Page 43 of Embattled Return

“You didn’t have to come up all this way. I could have come down.”

Logan shook his head and gave her a slightly rakish grin. “No challenge to that. Mind if I come in?”

Marigold stepped back, waving him in. “I was just enjoying a bottle of wine. Would you like to join me?”

“Yes,” he said absently, glancing around her space.

Marigold loved her little mini-apartment. It had everything she needed. The aqua colored comforter on the bed was one of the color focal points, and she’d built off of it, with pale blue scattered throw pillows, the drapes in her turreted office space, and some of the rugs all varying shades of aqua.

“You have a blue jean couch?”

She grinned and swept the gray fur throw blanket she’d been using into her arms. “I do! Blue jeans match everything so I used the same reasoning when looking at couches for the space. I think it worked beautifully.”

He nodded. “It does, actually.”

Sinking into the cushions, he sighed. “Comfortable, too. The one I have is a little well-used.”

“Yeah,” she said slowly. “That used to be up here. I told Nancy I would buy my own. Sorry,” she laughed.

Marigold sank into the opposite end of the couch, propping her elbow on the back as she looked at him. “So, you had some revelations today, I hear.”

Logan grimaced, running his fingers over the top of his arm brace distractedly. Then, as if he realized what he was doing, he set the crutches to the floor. “More than I ever could have expected.”

“Anything you want to talk about?”

Logan heaved a great sigh, and she could see the lines of worry around his eyes. Shifting his arm to the back of the couch, he shook his head. “Not just yet. Tell me about your family.”

Marigold’s brows popped in surprise. “My family?”

“Do you have family? Other than your grandmother, I mean?”

She nodded. “A few members. Mostly cousins. My mother was older when she had me, and after my father was killed she never really recovered. I think I told you that. She never found her balance. Her mother and father were at the house all the time, picking up after her or making sure I had clean clothes. Eventually I just moved in with them. We both did. Life was...not good, but better for a while.” She smiled softly. “Mom always worried about me, though. If I was late coming in from a date or school activity, she would be calling around looking for me. It was irritating, but I knew it was a coping mechanism.

“And then, a few years ago, my grandpa died,” she sighed, her lips turned down. “Mom kind of... broke down, because he had been the sole man present all her life. When we should have been there for Grandma and her pain, my mother lost it, basically. She took a handful of pills in a suicide attempt and was in the psych ward while we were at the funeral.”

She gave him a sad smile. “Whatever John handed you on the platter today, it can’t be as crazy as my family.”

Logan gave a bark of laughter. “Oh, I bet it can.”

Marigold listened raptly as he reported what John had found. They split the rest of the bottle of wine. When he finished speaking, she had to consciously unclench her fists and her body. At some point she’d curled up into a tense knot on the cushion. What utter gall the man had! “So, your father basically ruined everything. He ruined his family by being the black mark on the perfect Army service record, and he ruined your family by lying about it all. And he dragged you all through hell because he didn’t have the balls to own up to what he did.”

“Correct,” Logan said, sighing heavily.

Marigold reached out and gripped his hand on the back of the couch. “None of this is your fault. It can, literally, all be laid at his feet.”

“I know. I just feel... ashamed. To have a family record like that is an incredible accomplishment. I wish I could have finished my deployment. Maybe it would have erased some of the blackness he spread.”

She crawled closer to him, looking him in the eye. “Listen to me, Logan. You were injured in the line of duty. I have a feeling you have a Purple Heart hiding around somewhere. Am I right?” She could see in his face that she was. “You have nothing to be ashamed of. If anything, I feel like your service record will make up for your father’s lack.”

His brilliant blue-green eyes grew luminous. “I hope so,” he admitted, voice hoarse. “Because I have nothing else to offer them.”

She scrunched up her brow, her wine-lazy brain trying to react. “Why do you have to offer them anything? You didn’t screw them over. It was your dad.”

“I know, but...” he shook his head, obviously searching for words. “My brother Clint is a druggie, probably still in jail. Jana... Jana was killed right after I enlisted, by a drugged-out boyfriend. And I am just mobile enough not to need a wheelchair. That’s not a great family line.”

She huffed in exasperation, shaking her head. Her dark hair hung across her shoulder and she pushed it away. “Can you look at it from the other side, my side, for a minute?”

He looked at her, mouth tight. “How?”

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