Page 26 of Sin Bin

Meadow was impressed that he knew where Howard was located. “As much as I enjoyed living in D.C., I was homesick for Vegas, and I didn’t like being so far away from my father and Aunt Rosalie. So after I got my master’s in social work, I went back home.” She grimaced. “In hindsight, I probably should have stayed in D.C. Better job market.”

Logan nodded, commiserating. “Sucks that you got laid off.”

“I know.” She sighed. “C’est la vie.”

Logan swirled his drink around, contemplating her. “There’s so much I don’t know about you. So much I want to ask.”

“I feel the same about you,” Meadow admitted. “Back then we didn’t really talk much about personal stuff.”

“I know.” His gaze never left her face. “How did you end up in foster care?”

She swallowed, her eyes lowering to her glass. “My parents were killed in a robbery when I was six.”

“Shit,” Logan murmured. “I’m sorry.”

She acknowledged his sympathy with a nod. “After they died, none of my relatives wanted me.” She spoke matter-of-factly, trying to mask the residual hurt she still carried around. “My dad was an only child and his parents were already gone. My mom’s parents were barely making ends meet, and her sister didn’t want the responsibility of raising me. I had nowhere to go.”

“Fuck.” Logan’s expression was grim, his jaw tense. He was angry on her behalf. It warmed her more than she wanted to admit.

“It could have been worse,” she said pragmatically. “I only spent three years in foster care before the Ryans adopted me. Were those three years awful? Absolutely. But considering that many foster children are never adopted, I was one of the lucky ones.”

“Lucky,” Logan repeated with a cynical twist of his lips. “You lost your parents and were abandoned by your family when you needed them the most. Lucky isn’t the word I’d use to describe what you went through.”

Meadow sipped her drink, watching him over the rim of the glass.

He stared back at her, his dark eyes probing hers. “Were they good to you? The Ryans, I mean. Were they good parents?”

“Very good,” she said quietly. “They were just what I needed.”

A faint smile touched Logan’s lips. “I’m glad to hear that.”

“Thank you.” Meadow studied his gorgeous face in the flickering firelight. “What happened to your parents?”

His expression instantly hardened and he looked away from her, staring out at the night through the glass surrounding the patio. He was silent for so long, she thought he wouldn’t answer.

But then he spoke in a low, flat voice. “I never knew my father. He knocked my mother up and disappeared. She had to drop out of college and get a job to take care of me. It was tough for her. She worked as a cocktail waitress at a casino and she didn’t make much money. Sometimes she had to take me to work with her because she couldn’t afford daycare and she didn’t have any family around to help her. It was…” He paused, his fingers tightening around his glass. “It was more than she could handle. The day I turned five, she dropped me off at the casino and never came back.”

“Oh God, Logan,” Meadow whispered in horror. “How awful for you. I…I’m so sorry.”

He frowned and drained his glass, probably wishing he’d ordered something stronger than club soda.

She had so many questions, so much more she wanted to know. But she didn’t want to pry open old wounds. It was clear that he’d never recovered from his mother’s abandonment. The pain in his eyes, the raw hurt, made her heart ache for him.

She watched as he leaned forward to set his empty glass on the fire pit table.

“How long were you at the casino before someone found you?” she asked softly.

His jaw tightened. “Long enough.”

Before she could probe further, his phone rang. This time he pulled it out of his jacket pocket, seemingly relieved for the interruption. He looked at the screen, brow furrowed. Then he declined the call and began typing a message, thumbs flying across the small keyboard.

Meadow looked away from him to stare up at the stars twinkling like jewels in the night sky. She remembered watching Roots with her parents when she was a little girl. During the iconic scene where Kunta Kinte lifted his infant daughter to the night sky in the tradition of his ancestors, Meadow’s father told her he’d performed the same “blessing ritual” after she was born. She’d giggled at the time because all she could think of was Rafiki raising Simba to the heavens in The Lion King. To this day she couldn’t watch Roots or The Lion King without feeling sentimental.

“What’re you thinking about?”

She turned her head to meet Logan’s dark gaze. He’d put his phone away and was once again leaning back with his arm slung over the back of the couch, one long leg stretched out in front of him as he studied her.

She gave him a musing smile. “Have you ever wondered about your ancestors? Who they were? Where they came from?”

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