Back in Bliss

Chapter Six

Logan looked up at the sheriff’s department like it was a damn mountain he was about to climb.

He was dressed in his khakis and boots, a Stetson planted on his head and his stomach somewhere around his knees. He didn’t want to walk into that building. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever.

What the fuck did he think he was doing? He wasn’t this guy anymore. He’d never really been. He’d been a dumbass kid playing at being a hero, and he’d figured out real damn fast that heroes didn’t exist. He’d found out just how flawed he was. He’d learned how easy it had been to break Logan Green.

“It’s really scary, isn’t it? I’ve heard it’s haunted by like a ton of ghosts and shit.”

He turned, and there was the woman he’d first mistaken as Georgia. Blonde hair, blue eyes, but definitely more slender and willowy now that he was looking at her. She had a big black bag at her elbow, one of those quilted things Georgia used to carry, but there was a more worldly look to this woman. Georgia, when she thought no one was watching, always looked so fucking innocent.

The way she had this morning when she’d looked up at Seth like he was Superman and he’d just rescued her from certain death.

What the fuck game was Seth playing? He should have walked out the night before, but Seth knew how to work him. He was staying until he heard the plan. He was staying because he couldn’t do anything else.

“Not a big talker, then? We’re going to get along so well.”

Well, this blonde could be as annoying as Georgia. “You must be the new receptionist.”

She groaned a little. “Yuck. He shoots, he fails. Office manager. I’m the office manager and all-around, one-stop lawyer shop. I find it’s the best way to meet new clients. I can help process them in, and by the time they actually make it to the cell, I usually have them on retainer.”

Logan looked down at her. Had Nate lost his damn mind? “Nate hired a lawyer? I thought we had an injunction or something.”

“Oh, I learn fast, buddy. And I had Nell to coach me on how to get through a town hall meeting. The key is once you have the microphone, to filibuster the shit out of Hiram. After an hour or so, he just wants a nap, and he’ll give in to anything. So now I can practice law right here in Bliss. Not that it’s very impressive. It usually just involves me talking Nate out of doing stupid shit. He’s like really cranky for a law officer.”

Well, it was good to know marriage and a couple of kids hadn’t slowed down Nate’s crabbiness.

“Are we just going to stand out here?” Gemma asked. Jamie had called her Gemma.

“You can do whatever you like. You can walk in at any time.” She was really starting to annoy him. “I just want a minute.”

“Seems to me like you’ve had more than a minute. More like a year or something. You really think another minute is going to make a difference? I don’t think this is about a minute so much as making up your mind. You’re either in or you’re out, and another minute won’t change it.”

“Nate hired you? Are you this obnoxious when Nate’s around?”

A brilliant smile curved her lips up. “I am the best office manager Nate Wright’s ever had, and he won’t tell you any different. Now, I’ve been forced to keep that empty desk of yours just like you left it since Nate and Cam seem to think it’s some sort of shrine. I was actually surprised to find out you weren’t dead, just on some form of extended vacation.”

“I was in therapy.” Why was he answering her?

She shrugged a little. “Oh, my bad. I thought people in therapy were encouraged to like call and shit. You know, to update the people who love them on how they’re doing. They don’t usually just leave them hanging unless they’re real assholes.”

“You got a problem with me?” It was a dumb question. She obviously had a problem with him.

She was perfectly calm as she started up the steps. “Look, man, I’m fairly new here, but I’ve grown to love this town, and I definitely love Nate and Cam. Consider me a protective and territorial female. You’ve hurt them. Everyone else might want to treat you with kid gloves, but I don’t do the glove thing. I’ll tell it like it is, and I’ve had to watch them stare at that fucking desk every day I’ve been here. It’s like you’re a ghost that hangs over this place, and no one will let me call an exorcist.”

And she didn’t even know the right terminology. “An exorcist is for demons. You need a medium for ghosts.”

She snorted a little. “Wow, they told me you were a total geek. I thought they were joking when you showed up all big and brawny, but there’s still a dweeb in there somewhere. Maybe there’s hope for you, Green. You like coffee?”

