‘I WON MEDAL!’ Jamie cried, pride and jubilation bursting out of every flailing limb as he showed off his race medal.
‘Careful, champ.’ Logan laughed. ‘But that looks amazing. You’re a winner.’
Swinging his son into the air, Logan held the little boy aloft as Kat’s gaze dropped from the delighted four-year-old to the man who was beginning to dominate her life. And not just because of the way he affected her body—although, as she tried to keep her eyes off Logan’s rippling abs, a taut knot was already forming in the pit of her belly.
Her libido seemed to be in a permanently heightened state these days. No guesses as to why.
‘We all got medals,’ Jamie announced, wrenching her attention back up.
She told herself that was a good thing and lifted her hand up to Jamie’s, to be rewarded with an enthusiastic high-five.
‘Wow, that’s super-amazing. Are you going to hang it on your bedroom wall?’
‘Yes, yes, yes.’ Jamie wriggled excitedly on his dad’s shoulders, then his expression turned grave as he peered down at this father and Kat. ‘Now, you have to win medals, too.’
‘I can’t promise anything, champ.’ Logan laughed as Kat shook her head.
‘I’ll just be happy to finish, Jamie. I’m nowhere near as fast as your daddy. Maybe I should have done the kids’ fun run with you.’
Besides, if Logan’s parents didn’t find them soon, to take Jamie, they wouldn’t be running anywhere.
‘You not twelve.’ Jamie frowned, citing the upper age limit for the race.
A bubble of laughter rose through Kat. It happened more and more these days—always around Logan. Could it only be a year ago when she’d feared she might never laugh again?
‘You’re right,’ she told the little boy. ‘I’m not twelve, so I guess I would have been too old for the fun run.’
Jamie didn’t look impressed.
‘Not old,’ he told her airily. ‘Kind. Pretty.’
‘Ah, thank you, Jamie.’
‘Good recovery,’ Logan added dryly, and as Kat looked at him, his eyes swam with a warmth that heated her very bones.
‘We’ll run together.’ Logan shrugged, responding to Kat’s earlier comment. ‘What’s the point of training together if we run separately?’
Her stomach flipped and rolled deliciously, but she tried to keep her grin light.
‘The point,’ she told him, ‘is that you are competitive enough in training. You always push yourself that bit harder. I’m grateful for all the pacing and motivational speeches and all that, but I think I’d rather run at my own pace and enjoy the run.’
And not be distracted by him. Not that she was about to voice that one.
‘It’s a race.’ He frowned before he could help himself, making her laugh again.
‘Case in point.’
‘Fine. We’ll run separately. I didn’t want to show you up with my costume anyway.’
‘You have a costume?’
‘’Course!’ he exclaimed, pulling items out of his rucksack. ‘It’s a Santa Dash after all. I have a red tutu and a green elf hat.’
Of course he did, because that was so typically military of him.
‘It’s a fairy dress.’ Jamie eyed his father critically.
‘It’s a Christmas fairy. Good, huh?’
Jamie looked distinctly underwhelmed.
‘Fairies are for girls. They’re pink.’
‘Who told you that?’ Logan bent down to smile at his son. ‘There are just as many boy fairies as girl fairies.’
Unexpectedly, he glanced over and winked at her, and her heart vaulted with all the energy of an Olympic gymnast. It was nice to be drawn in as though she was part of their little family.
‘And they might be pink,’ Logan was continuing, oblivious to her momentary distraction, ‘but they don’t have to be.’
Jamie still looked unconvinced, but now there was clear doubt in his mind. As he turned his focus back on his race medal, Logan turned to face her.
‘I brought a set for you, too.’
‘I like the way you handled that,’ she told him quietly, before she could change her mind.
‘I like the way you handle a lot of things.’ He winked, and she tried not to flush, even though every inch of her body was tingling at the insinuation.
The past week they’d seen each other every day, not including the shifts they’d worked together. They’d been running together, taken Jamie out for festive treats, and had even decorated another room in Logan and Jamie’s apartment.
They’d broken the rules and stolen a few kisses—heavy, and passionate, and ultimately all the more frustrating—in every corner of his apartment, as well as empty consultation rooms at work.
But they still hadn’t had a chance to be alone, and finish what they’d started that night.
It was driving Kat crazy. Her body felt like a messy melting pot of wicked desires and unfulfilled urges. She felt a permanent restlessness under her skin, like her body wasn’t quite her own. Like she was ready to explode.
She craved him more and more, and not being able to have him was only making that hunger all the more intense.
‘Don’t tell me you’re too afraid to put them on,’ he baited her, holding up a second costume.
He was throwing down the gauntlet, and she was trying to think up a witty response. Then those wretched eyes of his twinkled mischievously at her, and they both knew she was lost.
‘Fine.’ She feigned a heavy sigh. ‘Throw it over here.’
A green tutu and candy cane hat sailed through the air, and she shook her head she pulled them on.
