“The closest I’ve come to a relationship since Grace was when I helped Gideon and Lucian get information on their women.”
“Get information on them?”
“Yeah, long story, on both counts, but let’s just say that men in our station of life have to check into backgrounds before they dive in.”
“From what my grandma has to say, it doesn’t seem like everyone was fully onboard with their methods,” I said. Logan didn’t bother to deny that.
“I never said my brothers were smart. They came to me for facts; what they did with that information once they got it was up to them. I can’t help the fact that they’re clueless when it comes to how to treat the women afterward.”
“Imagine that…” I huffed. “Seems to run in the family.”
“You got me there, sweetheart.”
I glanced around and didn’t recognize where we were, but when Logan pulled down a long stretch of driveway out in the country, I gasped the minute the house came into view. “Logan,” I cried.
“Yeah, sweetheart. It’s exactly what it looks like.”
It looked like the dream home we had both thought up when we were younger and planning what our future as a married couple would look like. We were both too unnerved by what being a married couple meant back then, so we spent a lot of time focused on a dream home we could both agree on. It was a mountain chalet with timber and stone exterior and the design appeared to be held together by the massive windows that overlooked the scenic views of upstate New York. With the dusting of snow on the ground, it looked like a magical getaway.
“You own this?” I asked.
“It’s our home. I built it for us, in the hopes that I would find you one day and be able to bring you here. This was always our dream. Fuck the city. Fuck the people. We wanted a quiet, country life where we could just be happy.” My heart hammered so fast in my chest, it was a miracle Logan didn’t have to call 9-1-1 to come resuscitate me.
“When did you start this?”
“Three years ago when I finally got access to the money my grandfather left for me.”
“Three years ago, when you hadn’t heard from me in eight years, you built our dream house and have lived in it ever since?”
“It’s never been lived in. I came by, inspected the place, have it cleaned regularly, but it’s been sitting here waiting for you to come back home to me first.”
“Logan,” I whispered his name and begrudgingly took my eyes off the house to look into his. “What if I’d never come back? What if I’d gotten married and had a family during that time?”
He shrugged. “I guess I would have eventually burned our dreams to the ground with this house then.” He turned his attention back to the gorgeous dwelling before us. “You want to go in and see it, since I don’t have to burn it down now?”
I chuckled and slid free from the vehicle. Unfortunately, I forgot that frozen wonderlands sometimes came with their ownset of hazards, so when I hopped out, I hit a slick patch of icy snow and immediately slid about six feet from the SUV and promptly fell on my butt while my arms windmilled hopelessly to try to keep me on my feet.
“Shit, are you okay?” Logan called out as he ran around the front of the vehicle to come to my rescue only to hit a similar patch of slick. I laughed as he fell on his ass and slid down the tiny slope to end up right beside me. “Well, fuck. That wasn’t supposed to happen,” He grumbled and sent me into another fit of laughter. My laughter spiraled until my ribs hurt.
“I think I needed that.”
“Then I’m happy to have provided us the icy driveway to bruise our asses on, but we might want to get inside and get warmed up.”
Logan carefully stood and reached down to hold his hands out to help me up. We made our way to the house and got inside without further issue just as the snow started to fall again. “I’ll go grab the bags if you can get some coffee brewing in the kitchen for us.”
Logan pointed toward the kitchen and I wanted to cry because it was just the way I’d always imagined it to be laid out so that there was a bar between the kitchen and living space. It created a continuous entertaining area for the occasions when we decided to be social and invite people into our space.
“This is a dream,” I said as my feet seemed to take me there without any effort on my part. The coffee was forgotten as I turned in place and took in everything Logan had built. If it was possible to take a screenshot of my dream home straight from my mind, it would be the house he had built. I wandered further into the kitchen and quickly realized that everything was set up in exactly the same way I would have done myself. It didn’t take long to brew that coffee once I finally stopped trying to compare the memories of us planning this space with the reality.
“Do you want a tour?” Logan startled me as he came up and grabbed a cup out of the cabinet.
“I do, but I got lost with that,” I said as I tipped my head toward the window and the view of the snow-blanketed countryside beyond. “It feels like a dream. I know I said that earlier, but there’s this quiet in the air and the snow and this house. It should all be impossible when so much has happened in the span of a few days. I watched my father die and now I’m standing here staring out at the most peaceful landscape I think I’ve ever seen.”
“I am sorry about your father,” Logan murmured as he came up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist. We stood there with me resting against his back, staring out at the snowscape beyond for so long that the coffee maker beeped that it was turning off and brought us back to reality.
I turned in Logan’s arms and wrapped myself around him, too. “You’re going to have to be patient with me because none of this feels real. I am touching you, talking to you, standing in your house, and it…” My words trailed off as I tried to wrap my mind around everything. “Is this real?”
“It’s real and it’s just a small glimpse of our future, if you’ll stay.”
