by Anne Conley
Logan’s parting words about the hose had to be a trick. Both Walter and Ryder had told her to stick to the walls inside the burn house, so that’s what she was going to do. Logan could eat shit and die for all she cared.
She put his kind and tortured eyes out of her mind as she put on the last of the gear and ran as fast as she could to the hose couplings. They had to put them together correctly along a line of hoses about twenty feet long. Vivian had sweet-talked Joey out of a few so they could practice this part at her house, all suited up in outerwear and weights they’d fabricated. Vivian joked about letting Joey do butt stuff in order to get them, and Katie had only twinged a little bit in jealousy.
That was something she had been willing to let Logan do. Once upon a time.
Her mask was fogging up, which was something Logan had warned about. The oxygen wasn’t running on the tanks, and the only way they’d be able to breathe with the masks on was with it unhooked. They were wearing the tanks but breathing regular air because this was a simulation, not real. But the warm air hitting the mask was making it cloud over, and it was a bit disorienting. She tried shallower breaths, and that helped a little.
The ladder was next. Katie was pretty sure she’d lost years of her life from practicing on the ladder at home and watching the boys recklessly run up and down it. She took a deep breath and got a running start, jumping up to the second rung to gain a lead on the guy she was competing with. It was soooo against the rules, but she hoped no one was paying that much attention. Her competitor had taken his time on the bunker gear but wasn’t a slowpoke for sure. She was confident she could beat him, but the ladder climbing was her worst part of this. If he gained on her anywhere, it would be here.
Katie focused on the climb, willing her feet to plant in the right places. She got overconfident, and one misstep had her floundering. Yells from below told her she was swinging in the air before her insides caught up and registered it. Katie managed to regain her footing and continue upward, knowing she had just lost some time but unwilling to let it hamper her.
At the top, Jude gave her a wink and put the mask over her head before pointing her inside the burn house.
As if being covered in sixty pounds of gear wasn’t bad enough, Katie had to find shit blindfolded. Suddenly, she was disoriented, even though she hadn’t moved yet. She took a tentative step forward, getting out of the doorway, and held her arms out in front of her.
Panic started to set in. The bunker suit was so big on her, it was almost like being in a small room, and Katie felt claustrophobic. They’d practiced and practiced, but the pressure must be messing with her. She wanted to win this for Walter, and she wanted to show Logan she wasn’t the dimwit he thought she was.
And here she was, frozen.
Find a wall.
That was the first thing. She took a step sideways, knowing Jude was outside and wouldn’t let her fall off the building. All she had to do was find a wall. Taking another step, she was happy when she felt something. A wall. Thank heavens.
She let out her breath in a whoosh of relief and started feeling her way around, hoping she could feel with her feet.
She was supposed to be finding stuff. Somewhere in this room was a baby doll in a crib, a random wrench she had to pick up, and a stuffed dog. They were supposed to look under things and behind things to find the hidden items. There were doorways and rooms to navigate, and Katie mentally gave herself a talking-to to get going and find the stuff.
Katie went inside a doorway to her right, hopeful for some divine guidance. She had no idea how the boys had gotten through this part so quickly. Feeling like she’d been in here an hour already, she could hear her competitor as he moved around the other room methodically. The air swirled, and his gear rattled as he passed her. He was clearly not following the walls, but he apparently hit the door to the room she was in.
Slam.
He must have inadvertently shut the door behind her, so she kept feeling along the wall and almost immediately realized there was a corner. Katie turned around and felt another wall. Turning around again, she froze.
Panic clawed at her throat, and her breaths were coming too fast. She put on the breathing apparatus, even though it wasn’t hooked up, but her mind played tricks on her. Then the blackness suddenly took on another quality—a thickness with texture to it.
She couldn’t see. She was in a closet, trapped. Panic suffused her limbs, making them heavier than they had been already. Her breathing came in rapid pants, and she realized she was hyperventilating.
And then nothing.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Logan watched his girl as she raced through the beginning of the course, listening to her friends’ yells of encouragement and her teammates’ cheers. When she faltered on the ladder, he’d broken into a run, but she’d recovered before he could get there to save her.
She had this. Jude put the mask on her before steering her into the house and then found Logan and gave him a thumbs-up. She was okay. Katie was okay.
Logan jogged over to Walter, who was staring intently at the burn house.
“I need you to be thinking about something I can do for her. I need her talking to me again.” Logan said the words to Walter but was watching the smoke house as well. Her competitor had already gone in behind her, and now it was just a matter of waiting until the horns were blared.
“Yeah, if it weren’t for this contest, I think she’d be in bed all the time, so yeah. I’ll think on it.” Walter turned to Ryder. “Did it take you this long?”
A horn blared, signaling someone had finished, and Katie’s competition came out of the house waving victoriously.
Walter paled. “Are there closets in there?” He looked at Ryder again. “Did you find a closet?”