But this was the side of Logan that she liked the most. The goofy side. Pulling the kind of stunts he’d pulled with his army buddies. She knew, because she’d seen the photos and she’d heard his stories.
And she’d tried not to read too much into it when he’d told her that she was the first—the only—person he’d told this stuff to since he’d been discharged from the army.
She was helping him. And that was okay because he was helping her, too. But when this...thing—whatever it was—between them ended, what then?
And it would end. That had been the agreement from the start.
Shoving the moment of apprehension to the back of her mind, Kat tugged the tutu over her running shorts and rammed the hat on her head, just as she heard Jamie’s shout.
‘Nana! Gramps!’
Embarrassment burned through Kat even as she lifted her head to Zula, and Logan’s father, smiling as widely as she could as the greetings were made.
Of course they would head over just as she looked a fool. Well, she could be embarrassed or she could own it, and the fact was that it shouldn’t matter to her what they thought of her. It wasn’t as though she and Logan were...anything. Right?
‘There.’ She bounced her head comically, making Jamie and even Logan’s parents laugh. ‘How’s that?’
‘Very festive.’ The older couple smiled and Jamie clapped his hands in approval.
‘Pretty Kat.’
And then Logan stepped forward between the three of them and her, making a show of adjusting the headband, the expression on his face making heat pool low, between her legs.
‘Very pretty Kat,’ he murmured, too quietly for anyone but her to hear.
The moment stretched out and, in that instant, Kat thought he was going to kiss her, right there in front of everyone.
Worse, she was standing there unable to move, unable even to breathe, waiting for him to. Willing him to.
And then he turned away sharply.
‘Okay, the race will be starting soon so we’d better get going.’ He stopped and dropped a kiss on his son’s head. ‘I want to hear you cheering, champ. The louder you shout, the faster I run—got it?’
‘Got it,’ Jamie parroted back happily.
‘See you shortly.’
Then Logan was grabbing her hand and heading off. Almost as if they were a proper couple after all.
‘What do you think, champ, will it do?’
Jamie eyed his father’s first-place trophy with awe.
‘It’s ’mazing,’ he breathed.
‘Want to hold it?’
Jamie held out his hands reverently, sucking in air through his tongue and his teeth as he concentrated on not dropping it.
‘Hardly fair competition, really, was it?’ Kat chuckled quietly. ‘You’re a bodyguard and former soldier.’
‘And Christmas fairy, let’s not forget.’
He flicked his tutu and Kat wondered how on earth it was possible for it to make him look even more masculine, rather than less.
Possibly it was the all-too-broad, muscled shoulders and the chest that she kept dreaming about licking. Every hard ridge and every defined curve.
‘So where’s a fairy godmother when you need one?’ she grumbled, only loud enough for him to hear, and certainly not expecting a response.
She almost leapt out of her skin when Zula appeared at her shoulder.
‘Why, here, dear.’ Logan’s mother smiled impishly.
‘Oh, I didn’t... I wasn’t...’ Kat stumbled. She certainly hadn’t been meaning Zula when she’d mentioned a fairy godmother.
‘I’m teasing.’ The older woman laughed, before turning to her beloved grandson. ‘Gramps is just finding the car, but we’ll be leaving soon. Shall we drop the trophy off at home for Daddy and you can get your overnight bag?’
‘I’ll walk you to the gates, Mom.’ Logan put his arm around his mother, who batted his arm away good-humouredly.
‘I can walk myself, I’m not decrepit yet. You just concentrate on saying your goodbyes to Jamie.’
Kat watched them wordlessly. Something about the way they interacted crept under her skin and wound through her, making her think of her own family. Had she done the wrong thing by pushing them away all this time?
She’d believed moving away had been for the best; that it would hurt too much watching them so happy with their own families. Now she was beginning to wonder if being part of them might actually have helped her to heal instead.
‘Fine. Have a good weekend trip.’ Logan offered his mother one final hug. ‘I know Jamie has been really looking forward to it.’
‘So have we.’ Zula smiled. ‘Hope you have a good shift at the hospital tomorrow. And you too, Kat, dear. Well done on the race.’
As the older woman strode elegantly ahead, ready to flag down her husband, Kat followed behind with Jamie and Logan.
It had been a nice day and Logan’s parents were so welcoming, it had almost been like being back with her own loving family. Almost.
Ahead of them, a little girl was being swung between her mother and grandmother as they walked around, and Jamie stopped abruptly and spun around with excitement.
‘Swing, Daddy?’
‘I don’t know, buddy...’
Logan glanced at Kat discreetly, not putting her on the spot but giving her the opportunity to decline.
‘Swing?’ the little boy pleaded.
‘Sure.’ She grinned, ignoring the unexpected pang in her chest as she thought of the times Carrie, too, had watched children being swung between two parents without ever being able to enjoy it for herself.
Did the little girl’s biological parents do that now that they had her back?
