Logan Kade (Fallen Crest #5.5) (25 page)

“I’m good.” He patted the seat next to him. “You afraid of heights?”

I groaned, inching into the car. Then I was torn. To close the car door or not? Should I keep easy access to the walking path and railing, or feel more secure? I took a deep breath. My fingers clenched around the door, but I shut it. Once it clicked in place, I needed a minute. I forced myself to keep breathing. Even breaths. In and out. In and out, and when the car didn’t fall or move, I started to feel a bit more secure. Just a bit.

Logan watched me. “Guess that answers my question.”

“You’re crazy.”

“I’ve been told that.”

I shook my head, but his eyes were warm, looking at me, and his dimples showed—I was already forgetting where we were. I was with him. That was at the forefront of my mind. All else was stripped away. That was the power Logan Kade had over me, and it grew stronger with each minute we spent together.

I let out a soft sigh and felt the world right itself again. I was no longer scared.

“Better?”

“Better.”

His grin widened. I caught a twinkle of something mischievous in him and only had a second to brace myself before he twisted around to reach behind the seat.

I grabbed for the bar in front of us and clutched it.

Logan laughed as he pulled the blanket from the back. He unfolded it and shook it out over his side of the car. Then he turned back to me and pulled it over our laps. The evening had started to fade, and so had the temperature. I hadn’t noticed the cool breeze until now, but once the blanket hit my lap, it warmed my legs.

“Okay. This is nice,” I told him.

“Good.” Logan pointed out in front of us. “This is why I brought you up here. Look.”

Then everything made sense—why he’d taken the time and effort to bring the car here, why we’d climbed all this way: the view. As I lifted my head and looked beyond us, I saw my hometown looking beautiful, serene, the way it used to be to me. I gestured to the town laid out in front of us. “This is beautiful. Thank you, Logan.” I looked at him now. “I mean it. Thank you. I’d forgotten that my home could be beautiful.”

Logan grew quiet, but it didn’t matter. For some reason, the words were coming to me now, and I didn’t want to stop them.

“My mom died last year, and since then, I’ve forgotten about things. I forgot about views like this.” I pointed to the hospital. It was the tallest building, set on the outskirts of town. “She died there.”

Bang! Bang!

I flinched, my hand closing again around the bar in front of me. I could hear the shots again. “I was coming home for the holidays. I finished my finals a week earlier. I got lucky somehow. Eric, my boyfriend, wasn’t done. He wanted to stay and study all weekend, but I talked him into going home with me. I promised I’d help him study, so he agreed. I knew my mom was working a double—she was a nurse—so I talked him into stopping at the hospital on the way into town…” I faltered, remembering the day once again.

Going inside the hospital.

Going past the front desk.

Turning down the hallway to the nurses’ station—then the first gunshot.

“My mom was in the ER that night. She loved working there. She loved the adrenaline, the excitement, but that night...” My chest felt like it was shrinking. I was moving backward even though I sat still. “I was told later that a man came in with a gunshot wound. He was still alive.”

Feeling panic, I started to run down the hallway—boom.

“In the chaos, another man walked back there and shot him. He wanted to finish what he’d started. After the first gunshot, it was quiet. Eric and I were walking down the hallway to the nurses’ station, but everyone stopped. Then the second gunshot sounded, and everyone started running. A big guy turned and slammed into me. Apparently, I still wasn’t out of his way enough because he kicked me then, and I fell to the floor. It was funny because I couldn’t feel any pain, but I knew it must’ve hurt because I couldn’t walk.”

Bang!

“The gunman turned the gun on my mom. He shot her twice, and he killed the doctor in there, too. Then he started shooting everyone in the hallway.”

“Taylor, come on!” Eric grabbed my hand and started to pull.

“Eric tried to drag me backward.”

“No. My mom.”

“Taylor, come on!”

“No.” I looked back to the nurses’ station. No one was there. “She’s back there. I have to find her.”

“He wanted to run, but I could only think about my mom. She was back there somewhere.”

“Taylor,” Logan said.

I shook my head. I heard the sympathy in his voice, and I knew he was going to say all the right things: I didn’t have to talk. I didn’t have to share. I didn’t have to fill-in-the-blank. He was wrong. I did have to. I had to get it out now or I never would.

“It didn’t matter anyway,” I continued. “Even if Eric had tried to drag me out, I couldn’t move. The big guy had fucked my knee up bad. And then…”
The fourth gunshot. It had sounded right around the corner.
“The gunman was coming toward us. We could hear him.”

I heard the screams again.

“Eric left me there.” I flinched. “There were bathrooms across from us; we could’ve gone in there. It didn’t matter, though. Eric left. He ran while I was pleading for him to help me.”

“What happened to the gunman?”

“A cop got him. They’re always called when there’s a GSW. They just didn’t get there in time. They came in through the emergency entrance, so they were behind him. He was leaving, you see. He had just come around the corner to the hallway where I was when they shot him.”

“This happened at Cain Memorial?”

I nodded. “The whole thing was kept quiet by the cops. The gunman was involved in another shooting so there wasn’t any media coverage. The media respected their wishes.”

“I had no idea that happened last year.”

“A lot of people still don’t know all the details, and now the hospital has better security. I think they have metal detectors.”

“Taylor.”

Logan’s voice was so soft. “I’m not telling you for sympathy,” I explained. “I’m telling you for thanks.” My chest lifted, and I drew in a deep breath. “Thank you for bringing me up here. Thank you for showing me this.”

