Page 39 of Embattled Return
Duncan didn’t hesitate. “Sure. What’s he good at?”
“Military intelligence. Don’t know much more than that yet, but he needs something. I, we,” he said, glancing at Shannon, “think he needs community. Sounds like horse shit coming out of my mouth, but I’ve learned to appreciate it myself.”
“I think we all have,” Duncan said, eyes flicking back through the line of busy offices.
Yes, they’d all grown in the past several years.
“We’ll be a little short-staffed anyway with Rachel going off for maternity leave,” Shannon reminded them.
John felt better about offering Logan the job then. “Where is this fucking guy? I want to change his life today.”
They laughed, but John actually meant what he said.
* * *
An hour later,Logan knocked on John’s open office door, leaning heavily on his crutches. He knew he looked a little rough around the edges.
“Come on in,” John told him, frowning. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m all right.” Logan half-walked to the chair. His arms were killing him, but not as bad as his right leg. “I took a header earlier. I don’t know if Marigold told you but I’m staying at Nancy Marshall’s apartment house. Anyway, my crutch caught on a rug and down I went.”
John groaned sympathetically. “Been there, done that. Rugs were created by the devil. Knowing Nancy, she’ll have every single rug out of there by mid-day.”
“You know the Jesus juice lady?” Logan asked, settling to the chair seat. He forced a grin for John, though his thigh blazed like fire.
John, looking bright-eyed and disgustingly healthy, nodded once. “We did a job for her a few years ago. Since then, we’ve called on her occasionally to house a guest. She’s a sweetheart.”
Logan knew she was. The woman was the epitome of the grandmother every boy dreamed of having. Marigold doted on her and just from listening to their conversation, he’d realized that Marigold didn’t have a lot of family either since her mother had died in Arizona the previous year. Her own grandmother was traveling overseas, somewhere.
Nancy doted on Marigold as well, calling her Mari, and she’d insisted to them both that they were welcome to call her Grandma.
That had taken Logan off guard. It felt like she was adopting him, almost. And the way she’d looked at him... like he was a long-lost grandson or something. Throat tight, he’d nodded, but he hadn’t been able to answer her. He’d turned to go into the room and his crutch rubber had dragged on a floor mat. Down he’d gone.
Nothing like crashing to the floor in front of two women, because of course Marigold had been dragging in his bag for him.
One glowering look and they’d left him alone to get to his feet by himself. Marigold had skirted around him and lifted his big bag onto the bed so that he could unpack. Nancy had picked up the pretty, cursed rug and whisked it away.
He’d gotten to his feet, but he was sure it hadn’t been pretty. Two pain pills later he was still pissed at that fucking rug. Marigold hadn’t said a word about him crashing, though, which he appreciated. She’d focused on other things and eventually left to let him settle in, closing the door behind herself.
Half an hour later Marigold had come back, a broad smile on her face, telling him that Shannon had messaged her and that John had news. So, they’d hopped in her Beetle and headed to the industrial area where the LNF offices were located. The entire time he’d been fighting anxiety, his brain racing through possibilities. He could just say fuck it and have Marigold take him somewhere to forget.
He felt...discombobulated sitting here. Part of it was the pain pills, but his emotions were kind of pinging around as well. There was trepidation and excitement as he waited to hear what John had found. He was afraid to get his hopes up, because he’d been disappointed so many times before.
“Can I get you a coffee?”
“Yeah. With sugar if you have it.” Anything to delay.
John spun his chair around and retrieved a cup of coffee, setting it on the edge of the desk in front of Logan with a couple of packets of sugar and a short straw to stir it with. Even though it was scalding hot, Logan stirred in the sugar and took a sip, praying that the caffeine would kick in as quickly as possible because he seriously needed the boost.
“Okay, I’m ready,” he said, mentally bracing himself.
John set his own cup of coffee aside and pulled a manila folder in front of himself. “Okay, so, my brother stopped in and he has to get a bit of the credit. He didn’t feel like the name was right.”
Logan frowned. “What do you mean? It’s the name my father gave me.”
John shook his head. “It’s a long story. Not important right this second. Anyway, I started searching variations on the name you gave me. I was striking out completely with Walter. I literally searched every public and a few not-so-public databases for the name. It just wasn’t there. When I searched SHOWalter, though, I started ringing brass. Everything matched up. But this is the important part.”
He handed over a paper. Logan took it, not understanding what he was looking at.