He loved it. Couldn’t make it to save his life. He’d gone from his mom’s coffee to Shelley’s to this morning when he’d looked at the machine and tried to figure out where the little cups went. Seth wasn’t a big help. The big tech guru who had bought the thing just stared at it like it was a monster about to attack. Logan had killed the kitchen, and he hadn’t had an ounce of caffeine and he couldn’t get the sight of Georgia wrapped up in Seth’s arms out of his head. Or the fact that all he’d wanted to do was walk up and cuddle up behind her and slowly maneuver her back to the bed so they could start the morning right. Maybe if he’d eaten some of Georgia’s pussy, he wouldn’t need breakfast.

“It’s a simple question, man.”

But for now he had another obnoxious blonde to deal with, and this one seemed to hate him as much as the first. “Yeah, I would love some coffee.”

“Good. Nate’s waiting for you in his office. He has a meeting with some law enforcement from local cities in an hour or so and he wants to talk to you about it. How do you take your coffee?”

Sweet. Like he thought Georgia’s pussy would be. “Cream and lots of sugar.”

Gemma opened the first of two doors that led into the station house. Logan felt stupid just standing there, so he followed her. “I can do that. Nate likes his coffee with a little motor oil. I swear that man has an iron gut. I’ve been making him double espressos, and he claims they’re not strong enough. The things I put up with.”

“Uh, the coffeemaker here kinda always makes coffee like that.” It was why he’d always made sure he had a thermos of his mom’s coffee before he went to work. And there had always been coffee around The Club. He was kind of spoiled.

Georgia liked coffee. No one had made coffee for her this morning. Or breakfast. Julian Lodge had done his job well. The Dom in Logan was feeling really shitty right now because it was his job to make sure his sub was taken care of.

Georgia wasn’t his sub. She obviously was going to belong to Seth. Seth. What the hell was he up to now? Seth had to have a plan. Seth always had a plan.

“Oh, I assure you, we’ve got a new coffeemaker. I threw the old one out.” Gemma pushed through the doors and a laugh filled the room. “Thank god. It’s been a week since he arrested anyone. I thought Nate was going soft.”

Two familiar faces looked out from the twin jail cells. There were only two cells, and most of the time they were completely empty. Not today.

“Logan, dude. Damn, no one told me you were coming home.” Max Harper thrust a hand through his cell bars. He wasn’t in his usual jeans and Western shirt and cowboy boots. He was wearing a blue gown. A hospital-type gown. “Damn, boy, when did you get all extra extra large? It’s hard to believe you came out of Teeny. She’s like three feet tall and weighs ten pounds.”

“I would explain to you how babies get made, you dickwad, but I’d rather just put my fist through your face again.” Caleb Burke was in the other cell. He was perfectly dressed, but there was a fine spray of blood across his scrubs and his nose looked like it had taken a beating.

“I know how babies get made, Doc,” Max shot back. “I just don’t want to make one with you.”

The doc growled a little. “It’s called an exam, asshole. And next time I will just let you get testicular cancer. See if I give a shit if your balls drop off.”

“You can’t just grab a guy’s balls, Doc. Not unless you expect to get clocked.” Max turned to the doctor and Logan was the one who was groaning because those stupid exam gowns didn’t cover enough.

“Max, you’re flapping in the wind, buddy. Cover that shit up.” At least at The Club he hadn’t routinely caught sight of male parts dangling or dude butts outside of the dungeon floor. It was kind of a way of life in Bliss.

Max turned quickly, his hand reaching for the back of his exam gown, his normally taciturn expression going positively prudish. “I can’t help it. Doc makes everyone wear one.” He leaned toward Logan. “Are we sure he’s not a pervert?”

Caleb slapped the bars of his cell. “God, you’re an idiot. I swear there is brain damage. Hell, I don’t have any actual evidence that you have a brain. You can find another fucking doctor.”

Max clutched his gown, trying to hide his naked backside. “Come on, Doc. That can’t be the first time someone’s punched you in the face because you treated their balls like the handle on a slot machine.”

