The men exchanged looks. “Sounds good to me,” Sebastian said. He nodded to Jade. “See you later.”
Logan put his arm around her shoulders. “We’ll talk soon, sis.”
Another surprise. Logan rarely hugged her once he became a teenager. When he was little, she used to cuddle him in her lap and read stories, mostly before bedtime. Her heart squeezed. She missed those days.
She watched her brother and ex-boyfriend make their way through the congested lobby to the exit. Unreal. When they disappeared, she blew out a breath and rubbed her temples. Once everything settled down, she could ask Mabel to check the lost and found. Surely it had to be there. No one would steal a briefcase. Would they?
* * *
As Seb made the twenty-five-minute drive to his cabin with Logan following in his small gray sedan, he took the chance to process the last hour with Jade. He hadn’t expected her to get so upset, not only about his offer to house Logan, but also about the briefcase. He was still puzzled that she’d been against her brother staying at his cabin. The kid seemed nice, and like Seb told Jade, he was her family. It was almost as if she didn’t want to trust Logan with Seb. Or was it the other way around?
Then there was the briefcase debacle. Her strong reaction to losing it brought his curiosity back. He’d seen fear in her eyes when he offered to find it, and she quickly covered that up with a bizarre laugh and enthusiastic suggestion that he take Logan to the cabin, when a short while earlier she’d been against it.
Strange, strange, strange.
The rest of the way to the cabin he made a mental note to get with Mabel again after the hoedown. He could push back his Clementine series. He was the boss after all.
Reaching the top of the curvy mountain road, he pulled into his driveway and Logan parked right next to him. He got out of the car and breathed in the Ozark air. It was fresh. Invigorating. He loved it up here. He saw Logan exit the car, a cell to his ear.
“Gotcha,” Logan said into the phone. “I’ll call you tomorrowmorning. Hopefully I’ll have some news.” He hung up and slid his cell into his short’s pocket, then reached inside and pulled out his backpack. When he turned toward Seb, he looked a little green around the gills.
“You all right?”
“I will be now that we’re stopped.” Logan leaned against the car.
“Sorry. Should have warned you about all the curves.”
“That’s okay. I’ll be fine.” He paused, his eyes filling with concern. “You think Jade’s all right?”
Not really.But he had no way to explain that answer, so he said, “As far as I know.”
“How long have y’all known each other?”
Ah, the inquisition. He would do the same if he’d met an “old friend” of Evelyn Margot’s he’d never heard about. “About ten years. We met at the paper.”
“That’s where she was working before she moved to Atlanta, right?”
“Right.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “She went on to greener pastures.”
“I don’t even know what she does there,” Logan said. “Not exactly. Something with business.”
“Yeah,” Seb said. “Business.”
“I’m proud of her. She’s always done well for herself.”
“Seems to have. It’s been a while since we last talked.” No need for him to know how long.
“Same here.” Logan was staring straight ahead, looking past Seb, his jaw set.
For once, Seb didn’t pry.
Logan blinked and looked at Seb again, this time with a grin. “Nice place.”
“Thanks.” He walked down the incline to the cabin’s front stepsand unlocked the door. It had been a few weeks since he was last here, and as soon as he walked inside, he pulled down the window on the screen door and left the wood-paneled front door ajar. “I’ll open a couple more windows in here to air it out,” he said as Logan entered.
Logan glanced around the cabin. “Wow,” he said.
Wowwas an exaggeration, but the place was a gem. Seb had been shocked when Buford had bequeathed it to him, and worried that Bo would be upset.“Nah,”Bo had said.“You went up there more than I did to visit him and Aunt Glenda. I’m glad it’s yours.”