The corner of Logan’s mouth lifted in an adorable half-grin. He ran his hand over his hair and laughed softly. “If we’re being completely honest, I was hoping to check something off my bucket list.”

“What’s that?”

“Getting laid on a roller coaster.”

There was no pity in his eyes. There was no awkwardness, like he had no idea what to say. It was just—sex on a roller coaster. And the absurdity of it made me laugh.

The half-grin was still there. It was more of a half-smirk now. “So, does that mean there’s a chance?”

I shook my head, still laughing. “Not a chance.”

“I figured it was the best time to ask.” He winked at me. “Because you gotta be feeling close to me, right?”

That spurred another round of laughing, and I wiped tears from my eyes, but the happy kind of tears. Logan kept teasing me. I kept grinning like an idiot, and before I knew it, the evening slipped into nighttime. The lights of the city shone full, bright, and strong. They were breathtaking, and after a moment of comfortable silence descended on us, I snuck a look at him from the corner of my eye. He was staring out over the town, his jaw clenched.

“I came here before,” he said.

“Before?”

“When I was little.” He glanced to me, his eyes warming. “My mom was supposed to bring me. We didn’t do a whole lot together when I was growing up. I don’t really know why. I think it was because other stuff was going on already.” The lines around his mouth tightened. “My dad cheated on her a ton, and she started drinking because of it. Things got bad in the house, but she promised me one morning that we’d come here. I remember it so clearly because I heard this amusement park had elephants, and I really wanted to see one up close.” He grinned to himself. “I wanted to see how big their penises were.”

I wasn’t even surprised. “How old were you?”

He shrugged, still grinning. “I was young. I was in sixth grade, and Mason was in seventh.”

“What happened?”

“My dad brought a woman home. My mom found her underwear that afternoon. I think my dad had already snuck her out, but the damage was done. The whore left her underwear behind. They did that sometimes. They liked leaving things behind. They hoped my mom would find them, and she usually did.”

“Is that what ended things?”

“Not that day, no. They divorced later, probably after the fortieth mistress. No.” Logan’s grin faded away. “That day my mom got drunk at the kitchen table, then decided going to a spa was the best idea in the world. I came home from little league practice, saw the underwear, saw the wine bottles, and knew it was a wash.”

“But you still came?”

“Mason took me. He and Nate.” His voice sounded stronger. “I had fun that day.”

Despite his mother.

I heard the unspoken meaning and I didn’t have words, so I covered his hand with mine. He turned his hand, lacing our fingers together. When he looked at me, I could see the whites of his eyes, and I saw his mouth lift in the slightest of smiles. His thumb rubbed over my knuckles.

“My mom never remembered that day. Well, that’s not true. She remembers the mistress, and she remembers what color the underwear was, but not that she was supposed to take me to the park.” He cursed under his breath, leaning forward so his arms were folded on the bar. My hand was still in his, tucked firmly between his arms. It drew me closer to him. He turned to look at me, and our faces were so near. “She had no clue we went without her.”

My heart had lodged in my throat. “I’m sorry.”

He grinned, but it didn’t reach to his eyes. “You shared. I wanted to share something, too.”

The more I stared into his eyes, so close to mine, the more I could see the deeper pain hidden there. I was getting a glimpse few others had been granted. My heart picked up its pace, and the longer I stared into his eyes, the faster it beat. The world had melted away.

I was pulled even closer to him.

This was Logan. He drew people to him, and I was no different. My heart was perpetually pounding in my chest, trying to get to him. With another slight movement, my lips rested against his. Our eyes held, staring into each other. I wanted him to kiss me. I swallowed, and when his eyes closed, his lips pressed more firmly into mine.

Then we heard a gunshot below.

CAR BOMBS.

#HEREWEGOAGAIN

LOGAN

For a moment we were frozen, staring at each other, not sure what we heard. Taylor seemed paralyzed, and after that, I didn’t think.

I launched out of the car, told her to stay put, and headed to the ground as fast as I could go. She needed to be safe. That was my first thought, but I needed to know what was happening. If people were coming in here shooting, Taylor was going to be the farthest place possible. I ducked, weaved, and jumped from one section of the walkway down to another. When I got close enough, I leaped over the fence around the roller coaster, and once my feet touched ground, I ran toward where I thought the shot came from.

I kept low, running for my Escalade, and hugged as close to the buildings as I could. When I heard the yelling on the other side of the gate, I relaxed a little. Only a little.

“I told you to get the fucking money!”

“I tried, Rankin. Okay?”

“
Not okay
!”

There were more shouts, but they were muffled, and I slowed down so they couldn’t hear my approach. I went to the gate. Thank shit I’d decided to park on the inside, not out on the street like normal. I moved so I could see through a tiny hole in the wall. I couldn’t make out their faces, but there was a group of them. They surrounded one guy in the middle.

He stuffed his hands into his pockets and said, “I’ll get the money, okay?”

The other voice replied, “Fuck that, Delray. You’ve been missing payments for three months. It won’t fly anymore.”

“Delray?”

No
—I glanced behind me and Taylor was there, her eyes wide, her mouth open. As I watched, the blood drained from her face. She’d braked suddenly a few feet from me, and I went to her and grabbed her. Pulling her to my chest, I held her close and froze in place. Not one move. Not one word. When she pulled back to speak, I shook my head. My finger went to my mouth, and I pointed at the gate. They were ten feet from us. Ten fucking feet. They couldn’t know we were here.