Caleb glared back at him. “I was gentle, asswipe.”

Max shook his head. “We have two different versions of gentle.”

Gemma held a hand up, looking deeply amused. “Hey, hold up, you two. So, I get why hot buns is in here. By the way, don’t you hide those on my account. Just spices up my morning.”

“Thanks,” Max said with a wide smile. “I really do work on my glutes.”

“Max has a ‘frequently jailed’ card laminated in his back pocket, but what’s your story, Doc?” Gemma asked.

Logan could take a wild guess on that one. Some things never changed. “Max punched him, and Doc ran for his tranq gun.”

Caleb grunted. It was his version of agreement. Logan had learned Caleb mostly communicated through a series of grunts and rude hand gestures. He was the perfect doc for Bliss. “I didn’t have to run. I keep it in my exam room ever since my blood pressure monitor sent Mel into an alien abduction flashback. That old man is strong, let me tell you.”

“Yeah, well, I’m fast,” Max explained. “The minute Doc went for the gun, I hightailed it right out of there and started back up the mountain. Unfortunately, Doc holds a mean grudge and he followed me, and apparently we scared the shit out of some tourists. But only some of them. The rest were busy taking pictures. I think there might be a video on YouTube. Do you think I can use that to sue Doc here, Gemma? I can give you a retainer when I get my pants back.”

There was another grunt out of Caleb, but Logan thought this one was Doc’s “fuck you” grunt. “You are never getting those pants back. I told Naomi to toss them in with the medical waste.”

Max’s eyes went wide. “Damn, man. Those are my favorite Levi’s. They don’t make them anymore.”

Caleb just shot him the bird.

Gemma shook her head. “I think I’m going to pass on suing Caleb. He’s the only doc around here, and one day I’m going to want to have babies. Besides, Jesse told me he was very gentle when it came to his balls.”

“See, I’m damn good with balls,” Caleb shouted. “And I’m very gentle with the rectal exam, too. I’m a motherfucking artist.”

Max turned to Logan. “Doc wants to play with my rectum. Can you get me moved to solitary?”

“We don’t have a solitary, man. You’re just going to have to stay to one side.” Yep. Now he was remembering the job. He spent half his work day simply containing the chaos. “I’ll call Rachel and Holly.”

“Don’t! Call Rye. Please call Rye,” Max pleaded.

“Naomi’s already on her way. Holly and Alexei are in class.” Caleb sighed and lay down on the cot like it was just another part of his day.

Alexei. Fuck. He hadn’t heard the name in a long time and that was a good thing. He’d avoided saying it, tried not to think it, but he could hardly expect to not hear about the motherfucker here. And apparently he’d gone to college. Logan wanted to go to college. He’d had the applications in his fucking desk the same day Alexei had sentenced him to hell.

“Logan, good to have you back.” Nathan Wright stood in the doorway to his office, his even voice pulling Logan back to the here and now. “Max, Caleb, we’ll get you processed out real soon. Naomi’s five minutes away. And Rachel is right here.”

“Max Harper, this is the last straw!” A five-foot-two-inch ball of pure fury blew through the double doors, her strawberry blonde hair flying behind her.

“Logan, come on into my office. This is going to get ugly.” Nate gestured him back. “Gemma, I need a triple, please, and could you get the paperwork done to process them out?”

Gemma gave the boss a jaunty little salute. “Will do.”

“I ask you to do one thing!” Rachel was yelling. “One damn thing. Get a physical so we can get life insurance so we can protect our babies. Babies. We have another baby on the way, and you want that baby to be left with nothing if you die.”

Max’s blue eyes went wide. “No, baby, no. I just want to protect our child from unneeded rectal exams.”

Rachel’s eyes narrowed. “Are you kidding me? We’re here because you’re afraid of having a single finger shoved up your ass so we can make sure you don’t have cancer?”

“Baby, it’s unnatural.”

“Max Harper, you are never getting anal sex again. Not for the rest of your life. And the vaginal sex is in question, too.”

Max got to his knees, his hands on the bars. “Baby, no, I can’t live on oral alone.”

