Deadly Surrender

by Reus, Katie

  He snickered and turned around, actually shaking said ass as he headed toward one of the bushes lining the front of his house. Oh God, she’d missed this flirty, fun banter they’d always had. And she wished… Ugh, it didn’t matter what she wished. She lived in the real world.

  If Logan wanted a relationship, he would have made it clear. And she wasn’t sure he was capable of one anyway. Capable of giving her what she needed.

  At this point in her life, Grace wanted the whole package. Marriage, a real family, maybe kids. But she wanted a committed man who came home to her and had eyes for no one else. Maybe she was broken or something. Maybe she wasn’t going to get all that. Maybe…she needed to stop being a Debbie Downer and get her head out of her ass.

  “So where are your parents?” she asked, needing conversation so she’d stop getting caught up in her thoughts.

  “Out to breakfast with Roman and Taylor. They said it was pathetic that I’d waited so long to put these up and weren’t going to help me either. By the way, my mom really likes you,” he tossed over his shoulder as he started stretching out the lights on the grass.

  Once she finished her coffee, she actually was going to help him. She just needed this boost of caffeine before she got going. “I really like her too. Your dad as well, though he’s pretty quiet.”

  “Yeah, he usually lets her do all the talking,” Logan said laughingly. “I didn’t really think about my plan because now she wants to know when you and I are getting married. She told me I needed to put a ring on your finger immediately.” He didn’t look at her as he spoke, focused on pulling a knot out of one of the strands.

  “Is that right?” That weird sensation settled in her belly at the thought of wearing Logan’s ring but she shut that down fast and tight. She’d worn someone’s ring before—a beautiful, sparkly one—and had gotten burned. It didn’t matter that on her wedding day she’d been having a panic attack before she’d found out the groom wasn’t showing up. Right before the ceremony she’d worried she was making a huge mistake, and then it hadn’t mattered because her ex had made the decision for her.

  “Yep. I definitely didn’t think this whole thing through. I thought it would get her off my back. But now that she’s met you, she said no one else will ever compare so I might as well do the right thing.”

  Grace forced out a laugh at his words, glad it didn’t sound strained, and set her coffee down. “Well, I’m pretty awesome, so I don’t blame her.” Striding across the lawn, she picked up the other end of the string of lights and tugged them away from him. “You’re making an even bigger mess. And why don’t you have a light storage reel so you keep your lights tangle free? This whole scene is just sad.”

  “‘Because I’m not organized’ seems like the obvious answer,” he said dryly. “Do you actually organize your lights?”

  “Of course I do. Light storage reels are a thing. It’s a big wheel that’s awesome. I keep my decorations in bins and I keep my lights tangle free when I put them away. Makes it much easier each year to put things up.”

  He just grinned at her and stood back as she started untangling.

  She shook her head. “No way. You’re not going to stand there and supervise while I do all the work. Hold this end up while I work on this tangle.”

  “You’re sexy when you’re bossy.”

  She felt her cheeks flush but she ignored the sexy comment because at this point that was all she could do. Maybe it was her imagination but she felt like there was this simmering, underlying electric current between them. It was different than the banter they’d had “before.” And she knew exactly why. Because they’d seen each other naked and been intimate. That changed everything.

  Suddenly he stiffened, his gaze going past her shoulder.

  Grace started to turn but he grabbed her arm. “Run!” he shouted as he yanked her toward the garage.

  It was instinct to try and look at what was going on, but every fiber of her being trusted him. Dropping the lights, she ran as a sudden firework of pops rang out.

  Her legs were moving of their own accord as the rat-a-tat grew louder and louder, dirt and grass flying up all around them.

  Belatedly she realized this was… Gunfire? Oh my God!

  Logan threw his body over hers as they barreled into the garage, his vehicle and hers in the driveway giving them cover as they slammed against the hard concrete.

  Just as quickly as the storm of gunfire arrived, it disappeared.

  “Grace!” She opened her eyes to find Logan staring down at her, running his hands over her arms and chest and down her body worriedly. The way he was looking at her made her realize he must’ve said her name more than once.

  “Are you okay?” she rasped out. Her heart was stuck in her throat.

  “I’m fine. Are you hit?” He ran his hands down her legs now.

  Blinking, she pushed up from the concrete floor and looked around in a daze, her heart a wild thump in her chest. “Was that a drive-by shooting? And are you sure you’re okay?” She knew she’d already asked, but she swept her gaze over him, looking for any signs of injury. She couldn’t believe what had just happened, was trying to wrap her mind around it even as she tried to steady her erratic breathing.

  He nodded as he pulled her to her feet. “Come on,” he ordered, guiding her inside his house, already pulling his phone out—to call the police, she assumed.

  What the hell had just happened?

  * * *

  Grace felt as if she was on autopilot as Logan gently helped her stand from the metal-backed chair in the detective’s office. She didn’t actually need the help but right about now she wasn’t afraid to admit that the drive-by shooting had shifted her whole world. Even hours later she felt as if her insides were still trembling.

