“I think it sounds fun,” Cole said as Logan threw a duffle bag in the back of Tucker’s car. Somehow, Beth had talked his cousin into lending her his car for their trip, while he returned the rental car for her. Tucker had a work truck and agreed that it made the most sense. Beth’s bags from the cruise ship were already in the car.

Elliot scoffed and crossed his arms across his chest. “Yeah, sounds like a real barrel of laughs. Can I come? I’ve been looking for new ways to torture myself. This seems right up my alley. Maybe we can drag a few of my exes along for the fun of it.”

Tucker bumped his shoulder against Elliot’s and sent him a silent, scathing look.

Logan knew that Cole and Tucker wanted him to take this trip with Beth. He wasn’t sure if they wanted him gone because he was taking up space or because they wanted it for him.

He wasn’t sure what it was, beyond getting out of the house, but there seemed to be something intangibly promising on the horizon. He and his cousins stood in the driveway while she used the bathroom before their departure.

“It’s okay,” Logan told them. “It might not be the perfect situation, but the idea has merit. I should get out in the world and figure out what my next steps are.”

“And you think the fake stripper is going to show it to you?” Elliot asked with a scowl.

Logan shook his head. “Don’t call her that.”

“I like her,” Cole said. “She’s got a backbone of steel, if you ask me.”

“No one did, as usual,” Elliot shot back. “Not that it’s ever stopped you before.”

“Why would I let that ugly-ass mug of yours hold me back?” Cole deadpanned and looked back to Logan. “She showed up here, and even after you were a complete douche, stayed. I’m team Beth.”

“Thanks for that,” Logan said sarcastically.

Tucker slapped a hand on his back. “I’ve always got your back, you know that, but I see where Cole’s coming from. She’s not your average woman, is she?”

“No, she’s not,” Logan said. “Your average woman doesn’t run as far as she can when love smacks her over the head.”

“Hey, we don’t all have voodoo mama’s that teach us about the magic of love at first sight when we’re knee high to a grasshopper,” Tucker explained.

“So, it’s all my mother’s fault?” Logan asked with a laugh.

“Don’t tell her I said that.” Tucker chuckled. “She’d skin my hide.”

“After she fed you,” Elliot added.

“And read your tea leaves,” Cole said.

“The point is,” Logan interrupted their laughter. “Beth and I aren’t going to happen, no matter who’s team you’re on. I’ve been on team Beth. It’s a lonely place because even Beth isn’t on it.”

“Now that’s just not true,” the woman herself said as she came down the porch steps and into the driveway. “I’m team Beth, all the way. Problem is, team Beth is kind of a mess, you know. No coach, no stadium, no teammates.” She threw a small bag into the trunk and faced them, a smile on her face. “We have like, concessions and the plane with a banner that flies overhead once in a while, but not a whole lot else.”

Elliot’s usual stoic face dropped a notch and he almost softened. “That sounds shitty.”

He wasn’t known for being a man of many words.

She shrugged and slowly shut the lid of the trunk with a click. “It’s fine. It’s what I’m used to, but you get to a point where you know you’re a bit screwed up.” She looked to Logan, regret shining in her eyes. “It took hearing about Logan getting hurt to make me want to get my life figured out, not that I’ve gotten far, but the thought is there. Imagine my surprise when I get here and I find out he’s just as messed up as I am right now.”

“I am not,” Logan argued.

“Okay,” she said easily, not wanting to start an argument. “The point is, sometimes we all need to reset or take a breath.”

“Since when are you the authority on…” he struggled to find the right word.

“Anything?” she finished for him, her brows raised in question. “I’m not. You ready to go?”

Logan said nothing at her abrupt subject change, confused by the woman standing in front of him. Her red hair was wavy and blowing the breeze, her sweater’s thick turtleneck framed her face, and her cheeks were pink from the cold. She looked like the same old Beth, but she spoke differently, more introspective than she’d been before.

