Текст книги "Moonlight on Nightingale Way"

Автор книги: Samantha Young

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I gave him a small, wobbly smile. “Are you ready?”

“I want her to fight me.”

He didn’t have to clarify his statement. I knew exactly what he meant, because I wanted Maryanne to fight him too. For Maia’s sake. It wasn’t about him not wanting to take care of Maia. No matter what happened, he was going to do that. But we both wanted Maryanne to give some indication that Maia meant something to her. My mother had never fought for me. It was a special kind of agony knowing your own mother didn’t love you. It was always with me. A ghost haunting me, a demon taunting, “If your mother can’t love you, who can?”

I fought that demon, or whatever you wanted to call it, every day. Most days I won. Still… I didn’t want Maia to have that fight.

Logan gave me a militant nod. “Let’s do this.”

By the time we reached the door, I had butterflies in my stomach and not the good kind. It didn’t help that Logan banged on the door like he meant business. I stared up at his stern expression and reminded myself that I didn’t actually know him that well, and I had no idea what his reaction to this situation was going to be without Maia around as a buffer.

Oh shit.

I guess that made me the buffer this time.

Not even a few seconds passed before the lock turned and the door swung inward to reveal a tall, skinny fellow, wearing nothing but a pair of ratty gray jogging bottoms.

His thinning dark hair was unwashed, his face unshaved, and there was a strong odor of stale sweat reeking from him.

“Aye?” he grunted, scratching his bare belly. Not that he had much of one.

“Is Maryanne home?” Logan said, politely enough.

The skinny man’s answer was to leave the door open, turn around, and walk away.

Logan took that to mean we could enter, and I followed him inside the flat. I was instantly hit with that stench we’d smelled last time we were there. I instinctively huddled closer to Logan as we walked down the narrow hall and into the living room. The skinny man flopped down on an armchair across from us. Maryanne was lying on the couch watching television.

She looked up, her expression giving nothing away.

“Remember us?” Logan scowled at her.

Her eyes narrowed. “What the fuck do you want now?”

I eyed her carefully. She seemed less jittery than last time. I didn’t know enough about substance abuse to understand what that meant. Was she high? Was she not high? Who knew?

Logan forged ahead. “I got a paternity test. Maia is mine.”

“Good detective work.” She snorted, and the skinny man laughed.

Logan ignored them both. “I also got a copy of her birth certificate. You named me as the father on it. You gave her my name.”

“So?”

“I have legal rights, Maryanne. I’m enforcing them. Maia is living with me from now on.

Permanently. Do you have anything to say about that?”

Maryanne just stared at him.

Skinny Man frowned at her. “You gonnae take that?”

“What’s it to you?” Logan said, his tone quietly menacing.

I shifted a little closer to him, sensing the fight in him.

“Nothing.” Skinny Man shrugged and then grinned idiotically. “Wee My was nice to look it, that’s aw.”

Logan lunged, but I was faster. I put myself in front of him, my hands pressed to his chest.

“Don’t.”

He grabbed my wrists, glowering over at Skinny Man. “If you fucking touched her, I’ll kill you.”

“Naw, man.” Skinny Man got up out of his chair, backing off. “Mare, tell him I didnae touch her.”

Maryanne grunted. “What would he want a wee bairn for when he’s got me?”

Logan was still tense.

I pressed harder against him, forcing him to look at me. Our eyes locked, and I felt all his pain and frustration and impotence over Maia’s history wash over me. I curled my fingers into his shirt and leaned closer. “They’re not worth it,” I whispered. “Let’s just go.”

He blinked at my words, and I felt him relax, his hands uncurling around my wrists. He looked over at Maryanne. “Does this mean you’re not fighting this?”

“Does it look like it?” She gestured around the room. “What the hell can I do for that wee lassie, eh? She’s better off with you. Why do you think I told her about you? She doesnae need me.”

I shook my head. “You have no idea how wrong you are.”

“Get oot ma house, fancy pants.”

Logan tensed again. “This is it, Maryanne. If you ever coming looking for Maia, you’ll have to go through me first.”

Her answer was to turn up the volume on the television.

Logan could only stare at her in disgust.

I dropped my hands from his chest in order to take his hand in mine, and I led him out of the flat.

And I didn’t let go until we got to the car.

There was more tense silence between us as Logan drove back toward Edinburgh. We were perhaps twenty minutes in the car, however, when he suddenly pulled off the motorway and into a service station car park.

He turned off the engine and just sat there.

I waited, giving him time.

