All of Me by Leeanna Morgan (book recommendations for teens TXT) đź“•
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- Author: Leeanna Morgan
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“Here you go.” Tess handed him a glass of water and he gulped it down in seconds.
She took the empty glass out of his hand and opened the letter.
“I have also checked the orphanage’s records and there were a number of families that arrived about the time you are interested in. These families have since moved to other villages and we have no record of where they have gone. I have also made a note of the families that stayed here while they rested and received medical treatment. I am sorry that I don’t have more news for you, but I hope this information is of some help. Kind regards, Elizabeth.”
Tess turned the letter over, then left it on top of the coffee table. “Do you want to see the names now?”
Logan nodded. Tess handed him the second page of the letter. Some of the names he didn’t recognize, others could have been people he knew, or simply people with the same names as the one’s he had befriended.
When his eyes read the second to last line, he nearly cried. Imzaa and Kushan Khan were listed with their children, Khaaky, Mallalai, and Chinar. Kushan and one of his daughters had been injured and had stayed in the hospital at the orphanage for two weeks. According to the list Elizabeth Connor had provided, they were still in Nau Deh.
“They’re there,” he whispered.
“Who’s there?”
“Kushan and his family. Abiba was their daughter.”
“Abiba?”
“The suicide bomber.” Logan dropped his head into his hands and closed his eyes. “Abiba was employed by the Army as an official interpreter. I worked with her for nearly a year. She was bright and happy. We were trying to organize a scholarship so she could study at an American university.”
“She was the interpreter that lied to you?”
“No. She was one of the few people I thought I could trust.”
Tess frowned. “She killed the soldiers and children at the school?”
Logan looked at the sheet of paper and sighed. “I’ll write to Elizabeth, find out where Kushan and his family are living.”
“Why did Abiba do it?”
“I’ve been trying to work that out for the last year. It didn’t make sense then and it makes even less sense now. She had so much to look forward to.” For the first few months after the bombing, he’d gone through everything he could remember about Abiba. She hadn’t said or done anything out of the ordinary. Nothing to make anyone believe she was anything other than a young woman wanting to make a difference.
“Do you want to go for a walk?” Tess asked gently.
Logan looked through the living room windows. “It’s pitch black outside.”
“All the better to not be seen by super sleuth reporters. It will help shake some of the adrenaline out of your system.”
“You noticed?”
Tess picked his hands up and held them between hers. He was still shaking.
“There’s a store not far from here. They might sell chocolate.”
Logan dropped his voice to match the teasing note in hers. “Not good for your jeans.”
“I don’t care,” she whispered back.
Tess was still holding his hands. Her face was inches from his. The worry in her eyes brought him back to the here and now. “Thank you.”
She put her hands either side of his face. “You’re a good man, Logan Allen. If chocolate doesn’t help, we’ll find something that will.”
Logan was too much of a gentleman to mention some of the cures working their way through his brain. At least he hoped he hadn’t said what was on his mind. Tess had blushed beet red and looked as flustered as a rabbit in spring.
“Tess? Are you okay?”
She let go of his face and pushed her hair behind her ears. “I’ll go and get my sweatshirt.”
Logan watched her leave the room and wondered what had happened. Tess didn’t get flustered. She didn’t race out of a room and almost trip over her own feet.
He needed to talk to her, find out what was happening. But it took more courage than he had at the moment, especially if he didn’t want to be disappointed.
Later that night, Tess turned over in bed. She flipped her pillow, pulled the duvet high around her shoulders. She’d tried counting sheep, imagined a lake glistening under a full moon. She’d even visualized all of her troubles going into a big vase and putting a lid on the whole lot. Except her six-foot-five trouble wouldn’t fit in any vase she had stored in her imagination.
It didn’t matter how hard she tried. Logan jumped free of any container she found, grinning at her feeble attempts to get him out of her head. At least she was trying to get him out of her head and not her bed.
Oh-my-God. She was at it again, putting Logan where he so obviously didn’t want to go. She kicked the duvet off and walked across to the big picture window. She looked at the streetlights for a few minutes before she needed to use the bathroom.
It wasn’t Logan that was the problem, it was her and the king size bar of chocolate she’d demolished. Logan had been a perfect gentleman. He hadn’t done anything wrong. He hadn’t held her hands, or her face, or whispered sweet nothings in her ear.
And he most definitely hadn’t kissed her.
She turned the light on in the walk-in closet and opened her suitcase. She’d brought a book with her, a horror story that was bound to scare her witless and give her something to really keep her awake. She turned to the first page and settled in for the fright of her life.
Halfway through chapter four she knew she was in trouble. She was bored. The latest blockbuster horror wasn’t scary at all. It made her laugh at the worst possible moments and groan at the sheer stupidity of the characters.
She closed her book down and glanced at her alarm clock. It was after midnight. In five hours she needed to be at the café, mixing dough and making sandwiches. Instead of feeling the rush of pride she normally did when she thought about Angel Wings Café, she felt depressed.
She worked long hours and didn’t know what she was going to do with the rest of her life. She’d spent the last three years hiding inside more than one pair of faded jeans, telling herself she was better off leaving her modeling days behind.
What she hadn’t realized until now, was that no one in Bozeman cared that she’d been a model. They didn’t treat her any differently because she had a few extra zeroes on the end of her bank account balance. The only people in the whole town that cared either way were the reporters that had staked out her apartment. And they probably weren’t even local.
After wallowing in self-pity for another few minutes, she decided she needed to do something other than look at the ceiling. If she was having a pity party, she could at least follow a Williams’ family tradition. Her grandma had always told her that warm milk with a sprinkle of chocolate could cure most heartaches and long nights. Up until she started living with her grandparents, Tess didn’t have much in the way of family traditions. So what she had learned she tended to cherish.
She picked up her laptop and tiptoed downstairs. She hadn’t heard a peep out of Logan, so she could only guess that he was sound asleep, enjoying whatever dreams were flitting through his head.
Tess closed the kitchen door and scrunched her eyes tight before she flicked the light switch on.
“Do you want to make me blind?”
Tess jumped a mile. Forget her horror novel. Logan Allen had managed to scare the bejeebers out of her without it costing her a cent. She clutched her laptop to her chest and turned around. He was sitting at the kitchen table with his arm over his eyes and a hot drink steaming in front of him.
Tess dimmed the lights and frowned. “What are you doing here?”
“It’s my house.”
“Ha ha, very funny.” She walked across to the counter and pulled a clean mug out of the dishwasher. “Are you okay?”
“Fine.” Logan stared moodily into his cup.
Tess ignored him and heated a cup of milk in the microwave. “Do you have any hot chocolate?”
“Middle shelf in the pantry.”
She sprinkled a teaspoon of chocolate on her drink and smiled as she took her first sip.
“You do know it’s after midnight, don’t you?”
Tess didn’t bother looking at Logan. She’d seen plenty when she turned the lights on and she wasn’t going back for another peek. Especially when she hadn’t been able to get him out of her head or into an imaginary vase.
“I couldn’t sleep.” Tess tried not to wince at the obvious answer to his question. Of course she couldn’t sleep. She wouldn’t be in the kitchen
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