Floored

by Karla Sorensen

  She stood from the ottoman. "Well, if he's going to be here for that shower, then the blue dress won't cut it."

  "Thank you."

  "But we also don't want wallpaper dress."

  I rolled my eyes as she started digging through the pile that I'd brought into the room.

  "Oh, yeah," she said. Then held the hanger on her pointer finger. "This one."

  "Yeah?"

  Claire nodded. "Definitely."

  I touched the hem of the dress with a tiny smile. When I did, Little Cabbage did a massive somersault that knocked my breath away.

  "Whoa," I gasped, rubbing over an elbow or knee or something. Claire pressed her hand down on the spot with a grin.

  "See? Cabbage Patch agrees with me." She leaned down. "Don't forget, I'm your favorite aunt, okay?"

  Jude

  "Bloody fucking bollocks, this is stupid."

  The soothing voice came through my car’s Bluetooth system. "It's okay to be nervous about this, it's a big deal."

  "Don't coddle me right now, all right? I need you to tell me I'm not about to walk into a trap."

  My therapist—whose number I'd gotten from Declan—did not make me lay on a couch, but he did make me talk about my feelings, and often in the past four weeks, I'd hated him for it.

  "From what you've told me, I don't believe you're walking into a trap." I could hear the smile in his voice, the wanker, and I wanted to punch him for convincing me this was a good idea.

  I yanked my car to the side of the country road, staring out the windshield at the rolling green hills and hedges. "I'm not ready."

  "Talk to me about what changed then, Jude." He was always so bloody patient. "Yesterday when we met, you'd had a good talk with your brother and a good phone call with your parents. Based on what you talked about with both of them, you told me you were ready to go out to the farm."

  I gripped the steering wheel until I could've sworn my knuckles were going to pop out of my skin. "Yeah, it was easy to say I was ready while sitting in your bloody beige office with your soothing music and fucking oils in the air making me relaxed."

  "What's scaring you right now?"

  I pinched my eyes shut. I hated that question. For the past four weeks, twice a week, he'd asked me all these blasted questions that I hated answering. Sometimes more than others.

  "Right now? How much I want to punch something."

  He chuckled. "Fair enough. But you aren't punching anything, which is excellent. What else?"

  Blowing out a hard breath, I finally opened my eyes. "I'm afraid that I'll go to the farm, and it'll be just like the last time I saw them at the pub. My dad will say something awful like he did, and I'll lash out like I did, and we'll be right back where we fucking started." I slammed my palm against the steering wheel. My heart was ramming against my chest like I'd just run for a bloody hour. "And if that happens, then all of this was a waste, and Lia was right that I don't know how to talk about shit, and I'll never change, and the woman I love and my child will be halfway across the world, happy without me, and I'll be empty and alone with no one to talk to about anything because I've shown over and over that I don't need it when I really do."

  The car was deathly quiet at my admission. I could hardly believe I'd admitted anything that big.

  Quietly, thoughtfully, he hummed. "Bravo, Jude. Excellent."

  I ran a hand down my face. "Bloody hell," I muttered. "I feel like you just yanked my guts out."

  He laughed. "I didn't do anything but ask a few questions. The truth is that you already have changed. You're seeking help in seeing the damage that your parents have inflicted, that you've inflicted in turn. You've recognized that Lia's absence, her ability to walk away for the health and well-being of your child and your ability to parent that child in a healthy way, is a boundary she needed to erect in order for you to seek that change."

  My head dropped back on the driver's seat, something unlocking in my chest. A pressure eased that I hadn't even been aware of, even though I'd probably been carrying it around for half my life.

  "I know. But it's still not a choice I would've made."

  "No, but think about what you can choose within this situation."

  I rubbed my forehead.

  "Jude," he continued, "you can't force your parents to change any more than Lia can force you to change. You can choose to work on these things. So can they. It's all connected. But if your parents are willing to try, then there's hope. Maybe that's the reason Lia and this child are in your life."

  His words, even though they were freeing, unraveled a domino effect inside me. I missed her so bloody much and seeing her was just out of reach. My flight for Seattle left the next morning, and this stop was something I had to do before I attempted anything else with Lia.

  Terror and hope were so inextricably entwined, and I'd never been so fully aware of it until I was on the cusp of everything I wanted.

  A life with Lia, if she'd still have me, gave me so much hope, but I couldn't really achieve it until I faced this monster, one that was partially of my own creation.

  "I can do this," I said quietly.

  "You are doing this," he affirmed.

  "Thank you, Kendrick." I grinned even though he couldn't see me. "You're not so bad."

  "High praise indeed. Send me an email if you need to schedule a session while you're in Seattle. We could do a virtual appointment."

  "I will."

  We disconnected the call, and even though I needed to put the car in drive and finish the rest of the five-minute drive to the farm, where my parents were expecting me, I decided to take a moment longer in the still and calm.

  Glancing down at the passenger seat, I picked up the small sheep, dingy with age. But still, it was soft in my hand, and I ran my thumb over the face, imagining it in the small, uncoordinated hands of a child with Lia's eyes and maybe my smile.

