“So the fuck what?” High shot back. “You knew and you could have told me and stopped her pain because I sure as fuck would have stopped her pain and you know it.”
She shook her head. “I couldn’t, Logan. She’s my sister. I love her. You don’t know how she was. I couldn’t—”
“I know how she was,” High growled. “Twenty years it’s been and I got that pain passed out in my bed, Dot.”
“No,” she said harshly. “You don’t know. It was bad, Logan. So bad. I couldn’t go against her wishes.”
“You could have and you should have. And you fuckin’ know it,” he fired back.
“You both wanted kids so bad,” she whispered.
“No,” he grunted. “I wanted Millie. You knew it. You fuckin’ knew.”
“Low—”
He leaned away but kept her skewered with his stare. “She live a good life, Dot? Hunh? She move on and find her happy?”
Dottie’s eyes got wet.
High’s gut burned.
She didn’t.
Just like him, his girl lived twenty years blistering in the fire.
“Yeah,” he snarled.
“You don’t know how she was.”
“No, I didn’t. But I found out half an hour ago, woman, which was twenty years too late.”
She flinched.
He liked her, once loved her like the sister she was supposed to be for the rest of his life, but more, he had shit he had to see to.
So he relented.
“I’ll fix it.”
Her eyes got big again.
“Wh-what?” she stammered.
He didn’t repeat himself.
He ordered, “And while I’m doin’ that, you take my back. You get that man of yours to take my back. You get Justine and Kellie to take my back. And you work with me however I gotta maneuver it to guide my girl back to happy.”
A tear slid down her cheek as she stared up at him, lips parted.
When she seemed unable to speak, he prompted, “Hear?”
Her head jolted.
“I hear, Low,” she said quietly.
“Do not fuck up again, Dot,” he warned, then went on, “First up for you, you put the brakes on whatever moves she’s made to get outta Denver.”
Another tear escaped but her lips quirked as she muttered, “Seems we Cross women have a type. Bossy.”
Was she fucking serious?
“I’m not thinkin’ anything at this juncture is funny,” he growled.
She pressed her lips together before she nodded and said, “Right. Of course. Consider the brakes put on.” She tipped her head to the side. “Do you wanna get out of the snow and come inside where it’s warm to boss me around? You do that, I’ll make cocoa and introduce you to my kids.”
He didn’t want cocoa.
He did want to meet her kids.
And fuck him, he was pissed as all hell at her but he was that at the same time he forgot how much he liked the bitch.
“You got an important job, focus and don’t fuck up,” he said as reply.
“Aye, aye, Captain.”
Fuck, the Cross sisters.
Pains in the asses and too goddamned cute for their own good.
Dottie was demonstrating mostly the first part and he was screwed because he was ticked beyond reason and he still liked it.
Christ.
“Get on that,” he muttered, turning. “I got shit to do.”
He moved off her stoop but stopped and twisted back to her when she called his name.
“Missed you,” she said, face soft, voice soft, words easing a nasty sting he’d been living with so long it had become a part of him. “You let go me fucking up, I’ll let go the shit you’ve been pulling the last coupla months. And I’ll start all that by saying I’m glad to have you back, Logan.”
He stared at her a beat and said nothing.
Then he turned from her and walked away, that sting still there, but suddenly it didn’t hurt so goddamned much.
Not looking back at her house, he got in his truck, started up, made a decision, and took his chance before the snow got worse.
He drove to his RV.
Once there, he packed a bag.
Then he drove to the Compound.
He moved through the space crowded with people who gave a shit and were worried.
As he moved, he asked Tack, “Food in?”
“Yep,” Tack answered.
“Out in my truck,” High ordered.
Tack’s lips twitched.
High ignored that and went to his room, which meant he moved back through the space crowded with people carrying a totally out of it Millie.
Big Petey lumbered in front of him, right there to open the door to the backseat of the cab so High could move in and carefully lay her there.
He shut the door quietly, turned and saw Pete in his space, Tack several feet back, Cherry standing at her man’s side.
“Get home,” he ordered them as the snow fell heavy all around them.
“You good?” Pete asked.
High looked down at Pete.
“I will be,” he stated, and turned, brushing against Big Petey when he did.
He opened his door, climbed in, and drove on roads getting bad to Millie’s house.
He carried her inside, put her in her own bed in a room that had been straightened, probably by Dot, sometime while she was away.
It was picture perfect again.
She was going to have to kiss that good-bye.
High didn’t live immaculate.
And neither did his Millie.
High moved back out to his truck, got his bag and the groceries, and brought them in.
He put the shit that needed to go into the fridge away. He left the other shit wherever he found a place for it on the counters.
Before he took his boots off, sitting on the ottoman to her big chair, he stared at the crate, wondering how she got it back and deciding he’d learn that after they waded through twenty years of colossal fuckups.
He was just glad it wasn’t gone.
He left his boots on the floor where he took them off.
He tossed his cut on her couch.
Then he walked back to her room, climbed under the covers with her, pulled her in his arms, and tangled himself up in Millie.
She felt so good sleeping woven up in him it was like he’d lost a limb and it had miraculously grown back.
He tipped his chin so his face was in the top of her hair.
I gave you up, walking through fire to do it but I did it. I did it in the end. I gave you everything.