Free Atonement by Michael Kerr Page A

shirt and blue jeans.
    “Come in, Logan,”  she said.  “Make yourself at home.”
    He felt big and awkward in the small house.  He was not used to being in such close proximity to a woman he found so attractive.  His relationships with the fairer sex were sporadic to say the least.  The last woman he had slept with had been Sharon Jennings, who with her mother, Rita, he had protected from hitmen that had been contracted to kill them both.  Sharon was young enough to have been his daughter, but was an adult, and so he had been happy for her to seduce him.  He was not in the habit of kicking a gift horse in the mouth.
    “You look ill at ease, Logan,”  Kate said.  “You want a cold beer while I start grilling the steak?”
    “Sounds good,”  he said, following her into the kitchen, taking his parka off and hanging it over the back of a chair.
    Kate was a bag of nerves.  One on one with a guy she didn’t know too well was now not as good an idea as she had thought a few hours’ ago.  But he didn’t crowd her, or seem to have any side that threw up warning signals.
    They made small talk as they ate.  Logan told her about the hike he’d taken through the forest, and how if he had been an artist he would have wanted to build a cabin with a view of the Rocky Mountains and stay there and paint till he died.
    “I wish I had your attitude,”  Kate said.  “It must be nice to have no sense of responsibility, and just keep moving on with no need for stability.”
    Logan drained his glass of beer and said, “I was what you may think of as responsible for decades, Kate.  I took my duty in the Marines and then my police career very seriously.  I’m fifty now, and feel that I’ve earned the right to take time out.  I keep on the move because there is no such thing as permanence.  A lot of folk live in the same house in the same town or city all of their lives, with the same neighbors dying around them as they get older.  I find that a little depressing.  Nothing lasts.  Even the sun is slowly burning itself out.”
    “I didn’t mean that you were irresponsible , Logan.  I just haven’t met anyone like you before.  My life has all been about learning, and then putting that knowledge into practice.”
    “So was mine for a long time, Kate.  Tell me, why are you in Carson Creek?  What are you running away from?”
    Kate realized that she had inadvertently begged inquiry, after digging into Logan’s mindset.  Decided to lay it all out and keep the air clear between them from the outset.  “I’m thirty-five, was married briefly to what turned out to be the wrong man, and while working for a firm in Chicago, managed to get myself beaten up and raped.  So I decided to relocate somewhere that is hopefully safer.  Although after what happened to Tanya Foster it would appear that nowhere is really safe.”
    Logan admired her forthrightness.  Everybody has secrets, and most people keep them just that, a secret.
    “I shouldn’t have pried,”  he said.  “I apologize.”
    “No need, Logan.  Shit happens.  I’m getting on with the present, but needed new surroundings to do it in.  And I’m finding it hard in some ways.”
    “Nothing much in life is easy, Kate.  Peace of mind may exist, but I’ve never met anyone that really has it.  Everything is a tradeoff.”
    “You don’t seem too worried about anything.”
    “I’m a survivor, Kate.  I have the ability to absorb most of the dire consequences of what others do and keep some balance.  I’ve witnessed so much of mans’ inhumanity to his fellow man that I must have built up some kind of immunity to it.”
    “What do you see as your future?”
    “I don’t even think about tomorrow too much.  Things just work out for better or worse.  Most of the time we have no control over it, so why sweat it?”
    Time flew.  It got late, and Logan said that it was time he left.  Kate had the sudden urge to ask him to stay over, but