by Kim Loraine
She didn’t know how long the two men who owned her entire heart spent talking with each other. Her tea grew cold as she stared at it and thought about how they’d all move forward from here.
A large, warm palm settled over her shoulder and squeezed gently. When she turned her face up, she found Carson’s gaze locked with hers.
“Come on, you should be with us,” he said, no hint of anger she’d seen in his eyes reflected in his voice.
She raised a hand and wiped at her damp cheeks. The only way she could answer was offering a nod, she couldn’t trust her throat to hold steady. Logan was smiling, full-on smiling, and her heart swelled at the sight. He looked even more like his father when he did that. “Sully wants to take me to the beach. Can we go?” Logan asked.
With a glance at the clock, she let out a soft sigh. His parents weren’t due in until late evening. “I suppose that’s not a problem.” It would be good for them to spend some time together outside of her house. Carson could get him to talk, maybe find out more about why Logan thought it was okay to run away from home and come find them now. Part of her wanted to go with them, to see Carson interact with Logan, catalogue the similarities in their expressions and mannerisms. But a bigger part of her couldn’t fathom seeing that and having to let go of them both afterward.
“You coming?” Carson asked, his hand already fishing keys out of his pocket.
She shook her head. “No. You guys go have fun.” The disappointment that flashed in Carson’s eyes made her heart flip. Did he want her there?
“Fine. I’ll bring him back in a few hours. I’m going to show him around a little.”
Her chest tightened at the crestfallen look on Logan’s face. “You know what? I’ve just got a little bit of work to finish up here. I’ll meet you guys at Cups in an hour. It’s one of my favorite places on the boardwalk. You have to try the Snicker’s milkshake, Logan.”
The boy grinned and everything in her lifted at the sight of him happy. “Awesome.”
“Go on out to my car, Logan,” Carson said, his blue eyes locked on Sloan’s. “I need to talk to Sloan for a second.”
Their son nodded and walked outside, closing the door behind him and leaving heavy tension in his wake.
“What?” she asked, crossing her arms defensively over her chest. She couldn’t take any more judgment from him.
“You’re distancing yourself from our son. He doesn’t deserve that.”
Overwhelming anxiety clawed at her. He didn’t understand. “Dammit, Carson, you don’t have the right to judge me.”
“Yeah, I fucking do. That kid out there is here for you. In his eyes, finding me was just a bonus. You’re his mother.”
“Stop it! I’m not. I’m the girl who was stupid enough to get pregnant way too young and couldn’t deal with the responsibility. I’ve done nothing to earn his love other than place him in a home where he would be taken care of.” Her chin wobbled as she pushed through the quaver in her voice. “I’m not his mother. His mom is on a plane right now, worried sick about him and desperate to get him back home where he belongs. Trying to play happy family while he’s here isn’t going to make it any easier for him to leave.”
“Whether you want to admit it or not, that kid out there is ours. We made him together. If you don’t spend time with him now, you’ll never forgive yourself.” Her heart nearly stopped at the sight of tears in his eyes. His voice was thick with emotion when he said, “Don’t let him slip through your fingers again. All he wants is to love you.”
“I’m not his mom and I can’t be. He has parents, and they aren’t us. You need to understand that when his mom and dad arrive, that’s it. He’ll go back to Oregon and we’ll go back to . . . whatever we have after this is over.”
He raked a hand through his hair and sighed. “We don’t have anything.”
Those four words sliced through her heart and took her breath away. Pain unlike anything she’d felt in fifteen years radiated from her chest, but she stood by her decision. Carson may not have known about Logan, but she’d tried to tell him, tried to find him. She had to prove to him what they had now was more important than mistakes they made as kids. The past was a fixed point in time, unchangeable and solid. She wasn’t going to waste any more time hoping Carson Sullivan would forgive her for what she’d done.
After he turned away from her, he walked outside and shut the door behind him. She closed her eyes and waited for the sound of his engine turning over, of tires on her driveway. Instead, the clomping of heavy boots on the porch hit her ears.
The door opened, revealing Carson’s panicked gaze. “He’s gone. Shit. Where the fuck did he go?”
Chapter 19
This day couldn’t get any worse. Sully heaved a sigh as he fought the urge to punch something. He’d been up and down the streets in Sloan’s neighborhood, searching everywhere for Logan. The kid might be fourteen, but he didn’t know the area, didn’t have a place to sleep, and Sully’d be damned if his son was going to be a runaway. What had he seen or heard? Sully didn’t know his adoptive parents. Maybe he was running from them.
He put his phone on speaker, then dialed Michael Oliver, hoping his friend could offer some help. It rang twice before Michael’s gruff voice filtered over the line.
“Sully, what’s going on? You have news about the chief’s kid?”
Fuck. With everything going on in his own life he’d totally forgotten about Tyler Roman, the kid they’d saved from that fire this morning. It seemed like a lifetime ago. “Shit. No, I’m not on shift right now.”
“Have you heard anything?”
“The last update I got from Alex was that he should pull through.”
