Chapter Twelve: Forces of Nature
The truth is that I'm not so good
At showing how I feel
Or keeping my mouth shut
When there's something to conceal
Or knowing how to love
Love's not in my memories
How can I rise above
All my insecurities
~Staind
Ten miles east of Henry
The weather was turning. Ice slicked already freezing streets, making a single woman drive a little slower through the outskirts of town. Mrs. Richards was expecting her dinner, ordered from the Lodge, within ten minutes. The drive was short, but the weather made Mary cautious.
Her windshield wipers were going full blast, keeping flakes of freshly falling snow from obscuring her vision too much. Born and raised in this one-horse town in the middle of nowhere Alaska, storms rarely frightened the Inuit woman. More to the point, Ororo always warned her when the weather was worth being afraid of.
She checked her cellular, just to be certain. Four little bars on the face told her she had a good connection. If something were to shift in the patterns, her wintry friend would call.
Just as she turned off of the main road, Mary caught a movement in the trees. Coyotes were common in the lean season, stalking otherwise avoided territory to find food for starving stomachs. She would never shoot one unless it became a battle for survival. She had more respect for such beautiful predators than that.
The old truck slowed a fraction more. That ghostly figure stumbling through the trees was no coyote. Popping the gearshift into park, she moved to jump out, wondering if poor Mrs. Richards had finally gone and lost her mind.
Brooks and Dunn’s “Boot Scootin’ Boogie” blared from her cellular, making her pause. Her hand on the latch, she scrambled for it. The face read “RORO” clear as day. As though heeding some unseen command, the wind kicked up.
“Hey, good lookin’,” Mary called into the phone.
Static met her ear.
“’Roro? I can’t hear you!”
“Get off…road…bli…Mary?”
“I can’t…” Sighing, she shook her head and hopped out of the car. Maybe outside she would have better luck at getting reception.
Putting one finger in her free ear, she tilted her head. “Can you hear me?”
“Get off the roads, Mare!”
The line went dead.
“Damn it!” Mary turned to jump back into the truck.
In the excitement, the figure moving through the trees had been forgotten. As Mary wrenched the car door, holding it open by force in the chilling, howling wind, her eye caught a white being standing in the road. Mary’s hands flew to her mouth in shock.
“Jesus!”
It was a woman. Tall, too-thin, wearing what looked to be a hospital gown. Her hair was a mixture of brown and violet and she trembled like a leaf caught in the wind. Mary glanced at the woman’s scrawny arm.
She was wearing a hospital bracelet.
Help us.
The woman’s lips did not move, but Mary heard her voice clearly inside her mind. Remembering what Ororo had told her of telepaths and mind manipulators, she replied verbally.
“Who?”
In the woods. Help us.
Without another thought to Ororo’s phone call, Mary collected the shivering woman and tucked her into the passenger’s seat of her truck. The winds whipped around her, heralding a force of nature that should not be reckoned with.
Knowing there were others lost in the woods, perhaps buried as Ororo had been, Mary rushed into the thick, dark forest in the direction the other woman had come from. If she was quick enough, maybe she’d find them.
~**~
The other side of Henry
“The line went dead.”
Ororo slammed the phone into the cradle, not bothering to care that her friends were staring at her with worry in their eyes. She planted her palms on the counter, trying desperately to breathe while the storm sang in her veins.
Something so beautiful to her could kill her friend alone in the woods.
“Mary ain’t stupid,” Logan supplied. “She sees it comin’, she’ll get ta shelter.”
“How would you know?” She shot back, bringing her head up to glare at him. “She is Inuit, Wolverine. She reveres storms but she does not fear them.”
“Yer not scared.” He pointed out calmly.
“I manipulate the weather, of course I’m not scared!”
Her bandaged fist came down on the linoleum; in almost the exact place that Logan had indented before he left. With a cry of pain, she cradled the injured limb in her other hand, shaking Henry’s concerned paws from her shoulders.
The other X-men watched in mute fear. Even Alison seemed out of things to say. Since the early morning, Ororo had felt the change in her blood, the call of the tempest set to rage around Henry. She wanted to be out in it, to twist on the impossible currents until her worries were taken away into the blissful sky.
But cold fear for her friend eclipsed it. For the last several hours, she had set to warning everyone in the surrounding area of the blizzard brewing. The only one she could not track down was darling Mary.
Though her hand ached terribly, she strode past Hank and Kitty, moving for the front door. Logan easily stepped in front of her, a half-empty beer bottle dangling from his fingers. He met her angry gaze with those feral black eyes. Challenging her, daring her to push past him as well.