And then, “Who does that?” He slammed his hand on the steering wheel, his chest moving up and down rapidly as he took haggard, quick breaths.

I’d seen him tense, concerned, anxious.

But not like this.

I didn’t know if it was purely about Maryanne, but I suspected it was everything. It was a buildup of everything from the moment he’d opened that paternity letter. Maybe even from the moment Maia had turned up on our landing.

“Logan.” I touched his arm, forcing him to look at me. “Anything you do is going to be better than what Maryanne has done for Maia.”

His eyes blazed. “I could have done this no problem a few years ago, but I’m not that guy anymore. The laid-back guy who could take on anything.”

“You keep saying that. Was prison really that bad?”

He clenched his jaw and looked out of the windshield.

“Logan?” I pressed.

“It… I had to become a different man in order to get through it.”

“How?”

He sighed heavily. “I don’t want to talk about it. It’s done.”

“It’s not done,” I disagreed, hearing the irritation in my voice and not caring. “You have a teenage girl waiting for you at home now. A week ago, okay, fine, I would have dropped it, let you keep whatever shit that’s stirring inside of you to yourself, but it’s not just about you anymore.”

Logan turned his head and glowered at me. I tensed, waiting. And to my surprise he began to talk.

His voice was gruff, low, however, like the words were dragged from deep down in his belly. “I’m not a criminal, Grace.”

There was a pain in those words he couldn’t hide, and I felt the burn of tears in my eyes in response to it. “I know that, Logan.”

“No, you don’t.” He shook his head and looked away from me. “I wasn’t that kid. I wasn’t that teenager, and I certainly wasn’t that man, and I didn’t surround myself with men like that either. The men inside… So many of them aren’t even men. They’re just scum who think because they like violence and like playing with knives and drugs that it makes them men. I was breathing in scum for two fucking years, listening to them and the vile, ignorant things they talked about. Things they planned to do when they got out, the men they planned to fuck up, the women they planned to hurt.

And I listened to them plan to hurt one another. Because it’s war.” He turned to stare at me now, his nostrils flared with anger, with the memories. “It’s a war in there. And if you don’t want to get fucked-up, you have to make them fear you.”

I shivered at the look in his eyes. “What does that mean?”

“It means I had to find a balance. I wanted out early for good behavior, but I also had to make sure no one messed with me. I spent every day in the gym bulking up and allied myself with certain men.”

“What kind of men?” I was almost afraid to ask.

“The kind of men who are real hardened criminals. The kind of men who have done very bad things, Grace. One of my closest friends in there – and we still talk to this day – was in for manslaughter. It was his third conviction since he was fourteen. That’s the kind of men I let into my life. What kind of man does that make me?”

I ached all over for him. “The kind of man who did what he had to do to survive.”

“You say that, but you don’t know what I was party to in there.”

“And I don’t need to.” I shook my head. “Not unless you really want to tell me. Because otherwise I don’t care. I don’t need to know. It doesn’t change who I think you are.” I rested my hand on his leg.

“Logan, it was two years of your life. Two terrible years, I know. But in the grand scheme of things, two years should not define who you are.”

His fingers tightened around the steering wheel. “You’re forgetting the reason I was in prison.”

Sensing I hadn’t quite won this round with him, I said, “Then tell me about it.”

“I was at work,” he said immediately. “I used to be head mechanic in a garage. Shannon came in…

stumbled in.” When he gazed at me this time, he looked truly haunted. “Fuck, Grace, you should have seen her.” He shuddered and looked down. “Her top was ripped, her jeans undone, her face… Fuck, her face. Bloody, swollen. And her arm was hanging funny. Dislocated.” He wrenched his eyes from the floor to my face. “I grabbed her, shouted at someone to call for an ambulance, and as we waited, she told me her boyfriend had done it. I can’t explain it. I’ve never felt rage like it. She’s Shannon.” He seemed to plead with me. “She’s my wee sister. She’s the kindest person I’ve ever met until you. She means the world to me. I wanted to kill him. He tried to rape her. He beat the shit out of her. And later I found out it wasn’t the first time he’d hit her. The thought of her fighting him off, trying to get to me so I could protect her… the thought that I wasn’t there…” He trailed off, his emotions getting the better of him, and I waited as he attempted to get a handle on them.

“I had only one thought,” he whispered. “To find him and give him back as good as he gave.” He cleared his throat, his face turning hard. “They call it bloodlust. Maybe it was, because once I got ahold of him, I couldn’t stop. A colleague, a friend of mine, he followed me. Dragged me off.” Logan glared at me now. “I put Shannon’s boyfriend in a coma. What kind of man does that make me, Grace? Fit to be a father?”

