Chapter 9

Logan didn’t bother looking through the house for his father. Sunday afternoon, post-golf, not at the club, meant he’d find Adrian Walsh in only one room of the sprawling Bethesda house where he’d grown up—and yearned to get out of. He took the stairs two at a time up to the third-floor loft. The place where his mother had relegated his dad’s hobby of model airplane construction. So as not to interfere with the “flow” of the rest of the house.

Jesus. He hadn’t even seen his mom and he was already irritated just by the memories that hit as he barreled down the gray hallway.

“Dad?”

“Finally, the Prodigal Son returns.” His dad rose from behind a desk crowded with paint pots, brushes, tweezers, and tiny parts. “Get over here—or is an extra ten feet too far for you to go after coming all the way from Kazakhstan?”

“For you, I’d even go twelve feet.”

The jumble of emotions clogging Logan’s head cleared for a minute. This was his dad. The man who’d taught him how to play soccer, and shave, and read to him until he lost his voice when Logan had chicken pox. The guy who understood Logan’s need to disappear for months at a time to make a difference for what sometimes amounted to just a handful of people.

So yeah, he got a hug.

Most of the time they kept their greetings to manly handshakes. But each and every time Logan came back from a disaster site, his dad gave the kind of rib-crushing hug Logan had gotten as a kid. He folded him in arms still muscled from tennis and golf and racquetball—his parents used every cent of their membership fee at the country club, and then some—and held on wordlessly. As if proving to himself that Logan was truly home, truly safe, and not a figment of his imagination.

Honestly? Logan didn’t mind it one bit.

A few backslaps later they eased apart. Logan looked at the face that would probably greet him in the mirror in twenty years. The Marsh family genes were strong. They both shared the light brown eyes, thick hair that in his dad’s case was still every bit as dark as his son’s, and a broad forehead.

Then it hit Logan. Those genes were in Madison, too. Would she share their eye color? Their hair? Would he be able to pick her out in a roomful of strangers? Immediately see the family resemblance?

Damn.

“How are you, son?” his father asked as they settled onto the gray, brushed-velvet couch opposite the slanted windows.

Velvet couch…that made Logan think of Brooke’s place. He’d felt more peace on that couch, on her lap, than he had in he didn’t know how long. But knowing the drill, he was able to answer the question his dad always asked, with the same response he always gave. “Back in one piece, per your instructions.”

Dad insisted on driving him to the airport for each mission. Then at the drop-off, he ordered Logan to stay safe first and save lives second. While routine, it was a pretty great send-off, always reminding him of what he was leaving behind.

Squinting, his father braced an arm on the back of the couch to lean closer. “Really? You look a little the worse for wear.”

Logan’s hand instinctively went—too late—to hide the cut on his eyebrow.

Crap.

The fight. Which he damn well wouldn’t mention. Because Logan refused to bring up Madison in this conversation. The fight with Knox had proved that being jet-lagged and exhausted wasn’t the right way to go about such a potentially charged topic. He’d catch up with his dad. Pretend like there wasn’t a giant flaming paper bag of emotional shit that had just landed at his doorstep. Then go home, sleep for probably two days straight, and figure out what to do next.

“It’s nothing.” He shrugged it off. A feat that was much easier now that Brooke’s ibuprofen had finally kicked in. “An incident on the second-to-last airplane, with luggage that wasn’t stowed correctly. The flight attendant made it up to me with extra pretzels.”

That surprised a rueful laugh out of the man who considered business class to be roughing it. “Traveling in style as always, I see.”

“Not quite as much this time around. It took some serious airport hopping and a couple of tin cans with propellers to get me back. I got waylaid by Hurricane Danielle. I had to hole up on a Caribbean island to ride out the worst of it.”

“Whoa. Was it bad?”

Hell, no. He pegged that night on Dominica with Brooke one of his top ten. Right up there with winning the last semi-final round of La Sfida Internazionale with his friends before their trip turned epically sideways. The night he’d lost his virginity. The ACSs’ first trip to Knox’s box at Nationals Park. The time they went to the Super Bowl in New Orleans and didn’t sober up for three days straight.

Logan realized he’d been reprioritizing his top ten list in order to scoot Brooke to the top, totally zoned out, while his dad stared at him quizzically. “Sorry. I’m four days past tired. No, the hurricane wasn’t bad at all.”