“Move.” She stated simply.
“Nope.” Logan returned easily. “Yer not gonna do her any good.”
“I can stop this blizzard, Logan. I can keep her from getting hurt. If she was on her way to Mrs. Richard’s home, I know exactly where she is.”
“Great.” He had the audacity to grin at her. “Yer still not leavin’ this house.”
“Storm, he is right,” Hank chimed in from the kitchen. Traitor. “You have said yourself, countless times, that destruction of a set weather pattern can alter the entire planet.”
“She doesn’t have to stop the storm,” Brian Braddock cut in. Had she ever told him he was brilliant? “She only needs to find her friend and bring her to safety. Her powers would allow her to do it without disrupting anything.”
“Ya ain’t helpin’, bub,” Logan said as Ororo grinned triumphantly.
“Even the stoic Captain Britain agrees. I am going.”
“No, ya ain’t,” Wolverine growled, taking a step toward her. “What happens if ya get hit with hail, knocked out? Eh? Yer not a goddess, darlin’.”
Oh, you bastard. “Get out of my way, Wolverine or I shall be forced to hurt you.”
“I dare ya,” Logan replied, his eyes flashing with the promise behind his words.
The winds screamed, shaking the cottage around her. Mary was out there in that monster and every moment she spent fighting with Wolverine could be her friend’s last. Deciding to take him up on the challenge, Ororo placed both of her hands on his chest. She slid them through the neckline of his shirt until she found bare flesh.
His eyes changed in an instant. He was not afraid, but his gaze softened. She remembered, then, that he had some uncanny affection for her buzzing skin. Ororo faltered for a moment, wanting to keep his eyes soft, to stay in this moment.
When his hand found it’s way to her hip, she jolted back to reality. Concentrating, her eyes glowing white, she shocked the Wolverine with a low voltage lightning strike.
The effect was immediate. He grabbed for her, the beer in his free hand crashing to the floor as he seized uncontrollably. She caught him in her arms, whispering an apology as the electric shock ricocheted through his adamantium skeleton. The others flew into action, Hank rushing to Wolverine and yelling at Kitty to fetch his kit.
Ororo released Logan into their care and was out the door before anyone realized what had happened.
~**~
18 hours later
Logan watched them wheel Mary into the emergency room with sadness in his heart. She was blue from head to toe and bore obvious signs of hail damage. He rushed to the stretcher she was on, grabbing for one ice-cold hand.
“Hey, darlin’. Can ya hear me?”
The young woman barely twitched. Logan heeded the EMTs request that he step away. She needed medical attention as fast as they could get it to her. As the other ambulances screamed toward the hospital parking lot, he glanced to the X-Men waiting inside.
Two more emergency vehicles approached, bringing four new patients. He broke into a run when Betsy’s familiar face rolled out of the second.
“I know her!” He explained in a gruff shout. “She’s my friend.”
“Ok, just walk with us, all right, hon?” A female paramedic said soothingly. “She’s stable right now, but we have to get her warm.”
Logan took Betsy’s hand and squeezed her fingers gently. To his surprise, she smiled behind the oxygen mask and opened those big violet eyes. He smiled broadly as the gurney pushed through the exclaiming X-Men.
Hey, wild man.
Her voice in his head was the sweetest thing he had ever heard. He concentrated to send a soft thought back to her.
Hi, gorgeous.
“There’s our girl,” Logan said aloud, aware that his silence might raise some eyebrows.
When Brian appeared, his face wet with relieved tears, Logan got the attention of the female paramedic. “This her brother.”
“She’s a lucky woman,” the paramedic said with a smile. “If that dark haired girl hadn’t pulled them all out of the snow, we might have been too late.”
Wolverine let Brian move with his sister, releasing Betsy’s hand with a twinge of loss. They had found her, though why was a mystery. He figured that the evil responsible for these brutal kidnappings had learned the X-Men were on to them. Dumping the recently kidnapped women would have made it a lot easier to get the hell out of Dodge.
“Where’s Storm?”
At Bobby’s concerned question, Logan looked around the busy ER. He didn’t see any telltale white hair, so he bolted for the automatic doors. Hank was already inside the triage area, offering his assistance as a medical doctor. Peter, with training as a registered nurse, leapt in to lend a hand as well.
