8. Logan

8

Logan

T he back door opens as I'm trying to compose myself and calm my racing heart.

"Hey hun," Julie's voice comes from my left, "you have a table."

"Thanks," I force a tight smile to my face for her and smooth out my apron. "I owe you for taking Ash last night."

"Don't worry about it." She flashes one of her bright smiles in my direction as I wander past her into the back of the diner. "Ash is a good kid, he taught me how to fold a paper airplane and then we watched a movie until he fell asleep."

"Thank you," I say, biting back the tears.

Even though the compliment was miniscule it felt good to know that despite Tommy's attempts, Ash would never be anything like him. That I was raising a little boy that knew love and would have a proper childhood.

"You got stuck up there with Crew Cassidy," she lowers her voice to a sultry whisper, "anything fun happen?"

I roll my eyes. "Over my dead body."

"You can't tell me you haven't thought about it. The Cassidy boys have always been…" she trails off with a sigh as she leans over the counter pretending to day dream. "Oh come on!" She laughs when I shake my head.

A lie.

I couldn't close my eyes without seeing his naked body, the image having been burned into my brain. "Cowboys are trouble," I say.

"The Cassidy boys aren't cowboys," she argues as I dig out a menu and swing around to the coffee pot behind me. "They're men of law."

"Different uniforms, same issues," I chirp, walking out from behind the counter.

Crew and Cam had both followed their deceased daddy's path down into danger. I remember when Crew joined the military they had thrown a big party down east of the creek that they had invited everyone to. A few of my friends tried to convince me to go but I had opted out and watched the partying from afar. Even back then the ties of my father were a noose around my neck. The invitation said everyone but there was always the underlying whisper of everyone but the Shepard girl.

Cam decided on something more local and had gone on to become a part of the sheriff's force. Our history tangled in ways no-one understood. Not even Crew. And, like the devil, Cam removes his beige cowboy hat as I approach his table.

"Logan." He nods, staring up at me with those boyish blue eyes.

"Sheriff." I fill his cup and tuck the menu under my arm. "Lunch?"

"Give me a minute to look over it, I'm in the mood for something else."

Cam comes in three times a week, sits in the same booth, and always orders a ham and cheese sandwich with extra fries. He looks over my shoulder, dragging my eyeline to where Carl hovers behind the open window, drenched in sweat and eyeing us like we are doing something illegal.

"I won't keep you," he says to me.

I look back at him and nod.

"Are you doing okay?" He asks and his head tilts to the side as his lips press together in a thin line.

"I'm doing my community service, I'm working, I'm behaving, Cam."

"That's not what I meant and you know it," he taps the side of his coffee cup with a finger.

A silence overcomes me and the sticky feeling in my throat makes it hard to breathe. The look on his face is the same one from that day he found me, fifteen years old, hiding in the closet mere feet from where my daddy's skull lay in pieces across the trailer floor. I steady myself and swallow tightly to rid myself of the choking feeling that tugged at my chest.

Cam had been on the job three days when my momma ended her life and my daddy went on a rampage in the trailer park. He killed three police officers and two civilians before taking his own life three feet from where I hid.

I have to remember the day; it's burned into who I am, but Cam, he chooses to remember and is the only person in this town that cares who I am beneath the rumors. Even when that person is horrible to be around.

"I'm fine." I give him a clipped response.

"You're more stubborn than any mule," he groans

"You know a lot of mules, Sheriff?" I huff and he chuckles.

"And the ranch?"

I pin my shoulders back, expecting him to scold me for all the bad things Crew told him about me working up there. I'm not stupid, I know what they say about me. My daddy had worked on that Ranch for years before they fired him out of the blue. They had triggered every event that killed my mother, that killed those cops and then him.

"No one is giving you a hard time?"

I laugh. It's tight but relieving and it leaves me like a gust of wind. "Only your thick-skulled brother."

"I know two mules." He finally answers my question.

"Three." I kick his fancy cop boot with my sneaker.

"That could be considered assaulting an officer of the law, young lady," he laughs, but goes back to business just as quickly, "and Tommy, you heard from him at all?"

The mention of Tommy makes my skin crawl. "Thankfully no."

"You call me if he comes around, alright?" He drops his brows, trying to be serious but he still looks like that fresh faced nineteen year old who rescued me. "No more baseball bat derbies on his truck."

