Chapter Six
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“Maybe it’s a sign you’re not where you’re supposed to be,” Anthony said.
Logan clutched his cell phone tighter, pacing the short expanse of the kitchen, wishing he had more room to burn off the energy that raged through him. Lena was resting in the hospital overnight under observation, but the doctor who’d examined her said he didn’t think she’d gotten a concussion. She did have quite a bump on her forehead, though, Brian said.
She’d refused to see him when Logan asked to have a minute alone with her at the hospital. Logan had tried to push the matter, but he was unanimously overruled and sent home.
Now he couldn’t relax. He was burning with remorse and frustration. He’d only meant to block Lena’s blow, not brain her with the crowbar. The look Cass had given him when he’d run into the house, Lena passed out in his arms, should have struck him dead on the spot. Even Alice, who he swore was on his side where marrying Lena was concerned, had tsked at him as she rushed to help.
“What do you want me to do, leave? Just walk out before I even know if she’s okay. Go AWOL?”
“I still don’t see how a Marine can possibly be on a mission in Montana. No, don’t tell me; I know. You can’t talk about that. But I want you to think about your future—hard.”
Logan wished he’d never placed the call. He didn’t know why he’d thought Anthony could advise him when a woman was involved.
Lena was going to be furious when she got home in the morning, and he needed to figure out how to calm her down and get her to listen to him. He hadn’t realized he’d said that aloud until Anthony said, “You’re the one who needs to calm down and listen to reason. Take a few deep breaths.”
“That’s not going to help me find an answer.”
“Then pray about it.”
“That’s what you always say.”
“Because that’s always the answer.”
Logan hung up on him. It wasn’t the answer this time. He needed to act. Do something—say something. Something to make Lena realize that hurting her was the last thing on his mind. She needed to trust him. When he’d kicked the twins off her property, he’d only been acting in her best interests. She’d have kicked them off the ranch as fast as he had if she’d been there. And despite what she’d said, they weren’t kids. They were grown men. Only a couple of years younger than she was. Lena was the one who’d overreacted and lashed out at him with a crowbar. She’d sent herself to the hospital, to tell the truth.
Not that he’d ever point that out. He didn’t have a death wish.
Alice entered the kitchen and set the kettle on the stove. “I’d offer you some,” she told him, “but you need something stronger.”
“You’re right; I could use a drink,” he said.
“I meant you need the maze.” She nodded toward the darkness beyond the kitchen windows. “You’ve got a question that needs answering, right?”
“Yeah, I guess I do.” But he doubted a bunch of shrubbery could help him.
“Go ask the stone.” Alice pulled out a cup and saucer, then rummaged through a basket of tea bags until she found the one she wanted.
“You do realize that’s ridiculous, don’t you?”
“More ridiculous than knocking your intended fiancée out cold with a crowbar?”
He didn’t bother to correct her. That’s how the story would go from now on, he mused, as he shrugged into his coat and made his way out the back door. Lena would come off totally innocent. He’d be the crazed Marine with the shovel.
And what would his brothers think if they knew he was about to consult a mystical standing stone about his problems? He crossed Sadie’s garden toward its entrance, figuring the day couldn’t get any stranger than it already had been. He’d never in his life imagined he’d physically injure a woman with a garden implement. Now Alice was right; he’d knocked out the only one he’d ever considered marrying.
“Ask it about that sword, too. I can’t get it out of my mind, and I need to focus on that drone man,” Alice called after him.
There was enough moonlight that as his eyes adjusted he could make his way without tripping over any of Sadie’s plants, but when he entered the maze the tall hedges cast deep shadows that made the going difficult. He didn’t have the way memorized, either, so it took him some time to reach the center, and he probably would have given up if he didn’t think it would be just as difficult to find his way back.
When he finally found the stone, it stood tall and slightly menacing, moonlight making its broad flank glow pale. He approached it and was drawn to touch it, finally placing both hands on it, its rough surface cool below his palms.
Am I supposed to be a priest?
Hell, he hadn’t meant to ask that. He was supposed to be finding out how to patch things up with Lena.
Still, the question had come to mind, and he forced himself to sit with it. He knew to the bottom of his heart he wasn’t meant for the priesthood. So how come it kept coming up? Had his brothers and parents seen something in him he hadn’t? Had he really missed his calling all this time?
Is that why he kept having those dreams?
He was sick of wondering.
“Am I supposed to be a priest?” he asked again out loud.
He stepped back but kept his gaze on the monolith, not knowing what to do next. Overhead, clouds scudded across the sky, the gibbous moon playing hide-and-seek.
It was quiet out here.
Peaceful.
Was this a kind of praying? And who was listening if it was? He could almost believe in a benevolent deity out here in the darkness—
“Oh, hell,” a female voice demanded. “What are you doing here?”
Lena yelped when Logan whipped around and dropped into a defensive stance straight out of hand-to-hand combat practice. He straightened when he spotted her. “Jesus. Lena, what are you doing here? Why aren’t you in the hospital?”
He looked like he’d seen a ghost. It would have been funny if her head didn’t still ache so hard she thought she might pass out.
“I don’t need a hospital. It’s just a little bump.”
“Looks like a pretty big bump from here.”
“You didn’t answer my question,” she said sharply. “What are you doing here?”
“Just… needed some fresh air.” He was still looking at her strangely, and it was making Lena uncomfortable. It was as if he’d read some answer in her arrival there, and she didn’t have any answers for him.
