Rachel's Redemption (14 page)

“Logan, do you want to know what happened to that money? The inheritance, the money I told the town council about?”

He looked away from her, studying the side of the barn. She waited for him to meet her eyes. When at last he did, she said, “I never saw a dime of it. I told the lawyers I didn’t want any of it. It was all given to the Delaney-Tolbert Foundation the day she died. I didn’t want it.”

He shot a glance to her.

“That’s right. I’m not who you think I am. I’m just a girl, a struggling physician, actually.” She laughed without humor. “Struggling to finish my fellowship, to get a job, to do what I feel is right by Nana.”

Her voice trailed off and she studied the ground, picking up a small branch, which she dragged in the dirt.

“I’ll never forget, Rachel.”

That brought Rachel’s head up from her search. “Forget what?”

Logan stood. He walked a few steps away from her and she watched his muscles bunch with each step. Tension radiated off of him. When he walked back, his face was drawn and his eyes were bluer, shiny even. “That night.”

When she started to shake her head, he pointed at her and said, “That night in the gas station, when dear old dad passed out on
Nana’s
caddie and Jonesy had to close down the station while he called me to come get him.”

Logan was no longer that fourteen year-old boy. But revisiting that memory brought it all back. All at once, he was scared and angry and humiliated. He’d driven into town to pick up dear old drunk Dad. It’d been Fourth of July weekend. The fireworks had always set off Mean Gene’s PTSD, like a scared dog launching through a screen door, his father dove into a bottle.

When Logan had arrived at the convenience station, his dad was passed against Gloria Rose Delaney-Tolbert’s shiny white Cadillac. Logan had gotten his height and build from his dad, so leaning over the top of a parked car was a pretty good, or so it’d seemed to Gene, place to take a nap. Fit his form anyway, even if it was cold, hard steel and in the middle of a public building with bright white lights showcasing the whole humiliating scene. Not to mention that the car was occupied and Gene’s big ass had the occupants trapped.

Mean Gene’s dirty, torn overalls smudged the white paint and window where he’d evidently fallen against the car. The denim had been stretched tightly over his dad’s backside giving him a monster-wedgy, which the old man had been too drunk to notice or care.

Gloria Delaney-Tolbert had sat trapped in her car, her back stick-straight looking like she’d swallowed a lemon, her eyes shooting daggers.

Logan’s stomach had plummeted to his knees and, even though he was too old to cry, he’d wanted to. He’d wanted to collapse on the hard cement. Why hadn’t Mean Gene kept walking? He could have slept it off anywhere else. Why Gloria Delaney-Tolbert’s car? Why had
she
been getting gas just then? Why had his mom left? Why couldn’t his dad handle her leaving like other men? Why did he need to drink? Too many questions. No answers.

But Logan hadn’t cried. It wasn’t who he was. He didn’t run, he didn’t hide. Family was family, blood was blood. And, right then his blood was facing a night in jail. Logan had climbed from the truck and stood tall. No matter what, he would take care of what was left of his family.

Jonesy had been standing on one side of his dad, trying, ineffectively, to get Mean Gene off of the car door. But, all he’d succeeded in doing was eliciting a loud, wet snore from Mean Gene.

He remembered how Gloria Rose had hollered for Jonesy to call the police. Thankfully, Jonesy hadn’t. Instead he’d tried pleading with Gene to step away from the car, and Logan was left wondering exactly how he was going to get Gene off the car. Heft dad over his shoulder and toss him into the back of the truck?

Which is exactly what ended up happening. Jonesy and Logan wrestled his dad’s passed-out body away from Gloria’s Caddie and settled him, none to softly, into the bed of the truck. Then Logan had driven him home. But, not before noticing that Nana hadn’t been the only one in the car. Rachel had been sitting in the back seat, a witness to the entire thing.

“Your grandmother was staring at him, at me, as if we were something to scrape off your shoe. He was a disgrace. It was humiliating. And you were there. For the whole thing. Just sitting in the front of your fancy car, watching, staring, judging.”

“No. I remember that night. But not the way you think I do.”

“I saw it!”

Rachel stood and moved toward him. He was too raw just then for her touch. He backed away. Might as well have slapped her for the look she gave him.

“I tried to talk to you, to tell you—”

“Tell me what? What could you possibly have had to say to ‘poor Logan Hastings,’ Mean Gene’s son?”