“No idea. I was rushing so fast, I have no clue what’s up there,” Ryder answered. Walter shook his head at Logan, eyes wide.
“She doesn’t do closets. I forgot.” Walter took a step forward like he was about to rush the building himself.
“Yeah, there are closets. I tried to tell her, but she wasn’t listening.” Logan was already running to the ladder. “Jude, Katie’s in the closet! Get her out!” Jude disappeared, but Logan was still going full tilt toward his girl, remembering the blind fear she’d had when he’d found her at Cole’s.
He got to the top of the ladder to find Katie hadn’t made it far. Jude was pulling her out of the closet about ten feet away from the entrance and hooking up her mask to run the oxygen. She was limp, and Logan was suddenly terrified.
He pushed Jude and Josh, the other competitor, away and collapsed on the ground next to her, willing himself to remain calm. She was okay. There was nothing that could have happened to her up here.
Except a panic attack and fear and all the things he’d strived to keep out of her life.
“Dude, I’m so sorry. I couldn’t see her.” Josh was beside himself in his apologies. “I guess I shut her in there. I didn’t mean to.” Thankfully, Jude was ushering the guy away because Logan was about to kill him.
He knocked the hat off her head and started unclasping the various parts of the suit. As he opened her jacket, her eyes fluttered open.
“Logan?”
“You passed out.”
“I’m disqualified?”
“You had a panic attack.” He tried to keep the explanations simple.
“We lost.” She pushed off him, looking around. “I didn’t find anything.” Jumping to her feet, Katie started yelling. “Shit! Shit!” Kicking at things. “Shit!” Slamming her hand into a wall. “Shit!” Logan stood and walked to her as if she were a caged animal about to attack. The massive pants of the bunker gear impeded him from smashing her against his body, but he still wrapped his arms around her.
“Shhh … It’s okay, Katie.”
“Stop it!
This is your fault!” Pushing away from him, she escaped out the door and down the ladder. Logan wanted to go after her but could see she was upset.
And absolutely correct.
Logan’s heart shattered as she disappeared down the ladder, and he realized he had way more than just Walter to make up for.
It was everything.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Katie needed validation tonight. For once, it wasn’t about Walter. It wasn’t about Logan. Well, maybe it was a little. She stopped the warm fuzzies at the memories of Logan giving Walter the trophy for the fastest time at the race. Walter had hugged Logan as if Logan hadn’t been his most vocal opponent three weeks ago. They clapped each other on the back and murmured words she couldn’t hear.
And she’d left. The boys were spending the night together at Elliot and London’s house, and she was free to do what she wanted to. Currently, she was at one of the nicer lodges, hanging around the lounge, waiting for a bored tourist to sleep with and tell her she was beautiful.
To get her brain off Logan.
She’d dressed in her shortest skirt, highest heels, lowest-cut blouse, and wore her sexiest underwear. There was no doubt in anybody’s mind what she was here for. Wives clutched their husbands when she came near, and men’s heads turned.
For fuck’s sake, none of them interested her.
She motioned to the bartender. “Vodka martini, please.” He nodded, casting her an approving look.
“Slumming it tonight?” he offered with a wink.
“Just trying to get my mind off some things,” she answered evasively and sipped the drink when it came to her.
A murmur in her ear had the hair on her arms standing up. “You are one hard woman to find.”
Logan.
He didn’t touch her, but he stood entirely too close. As Katie opened her mouth to tell him to go away, he raised his hands, a letter clutched in one.
“No words. I get it.” Logan’s gaze swept her body, acknowledging what she was doing. For once in his life, he was plastering his emotions on his face, and the most pressing thing she saw was fear. For her? That he’d lost her? She shook her head, displacing the thought. Logan smashed the letter into her hand. “Just read this,” he implored and took a step back. She immediately missed his body’s warmth. “Please be safe tonight.” He spoke softly, yet urgently, and Katie’s stomach swam.
Was that his way of letting go of her? Giving her his blessing and telling her he was just as done as she was? As she watched him trudge out of the lounge, she opened the letter with trembling fingers.
How do I apologize to the woman I love when I don’t have the words to say exactly how I feel? How can I tell you exactly how I feel when I can’t even explain it to myself?
Maybe a story is in order …
There once was a boy named Logan, who had gone through almost all life had to offer someone like him: an abusive father, an absent mother, homelessness. He ran away from the abuse and neglect only to find out the streets didn’t provide much more, except a friend. Logan and Elliot quickly learned the streets wouldn’t give them anything, so they had to figure out a way to earn it themselves. Logan yearned for control of his life, and he found something to do where he had ultimate control over the uncontrollable. He became a firefighter.
Fire is a living thing, consuming all in its path on the quest for fuel. Logan spent his professional existence quenching that thirst for fuel and conquering the living thing that is fire.
His personal life was a bit different. It took him a while to learn what he needed from intimacy, and it was also control. After a disastrous relationship with a woman who epitomized petty jealousy and unsolicited role-reversal in her own attempt to gain control, Logan realized the ultimate submissive was beyond his reach. So he adopted a new philosophy about women, and it served him well.
