Unbound Trilogy Boxset

by Coopmans, Kathy

  I snatched my jacket and left not more than five seconds after Sadie’s name popped out of Lauren’s mouth. It wasn’t until I got on the road that I grabbed my phone out of my jacket pocket and saw I had a missed call from Ellie. I heard bits and pieces of the attack. Enough that it had me breaking every traffic law there was.

  But I was too late to save her. Too late to protect when I promised I would.

  I’ve never cared about the way I used to go about obtaining anything in my life before I met Ellie. Not a goddamn thing meant shit to me except revenge and family. Survival in this fucked up world that gives you a slice of happiness and then turns around and kicks you where it hurts the most.

  A thief. That’s what life is.

  I’ve fucked up with Ellie more times than I deserve to be forgiven for, and after what happened to her there is no way in hell I’m fucking up again.

  If it weren’t for Renita and Gabe doing their best to set my ass straight that what happened to Ellie wasn’t my fault when I arrived here, I’d be consumed with more guilt than I have for everything that went down.

  “Ellie, you don’t worry about the store, do you hear me? You will take time off like the doctor said. Logan is taking you on a trip. Norah went home and packed everything you need. If you need anything else, let me know.” Renita tries to choke back a sob as she stands there as helpless as me and watches the nurse help Ellie out of the wheelchair and guide her into the front seat. The sob erupts from Renita’s throat when Ellie pulls the seatbelt across her lap, secures it and her hand goes right back to her stomach.

  “Thank you,” Renita acknowledges the nurse who nods with a sad smile on her face and leaves us.

  I didn’t think there was any way possible to feel more pain than before, but there is a lone tear slips down Ellie’s face and I force a smile around the emotion as I reach out and brush it away. “I love you. You know that, right?”

  She has to feel it. Fuck, don’t let me lose her over this. We’ve come so far. Gained so much and lost even more.

  Only when she glances directly into my eyes, do I see that strength trying to burst its way through the sadness she’s holding inside.

  Ellie doesn’t answer; she nods her head, grabs the door handle, and shuts it after I pull my hand away.

  “I don’t know if she’s in shock, angry or what. She needs to talk. Until then, I’d advise you not to push her. Ellie will break, and when she does, the best thing to do is break with her. It may have been Ellie who was pregnant, but you lost the baby too. Don’t be one of those men who hold it inside because he feels he needs to be strong. In the end, it’ll make you lose your mind. Please take care of her Logan and take care of yourself. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have let her walk outside.”

  Guilt is one of the many things we all share over this. There’s not a goddamn thing we can do to take it away.

  “I will.” I have no clue how I’ll handle this when my world feels like it’s tilting. When my anger wants to kill someone. When my grief and my guilt blend with a threat to drown me.

  I close my eyes, trying to get a grip on these unwanted emotions. The heartache, the pain, the loss that has me wanting to let go and cry. There are very few times in my life where I remember crying. I cried when my father died, cried the first time I held Lexi and came close the night I told Ellie about Whitney and me.

  “What about you? Are you going to be alright? I know this isn’t easy for you to let her go and not be the one taking care of her.”

  Renita stares up at me, her chin quivering and her eyes sparkling with unshed tears. “I’m going home and having me a good long cry right along with Norah and my sister. Then I’m going to wake up for work, call you, and check-in and go about my day while wishing I was keeping an eye on Ellie. She’s not mine to take care of anymore, Logan; she’s yours. This time is for the two of you. If Ellie needs me, she’ll let me know. Get her out of here and show her what you did for her.”

  As she moves into me, wrapping her arms around my waist and hugging me. I mentally sway with the kind gesture coming from this woman who should hate my guts as much as Ellie should.

  Renita pulls away, her voice lowering to barely a whisper. “You’re a good man, Logan, whether you believe it or not. I don’t know what’s to come of those women and I don’t care as long as they never come near Ellie again.”

  I chuckle, it’s forced coming around the gravel in my throat.

