That was a loaded question. My eyes opened and I lifted my head, flipping onto my stomach and staring up at him as he looked down at me. I rested my chin in my palm as he turned on his side and slid a hand down my back, dragging the sheet down and revealing my naked body.
What did I want out of life? I had no idea. Before Logan, I wanted peace and quiet. I wanted to fly under the radar, work hard and save money. But, for what? Why did I want that?
“I want…” I trailed off and stopped, chewing my lip. “I want love. I’ve spent so long alone, by myself. No companionship or relationships. It was like I was completely numb to the fact that I was so alone. Lonely. No matter how busy I was, no matter how much I worked, when the day came to an end I was still alone. I don’t want that anymore.”
My chest hurt as though I’d ripped my heart out and exposed my deepest, darkest secret. I was lonely. I felt raw, vulnerable. Not only was I exposing my secrets and desires, I was stark naked with not even a sheet covering me next to a man next to a man that I was in love with.
Love.
I was in love with Logan.
No, no, no, I thought to myself and tried to stop the panic that was rising within me. You’re not in love with him. Jesus, you guys just had sex and there’s an increase in your body’s oxytocin. It’s endorphins. You are not in love with Logan.
“What about you?” I asked softly, dying to have the focus taken away from me because I couldn’t handle the intense look he was giving me or the way his hand stilled on my back at the mention of the word love.
“I want peace,” Logan said as he glanced out the window. Moonlight shone in the room and I was taken aback by how handsome he looked. Rugged with the scruff on his face and his unkempt hair,
“Peace?” I asked, not oblivious to the fact that peace was exactly what I’d wanted before.
“Peace. Not with my job, I love what I do. I could never give it up. But..” he trailed off and gave me a narrow eyed look. “Do not give me any shit for this. I want inner peace. My parents are constantly giving me a hard time. I’m never doing the right thing. I’m struggling with my RA and I feel restless about the fact that there’s nothing I can do about it. I guess I just want a little peace and quiet. Everything’s always so… noisy. Make sense?”
I couldn’t even begin to explain how much sense it made. My heart ached because it felt such a strong connection to Logan’s. He wanted peace within himself and I thought it was brave that he was willing to admit such a thing where I spent years hiding it away. But there he was, knowing what he wanted and saying it aloud.
He wanted peace.
I wanted love.
Was there any possible way we could find that within each other?
“I-” I was cut off by the sudden banging on the door.
He was immediately on alert and sat up, wincing as pain pulsed through his shoulder. I glared, realizing why he’d wanted me to ride him tonight. Logan hadn’t verbally told me that he was sore, but I had a feeling his RA was acting up when he wanted me to take the lead.
“It’s the middle of the night,” I whispered and hopped out of bed, wrapping the sheet around myself.
“Thank you, Captain Obvious.” Logan muttered and pulled on a pair of sweatpants. I hated how stiff his arms looked as he pulled on a sweatshirt and left it unzipped. “I could tell you to stay here, but I know you won’t listen.”
I couldn’t help but smile. At least he knew me well enough to know that I was too nosy for my own good. “Let’s go then.” I laced our fingers together and let him take the lead, walking us downstairs as the pounding continued.
He put a hand up, silently telling me to stay put as he moved toward the door. After looking through the peephole, he threw the door open to reveal Ronald standing on the other side looking exhausted. His face was pinched and tense, lines appearing between his furrowed eyebrows as his hulking frame took up the entire door frame.
“It’s the middle of the night,” Logan said through gritted teeth.
“Thanks, I couldn’t tell,” Ronald responded without an ounce of humor before brushing past Logan and walking into the living room. He gave me a slight nod. “Juliette.”
“It’s nice to see you again.”
“I wish I was here under better circumstances.” was his response as he turned in a circle. “Where are the damn lights in this place?”
Silently, Logan walked across the room and flipped the switches, lighting up the living room and kitchen before turning and crossing his arms over his bare chest. His gaze was wary as he eyed his friend. “What’s up?”
