27. Logan
The longer the doctors kept Heidi in the hospital, the further she withdrew from everyone. It started with her mother, but I felt her reticence to talk to me, and finally, she requested no visitors at all. My family had tried to break through the walls, but Heidi was determined to spare herself from the emotional baggage that came with having a family.
I couldn’t blame her. She’d lived a solitary life through sickness and health most of her life, really. Seeing her swallowed up in that bed, so emaciated that her collarbones stood inches away from her chest, made the pit of my stomach ache with the need to hold her.
Even with her hair gone and deep purple bruises under her eyes, Heidi was the sweetest, most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. I watched her lock away her pain and put a smile on her face as her mother started in on the nurses down the hall.
“Want me to go save them or let her wear herself down on them a little before she comes in to see you?” I teased.
Heidi scoffed and shook her head. “When she’s on the warpath, she’s like the Energizer Bunny. She never runs out of steam until she’s taken everyone else down first.”
I grimaced and moved to the corner where I lounged. She’d asked for us both to be here after days of no news from her and getting the runaround from her doctors. I was willing to play nice with Juliette if it meant I got to see Heidi.
Little tendrils of Heidi’s hair peeked out from the head scarf my mother had brought her as a gift, and the purple under her eyes was gone. Even though she was still too thin, it made my chest tight to see how much healthier she looked. I made a mental note to buy something chocolate and expensive for the nursing staff on the floor, who had obviously taken good care of her, and a bottle of ancient single malt for Doctors Patel and Thomas for keeping Heidi around.
I opened my mouth to tell Heidi what I was thinking when Juliette blew into the room on a gust of frigid air, and my mouth snapped shut, biting off my first word. Heidi glanced at me to let me finish, but I shook my head and pressed my lips together and pasted on a thin smile for her mother.
“I thought you said I was getting a little alone time with you, Heidi. I wasn’t expecting to see your friend here.”
My jaw dropped, and I felt hot rage climb my neck as I took a step forward.
“Mother, stop. Just stop, okay? Logan has been there for me through everything. He isn’t Dad, and even if he was, it’s none of your damn business who I choose to love.” Her words pierced me, and for a moment, I thought my heart had stopped.
“Okay, Heidi. I’m finished.” I glanced over at Juliette, pleased at her subdued demeanor as she sat. I hoped I was seeing a new side of Heidi, one that would allow me to move forward with my plan for our future together.
“I have some news for you both. I’m telling you together, because I don’t want to have to ever say this again, and I want to know you both understand.”
“You have our undivided attention. Go ahead,” I encouraged her when my mouth finally regained the ability to speak.
“The doctor will be in shortly, but since you two can’t seem to play nice, or even take a minute to get to know one another—”
“Oh, I know all I need to about him,” Juliette interjected. “He’s just another wanderer, pretending he can settle down with one woman because it’s the only way to get into her bed.”
“Oh, for the love of God!” I cursed.
Heidi held up a hand to me. “He’s gotten lots and lots,” she glanced at me and smiled, “and lots and lots of sex from me, Mom. I’m not a child, and you have no right to assume I’m making the same mistakes you did. I gave Logan every chance in the world to walk away, and here he is, moving out of his place and making room for a new life that I’m invited to be part of.” She looked my way again, and my grin was so wide it hurt my face. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest the way it only did when I had one of those “once in a lifetime” shots.
“What’s your news, Heidi? I can’t tell if it’s good or bad, because the moment Juliette starts in on me, all I feel is bad juju. I’m too nervous to wait any longer.” I wanted whatever she needed to tell us out so Juliette could storm off again, and I could finally be alone with Heidi after a week of being shut out.
Before Heidi could say another word, Dr. Thomas rapped on the door with his knuckles and poked his head in. “Mind if we join you?”
The “we” turned out to be him, Dr. Patel, and another doctor I’d never seen before. All three had pleasantly blank faces, but between Heidi’s cryptic words and the carefully schooled expressions on all the doctors’ faces, my gut began to churn.
“So, how are we holding up, Miss Heidi?” the third doctor asked, and I felt a hot stab of anger that she’d been keeping us all away while she was learning about her prognosis. We’d all been there for her, even Juliette in her strange, jealous way. Heidi saw the look on my face and shrugged, suddenly nervous, or afraid I’d start a fight with her in front of them all.
“I’m as well as I was this morning, Dr. Castle.”
