Dangerous Conditions (Protectors At Heart Book 4)

by Jenna Kernan

  And she did not know who she should be angry at—fate for throwing them into this situation, or herself for expecting a man who had suffered a brain injury to magically heal himself.

  His dad said that she had to make the first move. She surely had done that. There would be no turning back now.

  “I have to tell you something.” She slumped to the foot of the bed, out of easy reach. She tucked one foot up under her thigh and hugged her ankle for support. Despite her attempts to meet his gaze, she kept her attention on the white gauze bandage circling his injured forearm and then slipping lower to his hand now bunching the sheets as he pressed up to sit against the headboard. Properly braced, he spoke again.

  “All right. What is it?”

  She did look at him now, at the earnest, open expression and the worry. She’d done that to him and now wondered how much of this forced separation was her fault? Had she waited too long? She had tried to remind him of their relationship and of his daughter so often, and failed, that she’d nearly lost hope. Her dad said it was time, confirming her conviction. And Logan’s actions spoke as loud as her heart. He could protect her and Lori. He was brave and kind and dear. He’d saved her life. He’d saved their daughter’s life. He could love them, remember them, at least from here forward.

  But his brain was damaged. He wasn’t the same. And she’d had it drummed into her by his family that he needed to heal, he needed space, time, freedom to come back to some sort of normalcy. The real question was could they be the same?

  Her heart was hammering now, with fear and hope. They could be. She could make them the same. She let herself entertain the possibility of a new beginning. It was that or keep their past forever locked away in her heart.

  She shook her head, rejecting that choice.

  “You’re scaring me, Paige. What’s going on?”

  She dragged in a breath through her nose as she had once done on the high dive platform before taking her very first dive from the three-meter board. Then as now, there had been this same jackhammering of her heart and the buzzing in her ears as the fear and the thrill blended. A moment later she was safe, gliding through the deep blue water and back to the anchor of the aluminum ladder.

  “You don’t remember this, but...” She had made the approach. The three steps to reach the end of the board. Now came the commitment. The jump then the landing on the board. After that nothing could stop her from falling through space. “But you and I were engaged.”

  His smile was tentative, and his eyes were melancholy. “I know, Paige. Everyone told me that.”

  “You asked me out right after Connor’s senior prom.”

  She looked away from the confusion on his face, gathering her courage. Was that guilt twitching inside her? Guilt at not trying to tell him what was his right to know? At giving up after repeated failures. Logan wouldn’t have given up. He wouldn’t have listened to doctors or his family. Nothing would have kept him from her. She needed to be more like him.

  This was harder than she had thought it would be.

  “We were serious, Logan. Steadies in high school and then I went off to college at Plattsburg and you went to Basic. But you visited me on leave and before the Military Combat Training. Five days in April. You visited again in July before sophomore year. That was when you asked me to marry you.”

  His eyes went wide. “I wish I remembered that.”

  She gripped his hand. “I wish that, too.”

  The joy in his eyes made her heart ache. He didn’t know it all yet. He might not be so elated when he knew.

  “Why didn’t we get married?” he asked.

  “We planned the wedding for the summer after I graduated. You deployed to Iraq and I worried. But you made it through all right. Then four days before Christmas, my junior year—”

  “Your dad died,” said Logan. His jaw was tense, and the muscles bulged as he clamped his teeth down on the final word.

  The lump grew again. “You remember?”

  “My brother told me. He said the dentist office closed and that you and your mom had struggled. Bankruptcy, he said.”

  “Yes. I almost quit school. Neither of us knew that dad used a home equity loan to finance my education. It was one of those loans with an increasing interest rate. And he still had student loans for medical school and for setting up his dental practice. The cars were leased. There was credit card debt. We only just saved the house. You were home for a little over a year working for a trucking company. I had no money for tuition, and I wanted to postpone the wedding. You wanted to get more loans to pay for my tuition and the wedding. I couldn’t let you. Not after seeing what that debt did to Mom. I told you no, but you found another way. You reenlisted. I was so angry. I didn’t take the money you offered and, I’m sorry, Logan.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “You wanted to be a hero. My hero. When I told you that I believed, still believe that major life choices like reenlistment and a combat assignment need to be discussed—”

  “Of course.”

  “You were so angry that you asked for your ring back.”

  His jaw dropped.

  “It was a really difficult time. It felt like the whole world was coming down on me and then you had to report for duty and were gone again.”

  “I called it off?”

  “Yes.” Paige drew a breath as she jumped and then left the high platform. There was no turning back now.

  “There’s more. You left in August and you visited me at college before your second deployment and...” Paige hurried on as if trying for the smooth entry, hands braced, ready to strike the water, to get the words past the lump growing, by the second, in her throat.

  “And...” he prompted.

  This was the hardest part, the part she had felt she just could not do again, telling him and watching the shock, which was always followed by tears and condemnation that she had kept this from him. After all that, he’d forget her and Lori all over again. It seemed so pointless, cruel even, to tell him again and again. She prayed that this time he’d hold on to her words, this conversation.

