“All done, munchkin? Let me see?”
Hannah’s heart gave a rather suspicious bump, seeing the two of them together, bend over whatever the little girl had drawn. The resemblance really was uncanny. Logan’s jaw tightened, and that flash of pain was back when he glanced up from the paper and looked at Hannah.
She stepped closer and bit the inside of her cheek to stop herself from reacting when she saw the drawing. As childlike as it was, there was no mistaking the emotions behind the drawings. A smaller figure was on the floor, a rather menacing looking larger figure on top, and the paper had holes where the biro Rhia had used had gone straight through the thick note pad, showing the force she’d used. A force that was echoed in the wide splodges of black which spread out from the figure on the floor. Hannah swallowed past that huge lump of emotion lodged in her throat when it dawned on her what that must represent.
She fell, rather than sat down on Rhia’s opposite side and blinked away tears.
Rhia traced those splodges and hugged her beloved rabbit closer with her free hand.
“Is that what you dreamed about, sweetie?” How Hannah got those words out she would never know, and she saw Logan’s thighs tense in her peripheral vision. He was taking deep breaths in through his nose and out through his mouth, as though he was struggling to hold onto his emotions, and her heart reached out to him.
None of this could be easy for him, yet he was here, looking after his niece, while dealing with his own demons.
“Daddy hurt Mummy. Always hurts … hear her scream in my sleep.”
Logan shot to his feet then, and Rhia jumped. Her thumb went back in her mouth as she watched him pace to and fro like a caged lion.
Hannah shot him a warning glare, and he stopped that pacing and muttering and got to his haunches in front of her.
He took Rhia’s little hands in his.
“Shall we try what Hannah said? Rip up this bad dream and flush it away?”
Rhia gave a tiny nod, followed by another huge yawn, and he scooped her up in his big arms.
“Well then let’s do that. Will you do the honors, please?”
Hannah, too, rose and smiled at the wide-eyed little girl, as she ripped the piece of paper in half.
“Yes, let’s do that.” By the time they’d made a big production of tearing the drawings into gazillions of pieces, and helped Rhia flush every last piece down the toilet, she was falling asleep in Logan’s arms. The gentle way he carried her through to the spare bedroom, tugged her under the covers, and dropped a kiss first on Mr. Hoppy’s head and then hers—clearly a well-established part of their bedtime routine—made Hannah want to cry in earnest. Rhia looked so terribly small and fragile in that big bed all by herself. When Logan didn’t seem to want to leave her, Hannah made herself scarce and made her way back into the living area. The bowl of strawberries and the bottle of champagne, still somewhat cold in its cooler, called her, and she helped herself. The bubbles exploded on her tongue, and she was in the process of biting into one of the lush fruits when Logan reappeared. His tense features relaxed when he saw her, and he grinned. A lazy, far too dangerous to her hormones smile, as he stalked across the room to her.
“Ah, I’d forgotten all about those.” He tugged the half-eaten strawberry out of her hands and popped it in his own mouth. “I had all sorts of wicked things planned for those.”
Hannah knew her own mouth had fallen open, but really, what was she to make of that? A cry from the room Rhia was sleeping in broke the sexually charged moment. Logan made a move back to the room, but nothing further was heard, and he stopped, uncertainty written all over his features.
“Leave her. I think she’s still asleep. She’ll eventually stop having these. I’m assuming she’s having counseling?”
Logan sighed, abandoned the champagne, and poured himself a far too generous measure of whisky. He downed the amber liquid in one go and poured himself another.
“I’d go easy on that. You want to hear her if she has another nightmare, right?” The glass stopped halfway to his mouth, Logan swore, and then slammed the heavy crystal back on the sideboard with so much force Hannah was surprised it didn’t break into smithereens.
“Fuck it.”
He turned around, parked his butt on the edge, and crossed his arms over his chest. It exposed another tattoo on the underside of his arm.
Claudia followed by a broken heart. With sudden insight, Hannah kne
w just who that must have been, and stepping closer, she ran her fingertip over the ink.
“Her mother?” she asked.
“Yes, I had it done after … well, when it became apparent she wasn’t going to wake up. They turned off her life support, but she confounded everyone by breathing on her own. It shouldn’t be possible with the amount of damage her brain sustained, yet there it is. So, now she’s caught in limbo, and we wait.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to say how sorry she was again, but the bruised knuckles of his hand stopped her. He wouldn’t appreciate empty platitudes, and that’s all that would be.
“Is there any chance she might wake up?” she asked instead.
Logan shrugged and shook his head.