He felt his jaw tighten, his hands becoming fists at the mere mention of the man’s name. “I can say the words all day if you want me to.”
“The words don’t mean anything if you can’t let go of that hate that’s in your heart.” She was almost to the door. He was almost home free. And she turned. “I want you to ask yourself some hard questions, Logan. If you love that girl in there and she was in danger, would you put Seth in the same position if it was the only way to save your girl? You don’t have to answer me. Just think on it.”
“We’re going to have to talk about your health, Momma. You can’t keep this from Ma.” She couldn’t just walk away from this.
“Well, I guess if you want to tell your ma about this, you’re just going to have to come out to the house and have a long talk. I think we have a lot to talk about, Logan.”
She turned and walked out, and Logan could hear the laughter coming from the kitchen. Seth said something and he could hear Georgia and his ma break into peals of laughter. The smell of coffee wafted through the house. Muffins and coffee and his family. They were all within reach. All he had to do was walk out and they would welcome him and try to make him comfortable.
But they couldn’t because his momma was right. He couldn’t feel at home here. He’d chosen to sleep alone in this room where his damn feet hung off the bed. Not that he’d slept much. When he wasn’t dreaming about what had happened, he’d been sitting up wondering what the hell he was going to do.
Logan moved away from the door and turned to his window. It was typical of the whole house with its spectacular view of the river. He stared out. This was exactly the place he and Seth had talked about building when they were teens. He remembered it like it was yesterday. They had sat by the river and talked about finding a wife and how they would build a life here in Bliss after they both got out of college. Seth was going to move down here after graduation, but that hadn’t happened. After Seth had gotten perfect scores on his SATs, MIT had come calling and then he’d built his business and Logan had refused to let Seth pay for his college.
And somewhere along the way they had drifted apart, except Seth didn’t seem to notice that they were on two different planes of existence. Seth seemed to think that all he had to do was waltz into town, build a dream home, and offer Georgia up on a platinum platter, and Logan would fall in line.
Logan set his forehead against the windowpane. It was smooth and cool. He was stuck, and he was rapidly discovering that he had a choice to make. His momma couldn’t be serious. She couldn’t. Except Momma Marie never lied. She couldn’t be bothered.
If she was sick, he would have to stay, and if he stayed, he wasn’t sure he could watch Seth and Georgia get married and settle down.
He had to figure a way out of this corner.
He caught a glimmer off the river, a little glint that told him someone was watching. He brought his head up, his eyes focusing on a spot across the river. It was nothing but forest past the water. National forest land with deeply restricted hiking and camping protocols. Logan expected bears and moose and elk to walk out from there, but not humans with cameras—or scoped rifles.
Nothing else would make that glint. Nothing natural.
Someone was watching the house. Someone was taking pictures or taking aim. One of the two.
Logan damn well intended to find out.
Chapter Eleven
“Are you sure I should be here?” Georgia walked into the back room at the Trading Post, following after Momma Marie. The older woman had insisted that Georgia call her Momma Marie and Georgia was going along with it, but not for the reasons Seth thought. Seth had held her hands and promised that Marie Warner wouldn’t really kill her. He’d acted like he was sending her off to some sort of battle he wasn’t sure she would return from.
Seth was scared of the gruff woman and Logan had gone a little green when she’d turned on him, but Georgia didn’t see what the big deal was. Marie was rough, but there wasn’t anything scary about her, not really. She sort of reminded her of Win. Oh, Marie had claws and fangs, but she wouldn’t use them except to protect.
“You’re practically a member of this club, honey. You didn’t shoot a son of a bitch, but you did get shot by one.”
Georgia couldn’t help but laugh. She was pretty sure she should be all PTSD’d out, but the thought that there was a club for women who had gone through hell, and it had lemon crème cake, was actually kind of cool. “It really hurt.”
“But the way I heard it, you made it through. Even after you were shot, you had to make your way out of that hellhole.”
She’d had Nat. Nat had given her the strength to get up that damn ladder even though her arm hadn’t worked at the time. And she’d wanted to see Logan. Even after she’d been shot, all she had been able to see was his face. When she had been struggling up that damn ladder, all she’d been able to hear was Logan’s voice telling her to get the hell on that ladder and get herself to him. She’d done it. She’d made her way up that ladder, and she’d promised herself that no matter what happened, she’d find a way to live through it. “But it was my brother who shot the guy who shot me. And it was Logan who came in and saved me.”
Marie shook her head. “Just staying alive in the face of adversity is impressive, girl. And if you’re going to be with Seth and my Logan, you should start getting to know the women of Bliss. We stick together here. We have to protect this town. Oh, the men think they protect the town, but we know the truth.” Marie stepped through the doors into a big room that had been decorated in lace and antique furniture in one section. The rest was a bunch of organized boxes and looked like the back of a retail store, but there seemed to be a small salon in there as well. A group of women were already sitting around, coffee mugs in hand, talking amongst themselves. “You see the men like to think they’re in charge.”
Oh, she knew all about that. “Absolutely. It’s best they don’t know they’re being manipulated, but I thought all the law enforcement around here were men?”
Marie winked her way. “Not a one of those women in there would put on polyester to save her life, but you don’t have to wear a badge to shoot a son of a bitch. You see the woman with strawberry blonde hair? That’s Rachel Harper. Two husbands and she still had to take her son of a bitch down. All she had was a gun and her dog and cold steel in her veins. Callie there, that’s the sheriff’s wife and her other husband is a big mean-looking son of a bitch. Who had to save them when the chips were down?”
“The woman with the baby shot someone?” She didn’t look like she would hurt a fly.
“She took down a DEA agent.” Marie nodded. “There’s Holly right there. She had to kill a US Marshal gone bad, but only after my boy had taken down a paid assassin. Yeah, that was a rough day. Hope and Lucy there didn’t actually shoot anyone. They took down their son of a bitch with a paring knife and a chair. They tag-teamed the nasty bastard. Real proud of those girls.”
Georgia gulped. That was a whole lot of body count. “What did their bad guy do?”
“He was a horrible human being,” a familiar voice said from behind. Nell Flanders practically floated into the room. She was ethereal with brown hair and wide eyes that reminded Georgia of the fairies in some of the games Seth played online. Oh, he tried to shut them down when she walked in a room, but she’d seen them. Dweeb. Hot dweeb. Stinking hot, make-her-crazy dweeb. God, she loved geeks. Why had she spent all her time on douche-nozzle jocks? She forced her attention back to Nell, who was talking. “He pretended to be an environmentalist to bilk people out of money.”