Shelter You (24 page)

Logan walks me into the house with one arm around my waist and the other carrying Lily’s car seat. He carefully leads me over to the couch and gently pushes me down onto the couch.

“Don’t move,” he commands. Then he puts Lily’s car seat on the floor, unbuckles her, and puts her in her play yard.

“I only fainted, Logan. I’m pretty sure I can function as I normally do.”

“You hit your head pretty hard there chief. Let’s not take any chances.”

Who am I to argue? If it makes him feel better to watch over me and force me to take it easy for a day or two, it’s the least I can do for all that he has done for me.

“I felt used. Dirty, too dirty to be with someone like you.”

“You know that’s not true right?”

“I still think you deserve better than this. You deserve to have someone who doesn’t have as much emotional baggage as I do.”

“Nobody is perfect, you know? Everyone has something, some part of their life they wish they could change and it’s not up to you to choose for me. I want you, I’m very sure about that.”

“I want you too. I just don’t want you to wake up one day and realize you made a huge mistake.”

“The only mistake would be waking up one day and not having you there. I’m not going to let that happen, you can’t run away from this, Mia. This is your life, here with me and it will be a good life if you allow yourself to have it.”

“I can try.”

“You’ve been dealing with all of this stress for a long time. Nick’s abuse and having a baby as a result, the issues with your parents and now Lily’s kidnapping…I think you need to see someone babe, talk to someone, sort through all of your emotions so that you can move forward and not be haunted by all this shit.”

“I don’t want to have to relive it. I don’t want to have to think about it, let alone talk about it.”

“One day Lily is going to want to go have a sleepover at her friend’s house. She’s going to want to assert her independence, go to the movies or the mall. Are you going to be able to let her do these things without driving yourself crazy with worry?”

“No,” I whisper.

“Will you speak to someone?” he asks, stroking my cheek with his hand.

“Yes. I will.”

“Good.”

“What will I tell her?”

“What will you tell who?” he asks, shaking his head.

“Lily,” I reply, looking up at him. “What will I tell her when she asks me about her father?”

He tilts his head and eyes me for a few moments, I don’t wonder for long what’s going on in his mind when he finally speaks.

“You tell her the truth. You tell her that her father has loved her since the first time he held her in his arms and rocked her to sleep. You tell her that her father has always been there for her and looked out for her. I’m her father and I will be her father in every way that counts, and if it makes you feel any better we can go to your parents high priced lawyer and have her draw up new adoption papers, ones that will legally make me Lily’s dad.”

“You would do that?” I question, hardly believing that he can possibly be serious about legally making Lily his daughter. That he would take the child of an obviously evil man and raise her as his own.

“Yes I would do that. As a matter of fact, I want to do that. We’re a family so we should make it legal.”

“When I found out I was pregnant I thought that my life was over, that my entire future had been destroyed. I never would have imagined that things would turn out this way, that I would have a beautiful daughter and amazing man by my side. I never would have believed that this could be possible.”

“I want to marry you, Mia, and if you think that it’s too soon I’ll understand that. I know you’re only eighteen and if you’d rather wait a few years then I’ll give you that, but this is it for me. You and Lily are it for me and I’m never going to be able to let you go. I don’t want to ever let either one of you go.”

“Was that a proposal?” I ask, unable to hide the hope in my voice. I know that I’m young, I’m only eighteen but I’ve been through more in that short time than some people go through in a lifetime. Having a child has forced me to mature earlier than I would have liked but I can’t change that. All I can do is go with it and look forward to my future. All I know is that a future with Logan is more than I could have ever hoped for, having him in my life is just proof that good things can happen even in the hardest of times, that there is light beyond the darkness.

He pulls my hand into his. It’s a simple touch that sends a rush of warmth throughout my body. “Do you want it to be a proposal?”

“I think so.”

“Then it definitely was.”

I let out a sigh as I try to wrap my head around this come to terms with all that has transpired over the last few months. I try to understand how I could have gotten so lucky as to end up in this town, running into Logan at that hospital and having him take an interest in me.

What if we hadn’t met, if I had truly been left to fend for myself? Would I have been able to make it with a baby on my own or would I have ended up like Logan’s sister Amy? He told me once that he joined the police force so that he could do some good, so that he could help someone, and maybe save someone the way he couldn’t save her.

“What do we do? What happens now?” I ask.

“Now we live our lives. We make plans together and build a future.”

A future with Logan is absolute and utter perfection to me.

“Do you have any ideas about what plans we should make together?”

“As a matter of fact I do. For starters, I’m quitting the police force.”

“What?” I nearly shriek out in shock. “Why? I thought you loved your job.”

“I loved the idea of it, the thrill of getting criminals off of the streets and helping people who need it, but Tim getting shot was a wakeup call for me. I never want someone to come and knock on our front door to tell you that I’ve been shot or worse. I never want you to lose sleep at night wondering if I’m coming home, or to have Lily afraid of her dad leaving the house because he might not come back. I never want you to have to mourn for me. I wanted to help and save people. That’s all I ever wanted.”

“You helped me, you saved me. You saved Lily.”

