Page 127 of The Lost and the Found

He shook his head, a wistful smile on his face. “No, sweetheart. It’s not a bad thing at all. I fell for my Mary just as quickly. Her father didn’t like me. You see, I was ten years her senior. But we loved each other very much.”

Logan cocked his head to the side, as if asking for something and Mathew nodded. Logan turned to me then. “Mary died from leukemia years before Veena and I came to live with Mathew, so we never met her.”

“Oh.” I turned to Mathew then, seeing the man in new eyes. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

He waved away my sympathy. “I had a good fifteen years with my girl before we had to say goodbye. I don’t regret a single moment of our time together. And that’s not the reason why I’m telling you all this. I’m telling you this because I do believe in passionate, enduring love. Falling head over heels for someone in a short period of time doesn’t make that love any less real than the ones that takes years to develop. Just be smart about things and you’ll be fine.”

“Thank you,” I said. Mathew had just told me all the things I needed to hear. There wasn’t anything wrong with loving Logan two months into meeting him. In fact, the only thing I regret was how long it took for him to make an appearance in my life. I wished we had found each other sooner.

Mathew clapped his hands loudly, and declared, “So, let’s order some lunch, and you can tell me a little bit about yourself, Hayden.”

He signaled for Charlie to come over, and I let Logan order for us, because we hadn’t even looked at the menu.

She walked away, and I noticed her smile was a little strained. Not that I cared about how she felt now, but I really wished we had gotten a male server.

Mathew looked at me expectantly, and I was already editing the story of my life in my head. I wasn’t going to tell him everything, but maybe the basics wouldn’t be so bad. “Oh, I’m in my last year of college. I will be graduating with a degree in accounting. Um, I’m an only child.”

“Oh, are your parents here with you?”

I shook my head and felt Logan tense beside me. “I never knew my dad. He left when I was eight, and I barely remember him. And my mom died when I was sixteen.”

“Oh, you poor baby. So you spent two years in foster care?”

I fidgeted then. I didn’t want to start off our meeting with a lie, but I didn’t want to see the sympathy in his eyes either. I hated that look the most. I was on the receiving end of that look for weeks after my mom died.

“No, I was on my own.”

Mathew’s eyes briefly flickered to Logan, and I knew he was making the connection then. That we were both homeless at one point in our lives. He nodded. “So, you’re strong. And capable. A good fit for my nephew.”

“Thank you,” I said. And I was smiling when I said it. What I had expected was for him to feel sorry for me. I got admiration instead, and I didn’t realize how good it felt to have someone aside from Logan see me in that light.

I took a sip of my orange juice just as the song changed. I sat up a little straighter when John Gorka’s “Love is Our Cross to Bear” started playing clearly out of the speakers. I turned to Logan and smiled.

Ever since I heard this song in his car many weeks ago, I had been listening to it every chance I got. I had the words memorized again.

Mathew laughed. “I take it you’re a fan?”

I nodded. “Oh, yeah. This song reminds me of my mom. She used to sing this to me all the time.”

Mathew’s eyes changed then, and he was no longer smiling. “Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah,” I replied slowly. I wondered if this was another one of his jokes, or whether I really said something he didn’t like this time.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your full name. What is it?”

Logan tensed up even more beside me, and I didn’t know why, but the tension was making my heart beat fast against my chest.

“Hayden Bishop.”

A pause. Then he turned to Logan, anger in his eyes. “What the hell are you playing at, boy?”

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