Logan rushed into the ambulance bay, flanked by Kitty, Alison and Bobby. Just as they halted in the frigid street, he spotted a familiar form stepping out of the ambulance. As if in slow motion, he watched the wind pick up her long white locks so that they danced in the cold air. His breathing halted for a moment, his eyes glued to her sinuous form as she helped the frenzied paramedics take another stretcher from the back of the ambulance.
She turned her beautiful head, squinting in the darkness until her eyes met his. He wondered what picture she made, dancing in that monstrous squall in a desperate search to find her friend. It had to have been something dreams were made of, a lone woman swirling in deadly air currents as though floating on placid water.
From where he stood, he could see several gashes on her face and arms, likely from the golf ball-sized hail that had rained all over the county. Her clothing was wet, streaked with mud and torn in several places. He’d never seen anything so beautiful.
Ororo blinked, turning to look back at the paramedic. Logan swallowed thickly as the world caught up around him. The moment was gone.
She jogged over to him, letting the paramedic rush the final victim into the ER. When she was directly in front of him, she frowned. His clothes were charred and his skin still pink from the rapid-healing process.
“Ya hit like a girl,” he said rudely.
Ororo’s face seemed caught between amusement and anger for a moment. She crossed her arms over her chest.
“Next time, I will kill you instead.” Her blue eyes flashed and his heart clenched.
“Doubt ya could,” he grunted.
“How did you get here so fast?” She questioned as they headed into the ER. He examined the gashes spilling crimson from her cheeks and decided she needed a doctor as well.
“Paramedic answered Mary’s cell as they were loadin’ the girls up. Brian mighta sped a little.”
“Did he damage my truck?”
Shaking his head, Logan told the younger mutants to wait in the hall while he got Storm checked out. Though she protested, he bribed her with seeing how Mary was doing and won the quick battle.
She’d surprised him, electrocuting him as per her usually empty threat. Her need to get to Mary obviously overshadowed everything else in that moment. He respected her for it. Though he’d been nearly out of his mind with worry, his body screaming in pain, he knew not that had she not left Mary and the others might have died.
It was something like the hand of God that Mary happened to be in that area. According to the quick summary Storm gave him as they entered an exam room, Mary had first run into Betsy. By the time Ororo reached her, she had unearthed every buried woman. But the cold and wet snow overtook her easily. Storm’s call to the paramedics had been brief. She had to control the storm long enough for help to arrive.
Wolverine didn’t know how she had done it, but the blizzard was the shortest in the history of freaky weather. While Storm battled the elements, Mary had succumbed to the freezing temperatures.
A nurse told Ororo to wait and asked that Logan clean her cuts while she worked on Mary. He agreed, pushing the curtain back so they could watch the frantic hospital staff try to revive the frozen woman.
He steeled his heart for the sadness in Ororo’s eyes, but it still punched him in the gut. Without thinking, he raised a hand to smooth the frown away. Her humming flesh made him shiver but not so much as those soulful eyes when they turned to him. Logan cupped her cheek with one hand, holding her still so he could look at her properly.
“Got a nasty one on the left,” he said before his heart went and did something stupid.
Ororo swallowed audibly, turning her face so he could clean the blood from her dark flesh. They continued to watch as the doctors worked on Mary and the others. His hands never stayed on her skin too long. That had been his mistake earlier.
Falling into that humming touch had gotten him electrocuted once, he wouldn’t let it happen again.
“Mary is stable,” Hank said as he moved to them. He adjusted the stethoscope around his neck.
Logan moved to the side, letting him get close enough to allow the doctor close enough to Storm. Hank inspected her cuts quickly.
“None seem to need stitches,” he murmured quietly. “Are you feeling lethargic? Dizzy?”
Storm nodded, even as Hank popped a thermometer into her mouth.
“Fighting a blizzard for 16 hours was worn you out,” Beast said with a touch of annoyance. “Track my finger.”
He moved one large, blue digit in front of her eyes. Logan sat back against the wall, watching Hank fuss over the weather witch. Ororo was sighing, even when Hank pulled the thermometer out of her mouth.
“Neurological test is fine, but your body temperature is 104.”
Logan’s eyes widened.
“You were in the cold too long. Once you are cleaned up, I want you under a heated blanket.”
“Uh,” Wolverine cut in before he could stop himself. “Isn’t 104 like close to brain damage?”
Storm tossed him a quick smile. “I tend to run a little hotter.”
“Don’t I know it,” he returned lowly.
He could have sworn he saw Hank blush as he cleared his throat. Ororo gave him a look that was an odd cross between annoyance and amusement.
“The electric currents in her body raise her natural temperature. She should be at 106.” Hank said clinically.
