Chapter Thirteen
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Logan didn’t think he’d ever forget the moment Lena’s musket ball ripped through Harley Ellis’s neck.
If she’d fired a second later, he didn’t think he’d have been alive to see it.
“You would have made one hell of a Revolutionary War soldier,” he told her several hours later, when the sheriff had been and gone, a neighbor had brought Atlas back safe and sound, and Harley’s and Ray’s bodies had been carted off. Cab had told them he and his deputies would hunt down the twins’ uncle before the night was out and hold him for questioning. The twins’ driver’s licenses had been issued in Tennessee. Cab was already sure he’d find a connection between the Ellises and the drug dealers who’d been harassing them for months.
“I wanted to be a spy, not a soldier, remember?”
“I’m glad you decided to be a soldier tonight.”
They were seated in the kitchen, lights blazing, mugs of hot coffee in their hands, sweetened with a lot of sugar for the shock Cass seemed to think they both might succumb to. Neither of them had been injured except for Lena’s cheek, but once she’d washed the wound it hadn’t turned out to be more than a scrape. Still, Logan knew Lena was badly shaken. The fire department had been here, too, and had spent more than an hour hosing down the outside of the houses to dilute the kerosene the twins had spread around their foundations. They didn’t find anything else awry on the property. Brian and the other men had teamed up with the sheriff’s department to do a thorough search of all the buildings. They’d investigate again in the morning, but with the men taking turns keeping watch tonight—and Harley and Ray both dead—Logan was positive nothing more would happen.
He didn’t blame Lena for being overwhelmed, though.
Hell, he was a little off his game, too.
He’d never killed someone with a sword before.
He couldn’t believe those old swords were sharp. He could have sworn they were the same cheap knock-offs his uncle had owned. Logan felt sick every time he thought of his battle with Lena. He could have taken her head off when they were fooling around earlier.
Now he caught her eye. “I suppose a gentleman would let you off the hook, all things considered. You lost the bet we made earlier,” he elaborated when she raised an eyebrow. “You’re supposed to marry me. But a gentleman wouldn’t hold you to that after you saved his life.”
“Good thing you’re not a gentleman,” Lena said.
Logan’s heart skipped a beat. Did she mean—? He found he couldn’t ask her. Not yet.
“At least now you know what your dream was about,” Lena said, leaving him confused until he remembered St. Michael.
“You’re right. I got a sword tonight, didn’t I? And I tried like hell to protect you, baby girl. And then you went and saved me instead with that damn musket.”
“But you saved me, too, so it worked out in the end, didn’t it?”
“I guess,” he said ruefully.
“I used to have a dream,” she said and reached out to take his hand, “that one day I’d meet a man I didn’t have to protect myself from. Someone who saw me. All of me. And loved me anyway.”
“That’s me,” Logan said softly.
“And I’m the woman in your dream,” she told him. “The one carrying the musket.”
Lena ran her thumb over Logan’s knuckles. His hand was larger than hers. Stronger. And she didn’t mind.
They complemented each other. Just like Brian and Cass, Connor and Sadie, Hunter and Jo. Like her mother and the General. She didn’t know how she could have missed it at first, that together they were better than when they were apart.
“I’ve been letting life pass me by,” she told him. “Holding myself back from loving any man because I was so angry at the General—and at myself. I hated myself.” It was satisfying to put it into words. “That wasn’t any way to live.”
“But—”
“You make me like myself,” she explained, “because you like me.”
He nodded. “I do like you.” He covered her hand with his. “You are everything I’ve ever searched for, Lena Reed. Whip-smart, takes no shit, action-packed, funny as hell. What more could a man want in a woman?”
Lena softened. “What more could a woman want in a man?”
“Muscles?” He struck a pose. Lena reached out and patted his bicep.
“You’ve got those.”
“Wit?” He waggled his eyebrows.
“You’ve got that, too.”
“A hell of a way about him in the sack?”
“We can hear you, you know!” Sadie called from the living room.
Lena laughed out loud. “I’m not sure about that last one. Maybe we need to try it again.” She kept her voice low enough only he could hear. She hoped.
“Sounds like a plan.” He stood and led her upstairs, but Lena tugged him past their bedrooms and continued to the attic, where they could finally have privacy. For the next several hours, Logan demonstrated all his moves.
She liked those, too, as it turned out.
Later, tangled together on the couch, Lena rested her head on Logan’s chest. She was done fighting him—done fighting her fate.
Logan seemed to be thinking along the same lines. He reached down to paw through his clothes and pulled out a little box she recognized. When he opened it up, her heart squeezed.
Her ring. The one she’d thrown in his face.
“I think it’s time to try this again,” Logan said. “Lena, you know who I am and what I have to give you. And I hope now you trust me a little bit. All I want is your happiness, and I hope you’ll always tell me if I fall short and give me the chance to get back on track—before you swing a crowbar at me—or a sword. Lena, will you marry me and make me the happiest man on the planet?”
“Yes,” she said, and let him slide it onto her finger. It felt right there. A reminder of his love. A promise of their future.
“Don’t take it off this time.”