He could feel everyone staring at him. Her hand settled lightly on his chest where his heart was slamming with fear. Real fear.
“It’s going to be okay, Logan.”
“No, it’s not,” he insisted, reaching for her upper arms. Her firm biceps were so her. Everything about her was so fucking precious and so fucking not his. His eyes were hot, his throat aching all the way down into his chest. “Art is gone, you and Biyen are leaving, we’re selling this place, and now Storm? These two will fuck off.” The way they always had. “There won’t be anyone left.”
He felt like such a tool, standing here already lonely, but he was. His nose was stinging and his throat was aching and he couldn’t stand it.
And there was Sophie looking up at him with her fall-into-me eyes.
Into the resounding silence, he heard the front door open.
“Reid?” Emma called from inside the house. “I saw you all come back.”
“I’d really like to see her,” Cloe pleaded in a soft tone. “She’s all the family I have left.”
Logan’s heart lurched. He knew exactly how that felt.
He couldn’t deny her. When Reid glanced at him and Trys, Logan nodded jerkily to allow it.
*
“We’re out here, Em,” Reid called over his shoulder.
Sophie could feel the tension in Logan, as though he was braced for a body blow. She hadn’t appreciated how threatened these men were by Cloe. How threatened Logan was by her own talk of leaving.
She pressed herself to his side and looped her arms around his waist, trying to reassure him with her closeness. His arm curled firmly around her, but she thought she detected a tremor in him. He watched closely as Emma came warily out the door onto the deck, Storm in her arms.
Reid lifted his arm in invitation, and Emma tucked herself against his side.
Cloe’s gaze was fixed on Storm. Her voice shook as she said to Emma, “I should have called first, so you weren’t blindsided when I showed up on the doorstep. Sophie told me you two are married and want to adopt her?”
“Yes,” Reid confirmed with a nod.
“I’m not here to get in the way of that,” Cloe’s brow tilted in anguish. “I’m not actually in a position to take her. I came to make sure she was in good hands, that’s all. It looks like she is.” She was eating up Storm’s fine hair and big blue eyes and teething-rashed cheeks with a poignant smile.
“I shouldn’t have run out like that. I panicked.” Emma’s face was still splotchy with tears, but she offered an uncertain smile to Cloe.
“It’s okay. I…” Cloe trailed off and tilted her head down, trying to catch Storm’s eye. “Hi, baby.”
Storm smiled, watching this new face curiously.
“Will you go see your Auntie Cloe?” Emma asked Storm, starting to offer the baby to her.
Cloe held out her hands in invitation and Storm wavered. One little hand clutched onto Emma’s shirt before she changed her mind and decided she would meet this new person.
“Oh, hello.” Happy tears came into Cloe’s eyes as she drew Storm into her chest and lowered onto the lounger, holding her in her lap. “It’s very nice to meet you.” She took one of Storm’s hands and tucked her thumb into Storm’s curled fist.
Sophie’s heart was going to break wide open. She looked up at Logan and saw his nostrils were flared with his effort to hold on to his emotions.
“Let’s get everyone some drinks,” she murmured, nudging him.
He nodded jerkily and guided her ahead of him through the door. When she would have paused in the kitchen, he snagged her hand and drew her all the way down the stairs into the cool basement.
“I don’t think anyone wants a beer this ear—”
He stopped at the bottom of the stairs and his arms came around her. Hard. So hard her breath was squeezed out of her. Her nose was mashed against his chest.
She turned her head so she could hear his heart thumping and feel it against her cheek. She wrapped her arms around his waist, holding on to him just as tightly.
“It’s okay, Logan. She’s not going anywhere.” Had he not heard Cloe say she wasn’t in a position to take her?
“It’s not her I’m worried about. I mean, I am, but—Christ, Sophie. Why is everything so hard?”
She brought one hand up to cup his jaw. “I don’t know, but we’ll figure it out and get through it.”
“How? How am I supposed to do it without you?” He closed his eyes in remorse. “I can’t ask you to stay. You know that. But I already miss you. It’s eating me up.” His anguished profile looked out the window to the lawn.
And she thought, Why? Why would she put him and herself through a separation when being together was what they both wanted?
Was she trying to prove she could live without him? She could. She had already done it. And, as painful as his coming back into her life had been, it had also been the most alive she had felt since he’d left it eight years ago.
As for Biyen, she trusted Logan to be a good surrogate father to him. He was already knocking it out of the park with his kid sister. He might not have much faith in himself in that role, but she did.
“You don’t have to ask,” she said gently. “I make up my own mind, and I’ve decided that I love you. I’ve always loved you.” Her heart was swelling too big for her chest, constricting her throat so her voice grew thin and strained. “I’m going to stay with you. We will. When things change, we’ll make a decision together to do something else.”
“Sophie—” He was holding her arm too hard. Her muscles were twitching in protest, but she understood he was hanging on tight because he was scared. Terrified. “What if love isn’t enough? It wasn’t enough for Mom. It sure as hell didn’t fix Dad.”
“You’re right,” she said with a little laugh. “Love isn’t a magic potion that fixes everything. If only! All it does is cushion you against the hard reality of life. Did Glenda loving the shit out of you and your brothers fix you guys? Heck, no. You’re all a walking disaster, but imagine how you would have turned out if you hadn’t had her.”
