WHEN TATE GOT to the Daily Grind and stepped inside, he scanned the interior of the familiar coffee shop to see if Jill had arrived. When he didn’t spot her, he went ahead and ordered his drink and a chocolate muffin, then headed for one of the booths down the side wall so he could sit and watch the passersby while he waited.

He looked around at the other people with their friends or family or just sitting by themselves talking on the phone, and remembered a time when he’d been so self-conscious in this shop with Logan that he’d inspected everyone who looked his way, just in case they knew him.

Funny, he thought, taking a sip of his drink. That this was the place he’d told Jill to meet him at. Almost like it was familiar and neutral territory for him. And how coincidental is it that this is where I first met Robbie, when I’m about to train him tonight at work. It was weird sometimes, how life worked out.

Like with Robbie, for example. The man Tate remembered in this shop had been lively, over the top, and totally out there. He hadn’t cared one way or another what anyone thought of him, and his lack of filter had been right up there with Logan’s.

Robbie had been the first person to really make Tate wake up to himself and admit that Logan was who he wanted. Yeah, it’d been because the damn flirt used to constantly put the moves on Logan. But he’d spurred Tate on and made him really accept who he was. And on that last day when he’d seen Robbie here at the Grind and had been brave enough to tell him that Logan was off the market…that had been a great fucking day.

However, time had changed Robbie, and Tate still wasn’t quite sure why. He supposed that was one of the reasons he’d offered him the position at The Popped Cherry when he found out Robbie was qualified.

He had a lot to thank that kid for, and if he could help him out in some way, then this was his way of doing that—not that he’d ever tell Robbie that.

“Tate?”

Tate glanced over his shoulder, and when he saw Jill standing there, he slid out of the booth and got to his feet. He towered over her—always had, even as kids—and as they both stood there not knowing what to do, Tate shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and said, “Hey.”

“Hello,” she said, and offered a timid smile. Then she glanced around the coffee shop, and he took a moment to really look at her.

She hadn’t changed at all, from what he could see. She wore a red dress and pointy black slip-on shoes for the summer day, and her hair was around her shoulders in loose waves.

“This place is nice,” she said, and when her eyes finally came back to meet his, Tate just nodded. Then she glanced at the table, spotting his food and drink. “I’m just going to go order real quick, and I’ll be right back.”

“Okay.”

As she headed off toward the registers, Tate retook his seat and pulled his phone out for something to do. He scrolled through several emails, a few old texts, and when nothing caught his eye, he shook his head. Put your phone away, dumbass. You came here to talk. So talk.

As he shoved his phone into his pocket, Jill came back, slid into the seat opposite him, and took a sip of her coffee. A chocolate muffin was on the plate in front of her, just like him, and when she lowered her cup, she hummed and said, “They make a delicious hazelnut latte.”

Yep, same as me too. Some things never change.

“Yeah, the coffee and food here are pretty good,” he said as he settled into his seat, trying to get comfortable.

“How’d you find this place? It’s kind of out of the way from your old apartment, isn’t it?”

Tate nodded and looked around. “I guess so,” he said, and then thought, Okay, Jill, moment of truth. “It’s one of the first places Logan brought me on a date. We used to come here a lot. It’s close to his—well, our place and where he works.”

Jill didn’t so much as flinch as she peeled the wax paper off the bottom of the massive muffin in front of her and cut it into quarters. “Oh, that’s right. His law firm is in the building down the street. I remember.”

So do I, Tate thought. I remember you looking at me like some kind of disgrace to humanity up in those offices.

“Yes,” he said, and congratulated himself on not saying anything more.

“You used to work in the same building, right? At that bar? After Hours?”

Tate reached for his own muffin and removed the paper for something to do with his hands. He didn’t think he’d actually be able to stomach any food right then, but hell, he couldn’t just sit there. “That’s right. That’s where I met him.”

Jill sat back in her seat and regarded him in the same bold way he and his father had about them. A Morrison family trait, through and through. “Logan Mitchell of Mitchell & Madison. That’s him, isn’t it?”

Tate narrowed his eyes on her and his spine stiffened. The question was innocent enough, but at the same time she could’ve asked him what the weather was outside and he would’ve been on edge.

“Tate?”

“Yeah, that’s him. He owns the law firm with his brother, Cole Madison.”

Jill picked up a piece of her cut muffin and popped it into her mouth, and once she’d finished it, she said, “I looked him up online a couple of years ago. And recently they were in the news with a case they were working on. Umm, Berivax, wasn’t it? The big drug company.”

“That’s right,” Tate said in a clipped tone, wondering where she was going with this. Then she said something that would’ve floored him, had he not already been sitting on his ass.

“He’s extremely handsome. Logan, that is.”

