“Just tired,” Logan replied.
Tad laughed. “Wait till you’ve got kids. Then you’ll learn what tired really means.” He paused, watching as Logan stroked the baby's chin. “Are you seeing anyone at the moment?”
A soft laugh escaped Logan’s lips. “No. I would’ve told you if I was.”
“Jessamine has a friend. She’s nice. Divorced a year or so back, who’s looking to get back on the dating scene—”
Logan interrupted with a sigh. “I’m going to stop you there. My life is busy, the last thing I need is to add someone else to it.”
“I worry about you.”
“Well, you shouldn’t.”
“Things changed for you after Aiden died. You know it wasn’t your fault.”
Logan swallowed. It was the first time anyone had mentioned his name in years.
“I mean it,” Tad continued. “It wasn’t your fault. Aiden, he’d been struggling for some time.”
“Stay in your lane, Tad. You’re a surgeon, not a psychiatrist.”
“I’m trying to help you.”
He swallowed again, trying to claw back the unpredictable anger from spilling. Tad had a point. Meeting Daisy had coincided with one of the darkest times in his life, and maybe it was in her that he’d fabricated the escape he couldn’t make a reality. Was that then, too, why he’d built such an infatuation with her?
“Does he need feeding yet?” Jessamine interrupted, walking out of the bathroom with a white towel wrapped around her hair.
“Still sleeping,” Tad replied.
She walked over to them and smiled. “Look at that; you’re a natural, Logan. I swear this baby only sleeps on me, and you’ve had him out cold for over an hour. Are you two still heading out for a beer?”
Tad’s gaze shifted to Logan, almost as if trying to read his expression. “We are. Is that still alright?”
“Of course it is.”
Slowly, Tad pried the baby from Logan’s arms, and he watched as he handed him across to Jessamine, and it hit him; this was the life he’d always wanted, and the more time passed, the further it was drifting beyond his reach.
Later that night at the bar, with Tad deep in animated conversation with a workmate he’d bumped into by chance, Logan found himself aimlessly scanning the walls. That’s when he saw it—a photograph of Daisy’s mother. The resemblance was unmistakable. From her piercing eyes to the blunt cut of her hair, it stopped him cold. He couldn’t tear his eyes away.
He took a slow sip of his drink, his gaze fixed on the image. For a fleeting moment, he imagined her singing here on a night like this. Maybe she’d been on stage, a hand resting on her belly, not yet knowing she was pregnant with Daisy. Or perhaps Daisy’s unknown father had been among the crowd, entranced by her. The thought sent a chill through him; it was haunting.
“Everly Jenkins,” said an older man standing nearby, having noticed Logan’s intense stare. “She was something else. Every guy who drank here tried his luck with her, one way or another.”
Logan turned towards the man. “You knew her?”
“Me? Nah. She was before my time. But she used to sing here all the time back in the '80s.”
“Is she still around?” Logan asked, though he already knew the answer.
The man sipped his drink. “Nah. She disappeared years ago. No one knows if she was murdered or just walked away from it all.”
“There you are,” Tad said, reappearing with two beers in hand. He followed Logan’s line of sight. “Wait...is that who I think it is? The reporter—what was her name?”
He stepped closer, squinting at the photo. “No way. That shot has to be thirty years old, at least. But the resemblance? Unreal. You should snap a pic and send it to her.”
He wasn’t wrong. In another time, maybe Logan would’ve. But instead, he turned back towards the bar, heart pounding.
“What was that?” Tad asked, trailing him.
