Simply Scandalous (Simply Series Book 2)

by Carly Phillips

  Catherine smiled. “Love you too, sis.”

  “Stay as long as you want. Just keep out of my way,” Kane muttered.

  “He doesn’t mean that,” Kayla assured her.

  “Sure, I do, sweetheart… when I’m alone with you,” he said in a deeper tone, one a husband reserved for his wife.

  To Catherine’s surprise, a pang of envy darted through her heart. She’d spent a lot of time with Kayla and Kane, happily married couple. Through Thanksgiving, Christmas, and other assorted holidays, Catherine was thrilled her sister had found love, and acceptance despite Kane’s outwardly surly attitude.

  But she’d never envied what Kayla and Kane shared. Never thought she wanted it for herself.

  Until now.

  Until Logan.

  Hampshire’s favorite son.

  The delectable bachelor destined to marry wealthy and within his class, she thought, recalling the final words of the article. The words she couldn’t bear to read aloud.

  Chapter Eight

  Lunchtime on Monday, Logan found a private spot in the courthouse and pulled his cell from his pocket. From the minute he’d arrived at the office this morning, his boss had him at his beck and call, covering an important case for a hospitalized co-worker, when the judge refused to grant a postponement.

  He’d put Catherine’s number into his Favorites and he tapped the phone app, then her name. Anticipation kicked in only to listen to incessant ringing before her voicemail picked up. He muttered a curse. His only break for the day that would give him free time away from the client, and Catherine wasn’t answering.

  “Montgomery, Judge wants you in his chambers. Seems your client’s causing trouble again,” the bailiff called from across the hall.

  Logan groaned, ended the call before he could leave a message and ran down the hall.

  Sometimes priorities sucked, he thought.

  * * *

  Hiding out wasn’t smart. It didn’t say much for her ability to cope. But then, Catherine didn’t want to cope. She wanted to forget. That she’d slept with Logan. And that he hadn’t gotten in touch.

  She’d arrived at Kayla’s on Sunday and today was Tuesday. So what if she hadn’t told him where to reach her? He was a lawyer. A smart guy. If he’d wanted to find her, he could. Easily.

  As much as she’d told herself not to expect anything, that she didn’t want anything, his silence hurt anyway. Because despite all the truths Catherine knew in her mind, her heart wanted to believe she was different, special. Not just a cheap and easy fling.

  She wanted to forget, and catering to her pregnant sister would help her do just that.

  Plus, it would allow Kane to leave the house without worrying that he’d left Kayla alone. It was the least she could do in exchange for invading his space and their privacy. She carried a tray of food upstairs and knocked on the bedroom door.

  “If it’s more muffins, I’m stuffed.”

  “Cinnamon French toast,” Catherine called back and kicked open the door with the toe of her foot.

  Kayla propped herself up in bed.

  “I made it just the way you like. A few raisins, a touch of low-calorie syrup…”

  “Cat, sit down.”

  After placing the tray on the dresser, she joined her sister. “I’m sitting. What’s wrong? Is it the baby?” She glanced at Kayla’s stomach and was rewarded by a jolt of movement under the sheet. “Active little guy.”

  “Or girl. Listen to me. About all this… food.”

  “I’ve been cleaning the kitchen, I swear. And I’m freezing the casseroles. You and Kane will have enough food to get you through the…”

  “The first decade of this child’s life. Catherine, slow it down. I know you better than anyone. You only cook like a demon when you’re upset. It’s been two days and you haven’t mentioned him, but you’ve barely left the kitchen.”

  “Him who?” she asked, avoiding her sister’s gaze.

  Kayla rolled her eyes. “You know stress isn’t good for the baby.” She patted her stomach. “And worrying about you is stressful. Now, stop playing dumb and tell me what gives.”

  Trust Kayla to hit her in the heart. Catherine eased herself down on the bed. “Remember when we were kids? And Christmas came? All the kids on the block got tons of gifts. Even if it was a used bike or a hand-me-down doll, they got wrapped gifts under the tree and Santa came.”

