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He transferred the mugs to one hand and held out his hand to help her, but she ignored it and struggled out of the deep chair on her own.
Fiona dropped a ball at his feet with a hopeful doggie smile. He bent down to pick it up and threw it up toward the path they’d walk. She barked, turned back to Isabella for permission, and took off after it.
“There’s a recreation lodge that we have access to.”
She nodded, tucked her hands into the huge sleeves of her sweater, and crossed her arms across her middle as they walked up the trail. Fiona kept bringing the ball back to them and running through the woods. She kept Isabella in her sights at all times.
It was only a three minute walk, but he could tell it was wearing on her. “Want to take a little break?” She gave a half shrug and sat at one of the picnic tables. “I’m just going to check out what they have.”
She averted her attention to Fiona without a word.
Of course.
Logan cracked his knuckles as he went inside. A pair of ancient pinball machines lined one wall, with a Pac Man video game console in the corner. But it was the full-sized pool table that called to him. He and Zeke would play for hours at the dive bars they’d performed in during the first few rough years.
Transitioning from teen dream pop sensation to a hard rock lead singer with a band had been tough. Even more difficult when he was starting without a dime to his name. His father had cleaned out his bank accounts the week before he’d turned eighteen.
They’d fought for the last year about his career. Logan was tired of the fluff songs that he was playing and wanted to change his image, write his own music. And the closer he got to legal age, the more he pushed to take control of his career.
No matter what, he would have taken care of his father. Landon King hadn’t believed that in the end. Instead he’d taken thirty-seven million dollars and disappeared on the second to last night of Logan’s tour.
He spun the scarred cue ball into the middle of the felt. He’d come back from nothing. Trust and faith wasn’t a commodity he had in abundance, but he had it in Izzy. Getting her to believe in him again was a test he was afraid he’d fail.
He stood up straight, tired of his own thoughts. It was all he had lately since she wasn’t talking. He crossed to the half closed sliding door to the lodge, pushing it open to light up the far corner.
A sad piano sat in the corner with a busted bench and crumbling leg that left it lopsided. He lifted the cover and found a handful of keys missing. He pressed down the middle C and found only silence. He ran his hands down the worn ivories and found a few minor keys that were still wired.
The sad tones whispered out of the dust motes.
A cold nose at his wrist dragged him out of the sad melody. He smiled down and scrubbed Fiona’s head. “Time to go?”
She spun around once and he glanced back to see Isabella standing in the doorway. Another time, another piano, in a time that felt like a distant memory, she’d looked at him in almost the same way.
Then she blinked and backed out of the lodge, Fiona chasing after her.
Logan shut the cover and pulled the door shut, instinctively protecting the shattered piano.
Twenty-Two
Logan tossed out the bottle of Breckenridge. A tumbler shot’s worth each night was the only thing that was keeping him together. They’d been at the cabin for two weeks.
Thirteen days and nights of silence.
He’d mistakenly figured that if he let her have time to heal that she’d finally talk to him. Instead they were two fucking roommates. She took short walks every day down to the docks to sit in the Adirondack chair to read. Then she made him a list of things to buy for food.
That was the only highlight to his day. She wanted to go to the store with him. She had her list, but she’d deviate when they actually went into the market. A dessert sometimes, a magazine or a book on others.
Once they were home she made hearty fall meals in the crock pot that she’d unearthed. The problem with the damn crock pot was that the food could be eaten anytime. She specifically made sure to eat when he wasn’t around so they didn’t have to eat together. Not that she would talk to him anyway.
He was so damn bored he actually went down to the recreation lodge daily to play pool just so he wouldn’t break something. Sometimes Richard came in and played a game with him, sometimes a random renter.
Those were a little trickier. He was famous after all.
Of course with a full beard and his hair growing out, he didn’t really look like himself. Add in flannel shirts and jeans instead of his usual man in black routine and he was about as far removed from Logan King, famous musician, as possible.
And when someone did give him a quizzical look, he would laugh it off that he looked like a guy from a television show. That usually threw them off enough that they let it go.
He hounded Marcus every other day for an update on Bishop’s investigation. So far he’d been hired on at the marketing firm that DeSalvo worked in, but he’d yet to be put on a project with the executive.
