With a strange absence of feeling, she simply stared at him. “What do you mean, you snapped?”
“I went into a rage ... trying to defend myself ... because I knew he was going to kill me.”
Emma swallowed uneasily. “How did you kill him?”
The police had already told her, but she needed to hear it from him honestly and directly.
Logan kept his gaze fixed on the floor. “I strangled him.”
As she imagined her husband choking the life out of someone, she fought a rising nausea. “So, you’re saying it was self-defense.”
His eyes lifted. “Yes, that’s what I’m going to tell the court.”
“But is it the truth?”
He stared at her with resolve. “Of course it is. I didn’twantto kill him. I didn’t plan it.”
“But his wife says that you did,” she argued. “She says you wanted her to leave her husband and run away with you.”
Logan covered his face with both hands. “I’m not going to lie. I did suggest it once, but I didn’t mean it for real. It was just romantic babble when we were caught up in ... you know ...”
“Caught up in what?” Emma demanded to know. “Go ahead and say it.”
He sighed dejectedly. “The excitement of the affair.” He lowered his hands to his lap. “But that doesn’t mean I actually plotted to murder her husband. He’s the one who calledmethat night.”
“Why would she say it, then?”
Logan shrugged and spoke helplessly. “I don’t know. She’s probably mad because I took off that night and left her. That was a mistake. I should have told her what happened and called the police.”
Emma rubbed the back of her neck.
“Do you believe me?” Logan asked.
“I don’t know.” Her nausea was still on the rise. “You’ve been lying to me since we met, so it’s not easy to trust you.”
He stood and slowly approached the bars. Emma took a full step back. She didn’t want him to think he could simply reach out, touch her, and have her love and trust return.
“Please don’t give up on me,” he said. “I swear I wanted to tell you, and I figured I would, eventually, but I was so afraid you’d cut me off. And I’m sorry for being so surly lately, but I was afraid of leaving Sable and getting caught—because I knew if that happened, I’d lose you. If it weren’t for the baby, everything would have been fine. We wouldn’t be here right now.”
She shook her head in disbelief. “Are you suggesting that our son spoiled everything? Or that my need to go to a hospital was what caused all this trouble?”
He bowed his head and shook it. “No, I’m sorry. That came out wrong.”
“It’s not my fault you’re in jail,” she said. “I’m not the one who killed a man.”
Thankfully, Logan had the sense not to argue. But he reached through the bars, held out his hands, and urged her to take hold. “Please, Emma ... all I ask is that you stand by me. You could come to Saskatchewan and stay with my sister. Or at least wait for me, because I’d come back to you, I swear.”
She looked down at his outstretched hands—at the familiar lines on his palms that she’d often traced with her fingertips and thought she could read. But in that moment, she felt numb. Her heart was cold and empty, as if it had been gouged out by disappointment after disappointment, and there was nothing left inside. No love, no sorrow, not even any compassion. What had happened to the person she once was?
Oh, she knew exactly what had happened—she’d wanted so badly to feel passion and desire, to love and be loved in return, that she’d let herself fall into a fantasy. Logan wasn’t the man she’d believed he was or wanted him to be. He’d been keeping secrets from the beginning. And if he could hide something as horrendous as manslaughter or murder, what else had he hidden from her? What had she not seen?
This man before her, locked up in jail and holding his hands out to her, was a stranger. She’d been utterly blind.
“Emma?” he asked.
Wrenched from her thoughts, she froze. She did not take hold of his hands.
“I don’t know what my feelings are,” she explained. “Except for confusion and uncertainty. I can’t promise I’ll wait for you. I can’t promise anything. But I’m not going to Saskatchewan. That much I know.”
