Willow Spring (17 page)

“I guess it’s . . . complicated,” he said.

She lifted her head to peer down at him. “Complicated how?” And despite wishing he could ease her worries, he realized this moment was about just being real. Amy had been real with
him
tonight; he needed to be real with her, too.

If he could.

“I guess I still feel a lot of what I felt back then. I’m just . . . working harder not to let it show.”

“Oh,” she murmured, sounding sad. And he felt a little like he was letting her down, letting them both down. “I’m sorry to hear that. I thought things were better.”

“Yeah,” he mumbled. It seemed the only thing to say.

“If . . . you wanted to talk about it, about that night, I’m happy to listen,” she offered.

Yet his chest tightened at the very idea. He didn’t think words existed to describe that night. And even if they did, he wasn’t sure he could say them. “Thanks,” he said tightly. “But can’t.”

“I understand,” she said. She still gazed down at him, sweet and caring in the moonlight, but he didn’t meet her eyes now—he couldn’t. Instead he stared upward at nothing, his gaze fixed on stars he didn’t really see, and his chest grew tight as certain visions began to invade his memory more than usual.

For God’s sake, didn’t he have enough other stuff to think about? He’d just had sex with Amy, after all. Amy! And even if it had felt totally, shockingly good and right, it was still a damn big surprise. And then there was Anna. And his job situation. And even as confusing as all that stuff was, too, at least it didn’t rip his guts out every time he thought about it.

“But maybe talking about it would be good,” she suggested, and his chest ached further. Crap—she’d said she understood that he couldn’t talk about it; he’d thought they were done with this topic. “Sometimes, putting something into words is . . . the thing that helps you deal with it, process it. Maybe talking about it would help you put it behind you.”

Logan’s jaw clenched. What she was saying made sense to him, logically. He just didn’t know . . . if he could face going there again. So it caught him off guard when he heard himself force out one lone, solitary word. “Maybe.”

Amy said nothing else for a while. She rested her head back on his chest and he lay there soaking up the night, soaking up the memory of what they’d just shared. And things began to feel easier, like before . . . except that the fire was lodged in the back of his brain now, creeping into the edge of his thoughts, whether he liked it or not.

And he knew if he lay there long enough trying to focus on other things, he’d get back to that almost comfortable place, that place where he was happy, upbeat Logan, or pretending to be anyway, and that he could probably go on this way for a very long time—who knew, maybe forever—and no one would be the wiser. No one but him.

Or he could do what Amy had said. He could talk about it. Just once. He could put it into words. And then he could hope and pray that maybe getting it off his chest would actually do what she’d said, help him move on.

The only thing was, if he told her, he had to tell her the whole truth, not just part of it. And if he told her the whole truth, that made it . . . feel more real. And it meant . . . someone else would know.

His stomach went hollow at the thought, and he heard himself whisper in a low rasp, “You might not want to hear all of this, freckles. It’s not pretty.”

“I didn’t expect it to be. If it was pretty, you’d have already told me. I can take it, Logan.”

Of course she could. She would. For him. No hesitation. Her reaction—so tough, so sure—made him spontaneously kiss her. “You’re the best,” he told her. “The absolute best person I know.”

In response, she bit her lip, looking prettily bashful as she said, “Thank you. But . . .”

“But?”

“Wanting to help you through this isn’t about me being a good person. It’s about . . . how I feel about you. There’s not much I wouldn’t do for you, Logan.”

And he’d pretty much already known that. But somehow, hearing it, feeling it, made him—again—
need
to tell her.

He needed to bare his soul to her.

He needed to tell her what he could tell no one else.

“I couldn’t get to them,” he blurted out, his throat catching on the words.

“What?” she whispered.

“Ken and Doreen. I couldn’t help them.”

She was perched back on one elbow, peering down at him again. “I know,” she replied, sounding confused.

And he realized that what he’d just said sounded ridiculously obvious, but she couldn’t see the images in his mind. He had to swallow, hard, before he tried to explain. “I . . . I was standing outside the bedroom door, so close to them, but a wall of flames and smoke separated us. I knew it was too much and that I had to get out of there before the floor collapsed.” Another swallow as he stared blankly back up at the sky. “And then part of the bedroom floor did start to collapse. Ken . . . he was across the bedroom. He and Doreen both. The smoke was thick, but I could still see them, backed up against the far wall, and they were looking at me, and I called out through my respirator that it was me, thinking somehow that mattered, and . . .” Jesus God, he didn’t want to remember this, he didn’t want to keep hearing the sounds. “Ken was screaming for me to help them. Begging me.”

Somewhere on the periphery of his brain, he heard Amy expel a soft breath of horror.

“Like I said, I already knew there was no hope. The floor between us was half gone, and the floor beneath
me
was about to give way. And it was some kind of miracle they hadn’t succumbed to the smoke already. Yet still, there I was, so close to these two people I’ve known my whole life, and I just went . . . numb. I just stood there. Staring at them while Ken cried for help. In one way, I could barely hear him over the noise of the fire, but in another . . . he was all I
could
hear. I’ll never forget that sound. I wake up sometimes at night—still—hearing it, seeing his face flickering between the flames and smoke that separated us, seeing the look in his eyes, the despair, when he realized I wasn’t doing anything, wasn’t
going
to do anything.

“I’ve never felt so fucking helpless, so fucking useless, in my entire life. I was just . . . frozen. I couldn’t help them—but I couldn’t leave, either. So I just stood there, the flames getting higher around us, the smoke getting thicker and more toxic by the second—I just fucking stood there like a helpless little kid.”

“Oh Logan,” she murmured, softly stroking his arm.