  The sheep was set carefully on the dashboard of my car, a symbol guiding me forward to a place where hopefully I would find a small measure of peace in my past and establish a foothold to the future I wanted.

  With a deep breath, I eased the car into drive and moved forward.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Jude

  Eyes gritty and back sore from a long day spent traveling, London to Chicago, where I spent a sleepless night waiting for the first flight out to Seattle, I wasn't feeling my best as I approached the arrivals area at Sea-Tac airport. There would only be one person waiting for me there, and it was up in the air whether he'd greet me with polite reserve, a warm welcome, or a kick to the bollocks.

  Were I in his position, it'd probably be the latter.

  I didn't have much in the way of luggage, as three large boxes of my belongings were being shipped by Rebecca, who'd made me swear a blood oath that I'd do a FaceTime with her when the baby was born. And I felt like that was a good thing when I turned the corner and saw Logan Ward for the first time.

  He was tall—taller than me—and solid muscle, arms crossed forbiddingly over his massive chest. His eyes were shaded, a Washington hat pulled low over his forehead. I found myself swallowing heavily as I approached. We were interrupted briefly, a pause button on our little showdown, when a small boy approached him.

  Logan softened immediately, the change in him so profound that I blinked. He crouched down with a smile and shook the boy’s hand after they exchanged brief, quiet conversation, then allowed a picture when the boy's mother asked for it. The whole thing lasted only a minute, just a shade more, but it established an immediate kinship.

  His grin was wry as he stood back up. "Never know when that'll happen, do we?"

  "We don't." I held out my hand, and immediately, he took it. His grip was firm but not overbearing, and I breathed just a tad easier that he'd decided against the kick in the bollocks. "I appreciate you being willing to pick me up."

  "I wasn't going to at first."

  We started walking, me following Logan’s lead as he steered us through the
milling crowds toward the car park

  "What changed your mind?"

  "Lia's sister," he admitted, with a small shake of his head.

  "Not Isabel, I'm assuming."

  Logan cut me a look. "Claire."

  "Ahh."

  "Why do you say it wasn't Isabel?"

  "The last time I saw Isabel, she threatened to de-man me, I believe."

  Logan laughed heartily. "Yeah, that sounds like her."

  I pointed at a Starbucks. "Mind if I stop for some coffee?"

  "Go ahead."

  While I got the largest Americano they'd sell, Logan waited, tapping away on his phone. The smell hit my bloodstream before I took my first mouth-scalding sip. He eyed me carefully as I approached. "No tea?"

  I answered with a wry smile. "Sometimes even the British need more caffeine than tea will give us. And this is one of those times."

  We walked out of the airport and into the car park quietly, and I appreciated him allowing me a few moments to let the coffee hit my system.

  Logan's truck was large and black and carried a Washington Wolves sticker in the back window. He opened the back of the truck for me, and I hesitated before sliding my suitcase in.

  "What's wrong? Do I need to like, lift it for you?"

  I gave him a look. "No, I just want to make sure it's safe back here. I've got ... a gift for Lia, and I'd hate for anything to happen to it."

  His eyes were inscrutable, his facial features all but carved from rock as he gave me a good old-fashioned stare down. It was hard not to fidget underneath the weight of it, but I met his gaze square on.

  "I'm in love with her," I told him. "And I'll do my best to prove that, even if I have to wait."

  Logan inhaled slowly, then exhaled in a hard puff. "You can put it behind your seat. There's room."

  "Thank you."

  Once in the truck, he paused before pulling out of the parking space. "Claire told me I have to give you a chance, no matter how wrecked Lia was when she got home in December."

  My jaw clenched, but I kept my mouth shut. I'd not seen the fallout, of course. Which he knew.

  "And she reminded me that because we all love Lia—and this baby—so much, that if you are the best thing for both of them, then it would be worse for me to do or say something I'd regret in a moment of anger."

  I should have brought a gift for Claire as well.

  "And I feel like it's important that you know that before I say what I'm about to. This is not coming from a place of anger or thoughtlessness. I don't know exactly what happened between the two of you," he continued. "I didn't ask for the details. They're not important. But I'll warn you, McAllister, that this family—my family—is everything to me. If you don't have the fortitude to stick this out with her, with the baby, then tell me now, and I'll buy your return ticket home before she's any wiser."

  Slowly, I turned my head and met his stony gaze. He bloody well meant it.

  "I'm not going anywhere," I told him.

  Logan searched my gaze before he nodded resolutely. "Good."

  He put the truck in reverse, and I exhaled slowly.

  "Lord, you're an intimidating lot, aren't you?"

  Logan smiled. "We don't mean to be. But we've learned to close ranks when it's necessary."

  "Why?"

  "Did Lia ever tell you how they came to live with me?"

  Feeling horribly sheepish that I didn't know, I shook my head. “Just the bare minimum.”

  He glanced over at me before turning his gaze back to the road in front of us. "We share the same dad, the girls and I do. But my father remarried a woman much younger than him when I was starting college."

  "Lia's mum," I said.

