Chapter 20

Logan hadn’t dressed up to meet his father at the Foundation offices on K Street. Why would he? The whole point he planned to make was that he wasn’t a stuffed suit. That he didn’t belong at the head of a board table. So instead, he’d put on his navy blue incident command vest with the Marsh Foundation logo and seven useful pockets for things like antivenin and his Swiss Army knife. Along with a tee and cargo shirts, that was his real daily uniform. Now he just had to make his father see it.

When he stepped off the elevator, navy walls surrounded him, with that same Marsh Foundation logo in white. Logan wondered if he could just chameleon against them for a while. Then he wondered why he was being such a pussy. Talking to Brooke had broken the problem down into manageable pieces. It had helped him to remember how close he and his father were. There’d never before been anything they couldn’t work through. His temper had gotten the best of him. Now that he was calm, this second conversation would go differently.

He hustled past an empty reception desk and several closed doors to the inner sanctum.

“Logan Marsh, as I live and breathe!” exclaimed his father’s assistant, in front of the executive suite. She pulled an earpiece from beneath her sleek white bob and stood to give him a big hug. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes.”

He produced a bouquet of pink roses from behind his back. “I think you’d prefer to feast your eyes on these beauties. Especially what’s sticking out of the top.” He’d tucked a gift certificate in there for a full day of treatments at the Four Seasons spa. Margaret worked miracles to get him from one side of the globe to the other. Logan always gave her a special thank-you treat when he returned.

“You are a sweetheart, Logan.” She sniffed the flowers deeply. “What on earth are you doing here?”

See? Even Margaret knew he didn’t belong in an office. “I thought I’d take Dad to lunch, since I’m back.”

“You are the best son ever. Go on in—I won’t ruin the surprise by buzzing him. I’ll just fuss with these in the kitchen and give you two some privacy.”

Logan didn’t want privacy. He needed the built-in protection of knowing people were around to help him not lose his temper and up his volume. Rapping the backs of his knuckles on the dark wooden door, he opened it without waiting. “Hey, Dad.”

Adrian looked up, surprise widening his eyes for a second before a smile lit up his face. “Logan. I’m so glad you’re here.”

Taking a deep breath, Logan said, “Really? ’Cause I was sort of a dick last time I saw you. I want to start off by apologizing for that.”

“You can apologize for the tone. Not for the content.” His dad turned off his monitor and put down his pen. Hands clasped on the leather blotter, he said, “I’m the one who owes you the full-scale apology.”

“True. And now that we’ve traded those, let’s call it even.” Logan had known he’d have to lead with an apology. But he didn’t want to get sidetracked into the whole Madison discussion. “How about I get a few things off of my chest, and then I’ll take you to lunch at that Greek place you like.”

“Sure. But I get to start.”

Crap. Why hadn’t he anticipated that his father would want to go the whole mea culpa route about Madison? “Now, Dad, I only pay if we follow my agenda.”

Patting the wallet in his pocket, Adrian rose and crossed to sit on the deep blue couch. “I’m good for it, son. Come sit with me.”

Okay. This was just a slight detour. Logan didn’t have to get into any of it. Adrian could unload, Logan would just nod, and then he could launch into campaigning to keep his current position. It’d push lunch back, but then the plan he and Brooke had crafted could proceed. “Hit me.”

Adrian leaned into the tufted cushion. Then he shifted, resting one ankle on the opposite knee. “You know your mom almost died giving birth to you. It meant she couldn’t have any more children.”

Okay, apparently they were doing a cannonball right into the deep end of the shit pool.

“That’s far from a news flash.” She had reminded Logan of it every time he got detention in high school, and when he had paparazzi helicopters circling overhead for the two weeks he dated the president’s daughter (from the wrong party), and even last year when he hadn’t made it back for Thanksgiving due to a horrific rock slide that buried a village in Chile. Cynthia Marsh had impossible standards, and she seemed to delight in pointing out when people didn’t meet them. Yet she took great pains to emphasize that whatever child she would’ve had after Logan wouldn’t have been such a disappointment.

“I know.” Adrian leaned over to squeeze Logan’s forearm. “And I’m sorry. But what you don’t know is that she took the news…hard. And became hard. Angry. Angry at me for putting her in such an irreversible condition. Things deteriorated between us. I left her.”

The news jolted Logan’s spine straight like a kick of electricity. “What? When?”

“You were very little. Cynthia wouldn’t accept that I left, and I couldn’t force myself to just coldly serve her with divorce papers. So we separated, and told you I was traveling for business. Which was technically true. I was on a trip for the Foundation when I met a woman. I fell in love with her. I even moved all the way to Alaska to be with her.”

“Madison’s mom.” Once Logan had learned about his half sister, he’d assumed there’d been an affair. But not something this huge and emotionally charged. He couldn’t wait to tell Brooke.

“Yes.” Standing, Adrian paced the length of the corner office. When he’d spoken of Logan’s mom, the words came out haltingly. The description of his love for this woman, though, flowed fast and easy. “She was a doctor. Easygoing, passionate about helping people, utterly transparent. No games—heck, even no makeup. Suzanne was a fresh breeze in my life. I couldn’t resist her. Even though it meant leaving you, which I regretted every day.”