I had a feeling he wanted me to be outraged. Disgusted. Take Maia away. Seeing him so raw, so exposed, and so ashamed of himself was too much. I didn’t want him to feel that way about himself.

And so I sought to help in any way I could.

A story I had told no one, not even Aidan, came to mind, and I found myself telling it to Logan.

“When I was fifteen I woke up one evening and there was a boy in bed with me. He had his hands on me, touching me. I fought him off, hearing laughter around me, and when I managed to get away from the boy, to get out of the bed, I discovered my brother, Sebastian, and a few of his drunken friends in my room. He’d brought them into my room to deliberately do that to me. My parents weren’t home.” I looked at my lap, trying to hold back the tears. I hadn’t realized how painful it would be to say the words out loud. “I ran out of the room and locked myself in my bathroom, and I could hear them laughing the whole time. The one who had touched me, I knew him. He was my brother ’s best friend. He stood outside the bathroom and taunted me until my brother got bored and pulled him away. I was terrified.” I forced myself to look at Logan, and he was staring at me, incredulous, outraged. “Sebastian did things like that all the time. He thought it was a game. We’re both lucky he didn’t get me raped.” I stared solemnly into Logan’s eyes, hoping the point I was trying to make would have an impact. “Life is shades of gray, Logan. I don’t know if what you did was wrong. The law says it is, but I just think you were acting on an instinct that most people have. If I could choose between how Sebastian acted or how you acted, I’d choose your actions. That’s all I know.”

“Jesus, fuck, Grace,” he said hoarsely.

“I know good and bad, Logan, trust me. And deep down you do too. And you know you’re a good man. You know it. And I’m not going to tell you any different.” I brushed impatiently at a tear. “We both know Maia deserves you. You deserve her.”

My heart leapt into my throat as I was abruptly pulled across the passenger seat and into Logan’s arms. He wrapped his hand around my nape and pressed my head into the crook of his neck, while his other arm fastened tight around my back. I had no choice but to slide my arms around him and hold on.

I let his solid, secure warmth rush over me.

I breathed him in.

And I wished that this moment didn’t feel as perfect as it did.

CHAP TER 10

A s I stepped out of my flat I realized I was relaxed for the first time in what felt like forever.

I was going to meet up with Aidan, Juno, and Chloe for a coffee before starting my work for the day.

Maia was at school.

Her first day of school.

Thankfully, her time off school ran at the same time as Edinburgh’s Easter break, so it didn’t even really feel like she’d missed out on much. She was starting a new school in the last term of the year, which was a little awkward, but there was nothing that could be done about that.

Logan hadn’t wasted any time in arranging Maia’s new life here with him. He got her transferred to Muirhead High School, which was a twenty-minute walk through the Meadows and into Viewforth.

Logan had dropped her off this morning, but she had been quite insistent that she walk home alone and that she would walk to school by herself every morning thereafter. Her father was not happy about this. I think he kept forgetting she was fifteen years old and used to taking care of herself. I’d tried to tell him that, but he’d just grunted at me and led Maia down the stairs and out of the building.

Although he and I had spent quite some time together these last few days with Maia, the closeness we’d experienced in his car seemed like a distant memory. I got the feeling Logan was uncomfortable with what we had shared with each other. Perhaps he felt strange about letting me see him so vulnerable, or perhaps it was because I’d let him see me so vulnerable. I could go over and over it in my head, and I could let myself get embarrassed for giving him a piece of myself I hadn’t given to anyone, but I wasn’t going to let myself go through that. If Logan wanted to be macho and weird about the whole thing, then I’d let him. I wasn’t going to drive myself crazy overthinking it.

The truth was Maia was a big distraction from the “car moment.” Her moods were all over the place. She’d go from being excited, happy¸ and filled with anticipation, to worried, anxious, and locking herself in her room to cry. I guessed it was partly caused by the fact that she was a teenager, a girl (and on her period), but I knew it was also hugely to do with the fact that her mother had given her away without a fight. She confided in me a little of what life was like with Maryanne. Maia had practically raised herself, from taking herself to the opticians when she realized her eyesight was worsening, to stealing money out of her mother ’s purse to pay for school clothes, shoes, and food.

The new transition was forcing her to deal with her memories, and thus her emotions were heightened.

Maia’s moods were infectious, and so I was absolutely exhausted.

