“What?” she shrieked as she jumped up, getting the attention of both dads. “Which one of you paid Logan? Which one?”
That’s where it all began, her questioning both men while I let the numbness grow inside of me. Even Pops coming over didn’t help, and he was one of my favorite people in the world.
The human heart can only take so much hurt, and your emotions at the age of eighteen were fragile. So, I shut them off.
I didn’t feel anything, didn’t want to feel anything, but I knew that me going to the college I was going to was for the best. I’d been upset when I’d made my choice because of the distance from my family, but now I needed it.
And then the man who’d started it all walked around the corner, just as my mom laid into the dads about “payments” and “bullshit.”
Dad looked like he’d had his heart stomped on as she repeated what I’d told her, and Logan’s dad, Will, looked like he was going to be sick.
Slowly, Logan turned his head to look at me, and I caught the look of regret and pain in his eyes before I looked away again.
Ask me if I cared.
Not one fucking bit. Not even a crumb of a bit.
I was never going to see him again, and I hoped he lived with this for the rest of his life.
Chapter One
Logan
Seven long, regretful years later…
“
Now, Lawrence Heath’s granddaughter, his pride and joy, Bexley, is going to tell us about him,” the priest who was leading the funeral said to us all as we sat crammed into the pews of the church.
That’s when I got my first proper look at Bexley in seven years, as she walked up to where the priest was waiting for her, wearing a smart black dress. In the time that’d passed, she’d moved from being a beautiful girl to being a stunning woman.
At five foot five inches, she’d probably reach my collarbone, but the heels she had on would bring her to my chin. She still had her dangerous curves and long dark hair, but the innocence I remembered that she worn so well had been replaced by maturity.
Right now, it was also replaced with devastation because we were burying her grandpa, but I reckoned without that, she’d bring a man to his knees, because he’d know immediately she was totally out of his reach.
“I never wanted to think of this day happening,” she began, her lower lip trembling slightly. “I never wanted to imagine a day when I didn’t have my hero here to lean on, to talk to, to laugh with…” she cleared her throat after the last word came out sounding so raspy I almost winced.
“My pops was the best man I’ve ever met. When I was a little kid, he told me life would pass me by in the blink of an eye, and that I needed to make the most of it because I never knew what it’d bring. Last Sunday, when I rang him to see how he was, I never expected for a second that he’d have a heart attack while I was on the phone to him, or that he’d hold on until I got to the hospital to hold his hand.” On the last word, all of her strength disappeared, and she had to grab the lintel to stop herself from falling.
I didn’t think about what I was doing, I just did it.
I jumped up and walked quickly over to her, putting my arm around her waist, and taking Bexley’s weight to give her the strength to continue.
Through heartbroken tears and body-wracking sobs, she told everyone about the man who’d always been there, who’d laughed more than he got angry, who loved with his whole heart, and who’d fixed everything that’d ever broken in her life. She told stories about him that made even the hardest man in the room blink rapidly to stop their tears, and she outlined who he’d been in the best way possible.
After that, I took her back to where she’d been sitting and sat down with her on my lap, holding her in place as the service continued.
When she cried, I wiped those tears away.
When she struggled to breathe, I rubbed her back to calm her down.
When she sobbed hard enough to almost fall off my lap, I held her that bit tighter, hoping it would help her get through this.
Piersville would miss Lawrence, and we wouldn’t be the same without him, so it was hard for everyone to say goodbye to him. But what made it worse was when her dad, my grandpa, my father, Hurst Townsend, and I got up to carry his coffin to his final resting place.
Why?
Because she got up, too, and moved to the front of it, balancing it on her right shoulder and hooking her arm over her dad’s neck. Seeing it, the crying got louder in the church, and I felt the tears fall faster down my face.