Page 34 of Stitch & Steel
Logan’s men stopped drinking. Even the breeze seemed to hush.
“It broke me in ways I didn’t understand until years later,” she said. “But I never stopped loving him. Not even after I married your granddaddy. That man gave me a good life. But my heart… part of it always stayed up on this mountain. I never stopped loving that ghost on a motorcycle.”
The night breathed around us, soft and still. Bear, who hadn’t said a damn thing all night, cleared his throat.
“This mountain holds him, Bella. The breeze in the trees, the creek, the smell of honeysuckle in the air... it’s all his. And I’ll be damned if I let this mind of mine take that from me before the world does.”
When she finished, there wasn’t a dry eye on the porch.
“If you ever want to know what happened to him,” Logan said, his voice low and gruff, “just say the word and give me a name. I can find out.”
Gran blinked at him, eyes glassy. “Thank you, darlin’. That’s kind of you. But… it’s like the greatest treasure I’ve ever had—locked deep in my heart. And after all this time? I’m not sure if knowing would bring peace… or just break me all over again.”
Bear nodded, tipping his bottle toward her in quiet respect. Even him, the quiet fiercest one of them, with tattoos down to his knuckles, blinked hard and turned his head to the trees like he was too tough to let anyone see.
Not even the pledges could hide it. One of them wiped his eyes with the hem of his shirt.
Logan hadn’t moved.
But I could feel the tension rolling off him in waves. The idea of Gran selling the place clearly didn’t sit right with him. To a man like Logan, leaving wasn’t just letting go. It wassurrender.
And men like him didn’t do that.
When Gran leaned back and rested her head on my shoulder, I exhaled softly, my eyes drifting over the cabin, the trees, the sky so full of stars you could almost believe in magic.
I didn’t know what the right choice was yet.
But I knew one thing for certain?—
This mountain wasn’t done telling its stories.
Ten
LOGAN
The porch hadn’t beenthis quiet all summer.
Not even when the MC boys were passed out after a long haul or the nights when thunder rumbled so loud it drowned out our own engines.
But after Gran’s story?
Every man out here was sitting with his ghosts. Hers had stirred up something deep—something hungry. That taste of real love. The kind you chase your whole damn life and never stop craving once you’ve had it.
Even in her twilight years she couldn’t outrun it.
Even after all these years, she still looked up at that ridge like she was waiting to see him ride over it.
That hit me harder than I expected.
I took a long sip from my beer and let the quiet settle in my chest. The kind of silence that makes youfeeleverything instead of running from it. Maybe that’s why I didn’t flinch when Bella shifted beside Gran and said, “Alright, I think we’re calling it. It’s late.”
I stood too. “Come on. I’ll walk you up.”
She gave me a soft little eye-roll. “My room is ten feet down the hall.”
“I know.”
I didn’t smile. Didn’t explain.
