His lungs felt too big for his chest at the thought. Was she happy?
Now he had the chance to find out.
All three of the large, red station doors that had formed part of the iconic façade of the station since it had been built over a hundred years ago were open as his foot hit the cement of the engine bay. He scissor-jumped over a pile of equipment in his way. It was being sorted by one of the squad and Logan’s jump almost put the guy on his ass.
“Fuck, man, where’s the fire?”
Logan ignored him. He just kept going, his gaze eagerly searching for the woman as he burst onto the busy street. She had sunglasses on now and she was standing, crumpling up the sandwich wrapper in her hand and walking towards a nearby bin, still looking in his direction.
A steady stream of cars separated them and he waved at her as he waited impatiently for a break in the traffic. She didn’t acknowledge him but who could tell where she was actually looking behind those dark lenses?
The lights at the intersection changed and Logan took advantage of the slowing traffic as she turned away. He weaved in between the cars, hitting the pavement at a half jog.
“Bella,” he called to her back as she walked in the opposite direction.
She didn’t stop. Or turn around. Maybe she hadn’t heard him? He lengthened his stride, quickly closing the distance between them.
“Bella,” he said again, reaching for her arm, sliding his hand onto it, pulling on it to slow her down.
She slowed, stopped, turned and glanced down at his hand before raising her face. The tint of her glasses made it impossible to see her eyes properly but she was definitely looking at him now.
“Bella.” He smiled, the familiar feeling of her seeping through his gut.
She frowned at him and pulled her arm away.
“It’s me,” he said, his hand falling away. “Logan.”
She stared at him for long moments, her head tilted just so again, her teeth sinking into her bottom lip the way they’d always done when she was contemplating something. “I see.”
Logan blinked. I see? What the fuck did that mean? She was looking at him like she wasn’t sure of him, like she didn’t even know him. She might have wiped him all those years ago and she might not still feel the familiar flare sparking to life inside him all over again but she had felt it once upon a time.
As keenly, as desperately as him. Of that he was sure.
No way could eight years erase the memory of that. Hell, he doubted eighty years was enough.
She pulled off her sunglasses, the blue-green of her eyes as familiar to him as his own flinty grey. Her gaze roamed over his face, inspecting it, a slight frown drawing together honey-blonde eyebrows. “We... know each other, don’t we?”
“Ha!” Logan laughed. “Very funny, Bella.”
“Bella...”
She said it quietly, drawing the word out, as if she was weighing it up, testing it to see how it sounded on her tongue. Logan supposed back in snooty Melbourne with her snooty family in their snooty legal world she’d reverted to Arabella.
Christ, she looked good. Sure, she was looking wary and slightly puzzled but it was a vast improvement on the last time he’d seen her. Her face puffy and tear-stained, a blank, tired look staring back at him.
She looked healthy. Well.
The questions crowded his brain thick and fast until the pressure of them became too much and they were spilling out his mouth. “How... have you been? What are you doing in Brisbane? How long have you been here for? You cut your hair.”
He brought his hand up to touch it but she tensed and he dropped it, his stomach dropping as well. He ploughed on trying to ignore the sick feeling in his gut. “Are you a lawyer now? Are you... here with anyone? Are you... married?”
A husband. God, even the thought of it burned like the twist of a hot poker into his flesh. She wasn’t wearing a ring. But that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Because why wouldn’t she be married? Why wouldn’t some guy have snapped her up by now?
“No.” She shook her head. “No husband.”
Logan’s breath rushed out on a relieved sigh. No husband. But there could still be a partner. There could be... kids.
“Look, I’m sorry.” She reached for his hand and held it loosely. He battled the urge to hold tighter not wanting to freak her out. “I really have to get back to court but... there was an accident. A few years ago, I was hurt. I... lost my memory. I have amnesia.”
Amnesia.
After, when Logan tried to recall this conversation, all he’d remember was the relentless beat of the sun on his shoulders and that word.
“Amnesia?”
She nodded quickly already shifting away from him. “Yes. I lost nine years. Everything from fifteen to twenty-four”—she used her hand to mimic an explosion coming from her head—“all gone. But I’m sorry...” She checked her watch and took a step back. “I really have to go. Maybe we could... meet for a coffee or a drink or something and I can explain more?”
Logan’s brain was not functioning properly at all. Bella had amnesia. He’d met her when she’d been nineteen so that meant...
She didn’t remember him.
Didn’t remember kissing under the stars on a Croatian beach, didn’t remember skinny-dipping with him at a secluded cove in the Whitsundays, didn’t remember him proposing to her on top of the Story Bridge.
Didn’t remember the baby.
“We don’t have to,” she said, her voice quiet, a frown knotting her brows as she took another step away from him.
Logan shook his head, dragging himself away from their memories and the devastating realisation that only he remembered them. “No... Yes...” He took a step towards her. “I’d like that.” He had