“Good. I’d have been worried about you if I’d known you were in the thick of it.”

“Which is why I don’t tell you where I am.” It was an oft-repeated argument between the two of them.

The same man who supported his decisions in his role as the head of the Marsh Foundation still worried incessantly in his role as a father. So when Logan left on Foundation business, he responded only in a business manner. He had to shut off the personal part in order to do what had to be done. He shut out missing his friends, his dad, the need to stay connected—which was close to impossible most of the time. Easier to keep his dad in the dark than to deal with the guilt at constant reminders of how much he worried.

“How’d this one go? Your first trip to Kazakhstan, right?”

“Yeah. The flood wiped out everything. We spent a week digging for survivors. Two weeks digging for corpses and then burying them.” That had been brutal. Restacking all the rocks they’d just moved to cover bodies relocated to the edge of the once village. It didn’t matter that Logan didn’t understand a word of the fifteen burial services he stood through. The sentiments had been plainly etched on the grieving, tear-streaked faces of the villagers around him.

His father reached across to squeeze his hand. “It’s hard. But it would’ve been harder for all of them if the Marsh Foundation hadn’t been there to help.”

“I know.” Logan didn’t regret a single moment of the mission. Except for the fact that he’d ducked out before the rest of the team. “Terry and Brian are staying another week to put the finishing touches on the well system. All the temporary housing is in place. We moved the center of the village about half a mile upstream. There’s better placement in regards to the speed and depth of the river at that section. It should prevent this from happening again.”

“Did they fight you on the relocation?”

Logan had a feeling that his translator had glossed over a lot of the pushback. “Some. All sentiment. No reasons that impacted living conditions. So we pushed the same buttons. Reminded them that there would be more burial cairns next year if they stayed put. Because another flood in that spot’s inevitable.”

“I’m glad to hear you won’t be a repeat visitor.”

“Nope. I’m in no hurry to return, anyway. Nice people, but brutal terrain.” Logan was also not a fan of goat meat. Stringy. Gamey.

“I’m glad you mentioned that. I’ve already got your next mission in the works, and I guarantee the environment will be more to your liking.” His dad pulled a tablet off the leather ottoman that dual-purposed as a coffee table. Pulled up the calendar function and scrolled ahead a few weeks. Angled it to show Logan the box highlighted in yellow. “August 12.”

That was…strange. “You’re just picking a date for the next natural disaster? Are you using Nostradamus? Taking the International Date Line into account?”

“It’s the next Marsh Foundation board meeting. I want you there.”

Son of a bitch. This was the last thing he needed. Too exhausted to sugarcoat it, Logan just drew a hand across his throat. “Nope. Been there, tried that, hated it.”

Depending on who you asked, he’d been given the privilege of attending/being forced to go to a Board meeting when he’d turned eighteen. He was pretty sure he gave himself whiplash that day from all the head-bobbing he did trying to stay awake. Logan had been convinced nothing could be more boring than reading James Joyce. Until that day. He’d rather spend the day in the hard, plastic chairs at the Motor Vehicle Administration renewing his license than sit through another Board meeting. At least the people-watching was decent at the MVA.

“You can’t judge it by one bad experience.”

Dusting off his hands, Logan said, “I can. I did. I am.”

Dropping the tablet, his dad stood. Walked the gleaming hardwood floors to the door leading out to the deck. “You were too young last time. You didn’t have any context. You’d never read through financial statements or worked over a budget. It’s my fault for trying to bring you in too soon in the process.”

“Thanks for the apology. But I have a hard-and-fast rule not to repeat shitty experiences. No more Board meetings for this guy.” And while he still needed some downtime, Logan only hoped there was another dire reason to rush off and save someone in a village at least a continent away in the next three weeks.

Moving into his lecturing pose of crossed arms and a frown, Adrian said, “This isn’t optional, son. I need you to start attending the Board meetings.”

For fuck’s sake. Why now? Why force the issue right now? With no warning? Five whole minutes after walking in the damn door? But he’d promised himself not to pick a fight. Logan stood, too. Trying hard to be simply matter-of-fact, he said, “I’m not good at inking things onto my calendar. Duty calls, and I go. Simple as that.”