Ronald inhaled through his nose, nostrils flaring before he cleared his throat. “Nicole’s gone.”
Everything stopped.
Time, my heartbeat, everything. It all just stopped at Ronald’s admission. How could Nicole be gone? We’d seen her, what? A week ago? Maybe even less, I couldn’t remember. I also couldn’t remember how to speak as my mouth formed an “o” shape and I looked between the men in front of me. The air was quickly becoming thick with tension and uncertainty, and I didn’t know which was worse.
“What the fuck do you mean?” Logan’s voice was low and he was completely still, his mouth a thin line as his eyes narrowed.
Ronald scrubbed a hand over his face and then sat down on the couch. “Around eleven thirty pm, Nicole put a call into the police. She said that she needed help, that her boyfriend was beating her up. She sounded pretty fucked up, man. High. Scared. I could barely understand her because she was so hysterical. I arrived at the same time as another squad car, but the house was empty when we got there. All the lights were on, there was hot food on the stove, but she wasn’t in the house. She was gone. No note. But…”
“But what, Ron?”
He took a deep breath before continuing. “There was blood, Logan. A lot of blood. On the walls, the floor. There was a bloody knife in the bathroom with bloody rags in the sink. His car’s gone and so are some of his clothes. There isn’t even any sign that Nicole was staying there other than a negative pregnancy test in the trash. We put an APB out on Conlon, but so far there’s been no sign of him.”
Logan was pale as he sat down on the edge of the couch, elbows on his knees as he rested his head in his hands. I knew there was nothing I could do, nothing I could say that would make the situation any better. So I said nothing at all, standing on the stairs, watching as both men stared down at the ground. Logan was so still that I wasn’t sure if he was even breathing.
He would blame himself for not getting her out of town the day we saw her. I knew it, could feel the guilt that was sliding through him. But maybe it was going through me, too. I’d been harsh, not as understanding as I should have been considering I had no way of knowing what Nicole was going through. But how were we supposed to know that this was going to happen?
“You think she’s dead?” Logan’s voice was muffled in his hands.
Ronald’s face remained impassive as he shook his head, rubbing his hands together. “We can’t afford to think like that.”
“But she could be.”
“You know how this shit goes, Logan. You know how dangerous Conlon is. I’m not gonna sugarcoat shit for you and tell you that when we find her she’ll be okay. You know that.”
Logan leapt off the couch and jabbed a finger in Ronald’s face. I jumped, caught off guard by his sudden movement. “I didn’t fuckin’ ask you to sugarcoat anything, Ron. Don’t talk to me like I’m a child throwing a tantrum. You know just as well as I do that Conlon will kill her without a second thought and-”
“Logan!” Ronald’s voice boomed as he stood, his voice so deep and so loud that I physically winced. He got in his face. “You better take a deep fucking breath and think about this, kid. Reel in that temper.”
“Oh, fuck off. You come to my house in the middle of the night and tell me that Nic’s missing and there’s blood on the walls, and you expect me to be calm about it? J, go get dressed. We’re gonna head out and start looki
ng for her.”
Okay, I definitely didn’t think that was a good idea. Definitely not with that temper. There was obviously no way to calm him down and if I told him no he’d go without me, an option that I didn’t like because what if something happened to him? What if I wasn’t there to help him?
I had to admit that his temper frightened me. The sheer force of him on a good day could be intimidating, but his anger was a whole different ball park. His cheeks were red, body stiff, veins appearing in his neck. It was as though he was a completely different person. Harder. Meaner.
“Lo…” I started and trailed off.
“You go anywhere near this investigation and I’ll have you arrested.”
Logan’s spine straightened and he growled- actually, literally growled- before turning to his friend that was probably not his friend right now. “I beg your pardon?”