“I had plenty to say to you!” she shouted. “I wanted to tell you how brave I thought you were. How much I admired how you took care of him, took care of both of you. I wanted you to know . . .”

“What?” He took a step toward her, his body pulsing with unbridled emotion. “What did you want me to know?”

Rachel shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Not now. You’ve already decided. You’ve decided who I am, what I’m about.”

He turned away from her, fisting his hands on his hips, letting his head drop back on his shoulders. This afternoon he’d wanted a motorcycle ride. Not a trip down memory lane.

“You think I felt sorry for you, don’t you?”

Logan spun around and said, “Don’t you? How could you not?”

“Sorry for you, but not pity. I tried to tell you at school, but you . . . you . . . you were mean to me.”

Logan remembered that, too. He’d been a teenage boy, hardly capable of processing the mess of his family life, let alone when the richest girl in the school tried to talk to him about the single most mortifying moment of his life. Yeah, he’d dismissed her, ignored her. It wasn’t behavior he was proud of, but it had been necessary. Self-preservation. Survival.

He’d gotten real good at putting up protective walls.

She’d just been one in the long list of people on the other side of one of those walls.

He didn’t want her to see his vulnerability. This woman had managed to tear down those protective walls and no way was he going to show her how open he now was. He drew in a deep breath and threw up those defense mechanisms he’d relied on all his life.  

The clouds that had been growing increasingly darker as if the heavens were modeling their behavior opened up and rain poured down in thick sheets. Logan and Rachel stood there, staring at each other, water dripping off their noses. 

“Come on,” he said gruffly, “let’s get out of this rain.”

He picked up the blanket and shook it, sheltering it under his arm, then he grasped her hand and pulled her along behind him. They were just a few yards from the barn and he led her inside. They stood there, drying and quiet, waiting for the weather to pass.

Chapter 21

The rain and wind rattled the old barn. Neither of them said a thing to each other, just took up their own corners in the barn, left to their thoughts and revelations. As soon as it was done falling and the weather system had passed, Logan signaled for her to follow him and they made it back through the mud to the bike. He stopped a couple of times to help her over fallen logs and hold her hand as they negotiated the heavily washed out path. But neither said a word.

He used the blanket to dry off the seats then he dumped the water from the helmets, kicking himself for not stowing them in the saddlebags. He passed her a helmet, muttering an apology that it was wet, but he let her put it on herself. He fired up the engine and, when she was settled behind him, took off.

The bike ate up the pavement, kicking up standing water all over both of them. He didn’t even notice and if she did she didn’t say anything. She was touching him just enough to hold her seat and she hadn’t helmet-butted him once since they’d left the rest area.

Of all things he expected her to say, that she admired him, that she thought he was brave, were not it. It wasn’t as if he’d spent his life, every day since that night, thinking about it, but it had played a part in shaping who he’d become. And, yeah, she was right, he had decided who she was based on that one night. Not by getting to know her, by talking to her, but he’d served as judge and jury and convicted her of being wealthy, arrogant upper-crust. Just as he’d pegged himself as poor, unworthy, trash.

Either way it was unfair. To her. And to him.

He decided right then to let her have her event. He admired her. She believed in what she was doing and she believed in her Nana. And, why shouldn’t she. Who was he to take that away from her?

He pulled into the driveway and around to the garage. He killed the engine, removed his helmet, and got off the bike. She started to follow and he put out a hand to help her even though she could negotiate getting off without his help.

He waited while she decided whether or not to accept it. He held his breath. At last, she extended her hand.

He didn’t apologize often and he didn’t do it well, especially when it really counted. But, he knew how to make her feel good. And that was a gift he could give to her now, while she was here with him. Before he let her go and before she could leave him.

He cleared his throat and said, “Come inside a minute.”

She looked like she wanted to refuse. She looked hurt and angry and soaked through.

He turned away, swallowed, then without turning back, asked, “Please?”

She pressed her lips together and nodded.

And he exhaled.

He led the way inside, through the back door, the narrow mudroom, where he toed of his boots. She started to bend to remove her shoes, but he gently moved her hands away and knelt before her. Patiently he undid her wet laces, then clasped first one calf then the other, removing her wet shoes.

