Her Temporary Hero (a Once a Marine Series book) (Entangled Indulgence) (16 page)

…

“Don’t you dare hang up!” Anger boiled up from Logan’s soul. Years and years of agony and loneliness, of knowing no matter what he did or how hard he tried, he never truly belonged. She hadn’t even called him; she just left. “So it was a lie. A goddamned lie.”

“What?”

He barely heard her over the tears in her voice. That pissed him off more. “You said you loved me.” He’d believed her. Was trying so hard to be the man she could love. “But at the first sign of a real fight, you bail.” He shot his gaze around their room, so empty without Becky’s things, Sophie’s toys, even Jiggy sprawled out on the floor, snoring.

They’d really left him. The hot anguish mixed with explosive anger. The walls of his house pressed in with unbearable pressure.

“What choice did I have? I had to go. For Sophie.”

Christ, her broken words hurt him as badly as his own pain. “I wouldn’t let my father hurt you or Sophie. Don’t you understand that?” How could this have all gone so wrong?

She didn’t believe in him. Desperate to escape the walls closing in, he stormed out of the front door, seeing nothing except the red mist of blind rage. “You didn’t trust me. I was trying to love you, trying—” The words shot out with uncontrollable force. “But you didn’t give me the chance, you just left. Didn’t even wait to face me, but snuck off while I was gone.” And wasn’t that all just too fucking familiar. How many mornings as a kid did he wake up and his mother had left again?

“Why would I think you’d fight for me or Sophie? You wouldn’t listen to me be about Kendra. She belonged in your family more than I did.”

The truth of that slammed into him, draining some of the air from his throbbing betrayal and rage. She’d tried to tell him Kendra shouldn’t be at their house, and he’d shut her down. He opened his mouth, but she cut him off.

“You wouldn’t even tell your boss about me. You hid me from your Marine friends.” Her breath hitched into painful gasps.

Logan’s guts seized and his chest clamped hard. He’d done that. He’d hidden her from the men he loved like brothers, and Becky thought he was ashamed of her. “No, it wasn’t like that.” His throat closed up at her broken sobs. But he’d never been ashamed of her; he was ashamed of himself for luring her into a marriage contract. Becky had done it out of desperation for her child. He’d known that from the start. And if his Marine buddies or Sienna had found out? That shit would get ugly. They’d be all over his ass, calling him on his bullshit. Then they’d have done whatever it took to help her defeat Dylan.

Logan would have lost the only leverage he’d had to have Becky and get his land.

The sheer, raw ugliness of what he’d done rendered him mute. The lies he’d told himself fell away. He hadn’t done anything to really help her fight against Dylan. He could have had Sienna running checks, digging, finding any ammunition to keep Becky from losing Sophie.

“I have to go.”

Panic clawed at his throat. “Becky, please, give me another chance. I won’t let my father—”

“I can’t. It’s too late. I won’t risk Sophie.” She hung up.

Logan closed his eyes, the weight of what he’d done nearly dropping him to his knees. He’d lost her, lost his wife, child, and dog. And for what? A piece of land.

God, he was no better than his father. Brian had engineered a way to control Logan through a contract for his land. Logan had engineered a way to use Becky and her deep love for her child to keep his land, and have her in his bed. Then he’d gotten trapped in his own game by falling for her. He’d said he was trying to love her?

He was a damned liar.

He loved her so deeply he couldn’t bear it, but didn’t have the guts to stand up for his woman.

Turning, he faced the doorway to his house. Dread built that familiar black anxiety, not from the PTSD but the realization that in this moment…

His house was just a house.

Becky, Sophie, and Jiggy were his home.

It’s too late.

Her words bounced in his brain. Logan stood there, alone on his porch, surrounded by the land he’d once thought the most important thing in the world. He scanned the horizon, the day so bright and clear he could see the pond, and the camp he’d poured his passion into taking shape.