“Thank God. I don’t know what he was doing there alone. Do we have a point of origin? Cause?”
“That’s where this turns into a shitstorm. I haven’t said anything to the chief yet.”
“What are you talking about?” Dread curled in the pit of his stomach.
“It started in the basement. Where you found Tyler.”
“No. You don’t think . . .” He trailed off, not willing to finish his question.
“The burns on his hands and arms are consistent with someone handling an accelerant.”
“Tyler started the fire?”
Michael sighed. “Looks like it. And the set up was the same as all the others. Linseed oil soaked rags, sealed box. Only this time, it looks like he lit the corner of the box and didn’t get out fast enough.”
Shock rolled through him. Michael had thought the arsonist was a member of the fire service but they’d never once considered it could be a family member. “The chief’s son. God, he’s barely eighteen.”
“He’s twenty.”
Head spinning, Sully pulled the car over and let everything rush over him. The kid would’ve learned everything he needed to know from his dad. But why put the firefighters at risk? Why endanger his own father?
“So, if you didn’t call about Tyler, why did you call? It’s not typical for you to just want to shoot the shit.”
“I need your help.”
“You okay?”
“No, man. I’m so far from okay.”
Michael cleared his throat and Sully heard the distinct sound of a door closing before his friend came back on the line. “What’s up?”
“It’s a long story.”
“That’s usually how it works.”
He launched into his explanation. Sloan, the baby, the adoption, everything. It actually felt good to get it all off his chest, to talk to someone who had dealt with drama and come out the other side better for it.
Michael let out a long breath when Sully finished filling him in. “He’s here?”
“Yeah. Sloan and I had a big blow up and I’m pretty sure he heard everything. Th
e door was wide open. Some of the things she said, man. I thought I knew who she was, but I don’t understand how she could be so detached. He’s our kid. It’s like she’s afraid of him.”
“She probably is.”
A harsh bark of frustrated laughter escaped him. “Why? She has nothing to lose here. She already gave him away.”
“You’re an idiot if you think this is easy for her. As someone who had an adopted sibling, I can guarantee you there’s a lot more going on for her than you know. John’s biological mom found him and spent her life watching silently just so she could make sure he was okay. This is probably more painful for Sloan than handing him over to his adoptive parents was.”
“Are you serious? His mom was here the entire time?”
Michael grunted. “There’s a lot of ways this conversation can go. But one thing you need to understand is that adoption is complicated for everyone involved. Should Sloan have tried harder to find you? Yeah, she should have. But put yourself in her shoes. She was young, scared, pregnant, and she told your mom what was going on. That’s on your mom for not letting you know. I don’t know why she didn’t, but as far as Sloan is concerned, she put the ball in your court.”
His thoughts drifted to his mother. Why had she said he’d joined the Marines? Why hadn’t she told him Sloan was still pregnant? The woman didn’t have a malicious bone in her body. She knew how broken he’d been over Sloan. But then again, if he was honest with himself, his mother’s struggles with memory had been going on a long time before he let himself see there was a problem. Even before his dad died, before Sully graduated and Dex went off to boot camp. Keys in the fridge, milk in the pantry, forgotten phone calls, school functions, names. The signs were there, but he’d ignored them.
“Shit. You’re right. I hate it when you’re right.”
Michael chuckled. “I know the feeling. You need me to send some guys out looking for the kid? I can’t get away right now, shit’s too insane over here with the chief’s son and all, but I can call some of the guys from A-shift. They’re off duty and I’m sure they’d help.”
“Yeah. I need to find him. Any help you can give would be great.”
After rattling off a description of Logan, he hung up and dialed Sloan. He needed to apologize for pushing her so hard.
“What do you want, Sully?” Her voice was harsh and distant. Hurt rolled through him at her use of his nickname. She never called him that and he didn’t ever want her to start.
“Michael’s got some guys from the station out searching for Logan. He can’t be far. We’ll find him.”
She let out a broken sob. “It’s my fault. He heard me, didn’t he?”
“I don’t know, baby. Maybe. But I shouldn’t have been so judgmental. You’re protecting yourself, I get it. I’m sorry.”
“How am I going to tell his parents I lost him? I had one job, keep him safe, and I couldn’t even do that.”
“We’ll find him. I promise.”
“I wish I wasn’t just sitting here doing nothing. I feel so useless.”
“You have to stay there. What if he comes home? He needs you to be waiting for him.”
She sniffed and he pictured her crying on the other end of the line. The image made his heart ache. He wanted to hold her, to help her through this and show her how much she meant to him. “I need you to find him. I have to say I’m sorry.”
“I will.”
~ ~ ~
Sully scoured the beach, hoping to find Logan roaming the shoreline. So far, nothing, but there was a lot of coast and if Logan was anything like him, solitude was his goal when having a good brood. A shiver took control of his body in the late-November cold. The sun was dipping below the horizon and all Sully could think about was how cold Logan would be in his thin hoodie. The coastal wind had a bitter chill to it.