  “But not for us,” Kayla said softly.

  “Right. How many birthday wishes and Christmas lists did I waste asking for my daddy to come home?”

  “I’m not sure. You never said it out loud. You swore it never bothered you the way it bothered me. And I should have sensed that it did.”

  Catherine shook her head. “There you go again, taking responsibility for things you can’t control. If I didn’t admit it, I didn’t want you to know.”

  As she met her sister’s gaze, Kayla motioned for her to continue.

  Catherine bit her lip. “It took me a while, but after the first couple of years, I caught on. He wasn’t coming back… and I stopped believing.”

  “In more than just Santa Claus,” Kayla said.

  Catherine nodded. “And then I met Logan. I knew we were from different worlds. I knew I was just an interesting diversion. And yet…” To her horror, tears filled her eyes and she brushed them away with the back of her hand.

  “You believed in him.” Kayla frowned. “He could just be busy with work.”

  On call three nights a week and one weekend a month… “It doesn’t take long to call or text.” To find out where to pick her up on Friday. For the date that wasn’t going to happen.

  The ring of the doorbell cut off her train of thought. “Expecting company?” she asked her sister.

  “Could be Kane’s boss’s wife. I mean, old boss. He retired last year. She stops by every week with… more food,” Kayla said with a groan.

  “I’ll get it. Just remember, no one cooks like me.” Catherine forced humor and lightness into her voice as she walked out of the bedroom and headed for the door.

  If Catherine was going to stay, she needed to give her sister support and not stress. Neither one of the sisters knew how to turn off their motherly instincts toward the other. They were too deeply ingrained for too many years.

  On the other side of the door was a deliveryman and not the captain’s wife as Kayla had predicted.

  “Delivery for Catherine Luck.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “That’s strange.”

  He shrugged. “Are you her? I need a signature.”

  Catherine scrawled her name and accepted the small box covered in plain brown paper wrap. Turning the square box over, she found the familiar return address, written in an unfamiliar scrawl.

  She’d never seen his handwriting, she realized. How many other things didn’t she know about Logan Montgomery? Too many. And yet the small box that fit into her hand filled those gaps until they didn’t seem to matter.

  As she tore into the paper, Catherine hoped with everything in her that it wasn’t an illusion.

  * * *

  Logan tossed his keys onto the metal desk, kicked aside the garbage can, and unloaded armfuls of folders onto the floor. His desk was piled high with files and paperwork that ought to keep him busy straight through next year. He muttered a curse. Add to that Tuesday night calendar where he represented whatever case came onto the docket and the result had been no time to himself.

  Zero time to sleep… or to get in touch with Cat. After the closeness they’d shared, what he had to say couldn’t be summed up in a brief text or a short voicemail, and that was all the time he’d had, considering he’d been handed this case cold on Monday morning.

  The burning desire to see her again was all-encompassing. Everything about her appealed to him. Her allure… her uncertainty.

  He’d promised to call her “soon.” That was Saturday. He’d dropped her off on Sunday. And here it was Tuesday night. “Son of a bitch.” She was going to writ
e him off and think he’d blown her off.

  A firm hand smacked him on the side of the head. “Didn’t I bring you up better than to curse like that?” his grandmother asked.

  He stared at the open door she’d barged through without warning. “And don’t manners dictate you knock?”

  “Why should I? Door’s open.”

  He placed the phone on the desk, rose, and walked around to his grandmother. “Good to see you, Gran. You’re always welcome. You know that.” He kissed her weathered cheek, wondering why she would show up at his office at this hour of the night.

  “Of course, I do. But it wouldn’t matter if I wasn’t. We need to talk.” The gleam in her eyes intrigued him as much as it disturbed. She was up to something again.

  “How’d you get here?” he asked.

  She let out a long-suffering sigh. “I let Ralph drive me. Though I still say that DMV person was wrong and I am not a hazard on the road.” She sniffed.