  Inches from entry now, the water in that huge pool rushed at her.

  “We had unprotected sex.”

  His eyes rolled up and she could almost hear him calculating, counting. He drew his hand away.

  “I found out I was pregnant in September—”

  “She’s mine,” he said, interrupting.

  “What?”

  “Lori is my daughter.”

  This time she saw two things that were different from all the previous occasions when she had told him this. First, he’d figured it out without her telling him directly and second there were no tears. Now his eyes blazed and his mouth was set in a grim line.

  She studied his gaze, trying to see if he recalled or if he had just made the obvious conclusion as she waited for the coming condemnation. She’d suffered it before. She knew she’d survive it.

  “Yes.”

  His breath flowed away in a whoosh as if she had punched him right in the stomach. He crossed his arms over his middle, hunching forward as if he might be ill.

  His voice was a whisper, but loud as artillery fire in the silent room. “How could you not tell me that I had a daughter?”

  She landed on her stomach in a metaphorical belly flop in the deep end, the pain real as his eyes blazed with fury.

  “I did tell you. I told you in September before you deployed. Connor and I visited you at Walter Reed in April of the next year, after your injury. You didn’t know us. I was seven months pregnant and hoping to make it through finals before the baby arrived.”

  She hadn’t. Lori had been born May 5.

  “I did know you.”

  “No, Logan. You remembered us as kids. You didn’t remember asking me to be your wife. You didn’t remember loving me. And yo
u didn’t remember me telling you that Lori was your baby. I’ve tried many times since then, Logan. Your family finally asked me to stop, stop trying to make you remember when you couldn’t.”

  And now came another difference. On previous occasions he emphatically denied this version of events. He often accused her of lying about telling him and then denying also that there was anything wrong with his memory. Not this time. This time he nodded his acceptance that she had tried and failed.

  “I can remember now.”

  “But back then you could barely speak. The doctors didn’t know if your condition was permanent. Up until last year, you were still slurring your words, struggling to find them and your short-term memory was—”

  “So let me get this straight. You and Connor and my father all decided, together, that it would be best to stop telling me that I had a daughter?”

  Chapter Nineteen

  “I’m a father?” Logan asked. The pain of his family’s betrayal cut through him like shards of broken glass even as the joy of knowing Lori was his bubbled up inside him.

  “Yes.”

  “And my own family didn’t want me to know?”

  “It’s more complicated than that.”

  “Maybe you should speak slower, so I can follow you.” His pain had morphed into sarcasm and he thought he was entitled to it.

  She had her hands over her eyes now and had folded at the waist as if the effort of remaining upright was beyond her. She looked like a marathon runner just after crossing the finish line.

  When she spoke, her words were hoarse and trembling. “I keep waiting for you to remember me. I kept hoping. But you haven’t. Then you tell me our lovemaking is as you imagined it. We’ve made love before in this very bed. And that day you told me you were saving for something, but you can’t remember what. It was for us. For our wedding.”

  “Us?” He sounded simpler than he’d become, he thought. He managed to close his mouth before she straightened and dropped her hands limply to her lap.

  But he knew. In his twisting stomach, he knew. She had been waiting to see if he would get better. Everyone told him that he was not the same man who shipped out to Iraq. That was the man she had loved. Not the one who had come back. It was the reason he had not asked her out since his return.

  In a strange way, it was as if she’d betrayed him. She might not have been unfaithful, but she’d given up trying when he needed love the most. She’d abandoned him and that meant that she wasn’t who he thought she was.

  “You should have told me every day.”

  Paige flapped her arms. “I did! And every day it hurt you and every day you forgot. I am telling you, now. Again. But I don’t know if you’ll remember this conversation.”

  He wanted to remember her, remember them. But the brain injury had stolen that piece of him. “I’ll remember this conversation until I die.”

  She stared at him, eyes wide, as if looking at a stranger. She was weeping now, tears rolling down her cheeks, and inside him the storm raged and blew.

  “You loved me. How could you forget that? It hurts me, Logan. You hurt me.”

  Her pain couldn’t compare to his, though. She’d walked away when he needed her in his life, an anchor. What if they had married? Would she have pretended that hadn’t happened because she couldn’t face being with someone...defective?

  He stood, needing to put distance between them. Not trusting himself not to lash out with the pain. She felt the injured party. He felt that, too, because she’d thought him incompetent. She’d been waiting for his brain to magically heal so he could access those parts of his brain damaged beyond repair. And she blamed him for going away and coming back like this.

  Well, he blamed her for giving up on him. He might not be the man he had been when he went away. But he was still a man. And he was capable of being a father.

  “I’ve lived next door to my daughter nearly all her life and neither of us knew.”

  “I kept hoping you’d come back.”

  “I am back.” He practically shouted it.

  Here he’d loved her all this time but thought that she’d never settle for a man with his issues. And that turned out to be true. She’d been waiting for the man he had been before the building had crashed down on them and he’d been hit with a chunk of concrete.