None of it mattered without his family. So what was he going to do? Be a quitter like his mother?

Or fight to win the love and trust of his wife?

Easy choice. Logan scrolled his contacts on his phone, and hit call. Once his lawyer answered, Logan said, “Brody, drop whatever you’re doing. I have an emergency. Here’s what I need…”

A few hours later, Logan and Brody strode into his father’s office.

Brian Knight shoved back in his chair, put his elbows on the arms, and steepled his fingers. “You don’t need your lawyer. As long as your
wife
stays out of your life, the land is yours.”

If it had been anyone else but his father, he’d have decked the man for what he did to Becky. “You had Kendra spying on us.” He should have listened to his wife.

“Kendra was suspicious when you didn’t know Becky was allergic to bees. And she pointed out that Pam had gone home with a man she barely knew, then was attacked by the same guy after she started hanging around with that woman.”

Rage spattered across his mind.

“Kendra thought you were going to come home and marry her, not some—”

“Bullshit. I told her straight up we weren’t anything more than friends. I don’t give a rat’s ass about her except that she will never come near my wife again. And if I read one word about Becky in her e-zine, I’ll tell the entire world what a conniving, two-faced bitch Kendra is.” If Kendra were a man, she’d be picking her sorry ass up off the ground and searching for her teeth.

“You’re not getting this. You won’t go near that bimbo again if you want your land.”

Logan turned to Brody. “Let’s do this.”

His lawyer set the pages in front of him. “You sure?”

Never more sure, but he didn’t bother to answer. Instead, he took the pen and signed.

Brody shoved the papers in front of Brian. “Sign here, here, initial here.”

His father’s eyes hit Logan. “Another contract? I don’t think so.”

Anger, and the sick knowledge of how terrified and alone Becky must feel, churned up black rage. It took iron control to keep from attacking. “This is the deed to my land, and all rights to everything on it except my truck, weapons, laptop, and clothes, which I’m taking. It’s yours.” Uncrossing his arms, he slapped his palms on the desk. “Listen up, old man, if you ever threaten my wife and child again, I will rip you apart. Becky and Sophie are mine and no one threatens them.”

He spun to walk out and saw Pricilla and Pam white-faced in the doorway. “Not a word from either of you. Becky rescued Pam from a rapist and took both of you into our home, and you turned on her because she did something desperate to protect her baby. You got your feelings hurt, while she’s out there in total terror with no money or help trying to figure out how to survive and keep her child out of the clutches of a man who beat Becky badly enough to put her in the hospital.”

He strode out to find his wife. He had to convince Becky that he loved her and would always put her and their family first.

Chapter Seventeen

Becky’s head throbbed, her throat so sore it hurt to breathe. Sophie screamed in her car seat. They were both as sick as dogs. It took all her strength to get her baby into the house. She felt her baby’s head—fever. Her poor girl.

“Mommy will fix it.” She got out the liquid Tylenol and double checked to make sure she gave her the correct dose.

Jiggy stuck close to Becky as she gave Sophie a bath and then tried to get her to nurse. Her little nose was stuffed up and she cried in frustration. Saline, suction, and a vaporizer finally soothed her and Sophie fell asleep. They were both so tired, Becky put her in bed with her. Jiggy curled up with them.

Becky rubbed his ears, a wave of love for her pet threatening to make her cry. Again. But she couldn’t cry or her own nose would stuff up miserably. She’d accepted the offer on the trailer, talked to the lawyer, and sold her mom’s rings at a pawn shop and returned to the lawyer’s office to give that money to her.

She’d bought them time.

Just don’t think about the rings. Or Logan. God, just don’t think.

Her head was swimming with throbbing agony, her arms so heavy. “Make sure I wake up if Sophie cries.”

Jiggy licked her hand.

Finally, Becky closed her eyes, willing herself to rest. Tomorrow she’d get them someplace safer. Tomorrow…

“Stop. Please.” The barking stabbed her brain. So loud it ricocheted in her skull like a pinball machine. She couldn’t bear it. Something tugged on her shirt.