  She hadn’t seen anything, hadn’t seen the shooter, hadn’t even seen the vehicle. Nothing. But she’d heard the gunfire and had run like hell. Now the sound of the shooting was embedded in her brain and was all she could focus on. As bullets slammed into her car—which had been towed to an auto shop by now.

  “Thank you for making your statement,” said Detective Hurley, a tall man with wide shoulders. His dark hair was cropped short and his equally dark eyes were kind, making her feel more at ease. He stood from across his desk and met them on the other side.

  She simply nodded because of course they’d made a statement. They’d had no choice. Someone had tried to kill them. Logan had actually gotten a make and model of the vehicle which surprised the heck out of her because everything was a fuzzy memory of noise and fear.

  The gunshots. Running. Being tackled to the ground.

  It had all sort of happened in a tunnel, as if it had happened to someone else and not her. And it had been so fast. That was the thing that blew her mind. How quickly the violence had come, then gone, as if it had never been there at all. One of Logan’s neighbors had gotten a partial of the license plate because he’d been outside with his dog, which felt like a miracle to her.

  “You’ve got my number if you remember anything more,” the man said to Logan, who just nodded and murmured his thanks again.

  “I feel like there’s more we should do,” Grace said as they stepped out into the hall. She knew there was realistically nothing they could actually do at this point, but whoever had shot at them was still out there. And that scared her. Especially since they had no idea if it was personal against one of them or random violence.

  Logan wrapped his arm around her shoulders and she instinctively leaned into him. “There’s nothing we can do. We’re just going to let the police do their job.” He said the words, but for some reason she didn’t quite believe that he was going to do nothing about this. He worked in private security for a very wealthy man. A man with a sort of ruthless reputation. “I’m going with you to your place,” Logan added in a tone that indicated he thought she might argue.

  “Okay.” Grace did not want to be alone right now. She didn’t even have a car, would have to call h
er insurance company and figure things out later.

  “It’s going to be okay,” he said quietly.

  She leaned into him for a moment as they reached the end of the hallway and stepped into a crowded, slightly loud open area with a lot of desks and uniformed officers. “I know. Or I hope so. You’re handling all of this very well.” He seemed so okay with everything and she felt as if she might split apart at the seams.

  “It’s not the first time I’ve been shot at.” His tone was neutral. “And I’m not handling the fact that you were there very well at all.” Now his jaw tightened and she saw the first spark of raw anger in his eyes since they’d gotten here.

  “Well I’m pretty pissed that you were shot at too. I know what you told the detective, but do you think this has anything to do with your job?”

  He shrugged as they made their way through the cluster of desks. “It’s too hard to know. I work security for a wealthy man, so he’s the one who’s usually the target, not me. But yeah, I could have made an enemy. Only one name pops to mind though, and like I told Detective Hurley, that man is currently sporting an ankle monitor and is under supervision.”

  She nodded because she’d heard everything Logan had told the detective. Some guy from one of Logan’s last jobs had been beating his wife and had been arrested after Logan’s interruption. He’d only been let out on bail because he was rich, and they’d put an ankle monitor on him to make sure he didn’t leave the state and go after his wife. Grace knew enough about domestic cases that the fact they’d actually put an ankle monitor on him surprised her, so she wondered if someone had pulled some strings to make that happen. Or maybe the judge had used common sense and realized that a man with that much wealth would be a risk to go after his wife and finish the job. And of course the Las Vegas PD would be checking to make sure the guy was still where he was supposed to be.

  In a way it made her feel worse, because if their attacker wasn’t that guy Brister, then Logan had no other suspects. Which meant some random person had just taken shots at them.

  As they stepped outside, she jerked in surprise to find Logan’s parents, and Roman and Taylor all waiting on the sidewalk. She hadn’t realized Logan had even called them.

  Before she could move, Taylor pulled her into a tight hug immediately. Feeling her best friend’s arms around her soothed some of her frayed edges.

  “How are you holding up?” Taylor asked as she stepped back, her bright blue eyes filled with worry.

  “I’m okay. We’re okay.” Maybe if she said it enough, she would start to feel it more. She just wanted to go home and curl up in front of the fire and block out the rest of the world. And she was really glad that Logan was coming with her. She definitely didn’t want to be alone right now and he was such a strong presence. Even with her own inner turmoil, she felt safe around him. Always had.

  To her surprise Roman pulled her into a big hug too, lifting her off the ground. Then he moved on to Logan, hugging his twin tight. “I packed a bag for you,” Roman said. “Already put it in your truck. And Mom and Dad are staying with me so you don’t need to worry about anything else.”

  “Thank you,” Logan said quietly to his brother before looking at Grace, his expression neutral.

  She wished she knew what he was thinking, but ever since the shooting it was like he’d gone into a sort of lockdown mode. She’d never seen him like this and it was throwing her off-kilter even more. It wasn’t like she expected him to be his fun, joking self, but he was in what she assumed must be his operator mode for jobs. It was a different side to him and she was grateful to have him with her.

  After getting hugs from his parents and saying a quick goodbye, they were on their way in his truck, which hadn’t sustained any real damage thankfully. She felt bad that he was leaving his parents right now around the holidays when they were in town specifically to see him and his brother, but she couldn’t dredge up too much guilt. Being shot at was a damn good reason to go home and hide out for the night as she tried to reset her brain.

