Page 42 of Until You Found Me

“Mhmm.”

She frowns. “Can you check one more time?”

He’d be justified in telling her she needs to calm down, but he only walks out to jiggle the handle and tell her it’s all good before returning to grab a gun from the nightstand. He takes the clip out to show her before shoving it back in. “Safety’s on. Flick it like this to turn it off if you have to then point and pull the trigger.”

“If I have to.”

“I’ll be right here. Not going anywhere. Just saying if there’s an emergency, now you know, but we’ll do some target practice tomorrow.”

He places it on the table and gets in beside her, fussing with the pillows. The fact that they’re in bed together again seems to catch up to him, making him restless.

“Why do you have that?” she asks.

“I live alone in the middle of nowhere. Arthur has a shotgun, but I can’t depend on that to save me if someone tries breaking in. Does it make you nervous?”

“No, no, of course not. I’m glad you do. You’ll teach me how to shoot?” She watches him rearrange the bedding for the fifth time before sliding in closer.

If she gives it enough time, he’ll work out how to move past his own uncertainty, but if she helps them both, it’s so much easier. So, she lifts his arm, slips under it, and nudges them forward into the type of people who do this sort of thing.

Logan freezes, and she begins to rethink her boldness, but then the muscles under her cheek go soft, the arm around her shoulder tightening. “I’ll teach you how to shoot, get you some mace, show you how to use the knife, and fight dirty if you gotta. I know how to scuffle even if I have no other useful skills. Not sitting here on our hands waiting for that fucker to make a move.”

He will make one, too. She knows that in her gut. Some far away, ingrained knowledge of this person, whose face she can only see in half-memories from their on-street collision, resurfaces to remind her that he never gives up. If he knows she’s alive, then he won’t quit until she’s in the ground again.

“I wish it all made more sense. He should be long gone by now, even off in some other country, or wherever people go when they want to hide.” She sighs.

“People like him never make sense.” His thumb waves against her upper arm, his words pausing before continuing in a more stilted cadence. “This one time my dad strangled my momma so hard she blacked out right on the kitchen floor. We thought she was dead, me and my sister, Carley. Then I grabbed the phone while my dad was still losing it and called the cops. Knew that was a mistake, but we couldn’t just stand there, ya know?”

She nods but remains silent as he gathers his thoughts.

“She was alive but banged up. They arrested him and he spent a week in jail before posting bail, and you woulda thought that he’d be smart, right? That he would lie low andwait things out until his court date. The first fucking thing he did was give her two black eyes when he came home. Broke her wrist because I called the cops, like a warning that she’d get what I deserved. It’s why Carley hates me, ‘cause he never touched me but I couldn’t stop him from what he did to our mother. Every time I tried to help she got it worse. Anyway, he didn’t give a shit about jail. Didn’t care about anything else except revenge ‘cause we crossed him. Those black eyes made it real hard for her to stand up for him in court. He got six months when he might’ve gotten off. Men like that, they don’t make sense. Don’t waste your energy trying to figure them out.”

She imagines a smaller Logan, living in that house as a child, struggling with diabetes at the same time he struggled to survive his own family. Does Tessa’s daughter have similar memories? Has she watched someone strangle the life from her mother, or give her two black eyes? Could she recite this same story, give or take a few details?

“We’re the same, me and you.” She turns her head to press a kiss to his collarbone. “And in some ways, I wish we weren’t.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean.”

There’s a reason she was drawn to him from the start. At first, she thought it was imprinting because he wasthere, but it isn’t so simple. The part of him that remembers what it’s like to live with abuse found the part of her that’s forgotten. Together, they make a whole story out of her fragmented snippets.

They should still be caught in a cluster of first kiss butterflies but instead, they’re talking about the men who hurt them and there’s no getting back those stolen moments. Maybe she’d be naked in his bed right now if they weren’t interrupted.Or they’d be making out like excited teenagers, laughing as they bumped noses and knocked teeth. There won’t be any of that tonight now that the mood has taken a swan dive.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, nuzzling her face against his chest.

“Why?”

“I make everything so difficult. There’s always some crisis. It can never be easy.” He deserves someone easier, but it’s pointless to ruminate on that when her feelings for him have already rooted.

“You’re not the one making anything difficult. Think you can sleep?”

“We’re about to find out. You’ll stay the whole night, right?”

Her question is almost childlike in its need for reassurance but his answer is teasing. “Where would I go? I live here.”

She huffs, nudging him in response, feeling the pressure of his cheek rest atop her head.

“All night.” He points to the dog at the foot of the bed. “He’s here too. His teeth work as well as a gun. You got both of us on your side.”

“He wouldn’t bite anyone. He’s too sweet.”

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