Was Carrie’s life better with them this time around? It had to be because no one had been in touch with her in the past year. And that was a bittersweet notion.
‘Come on, little man.’
Shaking off the momentary melancholy, Kat held her hand out for an excited Jamie to grasp, then counted down with Logan as they swung the boy high into the air between them whilst he shrieked with delight. And as Logan turned to mouth a word of thanks to her, she told herself it didn’t send a tremor of pleasure through her.
She told herself she was imagining this...bond that was budding between them. And, still, as they passed an older lady creeping slowly along the path towards them, Kat couldn’t help returning the woman’s indulgent smile with a wide grin of her own.
Right up until the old lady spoke.
‘I have to tell you, dear, that you have a lovely family.’
‘I... Oh...’ A thousand answers chased through her head.
What was she supposed to say? That this wasn’t her family at all?
‘I—’
‘Thank you,’ Logan cut across her, flashing his trademark charming smile at the woman as they continued past.
It was all Kat could do not to drop Jamie’s hand. Her face felt tight—rictus—with the effort of not crumbling. The effort of keeping Jamie swinging, as though her chest wasn’t cracking, was almost unbearable.
As though she didn’t want to curl up in a ball right there on the pathway.
But, somehow, she kept going. The silence a deafening howl between them.
‘Hey, buddy, is that Nana and Gramps just ahead?’ Logan stopped a few moments later as a car pulled up just by the park entrance.
Relief rushed through Kat. Surely the timing couldn’t be more opportune, she decided as Jamie dropped their hands and begin to careen ahead of them across the grass to his grandparents.
Tentatively, Kat tried to breathe again.
Out. In.
‘She didn’t mean anything by it,’ Logan said quietly, as she snapped her eyes open to realise he was watching her carefully. ‘That woman, I mean. She couldn’t have known that we aren’t a family.’
And even though, logically, Kat knew that he was trying to make her feel better, it only made the pain sear all the hotter inside her.
We aren’t a family.
The words echoed even louder as Jamie shouted a final goodbye and waved alongside his grandparents and Logan waved back.
The fact was that Logan, and Jamie, and the little boy’s grandparents were a family. She was the only outsider here. The one who wasn’t part of them. The one who didn’t have a family—at least, not one she saw any more.
Through her own choice. And not, as she’d always pretended, because they were scattered all over the globe. They were living their lives. Having families of their own. And she hadn’t been able to bear it after losing Carrie.
A fresh lance of pain stabbed through her, almost crippling her. Reminded her how utterly broken and lost and defeated she’d felt when the little girl had been taken from her.
For the little girl’s sake, she’d clung to the hope that Carrie finally had her own, true family back. But for her own sanity she’d decided that she could never again go through that torture of loving a child so deeply, only to completely lose them.
But rather than protecting herself, was she really just hanging onto the pain?
Kat wasn’t sure that she could tell any more. Confusion threatened to overwhelm her.
‘I know that woman didn’t mean anything by it.’ She would have preferred it if her voice didn’t sound so clipped, so distant, but it was better than giving in to the emotion she was only barely keeping at bay right now. ‘Still, people should watch what they say, and not make assumptions.’
He eyed her again and she tried not to squirm under the scrutiny.
‘Do you really hate the idea of kids that much?’
Her chest kicked. Hard.
How could he read her so well in one sense and yet not at all in another?
‘I don’t hate kids at all.’ She reached tentatively for each word.
‘I didn’t say you hated kids,’ he corrected calmly. ‘I’ve seen you deal with plenty of children in the hospital, and you’re a natural. I asked if you hated the idea of them.’
She wanted to answer but she couldn’t. She couldn’t even think straight.
‘You’re wonderful with Jamie, too. But there’s something...guarded about you. I can’t figure it.’
How was it that someone who had known her for barely a couple of weeks could read her better than the colleagues she’d worked alongside for months?
It was simultaneously thrilling and daunting.
It made some secret, mutinous part of her want to stop desperately trying to contain all the bubbling emotions that seemed intent on spilling out all over her, and just...talk.
She could feel the logical, superior part of her brain battling to smother it. To regain control. And it was succeeding.
But not before her tongue let loose for a moment.
‘I don’t hate the idea of kids. I...’
Can’t have them.
She trailed off, horrified at the way the admission hung there, tainting the air. Casting a bleak shadow on what was meant to have been a fun day. Ruining it.
Only Logan didn’t look like his day was ruined. He looked very much as though he was interested. Worse, he looked as though he cared. And she didn’t think she could stand to see the compassion in his gaze.
It made something inside her shift when she needed it to stay as resolute as ever.
As she stood there, wondering what she could possibly say next, the sky darkened, there was an ominous rumble, and the rain dropped straight from the heavens down on top of them. Soaking them right through.
And still she didn’t move. She didn’t care.
Not until Logan grabbed her hand and ran towards the park’s glass pavilion.