Page 82 of Paging Dr. Summers

But it wasn’t a police officer. I blinked my tear-filled eyes repeatedly, wondering if someone had already tranquilized me because surely I was hallucinating. Why would Logan be standing outside my window looking almost tormented and like he wanted to rip the door off its hinges to get to me?

“Brooke,” he called out, sounding relieved.

I turned down the music and rolled down my window, still not convinced I wasn’t tripping on some psych drugs, but if I was, my mind deserved some serious props for conjuring up Logan. Before I couldask what he was doing at a gas station in Reno, he shoved what he could of his body through the window and grabbed my face with his masculine hands and urgently pressed his lips against mine.

Wow, my mind on drugs was crazy good. Every zing of his touch ricocheted through my body, from my head to my toes, until I wasn’t sure where he ended and I began. It was like that with all of our kisses.

His fingers tangled in my hair, the slight pull sending shivers down my spine as his warm breath cascaded over my skin. His tongue brushed my lips, begging for more. This wasn’t agoodbye foreverkiss. This was astay for the rest of my lifekind of kiss, and I was so there for it.

My lips parted, begging him to take control of my mouth, and he did. His tongue swept and tasted, pulling me deeper into the place where only he and I existed. The world outside the car seemed to blur. The mild roar of traffic and passing strangers fell away as the heat between us burned and drowned me in the taste of his cinnamon breath.

Like waking up from a beautiful dream, I came to my senses and concluded this was real. My mind was nowhere near this good. If it were a dream or hallucination, I would have been late for class, wearing no clothes, and unable to remember my locker combination.

This realization had me pulling away, catching my breath, filled with a hundred questions. The first being, “How did you know I was here?”

Logan refused to let me go, his fingers knotting in my hair. “I didn’t know. I took a chance on which route you might take. And I got lucky when I saw your car pulled off at the gas station.”

I liked that, but the most important question was, “What are you doing here?”

“I’m chasing you,” he whispered.

“Why?” I didn’t understand, although I wanted to melt right there. No one had ever chased after me like that. This was an A-lister movie plot.

His thumbs brushed along my temples, soothing me. “Because the summer’s not over, and we didn’t finish our bucket list.”

“I finished my bucket list,” I assured him. “Lola helped me.”

“I saidours.” Reluctantly, he let me go and reached into his pocket. A crumpled receipt appeared, which he handed to me through the window before opening the creaky car door and kneeling in front of me.

“Ours?” I echoed as I took the crumpled-up old receipt, not sure what I should do with it.

Logan smiled apologetically. “It was the only thing I could find in the car, and I was in a hurry to catch you.” He flipped it over, revealing jagged lines of what I guessed was supposed to be writing. Doctor handwriting. Did they actually teach this chicken-scratch technique in med school?

Curious, I smoothed the paper and squinted, trying to decipher what he’d written. I read out loud, “Number one: Make Brooke believe she belongs with me and in, uh ... as pez ...”

“That’s Aspen Lake,” Logan clarified, his eyes searching my own to see what I made of this huge revelation.

“Oh,” I squeaked, the magnitude of the bucket list item sinking in, confusing me even more while I let the receipt fall into my lap. “But I don’t belong with you or in Aspen Lake. It’s why I left. Did you read my letter? It’s all in there.”

“I read it, and it was touching, but I have to take issue with some of it.” He paused, his eyes boring into mine. “We belong together, Brooke.” He stated this like it was a scientific fact.

I wanted to believe it so much, it ached. But how could I?

“No.” I shook my head. “You want an Erica. And I’m no Erica. And I refuse to live in her perfect shadow.”

“I would never expect you to.” The back of his hand caressed my cheek. “Brooke, I left because I knew what we had was anything but a fling. But that meant I had to face some things. Things I’d been too afraid to admit.”

“What things?” I asked, fearing that maybe he had reservations about me and my crazy life.

Logan’s shoulders relaxed slightly, his hand dropping from my cheek, only to rest against my knee. His fingers traced small absent-minded patterns on my skin, raising my pulse. “Things like how Ericaand I weren’t perfect. In fact, we were having some problems when she died,” he admitted.

“Can I ask what kind of problems?” I tried to be careful—I didn’t want it to seem like I was reveling in this news. But it was important for me to know.

“I was hoping you would.” A wistful smile played on his lips.

“You were?”

“Yes. I don’t want anything to come between us, especially the truth.”

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