Becky swam up through heavy fatigue. Something niggling at her brain. But she was so tired.

A sharp pain cut through her confusion. She forced her weighty eyelids up. “Jiggy?” She struggled to get her bearings. Her dog was shaking her shirt like a rag doll. He must have caught her skin when he’d bitten her shirt. “What?”

Sophie lay next to her and—a thick, sickeningly familiar scent seared Becky’s nose and throat.

Smoke. Oh God. The trailer was on fire. Becky grabbed her baby, hit the ground, and tried to crawl while carrying Sophie. They had to get out.

…

“She’d better be there.” Logan’s frustration hit the nuclear zone as he swung the truck around and headed toward Becky’s trailer. He’d gone there a few hours ago and it had been empty except for Jiggy. If the dog was there, Becky would be going back, but he hadn’t been able to wait. He’d been running all over Dallas checking the places she might go—the offices of her doctors, lawyer, and realtor—he kept missing her.

“Don’t growl at me because you lost your wife,” Sienna’s voice through his truck’s Bluetooth jerked him back to their conversation. “The wife that not one of us knew about.”

He’d had to confess everything to get Sienna to cooperate and track Becky’s phone GPS. Once a Marine’s administrative assistant didn’t break laws and hack into secure sites unless she believed the cause was worthy. “I have to find her. She doesn’t know that I want our marriage to be real.”

“Ease up, cowboy. I’m looking right at her phone’s GPS coordinates. She’s at the trailer. You charmed her into that ridiculous contract, you can charm her into keeping you.”

Could he? He ground his jaw. “I had leverage then. She’d do anything for her baby. She trusted me to keep them both safe from Dylan.” And now she was alone, no protection. Anxiety gripped his shoulders and neck, pushing him to hurry. “While they were at the ranch, they were safe. A punk like Dylan isn’t going to tangle with me.”

“You think he’d go after her if he knew she was alone?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t do shit to find out.” God, he was pissed at himself. He’d been so focused on his own goals, so sure that his money and name would help Becky get full custody, he hadn’t done anything more to find out. “The only good news is he probably doesn’t know she left the ranch.”

“You sure he doesn’t know? The Ridgemonts own Ridgemont Communications…their holdings include a huge cell phone division.”

The hairs stood up on his neck. If Si could track the GPS on Becky’s phone, so could the Ridgemonts. “Goddammit.”
Calm the hell down.
“Dylan’s not going to do anything. He hasn’t made a move since he found out she was married to me. And there’s the custody case. If he tries anything, it’ll backfire.”

“Think he really wants his kid?”

“No, he wants revenge on Becky and to make Sophie go away.” Becky had told him Dylan didn’t want Sophie, and he’d threatened her and Sophie that first day he’d approached her in the parking lot. “I think his family wants her to clean up Dylan’s mess. But the social worker is all over them, just like she is us. He can’t take a chance.”

“Come on, you’re rich. When you don’t want to do a job yourself, you—”

“Hire it out.”

“Damn it, Logan, you should have called us in on this right from the start.”

“I’m asking you for help now, Sienna. Get the guys on Dylan, rip his life apart, and find out if he’s got anyone watching Becky. Get everything you can.”

“You really do care about her.”

He turned down her little street and slowed by her trailer. “More than anyone or any—oh fuck.”

“What?”

“Smoke.” He saw a glow through the front window. His pulse jacked. Heart pounded. His mind cleared to razor sharp. “Trailer’s on fire, call it in.”

Logan shot out of the truck and ran up the steps to the front door. Sounds of flames crackling warned him, but he felt the door. Hot. He wasn’t getting in this way. Was that Jiggy barking? No time.

He ran around to the carport side of the trailer, cleared the steps, and pressed his palm to the door. Little warm. Tried the lock—open. He’d think about why that door was unlocked after he got his girls out.

