Floored - Karla Sorensen Page 0,95

decided against the kick in the bollocks. "I appreciate you being willing to pick me up."

"I wasn't going to at first."

We started walking, me following Logan’s lead as he steered us through the milling crowds toward the car park

"What changed your mind?"

"Lia's sister," he admitted, with a small shake of his head.

"Not Isabel, I'm assuming."

Logan cut me a look. "Claire."

"Ahh."

"Why do you say it wasn't Isabel?"

"The last time I saw Isabel, she threatened to de-man me, I believe."

Logan laughed heartily. "Yeah, that sounds like her."

I pointed at a Starbucks. "Mind if I stop for some coffee?"

"Go ahead."

While I got the largest Americano they'd sell, Logan waited, tapping away on his phone. The smell hit my bloodstream before I took my first mouth-scalding sip. He eyed me carefully as I approached. "No tea?"

I answered with a wry smile. "Sometimes even the British need more caffeine than tea will give us. And this is one of those times."

We walked out of the airport and into the car park quietly, and I appreciated him allowing me a few moments to let the coffee hit my system.

Logan's truck was large and black and carried a Washington Wolves sticker in the back window. He opened the back of the truck for me, and I hesitated before sliding my suitcase in.

"What's wrong? Do I need to like, lift it for you?"

I gave him a look. "No, I just want to make sure it's safe back here. I've got ... a gift for Lia, and I'd hate for anything to happen to it."

His eyes were inscrutable, his facial features all but carved from rock as he gave me a good old-fashioned stare down. It was hard not to fidget underneath the weight of it, but I met his gaze square on.

"I'm in love with her," I told him. "And I'll do my best to prove that, even if I have to wait."

Logan inhaled slowly, then exhaled in a hard puff. "You can put it behind your seat. There's room."

"Thank you."

Once in the truck, he paused before pulling out of the parking space. "Claire told me I have to give you a chance, no matter how wrecked Lia was when she got home in December."

My jaw clenched, but I kept my mouth shut. I'd not seen the fallout, of course. Which he knew.

"And she reminded me that because we all love Lia—and this baby—so much, that if you are the best thing for both of them, then it would be worse for me to do or say something I'd regret in a moment of anger."

I should have brought a gift for Claire as well.

"And I feel like it's important that you know that before I say what I'm about to. This is not coming from a place of anger or thoughtlessness. I don't know exactly what happened between the two of you," he continued. "I didn't ask for the details. They're not important. But I'll warn you, McAllister, that this family—my family—is everything to me. If you don't have the fortitude to stick this out with her, with the baby, then tell me now, and I'll buy your return ticket home before she's any wiser."

Slowly, I turned my head and met his stony gaze. He bloody well meant it.

"I'm not going anywhere," I told him.

Logan searched my gaze before he nodded resolutely. "Good."

He put the truck in reverse, and I exhaled slowly.

"Lord, you're an intimidating lot, aren't you?"

Logan smiled. "We don't mean to be. But we've learned to close ranks when it's necessary."

"Why?"

"Did Lia ever tell you how they came to live with me?"

Feeling horribly sheepish that I didn't know, I shook my head. “Just the bare minimum.”

He glanced over at me before turning his gaze back to the road in front of us. "We share the same dad, the girls and I do. But my father remarried a woman much younger than him when I was starting college."

"Lia's mum," I said.

Logan nodded. "Brooke. She was—for lack of a better term—a trophy wife for my father. Beautiful, bubbly, the life of the party. Charmed everyone, as long you were only around her for small doses. Our dad died of a heart attack when the twins were young. And Brooke"—he frowned, his grip on the steering wheel visibly tightening—"she didn't much love the idea of being a single mom when there wasn't as much money as she originally thought."

"Bloody hell," I murmured. I rubbed my forehead, each bit of information offering further clarity. "She left them with you."

"On my