“It’s for your own good,” Ronald said and crossed his arms over his chest, not threatened in the slighted by Logan’s temper. “You did the best you could with Nic, man. But some people don’t always want the help we offer, and I can’t risk something happening to you or your girl. Let me do my job. Let the police do their job. We’re gonna find her, but I need you to trust me. I need you to back the fuck off and trust me to do my job.”
They squared off, standing there with their shoulders tense and their tempers flaring. I felt like I was suffocating in testosterone and placed a hand against my chest to feel the steady thumping of my heart. My skin was hot and the sweet, loving mood from earlier was gone. It was as though there was some sort of angry, black cloud over us now.
We should have known that Conlon was still going to cause trouble.
We shouldn’t have turned our backs and let Nicole go that day.
It all could have been avoided if we’d fought a little harder, convinced her to come with us.
But now Nicole was gone. Missing. Possibly dead. And all we could do was blame ourselves.
NEITHER OF US slept that night. After Ronald left, Logan made it clear that he wanted to be left alone, so I stayed upstairs and stared at the the ceiling as I lay in the bed that we’d shared a deep, meaningful conversation in hours before. I could hear him making phone calls downstairs, sometimes shouting and sometimes not, but never coming upstairs.
I ached to go down and check on him, to ask if he wanted me to make coffee or breakfast. But if he had even the slightest biting remark I’d lose my temper and he clearly had enough on his plate without us fighting, too.
When Sadie ambled up the stairs and jumped into bed with me, I almost wept with how thankful I was. It was uncomfortable, knowing that we shared something so deep and now he was keeping his distance. I was in his home, for God’s sake, and for a little bit it felt like my home, too. Now I was feeling more like a guest.
It wasn’t my main concern, of course. But if Logan needed space to figure out what was going on with Nicole then I would gladly give him that. It wasn’t just about his career, it was about someone’s life. The life of a woman he cared about, and he was downstairs blaming himself for the fact that she could be hurt, or worse, and I hated that. Nicole had made up her mind that day at Faneuil Hall and there was no stopping her. Just like there was no stopping Conlon. It wasn’t a comforting thought, but it was a reason.
Logan couldn’t save everyone and still make it out unscathed, which was becoming more clear to me as the minutes ticked into hours. I knew that he was tearing himself apart for not stepping in and taking action, and the fact that Ronald told him he couldn’t interfere was eating him up.
But I was smart enough to know that Logan would figure out a way to work around it.
He wouldn’t back down.
It wasn’t in his nature.
After tossing and turning in bed until close to seven, I dressed and made my way downstairs to find him sitting at the kitchen table, a notebook with hospitals and phone numbers sitting in front of him as he tapped a pen against his bouncing knee.
“Lo?” I asked and sat down next to him, cocking my head to the side.
“Did you know that in the three years since I started doing this, I’ve never lost a girl. Ever. To relapse, yeah. But not to… to…”
“She isn’t dead,” I responded and squeezed his shoulder. He winced, hard, and I went to move my hand, but he covered mine with his own and kept it there.
His eyes met mine as his fingertips trailed over the back of the mind. “We don’t know that.”
I sighed. “No, we don’t know that. And if you want to think negatively, Logan, then fine, you do that. But it isn’t going to change the situation nor will it bring her home.”
To my complete and utter surprise, he laughed. It was brief and he tried to hide it, but I heard the rumble in his chest and the way a smile graced his lips. “You really push my buttons, you know that?”
“The feeling’s mutual.”
We were silent for a few minutes and when I squeezed his shoulder again, he dropped his chin to his chest. I stood and moved behind him, kneading my fingers into his muscles as he groaned, reaching behind himself to wrap one arm around the back of my leg. Slowly, my hands lowered to his chest and I crossed them, wrapping my arms around him to pepper his scruffy jaw and cheek with kisses. “We’ll find her. Together.”
Later that morning, I was sitting on the couch flipping through the channels when I stopped on the news, seeing a picture of Nicole appear on the screen. It must have been when she was younger because her hair was shorter and she looked healthier. More vibrant, No raccoon eyes and she wasn’t as thin. Life- Conlon- had seemingly gotten the best of her since then.