Although she had a thing or two on her mind. “You were out of line this afternoon,” she began.
He stepped closer. “First things first. Lena, I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you. You know that, right?”
His remorse turned her angry words to ashes in her throat. “I… Yeah, I know.” She’d been the one to attack him, and she should have known better than to swing a crowbar at a Marine. What had she thought he’d do? Let her take his head off? “I overreacted, I guess.” She seemed to be doing that a lot lately. Especially around Logan.
“Maybe we’re both a little hotheaded.” He sighed. “But I mean it, baby girl. I don’t ever want to be the one causing you pain.”
That baby girl caught her off balance somehow. Before when he’d said it she’d always felt he’d been teasing her. It had been silly, annoying, a little sexy sometimes.
Now it was soft and… intimate.
Lena wasn’t ready for intimate. Not with this headache. Not even without it.
“This is a pretty uncanny spot, isn’t it?” he asked, gesturing at the standing stone.
“Yes, it is.”
“You don’t know who set the stone here?”
“No, we don’t. It’s as if it’s always been here, but of course that can’t be true. But even the earliest records we’ve found of the place talk about the monolith.”
“And you like history, so you’d know.”
It wasn’t a question; it was a statement of fact. Something he knew about her. He was right; the maze and the stone were downright uncanny in this kind of light. The stone almost looked—alive. Sentient was perhaps a better word.
Like it knew things.
“Do you come here a lot to ask it questions?” Logan asked.
“No. Not since—not since Mom died. I used to come here all the time. I’ve asked it a million questions in my life, but not since then.”
“Why’d you stop?”
He seemed genuinely curious, and Lena found herself answering, as if the night—and the stone itself—had cast a spell on her. “I asked it a question that day. After Mom died. I slipped out late—it was a night like this. And I asked—” Her voice thickened. “If she’d come back.” She’d desperately needed her mother to come back. At fourteen she’d been lost without Amelia’s calm and loving presence. She’d had to become so hard—so fast.
Logan waited, as still as the stone, and she went on. “It said no—in a way that left no room for interpretation. Of course, I already knew that, but—I’ve never asked it a question since.” She forced herself to take a deep breath. Her mother had been gone for eleven years, and she’d accepted her death and moved forward. She was a strong woman now. She was only emotional tonight because she’d nearly put herself into a coma. “Did you ask it a question just now?” Let Logan sit on the hot seat for a while.
“No,” he said quickly. “I’m a Catholic, remember? We don’t believe in magic stones.”
Was it his imagination, or did a cold breeze whip up around them after he uttered those patently false words? He couldn’t tell Lena what he’d asked, though. She’d think he was out of his mind. He’d spent the last week coming at her from every direction, flirting with her, telling her he meant to marry her—and now he was consulting a standing stone about whether to be ordained?
Ridiculous. Proof of his complete inappropriateness for the job if any more was needed.
When he’d turned and seen Lena, his heart had thumped like a hammer hitting a nail. His whole body had leaped with awareness of her.
With wanting her.
Just his bad luck she’d walked in on him after his moment of weakness. If she’d come a second earlier, she would have heard his question.
His question. Am I supposed to be a priest?
Was Lena his answer?
He suddenly felt sure she was. He wasn’t supposed to be a priest. He was supposed to marry this woman. The General had been right; he had sent Logan to the right place.
“You’re… lying. I can tell,” she said. “You did ask something. Did you get your answer?”
He took her hand and tugged her closer. “Yes, I got my answer.”
He was meant to be here after all. Meant to be with Lena.
Meant to marry her.
Logan bent down and kissed her.
Meant to stake a claim to the future he really wanted.
She had to stop letting Logan kiss her, Lena thought, but somehow she couldn’t back away. She was growing used to his presence throughout her days. He worked by her side, stepped in to help out before she asked him. He saw the sunrise with her, the sunset, did chores with her, ate with her—
He was becoming a member of the family, like it or not. Getting under her skin.
“What is with you?” she asked, unable to stop herself when he broke off the kiss. She turned to lead the way out of the maze.
“Don’t know what you mean.”
The Marine seemed downright cheerful now, walking along beside her with a jaunty step.
“Why are you—screwing things up for me?”
Logan stopped, caught her hand and tugged her to a halt, too. “Hey, that’s the last thing I want to do, you know that, right? Maybe you’re the one who needs to answer a question. Why are you always fighting me? Why not let me help you sometimes?”
“You know the answer to that. I don’t want to lose control of my ranch.”
“We’ve already become your hired hands. What more can any of us do to set your mind at ease?”
He let go of her hand and crossed his arms. His biceps bulged against his shirt. He must be a sight in uniform, she thought. Hell, he was a sight no matter what he wore. Not for the first time, she wished circumstances were different. That she’d never met Scott.
That she’d met Logan instead.
“You can’t do anything,” she said truthfully. Thanks to Scott, she’d be suspicious of men until her dying day.
He chuckled again. “Just like I thought. So, if I can’t set your mind at ease, all I can do is follow my conscience.”
“You have one of those?” she asked pertly.
“I do,” he assured her. “Works well most of the time.”
“When you’re not braining helpless women.”
“Helpless.” He snorted. “Lena Reed, you are a torment to men. But you’re right; your technique with a crowbar leaves something to be desired.”
She turned around in a huff and strode the rest of the way to the house without looking back.