As much as I enjoyed being a part of this new chapter in Maia’s life and getting to know her, I was looking forward to the normality of having a cup of coffee with friends and then catching up on my work. In fact, I was more than a little behind.

I was in the middle of locking my door when I heard Logan’s door open behind me. He stood in his doorway wearing a black T-shirt with the logo from the nightclub he worked at etched across his chest. His dark blue jeans were worn and hung on his hips in a rather attractive way. I’d never really thought much about men in jeans, but in that moment I realized that certain men just sold them to you.

Logan definitely sold those jeans.

He had a bit of a short beard going on again, and I found I liked it. A lot. Despite the tiredness behind his eyes, he really was bloody gorgeous.

When had he become my type?

I looked down, dropping my keys in my bag, avoiding his gaze so he couldn’t see what I was thinking. “Hi.”

“You going out?”

I glanced up at him because he sounded agitated. “Are you okay?”

“Maia’s bed was delivered an hour ago.”

“That’s good.” I felt a little pang in my chest at the realization Maia would be moving out soon.

“I… um…” He rubbed a hand over his hair. “I want her room to be, you know… I need paint.

Things… stuff… that girls like.”

He looked so adorably lost and confounded I couldn’t help but laugh a little. “Are you asking for my help?”

“I can ask Shannon if you’re busy, but I just thought… you know Maia a little better.”

Maia had spent more time with Shannon, and the two of them got on very well together. Over the weekend Logan had taken Maia to meet Shannon’s fiancé, Cole, and some of his family. She’d been flushed with excitement when Logan dropped her off at my flat afterward, and she filled my ears with descriptions of Cole’s gorgeous sister, Jo, and her husband, Cam, and their little girl, Belle. From what I could tell of Maia’s accounts, they’d all been extremely welcoming to her. I was thrilled for her. She’d never experienced anything like Logan’s friends and family.

However, despite getting to know them all and loving it, Maia still clung to me. She wanted me to be included in everything and was disappointed when I insisted she go with just Logan to meet his friends and family. I tried my best to give them father-daughter time, and I knew Logan appreciated it.

But the truth was, Maia was living with me, and so far I’d spent a great deal of time with her and I was the one she chose to show her vulnerable side to. It was my shoulder she chose to cry on when everything became too overwhelming.

So yes, I probably did know her better than anyone.

“She likes green. She’s not too girlie. She’s quite mature in her tastes actually. Stylish.” I sighed inwardly, knowing I was an idiot. I’m doing this for Maia, not Logan! “I’ll have a look at the bed and make a quick call while you get your shoes on.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You’re sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.” I shooed him inside and followed him in, pulling my phone out of my bag.

I called Chloe. She was not happy. Her screeching melted away for a second, and suddenly I heard Aidan say, “Do what you have to do, Grace. We’ll catch up with you later.”

I smiled at his understanding. “Thanks. I’ll talk to you soon.”

By the time I got off the phone, I was standing in Logan’s spare room. It was the same size as my guest room, and it was now dwarfed by the beautiful white Shaker-style bed frame and mattress that sat in the middle of the room.

“What do you think?”

I glanced over my shoulder and found him leaning in the doorway. “I think it’s lovely. I hope you have dust sheets to cover it so you don’t get paint on it.”

“We’ll add those to the shopping list.”

“I think this is going to be a very large shopping list,” I said wryly, following him out of the flat.

We’d just hit the ground floor when Mr. Jenner ’s door suddenly opened and he leaned outside. “I thought I heard your voice, Grace.” He smiled. “Logan.”

“Mr. Jenner,” we said in unison.

“I heard we have a new addition to the building.”

“My daughter,” Logan said.

I smiled up at him.

“What?” He frowned.

“Nothing.” I looked over at Mr. Jenner, still smiling. Already it seemed to be getting easier and easier for Logan to use the word “daughter.”

“Oh, very good,” Mr. Jenner said, grinning at Logan. “Nice to have family around. Speaking of my lack thereof…” He threw me an apologetic smile. “I couldn’t ask you for a favor, Grace, could I?

I’ve run out of a few things.”

I held out my hand. “Of course. You know it’s no problem. Do you have your list?”

He had it in his hand. I tried not to laugh as he passed it to me.

“We’ll probably be a few hours. Is that all right?”

“Oh, of course. That’s no problem. You’re an angel.”

I smiled at him, Logan said good-bye, and we heard Mr. Jenner ’s door close behind us just as we stepped out of the building.

“Do you ever say no to anyone?” Logan said.