A heartbeat later, a nurse with graying black hair popped her head around the curtain. “Dr. McCoy?”
“Yes, Evelyn?”
“They would like your opinion on one of the kidnapping victims, if you have a moment.”
“Go on, Hank,” Logan stepped in when he looked torn between caring for Storm and the battered victim. “I can patch ‘Ro up just fine.”
“Yes,” Ororo chimed in. “Go ahead.”
“All right,” Hank agreed quickly. “Logan, ensure you disinfect the cuts and use butterfly bandages on the deeper ones. Rewrap her hand and get her warm.”
“He will have little problem with that,” she teased as Hank turned to move away.
“No doubt there,” Wolverine added, loving the way Hank nearly ran from the room.
“Ahh,” Ororo chuckled as Logan grabbed medical supplies from the counter. “One thing is my constant. I can still make Henry blush like a virgin bride on her wedding night.”
After filling his arms with disinfecting swabs, bandages, gauze, and Neosporin, Logan moved back to the exam table. Ororo was sitting cross-legged, peering around the curtain toward Mary’s bed. They watched as Kenny rushed into the room, his face crumbling when he saw her unconscious form.
Logan’s heart twisted when the young man listened woodenly to Dr. Forrester’s gentle words, falling into the chair the nurse provided.
“My poor friend,” Ororo said softly. “She was so stupid.”
“Sounds like she saved the day,” Logan muttered. He opened a pre-moistened cotton swab and carefully set about cleaning the cuts on Storm’s face.
“Her heart is enormous, but it nearly got her killed.” She hissed as the stinging solution seeped into her wound. Logan continued working, holding her face still.
“Yeah, well she nearly got me killed, too.” He raised a brow, fighting a grin when she giggled.
“Did it take long to recover? The voltage was low.” Her question was cut short by a soft curse as he doctored more of her cuts.
“A few hours,” he answered, discarding the swab and opening another. “Adamantium isn’t as great a conductor as some metals, it turns out.”
“Well, thank the goddess for small favors.”
They lapsed into silence for several minutes while Logan finished cleaning the cuts on her face. He wiped the blood away from her cocoa skin tenderly. She’d have a few bruises to deal with in the morning, but other than that, she seemed fine. He put tiny bandages over the cuts, ensuring that the Neosporin was in place before hand.
By the time he moved on to her hands, Ororo was watching him cautiously.
“I had to find her.”
It was the closest thing he was getting to an apology and he knew it.
“I woulda done the same.”
Silence.
“Why’d it take so long? I heard ya once took a hurricane apart in under five minutes.”
A puff of air left her parted lips quickly. “That hurricane was not natural, so breaking it down was safe. If I take apart a natural storm too quickly, I could light off a domino effect. So, I simply wore the blizzard down, shifted its course gradually until it dissipated. I am hoping it did not cause problems elsewhere.”
“Sorta like avoiding a ten car pileup by runnin’ off the road?”
Her smile was slightly bemused. “Something like that.”
He finished with the cuts on her arms quickly, then reached for the stretchy gauze to rewrap her broken knuckle. The current wrapping was in shreds and when Logan pulled it away, he winced.
“Ow,” he hissed, looking up into her face. The broken middle knuckle looked out of joint, the flesh surrounding it bruised almost beyond recognition. “How’d ya do that?”
She was gritting her teeth as though in pain. “Mary had lost the truck in the snow, so she had unburied the victims and made them cuddle together in a single grave.”
“Body heat ta keep ‘em warm.” He surmised. She nodded.
“I further injured my hand trying to get her somewhere warmer. All I could do in the end was try to hollow out part of the storm to keep her warm while breaking down the blizzard.”
“No wonder yer feelin’ dizzy.”
He bandaged her hand gently, apologizing when his thick fingers pressed too hard, making her wince in pain. When she was finished, he wrapped her in a warm blanket. He didn’t want to admit how worried he had been nor how proud he was that she had found her friend in that God-like tempest.
A slight, careful smile crossed her lips. When their eyes met, it was all he could do to keep himself from kissing her. One of her humming hands reached up to touch his cheek. Without meaning to, he leaned into that addictive touch. Her fingers smoothed over his brow until he reopened his eyes to look down at her.
“I should check on Mary and Ken,” her whispered words were breathy, her heart pounding loudly.
“Yeah.” He nodded, reaching up to grasp her exploring fingers. Taking her hand from his face, he gave her a quick smile. “I’m gonna go see Bets.”
“I will be along shortly.”
