The paper in his pocket was crinkled and well-worn and his fingers skimmed over the creases with familiarity that might have disturbed him if he’d stopped to think about it. He’d called the mansion earlier that week and asked how Rogue was doing, much to Hank’s apparent delight. The blue doctor had made cryptic statements about her whereabouts until Logan had finally quipped, “Hank — if this is about me hidin’ your test tubes and switchin’ the labels on your file cabinets, I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to ya when I get back if you’ll just tell me where Rogue is.”

Hank, with a devilish lilt that amused Logan to no end, had returned, “You had best return posthaste then, my friend; Ororo arrives from her visit home to Africa in a fortnight and I am certain that if she knew of your intentions she would either forbid the liaison… or ‘crash the party,’ as some are fond of saying.”

“C’mon, Blue,” Logan had cajoled. “Ro can fry my ass from the inside out. You’d better just tell me where Rogue’s gone off to.”

“I must confess I do not have possession of that knowledge,” Hank had admitted over Logan’s groan of frustration. “However, I do have in my lab coat pocket at this very moment a sealed envelope handed to me by the person in question.”

“How quick can you open it and tell me what’s in it?” Logan had demanded.

“You know, such impatience is detrimental to your blood pressure –”

“Hank, don’t make me come back to New York just to kick your ass.”

With a chuckle that Logan thought was the most evil sound he’d ever heard, Hank had finally conceded. “All right. Restrain your equines. I shall open it immediately.”

“You ain’t right,” Logan had said with some amusement as he listened to the sound of the envelope being ripped open.

“Right or not, I have your information at my fingertips. Would you like to know what she left for you?”

“She left it for *me*?” Logan had asked cautiously.

“Indeed. She told me expressly that she intended this information for you. You alone, I assume.”

That had been the moment when Logan had begun to suspect that his world was shifting. He hadn’t been able to help catching his breath at the implications in Hank’s words. In something of a daze, he’d written the number Hank had given him on the hotel pad and stuffed it in his pocket. He hadn’t managed to call it yet, but he thought about it at least once a day and now, sitting in a backwater bar in rural South Carolina, his thoughts were turning serious.

He fished the wrinkled paper out of his pocket, smoothing it over the scuffed and chipped surface of the bar, noticing the crudely engraved “Bill + Sue 4-Ever” that made him wonder if the owners of the bar ever bothered to ID their customers.

He took a deep breath and was looking over his shoulder for the payphone when a familiar, though very out-of-place, voice made itself heard over the ESPN Classics broadcast that was playing on the beat-up TV set in the corner.

“Excuse me – do you have a phone I could use for a local call? And a phone book?”

Surprised, Logan’s gaze snapped toward the door and, though he hadn’t seen her in nearly two years, there was no mistaking the backlit figure who was putting her sunglasses on the top of her head and reaching for the phone the bartender had put on the bar for her.

He watched with amusement as she flipped through the yellow pages of a thin phone book and huffed in frustration as she apparently failed to find what she was looking for.

While she was looking around for the bartender who had vanished into the back room, Logan stood and wandered over to her, tucking Rogue’s number back in his pocket. “Lookin’ for somethin’, darlin’?” he said quietly from behind her, tilting his beer up to take a swallow of it.

With her hands on her hips, she turned to face him, saying petulantly, “As a matter of fact –” She stopped in surprise as she saw his face and he saw recognition and uncertainty flash through her eyes. “Logan?”

He nodded. “How ya doin’, Dee? You’re a long way from home.”

Tucking her dark hair behind her ear, she laughed in disbelief. “Yeah – I, um, I was driving down to see some friends in Florida and, uh, my car just decided to stop about a half-mile up the road from here.”

“You need a lift?” he asked.

“Uh – yeah, I guess I probably do,” she hesitated. “As soon as I find out who the local towing company is.”

“I believe,” Logan drawled, “that the local garage, Mike’s, also tows.”

“And how would you know that?” Dee challenged.

“I’ve been here for a couple of days. Mike likes to drink here.”

Dee shook her head, chuckling. “You amaze me. Lemme guess, you also have the guy’s phone number.”

“Actually, I don’t,” Logan shrugged. “But I think it’s in the white pages.”

Dee flipped to the “M” listings and found “Mike & the Mechanics Garage” quickly, sparing a short laugh at the name. Logan stood back as she placed the call, arranging for her car to be towed to the garage. After she hung up she turned to Logan and spread her hands. “Well, handsome, I’m all yours.”