Tate knew his eyes had to be as round as the plates on the table, because Jill’s hand paused on the way to her mouth and she said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. It’s just…” She lowered the uneaten piece of muffin to her plate. “You’re not talking, and I—”

“What do you want me to say, Jill?” he finally said, sitting forward in the seat and resting his forearms on the table. “I’m still trying to work out what you want. We haven’t seen each other in years, and you made it abundantly clear why. So, I guess I’m trying to wrap my head around your motives. Why are you here? I find it hard to believe it’s to tell me that my boyfriend’s hot.” Tate paused for a moment and then added, “Even though he is.”

When a tiny smile tipped the corner of her lips, Tate relaxed a little despite himself. Jill swallowed and sat back, looking as though she were thinking over her next words.

“I’m sorry, Tate.”

He was sure he’d misheard or, shit, was in some kind of alternate reality, because surely she hadn’t just said—

“I’m sorry for everything. I’m so appalled by my own behavior toward you. I hardly even recognize it as myself.”

The self-recrimination in her voice managed to cut through Tate’s incredulity as he sat thoroughly stupefied by what he was hearing.

“I can’t tell you how long I’ve wanted to tell you that. And before you say it, I know Dad has your number. But my relationship with him…” She shook her head. “It hasn’t been the same since your accident.”

Tate let out a breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding, and brought a hand up to scrub it over his face. This was…it was unbelievable.

“Tate,” she said, sitting forward and reaching across the table. When her fingers grazed his, Tate slowly withdrew his hand. She didn’t sit back, however. She stayed as she was, her eyes imploring him to listen. To give her the chance she’d never given him. And as he stared at her, he fought every instinct he had to get up and leave her sitting there by herself, the same way she had done when he needed her. “I…I don’t even know how to put this into words—”

“Try,” he finally said, his voice barely audible.

When her eyes found his, they were glassy, and Tate steeled himself against the urge to reach over, take her hand, and tell her it would be all right. That wasn’t his job anymore. She’d thrown her big brother away years ago when she’d banished him from her life. So if she wanted that back, if she wanted to mend what she had broken, then she needed to be the one to do the reaching.

“Right,” she said, and drew her hands back across the table to place them in her lap, her food forgotten. “I suppose the best place to start is at the beginning.” She took in a shaky breath and let it out. “I’m sorry for the way I acted, or reacted, that first day in Logan’s office.”

Tate didn’t move. Didn’t speak. The only reason he even knew he was breathing was that he hadn’t passed out from lack of oxygen. But he thought it might be a real possibility soon.

“I have no excuse,” she continued, and chewed on her lower lip as though she were trying to hold her emotions in check. “I was in shock, but that doesn’t excuse the awful things I said to you. The way I treated you…” she said, her words fading as a tear escaped her eye and rolled down her cheek. “I’m so ashamed of myself.”

Tate had to look away from her then, because no matter what she’d done to him over the last few years, seeing her sitting there in pain was harder than he’d ever expected it to be.

She brought a hand up, brushed the tear from her cheek, and sniffed. “Then that Sunday came around, and you and Logan came to the house.”

“I remember,” he said, the ugly memory of that day forever ingrained in his brain as one of the most awful experiences he’d had in his life. But it was also the day Logan had told him that he loved him for the first time, and even though it hadn’t been perfect, the memory of that allowed Tate to shove the rest of that day to the very depths of his soul. Somewhere in the cracks and shadows, where he didn’t have to look at it. He just knew it was there.

“That day was horrible,” Jill said.

“I agree.”

“Mom was—she was so hateful that day.”

Tate blinked, but braced himself against the mention of the woman he no longer allowed himself to think about.

“She said things I never imagined she would say to either of us. And it was such a shock that I think we all just blindly followed. Me and Dad.”

Yeah, but Dad came and found me years ago, he thought. Where the fuck were you? He ground his back molars together and told himself to hear her out, not fly off the handle. She was getting there. She was explaining. Or at least trying to.

“That day you left with Logan,” she said so quietly he almost missed it. “It was as though you died.”

Tate flinched, and when more tears rolled down her face, she gulped back a big breath of air, the pain evident in her expression as she struggled with her words.

“He said something before he left the house that day—”

“Who did?” Tate asked, his eyes zeroing in on her. Does she mean Dad?

“Logan. You’d left, and he was standing there in the middle of a room of people who hated him, but he didn’t care. I’ll never forget it. He fought for you. Stood up for you. Told Mom that he hoped when she looked at the empty chair at her dinner table that afternoon that she realized what she’d done and would come to her senses.”

Wow… How did I not know that? Then Tate remembered how he’d told Logan he needed space later that same day, and hell, he wanted to kick his own ass right then for that.

“I’d never seen Dad as mad as he got that day. When Logan finally left, he told Diana to get out, and then he just…lost it. Told Mom she was way out of line and how dare she kick you out of their home just because they didn’t understand the choice you’d made. He went postal, and she shut down.”

