Not Quite Married Read Free Page A

been a true father, and now he wanted her girls?
    She couldn’t speak. All that squeaked out was a gasp. Logan took the papers from her hands, and she just watched as he read. He looked up, taking her and the girls in before folding up the papers and holding on to them.
    “Let’s have dinner” was all he said. “Come on, girls. Let’s give your mom a break and finish cooking.”
    “Well, what’s in the papers? What did that guy want?” Trinity asked.
    “It’s nothing for you to worry about,” he said. “Come on, let’s focus on dinner. Dawn, set the table. Trinity, let’s finish the chicken.”
    The girls started into the kitchen, but Julia found that her feet wouldn’t move. She was absolutely numb, and her head…well, she couldn’t even begin to make sense of this. Logan must have known, as he pulled her into his arms, where she could rest her cheek against his chest. He pressed his chin on top of her head and just held her as if trying to keep everything bad from her. She was angry, furious, and she finally pushed away. Even Logan couldn’t make her feel better.
    “How could he do this?” she snapped. “He’s never been there for the girls. I raised them, and when he showed up here when Trinity disappeared, accusing me, saying it was my fault… I guess I should’ve seen this coming. He’s despicable. He doesn’t want to be a father, he just wants my girls for that tart he married. He humiliated me. I couldn’t even stay in Boise because I couldn’t believe how stupid I was. Why, Logan? I can’t understand. Why would he do this?” She couldn’t keep her hands still, so she fisted them and then ran them through her hair before noticing that the girls were watching. They were scared and worried, of course. They didn’t know what the hell was going on except for the fact that their mother was freaking out.
    “Dad wants to take us away?” It was Trinity who spoke, and Dawn looked so sad. So they had overheard.
    “No one’s taking you anywhere,” Logan said. He slid his arm around Julia’s shoulder, leading her into the kitchen. He slipped his other arm around the girls as if he was their anchor, holding them together.
    Julia wondered whether Logan had any idea what was at stake. After all, they weren’t even married yet. He had no rights to the girls. What did he think he could do?

Chapter 5
    L ock the doors, check the windows, make sure everything was turned off. That was Logan’s nightly routine before bed. The girls were tucked in, both in their own rooms, sleeping softly. Julia, too, had finally fallen into a fitful sleep. Logan decided he would check on Trinity again before bed, as he could always tell when a nightmare was taking hold.
    Trinity had been doing so well. For the past six nights, she had slept peacefully—no nightmares. Logan had seen her worry tonight, though. She hadn’t been able to hide it as she picked at her dinner. Trinity normally ate everything and then rummaged through the fridge every night for a snack to tide her over until morning. Not that Dawn didn’t do that, as well, but Trinity could out-eat her sister any day of the week, and tonight was the first night she had ever skipped her snack. These were just the little things he recognized, because he understood, all too well, what it meant to live with a nightmare.
    Even Dawn had spent the evening glancing from Logan, to her mom, to Trinity. Dawn held everything in, always so happy and smiling, and she was always trying to make everyone else happy, too. He’d seen her anxiety and how she had tried to lighten Julia’s mood by cleaning the kitchen after dinner and then helping put leftovers in the fridge. She was worried, too.
    Julia had worn a tight expression all evening. She had re-read the legal papers half a dozen times after demanding Logan give them back. She had been all worked up, and no amount of reasoning would have appeased her. Logan, of course, wanted to have a word with Kevin—man to man,