If they’d had this conversation even a week ago, Logan might have had a different response. How could a woman get so far under your skin that you could leave your own kid behind? But after the last two weeks with Brooke, it suddenly wasn’t such an impossible concept.

Shit.

What was he supposed to do with that self-realization punch to the gut?

Nothing—for now. This was all about getting his dad to finish the story. “I get it. I was a baby. No good at conversation, or to take to baseball games. Suzanne sounds like a lot more fun than a lump that needed to be changed and burped.”

Adrian stood in the farthest corner of the office. Right by the glass map of the world etched with a star for every location where they’d proffered aid. “I love you, son. I don’t want you to think that you didn’t matter.”

That hadn’t even crossed his mind. Because there was a universe of difference between the annoyed, arm’s-length disdain his mom treated him with and the hands-on pride and care Logan got from his dad. “We’re good, Dad. Honest.”

“Okay.” Adrian closed his eyes for a minute. Seemed to sway, and then caught himself on the window frame.

Weird. “Did you hit the emergency bourbon a little early today?”

Adrian kept his hand up for balance for a minute. Stared down the street to where Logan knew the flag on the top of the White House was visible. “Just not enough caffeine this morning. I’ll be fine. So…” Sucking in a deep breath, he pushed away from the window and kept going. “Suzanne got pregnant after I followed her to Alaska. Nine months went by, and she had Madison, and I fell in love all over again. It was a struggle every day, though, every time I looked into her eyes that were a mirror image of yours.”

This story was killing Logan. And from the grim lines bracketing his dad’s mouth, sharing it was no featherbed of fun for him, either. “Dad—” But an upraised palm cut Logan off.

“No, let me tell you. I need to say all the things I wanted to tell you back then. I missed you so much. I thought about you all day, every day. Every time I picked Madison up and wondered how much you’d grown. Wondered what I was missing in your life. I didn’t know what to do. How to reconcile the two parts of my life. It was tearing me in two. And then your grandfather died.”

It all made sense now. Logan knew exactly how he ended up with his father and Madison ended up without him. “You came back to run the Foundation.”

“I did. The minute I got home and held you, I knew I could never leave you again. It would be too painful.” Adrian almost staggered back to the couch. He dropped down with a sigh. “What’s more, I knew I couldn’t do that with Madison. I had to cut myself off from her. Cold turkey. She was less than six months old, and wouldn’t miss me. Your mother said that if I wanted access to you, I had to stay married to her.”

His mom had plenty of her own money. Was the demand really all about social status? Not that it should surprise him. “That’s blackmail.”

A wave of his dad’s hand erased the accusation. “It’s immaterial. Suzanne didn’t want a long-distance affair. It’s all ugly and sordid and ancient history. The long and the short of it is that I wasn’t brave enough to keep Madison in my life. I wasn’t brave enough to put up with the pain of losing her all over again every time we’d have to go to the opposite ends of the continent.”

Well, at least Logan knew where he got it. Because his dad’s words were eerily like his own. The same reason he hadn’t ever let himself fully connect with a woman before. At least, not until Brooke. Knowing his lifestyle, knowing that he’d inevitably have to leave for months at a time, he’d refused to open himself up to the hurt of losing someone he loved. The pain was too big, too overwhelming. He’d experienced it when his friends had disappeared in the Alps, when he’d thought for three long days that they might be dead. And swore never to put himself in that position again.

Slowly, he turned sideways on the couch. “I understand more than you’d expect. Talk about a rock and a hard place. It sounds like there was no good solution, so it’s sure as hell not my place to judge the decision you made.”

“Do you mean that?”

“Yeah. Absolutely.” He leaned over to give an awkward, backslapping man-hug. “Thanks for telling me.”

With a dry, short laugh, his father responded, “It’s been on my to-do list for a while.”

If he’d ponied up a hundred dollars, Logan couldn’t have bought a better segue. “Then it’s my turn to scratch something off of my to-do list.” He stood, crossed to the desk, and leaned against its edge. Classic power-seizing technique his father had taught him back in the day. Now he had the height and the center of the room. Logan took over. “We need to talk about my position here at the Foundation.”

A vein ticked in the older man’s temple. “There’s nothing to discuss. You’re taking the promotion.”

Not a big deal. Pushback was expected. Maintaining his calm and rational tone, Logan pushed back himself. “Dad, I know that’s what you think you want. But it isn’t what I want. And I don’t think you want your only son to spend his life doing a half-assed job in a position that bores him off said ass.”

“No, what I want is for you to get an attitude adjustment. Then do an amazing job in the new position you should be honored to have.” Adrian drilled his finger into the sofa to emphasize his point.

Great. Now he’d insulted the man by sharing his honest feelings. This was why it was easier to keep emotions bottled up. “Look, I’m honored you feel safe about handing the reins over to me.”

