A Promise to Protect (Logan Point Book #2): A Novel Page 8

  “No. Everything is calm. Oh, wait. Are you still looking for that flash drive?”

  “Why? Did you find it?”

  “No. It’s just that during the service I remembered these hidden compartments in the corner of the attic. That would’ve been a logical place for Tony to hide something. I’ll look tonight after it gets cooler. Right now it’s 120 degrees in that attic, and there’s no telling what’s piled on top.”

  “You want me to come by and help you?”

  “I’ll wait until Sarah leaves, and I don’t know when that will be.” From the corner of her eye, she saw TJ squirm as an older lady hugged him. Her stomach flipped when she recognized Marisa Logan.

  Leigh touched her son’s arm. “TJ, would you like to go outside for a while?”

  “Yes, ma’am!” Two black-haired boys, evidently twins, had joined him, and together they scooted out of the room.

  “You have a mighty handsome young man there.” Marisa’s soft drawl chilled Leigh to the bone.

  “Thank you.” She licked her lips. “Have you met Sarah Alexander? She’s TJ’s adopted grandmother. Came up from Jackson to be with us.”

  Soft pressure from Sarah’s hand stopped her babbling.

  “And you have to be Sheriff Logan’s mother,” Sarah said. “The resemblance is very strong—the black hair, the dark eyes, he even has your beautiful olive complexion.”

  Anxiety ebbed away. TJ had none of those characteristics.

  “Well, thank you, Sarah. Have you known Leigh and her son for very long?”

  Sarah edged Marisa away from Leigh. “Since before he was born. Would you like to sit over by the window? I’d like to ask you a few questions about Logan Point.”

  Bless her heart and her little gray head. Leigh felt Ben’s gaze on her and turned back to him.

  “How did you meet Sarah? If you’ve told me, I’ve forgotten. Did you hire her as a nanny for TJ?”

  “There was no money for a nanny. She was a friend of my husband’s, and after Matthew died, I had to find a cheap place to live. Sarah needed surgery and someone to stay with her until she recovered. She had an older house with an apartment upstairs, so I offered, and it worked out very well. Sarah became a part of our lives. She really loves TJ.” Leigh caught her breath. Ben hadn’t asked for their whole history.

  “Too bad she doesn’t live here.”

  “I know. But he seems to like staying with Jenny while I’m at work. Of course, now that Tony’s . . .” She simply couldn’t say dead. “Anyway, he’ll be staying there more.”

  “I’m sure my mom would be glad to keep him sometimes. He’d be good company for Josh and Jacob.”

  Now Leigh remembered where she’d seen the boys TJ left with. They were the twin sons of Emily, her boss at the free clinic. And Ben’s sister.

  Everywhere she turned, TJ was wrapped up with one of the Logan family members. Coming back to Logan Point was such a mistake. A mistake she couldn’t undo. She’d tried earlier this week, but the director had turned down her request to move, saying there were no openings anywhere in the state of Mississippi where she could transfer her service hours. She would be stuck in Logan Point for the remainder of her service contract unless someone opted out of the program.

  TJ turned off the television. “Mom, can I go out and catch lightn’ bugs?”

  Thunder rumbled overhead, rattling the windows of the little house. “You know it’s raining. There won’t be any lightning bugs.”

  “Then can I play Pac-Man?” TJ grinned.

  The little sneak. Leigh checked the time. “For thirty minutes.”

  “Give me a hug before you go,” Sarah said. “I’m going back to the motel shortly, and I know you and that game.”

  “I still don’t understand why you can’t stay here,” Leigh said.

  “Girl, I’m not sleeping on a lumpy couch. I need my beauty sleep before I make that long trip back to Jackson.”

  Mentally, Leigh added the bedroom suite to her list of things to check on tomorrow. “Can’t believe you drove two hundred miles from Jackson by yourself. But I’m glad you did.”

  “You think I’m too old?” She pushed her glasses up closer to her eyes. “I’ll have you know, I’m scheduled to go to the Philippines this fall on a mission trip.”

  Leigh laughed out loud. It didn’t take much to get Sarah’s dander up. She hoped she had that much sass when she was seventy-three. “Ex-cuse me.” She squeezed her thin hand. “I wish you lived up here. I could use a friend.”