It had been barely twelve hours since she’d been back in his life and her effect on him was strange. He’d spent so many months being angry at not just her, but everything around him, she almost brought a sense of calm.

That alone pissed him off. If he did finally find a sense of calm, he didn’t want it tied to Beth in any way, shape or form. In the end, she’d run out on him and he’d be back at square one.

He needed to get straight with himself first. That was his number one goal.

Beth being in the middle of that mission was just a fact he was going to have to ignore. He couldn’t let her get in the way of him getting his life back.

“Logan?” Beth prompted. “Are you ready to go?”

He was. With much more emotion than they had ever done before, he said goodbye to his cousins. They had been a great source of strength for him when he’d run out of gas on his own. They’d given him not just a place to stay, but a support system to rely on.

In the navy, he’d been lucky enough to find men and women who he called family. They were brave and strong, reliable and always there when he needed them.

After taking his discharge, he hadn’t called on them. He’d suddenly felt like a burden, like he wasn’t one of them anymore.

The Williams brothers had walked him through one of the most difficult times in his life.

Finding the words to tell them that was an impossible task.

“Hey, guys,” he said, trying to clear the emotion from his throat.

“Don’t do it, bro,” Elliot said, shaking his head. “No need.”

“Yeah,” Tucker agreed. “Come back when you’re ready. You’ve always got a home here.”

“Thanks, you guys,” he said simply.

“Come on, Doc,” Beth said, a smile on her lips as she stood in the driver’s door of the car. “Let’s get this show on the road. Thanks for the hospitality.” She tipped her chin to his cousins. “I hope to see you all again someday, but if not, you’re not the worst bunch of apes I’ve ever met.”

Even Elliot laughed, Logan noted.

“You’re not the best stripper I’ve ever seen,” Cole returned. “But, I’d let you dance on my coffee table any time you want to stop by.”

She slipped into the driver’s seat, still laughing and shut the door behind her.

Elliot pushed Logan to the door. “I think I changed my mind. You’re going to be just fine, Logan. I’m sure of it.”

That made one of them, he thought, as he lowered himself into the passenger side of the car. When he closed the door, Beth wasted no time in backing out of the driveway and taking off.

“Any particular place you want to head? North? West? Anything you want to see?” she asked.

He shook his head. “You didn’t give me much time to plan anything. I don’t have a route mapped out just yet,” he answered, hoping she heard the terseness in his voice.

She let out a laugh, barely stopping at a stop sign and nearly squealing the tires as she went around a corner. Logan gripped the door handle.

“Slow down, Danica Patrick. I don’t want to lose any more limbs.”

“I’ll have you know I’m an excellent driver,” she argued, looking at him and not the road. “I’m just rusty.”

“Well, let me give you a hint. The big red sign with eight sides means stop. Nothing else. Just stop.”

“I stopped,” she insisted.

“You blew through that sign at thirty.”

She sent him a scathing look. “Thirty? Come on now.”

“Okay,” he conceded. “But you blew through it.”

“Rolled,” she wheedled. “I rolled through it.”

He sighed.

“There’s a train station not far from here. Want to take a train into the city? See a show or something? I read about a place that makes sushi burritos.”

Logan pulled a face. “Sushi burritos? Why does that sound like the most unappealing thing I’ve ever heard of?”

“Do you like sushi?” she asked.

“I do,” he told her. “I’m just not sure I want to mix it with a burrito.”

“Are you feeling the city or do you want to just drive and see where we get?”

“I’m more comfortable with an actual plan,” he admitted. “I’ve never really done something like this before.”

“Well, lucky for you there’s a tiny device in your pocket with all the information in the world on it. Take a look and tell me where you want to go? I’m thinking west,” she said. “South will end too quickly and we’ll have to double back, but it’s warm. North is way too close to Freehope and I don’t want to go that way. East is the ocean, so I think that’s out. West seems like the best option.”

“West, it is,” he agreed, powering up his phone. “I’ve never seen the Grand Canyon.”

