Page 73 of Annika's Aurora

“I know. I enjoy spending time with him; I’m just not sure if I want more with him.”

Natalie stared at her sister closely. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”

Maddie looked away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“There’s someone else, isn’t there?”

“Natalie, drop it. There is nothing going on between David and me, and there is nobody else.”

They were silent for a moment, each lost in their own thoughts. “Funny how we both kept the most important things about ourselves from each other. And I thought we had grown so close over these years,” Natalie mused.

“Weareclose, Natalie. I guess we were just trying to protect each other. Either that or we have a lot to learn about being sisters.”

“My brother and I didn’t always tell each other everything. And we were twins. We were very close but still kept some of the most important things about ourselves from each other. I guess that’s just normal sibling behavior,” Annika said. “‘Sisterhood and brotherhood is a condition people have to work at.’Maya Angelou.”

The sisters laughed. “Of course, you have a quote,” Natalie teased. “How about we make a pact? If any one of us feels like we are slipping, if we feel lost, we call each other.”

“I’d like that. I haven’t had much luck making female friends,” she confessed. “I’d like to have friends like you guys to talk to.”

“Okay, girls,” Natalie said. “Let’s go put together something for dinner.”

The three of them had a lot of laughs making dinner together. Annika suddenly realized how much she’d missed moments like these. She and her boys, Logan and Jamie, had this same type of relationship. She never realized how special it was until it was all gone. She felt sudden tears well; Natalie noticed and questioned her about it.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized. “It’s just that I haven’t had a moment like this since my brother died.”

“I was sorry to hear about that. I can’t imagine what that has been like for you.”

“How long ago was his death?” Maddie asked.

“Fifteen years,” she answered as a tear slipped. “I miss him every day.”

“Well, you have us as sisters now,” Natalie told her. Annika had never heard anything more lovely than that. Natalie and Maddie gave her a big hug at the same time, and Annika felt like she had finally found true friends.Kindred spirits, as her once favorite book character used to say.

Logan was in a hell of his own making. He’d spent the last two days hiding and avoiding. He’d sequestered himself inside his room at the Nighthawk barracks. The letter lay on his dresser, taunting him. Her words forever etched into his brain, torturing him.“I could have loved you,”played over and over again in his mind. Followed closely by the words that gutted him the most.“You cut me open,slashed my heart to ribbons, then put me back together wrong.”

Fuck.He was an asshole. The absolute worst person on the face of the planet. He was a big, bad SEAL and a Nighthawk, but here he was, hiding like a coward. Full of shame and regret.

Three of four. That thought had taken root in his mind, and wouldn’t let go. When the texts from Annika that he couldn’t bring himself to answer began to torture him, he escaped his room for the gym. There, he pushed his body hard, hoping to banish the thoughts. But they taunted him still.

He lifted weights to Annika’s words,“Cut me open. Slashed my heart,”engraved on the barbells, becoming heavier with each rep.

He ran on the treadmill, and her words,“Could have loved you,”chased him.

Graham found him running from the latter. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Logan slowed the treadmill as the other Nighthawks that were using the gym facilities stopped what they were doing to stare at them. He grabbed his towel and wiped the sweat from his face and neck, using the time to think of an answer that wouldn’t get his ass reamed. He knew this confrontation was inevitable, but he’d been too lost in Annika’s words to figure out how he was going to respond to his boss.

“What?”Fuck.Even he could hear how pathetic that was.

“You’ve been ghosting around here for the last two days when you have that stunningly brave woman waiting for you. So again, I say, what the fuck are you doing?”

Logan glanced around him, taking time to form his answer. Emma and David had stopped climbing the wall and now stood at the edge of the mats staring at him; Emma’s stare more of a glare. Finch had frozen mid-lift, and Jude, his spotter, hovered over him with his jaw dropped. Tin Man, still wet and in a towel, had come running from the locker room at Graham’s bellow. And Evan, on his way out the door, paused to watch the train wreck that was Logan Cain.

“Umm …”Shit.Even more pathetic.

Graham threw his hands up in the air. They smacked loudly in the too-quiet gym as they came back down against his legs. “I knew I should have required therapy for you shitheads. You’re fucking up again, aren’t you? Running from the best thing to ever come back to you because … Why? You’re scared? Christ, don’t make the same mistakes I made. But it’s too late for that, isn’t it? You’ve been here for days, which means she’s been alone. I bet you haven’t even answered her texts.” Logan lowered his chin, his shame palpable as Graham started pacing and ranting.

“Go home. Go back to your girl. It was obvious to all of us how much you love each other. She forgave your sorry ass the last time you pulled this shit. You planning on staying away for another fifteen years? I don’t think she’ll give you a third chance. So again, what the fuck are you doing?”

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