  “I understand if you want space when you get home. I’m not leaving, but I’ll give you space once we’re there.” Logan’s voice was low, soothing, as if he was afraid she’d break down.

  Surprised, she turned to look at him. “I don’t want to be alone tonight.” And it wasn’t like he could go back to his place anyway. Sure, he could go to his brother’s, but she wanted him with her.

  He shoved out a breath. “Good. If this happened because of me, then I’m sorry—”

  “Logan, even if this has something to do with one of your jobs, it’s not your fault. Whoever shot at us? They’re at fault, and I hope like hell they get caught sooner than later.”

  “Me too.” Reaching out with one hand, he linked his fingers through hers.

  She didn’t think to stop him, just squeezed him back tightly as she laid her head against the headrest. Right now she could use some comfort.

  And even though he seemed to be handling this so well, she figured he could use comfort too. Someone had tried to kill them right outside his home in broad daylight.

  If the cops didn’t catch whoever had been behind it soon… She didn’t even want to think about what that meant.

  Chapter 8

  “Come here,” Logan murmured to Grace. Standing in the middle of her kitchen, she looked lost and out of sorts and he wanted to do everything possible to comfort her.

  Thankfully she didn’t pause, just stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him as he did the same to her. They’d just gotten back to her place and she definitely wasn’t her normal self—which was understandable.

  “It’ll get better,” he murmured.

  He knew her mind was in a state of shock as it tried to reset itself to this new reality in which someone had just tried to kill them on a bright, seemingly calm day in a quiet neighborhood where she should have been safe. Safe was a relative concept, but Grace had never been to war, had never even fired a weapon, as far as he knew. Her world was not violence.

  She kept her face buried against his chest, and even though the circumstances were less than ideal he still liked holding her. Liked having her soft body pressed up against his so trustingly.

  “Is there anyone in your family you want to call? Maybe talk to them about what happened?” He would be there for her, but he didn’t want her to bottle anything up.

  In response she made a snorting sound and simply shook her head. When her grip around him loosened, he finally released her, letting go of her soft, warm curves.

  “You don’t even want to call your mom?” he asked.

  Sighing, she sat at the center island and rubbed her hands over her face before looking at him. “No. Because it would eventually devolve into a conversation about her. Trust me.”

  He started rummaging around in her pantry, looking for hot cocoa because he knew she liked it. “You don’t talk about her much.” And he was more than curious about her relationship with her family.

  “We really only talk a couple times a year. She has a very good job out in DC. She was transferred there about five years ago and hasn’t left.”

  “So why don’t you guys communicate much? I mean, only if you want to talk about it,” he added. He wanted to keep her talking right now but only if the conversation wouldn’t make things worse. She just been through a shock, a trauma really, and he wanted to help her get back to normal. He smiled when he found the box of hot cocoa packets.

  “It’s not really one thing. She wasn’t a terrible mother, I guess. But she wasn’t a great one either. Her love was very conditional—it always came with strings. Her whole life she was looking for someone to fill a hole inside her and I was more or less an inconvenience. She was all loving and wonderful when she didn’t have a boyfriend. And when I was young, I loved those times. It was always the two of us and she loved doing stuff together. But the second she got a boyfriend, I basically ceased to exist. Around the time I hit twelve, I realized it had nothing to do with me and I st
opped trying so hard to win her love back. The only reason I even recognized it is because my grandmother spelled it out for me, in words I would understand, that I wasn’t doing anything wrong.”

  “Jesus, Grace.” He’d never known. Never guessed it was anything like that. He knew her dad wasn’t in the picture because he’d split town before she’d been born.

  She simply shrugged but he saw the flash of pain in her dark eyes as she continued. “If her current boyfriend had younger kids, which they often did, I became their babysitter. Which was fine for a while. But they filtered in and out of our lives so often that I hated getting attached to anyone because I always had to say goodbye. So I stopped trying to please her and she definitely noticed that.”

  His heart ached for the little girl she’d been, who’d had a mother who couldn’t see how incredible she was. “I’m sorry.”

  She lifted a shoulder. “She is who she is and she’s not responsible for my happiness. I accepted it and accepted that I’m definitely not going to get the positive relationship from her that I would have loved to have at one point. I tried well into college to keep a relationship going with her, but I’m done trying to fix something that can never be fixed… Something that never should have been broken in the first place.” Her words were so matter-of-fact.

  He put her mug in the microwave and pressed start. “Is that why you got a degree in psychology?”

  She grinned at him and he felt that smile like a sucker punch. “You’re very astute. I didn’t even realize it at the time but that’s exactly why I went into psychology. And then I discovered that I wanted to work with kids, and here I am.” Her smile faded a little bit but some of the edge of her tension seemed to have eased up.

  Pulling the mug from the microwave, he stirred it a bit before passing it over to her. “How do you feel about watching a movie before you crash?” In the military he’d found that watching movies, being able to let his brain relax, had helped hugely after dealing with a shock of violence. That and exercise to the point he was beyond exhausted. Different things worked for different people.