  “I don’t think any of us have to worry about them anymore.” I haven’t a clue where they are. I do know they are fucked up so bad they’ll be afraid to step out of their house for a long time.

  Gabe didn’t take it easy on them just because they are women.

  Norah and Renita know everything else there is to know as Lane told them while we waited for Ellie to come back from having a D&C. I had no clue what that was until the doctor explained.

  “Good, they better hope for their sake they don’t come back around. You try not to worry about your brother, you hear. I’ll take him and that precious little child under my wing. We’ll get through this as a family, Logan.”

  I nod, choking down her words and guide Renita toward Norah’s car that’s idling behind my SUV. I give Norah a tight smile and hop into the front seat of my truck and go to pull away when Ellie’s soft voice stops me.

  “The mind is a crazy thing sometimes. When I woke, all I could think about besides pray our baby would survive was how this could have happened when I was on the pill. We were too caught up in one another the first night, we didn’t use a condom for me to tell you I was on it. I take them to regulate, which they don’t. My periods have been irregular since the first one. I didn’t miss a pill; I know I didn’t. I’m sorry.”

  Another tear slips from the corner of her eye and relief plows through me that she’s talking, but the wrong words are coming out of her mouth.

  I reach across the console and take hold of her hand. “You have nothing to be sorry about, Ellie. Neither of us is at fault.”

  “It is my fault. I was drinking; I should have turned around when I saw those women. I should have run when I saw Sadie. I need you to know how sorry I am that this happened before you told me this was your fault. I didn’t know I was pregnant; I would have run from those women if I did.”

  My throat tightens. Damn near locking. Pain clutching hold of everything inside of me at her admission. Fuck, I hate seeing her like this. Hate I can’t take away her heartbreak and heal with words I can’t seem to find.

  “It was awful, Logan. That feeling of helplessness when I saw that blood. I couldn’t save our baby. I couldn’t move. My head was hurting; everything was foggy. I’d do anything to go back if I could. I didn’t know.”

  A sob wrenches from her and the next thing I know, Ellie is undoing her seat belt, pushing up the console and slowly slides over onto my lap.

  “Careful,” I tell her, not wanting her to hurt any more than she already is. The doctor said there would be slight cramping.

  “I’m so sorry, Logan. Why does life have to be cruel? Why do people have to be so ugly?” Another sob comes out of her. I feel it rip right out of her chest. This one comes with tears pouring down her face.

  “I know I don’t like seeing your heart breaking like this. Bad things happen, and when they do, we need to get back on our feet. We need those we love to help put us back together. Lean on me, don’t take this on yourself.”

  Adjusting the seat to give us more room, I gently shift her until I have her as close to me as she can get. My arms go around her tiny frame, and I hold her while she sobs uncontrollably into my chest.

  Agony. I can feel it peeling away the layers of my skin. Tight knots of pain stabbing in my chest, threatening to slice it in half. One side angry, the other side filling with grief.

  “No. Don’t you see? Our baby is gone. He or she is gone, and we never knew. I never knew. We will never be able to hold our baby. It’s gone, Logan. Our baby is gone.”

  Sobs, they rock
from her body.

  Tears well in my eyes, blurring my vision as streams drip down my cheeks. “I’m so damn sorry, Ellie. Shh, I have you. We have one another. We’ll get through this, I promise.” I rub my hands up and down her back as she soaks my shirt with her tears.

  I don’t have a fucking clue what I’m doing, or if she’s hearing me. It’s killing me. Shattering into a million pieces that I can’t make this go away.

  Murder and madness battle inside my head, stretching my muscles with the effort not to give in and track Sadie down and carve her heart out of her chest.

  I want to do the same to Shadow, to watch his blood drain as I crush his skull.

  “Just take me away. I don’t want to be in this town anymore. I may never want to come back. I need to be free of guilt, and so do you.”