It was my turn to raise an eyebrow at him. “And where would you be if I did?”

He blinked at my response and then threw his head back in a bark of laughter.

I couldn’t help grinning. And I did so, ignoring the swell of attraction I felt toward him.

The man could probably heal the world with that laugh of his.

We stared down into the boot of Logan’s car. It was packed with stuff, as was the backseat. It wasn’t just stuff for Grace’s room, either, but bits and pieces I’d picked out for the rest of his flat to give it some warmth. Right now it looked half-empty and unlived in. Logan needed to turn the place into a home.

“Do you think we got enough?” he said dryly.

I smirked. “I hope so, or you can say good-bye to your savings.”

“On that note.” He shut the boot and gestured to the computer store. “Does Maia need a laptop?

For her school stuff? I mean, she needs a phone, but does she need a laptop?”

“Well, Logan, no one needs a laptop,” I said. “The question is can you afford a laptop?”

He frowned at my nosy question.

“You asked,” I huffed. “I’m just saying… Her birthday is in a few months. If you want to make up for unintentionally missing the last fifteen, a laptop would be a lovely way to do that. But not every birthday should be of laptop magnitude,” I hurried to add.

Logan looked undecided.

“Maia’s just happy to have you right now. She doesn’t need a laptop.”

He slanted me a look out of the corner of his eye. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah.” He nodded and then spun around to look across at the other side of the giant retail park.

“Fancy having some lunch before we hit the supermarket for Mr. Jenner?”

I should probably have been getting back. I had work to do. “Sounds good.”

We started walking toward the Tex-Mex restaurant.

“So about a phone for Maia… Do I just buy one? Or should I let her pick it?”

I grinned. He was trying very hard not to sound anxious, but I could hear it anyway. “Do what you think is best.”

He made this little growling noise that a few weeks ago would have intimidated me. Now it just made me grin harder. “I can feel you laughing at me.”

“Moi.” I stared up at him round-eyed and innocent. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Aye, right.” He held open the door to the restaurant, staring me down the whole time.

I pretended to be cowed.

After we ordered, the waitress moved away and Logan and I were left just staring across the booth at each other.

He looked very serious all of a sudden.

“What?” I said warily.

“You haven’t mentioned your family at all, with the exception of that fucker who doesn’t even count as a brother.”

Uncomfortable under his sudden intense scrutiny, I shrugged. “My friends – Aidan, Chloe, and Juno – are my family.”

“What about your blood? Your parents?”

“I don’t speak to them.”

He cocked his head in curiosity. “Why?”

Why did he suddenly want to know about me? I’d gotten the impression that he was avoiding any really personal discussions between us when he threw up a wall after our outpouring and hug in his car the other day. “Why do you want to know?”

Logan shrugged and took a sip of water. When he placed the glass back on the table, he said,

“You’re my friend.”

That surprised me. “Yeah?”

He gave me a lazy grin, and something rippled low in my belly in response to it. “Yes.”

Shoving away that ludicrous reaction to him, I gave a huff of laughter. “Who would have thought?”

“Certainly not me. I was pretty sure you were a shrew.”

I narrowed my eyes. “You were no picnic either, Logan MacLeod.”

He grinned again, and it occurred to me I’d seen him smile more in the last few days than I had the entire time I’d known him. “I’ve missed that,” he said.

“What?”

“You saying my full name in exasperation.”

I giggled. “I don’t think you’ll have time to miss it. I’m pretty sure you’ll be hearing it again soon.”

“Stop changing the subject.”

“I didn’t!”

“Someone did.”

“It wasn’t me.”

He gave me a low-lidded no-nonsense look. “Why don’t you talk to your family?”

Trying for nonchalant when I felt anything but, I rolled my eyes. “My mother is cold and my father is distant. I didn’t like life in London with them, so I left them behind for a real family here in Edinburgh. End of story. Okay?”

He was quiet a moment. I didn’t know if he was processing that information or gearing up for more questions… and then he surprised me again. “Thank you, Grace.”

“For what?”

It was his turn to give a huff of incredulous laughter. “For everything.”

Just like that I found myself locked in his gaze. The air around us seemed to thicken until I was feeling a little breathless. My skin was flushed and I felt a shiver skate down my neck, following a tingling path around my back to my breasts.

Logan’s eyes darkened with heat.

“Unfortunately” – our waitress appeared at our booth, and I practically jumped out of my skin –

“we don’t have any more of the…”

I wasn’t listening to whatever she was saying to Logan. I was too busy wondering what the hell had just happened.