Rachel turned. “Leave him in there. I’ve got pregnancy hormones to deal with. I can’t deal with him, too.”

“Rachel, baby, I love you!”

Rachel stopped briefly to look up at Logan. “Logan, welcome home. It’s good to know you got your head out of your ass long enough to come back to where you belong. Your mommas have been very lonely. I expect to see you out at the house for dinner on Sunday.”

“I’ll have to check my schedule, ma’am.”

Rachel’s eyes narrowed. “Really?”

He knew damn well why she was surprised. He would never have thought to reply to her with anything but a solid “yes” before because Rachel was a ballbuster. She could freeze a man at fifty paces, but he wasn’t the same kid who had left. “Really. I have a lot of obligations while I’m here. If I can, I would love to come out to the house, but I have to check with my roommates.”

God only knew what Seth had planned for them. If he really had balls, he wouldn’t care. But the thought that he would get thrown into something with Georgia…damn, he couldn’t pass that up. He knew it was wrong. He knew it made him a fucking masochist, but he couldn’t help himself. He’d tried to stay away from her, knew he couldn’t be with her long term, but he wanted to worship her from up close for a little while, and he wasn’t going to let Rachel Harper’s iron willpower get in his way.

Rachel smiled a little and gave him a wink. “Good for you, Logan. I’ll give you a call. What’s that boy’s name, Seth, I think? He’s welcome, too, and the pretty little blonde. Nothing gets past Callie, hon.”

“Rach?” Max sounded so sad.

Rachel growled. “I’ll be at Stella’s. I need some pancakes.”

As Rachel walked out, a gorgeous, curvy woman with coffee-colored skin and a deep frown on her face walked in.

“I don’t know why I work for you.”

Caleb smiled. “Hey, Na. You rock. Ten percent pay increase.”

A brilliant smile crossed her face. “I just remembered. Where’s Gemma? I have to get you out of here. You have a ten o’clock sonogram with Jennifer Talbot.”

“She’s in the back,” Nate said, pointing toward the break room. “Logan? Park your stuff at the desk and get in here.” He turned away, disappearing into his office. “We have weird shit going on in the county. Well, weirder shit than normal.”

Max and Caleb started yelling at each other again, and the woman who seemed to be named Naomi walked back to find Gemma, and Logan was left in the one place he’d been pretty certain he wouldn’t visit again.

He drifted over to the desks. There were three. The big one in the middle of the room had always been used by Nate’s assistant. He glanced down and could tell that Gemma was different. Hope had kept her desk pin neat, with no personal touches at all, but Gemma had a bunch of pictures of people all over her desk in pretty frames. He recognized the men she’d been with outside of Stella’s, her arms around them. There was a picture of her with Hope and a pretty, really pregnant woman he thought might be James’s partner’s wife.

He moved past her desk and was caught by the big framed picture on Cam’s desk. In the center of the frame was a tiny baby with a tuft of black hair. That baby was in Laura’s arms, and she was shining in the picture, her blonde hair a virtual halo around her head. Rafe and Cam were beaming down at the woman and child. Hell. Cam had a baby. Cam had been his friend, and he didn’t know what the baby’s name was.

“She’s pretty, huh?” Gemma was behind him, a mug in her hand. “Sierra Rose. Cam brought her up here yesterday and left that here. He was so happy. I’ll admit, it makes me think even I might be able to have little scary pooping rug rats. Here’s some coffee. I’ve got to go and deal with a shit ton of paperwork. I hope Max never gets sex again.”

He took the mug, and the amazing smell hit him. Damn, that wasn’t Hope’s coffee. That was brown gold. He took a long draw as he sat down at his old desk. Gemma had been right on two fronts. One—her coffee was worth more than money. It was beautiful and might actually change his life. Two—his desk was exactly how he’d left it, right down to the pencils he’d left by his phone.

Damn. It was like he hadn’t left. It was like he’d never done all the shit he’d done. Never walked into Hell on Wheels and…fuck. He didn’t want to think about that. He set his coffee down and opened the right drawer. It was where he kept his notebooks, but that wasn’t what he saw when he opened it.