“Duty calls here, at home. It isn’t just the quarterly meetings. That’s merely the first step. I want you to stop running around the globe at the drop of a hat. I want you to transition into running the Foundation.”

After being gone for months, Logan’s wants were simple. He wanted a shower. A steak from the District Chophouse as thick as his forearm to negate all the goat in his system. A soak in their backyard hot tub beneath the magnolia tree. And yeah, he’d be stoked to add another night with Brooke before she moved to his list of wants.

Nowhere on that list was a new fucking job.

“No, Dad.” Logan crossed to the desk. He picked up a tiny plastic wing and brandished it. “You want to squeeze in another round of golf a week? Put together more planes? Go ahead. That’s why we’ve got an executive director for the Foundation. A whole damn staff, actually.”

“They’re just that—staff. They aren’t Marshes. They can’t run the Foundation.” With a grimmer darkness to his eyes than Logan had seen in years, his dad clapped him on the shoulder. “You’re the only one who can do that, son.”

Logan spun away. “Not yet.” Desperation coated his voice thicker than the algae on the Tidal Basin this time of year.

It was too much to take in right now. He needed time to come up with an airtight argument against his father’s wishes. Time to figure out why the hell this bombshell was being dropped so out of the blue. It was like he was missing half the story. Most of all, he needed his brain not to be running on fumes when he did ultimately deal with this.

“I’m afraid so. This isn’t a negotiation, Logan. This is official notification that you’ve been promoted. You’ll transition into this new role as soon as you’ve had a few weeks to get your head back on straight.”

Everyone had their breaking point. Logan kind of thought he’d reached his when he’d decked his best friend. But no. That was just the precursor. The warm-up act. His dad’s oh-so-fitting choice of the word new didn’t tip him over the edge. It threw him off the goddamned cliff. So much for good intentions, he thought, just before his mouth jumped about five steps ahead of his brain.

“You know what, Dad? I’ve got enough new things to deal with, thanks to you.”

The sunlight streaming in the arched windows at the end of the house threw a spotlight on Adrian’s confusion. “I don’t understand.”

There was a lot of that going around. “Oh, you didn’t get the announcement? About my new baby sister? Gee, it must’ve gotten lost in the mail twenty-four years ago…just like mine did.” Yeah, he’d gone overboard on the sarcasm. But Logan didn’t care.

Beneath the July tennis tan, his dad’s face paled noticeably. “Your sister?”

Logan circled his hand in the air a couple of times. When nothing more was forthcoming, he went ahead and supplied the name himself. “Madison Abbott. I’m pretty damn sure you’ve heard of her.”

Silence filled the large room. It lasted long enough that Logan almost, almost started to wonder if he’d been wrong about the whole thing. If maybe he’d flown across three seas and an ocean as fast as possible for no good reason.

The throat clearing cracked through the room like a gunshot. “You know about Madison?”

Shit.

If there’d been any doubt, that snuffed it right out. And re-lit the pilot light on Logan’s anger.

“Like I said, I’m up to here,” he cut the back of his hand right below his chin, “with new stuff. A whole new reality where my father spent my entire life fucking lying to me. A new sister even existing. A new sister engaged to my best friend. A new sister living right here in my hometown, who wants to get to know me.”

“Madison? She’s here? In D.C.?”

Perversely, Logan took pleasure in the shock widening the eyes that mirrored his own. “Oh, that’s news to you? Guess what? It doesn’t come close to making us even.”

“Logan, sit down. Let me—”

He didn’t even bother to cut him off. Logan just spun on his heel and walked out of the room. Because he couldn’t bear to see the lies, the guilt, the recrimination, the apology, the whatfuckingever his dad decided to pour out onto him.

The decision not to get into the whole Madison thing today had been right. Because, sure, he’d gained a sister. But there was every chance that in the process, he was going to end up losing his father. Or at least losing the version he’d always looked up to and adored. And Logan could not take that right now.

So he thundered down the stairs. Ran from the new job, the fight with Dad, the fight with Knox, the heavy guilt pooling in his stomach about leaving Brooke. And he damned well wouldn’t stop running until he landed in bed and slept for two days straight. Then he’d screw his head back on and figure out what came next.