Tate didn’t know what to say, so he reached for his coffee and brought it to his lips. When he took a sip and it was lukewarm, he grimaced and put it back on the table.

“It was ugly after that. Sad and depressing to see them. It really was like a death in the family. Mom blamed Logan, Dad blamed Mom, and I blamed everyone. Eventually, it seemed like it was easier for everyone to stop talking. So we did.”

Tate knew that part. He remembered all too well how he’d tried to contact them and all of their phones had been disconnected. What he hadn’t realized was not only had they stopped talking to him, they’d stopped talking to each other.

“Then we got the call from Diana,” Jill said, her voice now sounding like a distant echo of itself. Tate looked off over her shoulder, unable to meet her eyes while discussing this topic, because he knew exactly what call she was referring to. It was the call that Logan should’ve gotten. The call that he’d been lying in a hospital bed. Dying. But instead, they’d called the family who had decided life would be easier for them if he wasn’t in it. To this day, it still infuriated him.

“Mom was beside herself,” Jill said, cutting into his thoughts. “Convinced this was God’s way of bringing you back to her. Bringing us all back together. We were there every day.”

Tate’s hands clenched where they were on the table, this conversation now making him want to punch something. “Logan was there every day too. Something that none of you seemed to give a shit about until Dad’s guilt made him track him down. Where was your shame then, Jill? Where was your compassion when he was stuck in a waiting room wondering if I was dead or alive?” He shook his head. “I expected better from you, out of all them.”

“I know,” Jill said, and had the good grace to lower her eyes. “I can’t begin to imagine how you must feel. How he felt—”

“No. You can’t. Because that would require you actually caring about me. Loving me.”

Jill’s eyes flew up and she worried her top lip with her teeth. “That’s not fair.”

“Fuck fair,” Tate said, his hurt and fury finally coming to a boiling point. “How has any of this been fair? So I fell in love with someone you didn’t approve of. How is that worse than standing by and letting your own brother be disowned without saying a word?”

Jill shrank back in her seat and said softly, “It’s not.”

“No, it’s not. At least I was brave enough to say how I felt. To love who I wanted to love regardless of the opinions of closed-minded, bigoted people. It’s just disappointing to know those people are your family. I’m sorry, were my family.”

Tate slid out of the booth and got to his feet, too irate to sit any longer. But before he could go anywhere, Jill reached out and took hold of his wrist. When he stopped and looked down at her, she said, “Please don’t go.”

Tate steeled himself against the regret and sadness he saw in her eyes and said, “Why should I stay?”

Jill’s chin quivered, and as tears began to spill down her cheeks, she said, “Because I need to tell you that I’m sorry. I’m sorry I broke your heart. I’m sorry I wasn’t brave like you.” She brought a hand over her mouth and whispered, “God, Tate. I’m so sorry.”

As he stood there, staring down at Jill, he thought of Logan that morning urging him to call his sister and the belief he had in Tate that he would always be the bigger person. The better person.

So, not wanting to disappoint himself or Logan, Tate reached out and swiped his thumb over his sister’s cheek, brushing away a tear, and then he said, “Okay. I’ll stay.”

* * *

LATER THAT AFTERNOON, Logan was sitting in his office with the door shut, enjoying the peace and quiet he’d managed to find in the last half-hour. After calming Robbie down enough that he was able to sit in on the rest of the meeting with Priest in silence, Logan was exhausted.

Jesus, the two of them were like oil and water, and while it was amusing, there was no way Logan wanted Priest scared off because Robbie was acting like…well, Robbie. And to top it all off, the Bianchis had left the meeting without budging from their original position: Vanessa was adamant that she was innocent.

It was frustrating and a little terrifying to have someone so set in their ways that they couldn’t see the upside to telling a white lie to save their own ass. But she didn’t want to lie. I guess I can’t fault her on her morals, Logan thought, and sighed as he leaned back in his chair. But it sure as hell put them in a difficult position.

As he twirled the pen through his fingers, he thought about Tate and wondered how his morning had gone. All day he’d been on Logan’s mind. What he was doing and whom he was meeting. And he’d had to put the phone away several times, fighting back the urge to call and make sure he was okay.

He was about to shut his eyes for five minutes when his cell phone started to vibrate on the desk. And as if he’d known Logan had been thinking about him, Tate’s name appeared on his caller ID.

Logan tossed his pen down, smiled, and then hit accept. “Good afternoon. I was just thinking about you.”

Aren’t I always, Logan thought as he turned his chair around so he was facing the large windows that flanked the back wall of his office. I definitely need to make sure my new office has a view like this—or better.

“Is that right?” Tate said. “You mustn’t be very busy if you have the time to sit around and think about me.”

“There’s nothing more worthy of my time than thoughts revolving around you. Unless, of course, they’re inappropriate thoughts about you.”