Comic books. A big stack of comic books lay at the bottom of the drawer. Superman and X-Men and Fables and Spider-Man.

He’d loved those books. He’d spent hours reading them.

He’d been an idiot then. His whole childhood flashed before him. He’d spent all his time dreaming about being some freaking superhero, and all he’d gotten out of it was the final realization that he was nothing.

He slammed the drawer shut.

Maybe certain things hadn’t changed around Bliss, but other things had. He had. He’d changed irrevocably and there was not a damn thing anyone could do about it.

He turned away and started toward the room he’d lost his innocence in. Nate’s office. His personal version of hell.

Fuck, he hated everything.

Seth loved everything about Bliss. This was paradise, his true home.

Manhattan might have been good to him, but Bliss was paradise. Of course, even paradise had its issues.

“Seth.” Henry Flanders held out his hand and Seth shook it, holding it probably two seconds longer than necessary because he’d missed Henry.

“Henry.” Seth forced himself to let go. He’d only been back in Bliss once since the time he’d met John Bishop, aka Henry Flanders, but they had kept in touch. It had been awkward at first, but then they’d settled into talking once a month, their long conversations filling something deep inside him.

“What’s wrong with you, son? Get up here and give me a hug.” Henry held his arms open.

Seth practically jumped up and hugged the man he considered a father figure. “It’s good to see you, man.”

“It’s been a long time. I was starting to think you wouldn’t come home again.”

He stepped back, sliding into the booth as Henry took the place across from him. Henry’s hair was longer than it had been five years before. When Seth had first met Henry, he’d had a short, very neat cut, and his clothes had been straight out of Professor Retail. He’d been a little uptight, but the man who sat in front of him now was relaxed, his brown hair brushing his earlobes. His clothes were fairly loose and laid back. Seth would bet they were all organic cotton.

A waitress stepped up, winking Seth’s way. She took their orders and walked back toward the kitchen.

“Still eating vegan, huh?” Seth asked.

“Always. Good for the body. Good for the soul.” Henry leaned forward. “How bad is it?”

Seth frowned. This was the shitty part of his visit. “I think I stopped it, but I can’t shut down everything. If I do, it could actually make things worse.”

“I understand. Should I expect a visitor?”

Seth shook his head. “I don’t think so. According to all the records, Henry Flanders lives in Seattle. I keep a place out on Bainbridge Island in your name.”

Henry smiled, a little grin. “You’re such a devious thing. We should all be damn happy you’re not a criminal.”

“Hey, some people would disagree. Have you read the Times lately?” The Times seemed to have it out for him, claiming that his current domination of the software market was bad for businesses and consumers everywhere. They likened him to the old railroad tycoons who had a stranglehold on transportation in their time.

“It’s always hard to be on top, Seth. So any ideas on who’s looking?”

“I traced some of the inquiries back to DC.” In Seth’s mind, it was the absolute worst-case scenario.

Henry took a long breath. “Langley. The Agency.”

“Yeah. I don’t know how or why they would start looking, and I damn straight have no idea why they would be looking for Henry Flanders. There weren’t any loose ends that I can think of.”

“Oh, I can think of one.” Henry sat back, a sad smile on his face. “I shipped out of Colombia on Henry Flanders’s passport. At the time it seemed like I was starting a new life, but now I can see where I was lazy. When I left Bliss, I switched to another passport so Henry Flanders left Colombia, but he never entered the country according to airport records. I could fake the stamp on my passport, but I couldn’t fake the airport records. The authorities don’t like messy passports. And sometimes they like to run checks. It’s entirely possible that the passport got flagged.”

“After all these years?”

He shrugged slightly. “Identity is a funny thing, Seth. And so is intelligence. Things can be very fluid in that world. The way things were set up, I was killed by a cartel and they took my body. If the next operative got in good with the cartel, he might have investigated. The Delta agent who set up my exit could have had a change of heart, though I would be surprised at that. He seemed solid. I suspect they found something, some little thread, and now they’re seeing how far it will unravel. Stay calm. They’re fishing. They don’t have anything or they would be on my doorstep and not on the Internet.”