A small smile lit her lips, her eyes bright as she glanced at him. “We better get a map somewhere so you can start marking stops. I don’t want to miss anything.”

“I think I can remember,” he argued.

Beth shrugged. “I’ll get one. No worries. Besides, I like maps.”

“Really?” he asked, curious in her response.

She shrugged. She sat close to the wheel when she drove, her short legs stretched out far in front of her. Her hands were at ten and two but she still managed to seem reckless, somehow. He wondered if it was her driving or he just felt that about her in general. “My dad was always a bit of a planner,” she was saying. “I think it was because he was a teacher, you know, but he was big on mapping everything out. Family trips were a big production with spreadsheets and long checklists. Sometimes, he’d let me sit in the front seat and hold the map for him.”

He warmed at the idea of Beth as a child, sitting in the front seat of the family car, feet not touching the ground with an oversized map in her hands. Spencer and Alexa would be arguing in the back while Andy watched the scenery out the window.

It took him a second to realize that he hadn’t taken her mother into account.

“What kind of car was it?”

“Huh?”

“When you were a kid. What kind of car did you take on family trips?”

“My mom was the classic soccer mom. Minivan, all the way.”

“But she let you co-pilot?”

Beth nodded as she barreled onto the highway.

“Mom was easy. She’d let us move all around when we stopped, as long as we didn’t fight about it. Mostly she sat in the middle row with Andy. They were really close.”

He knew that they’d all been close with their mother, but some of them had taken her death harder than others. At least, from what he’d seen.

“Owen was always a map guy,” he commented, changing the track of the conversation. He might be angry with Beth, but he didn’t want to see her sad. Talking about her mother was likely to do that.

“I’m sure he makes a good copilot, too. Not as good as me, but still.”

“Well, you’re in the pilot seat,” he pointed out. “To be a good copilot, you’d have to let me drive.”

“Next leg,” she told him. “I figured if I let you drive at first, we might not have ever left, but I’m cool with sharing the driving duties. When I’m driving, we stop where you say and when you’re driving, I’ll find cool places to stop. Or we can find some stuff we both want to check out when we stop for the night.”

“You’ve really got this planned out,” he noted. “Must take after your dad.”

“If I plop a spreadsheet in your lap tomorrow, I give you permission to strap me to the roof.” She laughed. “I have no intention of planning this trip down to the minute.”

“We’re really just heading out aimlessly?” he asked, impressed that he’d agreed to it at all. He hadn’t exactly been in the mood to do much of anything lately, let alone something so drastic.

He’d never been depressed before. Sure, he’d gone through hard times and had struggled in his life, but the last few months he’d finally seen what depression was. He hadn’t known what the feelings were at first, until Elliot had pointed it out to him. He couldn’t find enjoyment in the things he once could. He was exhausted but couldn’t sleep. He was irritated with everything and everyone. There were even moments where he felt almost tearful, like a crying jag might be on the horizon.

It was embarrassing.

More than that, it was eye-opening. There was nothing he could do to snap himself out of it, that he’d found yet.

Even stepping out of his comfort zone was difficult, hence his surprise in his agreement to join Beth on a road trip.

“Aimless can be fun,” Beth said, interrupting his thoughts.

“You would know.”

She cut her eyes to him and then back to the highway in front of them. “Are you going to spend the whole trip taking pot shots at me or do you think it’ll get out of your system at some point?”

He’d been harboring his anger toward her for so many months, he wasn’t sure how to answer her question. Maybe it was petty to hold the past against her for so long. In her defense, he’d known where she stood on relationships from the beginning. She’d never mislead him. He was the one who had expected her to change. He’d also expected her to at least respect him enough to talk to him and not run out on him every damn time they were together.

“I’m sure it’ll all come out eventually,” he said noncommitedly.

“Sooner rather than later would be nice. When I finally get to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, I want to be able to worship at the altar of Jim Morrison without you snipping at me every second.”

Logan chuckled. “I promise to let you worship in peace.”

