She saw something more in him. He’d been a dick to her, too, but she saw he was more than that. He could be more than that.
What was he doing? Trying to be more than a dick. Trying to have this thing he needed. This feeling in his chest he only had with Honor.
Damn, he hoped he could do it.
Chapter Fifteen
Logan hated funerals. Yeah, he supposed everybody did, but other people seemed to be more comfortable at them, knowing what to do, how to be, while he spent every second at war with the compulsion to run.
He’d been to his fair share—Jasper Ridge was a small town where everybody knew everybody, and he’d lived there all his life, so he’d known a lot of people who’d died—and he hadn’t always felt like this. Time was, a funeral was a not much more than a somber way to spend a day, his feelings ranging from subdued sadness to dull boredom, depending on who was in the box.
And then his mother had died.
And then, a few years later, little Ruthie had died.
Logan had been a man full grown when he and his siblings had endured their mother’s illness and death, but that experience had nearly unmanned him. Losing Mama had torn a gash through the whole family; their stony monument of a father had nearly broken, too. The grief had pressed down on the ranch like God’s hand itself and nearly crushed them all.
Mama had been the best woman imaginable. Calm and sweet, full of love without judgment or condition, supportive and warm. Beautiful, so beautiful, inside and out. An angel in their house. He supposed all his family had a story to tell about their personal trauma in losing her. But they’d never talked about it. None of them. Not even Emma.
For Logan’s part, he was the oldest of them. The only one who’d ever had her to himself. He was the child who’d made her a mother, and for four years, he’d been her only. He still had memories of those first years. Not many, and few were truly vivid, but they were there, and they were his. He remembered being the full focus of her serene love and care.
He was a grown man when she died, but he’d still needed his mother, and there was a hole in his chest that had never healed.
A few years later, Heath’s daughter had died so horribly, and Heath’s rage and grief had been a fiery cataclysm tearing through the ranch and the whole town. Heath had blamed Logan for holding him back, not letting him dive into an inferno to get to his daughter, not letting him save her, or die with her. He’d beaten him almost unconscious at the funeral. In front of the whole town. A few feet from that agonizingly small casket.
Ruthie had been the first child born from their generation, the one who’d made Logan an uncle, and he’d loved that little pixie almost like she’d been his very own child. But his grief—everyone’s grief—had been swallowed up in the firestorm of her father’s.
Logan fucking hated funerals.
He’d come to this one with Honor. They’d buried Debbie, her assistant—and a motherly kind of friend, apparently—and now they were in her house. Her teenage son was sitting in the middle of a floral sofa, glaring at his knees, ignoring the figures in black milling about him while they mumbled and ate cake.
Standing alone near the front door of this little bungalow in Nampa, Logan scanned the small sea of black-clad bodies for Honor. A very few of these people were vague acquaintances to him, people from Bellamy White whom he’d met or seen or spent some small time with during Heath’s trial. Everyone else seemed to be Debbie’s family, or neighbor, or true friend.
Struggling not to drown in his own funereal memories, feeling way out of place at the mourning for someone he’d barely said a dozen words to, Logan didn’t have his usual conversational ease at his disposal. Honor was the only one he would have spoken to, and she’d wandered away from him early on, to cluster with people she knew well.
He felt lonely and abandoned, and neither of those feelings were familiar to him. Nor was the resentment starting to bubble in his gut—directed at Honor. He was here for her, was enduring this to be here for her, and she’d walked off and left him to stand on his own. She didn’t know how hard funerals were for him, but she knew he was a stranger here, and she’d left him behind.
This was neediness. He’d spent barely more than a week with her, and he was being needy. It was bullshit like this that had kept him totally single his whole life. He did not want a woman to weaken him, compromise him. And yet, here he was, standing against the wall in a stranger’s house, feeling sorry for himself.
