Page 11 of Shattered
To many people that would seem so random. But to me, it sounded a lot like running. Heaven knows how many times I'd wanted to do the same thing. Especially after the accident. Forcing my thoughts away from that dark pit, I voiced the one question I'd been curious about since stepping foot inside her house. "And Flynn's daddy? Where's he?"
That question earned me a sharp look and an even sharper answer. "He's not in the picture." Obviously realizing she'd been short with me, Harper shook her head and apologized. "I'm sorry I snapped at you. It's just…" her gaze drifted to the archway leading into the hallway for a few seconds before landing on me again. "We…I don't talk too much about him. Flynn has questions, and I answer as best I can, but it doesn't change the fact he's never going to know his father."
My heart twisted a little. I couldn't even imagine a life without my dad. As no-nonsense as Charles Jackson had been, there wasn't a day that either me or my brothers didn't know we were loved. In fact, if it hadn't been for my dad, my life would have been very different and not a good different.
"I'm sorry for your loss." It was a stupid thing to say, but I didn't know what else to say to a woman who'd lost her husband. Afraid that I might put my foot in it again, I grabbed my half-empty beer and almost swallowed it all in one go.
"I didn't say he was dead."
I didn't mean to, I intended to swallow the liquid in my mouth, but that wasn't what happened. It wasn't even her statement; it was the way she'd said it that had all the beer spraying out of my mouth and soaking into my beard. Putting down the beer and cleaning up the mess I'd just made would have been the right thing to do. With all the questions floating around in my head, I couldn't stop staring.
Harper was the one to move and find a mop. After throwing me a dish towel, to clean myself up with, she went about mopping the floor. I tried to take the wooden handle out of her hands, but the moment my hand closed over hers, the air between us shifted.
I might as well have had a live wire pressed to my palm; it was all I could do not to jerk my hand away. Her gaze dropped to our connected hands before slowly lifting to mine. It was in that moment that I realized I affected her as much as she affected me. Instead of pulling my hand away, I curled my fingers tighter around hers and tugged.
"Logan."
My name came out as both a warning and a plea. And I imagined a very different scenario where she was saying my name like that. I didn't have time to react though. Little Flynn chose that exact moment to come charging into the kitchen.
"Mommy!"
The second she heard her boy's voice, Harper snatched her hand out from under mine and moved to the opposite side of the kitchen. It happened so fast that, if I weren't still feeling the tingling sensation in my hand, I'd have thought that I'd imagined her there a moment ago.
"Mooommy," Flynn's little nag came through again. "Can I show Logan now?"
There was no question that I found Harper beautiful, but the way her face lit up when she looked at her son made her simply irresistible. And when I caught sight of the smile she gave Flynn, I couldn't help but wonder what it would feel like when she aimed one at me.
Too quickly, she glanced at me before looking at Flynn again. "If Logan says it's okay-"
Halfway through her sentence I felt Flynn's small fingers curl around two of mine. The action was so sudden and unexpected; the boy might as well have reached inside my chest and squeezed my heart.
Between my brothers and me, I had been the one who'd wanted a family of my own the most. I wasn't proud of it, but when Eli, my oldest brother, had announced that his girlfriend at the time was pregnant, jealousy had bubbled through my veins. Even though Eli didn't get the girl, he still had Molly, and I spoiled her rotten every chance I got.
But not even Molly's tightest hug had elicited such a burning behind my breastbone before. Unable to speak, I just nodded and allowed the little boy to tug me out of the kitchen. With every step I took, I couldn't help but think that getting involved with Harper and her son was going to destroy me.
The air in my lungs clogged up my throat and suffocated me. Needing to breathe, I pushed open the back door and stumbled on to the little deck that led to the backyard. With the heel of my palm pressed against my heart, I inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly.
I'd known having Logan in my space wouldn't be good, and I wasn't wrong. My heart had started racing from the moment I'd caught sight of him ambling toward me with that swagger that only he could pull off, and it wasn't showing any sign of stopping.
Casting my eyes upward to the darkening sky, I wondered:Why now? Why this man?I could remember feeling something similar when I'd first met Drew; he'd been charming and kind then. Swept me off my feet until I was so taken with him, I couldn't imagine living without him. And look where that had landed me.
Even though my body's reaction to Logan felt eerily familiar and scared me to death, somewhere in the back of my mind a little voice whispered that he was nothing like my abusive husband.
Laughter from Flynn's room caught my attention and forced me back inside. The joyous sounds that seemed as if it came straight from my little boy's belly filled my heart with joy. There weren't many things in life that I was proud of, but Flynn was definitely one of them. He was my rock and my strength even if he didn't know it.
I'd done many questionable things in my life, but he wasn't one of them. It didn't matter that one half of his DNA belonged to a monster. People that bad were not born evil; they were made to be so. The day I stepped out of Drew's clutches I'd asked God to keep us safe long enough for me to raise a good man.
Yet another rowdy bout of laughter filtered through the house. I didn't miss Logan's deep chuckle or the fact that the sound sent a shiver through my body. Trying to ignore the fire burning inside me, I turned my attention back to cooking and chided myself. My damn rampant hormones needed to go back to their slumber.
Maybe that was why Logan was having this effect on me. For years, sex hadn't bothered me at all. If I had an itch, I'd scratch it myself. But since meeting Logan, every one of my solo performances included images of him. I'd imagine having his big, calloused hands on me instead of my own.
"Ugh, I need help," I muttered to myself.
"Anything I can do?"
At the sound of his sexy rasp my eyes snapped to the archway where Logan was standing with his hands pushed into his pockets—looking very much as if he owned the place - my heart almost gave out. With my fingers curled tightly around the edge of the counter I steadied myself.
There was plenty he could do, but I wasn't about to voice that. Plus, I definitely didn't need him in my space at this very moment. "I think I've got it covered for now."