  Logan nodded. "Brooke. She was—for lack of a better term—a trophy wife for my father. Beautiful, bubbly, the life of the party. Charmed everyone, as long you were only around her for small doses. Our dad died of a heart attack when the twins were young. And Brooke"—he frowned, his grip on the steering wheel visibly tightening—"she didn't much love the idea of being a single mom when there wasn't as much money as she originally thought."

  "Bloody hell," I murmured. I rubbed my forehead, each bit of information offering further clarity. "She left them with you."

  "On my doorstep." Finally, he smiled. "I probably aged ten years the first six months they lived with me, but they're the greatest gift anyone's ever given me. A couple of years later, my wife and then my son got added into the chaos, and now ... apparently ... we keep adding their men too."

  He sounded so disgruntled about it that I found myself smiling despite the terrible story that had led to their family.

  "Lia was ... ten, yeah?"

  Logan nodded. "Tough time to have your mom bail. Any age is, I guess. I always wondered if they heard her that day she left."

  When he fell quiet, I glanced over at him.

  "Brooke always wanted the fun, the excitement, the adventure. But we'd always known that about her. It wasn't anything new. But leaving them ... I never saw that coming. Right before she left, I asked her why she was doing this." He shifted in his seat. "She looked back at me and shrugged, then she said, 'I have one life, Logan, and it's already been hard enough. Why would I spend the rest of it being miserable?'"

  "Fuck me," I murmured. Even if Lia hadn't heard her mum, everything made so much sense, looking at her through that lens. "Thank you for telling me."

  "It's something you have to understand. Anyone who's going to love one of those girls needs to. You don't experience someone leaving you like that without scars. And Lia might hide those scars well, but they're there. She'd never let anyone make her child feel the way Brooke made them feel."

  I mulled that over, each thing he told me only serving to make me love her even more.

  "She'll be an excellent mum, won't she?"

  "I have no doubt about it," Logan said.

  I stared out at the mountain peaks, still capped in white despite the warm May air. I thought of what Lia had said driving through the English countryside, about paying attention to your surroundings when they were unfamiliar, and I smiled. Each mile closer, it wasn't even so much the scenery that had me overwhelmed, but the idea that I was so near to her after so many months.

  "And you're sure you're ready for all this change?" Logan asked. He flipped his indicator on to take the next exit, and my heart raced in anticipation. We were close.

  "I am."

  He nodded but didn't say another word as he wove through a few streets, taking us farther from the noise and busyness of the highway. At a small curve in the road, I saw a beautiful building set back in a clearing. Long balconies stretched in front of a dozen sliding glass doors on each of the three stories with parking underneath the building. The landscaping was lush and green against the white stucco.

  "2B," he said quietly. "She thinks I'm picking her up for the shower in a little bit. I told her I'd hit the buzzer three times so she knew it was me."

  Logan parked his truck and held out his hand.

  I took it for what it was—an olive branch and a blessing. I wasn't entirely sure I deserved it yet, but I'd bloody well try.

  "Thank you," I told him again. "For everything."

  He clapped me on the back. "You fuck it up, and I'll rip your balls off, Brit."

  "Fair enough," I answered dryly.

  I pulled my suitcase out of the truck and gave him a small smile before I walked to the main entrance. The building had a small entryway behind glass doors, and I was happy to see security cameras affixed all around. Quickly finding 2B on the panel, I gave the button three quick bursts and held my breath.

  Lia

  I eyed the clock on the wall above the couch, pressing the button to let Logan up. "Come on up. I'm almost ready."

  From my living room window, I'd seen the back of his truck parked in front of the building, so I knew it wasn't a serial killer or anything.

  A stack of boxes sat next to the door, and I moved the top one over so he wouldn
't knock into it when he came in. The apartment was sparsely furnished and only half unpacked, but it already felt like home. The May sunshine streamed in through the sliders that led to my balcony, and I hummed along with the music playing in my bedroom.

  My hand reached down, but I couldn't reach the buckle on my ankle. "Shit," I whispered. Mildly awkward to ask your big brother to do it, but hey, pregnant people had to do what pregnant people had to do. And as I was learning, Baby Pineapple, with its low center of gravity over my hips, made just about everything harder most days.

  Including dressing. Thankfully, I'd been able to slip on one of my nude, open-toed sandals, showing off the bright red pedicure that Paige had treated me to in honor of my baby shower. But the other buckle came unhooked when I tried to wiggle my puffy little foot into the left shoe.

  I heard the door to the apartment open, and I called out over my shoulder. "In my room. Can you help me with my shoe, please?"

  His heavy footsteps slowed in the living room, and I sat back on the bed, adjusting the neckline of my dress. Claire had been right, the deep V, slightly off the shoulder neckline and pale pink color were perfect. The dress hugged my stomach and hips, ending just above my knees.

  It was as sexy as I'd felt the entire pregnancy, with my hair curled, a full face of makeup, and a body with curves I'd never, ever had before. Honestly, my boobs were amazing.

  As long as Jude's flights weren't late, he promised he'd be there before the shower ended.

  Maybe not ideal to see him for the first time after so long in front of my family and friends, but I was just excited to see him.

  Logan approached, and I stuck my foot out. "I can't re—"

  My voice broke off at the sight of him, big and tall, filling the doorway of my bedroom.