The waitress broke the moment between Logan and me, and right away he jumped into asking me about my work, and if I’d spoken to the author who had tried to plagiarize Blade Runner. From there we chatted and joked about our work, about Maia, and avoided anything too personal.

After our supermarket run, we dropped by Mr. Jenner ’s to give him his shopping and then Logan disappeared into his flat to start work on decorating Maia’s room, and I darted into my flat to start my own work.

I think I reread the same chapter ten times.

Before I knew it, Maia was home from school.

I immediately called Logan over.

“What?” Maia stared at us as all three of us stood in the living room. She’d come in, dropped her book bag in the living room, sauntered into the kitchen, and then reappeared in the sitting room with a glass of orange juice in her hand. She looked very smart in her uniform – a black blazer with the Muirhead badge on the left chest pocket, a black shirt, a green and black striped tie, black skinny trousers, and black boots.

“Well?” Logan said, sounding impatient. “How was it?”

She shrugged. “It was fine.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’ve got to give us more than that. How were classes? How were the teachers? Your peers?”

“I’m taking mostly the same classes I was taking back in Glasgow, except for media, which they let me take here. The teachers were teachers, and everyone was fine. I think I made a friend. What’s for dinner?”

I narrowed my eyes at how blasé Maia was being. I knew for a fact after our conversation about her friendless history that making a friend was a big deal. Why wasn’t she acting like it was?

“That all sounds great.” Logan looked at me, pleased, and I didn’t want to burst his bubble by suggesting there was something fishy going on, so I grinned back.

“Great.” Maia shrugged again. “What’s for dinner?”

“My shift change to days starts tomorrow, so I’m not working tonight. I was thinking – but only if you’re up for it – in honor of your first day at school, you might want to eat out? Shannon and Cole invited us out to a restaurant with them and Cam and Jo. What do you think?”

Her eyes lit up, and I saw that sparkle I’d been hoping to see when she was talking about school.

“Okay. Sure. Grace, you’re coming, right?”

I almost blushed, wondering if Logan was groaning inside at the thought. I was sure he’d seen enough of me for one day. “Oh no. You go and have dinner with your family.”

“I want you to come,” she insisted with this mulish expression on her face. That was new.

“Maia,” I began, “I’m s—”

“You should come,” Logan interrupted me. “You should be there to celebrate with us.”

“Yay!” Maia clapped happily, and Logan’s whole face brightened at the sight of her excitement.

“We’ll get ready.”

He chuckled. “Okay, then. I’ll be back at six o clock to pick you up.”

As soon as the door closed behind him, I turned to Maia. “One, you can’t keep inviting me along to things with your father. Two, what really happened at school today?”

“Oh my God, it was amazing!” She rushed toward me, her whole face glowing. “These two girls started talking to me right away in my first class. They’re so nice and we’re, like, into the same music and have the same taste in films and actors and everything. They don’t like all that stupid boy-band stuff, you know? They like real music. They’ve even been to live gigs. They’re so cool!”

I was relieved that she’d met people she clicked with, but I was still confused as to why she hadn’t shared this with Logan. “Why on earth didn’t you say so when Logan was here?”

Her smile died a little. “I don’t want him to think I’m a silly wee girl who gets excited over stupid stuff like this. I don’t want him to be bored with me.”

“Maia.” I shook my head in wonder at how muddled her mind was right now. “Logan wants to hear this stuff. He wants to know how happy you are. He doesn’t think it’s stupid girlie stuff. You don’t have to pretend to be someone you’re not because you think it will impress your father. He’s proud of you, especially when you’re being yourself.”

She chewed her lower lip with her teeth for a bit and then cocked her head to the side and said,

“Yeah?”

“Yes. Now, you must promise to tell him all about…”

“Leigh and Layla,” she supplied.

“Leigh and Layla.” I grinned. “Well, those names will be easy to remember.”

Maia had been right about Cole’s older sister, Jo. She was one of the most beautiful women I’d met in real life, and I’d lived in London and met lots of gorgeous women. From what I could tell, her beauty ran deep. As soon as she saw Maia again, she drew her in for a hug and started asking her about school immediately, seeming genuinely interested in anything she had to say.

I was introduced to her husband, Cam, first. While Shannon and Cole were a few years younger than me, Cam was apparently nearly forty. The guy did not look it at all. Unlike Cole, who roughed up his classically handsome looks with scruff and tattoos, Cam was truly rugged. His tattoos and scruff just made him more so.