Next, he grasped her hands. Her fingers were icy and he gathered them between both of his. He brought them up to his mouth and huffed his warm breath over them. Then he led her through the front room and down a short hallway to the bathroom. He gently sat her on the commode, after putting down the lid, and turned to close the door. He flipped the light on as the day had given way to dusk and the room was gray. The lights bathed both of them in light and slight warmth; although he could tell she was moments away from shivering. He reached past her and turned on the shower, flipping it all the way to hot, letting the steam fill the room.

Then he stripped out of his clothes, dropping them in a pile by the door. He turned and stood naked, open, vulnerable before her. And waited. Hopeful she wouldn’t turn away.

She didn’t. She looked at him with big, warm eyes. The same eyes that had sought him out that next day at school, all those years ago.

He helped her to stand then he lifted her shirt up and over her chest. She helped by raising her arms until the cold, wet material was off entirely. Then he walked his fingers around to the back of her bra where he tried to unfasten the material. Unsuccessfully. Then he clasped her shoulders and turned her slowly around so her back was to him. He leaned his head down, tentatively, and placed a soft, open mouth kiss on her delicate shoulder. She shivered, from the wet clothes, the cold, or the kiss, he didn’t know.

He went to work on the bra and it came off next. He turned her back around and placed a kiss on her collar bone, the gentle V of her neck, her other collar bone. The palms of his hands brushed slowly, gently over her peeking nipples. Then he went to work on her sodden jeans. He worked the button open and the zipper down, and together he helped her shimmy the wet, unyielding material over her goose-bumped hips and legs.

Rachel drew in a sharp breath as she stood there, in the artificial bathroom light, completely naked.

He reached into the shower to check the water and then gestured for her to climb in.

She cried out as the water washed over her chilled skin. He almost did the same. Logan reached for the bar of soap. He lathered up his hands and placed them on her shoulders.

Logan used his big, soapy hands to knead out the tension she wore in her shoulders and back, squeezing, massaging away her aches and knots. Some of which—maybe most of which—he was responsible for. He held just enough pressure to release the knots, using the soap to glide over her spine, her shoulder blades, down to her lower back, then back up.

His hands dipped lower, skimming her bottom, then back up and, again, down, down, each time down a little farther. Her breathing was picking up, her mouth parting, drawing in the humid air, warming her from the inside out. Her head tilted to the side and he wrapped an arm around her to support her.

“Turn around,” he directed, his voice rough.

She slowly turned to face him. He placed his soapy hands on her beautiful breasts and almost lost it. But he wouldn’t do that. No. This was for Rachel. For all the things he’d done, not done, thought, not thought, said, not said.

He slid his hands all over, up, down, up, then over her nipples, tracing. Back, forth and back again, over and around, gently pinching her nipples, cleansing them thoroughly. Her eyes were closed but they opened when he began to soap her stomach and then lower.

“Rachel. Look at me.”

She lifted heavy lids and settled her gaze on his. He stared at her, intense and hot. Then he brought his mouth to hers. He devoured her, feasting hungrily and she gave it back to him, her tongue sampling his, dancing, playing. All the while, he worked his finger down to her abdomen to her sweet center, parting her, testing. Then he pressed, applying just enough pressure. She was slick and ready; his sensual massage had insured that.

God she was beautiful. His body readied for her, wanted her. And he realized he needed her badly, more than he’d ever needed a woman before in his life.

He reached a hand out of the shower and returned with a foil package. He ripped it open and put the condom on. Then he turned, his back to the showerhead, and walked Rachel backward until the cool shower tiles touched her back. Then he lifted her up. She gasped, but the sound disappeared in the steamy shower. He held her in the safety of his arms, slowly sliding her down onto his erection. She wrapped her legs around his hips and took him all the way. Her arms tightened around his neck, her breasts pressed against his hard chest. Her mouth came down on his shoulder, her teeth biting his skin. And then he began to move her, his hands on her hips, pushing her up, down, up, then slowly back down.

Her head fell back against the tile and she screamed.

The orgasm shot through her hot and electric, lightning coursing through her, a building thunder cloud shooting white hot electricity to the ground. He’d never felt so alive.

Logan held her until the trembling subsided then he began to work her body again, small movements, up, then back down, slowly building again. The fiery heat wrapped and twisted and grew until she was on the brink again. His mouth came down hard on hers as his orgasm took him and she screamed again, but this time, his mouth took it all.