  He’d never let her know that after she’d backed over her prized roses in the driveway, he’d pulled strings to make sure she had an eye exam and didn’t get her license renewed. He wanted her to live as long as possible. “Well, I’m glad you were prudent, anyway,” he said, knowing she still snuck a drive or two when she could get away with it.

  “Like I had a choice. Your father would call the cops on me. His own mother. Imagine that.”

  “Imagine.” He grinned. “I have to call Cat first and then we can talk.”

  She glanced warily at his cell. “Talk to me first. Call later,” she said, sounding panicked. “I haven’t eaten. Let’s go to that fancy place downstairs.”

  “That fancy place is a bar.”

  “Sounds good. Let’s go.” She yanked his arm. For a frail-looking woman, she had almost superhuman strength. Although he could argue with her, he had no desire to make his first call to Catherine with an audience present and he knew damn well he’d never get Emma to wait outside. Better to feed her and send her on her way. Then he’d call Catherine and leave a message if he had to.

  He managed to grab his folders and stuff them into his briefcase before Emma herded him out the door. Five minutes later, he and his grandmother were seated in a sports bar in the same building as his office.

  “Want to see a menu?” he asked her, calling the server over at the same time.

  She shook her head. Not a strand of white hair fell from her perfect bun. She hadn’t changed since he was a kid. And he loved her for it, even if there were times—like now—when she confounded him.

  “Whatever you’re having is fine with me,” she said.

  He rolled his eyes. “Beer, and I thought you hadn’t eaten.”

  She fidgeted in her seat. “I lost my appetite.”

  “Two beers,” he said to the server.

  “Be right back.”

  Logan leaned back in his seat and glanced around the crowded bar. “Okay, you’ve got me in a public place where I can’t make a scene. What’s going on?”

  “You are good.”

  The server returned and placed two bottles and their glasses down onto the table.

  “I’ll take mine straight up,” Emma said.

  He swallowed a laugh.

  “You might want to do the same,” she said without cracking a smile.

  His urge to laugh ceased as he digested her warning. He handed her one bottle, grabbed the other for himself, and took a large gulp, refusing to comment when she did the same. The sight was absurd but no doubt that was her intention. Get him in a public place, keep him off guard, and drop her bomb, whatever it was.

  The cold, wet brew didn’t ease the dryness in his mouth. “Now, tell me what’s going on.”

  “What? I can’t stop by to visit my favorite grandson?”

  “I’m your only grandson. Now talk.”

  She sighed. “You’re working hard?” she asked.

  “It’s been a hectic week.”

  “And it’s barely begun. No time for play?” she asked.

  “You keeping tabs on me, Gran?”

  “I have to hunt you down at your office at ten o’clock… it speaks for itself.” She tilted her head to the side. “The women in your life can’t be too understanding if you’re so out of touch.”

  There are no women in my life, he almost said. It was his standard response to Emma’s not-so-subtle prying. But he caught himself because they both knew this time, it would be a lie.

  As much as he valued his privacy, he wouldn’t mind unloading on his grandmother. She understood him better than anyone else and already knew he was interested in Cat. More importantly, she liked Cat, too.

  He leaned forward. “I’m not sure how she feels about me right now. I haven’t had a minute’s free time to get in touch.”

  Emma made a chiding, clucking sound with her tongue. “You know what they say about all work and no play. You ought to go find Catherine and have a good time with her. Relieve some of that tension you’re carrying around with you.”

  He had no patience for her prying or the way she spoke of Cat as if she meant nothing more to him than a good time in bed. He shook his head. “You cut that out, now,” he warned his grandmother.

  She clapped her weathered hands together. “Thank goodness.”

  “Thank goodness what? Someone other than the judge is finally censoring your language?”

  “Logan, I raised you, I love you, but you can be thick as a milkshake sometimes. Thank goodness you’re looking out for Catherine. If you don’t let me talk like that about her, I picked right, and it’s finally happened.”