As he stood, Adrian said, “This is about your stubborn belief that you’re single-handedly saving the world, isn’t it?”

“No. But I believe I can make a difference. I do make a difference.” Staying calm was getting harder. Not impossible. But his dad sure knew which buttons to push.

“You’ve got to shelve this hero complex of yours, son.”

At any other time, Logan would’ve laughed, since that’s what the ACSs—himself included—always said to Griff. No chance the old man was in the mood to see the irony now, though. “I’m not trying to be hero. I don’t need a cape, or a headline giving me credit. When I’m at a site, I save lives. That’s it. That’s the bottom line. Me being out at a disaster site saves lives. You can’t dispute that.” He made a fist, but stopped short of banging it against the desk. Barely.

Adrian crossed swiftly to the map. Stabbed a finger at Kazakhstan, then at the last four spots where Logan had led a team. “You save some lives. When you’re on-site, you probably save, on average, fewer than a hundred people.”

What the fuck? “I didn’t know we were running a tote board, Dad. And regardless of just how many triple-digit saves I’ve racked up, isn’t every single life worth it? Since when do we deal in quantity?”

“Every single day!” his dad thundered. Frowning, Adrian winced, as though Logan’s argument physically hurt him. “You’re looking at this all wrong. Running the Foundation, bringing in money, and deciding where to send our rescue teams, means you could help thousands of people at a time. Not one shovelful at a—” Groaning, Adrian slumped against the wall. Fisted his hand over his heart.

“Dad? What’s wrong?” Logan was terrified. At Adrian’s paleness. At his obvious pain. At not having any idea in the world what to do about it.

“Pills. Top drawer.”

Logan swung his legs over the desk to land on the opposite side. Scrabbled for the opaque orange bottle. He emptied half a dozen into his palm and thrust them at his father. As soon as Adrian tucked one into his mouth, Logan half carried him to the leather chair.

“Should I call an ambulance?”

“No. I’ll be fine.” And almost that fast, the lines of pain smoothed out. The gray pallor subsided.

“What the hell is going on? Madison told me that you contacted her mother because you thought you were sick. But she said then you told her you weren’t.” Logan was positive about that. Otherwise, he’d have taken the extraordinary measure of going to his mother to get all the facts on the potential illness as soon as he landed in the States. “Right?”

“Not exactly. Would you get me some water?”

In the time it took Logan to pour a glass from the pitcher on the file cabinet, his father looked almost fully recovered. Which in no way mitigated the scariness of the last three minutes. “Here. Now tell me the truth.”

“The truth is that I have congestive heart failure. Serious, but I’m learning to manage it. Yet when I started feeling poorly and they were running a million tests, the doctors initially mentioned leukemia as a possibility. I panicked. I didn’t wait for the diagnosis. I did what I do best—I tackled the disaster and started planning how to fix it. The best fix is a bone marrow transplant, from a relative. So I reached out to Suzanne to get Madison’s information.”

Logan’s mind was reeling with so much to absorb. It sounded bad. It sounded…well, fatal. It sounded like dear old Dad had just sugarcoated his diagnosis with more than a coneful of cotton candy. Clearly Logan wouldn’t get the straight shit out of him. Logan needed to get home and hit the Internet. After figuring out how this all led to Madison finding out about him.

“But…you hadn’t spoken to her in all that time?”

“No. It was stupid and selfish and I regretted it instantly. Madison deserves better than me contacting her because I wanted something from her. I wouldn’t blame her if she never talked to me. It was a knee-jerk reaction. As soon as I found out it wasn’t leukemia, I backed off.”

Still didn’t make sense. At the fuck all. “Why wasn’t your knee-jerk reaction to ask me, Dad? You know I’d do anything for you. Bone marrow, kidney, a piece of my liver—whatever you need. Aside from that Cal Ripken signed ball from his last game, of course.”

His father’s gaze shifted away. Silence throbbed in the room for a few beats. “I tried. You’d lost your third phone by then. We couldn’t get ahold of you. Not right away.”

Guilt swamped him. It literally took his breath away with its crushing weight. All Logan ever wanted was to be there for people who needed him. To make a difference by his sheer presence.

That’s all it would’ve taken. Just fricking being here. Just his body, asleep on a gurney while doctors sucked out his marrow to save his dad’s life. Not some stranger’s—his father’s.

He’d been so busy being there for strangers that he’d let down the people here, at home, who mattered to him most. How was he supposed to know? How was he supposed to choose?

“This is why you want me to take over, isn’t it?”

“I’m measuredly assured that as long as I behave and follow instructions, I’ve still got some kicking-around years in me. But scaling back would be a good thing, in the long run.”

“How long?”

“It doesn’t have to be immediate. I can bend on that. We can work out some long-range transition plan. I do, however, want to announce at the Board meeting on Friday that you’re willing to take over.”

Logan looked at the map on the wall. Looked at all the dots representing lives he’d saved, more lives that he’d impacted.

Then he looked back into the eyes that were a mirror image of his own. How did you measure one life against dozens or hundreds? Something he’d asked his father only a few minutes ago.

You just did.