He nodded and patted her leg, and my frustration turned to jealousy in an instant. I bit my tongue, but glanced at Juliette, who was watching me with a bewildered expression. In that brief moment, she went from hating me to being on my side, all because her anger and jealousy were reserved for the man she thought was stealing her daughter’s attention. The epiphany about how broken the woman must have been made me hurt for her, and for Heidi. Both women wanted the other’s love. Neither of them was willing to simply ask for it.
“Well, I suppose we should get to brass tacks, shall we?” Dr. Patel moved up beside Heidi and leaned her forward so he could examine her wound. “All closed up, the stitches were pulled and everything is nice and cool, no redness. No outward appearance of infection.”
“That’s great!” Juliette blurted, sitting up in her chair a little straighter. It was the first real smile I’d seen from her, and it changed her entire appearance. Suddenly, I saw so much more of her in Heidi than I had, that I almost smiled with her. But a glance toward my girl and I knew the bad news was yet to come.
Dr. Thomas flipped back the blanket and said, “Now, wiggle your toes.” Heidi did, but it seemed a little slow and the movements were tiny. “Good job. Now, push against my hand. He pushed his palm against the bottom of her foot and shoved until her knee was bent.
Heidi took a deep breath and pushed, or tried to. Her leg didn’t move. It didn’t even shake with exertion from trying to move, but I could see sweat beading up on her forehead as she struggled to make her leg obey.
“I can’t,” she panted, and he let her leg slide back down until it was horizontal. He switched to the other foot and repeated the process, pushing her leg into a deep bend and asking her to push. This time, her leg moved a little, trembling the whole time, until she gave up and begged him to let her stop.
Dr. Thomas patted her leg and stepped back, making notes with the new doctor, while Dr. Patel addressed us. “As you can see, Heidi isn’t regaining the use of her right leg the way she should, and her left leg has no strength to it whatsoever.”
Juliette let out a small cry of despair, and before I realized it, I was standing behind her with my hand on her shoulder, fighting tears of my own.
A small hand rested on top of mine and Juliette sniffed and patted my fingers. “What do we do now?”
Dr. Patel glanced at Heidi.
“Now, I start physical therapy to walk again,” Heidi answered. “The nerve damaged can’t be fixed, but there’s a window of opportunity where I can retrain my body, so that’s what I’m going to do. I’m done at the park tomorrow when I’m released, and I’ll be taking a page from Logan’s book and selling my house.”
My mind went into overdrive, making a list of what my next place would have to look like so she could be comfortable and mobile in the space. “I can start working on—” I started, but she cut me off.
“That won’t be necessary, Logan. I won’t be moving in with you or going back to the ranch, as nice as it was there.”
Juliette let go of my hand and leaned forward. “So, you’ll come back home then?”
“No, Mom. I’m not going home with you either. I need to be able to focus on me and my recovery, which means I’ve got to be away from you both. I’ll leave Hope with Callie, if that’s okay, until you get a place. I don’t want to be a bother, but they already have a rapport.”
I shrugged my shoulders and shook my head. “Of course, she will. Hope will always have a home.”
Heidi sniffed back tears as her eyes got shiny, and her nose turned pink. “I’ll miss her a lot. But, ah, rehab facilities aren’t exactly pet-friendly.”
I made a mental note to bug Callie until she got her service animals into every Texas physical rehabilitation hospital, but silently nodded.
“Well, like Heidi said, she will be transferred to a long-term facility tomorrow. Don’t worry. She’s in good hands.” Dr. Patel gave me a small smile and gestured me out the door with a nod. I hesitated, loathe to leave her side when she might not let me back in even to say goodbye, but he held the door for me, and I reluctantly followed. He handed me a card with the Austin Hope Rehabilitation Center’s address and phone numbers on it. I turned it over and, on the back, was Dr. Castle’s name and a phone number.
“Call and check in on her as much as you need to, and they’ll let you know when the best times to visit are, and even what outside items might help her improve as she goes on. Right now, she has an uphill battle and needs the support more than she could ever know.”
We shook hands, and I nodded at the other doctors as they emerged from the room.
“It was good to meet you, Logan. Heidi talked about you a lot during our interviews. I look forward to seeing you visit us at Austin Hope,” Dr. Castle said.
I offered him my hand, and he grasped it and shook it vigorously.
“Just do everything you can to make her feel right about herself. Walking is secondary to her happiness, to me.”
