Chapter 3

 

- LOGAN -

 

 

My niece is tearing a path across my parents’ front lawn toward my truck and, just like that, my world lights up.

Hannah is beyond adorable in her two tight braids with her glasses that are just a little too big for her face. Despite the sour attitude of her mother, my niece seems to have retained that special joy that comes from being seven.

She’s at that age when she doesn’t mind me calling her names like Peanut, Sugar Puff, and Pumpkin. Which is good, because I think I’ll always think of her as Pumpkin. She still takes me on fairy hunts in the woods that line the banks of the creek beyond my parents’ house. And she closes every day saying it’s X number of days till Santa comes.

I think we’re about at day 230 now.

“Did you get the doggie? Did you get the doggie?” Hannah chants as soon as I open my door.

The smile that had just been on my face threatens to disappear. I’ve tried to forget about Kosmo and the bat-shit crazy girl who seems to like playing God with the animal. It’s been a week since I saw her in front of the pet store, and I still haven’t heard a word about my application.

I’ve rewound the 24 hours I had known her a few times in my head, and for the life of me, I can’t figure out why she turned into a cold-hearted ice queen overnight.

Thank God I hadn’t slept with her.

Seriously… I bought her dinner. She pretty much invited herself to my room, plastered me against the elevator in a kiss that was off-the-charts, then disappeared on me as I sat waiting in my room with two orders of lava cake (which I managed to eat later by myself). Then she treats me like I committed a crime the next day.

But my niece, in all her wide-eyed innocence, has reminded me why I’m really pissed off.

That woman has blocked me from getting the dog I want.

“No, Pumpkin,” I answer. “Not yet, anyway. But hopefully soon.”

Her hazel eyes are sad, ripping the heart out of my chest, until she brightens only three seconds later. “Want to hunt for fairies?”

“You bet.” I love the way her mind works—changing direction as quickly as the wind. My niece has ADHD, and I always joke that between her ADHD and my PTSD and my brother’s OCD (though he’ll never admit to it), we’ve got enough acronyms in our family to sound like a branch of the federal government.

She is a whirlwind of energy, a whirlwind that her teachers complain about relentlessly, according to her mother.

“Just let me drop these groceries in to your grandma.” I take her hand and walk up the paved driveway to my parents’ house.

I can never seem to call this place my home, even though I have many memories here. This house is luxurious, and I don’t feel like I fit in. Especially not after five deployments and countless missions that showed me how most of the people of the world live. This is the kind of opulence that almost makes me feel a sense of shame.

Don’t get me wrong. Even though it was my grandfather who started JLS Heartland, my dad worked his ass off to get the company to where it is today, and I give him a lot of credit for that. He never even went to college, and started working for JLS the Monday after he got his high school diploma. With Dad at the helm, JLS grew from a solid construction company to a housing development empire. JLS Heartland has developments in 32 states now.

Even since his diagnosis, Dad still manages to work eight-hour days, doing most of his work from home. “Eight hours is a short day for me,” he is always quick to remind my mother when she nags him to rest. And he’s right. Fourteen-hour days were always the norm for him. I barely have any memories of my father because of it.

My mom smiles at me as I walk into the kitchen.

“I still don’t get tired of seeing you walk through my door, Logan,” she says. I know she’s referring to the years I was away. They were hard for her, and I still feel a pang of guilt for putting her through that. But she understands why I felt the need to serve.

Which is more than I can say for my dad.

I smile in reply. “I picked up the stuff you asked for,” I tell her as I set a bag of groceries on the counter. My mom is chopping some vegetables for tonight’s Sunday dinner. She could easily hire someone to do the cooking for her, but she politely refuses. She won’t hire a driver to take Dad to his doctor appointments and, until last year, wouldn’t even hire someone to clean her house.

She is a proud woman who thinks she can do everything herself. Which is one of the reasons I came back to Ohio. She needs help with Dad. And even though I have brothers, I know that as Dad’s dementia progresses, she’ll need all her sons here.

I share a conspiratorial look with Hannah as I witness her snatching a cookie from the plate Mom has reserved for dessert.

Over her shoulder, my mom asks, “So, I don’t see that dog with you today. Did you not get him yet?”

Again, with the dog. Obviously, sharing the idea with my family was not the thing to do. “No. I put in an application, but haven’t heard from the woman who runs the rescue organization yet.”

“Maybe she didn’t get your application. I never trust all those online forms they have these days. I always think it’s better to hand things to someone in person.”