He gazed down the beach, his focus trailing farther inland and landing on the old lighthouse which had since been replaced by a newer model. If he were a kid running from something that upset him, he knew where he’d go. Up high so he could look down and gain some perspective.
“Logan,” he called while ascending the seemingly endless spiral staircase.
The shifting and soft thumps of feet on the metal floor confirmed Sully’s suspicion that Logan was up here. When he reached the top of the stairs, he saw the dark backpack his son carried along with the scuffed toes of Logan’s Converse sneakers peeking out from the doorway that led to the balcony.
Logan was sitting curled up into a ball, his back pressed against the wall, holding a picture creased down the middle from being folded so many times. Sully’s heart beat harder as he watched the kid he and Sloan had made. She might think he looked just like Sully, but there was so much of her reflected in Logan’s features. The way his brow furrowed in concentration, his eyes, their color was the same as Sully’s, but the shape was all Sloan. Pulling out his cell phone before stepping out onto the balcony, Sully sent a short message to Sloan.
Found him. Be back soon.
He sent a similar text to Michael in hopes he’d pass on the word to the guys from A-shift.
“She doesn’t want me here. You didn’t even know I existed. They don’t want to be honest with me. I was stupid to come here.” By the thickness in Logan’s voice, it was obvious he’d been crying.
Sully sat down across from him and mimicked his posture. “You’re wrong. Sloan would have given anything to meet you, I know her. But letting you go took a piece of her heart. She spent fourteen years trying to protect the rest of it.” He ran a hand over the back of his neck. “I’ve never loved anyone as much as I love her. She’s the most wonderful person in the world.”
“Then why’d you break up?”
“Because I was stupid and let fear rule me.”
“Because of me.”
His heart splintered. “No. Not because of you. Never because of you. If things had been different . . .” He trailed off. There was no point in playing the blame game now. “I’m so glad to be able to meet you. There’s a lot I never thought I’d have, but to look at you and see so much of myself in you, I’m so damn proud. I can tell you’re a smart kid, that you’ve got a good heart.”
“You really think I’m like you?”
Sully grinned. “Probably too much like me for your own good. This running off thing you’ve done twice now? That’s something I still do. Something I need to stop doing. You can’t run away from things that might hurt or be scary. We’ve got to face them head on because, like it or not, we have to deal.”
“If I go home I might not see you again until I’m eighteen.”
That thought made his chest ache. “I hope that’s not the case, but if it is, I’ll still be here. So will Sloan if I have anything to say about it.”
Logan’s eyes burned a brighter blue from the tears he was fighting. “Promise?”
“Yeah. I swear.” Sully stood and held a hand out to his son. “Come on. Sloan is so worried.”
“Is she mad?”
He shook his head and helped Logan to his feet. “It’s tearing her up to think she hurt you. She’d do whatever she could to make sure you’re safe.”
With a weak smile, Logan hitched his backpack on one shoulder and started down the stairs. They walked along the beach, the kid dragging his feet, obviously not in any hurry to get back to real life.
“Why’d you become a firefighter?”
Sully shoved his hands in his pockets and sighed. “That’s a complicated question.”
“Did you want to do something else?”
“Not really. I always knew I wanted to help people. I’d considered a lot of possibilities. The fire service, police force, or maybe the military. My brother Dex joined the Marines. For a while, I thought I’d follow his path and join up, too. But then . . . well, my mom .
. . she wouldn’t have had anyone to take care of her if I left. And part of me always hoped Sloan would come back. So, I stayed and went to the community college after high school. I worked at a grocery store when I wasn’t at school. One day this older guy came in with a couple of other firefighters. They were getting stuff for their dinner, I guess. Anyway, he was talking to me about my plans for the future. He kind of planted the seed. I joined the academy as soon as I could and was lucky enough to get hired on at this station.” He ran a hand over his jaw and smiled sadly, thinking of how Chief Roman must be dealing with everything that had just happened with his son.
“Do you get to run the siren?”
He laughed at that. “Sometimes. I’m a fire captain now. I do a lot of paperwork.”
“So you don’t fight the fires? Rescue people?”
“I do. There’s a lot of other stuff involved in my job. But yeah, I’ve saved people, pulled people from burning buildings, lost friends, gotten hurt.”
“You got hurt?”
“I don’t know a single firefighter who hasn’t had at least a minor injury on the job. Some days are slow and nothing happens, but then there are the days where we get call after call. That’s why we train so much and so hard. We have to be ready because as first responders we don’t have the option of knowing the extent of what we’re going to be walking into.”
Logan stared at him, a little bit of hero worship in his eyes. “That’s scary and really cool. Do you think I could check out the station some time? Maybe if my parents let me come back for a visit.”
It made his chest tighten to think of Logan coming back. He wanted to get to know this kid and be a good influence even if he couldn’t raise him. “Yeah. I’ll even let you do the siren.”
The broad grin that spread across the boy’s face only added to Sully’s overwhelming emotions. They walked in silence the rest of the way to the car. Regardless of when he got to see his son again, he’d built a bridge between them—a connection that he wouldn’t let fall into disrepair.