Well, fuck that. Logan stalked through the house, sidled around chatting mourners, until he located Honor. She stood on the deck off the kitchen, talking with two people he was acquainted with. They, too, had been on Heath’s defense team. He flipped through his memory and found their names: Art and Melina.
Honor’s back was to him as he approached, but Art and Melina both saw him coming and gave him signs of greeting, a nod and a smile, respectively. He managed a nod back as he hooked his hand around Honor’s arm and pulled her around.
“Hi,” she said, as if he’d been entertaining himself elsewhere.
“I need to go.”
Her frown tipped her head to the side. “You okay?”
“I need to go. Now.”
“Logan—is something wrong?”
A whole lot was wrong, but he didn’t have words for it yet. “No. I just need to go.”
Art said, “I can give you a ride, Honor.”
There was absolutely no way Logan would allow that guy to take Honor from here. His hand clenched around her arm reflexively, but he didn’t try to back it off when he realized it.
She flinched and shot a scowl at his hand and then up to his face; he was hurting her. He forced his fingers to ease up, and she yanked her arm from him.
To her friends, she turned on a smile. “Thanks, but I think Logan’s right. It’s time to go. I’ll call you. I want to help.”
“Okay,” Melina said as she and Honor exchanged a hug. “Take care.”
Logan thought he might lose his shit if Honor hugged Art, too, but they only shook hands. Art ducked in to kiss her cheek at the end, but Logan kept hold of himself.
Needy and jealous. What the fuck.
*****
“What the fuck was that about?” Honor snarled before Logan even had his seatbelt on.
“I don’t like funerals.” He clicked the belt in place and turned the ignition, goosing the gas pedal more than was strictly necessary and making the engine roar before he pulled away.
“Nobody likes funerals.”
He felt too raw—and angry, he was angry, too—to explain, so he just turned and glared at her. She glared right back.
“What is going on, Logan?”
He couldn’t answer. Describing this hot vile soup in his gut would be just as bad as feeling it. They drove in silence for a while, until they were out of Nampa and well on their way into the city. Honor meant to pick up a few more things from her apartment and handle some business before they returned to Jasper Ridge.
Logan began to wonder if she should come back to the ranch with him after all. For all the amazing things he felt with this woman, all the powerful emotions she’d uncovered in him, she’d also uncovered all this rot and pus that he hated. It was all or nothing with her—he either felt powerful and alive as a god, or weak and desperate as a bug.
“I would have been okay without you. I told you I didn’t need you to come today.”
Today was a bug day. It had started off with Gabe offering to lend Honor her damn car and Honor telling him he was unnecessary, unneeded, and had gone downhill from there.
“I know. I heard you.” He turned to her. She was looking out the windshield, her hand at her throat, playing with her grandmother’s pearls. Her mascara was smudged a little. She’d been crying. When had she been crying? Where had he been?
Her phone rang, and Logan returned his attention to the road as she answered.
“Hi, Ted. What’s up? … Okay … What? But he—but I wanted to be there. I have a
statement.”
Logan turned to her again. She’d dropped the pearls and had her free hand wrapped around her waist. Her face was clenched with anger and worry.
Forgetting his own pestilent mood just that fast, he changed lanes to the far right and aimed for the next exit.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said into the phone. “This is so fucked. … Okay, okay. … Yeah, thanks for letting me know. Bye.”
He pulled off the highway as she ended the call. Her hands dropped to her lap, and she stared at her phone.
“Who was that?”
“A friend at court. Tyler O’Keefe had his hearing today.”
Her stalker. “What? That’s not till the end of the week.” He turned at the stop sign and made his way to the nearest parking lot.
“There was a clearing on the docket, and the judge called him up. They called me, but couldn’t reach me.” She lifted her phone and scrolled through her voice mail. “Yeah—there it is. Three hours ago. During Debbie’s funeral, when I had my phone off.”
“How’s that right, to not let the victim be present?”
