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“Andrew mentioned it. Seemed like he’s been worried about you since your divorce.”
“He and I worry about each other too much. Twin connection and all that, I guess.”
“How long ago was it?”
“The divorce? Two and a half years. When I was twenty-four. We got married young, at nineteen. I wasn’t in a great place mentally and thought I was in love. He thought he could save me from myself. We were both wrong.”
“Why would he think you needed saving?”
Her eyes dropped to the table for a few seconds. “Remember the car accident I told you about when I changed career paths? It turned my world upside down. I lost my scholarship to play softball at Oklahoma. I had several surgeries, had difficulty getting around, and was dependent on other people for a while. It was a really hard time for me.”
“That’s understandable,” Logan said quietly.
“Jackson was a good friend from high school, and he started coming around more after the accident. He’d pick me up from the farm and take me into town. He helped me breathe a little. I hated being stuck at home with my parents. Andrew left for college, and I was the sole focus of my mother. She suffocated me, and the only thing I looked forward to was the days Jackson would show up and take me away.
“I told him as much, and we both thought I needed him. When enrollment came around for the next semester at Nebraska, I still couldn’t drive, so I thought I’d have to wait another six months to get away and start college. But he proposed and told me we could move to Lincoln for school. He promised to help me get to campus when I was ready. I was blinded by eagerness to get away and mistook that and feelings of affection as true love.”
Logan scratched his thumb across the words inscribed on his beer bottle. “Circumstances can lead us to make decisions we wouldn’t otherwise make, that’s for sure.” He knew that better than anyone. “But it sounds like Jackson was a good guy and helped you during a rough period of your life.”
Jeni hesitated. “He took good care of me at first. But that fell away when it became less convenient for him.” Her expression shuttered, and she lifted her gold-brown eyes to his. “Enough about that. What about you? Ever been in love?”
“Nah.”
“I figured.”
What was that supposed to mean? “Why do you say that?”
“Can I be honest?” she asked.
“Aren’t you always?”
She flinched but met his gaze straight on. “I don’t want this to come out wrong, but you seem like a major player.”
Logan stiffened. “When did Judgmental Jeni show up?”
“Do you deny that you sleep around?”
He looked away for a moment. “I don’t know. I have no idea what your definition of sleeping around is. I enjoy meeting women and talking to them. And if it goes in that direction, I usually don’t stop it. It’s never my goal just to hook up with a woman just for the sake of getting laid, if that’s what you’re suggesting. But even if it was, if both parties consent and know what the end goal is, what’s the problem?”
She didn’t answer his question and instead asked one of her own. “If that’s not your goal, what is?”
That was easy. “I like being that close to another person. The focus, the intensity. The connection.” That’s what he sought anyway. He wasn’t going to admit he rarely found it.
“And is it really the sex that does that for you?”
“Can’t get any closer to a person than that.”
Jeni lifted her beer to her lips and took a slow drink. “Actually, I’d argue it’s not the sex that does it. That connection comes from something else, somewhere beneath our skin and bones.”
Logan paused and absorbed her words. It’s not the sex that does it, the connection comes from something else.
Huh.
“But I could be way off base,” she continued. “I haven’t even found that, and I was married. What do I know?” She laughed lightly. “I actually see your point, truth be told.” She looked a little surprised at herself. “I guess there’s nothing wrong with two adults enjoying themselves.”
Logan looked at her with eyebrows raised.
She rolled her eyes. “What? Don’t look so shocked. I might be quick to judge, but I’ll also admit when I’m wrong.”