Tate laughed, and Logan smiled. It was a nice sound to hear. He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t been worried about how this meeting with Jill would affect Tate. But from what he was hearing, he seemed…okay?

“Now that, I’ll never complain about,” Tate said, and Logan could picture the smile he could hear in his voice.

“You at work already?” Logan asked, as he shut his eyes and let Tate’s voice wash over him.

“Yeah, I, uhh, just got here a few minutes ago.”

Logan’s eyes opened at that piece of information, and he glanced at his watch. “Really?”

“Yeah, I spent a few hours talking with Jill.”

Logan wasn’t sure why that made his pulse race. But whenever Tate’s estranged family was the topic of conversation, his anxiety level went off the fucking charts. The fact that Tate had spent hours talking to Jill instead of the thirty minutes he would guess it would take to tell someone to fuck off bothered Logan.

What if she’d tried to convince him that their relationship was wrong? What if she’d told him that family was more important than he was? Would Tate believe her? It wasn’t like there was anything tying Tate to him. And it wasn’t like they hadn’t tried to come between them before.

And yeah, Logan was aware that he was being overly paranoid and probably a whole lot of crazy, but fuck. It wasn’t like he didn’t have just cause. Taking in a breath, he told himself to be cool about this. “And how’d that go?”

“Umm, it was difficult,” Tate said.

Okay…

“She apologized.”

Come on, Tate, Logan thought, as he got to his feet and headed to the window. As he stared out at the traffic below, Logan rested his forehead on the glass, willing Tate to say more. Hoping he’d give him some kind of indication that he was okay. That they were. Or that he wasn’t. Either way. Just give him something.

“Logan?”

“Yeah?” he said, his breath catching as he held it.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me what you said to my parents when my mom threw us out of their house?”

Logan thought back to that day, one of the worst in his life, and racked his brain trying to recall exactly what he’d said. He was pretty sure it involved some curse words over how stupid he thought they’d acted. But he couldn’t quite pinpoint the exact phrase. “I don’t know. I was pretty angry. I’m sure it wasn’t anything nice.” There was silence as he waited for some kind of response, and when Tate said nothing, Logan added, “They’d just kicked you out of your home. I wanted to shake them up. Remind them that they were hurting the greatest man I’d ever met. If I said something I shouldn’t have, I’m—”

“Logan,” Tate said.

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”

Logan turned to rest his shoulders up against the window and let out a sigh of relief, not having realized that was exactly what he needed to hear right then. “I love you too.”

“And I’m sorry that after you did that for me, I pushed you away the very same day.”

Logan shut his eyes, imagining Tate’s face in perfect clarity. God, he wished he was there with him so he could touch him. “You have nothing to be sorry about. That was a long time ago.”

“It was. But it doesn’t mean I can’t feel regret over the way I acted back then.”

“Well, you shouldn’t. There was a lot going on in your life, and if that’s the only thing you have to apologize for, then you’re doing just fine, Mr. Morrison.”

Tate chuckled, and after a few seconds he asked, “Do you think we could go up to the cabin this weekend?”

Logan opened his eyes and walked back to his desk to check his calendar. When he saw nothing he couldn’t reschedule, he said, “Sure. What were you thinking? Friday through Sunday?”

“Yeah. I only have Amelia this last weekend and then I’ll have to work the first few with Robbie, so I might as well take advantage of it. Plus, I want to talk to you more about Jill and some of the stuff she said, and I think I’d like to go up there and unwind.”

Logan could appreciate that. It was quiet out at their cabin, and this time of the year was perfect. The beach and lake were great if you wanted a swim, or they could just hang out. Either way, if Tate wanted to get away, then there was no way Logan wasn’t about to pack up the car and go.

“Sounds good to me. We can leave Friday morning, if you like.”

“That’s perfect. You’re still coming down to the bar tonight, right?”

“Of course,” Logan said. “You don’t think I’d miss Robbie’s first night, do you? I plan to test his skills.”

“Logan…”

“Please, as if you aren’t thinking the same thing. That guy has it coming.”

“Mhmm,” Tate said, and Logan could hear the grin there. “How’d it go with him and Priestley after the little argument this morning?”

Logan thought back to the meeting and felt a sly smile stretching his mouth. “I think I’ll let you ask Robbie that.”

“That bad?”

“Well, all I’ll say is…”

“Yeah?”

“Please wait for me to get there before you ask him.” When Tate’s loud laugh came through the phone, Logan said, “Promise me.”

“I promise.”

“Good. Then I’ll see you at eight.”

“See you then.”

When Tate ended the call, Logan dropped his head back on his seat, realizing the weight of his worry over Tate’s meeting must’ve been what was making him feel so tired, because suddenly he was wide awake and couldn’t wait for the clock to hit eight so he could head down to The Popped Cherry and have a drink with his bartender.