Sacrifice (Heart of a Wounded Hero)

Guilt fills me, and I shake my head. "Ella, you don't—"

But she doesn't let me finish. Instead, she holds her hand up in front of her. "Logan, just let me do this. It's nice to be needed. So if you won't do it for yourself, do it for me."

As soon as I nod, she smiles and then walks out of the bedroom. I lie back on the bed on top of the covers and stare at the white ceiling. But for the first time in a long time, I'm not thinking about Noah or the bombing. No, I'm thinking about the girl with the big brown eyes who’s insisting on taking care of me.

Chapter 4

Ella

As soon as I walk out of Logan's bedroom, I go into the kitchen and pace back and forth. It seems like everything has changed in an instant. I have deadlines and things that need to be done, but none of that matters right now. Nothing except for Logan at this point.

It's obvious he doesn't want my help, but there's no way that I can leave him now. I shake my head, thinking of Harper and what kind of woman she must be to just leave him the way she did. A month. He was in the hospital for a month before she went to see him. It makes me sick to even think about everything he must have felt in the last thirty days. Does Harper not know what kind of man she had in Logan? He's one of the best. Most women can only dream of finding someone like him, and she had him and just threw it all away.

I lean across the island of the kitchen and put my head in my hands. It's a week. Surely I can do this for a week. Logan doesn't need to know that I've had a crush on him since the day that I met him a year ago. I can take care of him, make sure he's all right, and then as soon as he gets the clearance from his doctor, I can move back over to my apartment over the garage.

Nothing needs to be different.

I keep telling myself that while I go across the kitchen, opening the refrigerator and then the cabinets, looking to see what kind of food we have. Obviously, Harper has not been shopping for a while. Either that, or she took all of the food with her. I swear if she was here right now, I would give her a piece of my mind.

I go back down the hallway and peek in Logan's bedroom. His eyes are closed, and I watch as his chest rises and falls with every breath he takes. When I'm sure that he must be sleeping, I walk toward the front door. I can quickly grab some food, my laptop, and a change of clothes from my apartment and come right back.

I make quick work of grabbing everything and am back at the house in no time. I check on him once more before unloading the bags of groceries that I grabbed from the apartment. Luckily, I just went shopping yesterday. I put away the fruits and vegetables, sandwich meat, bread, and stuff for dinner.

Deciding on fixing something easy, I open the jar of sauce and boil some water to get the noodles going. It doesn’t take long before the spaghetti is ready, and I have it warming in the oven when I hear a scream from the other room. Without even thinking about it, I take off running down the hall and into Logan’s bedroom. He's thrashing his arms all around him, screaming and crying in his sleep.

Without thinking, I go toward him, calling his name. "Logan, wake up. Wake up, Logan. You're having a nightmare.” I put my hands on his shoulders and try to shake him. The next second, I find myself flying across the room into the dresser before crashing into the floor. But even as the pain shoots through my back, I'm still looking at Logan, worried that he may end up hurting himself.

He wakes up, his eyes wide open as he takes in his surroundings. As soon as he spots me, I can see from his face that he knows exactly what happened.

He bolts toward me, helping me up from the floor. "Ella, I'm so sorry," he says, holding on to my shoulders and looking at me.

I see the guilt and worry on his face and know he didn’t do it on purpose. I smile softly and try to reassure him. "I'm fine. I'm fine."

He has fear etched on his face. "I can't believe I did that. I'm so sorry."

I try to laugh it off, but when I move, my back pulls, and I put a hand on it. I try to keep the wince off my face, but the pain shoots through me. "I'm fine," I tell him again.