He would have stayed if she'd told him about the baby.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Six months later
New York City
Logan wondered if he might not be growing a tumor in his chest like the one that had grown in Dair MacRae's head. Seemed like he walked around with a weight in his chest all the damned time.
He was tired in a way he'd never been before, his tail always dragging the ground. Of course, that might well be from lack of sleep. He didn't think he'd slept the night through since leaving Fort Worth. Dreams plagued him. Nightmares, really. Made him think of those awful dreams Caroline had when Will was in trouble. He'd telegraphed her the first time or two he'd suffered them, but after they became a regular fixture of his nights, he'd settled for promises from his friends to let him know if trouble occurred.
A gust of bitter wind whipped down the city street and Logan hunched his shoulders and pulled his coat tight. He hated this place, the crowded streets, the way everyone rushed to wherever they were going. He missed the wide-open spaces and the big sky and the slower pace of life. He missed the clean scent of the air and the taste of beef barbecued in a man's own backyard. A man bumped into him from behind, knocking him into a woman. He tipped his hat and said, "Pardon me, ma'am." She replied with a scathing look, then hurried on her way.
He missed Caroline.
Logan sighed as he spied the shipping office that was his destination. After running Kid Curry to ground in Tennessee, he'd picked up the trail of the Wild Bunch's leaders and tracked Sundance, Butch and his woman, Etta Place, here to New York. While he'd yet to lay eyes on the trio, he had found someone who claimed they intended to leave the United States entirely within the week. Logan had spent the morning visiting shipping offices and studying passenger lists and telling himself it wasn't really cold enough to freeze ducks to a pond in this damned overcrowded city.
Inside the office, he showed his credentials to the clerk and ten minutes later, found his men and the woman. He checked his pocket watch. "Did the Annabelle sail on time this morning?"
"That she did," replied the clerk. "We pride ourselves on punctuality."
"I missed them by three hours."
The clerk dragged a hand down his whiskered jaw. "The Wild Bunch, hmm? I've been reading about them in the newspaper for a few years now. It'd be really something to catch Butch Cassidy."
"I didn't catch him. I missed him."
"The Blankenship Line has a ship leaving for South America in the morning. They wouldn't be too far ahead of you."
"Great," Logan said with a total lack of enthusiasm.
"You want me to call over and secure a ticket for you? It's a woolly day out there. That would keep you from having to make the trek in the cold."
And secure a ticket commission for the clerk, no doubt. He'd already visited the offices of the Blanken-ship Line that morning, so he knew where to go. "No, thanks. I need to check with my bosses before I take off for a foreign country. Appreciate the effort, though."
As Logan opened the door to leave, the clerk called, "Good luck, sir."
Logan waved and muttered, "Luck. Hell."
He shoved his hands into his pockets and headed up the avenue in the general direction of the other shipping office. He'd lied to the clerk. He didn't need to get permission before following the Wild Bunch to Bolivia. He just needed to work up his own desire to do so.
"I don't want to go," he murmured. To be perfectly honest, he didn't care all that much if Butch and Sundance got away scot-free. They'd robbed banks and trains and stages, but they'd never physically hurt anyone. They weren't killers like Kid Curry. They were South America's problem now, not Wells Fargo's.
But if he didn't go to South America, where would he go? What would he do?
The tumor in his chest seemed to grow another pound in a heartbeat as he trudged up the street buffeted by the wind. Another tumor popped up in his throat. He coughed and muttered, "I need to buy a ticket and get on that ship."
Then a little voice whispered inside him. You could go home. Home to your wife and son.
Logan halted abruptly. He closed his eyes and turned to one side, putting his back toward the wind.
Home. Wife. Son.
Family.
The tears trickling down his cheeks were caused by the cold, bitter wind, were they not? The cold, bitter wind inside you.
The wind gusted, almost blowing him over, sweeping him back into the past when the wagon began to tip and his mother and sister screamed. Then from somewhere nearby came the hard bang of a shutter. It sounded like a gunshot and he was back in the house in Oklahoma, the Wilsons dead at his feet, Maria and Elena on the floor beside them. Then from out of nowhere came the echo of Will's voice. You're a fool and a coward. A fool. A coward. The luckiest man in Texas. You're throwing away your family.
Your family.
Pain roared up inside him, bending him over double. Logan braced his hands on his knees, wondering if his body would explode from tumors that had grown too big to be contained.
Then he opened his eyes and his gaze fell upon an item on display behind the plate-glass picture window.
In that moment, Logan knew what he had to do.
Caroline sat on the settee in her living room surrounded by gaily wrapped boxes and dear friends. An hour ago her women friends had surprised her by descending on her home bringing baby gifts, desserts and more laughter than this house had seen in months.
Not that she and Will had a bad life, because they didn't. He liked school and he'd made new friends. He enjoyed living in the bigger city. She had filled a hole in her life by writing book reviews and covering local elections for the Daily Democrat.
Another hole—the hole in her heart—continued to plague her, paining her even more as the baby's birth approached. But Caroline was a strong woman and she dealt with the ache, all the while aware that she was better off than Logan. She had Will and the baby. Logan, wherever he was, whoever he was with, was alone.
