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“I’ll be just a minute.” His voice was like sandpaper and alcohol on an open wound.
Fiona bounced to her feet from her perch beside Logan and leaned against Bella. She stroked the dog then stepped up behind him. She pressed her forehead to his back, dragging in his familiar scent.
Sandalwood and vanilla with a hint of clean air from the cool breeze off the water. She hooked her finger around his pinkie and stood there with him for a little while.
He didn’t speak, didn’t push her for more than she was giving.
When the cold deck seeped into her feet and bones, she finally let him go and went back inside. She tugged on yoga pants and pawed through the sweatshirts he’d put in the drawers. A familiar blue Henley was at the bottom of the pile. Her palm itched to get a hold of it, to tug it on and find the comfort that once infused the cotton. Instead she clutched a long sleeve cotton shirt. She put a layer of lotion on her hands and coated her entire upper body, paying special attention to her shoulders and the healing skin around her wrists and forearms before pulling the shirt over her head. She turned out all the lights and slid into bed, moving to the side closest to the sloped ceiling.
Fiona jumped on the bed and Bella curled around her, letting sleep find her.
Sometime later Logan came in. She heard him moving around, zippers opening a
nd closing then the shower turning on. She dozed until he sat on his side of the bed.
Part of her wanted to banish him.
Part of her wanted to back into him and ask him to hold her.
But she stayed where she was and he stretched out on his back, with his arm tucked under his head.
A two-foot island between them.
Twenty-One
When Logan woke, she was gone. Her side of the bed was made, the pillow cool to the touch. He jumped out of bed and looked in the bathroom then over the railing of the loft bedroom to the living space below.
Both Fiona and Izzy were gone. He rushed back inside to get dressed when he heard Fiona’s bark. He went to the sliding doors to the deck and dragged in a gulp of air.
They were on the dock by the river, Isabella sitting in an Adirondack chair, looking out on the water with Fiona running around her chair, trying to get her to play.
He curled his fingers over the sun-warmed pine. He hadn’t even heard her or felt her move. The cabin itself had eased the constant terror he’d been living with for weeks now. Knowing Aimee couldn’t get to them had allowed him to lower his guard enough to sleep. Evidently he’d needed it.
Seeing the extent of her scars had stolen the last of his reserves last night.
He’d known about them.
He’d seen the nurses treating her daily, but he’d never gotten a true look at them. Not the burns on her shoulders, or the gash that had almost killed her.
He closed his eyes and dropped his chin to his chest. No, he definitely hadn’t been prepared for that. And she’d looked at him so impassively. Like he was a stranger touching her.
Christ. It was time to put that away. She needed time, and he just had to get a grip about it. He took one more long look at her. Dark hair loose around her shoulders, familiar bulky cable-knit sweater that she loved wrapped around her, but she was sitting up. And she was strong enough to get herself down there.
For this morning, that was enough.
He padded into the bathroom to try and get back into a normal routine. After getting washed and dressed, he went downstairs and made coffee before heading outside. The air was cooler in Maine so the trees already had a tinge of yellow and orange to their leaves. He followed the well-worn path to the dock.
“Morning.”
Startled, she twisted in her seat.
“Sorry. I woke and you were gone.”
She put her hand on top of Fiona’s head. Inferring that she needed to take the dog out, he nodded and handed her a mug. She gave him an almost smile and cupped her hands around the warm ceramic, then settled back into her chair, her attention back on the water.
They both drank in companionable silence. When he finished his cup, he reached for hers that she’d set on the arm of the chair. “Do you want to go walk around? See where everything is?”
She nodded.