  The chocolate eyes watered. She took Leigh’s hands in her own strong hands. “I could spare you a couple of months . . .”

  “I can’t ask you to do that, and I’m leaving here as soon as I can find another hospital. Maybe I’ll get one near Jackson.” Leigh picked up Bear and traced her finger down the seam. She jumped as thunder boomed again and something hit the side of the house. All she needed was for that old post oak to fall.

  “Why did you come back to Logan Point, feeling the way you do?”

  “Tony asked me to.”

  “You could’ve said no.”

  “I tried, believe me. But he pulled the family card—said we only had each other, and he didn’t want his nephew growing up not knowing who he was.”

  “He was right.” Sarah spoke softly. “TJ still needs a family, especially now that Tony is gone. One you’ve been running from most of his life.”

  Leigh’s heart caught in her throat, and she gaped at her friend. “I . . . I don’t know what you—”

  Sarah peered at Leigh over the top of her glasses. “I’m old, not blind.”

  “Matthew is—”

  “No, he’s not. Matthew was a good and kind man, but he’s not TJ’s father. Today I met the one who is. You should tell Ben—it’s obvious he doesn’t know.”

  Leigh’s insides melted. If Sarah saw the resemblance between TJ and Ben, it wouldn’t take long for someone else to make the connection. “How did you know?”

  “Didn’t have to. I knew Matthew before I knew you, child. That boy was in love with you. He talked to me before he asked you to marry him. He didn’t know who TJ’s father was, but that didn’t matter to him. He loved you, and he would love your baby.”

  Leigh tried to lift her arms in protest, but her muscles refused to move. Matthew had literally saved her life. They’d worked at the same restaurant, and he’d discovered her in the alley one night, throwing up. He guessed her problem, and a month later when she caught pneumonia, he’d taken care of her. When he asked her to marry him, she’d said yes, partly because her child needed a father. “I did love Matthew. Maybe not like I loved Ben, but he was so kind.”

  “You made him happy,” Sarah said. “Tell me about Ben.”

  Leigh closed her eyes, thinking back to those years. “We went to high school together, then went off to different colleges. The summer after my junior year, I came home during summer break and worked at a youth camp. Ben worked there too. For the first time, he really saw me. I wasn’t just his chemistry partner or someone he teased in high school.

  “Besides, I had changed.” Leigh pulled on her bottom lip, remembering. “From the time I moved to Logan Point when I was twelve until my first year at college, I wasn’t . . . let’s just say most parents wouldn’t want their kids around me.”

  “I don’t believe you were that bad,” Sarah said.

  “Picture purple hair one day and jet-black spikes the next. Rings in my eyebrow. Ran with the wrong crowd. Straight A student though and never did drugs. That was Tony’s deal.

  “No, I just flouted the rules. Even went to work at the local ‘dance’ club.” She held her hand up. “I just worked the cash register. Some of the ladies in town complained, and Sheriff Tom Logan hauled all the girls in one day. Me included. Told us we needed to find a different job. My smart mouth almost got us all put in jail.”

  “I just can’t see you being that way. Why? And what changed you?”

  “Why? I had a lot of built-up anger
. My dad died, and my mom moved us to Logan Point and then committed suicide two years later. Before she did, she told me I would never amount to anything.” Leigh pressed her lips together and looked toward the ceiling. “I set out to prove her right.”

  “I never knew.” Sarah patted her hand. “I’m so sorry. How did you go from that to becoming a doctor?”

  “I went away to college in Jackson, and a professor took me under her wing. Pointed me in the right direction.”

  Sarah smiled. “Good for her. But if you were in Jackson, how did you and Ben get together?”

  “My grandmother still lived here, and I always came home at Christmas and a few weekends. But the summer before my senior year, I didn’t take any classes. She wanted me to come home and talk to Tony. He’d dropped out of college and still ran with the wrong crowd.

  “I did, but it didn’t do any good. Anyway, that summer, Ben and I ended up working at the same camp. We started dating and kept dating when we returned home. It wasn’t long before we realized we were in love.