His eyebrows arched, and he glanced back into the room. “Right now, those are completely intertwined. But not all her therapy will be physical at Austin Hope, and I have a feeling you’ll start to see the difference soon.”
I watched the doctors walk away, avoiding having to say goodbye to Heidi for as long as I could.
Juliette emerged a minute or two later, her eyes red-rimmed from crying. “She’s ready for you, now,” she sniffled as she turned to walk toward the elevators.
I took a breath, steeled myself, and walked into the dim room, letting the door fall shut behind me.
“Hey, Logan. I made room for you on the bed,” Heidi offered.
I gingerly leaned on the edge of the bed, avoiding contact with her body. The hospital bed still swallowed her, but now she looked elfin against all that white, instead of ghostly. I wished for her to take back the last ten minutes of our lives and tell me she didn’t mean me, that she’d never leave me. Instead, she took my hand and examined it, stroking my fingers, and taking deep breaths that I could see were holding back more tears.
“You don’t have to do this,” I reminded her.
“I can’t ask you to stick around for an invalid. We knew it was a risk, and I’m happy to be alive, I am. I’m glad I have a chance at some sort of a life. But this isn’t what you signed on for, and we haven’t made any promises to each other.”
“How can you say that? I’ve made promises, and I’ve kept them. You don’t make promises. You’re the one with one eye always on the escape hatch.” I jerked my hand away from her and stood. “What do you want from me, Heidi? Right now, why am I here?”
“I care about you, and I know you care about me, too.”
“No.” I said the word with finality.
Her mouth shut with a clack of her teeth.
“I love you. You love me. We both know it, and calling it something else doesn’t change that.” I was pacing the room, afraid to even look at her because I knew I was making her cry, and I had no right to hurt her more than she already was.
“Logan, I wasn’t trying to minimize our relationship,” she said in a pleading voice.
I stopped and glared at the tiny window that only showed blue sky outside, without any real view. “That’s exactly what you’re doing, Heidi. But you don’t get to change our history to make you look less guilty.” I finally looked at her, and my chest squeezed down on my lungs like a vise at the sight of her tear-stained face.
“Guilty of what?”
“You’re throwing away love, real love. It was fast, and exciting, and surprising, and instead of embracing it and giving us the chance we deserve, you’re shutting me out, like I was part of your cancer, and by getting rid of me, you can pretend it never happened.” I leaned forward, and my body reacted to the smell of her skin, even through my pain and anger.
I started to pull away, but she reached out and touched my hip, pulling me to her.
“I don’t want to lose you,” she whispered.
I slid my leg onto the bed so I was sharing her pillow, her face inches from mine. “Then don’t toss me to the curb like leftover garbage from your old life.”
I kissed her, and her mouth opened under my coaxing tongue. She tasted like mint and sunshine and everything I had been missing since she’d started treatment months before, and my pants got tight as my cock reacted to her nearness.
“God, I wish I could be with you. I’ve missed your touch. You treated me like I was so breakable, I was afraid you’d never want to put your hands on me again.”
“Mmm,” I hummed into her hair as I pulled her against me. “I stopped wanting anything but to help you get better for so long, I’m afraid to be this close to you. I want you so badly, all I can think about is running my hands and mouth over every inch of you.”
She shuddered and tugged at me, pushing the blankets away in frustration. “I can’t do things the way we did. I still have pain in my back, and my legs aren’t working. What kind of lover would I be?”
She rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling, and I slid my arm under her head.
“I’ll make you a deal, but you have to make a promise, and keep it, okay?”
She rolled her eyes. “Tell me first, and I’ll let you know if I can agree to it.”
I nodded. “I’ll let you do your thing. I won’t even stop by. I will text to check in on you, every day. I’ll call and hope you pick up, but I won’t demand it.”
“I can agree to that,” she said, and I slid my hand down her abdomen until I felt her tighten under my hand and her body go still.
“I’m not done yet. When you get out of there, no matter what, you come find me.”
Her eyes narrowed at me as I talked. “What do you mean, come find you?” she asked, putting her hand over mine to stop me from going any farther toward her mound.
“If I’m working in the Netherlands, if I’m off the coast of Africa, you come to me, and even if you don’t want to be with me, you tell me to my face.”
Heidi bit her lip and absently stroked my hand as I slowly began moving it toward the “V” at the top of her soft, pale thighs. “Anywhere you are? You’ll make sure I know how to find you?”