“It was a hearing before a judge, not a jury trial. My statement’s in evidence. I don’t have a right to speak unless the judge wants me to. I guess he liked expediency better.”
He parked the truck, killed the engine and turned to her. “How much time did he get?”
Her eyes finally came up and found his. Shit, she was scared. As scared, if not more, as she’d been when he’d found her at the ER.
“Honor?”
“He gave him probation. Three months. That’s it. And that was for hitting the cop, no doubt. All I got is a condition of his probation—he has to stay fifty yards from me. But that’s what the TRO already says, and it’s barely slowed him down.”
“He hasn’t tried to hurt you since that first night, has he?” She gave him a sharp, suspicious look, and he clarified, “I want him locked up, darlin’. I want to kick his hipster ass. But I want to know if he tried to touch you since then. If he did, then I will take him off the court’s hands.”
“No. He leaves messages and gifts. He lurks. But he hasn’t tried to get up close since. It just … it’s exhausting, dealing with him, worrying when he’ll try again, and after what Judi did, there’s nothing I can’t imagine him trying. More people might get hurt. It feels like I’m stuck in the middle of a circle of death and danger.” She sucked in a wet breath. “God, I’m so tired.”
“Shh.” Leaning over the console, he put his arm around her and drew her close, and she snuggled her head against his chest. Her body shuddered as she let loose a stunted, weary sob. He held her close and kissed her head. “I got you,” he whispered against her ear. “Let’s get back to the ranch. You’re safe there.”
She nodded and snuggled close, holding tight.
And Logan felt like a god.
*****
“Hey, Honor!” Reese, the owner and main bartender of the Apple Jack Saloon, grinned and picked up a glass. “Oh, and Logan.” His grin oozed snark, and Logan flipped him off as he and Honor took stools at the bar.
She’d been with him in Jasper Ridge now for a couple weeks, and things were good, overall. Since Debbie’s funeral and his twisted-up mood, and Honor finding out that her stalker had barely gotten a slap on the wrist, things had been just about perfect. She’d been enjoying the ranch and the town, getting to know it all, learning to ride, even making friends. Settling in a little.
She’d done a little work, too, but mainly to wind up what she called her ‘failed experiment.’ And it was a total failure. Debbie’s life was obviously the greatest loss, but Honor’s career had been murdered as well. On top of the destruction of her car and the lease-killing damage to her office, what the Jones girl had done had gotten local news coverage. In addition to coverage of the shooting on all the local television news broadcasts, it was the hot topic of Boise talk radio for a full week, and Honor’s name was getting dragged through the sludge. The lawyer who’d gotten the psycho killer off so she could kill again. She had no prospects for work in Boise, at least not until the storm blew over.
She’d finished or handed off her few remaining small cases, filed insurance claims for her business and her totaled car, gotten out of the lease for her office, closed up her apartment, and run back to the safety of Logan’s arms.
The whole ordeal made her moody and melancholy, and sometimes he found her sitting quietly by herself, staring at nothing, looking lost. But Logan loved it. When she saw him, she smiled. When he came to her, she leaned on him. When she was with him, she brightened up and was happy.
He was a dick for it, but he needed her to need him, and right now, with the rest of her life in pieces, she needed him every day.
“It’s quiet tonight,” Honor said as she picked up the glass of Blue Moon Reese had set before her. With the exception of Old Man Allen, who was practically a mascot, taking up the same seat at the end of the bar he’d been taking up as long as Logan could remember and barely speaking a word to a soul, they were the only customers in the place.
The Jack had been the town bar for just about as long as Jasper Ridge had been a town. Reese’s family had owned it for a goodly portion of that time. It wasn’t anything special, just a typical town tavern, with pool tables, a big jukebox full of country tunes, and a long bar stocked with middle-shelf booze, but in Jasper Ridge, everything about it was special. Housed in one of the oldest buildings in town, full of history and tradition, the Jack was the heart of the town.
