A look of understanding dawned on her face. “That’s why you were sitting out on the porch that night. When I left Ryder’s bedroom.”
“I told you, I was thinking about everything I shouldn’t do.” He took a sharp breath, the air cutting his lungs. “And I know what the hell I can’t do. Don’t worry.”
She didn’t say anything for a moment. She looked up at the stars, like she was trying to choose the right words. “Good,” she said finally. “I love you, Logan. I really do. Like a brother. And I want you to be happy. I want Rose to be happy.”
“You don’t think I’ll make her happy.” He shook his head. “Neither do I. If I did...”
“It’s different for us. It’s different for us because we’re not really part of them.”
“I know that. I mean, you are now.” She looked away. “Don’t. I mean, don’t feel bad about that. I’m not insulting you, or trying to be mean. Look, I’m not the kind of guy who falls in love. I’m around her a lot. I feel some things. But I’m man enough to know what it is. And I’m man enough not to act on lust. She and I had a little fight. It got a bit out of hand. But hell, you know Rose, she can take care of herself.” He tried to laugh. “She threw a soda can at me.”
“I do know she can take care of herself.”
“You don’t need to come out here and play mama bear.”
She sighed heavily. “The problem is I feel like a mama bear to both of you.”
“You don’t have to. And I know what I am. I know what I can do, and what I shouldn’t do.”
Sammy was silent for a long moment. “Yeah, I knew all those things about myself, too. And now here I am.”
He couldn’t tell if Sammy was arguing for or against. And he had a feeling she didn’t know, either. Because they’d gone over all this when she and Ryder’s relationship had changed from friendship to more. The drawbacks. The risks. And in the end for her it had worked. So he could see why she felt torn now. Afraid him and Rose crossing a line would destroy all they’d built, also afraid she was telling him to turn away from love.
But that was all fine and good for her and Ryder.
Not him.
He was different. He was scarred.
Broken.
Rose wouldn’t heal that. He’d just break her, too.
“Not everything ends the way it did for you two,” he said.
“It could for you. If you wanted it to.”
“With someone who’s not Rose, though, right?”
“She’s so young, and it isn’t that I don’t think you’re great.”
“You can’t say anything to me that I haven’t said to myself,” he said. “Did you think I wanted to wake up one day attracted to Ryder’s sister? I didn’t. I agree with every reason you have that it’s not going to happen with her.”
“I know. But that doesn’t mean it can’t happen with someone.”
“You’re confusing a few things. The fact that I think she’s hot doesn’t mean I want anything else. That’s the issue.”
She looked at him skeptically.
“Don’t do that,” he said. “Don’t psychoanalyze me. I don’t need your hippie-dippy feelings bullshit.”
“Fine,” she said. “But Logan, there is someone out there for you. I know it.”
He knew that she believed it. She believed that because she was able to heal from the wounds of her past, because Ryder had been able to heal from the wounds in his, that it meant they all could. Him, too.
But she didn’t know. Not really. She didn’t understand.
He had the kind of guilt that dogged a man like a demon straight out of hell. The kind of stuff that you didn’t want to bother a partner with. The kind of stuff you didn’t heal from.
He didn’t want to see Ryder and Sammy slaves to the pain that they’d gone through. And he knew that Sammy thought it was the same with him.
The same kind of pain.
It wasn’t. It couldn’t be.
His mom had been the most important person in his life. She’d chosen to have him, to raise him. To make him the center of her world, and he’d made her the center of his right back. All he’d ever wanted was to protect her.
He didn’t give a damn about his biological father. And he’d ignored his existence. The existence of his half brothers. Half sister. No matter what changed. No matter how close they got. He refused to acknowledge the connection because of the pain the man had caused his mom.
And Logan...
All he’d wanted was to give back to her.
He’d saved and saved for the best Christmas present he could think of.
The memory made his stomach turn sour.
No. There was no place for moving on. Not for him.
“Thanks for checking in. I’m just going to go back up to the cabin.”
“All right,” she said. “You can’t avoid Christmas forever.”
“I damn well can.”
“No,” Sammy said gravely. “You can’t. I’m fruitful, and round with the life that I’m creating, which has made me gloriously filled with nesting instincts. I want nothing more than to bedeck every hall with a bow of holly. And you will not escape, Logan Heath.”
“Watch me,” he said, turning away from her.
But even in the middle of all his irritation, in the middle of this insanity with Rose, he felt remarkably grateful for Sammy.
She was the one person who came close to knowing how he felt about anything.
And yeah, she was perilously close to some home truths that lived inside of him, and perilously close to a man who would cheerfully snap him in half if he found out the kinds of things he thought about his sister, but still, all things considered it was good that he’d talked to Sammy.
It put it in perspective.
Because even Sammy thought he was bad for Rose.
Sammy was a romantic. She was an optimist. And she certainly saw better in him than he