His heart hurt as he turned to leave the room, but he managed to get his back to her before he did something stupid. Like telling her he loved her.
Logan could feel her eyes on him even after he stepped into the hall.
~**~
Ororo stood outside of the curtained triage area, where the five kidnapping victims were resting quietly. All of them bore signs of malnourishment, but the doctors were confident that they would all recover. They waited now for the results from the fertility specialist.
She did not hide the fact that she was praying from anyone.
Kitty, Alison, Peter, and Bobby had gone back to Ororo’s cottage just before dawn. Hank was asleep in the doctor’s lounge after an evening of being a doctor. She was glad that the staff had taken to him so easily. When Alison had questioned Dr. Forrester, he had said simply, “This is Alaska. Aliens could land and they’d be welcome.”
Brian and Warren sat on opposite ends of Betsy’s sleeping form. Angel had arrived just after dawn, having flown in the moment the Professor realized Psylocke was recovered. He looked haggard and his wings bore several bald spots, but the smile on his face told her everything she needed to know. He had not left his beloved’s side since his arrival.
In the now quiet triage area, Ororo leaned against the wall with a cold cup of coffee in her hands. Mary was sleeping as well, just off to the right, with Kenny in a cot beside her. She was not wholly out of the woods yet, but Storm heard rumblings of a police commendation for heroism.
“Miss Munroe?”
Ororo was already smiling when she turned. She enveloped Doctor Tate in a warm hug, happy to see the gentle woman again.
“You look worse than when we first met,” Tate teased with an open smile.
“I am more or less in tact.”
“So are your friends,” the doctor said sweetly.
“Have the results come back?” Ororo’s heart quickened as she shot a glance toward the sleeping women.
“Yep.” The slender doctor beckoned her closer. The duo stopped at a brand new X-Ray panel, making Ororo inwardly blush.
“These are from all of the victims,” Tate said as she flipped the glossy pages onto the panel and flicked the lights on.
“The scoring does not seem nearly as bad,” Ororo said with a relieved sigh.
“Uh-huh,” the doctor nodded, leaning against the wall and crossing her arms. “From the internal examinations, it seems the people responsible for this were interrupted. They had over a week with you in their custody.”
“It was enough,” Storm said a touch flatly.
“Yes, but for whatever reason, they were unable to super produce these victims’ eggs. From my tests, most of them are completely in tact. Miss Braddock and the blonde Jane Doe have a little more damage to the uterine walls, but not enough to cause significant problems.”
“That is a great relief.”
“Each of them will have a slightly higher miscarriage chance, but with proper medical care, I don’t see a solid reason to fear they will never be mothers.” Tate smiled as she flicked the lights off.
“Good,” the mutant replied with a sigh.
For several seconds, Dr. Tate watched her curiously. Then, she opened the door to an empty examination room and motioned for Ororo to follow her. Both women eased into the room, Ororo depositing her cold coffee in a nearby trash can. Tate sat on the rolling stool, pointing to the exam bed for Storm to sit.
Once they were both comfortable, the blonde doctor spoke. “I wanted to ask you how you are coping.”
Expecting this, Ororo wiped her palms on the jeans Alison had provided for her and exhaled slowly.
“I have not permitted myself to dwell on it.”
The doctor’s smile was kind. “I understand, Ororo, I really do. But this isn’t just going to go away. Even if we found a way to repair the uterine damage…”
“I have no eggs to fertilize. I know.”
It still hurt her. Somewhere behind the anger, the investigation, and Logan’s heady kisses, she was constantly reminded of her barren womb. She never thought about it, never let herself fall into despair. Even when Robert told her of Dorothy’s pregnancy, anger at Wolverine’s betrayal made it easy to forget.
“Infertility is something that can destroy even the strongest woman in the world. Most women, no matter their lifestyle, yearn for motherhood.”
“I did want it,” Ororo admitted quietly. “My life as a mutant had my personal wishes on pause for many years. When I moved here, I pushed people away, wallowing in grief.”
The doctor was quiet, reaching over to squeeze her hand.
“Now, the very hope has been taken away.” Ororo exhaled shakily, holding back tears by force. “Just when I thought I was finally adult enough to be responsible for another person…”
“I wish I could make this all go away, Ororo.”
“Doesn’t everyone?” She let a short, hollow laugh escape her lips. “I am so tired of the sympathy and the heart-crushing pity!”
Tate released her hand immediately, holding both of hers up in surrender. “All right. Lets stop with the sympathy and look toward something else.”