“Everybody’s at the high school, bickering over the final details for the festival.” Reese gave Logan a deep pour of Jim Beam. “They’ll be around presently so they can get drunk while they bicker more.”
Logan chuckled and poured bourbon down his throat. The whole town was an extended family—everybody knowing everything, everybody in everybody’s business, squabbling and hugging it out in turns.
“I was talking with Emma about the festival earlier. Fourth of July and Founders’ Day all in one.” Honor turned to Logan. “That’s the night Brandon Black died.”
Nobody in Jasper Ridge, certainly nobody named Cahill, could forget that. Heath had beaten Black badly on the Fourth last year, right out in front of the Jack, and then Black had turned up dead the next morning, torn to pieces with somebody’s bare hands.
Just about everybody had thought those hands had been Heath’s, but Honor had proved otherwise.
Logan nodded and finished his drink.
Reese cleared his throat. “Sorry, ma’am. We don’t say that name in here.”
“Sorry. It just seems bizarre that it’s only been a year. A lot’s changed.” She smiled at Logan and set her hand on his thigh. “A lot’s happened.”
He covered her hand with his. “Yeah. Things are better. You saved us.”
Her smile trembled and died. “But not myself.”
“You will. I got you.”
Just then, the doors flew open, and Emmett and Paul, two of Heath’s best friends, and good friends to Logan, too, burst in. “Guys!” Emmett shouted. “We got trouble.”
Logan was off his stool at once, stepping between Honor and the door, for no rational reason. “What’s wrong? Is it Heath?”
“It’s Victor,” Paul answered. “Sheriff Murphy arrested Natalie—dragged her out of the high school in front of the whole town.”
Emmett nodded. “Victor’s losing his shit, Heath’s trying to get in his way, and it’s gettin’ ugly.”
Natalie was Victor’s youngest sibling. If they’d arrested her at the high school, they’d done it not only in front of the whole town but specifically in front of her family. Her parents. The Cahills and Thomases were close—bound by distant blood and deep friendship. Frank Thomas, Victor and Natalie’s father, was Logan’s father’s best friend.
Honor jumped off her stool and came around Logan. “What’s the charge?”
“Drugs—trafficking. That’s all I know.”
Logan wa
s stunned. “What? She’s seventeen years old!” Meth was a problem on the Sawtooth Jasper Shoshone Reservation, but the Thomases stayed well clear of the drug and its manufacture. Frank was County Clerk. And the Thomases had always been on their kids like glue. There was no way Natalie was trafficking drugs.
“Does she have a lawyer?” Honor asked.
Paul laughed. “No, ma’am. She’s Shoshone.”
Honor frowned, not understanding how A plus B equaled C, but Logan got it. The only lawyer in Jasper Ridge was a traffic ticket fixer. In town or on the reservation, unless you could afford a Boise lawyer, you got a public defender. And if you lived on the reservation, it took a long time for that free lawyer to show up.
But standing at Logan’s side was the best defense attorney in Idaho. A bit down on her luck, but no less talented for that. She looked up at him. Color had risen on her cheeks. “Take me to her.”
“Let’s git!” Emmett said, yanking the door back open.
*****
“This is so fucked.” Victor stalked the sparse waiting room of the sheriff substation. He held a plastic ice pack to his mouth. His eye, he was just letting swell.
Heath had looked just as bad. Logan and the others had shown up at the high school to find the two friends rolling around on the parking lot—the first time Heath had fought with anybody like this in almost a year. By all accounts, he’d tried to get Victor under control. But when he’d failed, his hardwired tendency to fight had kicked in, and they’d just gone at each other.
Paul had gotten Logan’s little brother back home, where he was hopefully getting patched up by his wife, who’d, thankfully, stayed home tonight, away from this mess. Gabe had had enough mess in her life already. Emmett had stayed to deal with the mess at the high school while Logan had gotten Honor and Victor here.
Someday (Sawtooth Mountains Stories Book 2) Page 19