“Not the point,” she told him. “But, I’ll take it for now.”

They were quiet for the rest of the drive through Connecticut and into New York. Logan watched the scenery as it passed by his window and wondered at Beth’s motivation for taking the trip with him in the first place.

She wasn’t a planner, like her dad. She’d always flown by the seat of her pants, never having a home or holding a permanent job. She was the ultimate nomad. In some ways, it made sense, but when he thought about how he’d treated her the last twenty-four hours, he couldn’t quite figure her out.

She’d told him that he could walk away in the end, that there was no pressure to pick up where they left off.

If she still didn’t want him, what was in it for her?

He watched her out of the corner of his eye for a moment, her finger tapping on the steering wheel in time to the music, her foot a little too heavy on the gas.

“How was your last contract?” Logan asked, trying to steer the conversation in a different direction.

He was surprised when she stiffened and her knuckles turned white as she gripped the steering wheel. He turned in his seat a little, taking in not just her body language, but the way her face pinched in reaction.

His eyes narrowed the longer she stayed silent.

“Beth?” he promoted.

“It was fine,” she said, her voice quiet.

She was lying.

“Go anywhere interesting?”

“The usual,” she answered, still not even glancing in his direction.

“I think that’s the least you’ve ever had to say about anything since we’ve met.”

“Great,” she returned sarcastically. “Let’s keep it that way.”

“I’m just trying to make conversation,” he ground out through his teeth, praying for patience.

“Want to talk about your leg?” she shot back.

“No.” His answer was immediate.

“That’s fine with me. We won’t talk about your leg and we won’t talk about my trip. Sounds like a plan.”

Blinded by the anger for her that simmered under the surface, Logan crossed his arms and reclined way back in the passenger seat, closing his eyes.

“I didn’t really care,” he lied. “I was just trying to pass the time.”

After a few seconds she replied, “I’ll wake you when we get there.”

Logan pretended to sleep for a long time after that, eyes closed and ignoring the woman next to him. He would have endured any kind of torture and held strong, not admitting that he stayed awake, waiting for her to talk to him. Maybe even waiting for her to be who or what he expected of her.

He was disappointed when instead, she said nothing for the next three hours.

* * *

“Do you like to gamble?” Logan asked as they unloaded their bags from the car.

Beth shrugged, stuffing a few things from a larger suitcase into a smaller one and then slamming the trunk. The wind whipped through the parking garage of the casino, her hair swirling around her face.

“I know someone that works here and she got me a room. I texted her this morning from the rest area.”

“Nice of you to tell me,” he complained.

Her eyes shot to his as she tried to hide just how tired of him she already was. She loved the guy, there was no arguing that. But he’d shown in just one day how much disdain he carried for her.

She didn’t know if it was what had transpired between them in the last year or losing his leg that made him hate her so much. Maybe it was both. All he’d done, every word he’d said, all boiled down to showing her just how much he disliked her.

Was she really willing to put herself through long hours of traveling together if their first leg was any indicator of how it was going to be? Would she ever be able to prove herself to him or were they already a thing of the past and she just didn’t know it yet?

In Logan’s eyes, they were long past finished with their affair, but she had a hard time accepting that. Maybe him treating her like crap would get it through her thick head.

She knew damn-well he was at least still attracted to her. She’d felt him hard and ready under her lap just the night before when she’d stripped for him. He wanted her; he just hated her for it.

“Don’t worry, there’s two beds so you’ll be safe from me,” she told him as she walked away, rolling her suitcase behind her. When she glanced back, Logan was awkwardly limping, his duffle in hand, following her.

She wanted to offer her help, but knew he wouldn’t take it.

“The bedroom was never where we had issues,” he said.

“Believe it or not, Logan, despite your charm these last few hours, I’m not in any huge rush to bang your brains out.”

“Is there a reason you’re so pissed at me?”

Beth whirled around, hand on her hip. “Are you kidding me?”