Sure, I think, unless the lady apparently hates you with a vengeance. “She got the application. I saw her in person last week. I just think she doesn’t want me to have the dog.”

“Why on earth not?”

I sigh. I’m not about to tell my mom that I had nearly slept with the woman. “For some reason she doesn’t like me.”

My mom drops her knife and eyeballs me. “Why on earth would she dislike you?”

I crack a smile. My mom is always saying why on earth this and why on earth that.

“Maybe she has something against military guys.” There actually are women that do. I’ve known a couple kids of service members who had some resentment toward a line of work that took away one of their parents for most of their lives. I can’t blame them in the least. I even dated a girl briefly who was terrified she’d fall too hard for me, and then just be waiting around all the time like her mother did for her Navy dad. Waiting for me to come home. Waiting to get orders that would send me away again. Waiting for that dreaded day when a Casualty Assistance Calls Officer might show up at her door and tell her that I wasn’t coming home again.

There is a lot of waiting in the military.

But Alexandra didn’t seem to mind that I had a military background when we talked over dinner that night. I can’t remember all that I told her, but she definitely got that predictably dazzled look in her eyes when I told her about my life as a SEAL a while back. Damn, she had been cute with those dark eyes and gentle curves, and a wholesome façade hiding the inner witch that I got to see the morning after.

“Are you just giving up, then?” my mom asks.

I glance over at Hannah before I answer. I never want that little girl to think that her uncle gave up on anything. “Just trying to figure out what my next move is.”

“You could just go to the county shelter and adopt a dog there.”

“Yeah, but this one really needs some medical help.”

My mom glances my way. “Taking on another hard luck case, are you?” She smiles, probably remembering all the injured animals I used to bring home as a kid. “Well, then just do what you always did when you were a SEAL.” My mother perks up a smile as she reaches for the refrigerator door.

“What’s that, Mom?”

“Command. Take the lead. Tell that woman what you want and ‘don’t give up the ship.’” She ends her statement with a famous Captain James Lawrence quote. I have to love the way Mom is always weaving some Navy heritage into the conversation. You’d think she had been married to an Admiral all these years.

She is right, I realize hours later as Hannah and I are deep in the woods looking for fairies, armed with flashlights and magnifying glasses, and covered in some kind of apple-berry scent that she said would attract them. And yeah, I realize that my brothers in the SEALs would never let me live it down if they knew I let my niece douse me in perfume.

My mom is right. I don’t need to retreat. Time to march forward.

I slip away to the front porch just after dessert with my phone and start typing out a message to the contact email address I found online, when one of my brothers steps out on the porch.

“It was nice of you to come,” he says.

Ryan is my younger brother by ten months, which classifies him as my Irish twin, I guess. “I always do,” I tell him.

“Yeah. Keep it up, okay?”

“I will.”

“I know Dad appreciates it.”

I nod slowly, knowing immediately where this conversation is headed. I’m the eldest son—the one Dad always imagined handing over his business to one day. Even though I enjoy construction, I love actually building something with my own two hands. Dad’s business has gotten so huge that the only place for me in his company is something behind a desk, wearing a suit, and having godforsaken business lunches with people I don’t give a shit about.

I know; I interned there in high school before I got accepted to the U.S. Naval Academy, breaking my father’s heart.

“He’s glad you’re home. We all are. Especially now.”

I sigh deeply, wanting to ask him something, but not really ready to hear an honest answer. “How’s he been, anyway? He always seems fine at dinner.” About a year ago, when I was stationed in Annapolis, I got a call from Dylan, my youngest brother. He had received a phone call from Dad asking when Dylan’s plane was going to land and where he needed to be picked up.

Trouble was, Dylan wasn’t flying on any planes that day.

My dad is pretty stubborn, and he insisted that Dylan had told him that he was flying into Ohio that day. We all shrugged it off. Dylan does travel a lot, and Dad was under a lot of stress at work.

But then about a month later, he called me from his car. He didn’t know where he was. Not just like his car had made the wrong turn and he was in an unfamiliar part of town. He didn’t even know what state he was in.

I’m not sure why he called me, actually, but I’m glad he did. Because if I hadn’t heard it for myself, I never would have believed it.

He hung up the phone with me against my pleas, and I called the police to try to get some help finding him. They found him in Pennsylvania two hours later.

The diagnosis was vascular dementia.

That day when I had flown to Ohio to meet my family in the hospital, I learned that the man I knew as strong and determined and successful would slowly wither away into someone who didn’t even recognize me. It would take a while—maybe five or so years depending on how quickly it was advancing, the doctor said. But it was inevitable.

