Chapter 7 - Midnight Fugitives And The Cabin In The Pines
The heat blasted through the truck’s plastic vents, slowly thawing my frozen fingers and numb cheeks.
Inside the laundry sack, my baby let out a tiny, hungry squawk, his little face flushed red in the dim dashboard glow.
I unzipped my oversized maintenance scrubs, pulling down my collar to feed him against my chest for the very first time.
As the baby latched on with surprising strength, I looked sideways at the man driving through the blinding snowstorm.
The dashboard lights illuminated the deep, ragged scar across his left temple and jaw.
“Seven months, Logan,” I said, my voice shaking with equal parts anger and overwhelming relief.
“Seven months of waking up thinking you hated me, thinking our life together was nothing but a cruel joke.”
Logan kept both hands glued to the ten-and-two position on the wheel, his knuckles white against the worn leather.
A muscle in his jaw clenched repeatedly before a quiet, ragged breath escaped his chest.
“I never hated you, Joanna. Leaving you at that kitchen table was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life.”
“Then why didn't you say something? Why leave me to face eviction notices, double shifts, and labor alone in that hospital?”
“Because the minute you told me you were pregnant, you became a target for a corporate syndicate worth nearly a billion dollars.”
Logan glanced into the rearview mirror, checking every headlight trailing two miles behind our bumper.
“Julian’s surveillance team had just tracked my forged identity to that neighborhood three days prior.”
“If I had stayed with you, they would have taken you both before the pregnancy even showed.”
“So you used yourself as live bait,” I realized, watching the snow lash violently against the windshield.
“I spent five months deliberately showing up on security cameras in Chicago, Detroit, and Buffalo,” Logan explained.
“I made sure Julian poured his investigators and cash into chasing my phantom sightings across the Midwest.”
“And while he was hunting ghosts, where were you really?”
“Right here in the city, living in a crawlspace under an auto body shop two miles from your diner.”
My heart hammered against my ribs at his words.
“You were that close?”
“Every single night, Joanna. I watched you walk home from your late shift at the diner.”
“I stayed sixty yards behind you in the shadows, keeping the junkies and Julian’s spotters away from your alleyway.”
Tears hot and heavy blurred my vision as I looked at the baby nursing peacefully in my lap.
“Dr. Wright gave me your old lab journal,” I said quietly, tapping the hard leather ledger beneath my seat.
Logan nodded slowly, his eyes dark with painful memory.
“My father failed to protect me seven years ago, but he kept his word tonight.”
The truck turned off the state highway onto an unmarked gravel road winding steeply into the pine-covered hills.
Snowdrifts were piled waist-high along the tree line, untouched by snowplows or salt trucks.
After three miles of rough, bone-jarring travel, the headlights illuminated a low, rustic cabin built from dark cedar logs.
No lights were on inside, and heavy wooden storm shutters covered every window.
Logan killed the headlights fifty yards before the driveway, coasting silently into a snow-covered car shelter.
“This was my grandfather’s hunting lodge,” Logan said, turning off the engine. “It isn't registered under the Wright corporate trust.”
“Are we safe here?” I asked, gathering the baby tightly into the dry flannel blanket.
May you like
“For forty-eight hours,” Logan replied, pulling a heavy duffel bag from behind the bench seat.
“Julian will tear the city apart looking for this truck, which gives us two days to prepare for federal court.”