How could he be so calm? Seth was almost always calm, but the idea of someone looking for Henry had his stomach in knots. He’d worked so hard to keep this all under wraps. Nell didn’t even know that her husband had a past life as a CIA operative who went by the name John Bishop. “I’ll keep an eye on the situation. And I have someone watching the Bainbridge house to see if anyone’s casing it.”

“You know the Agency would have loved to have you. You’re a genius when it comes to laying out a plan. So Nell and I own property on Bainbridge Island, huh?”

Seth couldn’t help but smile. “Don’t try taking her out there, man. I bought the place off a junk bonds king. The housekeeper says he was a true believer in gold fixtures and mounted animal heads. She hasn’t gotten around to earth friendlying the sucker up.”

The very flirtatious waitress set a pot of tea in front of Henry and a water for Seth before winking at him as she left.

It made him really uncomfortable. He was already taken. He just wasn’t wearing a ring yet.

Henry poured the tea with a practiced hand. “You haven’t even seen the place?”

Seth shook his head. “Nah. I didn’t buy it for a vacation.”

“No, it was part of your plot. So tell me, that monstrosity of a house next to mine…what plot is that a part of?”

Seth sat back, a little startled. “It’s not a plot. You know I’ve always meant to come home.”

“You haven’t been back in almost four years, Seth.”

“I was working. I finished school and I started Stark Software. It was really intense. The programming was just the start. And then contracts started rolling in. I’ve barely looked up from my computer for the last four years.” It had been a whole lot of hard work, but everything was in place now. He could breathe a little.

“It was funny. I rather think we all believed you would move out here after college, or at the very least spend some time with Logan. That first summer you didn’t show up was a surprise.”

Whoa. He’d always thought of Henry as the father he wanted, but now he was sounding way dad-like with the guilt tripping. “Granddad died. My dad sold the place right out from under me. I think granddad thought that my father would do the right thing and keep it in the family, give me a chance to make some money and buy it, but Dad sold the cabin two days after we buried him. I’ve been working my ass off so I could come home in style.”

“I don’t think anyone was worried about style, Seth,” Henry murmured. “We just wanted you home. I think Logan’s felt abandoned.”

“You wouldn’t know it. Henry, it’s not like I didn’t call. I called at least once a week, and then eighteen months ago he stopped talking to me. Oh, he would answer the phone, but I got nothing out of him. The only way I knew he’d been in the hospital was Momma Marie called me.”

“But you didn’t come to visit.” Everything Henry said was with an even, calm tone.

“He told me not to.”

“And you listened to him?”

“He promised me he would come to New York and then he went to Dallas instead. God, Henry, I didn’t know how bad it was. When Marie talked to me about it, she said he’d been in a work-related incident.”

Henry’s eyes went slightly cold, and Seth could see that John Bishop was still in there, buried deep. “Marie has a habit of understating things. He was brutalized. He was tortured for hours by a member of the Russian mob, and I think it broke him in ways not even he understands. I was very happy to hear he’s been working with a therapist. That’s why he went to Dallas.”

He’d known it was bad. He’d suspected Marie was understating it. Why hadn’t he come home? “I know. Jamie called me when some guy named Wolf wanted to set everything up. Logan was supposed to go there on some sort of payment plan, but I didn’t want him to have to worry about money. I paid for his membership at some club that the therapist insisted on. A BDSM club. Apparently the therapist uses BDSM to help control impulse issues. I’ve been studying up on it, actually. I’ve been to a Manhattan club.”

Henry watched him for a moment. “I wouldn’t pick you for a lifestyler.”

“I probably wouldn’t be but Logan needs it, and I think the woman I love needs it, too.”

Henry pointed at him triumphantly. “Ah, there’s your plan. I knew it would be in there somewhere.”

Damn it. Why did that make it sound cheap? “It’s not a plan. I’m just trying to bring us together.”

“Let me see if I can guess what’s going on here. You’ve found a woman you like.”