She untied a big yellow bow and opened the box. "Oh, they are beautiful," she said, pulling out a multicolored receiving blanket and a pair of baby booties knitted from the softest of yarns. "Wilhemina, did you make these yourself?"
"I did," she said with a satisfied sniff. "Now that Mr. Peters has grown so persnickety about my retirement from the newspaper, I have time on my hands."
"Well, they're lovely and I will put them to very good use."
"I treasure the blanket you made for me, Wilhemina," Emma MacRae observed. "You have true talent with knitting needles."
Kat Kimball glanced up from the notepad where she kept track of gifts and givers so Caroline could pen her thank-you notes and nodded. "Mama is a wonderful seamstress, but you have her beat when it comes to knitted goods. But don't tell her I said that."
"I heard you, Katrina," Jenny McBride called from the kitchen where she was refilling the coffeepot.
All the women laughed, then Maribeth Prescott handed Caroline another gift saying, "At risk of sounding like one of the children, open mine next, Caro. Open mine."
It was a huge box intricately wrapped. "Who in the world tied these knots?"
"Kat's daughters. They had entirely too much fun wrapping the gifts."
Her concentration on the ribbons, she only vaguely noted the quieting of conversation around her. "I should have asked Will to leave me his knife before he went off with the men to the stock show," she said, picking at a knot with her fingernails.
A pocketknife appeared before her. "Here, use mine."
Logan.
Caroline gasped, her gaze jerking up, her hand lifting to clasp the medallion she never took off. Sure enough, Logan Grey stood beside her. He handed her the knife, but it slipped through her fingers.
She realized that the room filled with a dozen females had grown as quiet as a church. "Logan," she breathed.
"Hello, Caroline." He picked up Wilhemina Peters's baby booties and studied them with a warm gleam in his eyes.
"Whoa, those are tiny. Pretty, but tiny."
"Logan," Caroline repeated.
Kat Kimball's impatient voice called, "Is that all you have to say?"
Logan chuckled, then said, "See, the thing about that is that Caroline isn't the one who needs to talk first. That would be me. Her explanation of why she hadn't bothered to inform me of the pending arrival can wait.. .unless... How pending, Caro?"
"T-t-two weeks."
"Okay. Two weeks I can deal with. From the size of her stomach, I was worrying I only had two minutes."
He moved around in front of her and went down on his knees, taking her hands in his. His expression intense, his eyes glowing with emotion that was sure and proud and fierce, he said, "Caroline Grey, I love you. Will you be my wife? Be the mother of my children? Will you be my family and make me, once and for all, the luckiest man in Texas?"
Wilhemina Peters hissed toward Maribeth Prescott. "Aren't they already married?"
"Yes. Hush," Mari snapped back.
Caroline had to clear her throat to speak. "Oh, Logan. Are you sure?"
"Sweetheart, you can paint it on the barn."
"We don't have a barn."
"On the side of the house, then. Hell, you can tattoo it on that stomach of yours. There's plenty of room."
"Quit making cracks about my stomach!"
"I love your stomach and the baby growing inside— the baby I didn't know about—but we'll talk about that later."
"You mentioned that."
"I love Will and Sly and this home you have made for me. I love our family, Caroline. I love you. For now and forever, for however long forever turns out to be."
Jenny McBride sighed. "I'm going to cry."
Emma MacRae sniffed. "It's so romantic."
Caroline Grey steepled her hands over her mouth, then asked with suspicion. "No one told you? You didn't come back because of the baby?"
"No one told me. I came back because I finally figured out that this is where I belong. Here, with you and our children. You are my heart and my home, Caroline, and I'm sorry, so very sorry, that it took me so long to admit it. Our son was right when he called me a fool and a coward, but I think I needed to leave to find my courage. I did that, honey, on a street in New York City, of all places."
"What was in New York City?" she asked.
"Answer my question and I'll show you."
"What question?"
Logan let out a little frustrated laugh, then touched his forehead to hers. "Can I come home, Caroline?"
"Yes! Oh, yes!" She threw her arms around him then and started to cry as she pressed kisses on his cheeks, his nose, his forehead and finally, as her lips hovered above his, she said, "Welcome home, Logan Grey."
With the kiss, the hurt inside them healed.
When they finally broke apart, Logan said, "You can call me Lucky."
Caroline laughed and fumbled for a handkerchief and wiped the tears from her face, feeling the warmth of a blush in her cheeks as her friends cooed and clapped their approval until Kat Kimball spoke up. "Wait. What about her question? What about New York?"
"Oh." Logan grinned and the front door opened as he rolled to his feet. "You know, the minute I saw it, I knew it was a sign. Still, I never figured it was as big a sign as it turned out to be."
He turned to leave the room when Will let out a yelp. "Ouch! Who left this thing sitting in the middle of the hallway? Gotta be more careful, you know. We don't want my mama tripping over it."
Carrying a wooden rocking horse in his hands, he stopped in the doorway and gaped at his father.
Logan shrugged and said, "When I was a boy I had a rocking horse named Racer."
ISBN: 978-1-4268-1619-2
THE LONER
Copyright © 2008 by Geralyn Dawson Williams
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