  “Your train of thought boggles the mind,” he muttered. “But I’ll bite. What’s finally happened?”

  “You’ve fallen hard. I knew you would. Now, here’s the plan.” She talked fast, probably before he could interrupt. “When I realized you were tied up for two days, I took a few liberties.”

  He shook his head. She was a whirlwind, and right now, his life was caught dead smack in the middle. Which reminded him. “We still haven’t talked about the closet incident.”

  “Oh, I thought you and Catherine already taught me a lesson,” she muttered.

  “So, you didn’t like being on the receiving end, did you? Now listen and understand. Much as I appreciate your intentions, your… meddling can’t go on. I’m thirty-one years old, Gran. Would you take it personally if I said butt out?”

  “Of course not. But it’s too late for that. You need the scoop and I’m here to give it to you.”

  “And I’m here listening.”

  “You said at the party you wanted to make Catherine’s dreams come true. And before you ask how I know, I accidentally left the intercom on by the pool house where the bar was located,” she said, unable to meet his gaze.

  He blinked hard. “You’re telling me you sat in the house and listened?” he asked, buying himself time to swallow his anger.

  “Yes,” she admitted with embarrassment and shame in her tone.

  Emma wasn’t malicious nor did she ever mean any harm. But the knowledge didn’t help right now. He closed his eyes and counted to ten, attempting to control his frustration.

  The penalty for murder in this state wasn’t pretty, and even though this could be considered justifiable homicide, the jury might take exception to the fact that he’d strangled his eighty-year-old grandmother.

  “I only needed to know if I chose right,” she said by way of explanation. “If you two hit it off. Heaven knows you’d never tell me the truth.”

  “Only because you react… like this.” He balled his hands into tight fists. The thought of her invading his and Catherine’s privacy had him seeing red. “You might mean well, but you passed the bounds of common decency this time.”

  “Actually, I know that, and I’m sorry.” She bowed her head. “But that heart attack scared me to death. Well, not literally, thank goodness, but it meant I had to see you settled down and happy before I passed on. Went to the great beyond. Well, you know what I mean.”<
br />
  He did. And he understood. Her heart attack had taken years off his life as well. And the reason he let her get away with so much interfering was because he loved her and was grateful she was still around to meddle in his life.

  But she couldn’t go to these extremes, not when Catherine was involved. “I already told you I won’t use Cat in any scheme to stop the judge. You should be ashamed of yourself. You claim to like this woman and you set her up, plan to use her…”

  Emma rose to her feet, indignation in her posture and a determined look on her face. “I did no such thing.”

  “Sit down, Gran.”

  She lowered herself back into the booth.

  “Well, I set her up with you, if that’s what you mean. But you should be grateful. As for using her, can I help it if her background will infuriate your father and thwart his mayoral plans? But that has nothing to do with why I brought you to the party. I wanted you to meet her. Period.”

  “And if we didn’t hit it off?”

  “I’d have backed off,” she said with the utmost sincerity.

  Logan ran a hand through his hair. If the past two days of work hadn’t been enough, he now had this to contend with. “Then do it. Now.” He imposed as much authority into his tone as possible without being disrespectful to the woman he loved.

  She patted his hand, much as she’d done when he was a child. Through the years, the gesture had been oddly comforting. But now it made him wary, and her next words proved his instincts were on target.

  “There’s just one more tiny little thing.”

  * * *

  “It’s romantic, Cat.” Kayla beamed, and it wasn’t just the glow of pregnancy lighting her features.

  Catherine knew her sister was thrilled by Logan’s daily gifts. No more than she was herself. She stared down at the three gifts laid out on the bed, finding herself at an uncustomary loss for words. Logan did that to her, she thought, warmth spreading through her.

  She shook her head. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “You wanted sincerity. Looks like he’s given it to you.”

  Catherine nodded. A different box had arrived every day. A box of fairy dust on Tuesday. The card read, “To Make Your Dreams Come True.”