"Yes, Sheriff," I mock him. "Ham and cheese? "

"Extra fries," we say in unison and he flashes me that Cam Cassidy smirk.

I wander away from him and somehow manage to finish my shift without causing anymore trouble. Carl looms like a shadow over me anytime I get near the kitchen but there's nothing I can do about it. He's a creep but I need the job more than I need my pride. I swallow what's left of it and drive over to the government offices for the meeting with my parole officer.

She scolds me for leaving town but spends ten minutes reciting vomit worthy poetry about Crew Cassidy's muscles and suddenly I understand why he was able to get me a day pass. She warns me that my job isn't good enough and my trailer is a red flag for the courts as if I need the reminder that despite all of my hard work I still wasn't good enough for my son. At least not in the eyes of the court.

By the time I pick Ash up from school I'm too exhausted to do anything but crawl onto our musty couch with a box of dry cereal–a reminder that I do need to grocery shop at some point—and let him pick out a movie.

We fall asleep there and when the alarm goes off at five am I can feel the exhaustion rush back in like it had never planned on ever leaving. I pick up his toys, throwing them in his bin as I move through the tiny trailer back to the bathroom. I shower quickly and find him sitting at the table with that same box of cereal writing letters with the fruit loops.

"Morning baby." I kiss his head as I pass and rummage through the clean laundry that's piled on the recliner in the corner. "Miss Julie is coming to hang out with you today."

As if on cue she knocks at the door and it swings open.

"Hey booger face!" She coos loudly, stepping inside with two coffees balancing in her right hand and piece of yellow paper in her left.

I know what it is before she even hands it to me and the big red letters that read eviction are loud enough to rattle the bones beneath my skin.

"Fuck," I swear under my breath, "a month?" I sigh.

I'm behind on the trailer park fees by three months and if I don't pay the full amount they'll have the trailer towed on top of kicking me out of the park. I'm lucky they even let me stay here after everything that has happened. Splitting time between the ranch and my job isn't working. I need to focus or I'm going to lose my home.

Collecting my belongings from the counter I turn to Ash and Julie.

"I'll pick you up from school," I kiss him on the temple. "Thank you."

I take the coffee from Julie and it's not until I'm in the car that I let the angry tears flow. Slamming my hands against the steering wheel until my palms are sore and all the frustration is gone.

I pull to the exit to the park and know that I need to go left up to the Ranch, but instead I take the right and go into town. I park the car in the parking lot knowing that this is going to blow up in my face, most likely ending with me in county.

"Morning Logan," Nancy coos as the bell over the front door rings.

Carl is hovering just behind the counter as Nancy wipes it down and serves coffee to those waiting in line. I wander back and throw my belongings in one of the two lockers in the kitchen. When I turn around he's standing directly behind me, and I can smell the grease and cigarette smoke on his breath.

It's only then that I notice the rough bruises around his neck and the rings under his left eye.

"Thank you for coming into work today," he says with a tight smile that frankly terrifies me.

"You're welcome?" I say back, confused. As I skirt around him to get to work, tying my apron around my waist I hear him mumble something else but can't understand it. "What the hell is going on with Carl?" I ask Nancy as I start making fresh coffee.

"Someone broke in last night," she whispers over her shoulder. "Messed him up real bad but didn't take anything." She shrugs.

I look back at Carl, who's watching me from the kitchens as he makes scrambled eggs. He isn't a small man but now he looks tiny and terrified. Yesterday I could feel his predatory glances down my spine but today he's nothing more than a scared little boy.

"They didn't take anything?" I ask again, pouring black coffee into paper cups.

"Didn't even touch the safe; Carl won't say anything else."

"Do they have any idea who did it?" I ask.

"Sheriff Cassidy was in this morning when I got here, talking to him, but I couldn't hear what they were saying except for that Carl didn't get a good look at who did it."

"I'd be lying if I said I feel bad for him," I hand a coffee off.

"He told me if I wanted to leave today I could, unprompted. Whoever put the fear of God in him has my thanks." She shrugs and floats away from me to wait on a table.

Her words make me think of Crew. I thought I saw a flash of his truck leave the lot yesterday and somewhere, something deep in me hopes it was him. That same part of me wars with the gnawing need to keep him at a distance.