Page 43 of Burning Hearts

She winced. “Me too.”

Across the compound, Vince jumped up and down on something.

Logan said, “I’m gonna go see what he found.”

“I’ll go round up the others. Make sure they don’t wander too far.” She gave him a fist bump.

If not for Vince doing what he was doing right now, Logan might have figured there was a chance she’d find Vince and Cadee behind a tree, making out. The vibes between those two? If it wasn’t angry tension from all the butting heads, arguing for the sake of arguing with each other, they were giving each other glances while the other wasn’t looking.

Every time he saw it, Logan got an eyeful of far too much regret and a whole lot of longing.

He shook his head, tromping between buildings. Slid out his phone. No new messages or calls from Jamie—not that he’d expect any since she was working.

After the way they’d left things last night, he didn’t know what to expect at all. Would kissing her have really changed anything?

There would still be a whole lot of obstacles between them.

Who was to say it would be any different this time if they did get back together? He wasn’t going to jump into a relationship without thinking it through just because he’d come up here for her.

Vince jumped again.

And fell through the ground with a crash and the crack of charred wood.

Logan picked up his pace to a run and sprinted to him. When he got to the building, he called back over his shoulder to the others, “I need some help!”

Jade and the others were already running. Jade stepped onto the far side of the burnt building. Logan put up his hand. “Don’t come any closer! It could be unstable.”

She halted.

“Get me a rope.” He lay down on the ashy section of drywall and scooted toward the opening. “Vince!”

“Hang on! I think I found something.” His voice drifted up from a floor below.

Logan slid to the hole and looked down into the dark. “Did you hurt yourself?”

“Nah, I’m good.”

“Do you have an exit strategy?”

“Not really.” Vince didn’t seem too worried about it. This guy had been hanging out with the Trouble Boys way too much.

Logan looked at Orion, who had a flashlight in one hand and rope in the other. He waved for it, and the guy tossed the flashlight over. Logan aimed the beam down into the hole. Black. More black. What looked like a metal table. Logan saw a tan-colored tube and a couple of white buckets.

Vince said, “Thanks, that helps.”

“Bro, what are you looking for?”

Jade set her hands on her hips. “I’d like to know the answer to that as well.”

“Boss isn’t happy,” Logan called down into the hole.

“I’ll be done in a second.” Vince paused. “Oh, yep. There it is.” An orange bucket launched out of the hole.

Logan rolled to his back and looked up at the cloudy sky.

Two more buckets flew out. Then a piece of PVC pipe and a box that formerly had two hundred coffee filters in it.

Logan blinked and watched a passenger jet make its way across the sky, leaving a jet trail behind it. “Are you done?”

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