AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’ll get one of the guys to drop it off.”
He must sense my hesitation when he spins around and faces me so abruptly, I stumble again. “I’m taking you home.”
He eyes me head to toe. Without a word of warning, he lowers himself before wrapping one arm behind my knees and the other around my back.
I yelp.
It hurts.
“Logan,” I grit, glaring at his clenched jaw.
What’s he got to be angry about?
I’m the one flailing in his arms as he walks through the square with me towards his truck like I’m nothing more than a sack of potatoes.
“I’m not putting you down, so get comfortable for a minute.” I try to kick again. “Fight me on it, baby. I dare you.”
I groan into his neck, resting my head on his shoulder to avoid the awkward stares from everyone. Honestly, it feels good not to walk. I might not have made it.
“Logan?” It’s Eden’s voice but my eyes are already closing. “Is that Beth? Is she okay?”
He doesn’t even stop and answers over his shoulder. “She’s sick. It could be imminent death.”
Fucking drama queen.
I find the strength to lift my head and look at her as my head bobs up and down. “Don’t worry, Eden,” I shout back at her. “I won’t die because I’m sick. Logan here is making sure the only thing I die from today is embarrassment.”
Forty
Logan
Chest infection and a “touch of pneumonia”. How anyone can have a touch of an illness, I’ll never know, but that’s what the doctor said. She didn’t want to go to him, so I brought the doctor to her.
Cora is keeping the girls for the night. Beth didn’t like it, and even shivering, she put up a fight. She eventually relented when the doctor demanded she stay in bed.
She passed out mid-protest. As soon as her head hit the pillow, her eyes fluttered closed, and her teeth finally stopped chattering.
She’s a stubborn little thing, I’ll give her that. No matter how many times I told her I was going to stay the night, she insisted she was fine. To prove it, she got up to make herself a cup of tea. It quickly resulted in her gasping for breath. How did she get through the day waiting tables in that state?
She wasn’t fine. She looked like death warmed up.
Still beautiful as hell, even as she blew her nose for the hundredth time and coughed like her lungs were possessed.
She’s not asleep long, maybe an hour, when I finally settle enough to do some work. With the TV on mute, I get to work on admin for the shop. Social media posts are the first to go out. I fucking hate it, but it works. I had someone to do it for me, but they always managed to make it tacky. In the end, I decided the only way to do it right was to do it myself.
Finishing up the last post, I hear a blood-curdling scream from upstairs. Jolting out of the chair, I run, taking two steps of the stairs at a time.
When I come barreling into her room, my heart is racing, heavy panting making my chest heave.
I expect to see her on the floor after a fall, but what I witness is much worse.
Her back arches on the bed before she kicks the sheets off her body with flailing legs.
Fever dreams.
But by the way her face contorts, the tears streaming from the corners of her eyes, and the pleas whispered from her lips, I know these dreams have haunted her before.
Her hands are balled tightly into fists, grabbing the sheets until her knuckles turn white.