As soon as he opened the door, he saw flames and smelled gasoline. Quickly, he assessed the flames roaring in the living room and heading for him in the kitchen doorway.
Go.
He raced in, hooked a right to the hall. The heat behind him was intense. “Becky!”

A bark. Right there in front of him. Logan dropped to his hands and knees and grabbed Jiggy’s collar. “Show me.”

The dog shot forward. Smoke rolled down the hall, filling every crevice. Flames crackled menacingly. They weren’t going out the way he came in.

Didn’t matter. He had to find them.

Jiggy led him straight, bypassing the baby’s room into what had been Becky’s mom’s room.

A cough. They were in there.

Logan kicked the door closed, got to his feet and duck-walked to the noise in front of him. Using his cell phone light, he saw Becky at the waist high window, fighting to open it.

He angled the phone light to the floor. Sophie lay at her feet, barely crying. Logan shot to his full height and grabbed Becky by the arms. She flailed, trying to fight him in an adrenaline fueled panic. “Becky, it’s me. Logan.”

“The window won’t open.” Her voice was thin, broken. “Don’t let Sophie burn. Not my baby, too.”

Too. Like her family.

Her broken words ripped his heart out of his chest. He nudged her aside, and grabbed the window. Didn’t budge.

Using his phone light, he saw the nail holding it shut. No time. “On the floor with Sophie. Hold the dog.” He ripped the bedspread off and covered them. Then he wrapped his arm in his jacket and shattered the window. Shoved out all the pieces, and with another blanket he covered the remaining glass. “I’m handing you out first.”

Flames licked beneath the door.

His heart pounded viciously. If that door went, and with the window open feeding the flames oxygen, they would burn. He scooped up Becky, got her out and on the ground.

Thank God.

He handed out Sophie and Jiggy. It was going to be a tight fit for him. Flames exploded through the door with a roar. Logan dove out the window, hit the ground, picked up his wife and daughter and got away as sirens cut through the night.

…

Becky didn’t have her phone, wallet, money, or even her shoes. She sat on the hospital bed, holding her sleeping daughter.

She still didn’t know how Logan had ended up at her trailer, saving them from the fire. Once they got out, all hell broke loose. Fire trucks and police cars screamed to a stop in front of the fully engulfed trailer. The paramedics got there soon after and wanted to take Sophie to the hospital as a precaution.

Logan stayed with Jiggy, swearing to take care of him.

The doctors determined Sophie and Becky had a virus and appeared okay otherwise after the fire. They treated both Becky and Sophie’s viral symptoms, and now Sophie was asleep. All Becky had to do was figure out who to call to come get them, where to go, and how to survive.

Had her car made it through the fire? Even if it did, the keys were in her purse, which she assumed burned with everything else she owned. Besides, she couldn’t sleep in a car with her sick baby. She had nothing, not even diapers for Sophie.

Every time she closed her eyes, she saw flames and tasted bile.

“Becky.”

She jumped at his voice.

Logan stood at her bedside. His dark hair was shoved back, his clothes torn and bloody.

Bloody
. “You’re hurt.” Her gaze shot back to his face. A cut slashed over his cheekbone, and his arms and hands had more injuries. She’d been sitting here thinking about herself and he’d been hurt.

“It’s nothing.” He laid his hand on Sophie’s back. “Doctor said she’s okay.” He lifted his eyes to hers.

She loved his light green eyes, tried to drink them in. Imprint them forever. “I didn’t wake up. Neither of us did. We were sick. Jiggy woke me.” Where was her little guy? “Where is he?”

“He’s at a house. Safe. He’s fine, I promise.”

Tears pooled in her eyes. “Don’t take him from me. Please, I’ll find a place that takes dogs.” She wasn’t being rational, knew in her heart Logan would never take her dog from her, but she couldn’t help it. It was just too much. How ironic that she’d finally sold the trailer and it burned down. Freaking perfect.