“I’ve found a woman I love,” Seth corrected.

“Fine. You’ve found a woman you love, and you’re ready to move on but you want the ménage you’ve always dreamed of and Logan’s not where he needs to be. So lucky you. You manage to find a naturally submissive woman. Logan is a trained Dominant male. You intend to ask him to teach you how to top your girlfriend. Are you going to give him rights to her body?”

Guilt was gnawing at him. It sounded a little dirty when Henry put it like that. But it was going to work. It had to work. “Yes. It won’t work if he doesn’t have sex with Georgia.”

“Sex could bind them together. For the female, it will be very difficult for her not to fall for him.”

He was a little sick of feeling like the bad guy. It brought out the beast in him. “Oh, Henry, you see this is where you’ve underestimated me. You want to make me the villain? You haven’t gone far enough. Georgia knows Logan. She spent time with him six months ago, and I believe they fell for each other then, but his mental state kept them apart. Well, that and her deep stubborn streak. I was lucky enough to find her. I intended to simply hire her and keep her safe for Logan, but I took one look at that blonde with her bratty mouth and her soft heart and I knew I would keep her for myself if I had to. Six months. I’ve kept my hands off her for six months until the time became right for me to bring us all here and under one roof. I will maneuver them both into a situation where they are living together, sleeping together, playing together, and I will get what I want in the end.”

A slow smile crossed Henry’s face. “There’s the Seth I expected. It’s an interesting play. Where do you fit? If Logan is the Dom and this Georgia is the sub, what is your role? How do you know that once you manage to get them together, they won’t need you anymore? Ah, there’s the rub.”

Henry had gotten really obnoxious since he hit forty. John Bishop hadn’t talked this much. Of course, John Bishop had also tried to kill him once, but Seth had been cock blocking the man, so he understood.

“It won’t happen.”

“It could happen. You could end up feeling like the second dick or worse, just the guy they keep around because they feel guilty.”

This hadn’t gone down the way he’d hoped. He utterly lost his appetite. Seth felt his body flush, and he took a deep breath to banish the unwanted emotions that threatened to take over. “Well, I can see what you think of me. Uhm, I’m going to get back home. Give Nell my love.”

Henry’s hand shot out, grabbing Seth before he could stand. “Don’t. I know you thought you could walk back in here and everything would be roses and moonlight, but if you want to live here, if you want to be a part of this family, you’re going to have to change your expectations. I know you think of me as a father figure.”

This was the part of the day where he would normally tell whoever was making him feel like crap to fuck off and walk away. If it had been his biological father, he certainly would have done that. “If you don’t want me to bother you anymore, Henry, I won’t.”

“See, this is what I’m talking about. The minute you come against something you can’t barrel your way through, you drop it like a hot potato. Stop. Take your little boy hat off and listen to me. You think of me as a father figure and I love you like a son. That means I’m going to poke at you and try to make you the best you can possibly be. It’s what parents do. I’m worried about this. I’m not worried that you won’t have a place in this relationship you want. I’m worried that you won’t see it. You get so damn caught up in a problem that you don’t see the emotional ramifications of what will happen when you get what you want. You’re obsessive and you tend to let the rest of the world fall away when you’re focused. I think this could be very good for you. I think you and Logan have always balanced each other, and you two got into serious trouble when you no longer had the other to count on. You drifted into your work and he could not cope with having his innocence stripped away. You two need each other. Don’t look at this like one of your plots, Seth. It’s too important.”

“It’s everything,” Seth concurred, relief flooding his system. He hadn’t realized just how much he’d come to depend on Henry being there. “Henry, I understand what you’re saying and I appreciate it. I’ll think about it, but I think we all need this.”

“All right.” Henry sat back. “Looks like breakfast is here. Scrambled tofu and veggies. Damn. Nothing gets a morning started like that.”

The waitress put a plate in front of Seth, but he had to force himself to eat. As Henry started talking about everything that was going on around the county, all Seth could see was Logan, battered and bruised. What if he was wrong? What if he didn’t understand what the problem really was? What if love couldn’t cure Logan?