“He’s doing well,” Ryan tells me, and I fight back the hope that always churns up inside of me when I hear things like this. I can’t help thinking sometimes that the doctors have made a mistake. But then another episode happens, and reality stabs me in the gut.

“He’d really love it if you came to work for the company, Logan.”

I roll my eyes childishly at the statement.

“It wouldn’t have to be running the show. But right now, while he still knows what’s going on around him, don’t you think it would be a good thing?”

I know what he’s insinuating and I hate it. I could work for him for a while, until Dad reaches the point when he doesn’t know who I am anyway. I don’t like thinking about that. “Ask Dylan.”

Ryan cocks his head. “You know he has no place at JLS Heartland. Never had any interest. Even Dad knows that.”

My youngest brother Dylan had been blessed with enough talent to eclipse any plans my dad had for him at the company. He went to college on a full wrestling scholarship, spent every free moment training, and ended up with a medal at the Olympics. So while I was deployed to third world countries armed with an HK416 and wondering if I’d come home in a body bag, Dylan was raking in millions from cereal and shaving endorsements.

I’m happy with my choices in life, don’t get me wrong. But Dylan’s a pretty hard guy to relate to.

“Besides,” Ryan adds, “he’s busy now. Got another gym opening up in LA.”

And I’m not busy is what he’s really saying, just renovating a handful of little townhomes. In this family, that classifies more as a hobby than a job.

“I’d go crazy locked in an office all day, Ryan. Besides, I’ve only started renovating my townhomes. You’d know that if you ever stopped by,” I add. Hey, if he’s going to toss a little guilt my way, I can throw it right back at him.

I bought a strip of townhomes that were in foreclosure when I moved here, and am fixing them up one by one. I love the work. I love taking something that has been neglected and turning it into something that shines. If I stick around after I sell these ones, I might do it again. Sadly, there are plenty of foreclosures in our area these days.

“Sorry. Been meaning to, but I’ve been a bit chained to my desk now that Dad’s unable to take the lead on projects.”

My point exactly, I want to say. But I don’t. I know Ryan enjoys his work to some degree, but I also know there is a trace of resentment toward me for not stepping up to bat when Dad wanted me in his company years ago.

“Just think about it,” he finishes, rising from the wicker chair and stretching his back as he gazes at the sunset.

I see the way he looks at the stand of trees leading up to the creek as he stretches, and it saddens me. I never pictured Ryan taking over for Dad. Not Ryan, who liked backpacking and hiking and rock climbing. Looking back at the two of us as we were growing up, I’m a little surprised that he wasn’t the one who ended up a Navy SEAL rather than me.

But he has a responsible streak in him a mile long. And I’m damn grateful our family has him. “I will think about it. Promise.” And I will. After the townhomes are renovated and sold, I might be looking for another challenge to fill my time.

I’m clueless, though, how a mission-driven guy like me would thrive at JLS Heartland.

Nodding and giving my shoulder a pat, he walks back into the house. The silence of the night somehow bothers me—it always has since my last year in the SEALs—as though I’m waiting for a firefight to erupt or an IED to explode beneath me. My heart picks up its pace, and my throat feels like it’s closing.

I know it isn’t. This, I can control now.

I suck in a deep breath, reminding myself that oxygen is not scarce and look back down at my phone to distract myself. I start tapping out a message:

“Alexandra, I’m writing to follow up about Kosmo since I haven’t heard from you. I’m still interested in him and know that I could provide a good home for him. I would appreciate it if you would contact me ASAP to conduct the house check you mentioned.”

I gaze out at the final rays of sun as they disappear behind the trees in the distance, remembering the image of the refreshing woman that I shared dinner with. She had that kind of sweetness that guys like me eat up. Such a stark contrast to how she was the next morning.

Coming from a band of three brothers, the intricacies of the female mind continue to evade me.

“I’m not sure what happened between the time you departed that Friday evening and the following Saturday morning that caused you to detest me…”

I pause, and delete the word “detest.”

“…dislike me. However, it is imperative that Kosmo receives the medical care he needs and I can provide this without further delay.”

That’s right. Guilt her.

Through the open windows, I hear the laughter of my niece inside as she plays Go Fish with my brothers. My heart feels its usual tug.

“Regardless, I would like to offer to pay for any medical expenses Kosmo has, and would like to discuss with you and his vet scheduling the surgery he needs.”

I close with my contact information, and hold myself back from adding my advice that she seek psychiatric help for her obvious multiple personality issues. After all, now is the time to focus on Kosmo.