  That I can do.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Ellie

  Dawn shimmers muted golden rays over the agitated ocean, a path mixed with dark clouds as far as the eyes can see. There’s a storm gathering in the distance. I can feel it, and it’s quickly approaching. Maybe if I sit here long enough, the rain and the wind will wash away my sorrow.

  I blink toward the rising sun that peeks through the darkening clouds, a gentle reminder that it’s a new day. I wish it would stay out long enough to seep into my skin and warm my insides.

  Mainly my heart.

  It’s cold, it’s broken, it’s angry, and unlike the innocent little heartbeat that no longer beats inside me, my heart is beating strongly.

  Life isn’t fair.

  “Why?” I cry, bringing my legs to my chest and wrapping my arms around them. I’m tired of being beaten down. Tired of blaming myself. But I do, that can’t be helped.

  “I never had the chance to bond with you.” Sadness, I feel it hit me now more than ever.

  Even though I had no clue I was pregnant, deep inside, there’s a place that will never see light. It will always be empty and dark. Always miss what could have been.

  One minute I’d been laughing with my family, telling jokes, and having fun. I was floating on a cloud. True happiness was within mine and Logan’s grasp, and it was taken away just like that.

  “I’m sorry, little one. Please forgive me for not protecting you. I would have loved you until the end of time.”

  My brain, it won’t relax; it won’t shut down and give me peace. It’s like I’m doomed to relive the entire night from beginning to end, over and over.

  Punches, Sadie’s vicious words, the loss of our baby, my unclear mind as I tried to figure out what to tell the doctors and the police. It won’t leave me alone.

  All I can see is the cutest little green-eyed, dark-haired little boy. All I can hear is Lexi crying if Lane were taken away.

  Spinning. My mind is going round and round. Wonder if it will ever stop.

  I splay my hands across my belly, saying a silent prayer to give me the strength and courage to carry on.

  This is the first time since Logan and I arrived at my favorite city that I slipped out of Logan’s sight to grieve on my own.

  The tears flow out freely, and I let them. I don’t think about how life gave with one hand and took with the other. All I do is miss a life that Logan and I created. A life that is gone.

  “It’s my fault you aren’t here.”

  I don’t know how long I sit on the sand, long enough to do my best to remind myself where I am and what Logan has done for me. It’s hard to enjoy it when the loss has locked pain inside of me, and all I want to do is scream to God to let it out, for someone to give me an explanation as to why life has to be so damn evil to the innocent. Why people can get away with doing horrible things and live their lives as if the level of the wounds they inflicted didn’t break someone’s heart. As if they left them with no hope that happiness will ever come.

  They say a miscarriage happens for a reason. I barely remember the doctor telling me it wasn’t because of the beating I took or the tequila, but I fail to believe that, or any grief-stricken obstacle life throws at me anymore.

  The only thing I believe is that what Logan and I have is real and this heartbreak that is ripping us in two will pass, and we can get back to what we were building.

  There’s something else besides grief chipping away at me. It’s gnawing at my insides that Logan is holding something back from me. That the loss of our baby might not have been intentional because I didn’t even know I was pregnant, so how could Sadie, or those women. It has to do with Sadie being there. She might have organized my attack for her own revenge. But every fiber of my being tells me there’s more to it.

  Sighing, I push to my feet and turn in the opposite direction, my heart clattering in my chest when I take a long look at my view.

  A grateful smile tugs at my lips, so much of it swelling around my sorrow that it’s hard to breathe.

  “I still can’t believe I’m here.”

  If it wasn’t for the look of undeniable happiness that spread across my face last night when we landed and Logan weaved his way through the familiar streets. His tone changing from sorrow back to the deep voice I love so much when I asked him where in my hometown he was taking me. I wouldn’t have a slice of peace flowing through me, hitting the spot in the center of my chest that throbs with a dull ache. Not after what we lost. Not after the silence that surrounded us on the short plane ride here, and for sure not before we both fully grieve and talk more about the piece of us that is broken.