“Don’t cry, sweetheart. No one is taking Jiggy from you.” He sat on the bed. “I meant that Jiggy is at the house we secured for you. He’s waiting for you. He can’t come in the hospital or I’d have brought him with me.”

Relief sagged through her. “Somewhere for us to stay? Me and Sophie? I don’t have my purse, or ID, or ATM card to get money out. I pawned my mom’s rings, but I gave that money to the lawyer.”

His jaw clenched. “I’ve been searching for you. I had Sienna track the GPS on your phone. You wouldn’t answer my calls or texts. I had to find you.”

“Why? Why would you risk it? Your dad is going to hear about this.”

His eyes blazed. “I’d never let him hurt you, Becky. Ever. Brody drew up the paperwork, I signed over my land and the buildings to my dad. Camp Warrior Recovery is on hold.”

His words ran together in her head, formed clumps, and spun. It didn’t make sense. The whole reason he wanted the deal was to get the permanent deed to his land so he could build the camp. “Logan, no. Your land and camp is everything to you.”

“Wrong.” He stretched his legs out next to her and pulled her into his side. “You have no reason to believe this, but I know I screwed up. I’m your husband, the one person in the entire world you should know has your back. But you didn’t know that because I didn’t have the guts to tell you I love you. You really thought I’d choose the land over my girls?”

His girls?

“You love me?” As soon as the words were out, she was desperate to call them back. She was sick, had a fever, had been through a fire, and was probably hearing things out of pure desperation.

Rubbing his hand on her arm, he said, “I don’t think I understood how much I love you until I came home and found you gone. You’ve had a horrible night and a rough few days. I don’t expect you to forgive me right away, but I’m asking you to give me a chance to prove that I love you and can be worthy of you. I’m going to protect you until I know you and Sophie are safe. That part is not negotiable—the fire tonight wasn’t an accident, it was purposely set in your living room.”

Becky was still trying to take in that he was here and loved her. Wanted to prove himself when his last sentence sank in. “Someone was inside my trailer?”

“Yes.” A nerve ticked in his jaw. “The windows were all nailed shut. They used an accelerant, probably gasoline.”

The horror caused her to lean into him, seek his strength, his warmth. Memories of the fire that took her father and brother swirled with tonight’s events. “I’m scared.”

Logan put his arm around Becky’s shoulders. “You’re not alone. I’m staying with you. My friends from Once a Marine are on their way as we speak and already working on the case.”

She tipped her head up, cold determination forming in her gut. “It’s Dylan. He tried to kill his own child.”

“He went after
my
wife and child. I’m going to destroy him. He’ll never threaten you again.”

“Yours? Even Sophie?”

He brushed her hair back, his mouth kicking up at the corners. “She had me the minute I held her in my arms on the horse.”

Logan had come for them. It was starting to fully sink in. “You really gave up your land? For us?”

The fury in his eyes melted into warm pools. “I gave up my heart for you. It’s yours. The land and my dreams are nothing without you to share them with.”

Her heart swelled. She was sick, dirty, and homeless, but she had a real family.

…

Logan leaned against his truck parked outside the Lustor Nightclub. He had a score to settle.

“I can’t figure it out.” Hunter Reece shifted, his cold-eyed stare scanning the parking lot. “Where the hell does your pretty little wife put all that food she eats? Never seen a woman eat so many fajitas. I mean they were good, but damn.”

Logan smiled despite the reason they were there. “Becky was starving today. She and Sophie are feeling better.” Becky had lost a few pounds, but judging by the way she’d attacked dinner they’d cooked together for his friends, she’d get back up to fighting weight soon.

“She’s a special woman, and that baby…man that kid’s got some killer eyes on her. If she ends up with her mom’s smile?” Hunt shoulder bumped him. “You’re going to need my sniper skills when she’s a teenager and starts dating.”