He didn’t look particularly guilty, nor did he look confused, which led her to believe that if he wasn’t kidding, he was at least playing dumb.

“What?” He shrugged.

“You know what I always loved about you, Logan?”

“My—”

She interrupted and spoke over him, cutting off whatever quip was about to fall out of his mouth.

“You never fed me any bullshit. You never played any games with me. You were always kind and honest.”

“I’m not that guy anymore,” he told her, his arms out at his sides. “Now, I’m stuck being this guy.”

“No. You’re not stuck being that guy, but you have to want to be better. For some reason, you want to pretend that the only thing we ever had between us was sex.”

Logan looked around the parking lot as if making sure no one was within hearing distance.

Beth rolled her eyes. “What’s the matter, Logan? Afraid someone will hear me say sex? Sex,” she yelled, cupping her hands around her mouth. The word echoed all around them. “Sex, sex, sex. Logan and I had sex. Hot sex! Dirty sex!”

His hand suddenly clamped over her mouth. “What the hell are you doing?” he growled. “There are people around.”

She mumbled behind his hand but he kept his hand in place, glaring at her. She stuck out her tongue, running down up the middle of his hand, slowly.

Logan sucked in a breath through his nose and his eyes went from angry to something much different in the space of a heartbeat. He smoldered and instead of burning her with his disdain, he seared her with lust.

“Stop it.” His voice was low, but he never moved his hand.

Beth shrugged and ran her tongue, flat and wide up the center of his hand again.

When he took his hand away it wasn’t quickly in disgust as it probably should have been. He did it slowly, as if he wasn’t sure he really wanted to stop touching her.

It gave Beth a sliver of hope that maybe, just maybe, they hadn’t lost each other.

Maybe, they could find their way back to where they’d been.

He ran the back of his fingers down her cheek, their eyes still locked.

“Please don’t tease me, Sugar,” he whispered, his accent lengthening his words. “I’m not in a good place and I’m definitely not the guy you’re looking for.”

Beth couldn’t stop herself from smiling. She trailed a finger up his chest and pointed a finger at him, poking him a little. “I recall saying something similar to you.”

“I remember.”

“Do you remember what you said to me?”

He nodded. “This is different.”

“Why don’t you let me worry about that?” she said, feeding his own words back to him.

“I mean it, Beth. I’m not in a good place.”

She shrugged and took a step away, their eyes still connected. “I can’t say I’m anywhere near where I want to be either.” She grabbed the handle of her bag and took a step, waiting for him to join her. It took him a second, but he did and they fell in step together. “All I know is that I thought I knew what my life was going to be like. You know, you make choices and think, this is it. This is my path.” She looked to him and he nodded. “And somehow, some way, the rug gets pulled out from underneath you and suddenly nothing is what you thought it was.”

“I can’t tell if you’re talking about you or me,” he said as they neared the elevator to the casino. When they got there, she pressed the button and doors slid open.

After they closed it behind them and they were on their way up to the hotel, she leaned against the wall opposite him. “I was talking about me,” she clarified. “I’d never presume to talk about where you’re at Logan. And maybe you’re right. Maybe all we ever had was sex and I misinterpreted it as something else. Either way, you’re the only one that gets to talk about your path. But for me, I thought I knew where I was or where I was headed, at least.”

“I know what threw me off my path. What threw you off yours?” he asked, arms crossed over his chest.

“You.” She shrugged. “At least, meeting you started the ball rolling. It’s been going downhill ever since.”

His mood took a sudden turn. “So, it’s my fault?”

Beth laughed. “Have you always been this conceited and I missed it, or is it new?”

“Have you always turned everything I said into an argument or is that new?” he countered.

“Funny, I could have sworn that’s what you just did,” she pointed out. “Everything is not about you,” Beth explained. “Yes, meeting you knocked me for a loop, and I’d challenge you to say it didn’t do the same to you. But what happened after was all me, whether I did it right or wrong. It changed my path, was the point.” When the elevator dinged and the door opened, she stepped into the lobby, dragging her bag behind her, and let him stew on her words.