And he felt it, the comfort, her care, a little, but mostly he was lost in the memory now. “Finally, the chief was calling for me to get the hell out of there, and so . . . I just took one last look at them and said, ‘I’m sorry’—which I know damn good and well they couldn’t even begin to hear at that point, so I guess maybe I was saying it more to me than to them—and then I turned my back on them and left. Just left them there to die. Just left them there to suffer a horrible, awful death. I just left them there, Amy.”

“You had no choice, Logan,” she said. “Surely you know that.”

He switched his gaze briefly to hers. And yeah, he knew she was right—he’d known that since the moment it had happened; he’d been
trained
to know these things—but . . . “It’s different with friends, people you care about.”

Above him, she only sighed, and he knew she got what he was saying. That this was about more than logic, that it went deeper than that.

“When it’s someone you care about, you feel like . . . no matter what it takes, you should be in there trying to save them, even if you know you can’t. You feel like you should have fought ’til the end, like . . . like . . .”

Amy blew out a breath. “Logan,” she whispered, sounding as tense as he felt, “if . . . if you’re saying you should have fought to save them until you died there with them, that’s . . . crazy. Surely you know that.”

Logan just lay there. Because, in fact, that was exactly what he was saying, exactly how he’d felt ever since that night. Like he’d let them die there alone when he should have found some way to save them, even if it meant his own death. “I’m a firefighter, Amy,” he told her. “My job is to put my life on the line for people. And I’ve never backed away from that before—I never thought I’d let somebody die just to save myself.”

“That’s not what happened, not how it was!” she argued.

“Did you ever see the movie
The Poseidon Adventure,
the original, with Gene Hackman?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she said. “But so what?”

“I watched it with my dad when I was little,” he told her. “And do you remember the part where Gene Hackman used the last bit of his strength to turn that steel wheel, to open the hatch and save the rest of them, and then dropped to his death? Seeing that had an effect on me. I remember thinking—now that guy’s a hero, a real hero. He was willing to give up his life to save others.”

“But that’s not how it was in this situation. You couldn’t save them, you just told me that. And if you’d sacrificed your own life, it would have been . . . meaningless, and . . . a huge waste, Logan. And besides, you’re talking about a movie, not real life. I don’t think it’s wise to hold yourself to the standards of someone who isn’t real.”

“I just worry,” he softly went on, “that . . . my dad would have been disappointed in me.”

Still looking skeptical, Amy tilted her head. “What do you think he’d have done in your place?”

“I’m not sure,” Logan told her, shaking his head lightly against his old bedcover. “Maybe he’d have gotten to the second floor a little faster. Or seen some way to get them out that I didn’t. But I think he’d have found a way to save his friends. He wouldn’t have left them there like that.”

Yet Amy shook her head, clearly unconvinced, her expression downright stalwart now. “You’re wrong,” she said. “I knew your dad. He was as heroic as they come, Logan, just like you, but he wasn’t impractical, either. And it would have broken his heart, same as it’s broken yours, but he would have done exactly what he had to do, what
you
had to do, what you
did
. He’d have saved himself. Because he’d have known one more death would only make it that much more of a tragedy, and—” Her voice broke then, and he realized she’d gotten almost as emotional as him. “And . . . my God, Logan. If you had died in that fire, needlessly . . . I would never get over it. And now
I’d
have a broken heart, too, but for a whole different reason.”

And by then tears were streaming down her face, and Logan’s heart felt like it was bending, stretching in his chest as she said, “Just think about what that would have done to me, and your mother, and Mike, and everyone else who knows you and cares about you. Just think about how much more empty our lives would be right now, Logan.”

“Hey now, freckles, calm down,” he said soothingly. “Everything’s all right. I’m right here, honey, and I’m not going anywhere. Nothing to cry about.” And as she sniffed back her tears, he didn’t for a second fight the urge to slip his hand around her neck and pull her down for another slow, passionate kiss. Because he hated making her cry, and yet . . . it touched him to know how much she cared.

They kissed for a few long, pain-numbing minutes that brought Logan back to a better place. And when they were done, Amy said to him, “Do you see now? Do you see why you had to do what you did? That no good could have come from any other decision?”

Logan drew in a deep breath, thinking it through. He’d never thought ahead to how it would affect anyone else if he’d lost his life in that fire—he’d only thought of Ken and Doreen, and of what he thought it meant to be a real man, a
good
man. He’d thought only of the look on Ken’s face, the feeling that he’d let them down in the biggest possible way you could fail someone. But she was right—it was pretty horrible to imagine putting his mother through something like that, and Amy, and everyone else, too. “Maybe,” he finally said. “It’s just hard . . . hard to know the last thing the Knights saw was me . . . leaving them to die.”

“And that’ll probably
always
be hard, Logan,” she told him. A bitter pill, a hard thing to hear, yet it was true. “But you have to know nothing that happened that night was your fault. You did all you could. And I’m sure Ken and Doreen knew that as well as I do.”

And it was then that something took place inside Logan that never had before, or at least not since he’d reached adulthood. His eyes began to ache, and his throat went tight, and he grew aware that his cheeks were wet. And he realized that—shit—now he’d begun to cry, too.

And at first, he tried to suck back the tears. Because he was a guy—a fireman, for God’s sake—and he didn’t cry. But Amy was watching him, and she was whispering, “No, Logan, no. Just let it go. Let it go.”

And without quite making the decision, not quite being able to hold it back any longer, that was what he did—he’d had enough, too much, and now he’d finally reached the breaking point. Tears flowed from the corners of his eyes, wetting his cheeks, his hairline, as he crushed his eyes shut and finally felt the wrenching release mixed with the relief of just giving in to this, just for a minute. And he held Amy tight as she wiped away the wetness and kissed his cheek, again and again, soft and sweet, blurring the pain until finally, slowly, it faded—and all he remained aware of were the sweet scents of the orchard at night and Amy making everything better.