“For six months,” he said, “I hadn’t made a single decision more important than what to eat for dinner.” He pushed away from the bed and took a step closer to her. “And then, out of the blue, you walked into my life.”
“I walked out of the shower.” She hunched her shoulders as he approached, afraid of what was coming. “How could it not have been so hot, so physical?”
“Is it? Just that?”
“This is what happens when you mix proximity and attraction.” The bandage pulled at her throat, but it wasn’t tape that caused the constriction. “Eventually it all blows up. That’s why you’re here to say good-bye.”
She couldn’t look at him. A rumble of voices sifted into the room from the hall. Someone rolled a gurney with a wonky wheel past the door. The clock on the wall ticked past the seconds. She couldn’t bear the odd silence, the ringing in her ears.
“Logan.” She tilted her chin. “I’ve had conversations like this before—”
“Like hell you have.”
“I understand what’s happening.” She absorbed the sharpness of his words without a twitch. “I’m happy that you’ve gone back to what you do best. I’m happy, after all that you’ve suffered, that you found your way—”
“I’m not your asshole ex, Jenny.”
His words choked her silent. Logan Macallister was definitely not her ex. Her ex wouldn’t have been so gentle. He wouldn’t have bothered to choose his words with such care. She recognized, now, that the relationship she’d had with her ex had been poisoned from the start. She’d made the mistake of sticking with the bastard too long, testing every variable in a vain effort to fix their faulty connection. She’d assumed the problem was with her. But Logan had taught her that love should be effortless, right from the start.
“Jenny.”
His shoes came into view where she stared at the linoleum floor. His warmth swept over her, along with that alluring, musky scent that rippled pleasure through her quicker than any drug.
“You’ve got this all wrong, darling.” His touch was like a spark on her cheek.
Why would she trembling?
“I’m not here to say good-bye.” He urged her chin up with the softest of pressures, until she found herself captured by those green eyes. “I’m here to thank you.”
She swayed a little, her chest hurting at the sudden lack of oxygen.
“I thought I’d lost everything when I left South America. Something in me broke after that tragedy.” His jaw flexed but he didn’t look away. Instead, he leaned in. “When I saw you go limp in my arms, I was sure I’d lose you just like I’d lost that sweet girl. But it all came back to me in a rush. Everything I’ve ever been taught. Clear as if I’d never been away…as if I’d been given another chance. I’ve spent the last six months trying to figure out who the hell I am, and it turns out I’m the same guy I ever was. I just needed to meet a woman who could heal me.”
Tears pricked at the back of her eyes. How could it be that she’d healed him, when he was the one who’d healed her? How many years had she thrown up walls against relationships? How much of life had she missed burrowing into her work? And yet she hadn’t thought about work once since she’d woken up in this hospital. She hadn’t turned her thoughts to crunching the data she’d already collected, or worrying about the delay in the distillations, or the papers she had to write before classes began at the end of the summer. All that had been swept away. Nothing had mattered but Logan, who she loved, even when she believed he was leaving her.
Wasn’t he leaving her? “I heard you over the phone,” she said. “You zipped up your suitcase. You left the cabin.”
“Only for a night, so I could make the trip there and back in time to fetch you out of this hospital.” He pulled a rueful smile. “All my things are still in the cabin, Jenny. Right next to yours.”
“Even the birds?”
“Even the birds.” He cupped her face. His palms barely touched her skin. “You really thought I was leaving you?”
A hot tear slipped out of her eye. “Everything is so strange, Logan. Since I woke up in this hospital. Since Dr. Nguyen told me who you are, I feel like I hardly know you. Or myself.”
“Let’s change that.”
His heart beat against the hollow of her palms, though she hardly remembered raising her hands to his chest. Was this really happening? Was he drawing her close like a promise? She couldn’t stop shaking. Creases deepened at the edge of his eyes. She took in the love in his smile but couldn’t stop staring. He really wasn’t saying good-bye?
“I have one more surprise.” He pressed his forehead against hers. “About this job…it’s in Seattle.”
She jolted a little, her heels rising. “I live in Seattle.”
“I know. John told me.” He searched her face, his thumbs grazing her cheeks. “Would it scare the hell out of you if I followed you there?”
A laugh lurched out of her before she could catch it back.
She said, “Yes.”
He pulled back, hesitant. “It’ll scare you?”
“Yes. But I want you to live with me anyway.”
He leaned down and planted his beautiful mouth on her lips. She ran her hands up his chest and locked them behind his neck, feeling another tear fall loose from her lashes.
“I should warn you,” she said, rising breathless out of his kiss, “my bed is big, but my apartment is small.”
“We’ll have to buy a place together, then.” He rocked her, swaying like a slow dance. “A little cabin of our own.”
She could hardly see him through the blur of her gathering tears. “Why am I crying?”
“Because you love me,” he said, against her lips. “And because I love you back.”
EPILOGUE
Jenny opened the oven door to a cloud of smoke. Waving it away with a
