“Just your head?”
“I think so.”
I glanced at the alarm clock, then carefully rolled Lauren off my chest.
“I’ll go call in, be back.”
“You can’t call in. You have two classes today and Carter’s on paternity leave.”
Fucking hell.
“Ren—”
“Please stop talking, Logan,” Lauren whispered, her voice full of pain. “My head hurts so bad I feel like I’m gonna puke. Shut the curtains on your way out, please.”
I chanced a soft touch of my mouth to the top of her head and she groaned.
“Maybe I should take you to the doctor.”
“Shh. Honey,” she whined. “Please let me go back to sleep.”
Yep, it was going to be a shitty day.
I got up, took a shower alone, got dressed, brought headache medicine and water back into the room, and made sure the windows were locked and the curtains were closed. I didn’t bother making coffee or eating breakfast before I double-checked that all the doors were locked and armed the alarm.
I should’ve stayed home.
Ten minutes after I got to the office my family showed up to say goodbye.
There was something to be said for family—the real kind. The family you’re born into and the family you choose. Jasper, Emily, Levi, Blake, Clark, Reagan, Lenox, and Lily all showed up to see my mom and Ian. The women with promises to keep in touch with my mom and the men with a consultant job for Ian. Jackie wasn’t left out of the women’s huddle and Shiloh, Hadley, and Liberty had stopped in to see my sister. Echo was noticeably missing during all of this. I was waiting for the right moment to pull Jackie aside and ask her what happened when Ian approached.
“May I have a minute before we leave?”
“My office,” I conceded, not wanting to have whatever conversation was in store.
I had a feeling this was coming. I’d spent the last few days preparing and yet I still couldn’t stop the fear from pooling in my gut.
“Sorry to hear Lauren’s not feeling well,” Ian began.
“Hopefully when she wakes up the headache will be gone.”
Silence fell and the quiet did nothing to help the dread that was seeping in.
Totally irrational but it was there. The fear that the man standing in front of me, who had done nothing wrong, had done nothing but treat my mother like she was the most precious person in his life, had only been kind and loving to my sisters, had shown me respect, and had been great with Lauren, would somehow turn into a monster.
I knew I was censuring him for something he hadn’t done. In my mind, Ian was paying for another man’s abuse.
“I’d like to ask your mom to marry me again.”
Fuck.
“But I’m going to wait.”
Fucking shit.
“I’ve been told by your mom and sisters that you rarely visit Bad Axe and there’s zero possibility of you ever moving back to Michigan.”
Hell to the no.
“Jill is in Michigan for a while with her new position. Lucy and Dotty are moving to Alabama for Lucy’s new job. Jackie has expressed interest in Georgia and your mom misses you. I’m going to suggest we move here.”
Christ.
“I think this is the last piece your mother needs to heal.”
“What piece?”
“Seeing you fall in love. Watching you with Lauren. Knowing you are happy and at peace. She doesn’t need to hear about it on the phone, she needs to witness it. It’ll be good for Jackie, too, having her big brother around.”
“And you? What’s in it for you?”
“I get to see my girls happy and DeeDee put the nightmare that was her life behind her. I get the opportunity to get to know you better and build a friendship like I’ve done with your sisters. You, Lucy, Jill, Jackie, and your mom are a unit. I cannot build a life and family with your mom if all of her children don’t accept me into their lives. It would break her heart to cause discourse and I would never put her or any of you through that.”
Goddamn it.
“I am not a man prone to waste time; I know how valuable it is. I’m also a man who lost a good woman and has been blessed enough to find an extraordinary woman to spend what days I have left with. Most people don’t find one, true, great love. I’ve found two. There’s no comparing DeeDee and Nicole. They are opposite in most ways. I loved Nicole in a very different way than I love your mother. One is not more than the other. One is not better. But I will tell you that your mom fulfills me in a way I have never been. I struggled with that in the beginning. Wondering how I could’ve loved Nicole so much but still had been missing something. But it is what it is and there’s no reason to dwell or question my feelings. I have more important things to think about. I have a family to build and make happy.”
Christ.
“I am not Dave Haines.”
I felt every muscle in my body strain.
“I’m not, Logan. I have not nor would I ever raise a hand to a woman or a child. I am not him. I don’t give a shit what was so broken inside of him that he would harm his wife and children. What I know is the man is dead but his ghost lingers. That’s over. I’m claiming the family he should’ve cared for and loved. Your mother is not his. Your sisters are no longer his. They’re mine. And one day you will be, too. I will care for and love all of you the way you all should’ve been. It might take years but one day you will trust me with your family.”
Fuck. I needed Lauren. The panic was encroaching.
“Ask her,” I croaked.
The words rolled out of my mouth and I braced for the poison to creep into my blood and the anger to surface.
But none came.
“Logan—”
“Time is valuable,” I spoke over him. “Don’t let my shit stop you from making her happy. What that piece of shit left might always be inside of me. His ghost doesn’t linger. It haunts but that’s mine to deal with, not my mom’s and not yours. Ask her.”
A change came over Ian. His normal, mild-mannered disposition flipped in a flash.
“Bullshit, Logan. No part of him is inside of you. It is not yours to deal with, that’s not the way family works. You didn’t have a good father so let me educate you on family. What’s yours is ours. What’s haunting you is ours. It’s Lauren’s. We move together as a family.”
“I’m sorry you didn’t have children,” I told him honestly and his eyes filled with pain. “You would’ve been a great father. If you can talk my mother into moving out of that fucking town she should’ve left twenty-five years ago, I’ll be grateful. If that’s by Lucy and Dotty, I’ll come visit and be grateful. If you make my mother happy I’ll forever be indebted to you. You want family, welcome to ours. But warning, Jackie acts the sweet twin and she normally lets Jill be the quick-tempered, sassy one but that’s because she’s smart. She knows if she lets Jill take the lead, Jill will also be the one who catches Mom’s wrath. But Jackie, she’s not sweet, she’s a handful. You lucked out with Lucy. She’s chill and pretty much nothing bothers her. It’s those twins that will give you an ulcer.”
“And you?”
“You want the Herculean task of exercising my demons, have at it.”