Sure, meeting Logan had changed her life forever. Falling in love with him had made her a better person in some respects, but in others, she was far worse. The things she’d done, the choices she’d made had been rash and made without real thought. Her only goal had been running from Logan and her life in Freehope. Honestly, that was fairly typical for her. Shit happened, she freaked out and made crappy decisions, then life imploded. Wash, rinse, repeat.

But the second she’d heard about Logan’s leg, all of those extraneous thoughts had fallen away. The fear of the future she held so close to her chest, was suddenly less scary.

All that mattered was that the future had Logan in it.

She looked back at him and her heart sank.

He couldn’t see it. That was the problem. Without the path he’d been walking for so long, Logan couldn’t see his future. None of it even seemed to matter, almost like he’d given up.

Or gotten lost.

She headed to the front desk and was greeted by a perky blonde, named Gina, who didn’t bother looking her in the eye. Mostly, she greeted Logan, sticking out her chest and blinding them with her toothy smile.

“Can I help you?” the woman simpered.

Beth rolled her eyes. “Over here,” she snapped, waving her hand in the woman’s direction. “I have a room under the last name Walker.”

Gina spared her a glance and then looked back at Logan, her fingers working the keyboard as she looked up the name.

“I have a Beth Walker,” the woman said.

“That’s me,” Beth said, waving again.

Gina gave her a condescending smile and Beth felt the urge to smack her.

“You and your friend—”

“Husband,” Beth interrupted.

Logan coughed into his hand, but didn’t argue, thankfully, or she’d have to hit him, too.

Gina looked a little chastised, but not too much. Beth got the feeling she was the kind of woman that didn’t worry about the formalities of relationships as long as she got what she wanted.

“Husband,” Gina repeated, a sickly sweet smile on her face. “Mr. Walker”—she nodded in Logan’s direction—“it says here you’re in a room with two queens. Why don’t I bump you up to a king?”

“No,” Beth told her. “We like have sex all over the room.”

Logan barked out a laugh and hooked an arm around her head, covering her mouth and drawing her into his chest. “Behave,” he told her.

Beth glared at him and then at Gina.

“The two beds are fine,” Logan told the woman and then whispered in Beth’s ear. “Behave,” he repeated. “She’s not my type.”

Beth sneered behind his hand, though neither Logan nor Gina could see it. Instead, she began to complain behind Logan’s hand which mostly just sounded like mumbling. She could feel his chest twitch behind her and she knew he was laughing at her.

“Here are your keys, Mr. Walker.”

Logan grabbed the envelope out of Gina’s hand and led Beth across the lobby, pushing her in front of him.

“Are you nuts?” He laughed, pressing the elevator button. “Your husband?”

“What?” she defended. “If I didn’t say that, she’d have been trying to track you down while we were here and there’s no way that’s happening. You may not be mine but you sure as shit aren’t going to be hers while I’m around.”

They got in the elevator and headed up to their room.

“Not going to lie. Jealously looks good on you, Sugar.”

Beth would go so far as to say that Logan looked pleased. It was almost worth the feeling coursing through her veins, that hot, green jealousy that had sparked the visceral reaction that he spoke of. The idea of Gina hitting on Logan made her seethe, but if it made Logan smile to see Beth lose her shit, she might just do it again.

“Happy to oblige.”

“She’s not my type,” he pointed out, still smiling.

“Too perky?”

He just shook his head, stepping off the elevator and heading down the hall to their room, not answering her question. When they got inside, Beth dumped her stuff and flopped on one of the beds.

“This feels too good,” she said on a moan. “I might need a nap.”

“I told you I’d drive.”

“I told you, tomorrow you can drive for a while. We’ve still got a ways to go before we get to the Grand Canyon. There’ll be plenty of driving for you to do. Besides, I think it’s the stripping that tuckered me out, not the driving.”

