“What?” She swung her attention onto him.

He parked and left the keys in the ignition, stepping out to bring in Storm, still in her carrier. She was complaining about being strapped into it, squirming and letting out squawks of frustration.

He walked her into the house and came back with the luggage in time to see Emma drawing Storm from her seat.

“She’s not as tough as she acts, you know,” she said, patting Storm’s back. “Sophie, I mean.”

Logan made a wild grab for his temper and managed to keep it.

“With respect, Em, don’t ever try to tell me you know Sophie better than I do.”

She huffed. “I don’t want to see her hurt. That’s all I’m saying.”

Storm rubbed her face into Em’s shoulder, making the whining sound that pitched anyone’s nerves to eleven.

“Me, either. So don’t put her in a position where she has to defend feeding me dinner. We’re trying to be friends. I can’t”—he curled his hand into a fist, conflicted—“I can’t leave here again with her hating me.”

“With respect, Logan,” she said in a very patronizing tone. “I know what it’s like to hate an ex. I wouldn’t spend five minutes in a room with him, let alone work for him and have him in my house for dinner. Even Nolan stays on the lawn. If you know her as well as you say you do, then you would see some significance in that.”

Storm reached the end of her patience and gave her dull, sad, tired cry.

Emma crooned something to her as she carried her upstairs.

Logan shouldered Biyen’s backpack and brooded as he walked down the hill to Sophie’s place, unable to see the right path forward with her. Last night, he had wanted to bring her home so badly, his entire torso had felt carved out and hollow when he had walked away from her.

He refused to take advantage of her, though. And Em’s words just now confirmed how vulnerable Sophie was to him.

You always seemed lost. You still do.

That seemed like such a ridiculous thing to say when he was at home in a marina. Professionally, he had known where he wanted to be and got there. He wasn’t his brothers, growing up shifting between two homes. He wasn’t Reid, whose mother was troubled or Trystan, who had been brought up in two different cultures. Logan was supposed to be the well-adjusted one. Why wasn’t he?

He passed the shed, noting that Art’s Gator was parked inside it. Weird.

He stepped onto the porch and gave the screen a couple of taps before pulling it open with a screech of the springs.

“Art? It’s me.” The inside door was open. He caught the screen so it wouldn’t bang as it dropped back into place behind him and hung Biyen’s backpack on a hook.

Sleeping? He was in his chair and didn’t rouse as Logan came in.

Logan picked up his sunglasses and dropped them into his shirt pocket, glancing again at Art. Should he wake him?

There was such a stillness to the man, however, and such a lack of color, Logan’s own heart and lungs and blood cells slowed to a halt.

No.

He walked over to see Art’s eyelids were partly open, his gaze fixed. Logan touched his cold hand. No pulse in his wrist, no movement in his chest.

Nooo. Such a waft of pain went through him, he was driven to his knees. Even as he was absorbing that Art was gone, an even more agonizing reality struck.

He would have to tell Sophie. And this was going to hurt her worse than anything else he had ever done.

Chapter Fifteen

Sitting at the picnic table that overlooked the marina, Sophie was getting a blow-by-blow of the dinosaur exhibit, complete with Cooper wandering away at one point.

“Did you find him? Is he still lost?” Sophie lowered her cone to tease.

“He was in the gift shop.” Biyen’s lips were orange and black with the tiger stripe he’d ordered.

“Stopped my heart for a minute,” Reid admitted, drawing out his phone and frowning at whatever text he’d just received.

He handed it across to her so she could read that it was from Logan.

Take Biyen. I have to talk to Sophie alone.

Reid looked past her so Sophie glanced over her shoulder to see Logan walking toward them. He had his sunglasses on. His expression was impossible to read, but a preternatural chill swept through her, one that raised goosebumps all over her body.

Reid took his phone back and said to Biyen, “Let’s go see Trys. Logan wants to talk to your mom.”

“Work?” Biyen asked, making a face.

“Probably. I’ll see you in a minute.” She swung her legs out of the bench seat and stood as Logan approached the table. “What’s up?”

“Do you have the keys to the store?”

“Yeah.” She removed them from her pocket and offered them.

He took them and waved her to come with him.

“You’re being weird.” The ice cream started to feel like gravel and acid in her stomach. Her hands were going cold so she dropped the cone into the bin near the door and she followed him inside. “What’s up?”

He waited until the door jangled closed behind them, then locked it, and steered her to the stool behind the cash desk. He waved for her to sit on it.

“What?” She sat and tucked her feet on the rail, hands in her lap.

“I don’t know how to do this, Soph, so I’m just going to say it.” He took off his sunglasses, revealing red, agonized eyes. He swallowed. “Art has passed away.”

“What?” Another of those chilling sensations went through her. A cold wraith. Something that stole a big chunk of her soul on its way by.

“I found him in his chair. I don’t think he suffered. I think he just… stopped living. I’m so sorry, Sophie. I’m so so sorry.”

The pain in her hand was him squeezing it, she realized. She didn’t say anything about it, didn’t try to pull it away.

“But he was fine,” she insisted. He hadn’t been fine, though. He hadn’t been feeling well for weeks. “I was going to take him to the doctor this Thursday.”

“I know.”

“No.” She tried to stand up, but her legs were noodles. When he tried to catch her, to keep her from stumbling, her limbs stiffened in rejection. Not of him, but of this news. “You’re wrong. I’ll go—”