Page 8 of Every Sunset

“It’s fine, Anna. I’m on my way home anyway.

I can give you both a ride,” Logan cut in.

I looked over to him and internally groaned at how damn good he looked in black jeans, and a crisp white shirt, with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

The white contrasted perfectly against his flawlessly sun kissed skin.

He was wearing a pair of aviators that only made him look sexier too, and there I was sweaty, bleeding, and with my wild hair in a state of complete disarray.

The jeans and black t-shirt I’d pulled on that morning were covered with filth from the side of the road when I’d taken my spill.

In short, I was a fucking mess, and one of the sexiest men I had ever encountered was looking me up and down. Perfect! Just Perfect!

I moved my hands to straighten up my wild hair, but stopped myself when the throbbing in my palms reminded me they were still covered in blood.

My arms fell heavily to my sides and I tried hard to keep my inner turmoil from showing on my face.

I was just so exhausted. In the last week I felt like I’d aged ten years , and before that I’d already felt a few decades older than I actually was.

Tears of despair filled my eyes and I fought to keep it together.

“Anna? Are you hurt?” Logan asked, and when I lifted my head he was right there before me. He caught my hands in his and lifted them between us so he could study them the way Max had.

“I’m fine!” I argued as I tried to pull my hands free, but he wasn’t releasing me.

“Mom, please. Just let Logan give us a ride,” Max pleaded and it was impossible to miss the desperation in his voice.

“It’s all good, bud. Why don’t you grab the groceries and put them in my trunk?

I’ll help your mom into my car, then we can all get home,” Logan suggested and I felt this odd relief when Max seemed to take a breath, then nod in agreement.

He walked away to start gathering our groceries, which left Logan and I alone, him still clutching my hands between us.

“I’m really sorry about this. I guess we really are city slickers at heart.” I laughed, but it felt forced, and Logan didn’t even crack a smile as he just looked down at me.

“Your son’s worried about you.” I didn’t need to answer that. It was all pretty obvious to anyone with eyes.

“I had a kidney transplant recently. Some genetic kidney disease in my family,” I explained, knowing I had to give him something.

“Max worries too much. I’m doing okay. I might just have pushed a little too hard today, but to be fair to myself, I didn’t realize the cab company around here would be so shitty. ”

“Yeah, never try to get a cab in Grand Lake,” Logan laughed. “They have a total of two cars and it’s run by an eighty year old woman.”

“I was hoping to find a garage for my car in town, but I didn’t see anything.”

“The one and only mechanic around here lives out of town, but you don’t need to call them. I told you Maddox will look at your car. I reminded him this morning.”

“Was he even conscious this morning?” I asked.

“He’ll live,” Logan shrugged. “And he will fix your car, but until he does don’t walk to town again. It’s not safe walking along the edge of this road.”

“I think I can determine for myself what is or isn’t safe,” I threw back.

“I didn’t mean it like that. I just….I can give you a ride if you need one, okay? You have my cell number. Just call me if you need anything,” he told me on a deep, almost frustrated sigh.

“I appreciate the offer, but we’re fine,” I cut in quickly. I didn’t want this guy getting too close to either Max or I. I didn’t know him, and he was way too handsome and sexy for his own good, and mine.

“You don’t like to accept help, do you?” he asked with a smirk, as he seemed to study me hard.

“I don’t need to. I’ve been on my own for a long time, and I’ve done just fine so far,” I snipped back. It was a complete lie, but he didn’t know that.

“Maybe, but you’re not in the city anymore.

You’ll find out here in Grand Lake, we like to help each other out where we can,” he told me.

Before I could think of anything else to say to push him away, he had his arm around me and was leading me over to his car.

I was so shocked by how good it felt to feel the heat of him wrapped around me, and pressed beside me that I didn’t even argue.

It had been so long since I felt anyone close to me that way – anyone other than Max anyway.

Dating with a kid in tow had never gone well for me.

I had no family to help me out, and I refused to leave Max with a strange babysitter when he was younger, so dating didn’t exist back then.

Then Max got older and I considered dating again, but it never seemed that big of a thing.

I’d never really had it in my life, so I didn’t miss it.

I’d been on a few dates in recent years with guys I worked with, or men I met through work, but they’d never gone further than a first date because it just hadn’t felt right.

Then there was Callum, and look how that ended.

But Logan being so close to me made me realize that maybe I did miss the closeness of having someone in my life. It made me want someone to hold me every now and then, someone I could feel safe with and not feel guilty for that.

Logan’s car was tall, so I had quite the climb into the passenger seat, which was not easy when I was trying hard not to touch any part of the luxury interior with my bloodied hands.

Logan helped me in, then pushed away my hands when I reached for the seatbelt, pulling it over me himself instead, leaning in so close that I could smell his aftershave as he fastened the thing too.

“I have first aid supplies at home. I’ll clean your hands up when we get back,” he offered.

“There’s no need…”

“Yes there is. You said you had a transplant. That means you have a weakened immune system, right? It’s important to avoid infection, I imagine,” he pointed out, and of course he was right.

I’d been horrified to learn my kidneys had failed when I was rushed into the hospital after a long and lingering illness had caused me to pass out at work almost two years ago.

I was told the disease that had caused them to fail was something hereditary, but all that mattered was that my body was failing me, and I had a son I refused to die on.

After a year on the waiting list for a donor organ -all of which was filled with dialysis sessions that I had attended three times weekly just to keep me alive - I had received my transplant.

It had been terrifying to leave my son as I was pushed into that operating room, the words of the doctor rattling around my head that there was risk of death on the table.

Then I had awoken and waited for the kidney I had been given to start functioning, and it had after three days.

The recovery had been slow and hellish, and I still didn’t feel like the active and fit person I had been before, but I was alive, and I was damned grateful for that.