But it was what I heard next that had me standing and moving toward the tv, my heart dropping to my stomach.
“Nicole Arbour’s family and friends couldn’t be reached for comment on the girl’s whereabouts or her relations with longtime boyfriend, Gregory Conlon. There has, however, been a break in the case as police recovered Arbour’s phone at the scene, and an inside source revealed that acquaintance Logan Ashford was in contact with her just a week prior to her disappearance. Our source also revealed that Ashford was making it a point to try and get Arbour away from Conlon, something he’s made a career out of. Conlon, who is a prime suspect in the apparent assault and kidnapping of twenty four year old Arbour, hasn’t been seen in days. Reporting live from Charlestown, this is KC Kinsley with Seven News, New England.”
“Logan!”
He cursed upstairs and then I heard him amble downstairs, his cane gripped tight in his left hand. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, but you’re not.”
Logan gave me a questioning look and then glanced at the tv as the news replayed what KC Kinsley had just said. There was no photo of Logan, but the name was loud and clear. Not only had he been revealed as someone who clearly knew Nicole, he’d been exposed. To everyone who didn’t know what he did for a living. To his friends. His-
“My family,” he whispered. “They know. They know everything.”
There was nothing I could say, so I simply hooked my arm through his and leaned against him, lacing our fingers together and squeezing tight. No matter what happened with his family, no matter what happened with Nicole, he wasn’t alone. I was with Logan all the way. I’d help him search for her. I’d be next to him when he faced his family and told them the truth. I’d be there.
Because I loved him.
Because I couldn’t turn my back on him now.
“I’m so fucked,” he whispered, and I couldn’t help but think the same about myself.
Chapter 16
M y first thought as we pulled up to Logan’s parents’ house was, they’re loaded.
My second thought was, I want to vomit.
As soon as the news broke, Abby had been texting and calling both of us nonstop. Logan had repeatedly ignored his parents’ calls and told his sister to have everyone at the house by one, and he’d explain everything. Surprisingly, he hadn’t freaked out a
bout the fact that he was now completely exposed. I figured it was because he was so overwhelmed with everything going on with Nicole, that everything else just seemed minor.
I was sure that would change as soon as we entered the house. Based on what he’d said about his family, his mother was somewhat overbearing and his father could be harsh when it came to his children’s career choices. So I could only imagine what his father’s reaction would be at the news that his son was a… whatever he was.
“Who would have leaked your name to the press? Who would she have told?” I asked as he put the car in park and pulled the key from the ignition.
Logan cleared his throat and shook his head. “I don’t know. As far as I knew, Nic didn’t have any close friends anymore. Conlon isolated her from everyone and eventually the shitty friends that she did have just gave up. I don’t know who she would have talked to.”
He didn’t look nervous about “going into the lion’s den” as he’d previously said on the way over. Too bad I couldn’t say the same for me; I was terrified to meet his family. I couldn’t imagine that this whole scene was going to play out nicely with us eating dinner and his parents getting to know me.
No, I had a feeling this was going to be a bloodbath.
We walked up the driveway with me trailing slightly behind, my heart in my throat. We’d barely made it to the door before it was opening and a big, burly man that resembled Robbie stepped forward. His blue eyes were icy and his jaw was clenched, tie loosened at his throat with the top button of his shirt undone. He looked very much the part of stern father and I was instantly aware of the tension that surrounded him.
“Logan,” he said as a way of greeting.
“Wait to give me a hard time until the door’s shut. We don’t want the neighbors to see, right?” he responded and reached back, grabbing my hand and pulling me into the foyer.
After the door was closed, Logan turned to his father. “Dad, this is Juliette.”
It seemed as though a frown was permanently placed on the man’s face as he stuck his hand out. “Juliette, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Robert Ashford.”
Reckless and Wild: A Small Town Romantic Suspense (Port James Series Book 1) Page 14