Logan takes a seat on the floor of the jail cell. “We wait.”
His long legs stretch out before him, and he suddenly looks more relaxed than he has all summer.
He pats the floor next to him. “Come on,” he says as he crosses his legs at the ankles and looks up at me.
I walk over and take a seat next to him on the concrete floor. “What a mess,” I say.
“No doubt. You and I are stuck behind bars together.”
At his words, last night’s dream abruptly floods my mind.
I inhale and try to erase from my thoughts the image of Logan and me naked inside this very cell.
But I can’t.
I can’t help sneaking a peek at him next to me. At his tight jeans, at what I know his chest looks like underneath that fitted green t-shirt, at his tanned skin…
His eyes burn into mine as we look at each other.
The ache between my legs is so intense…
I turn away from him and start riffling maniacally through my purse. I’m looking for something—anything—to distract me.
My diary peeks out from underneath my wallet. I grab it in relief and wave it in the air.
“How about I read another one of these entries to pass the time?”
“Mace…” he warns.
“One that’s not too…intimate,” I promise.
“How about the last one?”
“My last entry? You mean the one from Vegas?”
Logan’s cheeks go red, and his eyes flash. “No. I don’t want to hear that one.”
I raise my eyebrows in surprise. “Why not?”
“Because. I just don’t.” He clears his throat. “I meant why don’t you just go in order from where we were?”
“Okay. Great.” I exhale in relief that I have something to do with my mouth other than kiss Logan like I’m craving. I whip open to a page, not paying attention to what entry it is. “Let’s try this one.”
Daddy was passed out at a table, and Mama slumped in the corner booth. She started rambling to me about last weekend’s bar brawl and how the police came an hour ago and took The Cowherd’s liquor license away.
“Your father and I just made our divorce official today. But with another lien on our house, who knows when we’ll actually split up…we’ve already been living here two weeks.” Mama started to cry. “And we’ll have no customers after tonight. Of course we won’t—we’re a bar with no liquor! Remember when this happened before and you were the only one able to get the mayor to change his mind?”
I reassured Mama I would do my best, and then I sent her off to bed in the chapel pews before helping my father into his own pew and putting a blanket over him.
I walked into the liquor room and made sure I saw six eyes blinking back at me just like Mama taught me the last time we lived in the saloon.
I sat down on Riley’s cot. “Y’all are still awake.”
“We waited for you.” Ben’s face peered up at me from his sleeping bag on the floor. “Can you believe it? A bar with no beer?”
“We’re totally screwed,” Riley said.
“One story, please Macey,” Free begged me.