  Speechless. That’s what I was when we pulled in the driveway and I saw the home my parents loved so much.

  The good memories outweigh the bad because, in my mind, this home never belonged to the bad.

  There is no place that I feel safer than here. No other place that makes me feel closer to my mom and dad.

  Home. There’s no place like it.

  “Logan, what have you done?” I asked. My hand fumbling for the door handle as this surge of peace swept in and consumed me. As if I could hear my mother telling me everything was going to be alright. That tomorrow was a new day, and she was only a few miles down the road if I needed to talk.

  I wanted to get out and run. I would have if I weren’t tender and sore and exhausted.

  I felt peace amid my chaos.

  “If I’d told you, I wouldn’t be able to engrain to memory the surprised look on your gorgeous face. My only wish is showing you under different circumstances. Let me help you out.”

  I wished that too. Even though nothing was going to bring back our baby, seeing the house on stilts made me feel closer to my parents than I had in a long time.

  I waited with my breath lodged in my lungs for him to help me out of the car, and when he did, the sight nearly brought me to my knees.

  Home.

  I didn’t care that it looked so much different with the dark gray siding instead of white. I didn’t care that someone built a two-car garage onto it. It still had flowers in the front. It still had the stone birdhouse my father and I made for my mother one year for Mother’s Day in the front yard. We worked on it for weeks, and as a young girl, it was the hardest thing for me not to tell my mom what we were doing.

  “The day I vowed to seek revenge on your behalf, I also made a promise I was going to get back something, anything I could find that was taken away from you. I waited nearly eight years, Ellie, for the one thing I thought would mean the most to you. I negotiated years before that trying to get the owners to sell. Finally, they did.”

  The breath I pulled in was profound.

  Tears broke free. My hands trembled with sorrow, and my heart filled with hope and happiness when we walked along the side of the house to see the field of bluebonnets beyond the gated pool and the ocean.

  I shook and took in a deep breath. I couldn’t wait for next year when the flowers would bloom, but I remember the heavenly scent. Fresh and clean like a face full of clean towels.

  “You bought my parents’ house for me?” I pressed one hand to my chest — the other to my
mouth. I couldn’t move. Could barely think past that I was standing on the soil that once belonged to my parents.

  “Legally it’s in Lane’s name. If anything were to happen to me before I pulled my head out of my ass and finally talked to you, Lane was going to tell you what I’d done. It belongs to you, Ellie.”

  My heart does that thing where it runs ahead of my head. This time it doesn’t run far because I’m at the one place I avoided whenever I’d come to visit my parents’ grave.

  Thankfulness mixes with the memories that still my brain. I will never be able to pay back the man I love more than anything for him doing this for me.

  I can hear my mother’s laughter behind me as the waves crash against the shore when we’d run down the beach. I can feel the warmth of my dad’s hand as he’d hold mine when we’d walk back to the house with our flowers. I see Renita cooking, I see me and Mr. Willoughby, our lawn keeper, who passed away a few years ago weeding and trimming the flowers. I see so much that I blocked away with the pain of my past.

  Deep, heavy breaths escape my lungs as I slowly look beyond the field at the house. Everything inside of it looks different, and yet the memories inside those walls and knowing it’s mine are all that matter.

  A flash of one of the best days of my life with my parents assaults the emptiness inside of me and fills it to the brim.

  “Where are we going, Daddy? Please tell me it’s the Galveston Pier?” I bounce up and down in the backseat with one of my daddy’s ties wrapped around my head and covering my eyes. I’ve been waiting for a long time to go to the pier and ride the Ferris wheel. It’s so big and pretty you can see the lights on a clear night from our house on the beach.

  I’m not even one bit afraid of not being able to see anything around me because I’m with my parents, and they protect me and keep me safe from everything. They hold me at night when I get afraid of the dark. They make me feel better when someone is mean at school. They love me unconditionally, they say. I don’t know what that big word means because I’m only six, it probably means forever and forever.