She sent him a look, hoping it was something he could laugh about now. It was one of the funnier situations she’d found herself in. While he hadn’t been laughing at the time, maybe with a day between the incident, he’d see the humor in it.

He’d dropped his own bag and was looking out the window, running a hand through his blond hair, combing it to the side.

When he looked back at her, over his shoulder, there was a small smile on his lips.

She felt a swell of pride in putting it there.

“You were working hard,” he admitted. “And that couch is probably one of the most uncomfortable I’ve ever slept on. That probably didn’t help.”

She gave him a nod of agreement. “I think there was a spring that was alive. Every time I moved, it moved with me, poking me in the ass.”

“It’s a bitch.”

They fell into a silence that wasn’t uncomfortable per se, but Beth felt like they should have had more to talk about. She didn’t want to bother him with unnecessary chatter, if he was needing some quiet, so she scooted up the bed and put her head on the pillow and watched him as he took in the scenery.

He looked the same, for the most part. With his long pants, she would never know that he’d lost his leg and in turn, everything he thought he knew in life. Quite literally, he’d had his legs cut out from underneath him.

She felt sorry for Logan. Not in the way he’d think if she told him that. Hell, she’d been lost nearly her whole life. She’d had the rug pulled out from underneath her before, so she knew what that felt like. She’d barely pieced her life back together in the aftermath of losing her mother and it had taken more out of her than she’d ever admit.

She knew the hell he was going through. Maybe not the physical part, but the emotional part, for sure.

Logan had always wanted more from her than she’d been willing to give. From the very first moment they’d met, he’d commanded her attention. He’d pulled stories from her she hadn’t meant to tell him. He’d made her want things she hadn’t thought she’d ever want.

He’d been the catalyst that had knocked her off her path.

He hadn’t wanted to hear that when she’d told him, but it was the truth.

She closed her eyes and conjured up the memory of the first night they’d slept together. Not the sex, not the foreplay, but seeing him that night in her brother’s bar.

She’d felt him the second he’d stepped into the room. The air had changed and she’d just felt him. He’d waited for her out on the sidewalk and the way he’d looked at her, like he could see inside her soul, had just unraveled everything she thought she knew.

They’d had sex that night in Owen’s guest room and it had been life-altering.

She wanted to laugh at the poetic nature of it all, but she’d be lying if she said she hadn’t fallen for him that weekend.

Love at first sight, indeed.

He’d confessed then the things he saw for them in the future, the life he wanted for them, and it was magical. She could almost see the picture he painted of them, living in a little house out on the bayou, venturing into New Orleans every few days, but mostly being wrapped up in each other. They’d get married and the wedding would be small.

He’d talked about his mom a little, but still, nothing about his father. She’d be there and he wanted her to cook because she loved doing it and wouldn’t take no for an answer anyway, he’d said.

They’d honeymoon in their little house, christening every room as a married couple. Drinking moonshine and sleeping in, feeding each other by hand in front of a roaring fire.

It was a beautiful picture and she’d been sucked in from the first word.

It was when he talked about their family that her insides had turned to stone.

It wouldn’t be right away, but after a few years, she’d have their first baby. He didn’t care if it was a boy or a girl, as long as it looked like her. He’d take care of her too, making sure she was treated like a queen during the pregnancy, and after. He talked about rubbing her feet when they got swollen and getting all the foods she craved during her pregnancy. He smiled when he talked about her changing body and how he’d love the curve of her stomach as it grew and he’d love her when she was changed forever by carrying their baby.

His eyes had been warm as he made plans, watching her with a kind of love she could have never imagined even existed, let alone after just a few days. All that love was directed at her and she wanted to revel in it. She wanted to wrap it all up and keep it with her every second of every day.

But the more he talked, the more she knew that the life he was creating for them, wasn’t for her. She didn’t fit in that picture he was painting.

It wasn’t meant for her, at all, because what she knew and he didn’t, was that she couldn’t have children.

Not with him.

Not with anyone.

Not ever.