  “His dad didn’t like it one bit. He wanted Ben to follow in his footsteps someday and be sheriff. And even though I no longer had the spiked hair and the piercings, he still saw me as that person. But we didn’t care. We were in love, and one night . . .” Leigh looked down. “We knew we shouldn’t, but we got caught up in the moment.” She took a deep breath. “Right after that, Sheriff Logan came to me. He’d picked up Tony and a bunch of his friends on marijuana charges. Said if I’d back away from Ben, he’d drop the charges against Tony. But I couldn’t tell Ben why. Tom said it was only a summer fling, anyway.”

  Leigh lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “I wanted to let Tony go to jail—he needed to learn a lesson. But, before I gave Sheriff Logan an answer, I went to see my brother. He didn’t know about the deal.

  “Tony begged me to get a lawyer. He swore to me on our dead father’s grave it wasn’t his marijuana, that one of the guys he was with planted it on him, and if I would help him, he would change. No more drugs, no more hanging out with potheads.” Leigh shook her head. “I never could say no to him, and I really didn’t want him to go to jail.”

  Sarah pressed her hand to her chest. “What did you tell Ben?”

  “I called him and told him I didn’t want to see him again. That I didn’t have time to be distracted by a long-distance relationship. That was the last time I talked to him until the night Tony was murdered.”

  “He never tried to see you again?”

  “He called, and my grandmother told him I wasn’t there. Once I think she even told him I was on a date. It wasn’t long before I went back to college, not knowing I was pregnant.”

  “Why didn’t you tell him when you found out?”

  Leigh glanced toward the hallway, listening for the annoying wawawa of TJ’s game. Satisfied the game still had his attention captured, she turned to Sarah. “Ben gave up too easily. I didn’t think he’d want to know.”

  Sarah took a deep breath and frowned. “Do you smell something strange?”

  Leigh sniffed the air and shook her head. “Just the pizza we had for supper.”

  “It doesn’t quite smell like pizza. But back to Ben. Did you expect him to pursue you?”

  “I don’t know what I expected.” She massaged the tight muscles in her neck. “I probably did. My grandmother died right after I found out I was pregnant. Tony had straightened up, gone back to college. As I drove home to make the arrangements, I debated whether to tell Ben. I decided he had a right to know and planned to tell him after the funeral.

  “The night before the service, I went to a restaurant, and Ben was there with some girl. It was obvious they were in love . . . he even kissed her right there in the restaurant. I heard the next day he was engaged. Guessed that was why he didn’t come to the funeral or to see me. His dad had been right—I was just a summer fling. I was on my own. So I went back to Jackson, and you know the rest.”

  “Evidently he didn’t get married.”

  “No, he didn’t. Sometimes I wish . . . it doesn’t matter what I wish. It’s hard to undo decisions made ten years ago.” She rubbed the back of her thumb, thinking of TJ asking Ben to take him to ball practice. “But, I made the right choice, Sarah. Ben wasn’t ready to be a father back then, and he still isn’t.”

  Sarah lifted her head and wrinkled her nose, sniffing the air. “What is that odor?”

  Leigh inhaled, and this time acrid fumes burned her nose. “Something’s on fire.”

  She jumped up and ran into the kitchen. Nothing wrong there.

  Sarah halted near the door that led to the attic. “I think it’s coming from upstairs.”

  Leigh jerked open the door, and smoke rolled into the room.

  Rain poured from the night sky, blending with water from fire hoses. Ben stood beside the ladder truck and wiped his brow, thankful the fire that had blazed from the roof of Leigh’s house seemed to be contained. Lieutenant Carson James came to stand beside him.

  “Thanks for the help. If we’d had another truck, we probably could have saved more of the house,” James said. “But this is the third lightning fire tonight.”

  “You think this one was lightning?”

  “Know for sure after the fire marshal takes a look. Any reason you think it’s not?”

  “I just want to make sure it isn’t another attempt on Leigh’s life.”

  “Gotcha. We’ll stand by for another couple of hours, in case it flares up again.”

  Ben turned and scanned the crowd for Leigh and found her near the edge of the driveway, hugging her stomach. The shower had tapered off to a fine mist, and as he approached, she looked up with those luminous green eyes. With her chestnut hair plastered to her head, she reminded him of a waif.

