,” I say. Feeling a little reckless, I add, “I’d skip right into anything that trapped me into being your boyfriend.”
“Shush, we’re talking about you establishing healthy boundaries with other people.”
I can’t help but feel a crushing sense of rejection as she sidesteps my declaration. We belong together. Why won’t she accept it?
“I don’t care about other people. I care about you,” I say tenderly.
Her face shutters closed. I’ve pushed too far.
“But tell me more about these boundaries,” I murmur, changing tracks. “Like, how do you feel about me going down on you in a bookstore? Does that cross a boundary?”
She huffs a laugh. “Sex in public? And in front of Jesus?” She nods at a cracked, sentimental painting of the Lord in question hanging over the door. “Logan LaSalle, I am such a bad influence on you.”
“You’re not,” I say, perhaps a little too intensely. “And if you are, so what? I like who I am around you.”
Her lips part, glistening in the low light.
“I like who I am around you too,” she finally whispers.
Both of my hands are in her hair now. I curl the warm, light-brown locks between my fingers, then tug her head toward me.
She gasps against my lips, and I take advantage to dip my tongue into her warm, wet mouth.
A voice from nearby makes us jump. Caitlin—on the phone.
“…the nerve to show her face around here, after what she did,” she’s saying.
“Now she’s hanging around Logan LaSalle again.
God, I know. Honestly, her running away last time was the best thing that could’ve happened for him and his family.
And the Hillermans. All of Sagebrush, really.
Who knows what damage she could’ve done if she’d stayed? ”
Both of us tense up. I can see the hurt in Sierra’s expression as we lock eyes.
Caitlin laughs, a brittle, mean sound that crackles through the quiet. “Oh, my god, Rachel. Don’t tempt her. A working brothel is not the authenticity Sagebrush needs.”
By the end of that outrageous pronouncement, I’m shaking with rage.
But Sierra grabs my arm, pulling me back, pressing her weight against me.
“Don’t say anything. Please,” she whispers.
I grit my teeth. I don’t want to let it go. “I’m going to tell that supercilious, self-righteous, horrible—”
“I just need to get out of here,” she says.
I wrap an arm around her shoulders and guide her outside, hating how powerless I feel.
Wishing I could punch a hole in the window.
The electric bell whines again, humiliating in its brightness.
Caitlin will know we were eavesdropping.
It takes so much effort to leave instead of marching back in there and demanding the coward repeat her nasty words to my face.
Mayor Ortiz is still standing outside, chatting with the gelato shop owner. “Logan! I was hoping to run into you today. Do you have a minute?”
“Mayor Ortiz,” I say shortly. I know I’m being rude, but I cannot give a fuck anymore. “Not now. Come by our offices next week.”
I move us away to find some privacy. Around the corner are the old saloon ruins.
An old wrought-iron fence surrounds the saloon, and Sierra leans against it.
I can’t stay still. I pace in front of it, feeling like a caged tiger.
Moments like this prove I’m still the same—angry at everything.
At how atrocious people can be. How helpless I am.
How fucking trapped we are. Everything changes, and nothing changes.
I’m still that impotent kid stuck in a small town full of small-minded people, powerless while the ones I care about most get hurt.
And the person who was hurt the most stands before me now, looking pale and small. The realization pours over me like ice water. The rage drains down to a low simmer.
I rub the back of my neck. “Listen, I know guys aren’t supposed to call women bitches—”
Sierra snorts. “Then I will. Caitlin’s a bitch.”
“Heh. Yeah.” I sigh. “I knew that, but I thought… Well. She didn’t say it to your face, but still. I miscalculated. Very badly. I’m sorry.”
She steps closer and takes my hand. It’s such a fragile gift I’m afraid to breathe, afraid it’ll all flutter away. Touching her lights up every part of me, like a spiderweb of nerves vibrating from a single touch. I lean in and kiss her.
She seems to take the kiss for what I intended it as, as comfort. Then she ends the kiss and leans her forehead against mine. “Do you mind if we call it a day?”
“Absolutely,” I murmur, my heart breaking. I mentally remove the checkmark from my Triple-S “community” line. “Let’s go home, baby.”
“Yeah,” she says. “Let’s go home.” She takes my hand, and it’s small, but it’s still something.