He lowers his head to mine and rests his forehead against mine.

“Then I fulfilled my goal, I did what I set out to do and I can leave the force feeling like I made a difference and I can feel good about that.”

“Well, what will you do?”

“I will do what was planned out for me since the day I was born,” he says with a chuckle. “I’ll make my father a very happy man and go work for him at his company and make way more money than I ever could being a cop.”

“But will that make you happy?” I stroke his cheek the way he always does to me.
“Yeah, it will. It’s what I wanted to do before we lost Amy. I always felt like that was my place, helping to carry on my dad’s company. It’s what I always assumed I’d do. I just had to take a slight detour for awhile, but now I’m ready, I’m ready to take my place at the company.”

“If you’re sure that’ll make you happy then I’m happy for you, and I have to admit a little relieved too.”

“I’m glad,” he says, kissing the tip of my nose.

“I just have to figure out what I’m going to do now.”

“I know what you’re going to do.”

“Yeah? What?”

“You’ll see. Just trust me.”

Trust me
he says, two words that for so long caused me nothing but anxiety, words that I could never really believe in because “trust” to me was always a lie. A thing that people used to manipulate my feelings and emotions so that they could bend me to their will. Trusting people in my life always came with a nice heaping dose of disappointment and consequences. Logan came along and changed that, he showed me that trust is possible, it’s real and it’s beautiful when it’s given to the right person and giving it to him wasn’t easy but it was the act that pulled me out of the darkness and brought me to love.

I take in the sight of him, all of him, all mine and I give him the words I know he’s been waiting for since we met. “I trust you.”

Three Years Later

-Logan-

I hang up the phone on the conference call that I’ve been stuck on for the last hour and a half. I love my job but phone calls like that are seriously not why I decided to come and work at my dad’s company. Days like today are few and far between but I can’t wait to get the hell out of this office. I pack up my papers and shove them in my briefcase while I simultaneously turn off of my computer. It’s not even five o’ clock yet but I’m pretty much done with this day.

I get on the elevator and press the button for the
fourth floor. I look up watching the numbers of each floor light up as the cart descends.

After several stops on numerous floors the doors finally open on the fourth one and I slide through the few bodies still lingering on the elevator. I come to the brightly colored double doors and enter the four digit passcode on the wall. The doors unlock and suddenly I’m transported into a whole other world. This is by far the best part of my day.

I’m greeted by a young lady with brown eyes and matching hair. “Hi, Mr. Tate. She’s been waiting for you.”

I smile and nod at her and swiftly head down the hall, I enter the last room on the left and as if on cue she spots me before I do her.

“Daddy!”

“Lily!” I call, bending down just enough to scoop her up as she runs into my arms. She wraps her little arms around my neck as I place kisses all over her face. “I missed you peanut. How was your day?”

“Miss Lori tried to make me take a nap again, Daddy.”

“She did?” I ask exaggerating my tone for her. I snatch her lunchbox and coat from the hooks that line the wall and give a smile to Lily’s teacher as I carry her out of the room.

“So what happened? Did you take a nap?” I smile at her and press the call button on the elevator once again.

She sighs. “Can I still watch Yoyo Bears tonight?”

I hold back an urge to chuckle and step onto the elevator. “You can if you took a nap.”

“Daddy…” She whines.

“So you didn’t take a nap?”

“I don’t like sleeping on the floor, Daddy.”

“It’s not on the floor, Lily. You have a mat and a sleeping bag. It’s very comfortable and you should at least try. When you take your nap, you get to stay up later to watch Yoyo Bears.”

“Okay,” she says, resting her head on my shoulder.

This little girl has the power to turn the shittiest day around with just a flash of a smile. I can’t even remember what life was like without her now. I hurry out of the building and hop into the back seat of the awaiting car.

I buckle Lily into her booster seat and settle in. I hate being driven around but living in New York City and driving to work is pretty much impossible. On the days that Lily has day care I opt to use the company car otherwise I use other means of transportation. Getting around this city with a child takes careful planning but it’s worth it for the life that we get to live.

Mia, Lily, and I moved to New York shortly after Lily was kidnapped by that psychotic son of a bitch, Nick. I realized when we got her back that my reason for becoming a police officer had been achieved. Yes I wanted to fight crime and make the city safer but I think really I just wanted to help people in trouble the way that I couldn’t help my sister Amy, and every time I did it made me feel a little bit like less of a failure. I never really understood how deep the guilt was that I carried where Amy’s death was concerned but then I met Mia. Scared but brave Mia with a tiny newborn baby and no one to help her. She came into my life and turned it on its axis; her presence sent me reeling and threw me deep into uncharted territory.

Becoming Mia and Lily’s protector became all-consuming for me, it was as important as taking my next breath. Failure was not an option, never an option when it came to making sure that they didn’t end up facing the world alone. I knew from the moment I met her that Mia was different for me, she wasn’t like any one I had ever met. I could sense her intense determination and will to survive from our very first conversation. I never however imagined that I would end up falling in love with her or having the overwhelming need to claim Lily as my own. Having a family was not on my radar, not even close but Mia and Lily changed that for me and I’m grateful for that every single day.