Placing his now-empty beer bottle on the counter with enough bills to cover it and the tip, Logan nodded and started walking toward the door. “You need to get anything out of your car?”

“Yeah… I guess so. Mike said that they’d be here in under thirty minutes to tow it but it would probably take at least three hours to get to it. Seems they’re kind of busy today.”

Logan nodded in acknowledgement as he unlocked the passenger side door to his truck and then walked around to get in on the driver’s side. Dee climbed into his truck and he turned the key in the ignition, telling her, “I’ll drive you to your car and you can get your stuff out. I’ve got a hotel room, so you can kick back and relax while you wait for Mike.”

He didn’t miss the sudden spark in her eyes at his mention of the hotel room but chose not to comment on it. He knew Dee probably wouldn’t have any objections to a few more creative definitions of “relaxation,” but he was still very conscious of the slip of paper in his jeans pocket and what that meant.

---

The water in the shower stopped running and Logan looked up briefly from his perusal of the local newspaper as the bathroom door opened and Dee stepped out, wrapped in a terrycloth robe with her dark, damp hair tousled around her face.

“Have a nice shower?” he asked politely, one hand toying with the piece of paper that lay on the small hotel table by the window where he was sitting. He’d pulled out Rogue’s number with the brief thought of calling her, but remembered Dee in the shower and thought that it would probably be best if he waited until she was back on the road.

“Yeah, thanks,” Dee smiled. “I appreciate it. The road-dust was starting to build up.”

“No problem, DeeDee.”

“Don’t call me that,” she reprimanded automatically as she sifted through her suitcase and he could tell by her tone of voice that she didn’t expect him to heed her instruction any more than he had the first thirty times she’d said it. He did happen to know she preferred that nickname to “Double D,” which she’d been convinced was a derogatory reference to her modest breasts.

“Whaddya want me to call you?” he asked gruffly and watched in amusement as she suddenly stilled and straightened up, turning around to look at him in pleasant surprise.

“Well,” she grinned, walking over to stand in front of him. “My name is Deirdre, so that would be okay. Or ‘darlin’.” Or,” she lowered her voice, dropping onto his lap and sliding an arm around his shoulder, “ ‘God, baby, just like that,’ was always a favorite of mine.”

He cleared his throat and shifted uncomfortably, and she sighed, toying with his hair. “Let me guess,” she said quietly, one hand going over to slip the piece of paper out from under his fingers. “This is your girlfriend’s number?”

“Uh, well…”

“It’s okay, Logan,” she smiled a little sadly. “I understand.” Dropping her head to his shoulder, she muttered, “Am I allowed to hate her?”

He shrugged. “It’s a free country,” he told her, the soft tone of his voice belying the gruffness of his words.

“Yeah, I guess it is. I would’ve gotten tired of you eventually anyway.”

Logan laughed. “You think?”

“Well, I never got the chance to find out, but…” She smiled at the return of his discomfort and levered herself off his lap, straightening her robe. “Don’t worry about it, Logan. It was a long time ago; we’ve both moved on.” She turned and began walking towards the steamed-up bathroom mirror, combing out her hair as she went. “Besides, I think you might have found a good one this time. That redhead in New York you were on about that time never kept you from a little playtime.” She smiled at him in the clearing mirror and he returned it, going back to his paper.

Mike actually got Dee’s car fixed ahead of schedule, and as Logan returned to his room after driving Dee to the garage, he looked at the slip of paper on the table that bore Rogue’s number in faded writing and took a deep breath. Dropping his keys onto the table, he picked up the paper and looked at it, rubbing his thumb over the familiar creases.

He could hear Dee’s voice teasing him, “I think you might’ve found a good one… that redhead in New York never kept you from a little playtime.”

Things had changed, he thought. He wondered if Rogue had found any answers on her own road trip and, if so, what those answers were. Dee was right; his attraction to Jean hadn’t kept him out of anyone’s bed – in fact, at times, he had noticed that the more he wanted her, the more he found someone to play substitute and fill that longing. He took a deep breath and admitted to himself that he couldn’t find a substitute for Rogue if he tried.

Although, apparently, he thought wryly, he wasn’t trying that hard. And that said something in itself.

“Damn,” he muttered to himself as he picked up the battered, cream-colored phone receiver and dialed the number on the paper quickly, before he could talk himself out of it.

An unfamiliar nervousness fluttered in his stomach as he listened to the phone ring, and he was just about to hang up when he heard the click of the line connecting and then her familiar drawl, sounding a little out of breath.

“Hello?”

“Hey,” he answered, clearing his throat. “It’s me.”

The End