  “Paige, I do love you and I love Lori. It cuts me to realize you didn’t see that.”

  “I saw. But that’s not always enough.”

  What did that mean? What else did she need from him?

  “Was it that hard for you to stand by me? Would you have left me in the dark if we had married?”

  She’d gone pale. “I don’t know. Maybe I would have done that to protect Lori.”

  “Protect her from what? From me?” That was crazy. But his heart was hammering, just knowing that something had happened. Something that scared her enough to do this.

  Paige summoned all her courage.

  “You know that scar on Lori’s chin and jaw?”

  Then she held his gaze as she told him about Lori’s fall and his failure to protect her. She watched as her words tore him apart.

  “I’m sorry, Logan. I have to protect Lori.”

  From downstairs came the sound of people stomping the snow from their boots on the porch.

  Logan turned toward the sound. “Is that a drum?”

  A moment later the front door banged open, and Lori’s voice echoed up the stairs.

  “Mom! We’re home and we have pizza!”

  They stared at each other. His mistake only served to drive her point home like the point of a sword.

  “Not a drum,” he whispered.

  Paige scrambled to tug on the rest of her clothing. When she turned, it was to find Logan staring at her. He was barefoot and dressed in his jeans and a snug black T-shirt.

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  “To tell Lori.”

  Now he was shaking his head. “No. Don’t.”

  “Logan, you can do this. They are all wrong. You’ll remember this time. I know it. You can be a dad. You can.”

  “I might hurt her again. Make a mistake, think I hear birds when she’s calling me.”

  “She’s not an infant anymore.”

  He was still shaking his head. “I thought I could take care of Stephen and Valerie. I was just kidding myself.”

  “You can. Logan, you just saved my life and Lori’s. Without you, we would have died in that fire.”

  “The state would be crazy to give me custody.”

  He sat on the bed, cradling his face in his hands.

  “I’m going to tell her, Logan.”

  He reached out and grabbed her by the wrist, staying her. She knelt before him.

  “Logan. It’s time. She needs you. You need her.”

  “My father?”

  “Is not making this decision. We are. Her parents.”

  “Her parents,” he whispered, as if trying on the title.

  Paige went to find her daughter. Mr. Lynch, Lori and the Sullivan kids were in the family room sliding slices of pizza onto paper plates as Mr. Lynch scrolled through a list of possible movie choices. They agreed to wait to begin until Lori returned.

  “Where is Grandma?” asked Paige.

  “Kitchen, making a salad to go with pizza. I finished my homework at school before dance,” said Lori, making the logical assumption as to the reason for the conversation.

  Paige paused in the formal living room that sat between the family room and the dining room, where Logan now waited. He’d come down after her. She’d never seen him look so petrified.

  “Do you remember asking me to speak to your dad and ask him if he wanted to be in your life?”

  Lori stilled and her eyes went round. “Yes.”

  “Well, up until a few min
utes ago, he didn’t know he had a daughter. It was a shock for him.”

  “But he wants to see me?”

  “Instantly. That’s what he wanted. Truthfully, he’s mad at me for keeping you a secret.”

  “Can we call him?” asked Lori.

  Paige went down on one knee and rested a hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “You don’t need to call him. He’s here. He’s been here. Lori, honey, you already know him.”

  Her daughter’s eyes went rounder still and her fine dark brows lifted. She looked like Logan when she did that. She had his brown hair and those stunning deep amber eyes, both just slightly lighter than Logan’s.

  Lori’s gaze shifted toward the dining room and she stiffened. Paige knew instinctively that Logan was there. A turn of her head confirmed her suspicion. Logan was staring at Lori, seeing her again but for the first time.

  “Hiya,” he said.

  Lori glanced to her mom and then back to Logan. “Him?”

  Paige nodded. “Yes, him. Logan Lynch is your father, honey.”

  Lori stepped away from her then and walked with deliberate steps toward Logan, who was swallowing as if something was stuck in his throat.

  “Should I call you dad?” she asked.

  But Logan didn’t answer. Instead, he scooped Lori up in his arms and pressed her small body to his chest as he wept. Lori clung to his neck and she began to cry, as well.

  Paige’s throat closed as she realized the magnitude of the mistake that she had made in waiting so long. The pain and joy of their meeting tore her to shreds. She’d had no right to deny them. Injury or no injury, Logan was Lori’s father. Clearly, he loved her with all his heart.

  Finally, Logan settled his gangly legged daughter on his hip as if she were still a toddler. Lori didn’t let go of him, keeping her legs and arms locked around him.

  “You can call me whatever you like,” he said, answering the question she’d posed many minutes before. He glanced to her.

  She mouthed the words, I’m sorry.

  His chin lifted and his dark eyes went cold. “You should be.”

  She had been angry at him for reenlisting. But that had faded and she’d tried so hard to make him remember them. But it had been too soon. Now, perhaps, she was too late. Her timing, again, was bad. All she knew for certain was that Lori no longer needed protecting from Logan. What her daughter needed was her father.