  “Do you think they saved it?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.” Ben blew out a hard breath. She didn’t look like she could handle his suspicions right now. “We’ll know more tomorrow.” He looked around. “Where’s your friend?”

  “Gone to pull TJ away from the fire truck.”

  Ben frowned. “I was just there, and I didn’t see TJ.”

  “Leigh!” Sarah hurried toward them, her voice frantic. “I can’t find TJ!”

  Ben scanned the area. “Did anyone see which way he went?”

  “The fireman”—Sarah stopped to catch her breath—“said he asked about a bear. He told him there weren’t any bears—”

  “Bear!” Leigh started for the smoldering house. “He went after the bear Tony gave him!”

  Ben caught her. “You can’t go in there.”

  She tried to break away from him. “I have to!”

  “I’ll go.” As he ran to the back of the house, he spied the lieutenant. “There’s a boy inside. Going after him.”

  “Wait, Ben!”

  He ignored the lieutenant and sprinted for the front door that stood open. No, someone would have seen the boy if he’d gone in through the front. He turned and ran for the back. The door gaped open. “TJ!”

  No answer. Ben stepped through the door and hit total darkness, the house reeking of burnt wood and smoke. He fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief to cover his nose and mouth. Overhead, the ceiling hissed and cracked. Even though he didn’t see any flames, wood smoldered, waiting for a draft of air to rekindle the fire. A light shone behind him.

  “Where are you, Ben?”

  Carson. With a flashlight.

  “Shine it toward the right over here.” The light only made the smoke and haze worse. “TJ! Where are you?”

  “Ben?”

  TJ’s faint voice quivered somewhere to Ben’s right, and he stumbled toward it. A smoking board dropped in front of him, and he veered away from it. His head rammed a wall. “Ow!”

  He inched along the side. “TJ, talk to me, boy.”

  “I can’t see. My eyes burn.”

  “Where are you?”

  TJ coughed. He was close.

  “TJ?”

&nbs
p; “Ben!” The boy almost bowled him over as he latched onto him.

  “You’re going to be okay.” He hoisted him on his shoulder. “I’ve got him,” he yelled. “Shine the light on the floor so I can see my way out of here.”

  “I’m sorry. I thought the fire was out.” TJ buried his head in Ben’s shoulder. “I just wanted to get Bear.”

  “It’s okay. We’re getting out of here now.” Staying low, Ben carried TJ toward the kitchen and the light.

  Leigh paced in front of the fire truck, never taking her eyes off the path that Ben, then the fire chief, took. What was TJ thinking? What if the fire rekindled, trapping them all in the house? Her heart thundered in her chest as Ben rounded the corner with TJ in his arms, and she raced to meet them. Ben set TJ down, and Leigh knelt, wrapping her arms around him.

  “Thank you.” She mouthed the words over TJ’s head then hugged her son closer. Ben had risked his own life to save TJ.

  Ben grinned, his teeth white against the soot covering his face. He tousled TJ’s hair. “You have a brave boy here. Scared us, though.”

  She nodded, unable to speak. Leigh wanted to throttle her son and dance and embrace him all at the same time. “Why did you go back into the house?”

  TJ looked at her, his eyes wide in childlike earnestness. “I couldn’t let Bear burn up. Uncle Tony—” He hiccupped.

  “I understand, but don’t ever do anything like that again!” Leigh brushed his hair back with her hand. Soot streaked his face. The vise that had cut off her breath earlier tightened again. If Ben hadn’t gone after him . . . She couldn’t bear the thought of what might have happened.

  “I won’t, Mommy.”

  He hadn’t called her mommy since he was six. The tears she’d dammed back threatened to break and spill down her face. He wiggled out of her arms, and she choked down the knot in her throat. She got to her feet and nodded to the paramedic waiting beside Ben. “I’ll check him out.”

  Ben scooped TJ up and carried him to the ambulance, where Leigh borrowed a stethoscope. After going over him from head to toe, she decided all he needed was a good bath. And maybe a seat warming. At the very least, a good talking-to for the scare he’d given them all. But not tonight—she was too happy to have him safe and sound. She handed the stethoscope back to the paramedic. “Thanks.”