“Like what? I have no hope anymore. I have nothing.” Thunder boomed in the distance and Ororo quickly wiped away the tears staining her cheeks without permission.
“I have been thinking,” Dr. Tate said clinically. “That if someone harvested these eggs, they must have them stored somewhere.”
Ororo nodded. “Yes.”
“I know that you and your friends are looking into this. If these people are harvesting and storing eggs, yours are in there somewhere. If you find them, at least you could use a surrogate mother. Finding a sperm donor is easier than most women think.”
Swallowing hard, Storm dared to look into the doctor’s suddenly hopeful face. “At least then, I might have a child of my blood if not my womb?”
The blonde woman smiled. “Exactly.”
Another short laugh, this time less hollow, escaped Ororo’s mouth. “That is something.”
“Yes.” Tate shrugged. “You are surrounded by people that love you, Ororo. I am sure any of them would willingly listen. I’m a doctor and it can be hard to see a medical provider as a friend. But if you don’t grieve for this loss, give it time to heal, it will only continue to break your heart.”
She thought on this for a long, silent moment.
“I know,” Ororo admitted so softly the other woman might have missed it. “Any loss does that.”
“Think about it.”
Storm gave the woman a tight smile as she breezed out of the room. She stared at the floor for a long time, not sure what she wanted to think about now. It felt so selfish, wallowing in grief and guilt when there was work to be done.
That same guilt had driven her to Alaska in the first place. Useless to the X-Men after the loss of Jean, Charles, and Scott, she felt that the only choice was to run. She left her family, her life, to cauterize the gaping wounds.
There was hope now, though. A flicker of it sparked to life in her shredded heart. Perhaps if they did find the facility where the eggs were stolen and stored, she might have a child someday. She knew at least half a dozen men off the top of her head that would gladly donate to her cause. Henry, Peter, Riley, and Warren immediately leapt to mind.
She laid on the exam table, her traitorous mind wondering if Logan would consent to becoming an unorthodox father. A slow smile crept over her lips as she curled into a fetal position. Any child of that man would be unfailingly stubborn, unwaveringly loyal, and eerily beautiful.
With these wayward, self-destructive thoughts still bouncing around her already dizzy mind, Ororo closed her eyes and slept.
~**~
Outside of the door, Logan listened as Storm’s breathing evened out. He peered in through the window, looking between the cheap vertical blinds.
Though he wanted to slip into the room and cover her with a blanket, he refrained. His attentions were unwelcome and unnecessary, as she’d made plainly clear. Having heard the conversation “ both parts “ between Dr. Tate and Storm, he frowned. Her sleeping form shifted before he managed to look away.
Wolverine had once vowed to find and punish those responsible for her abduction, but he amended that now. He would find them, punish them, but retrieve that little slice of hope for this woman. Maybe, if he played his cards right, he could convince her to let another woman carry their child.
Any kid with a shred of ‘Ro’s DNA would be mulish, beautiful, and damn smart. It wasn’t a bad way for any kid to be. Logan glanced at her over his shoulder again before heading toward the triage area.
He flopped into the chair beside Mary’s bed, shaking his head at the snoring form of her lover.
“Hey, it’s the mountain man.”
Mary’s sweet voice was raspy from her ordeal. Logan grinned at her, taking a now-warm hand and squeezing her fingers lightly. She was still slightly blue, but her eyes danced with mischief when they opened. Her teasing tone made relief flood his pained heart.
“Hey, it’s the human Popsicle.”
She chuckled soundlessly. “Gave everyone a scare, eh?”
“A little. I was ready ta tan yer hide.”
“Aww,” she giggled. “I didn’t know you cared.”
Logan scowled immediately. “Hey now, who sat with me fer a week while ‘Roro was gettin’ better?”
Mary brought their joined hands up and kissed his knuckles. “How’s she doin’?”
“Sleepin’, finally. She got word from the doc that those girls ya pulled outta the snow are gonna have hundreds of fat babies.”
“Now, there’s some damn good news.” Mary’s grin was like the sun coming up.
“Yep. They’re all gonna be ok, thanks ta some wacko out in the middle of nowhere durin’ a flippin’ blizzard.”
She scrunched her nose up and stuck her tongue out at him. Logan chuckled at the silly expression, sighing when she yawned.
“Go back ta sleep, kid.”
“Yeah,” Mary murmured, her eyes already drifting closed. “Sleep. Good.”
He sat with her as she slipped back into sleep. Leaning back in his chair, Logan looked up at the ceiling and exhaled slowly.
In two minutes, he was snoring.