Until Katherine. When she came along, Logan thought things might be different with her, but he didn’t indulge the fantasy long enough to see if it could become a reality. And he regretted that for a long time. Logan hated himself while simultaneously ignoring both their wishes. Until one night, she wouldn’t be ignored. The two parts of his life intersected in a major way, and Logan became Katherine’s savior, establishing control over the situation, just like he’d always liked it.
But that wasn’t enough.
Logan had to break the trust he’d instilled in Katherine by patronizing the things that were important to her and making her feel small when the truth was, she was larger than life to Logan. Katherine was his everything.
Katherine was fire—living, breathing, consuming. Logan couldn’t get enough of her and fucked it all up.
The sappiest of love songs, the saddest of stories, the most beautiful of the written word cannot convey the depths of Logan’s feelings for Katherine. Now that she’s out of his life, he can’t stop thinking about her and wanting her back.
I don’t know how this story ends, but I do know that I need you to help me find out.
ALL my love because, without you, I have nothing,
Logan
“Are you okay?” The bartender had come back. His name was Bobby, and he’d graduated a few years ago. Katie remembered he used to work for the city maintenance group, running the street sweeper and snow plows around the square.
She realized she was crying. Fat tears streamed down her face while she read the letter.
“Yeah. I will be.” She drank the martini and started fishing around in her bag for money when the bartender told her to just go. It was taken care of.
She drove to Logan’s apartment, and not only were all the lights off but his truck was gone. So she drove down the block to Mo’s. No Logan there either. She walked inside to a chorus of catcalls, ignoring them all in favor of seeking out the table where Logan normally sat. Jude and Joey were there, but Zane was auspiciously missing.
“Where’s Logan?”
Jude leaned back in his chair. “You gonna do something to get him out of the serious funk he’s in?”
“I’m not sure, but we definitely need to talk.”
Joey chimed in. “As long as you let him tie you up and whip you a while so he can get his head back on straight, I say we should tell you.”
She didn’t know how much these two knew about his lifestyle, but it sounded like they were on the right track. It wasn’t like the thought of their night ending that way didn’t have her breasts suddenly feeling heavy and her palms so sweaty she had to wipe them down her skirt.
“Please?” She looked over at Jude.
“He’s at my cabin for the rest of the week. Said he needed to get his head together. But I know what that usually means, and it also means there may be another woman up there. I’m just giving you a warning. I hope he hasn’t done something so dicky as that, but it’s a possibility.” Jude shrugged, looking apologetic for giving her those words.
It was entirely possible. Logan had just given her the go ahead to pursue her own man for the evening, telling her to be safe.
But the only person she felt safe with was in a cabin on the mountain.
“Can I trade cars with one of you? I don’t think mine will make it up there.”
Joey grinned widely at her as Jude tossed her his keys. “I’ll get a ride. Leave your car here.”
“Thanks.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
What if Logan did have another woman up there? That would be perfectly typical. He writes this letter to her that has her in tears and melting with the sweetness, then turns around and fucks another woman. Would it be to spite her?
Or maybe it was because she had been so awful to him she had taken away any hope he might have for a future with her. That was more like it.
She had ruined things.
Navigating the roads to Jude’s cabin, the roar of
his ancient Land Rover filled her with trepidation at what she might find. If he was with another woman, she would know it was well and truly over.
Her stomach flipped over as she rounded the bend to the cabin and saw Logan’s truck. Was he alone? Katie turned off the car and listened to the stillness. Snow was falling, blanketing the grass with a thick coat of white. This really was the idyllic place to spend some alone time.
Would she be welcome?
She had to put these thoughts away and just do this. Rubbing her hands together, she absentmindedly grabbed her stuff and got out of the truck, slamming the door.
That’s when she heard it. A rhythmic thunking noise from the back of the house.
Carefully, she made her way around in the darkness and snow, stumbling in her heels, ignoring the chill seeping into her thin clothes.
When she saw him, her breath left her lungs in a rush of condensation.
Logan froze.
Axe in the air, he looked like a vision of strength and virility. She used the moment to say the only thing she could think of.
“I love you too.”
He spun around, dropping the axe in the snow. His eyes bore holes in her in the darkness, eating her alive.
“You’re not dressed for up here.”
“I never went home,” she stated stupidly.
He walked to her, his long legs eating up the yard with his strides. “You need to get inside before you catch your death.”
“Okay, Mom,” she said pointedly, but the truth was, she was cold. Her teeth chattered.
“Don’t sass me.” He put a hand on her elbow and started gently leading her to the cabin, a direct contradiction to his words.
“Okay, here’s where we are having a communication breakdown.” Katie tried to stop him, but as soon as they were inside, she realized exactly how cold she was. Suddenly, the warmth was welcome, and she went and sat on the ottoman in front of the woodstove.