So grateful to the person who had died and left their organs to bring life to others – who had donated their kidney to give me my life back.

But it wasn’t as easy as that. The life I had back was different.

It was filled with medications I could not fail to take and the constant and ever lingering threat that my kidney could fail again.

My immune system was being stopped by pills I was taking to stop my body fighting the foreign invader that was the new kidney, and physically I felt weakened and a little broken.

Working out who I was amongst all of that, and with everything that had happened since on top, was a battle I truly felt I was losing.

But Logan was right. A simple infection from a cut on my hand could take me down for weeks and I couldn’t have that.

Max needed me to be okay, so I nodded my agreement anyway, despite my pride telling me I needed to keep Logan at arm’s length.

I gave in because I felt too exhausted and beaten down not to.

When we got back to the house I could see Maddox leant under the hood of my car, which sat on the drive. I couldn’t help but take in how fine his ass looked in the hugging dark wash jeans he wore.

“Good. Madd finally started on your car,” Logan commented, pulling me back to sense. “He’ll have it fixed in no time.”

Maddox stood as we drove through the gates and turned to face us, raising a hand to shelter his gaze from the bright sun. And any sense that had very briefly returned to me was gone as I took him in fully.

He looked so different from the way he’d looked the night before when he was laid out unconscious.

Now there was color in his face, and I realized he was almost as sun tanned as his brother.

His stubble was even thicker, and with his short, but very dark brown hair, and the darkness in his eyes as he stared at us, he looked lethal, but also sexier than any man I could ever have made up in my dreams. He was tall – not quite as tall as Logan, but over six feet, and, as I had observed the night before, he was slim and lean.

But today, in the hugging t-shirt he wore, I could also see the defined lines of tightly packed muscle around his biceps and shoulders.

I imagined there was much more equally tightly packed muscle under his shirt too, and wished I could get a sneak peek.

“Mom?” I jumped at the sound of my son’s voice, and when I turned to look at him he was gone from the back seat. Logan had gotten out of the car too. How lost had I gotten in the beautiful man that I didn’t even know?

“You okay, Anna?” Logan asked, and suddenly I realized they were both at the back of the car, talking to me from the open trunk.

“Fine. I’m f-fine,” I stuttered as I moved to take off my seatbelt, then froze again when I caught sight of my blood covered hands. “I…um…I just don’t want to mess up your car with my bloody hands.” I added as I glanced behind me, hoping Max was there to come and help me out.

“What’s wrong with her hands?” A voice that could only be Maddox demanded, obviously having heard me. I looked up and was surprised to find him right beside the car now and seemingly heading my way.

“She tripped when we were walking back from town, cut up her hands pretty bad,” Max explained, and I groaned and slammed my eyes closed. Now everyone knew I couldn’t even manage to keep myself on my feet. Go me!

I snapped my eyes open again in alarm when the door beside me was opened violently, then startled even more when it wasn’t Max or Logan I found there, but Maddox.

“Let me see!” he demanded as he held his hands out for mine. His tone was abrupt and demanding, but damn…that voice. It was deep, with a raspy note to it that instantly had me imagining him using it to utter sexily to me in the throes of…

“Anna! Let me see where you got hurt!” Maddox demanded even louder, dragging me back to reality and reminding me how scary this man also seemed.

“Madd. Don’t be a dick!” Logan snapped from somewhere outside the car.

“I…I’m alright. It’s just some scrapes,” I told Maddox quickly, before my mind started to wander again.

“Maybe we should introduce ourselves before you yell at me again. I’m Anna…

though I guess you already know that since you just said…

” Fuck! I didn’t even finish the ramble as I realized how idiotic I sounded.

“I didn’t yell. What were you doing walking back from town? It’s not safe to walk that road,” he grumbled a little more quietly.

“Yeah, I already had that from your brother. We were fine,” I told him defensively.

“Yeah, looks like it,” he scoffed. I panicked for a second when he leaned into the car and right over me, raising my hands and pushing my body as far into the seat as I could to get away from him, but I felt an idiot when he just released the seat belt and slowly slid it back from me.

“Sorry,” I uttered when he looked to me with question and what I suspected was annoyance. Clearly he’d seen how violently I’d recoiled from him.

“Just helping you out of the car,” he told me as he took a cautious step back and gave a little space to catch my breath again. “I’m not gonna hurt you. You’re safe here,” he added, and I felt like a complete idiot for giving so much away with that one error.

“You gonna patch up Anna’s hands, bro?” Logan asked as he appeared behind Maddox with my bags of groceries filling his arms.

“Yeah, we’re good,” Maddox agreed. I wanted to protest, but I kept my mouth shut. I’d already offended the guy. I didn’t want to piss him off any more.

“Just be nice. I told Anna you’re not a complete asshole. Try not to prove me wrong,” Logan joked. Or at least he said it like a joke, but I didn’t miss the warning in the words too, and that just worried me more.

“Fuck you! You wanna do it yourself, go right ahead! I got better shit to do anyway!” Maddox snapped angrily. I instantly found myself scooting further along the seat away from him, alarmed by the ferocity in his bark.

“Madd! Just take care of Anna and stop being a dick. I’ll help Max get the groceries to their place, then I’ll be there,” Logan ground out, then he stormed off.

Max looked to me apprehensively as he appeared, following behind Logan.

I forced a smile and gave him a nod of agreement.

Even though I was extremely unsure about being left with Maddox, the last thing I needed was my son seeing me scared again.

Maddox seemed volatile, but Logan had assured me he wouldn’t hurt me or Max.

That was the hope I was clinging to as he took my hands roughly in his and all but pulled me from the back of the car.

“Let’s go!” he snapped, and I instantly obliged, too nervous to argue.