My hand slid under the blanket and gently teased her through her leggings. Her eyes flew wide open, and I grinned as I leaned up over her on my elbow and bent to kiss her.
“I’m not letting you go that easy, Heidi.”
She pressed my fingers harder against her, and I spread her legs to cup the softest, warmest part of her in my hand, reveling in the pleasure etched across her face.
“I can’t. I can’t do this right now. Oh!” She started to argue, then gasped and let out a shuddering sigh as I maneuvered my hand between her clothing and her skin and slid my fingers into her waiting pussy.
“Just a little pleasure before you go. You’ve worked so hard to get better, and I missed the way you feel around me. If I thought I could get away with it, I’d pull these hot little pants down and use my tongue on you the way I’m using my fingers,” I whispered in her ear as I slowly, gently slid my finger into her, rolling my thumb over the little erect nub at the crest of her silken lips. She moaned and clutched at my arm, panting, begging me to go faster, then telling me we had to stop in the next breath. Instead, I drew my finger out and inserted two, using that same steady rhythm. I kissed her neck and nipped at her jawline, then dipped my head down to suck the tender skin of her breast while I thrust with my fingers, wishing my hard, aching cock was inside her instead.
Footsteps paused outside the door. I stopped, both of us turned to stone while we waited to be caught, but voices started conversing, and the footsteps receded the way they had come. Heidi met my eyes with her bottom lip tucked between her teeth the way that I loved.
She pulled her top up and over her head and my cock jumped in response to the sight of my teeth marks already on her breast. Gently, I pulled her leggings down, trying to ignore how weak and frail they looked, her thighs so thin they didn’t meet at the top. I slid my tongue into that space, loving what was there, alive and breathing, instead of what she had been. I kissed her soft lips and worked my tongue into her, pushing her knees apart enough to bury my face into her pussy. I licked and sucked her folds and stared up the length of her body as I pushed a finger in with my tongue.
She cupped her breasts in her hands and tugged at her nipples, and I pressed a hand against my cock, rubbing it through my pants to alleviate the agony of how hard and huge it was pressed between my body and my zipper.
“Take it out, let me see you,” she panted, and gratefully, I freed my erection from its binding. It sprang out then bounced up against my stomach, and I felt her clench as I sat up and stroked it in rhythm with my fingers inside her. She reached out, and I let her hand replace mine, and suddenly I had no control. My fingers sped up inside her, and she cried out, biting her lip to stay quiet as she came, her juices gushing out over my hand and wrist. I looked at my hand, glistening and wet from her pleasure, and I wrapped it around my shaft, coating myself with her natural lubricant while she dug her fingers into my thighs.
“My legs may not work, but my mouth does,” she offered, and just the thought of her sweet hot mouth around me was enough to drive me over the edge. She dug her nails into my hip, and I turned toward her and came on her stomach before I could stop myself. I watched the hot liquid land on her torso just below her breasts, and she sighed.
“I wanted to let you go, set you free from what I am now. But how can I do that when there’s no one on earth who would’ve done that for me?”
I choked out a surprised laugh. “Any man would jump at any and every chance to watch your face while you orgasm. No matter how it’s accomplished. You’re so damn beautiful when you let it all go.”
She struggled to sit up, and I held her down until I had cleaned her up and pulled her panties and her leggings back up over her tiny ass.
“I still need time,” she said, examining the sheets I’d folded over her stomach after we’d both cleaned up and redressed as necessary.
“My offer still stands. If nothing else, at least when you’re done, we’ll have had one last moment of intimacy, right?”
She chewed the inside of her cheek and sighed heavily, looking toward the door. “I’ll look forward to your texts, as long as they keep coming,” she said, and offered to shake my hand. I kissed the back of her hand instead of shaking it, then leaned down and kissed her forehead.
“Get well quickly, Heidi. You’re missed by a lot of people who care about you,” I reminded her, then left without looking back, even though the thought of not having one more chance to look at her made me feel physically ill.
It was going to be one hell of a wait, especially since I was absolutely sure that she wasn’t going to hold up her end of the deal. Not that it mattered. I was a Hargrave, and the Hargraves always had a plan B. I walked toward the office building where my older brother Tucker worked. Knowing Heidi, I’m going to need to use a few more letters of the alphabet to nail that girl down.