by Kristi Gold
* * *
“What is the rush to leave, Logan Whittaker?”
If he answered the question, it would require explaining his houseguest to Marlene Lassiter. And although she was as good as gold, she had a penchant for trying to direct his private life. “I’m just ready to take a shower and prepare for work tomorrow.” And get home to a woman who’d weighed on his mind all day long.
She patted her short brown hair before pulling out a chair for him at the dining table in the corner of the kitchen area. “You’ve got time to eat. I made my famous meat loaf and cornbread.”
Logan hadn’t realized he was hungry until she’d said the magic words. Nothing like good old country cooking. He hadn’t checked in with Hannah yet, so she wasn’t expecting him. That didn’t discount the fact he was still in a hurry to get home to her. “Do you mind fixing me a plate to go?”
That earned him Marlene’s frown as she hovered above him. “Do you have a meeting of some sort?”
“Not exactly.”
“Could—wonder of wonders—you have a date?”
If he didn’t throw her a bone, she’d keep hounding him. “I have a friend staying with me and I’d like to get in a visit before I go to bed.” Among other things.
Marlene smoothed a hand down her full-length apron. “Well then, I’ll just make up two plates since I wouldn’t want him to go hungry.”
Damn. He might as well correct the gender issue. “I’m sure she’ll appreciate it.”
Marlene pointed a finger at him. “Aha! I suspected you’re harboring a woman.”
That sounded like he was holding Hannah against her will. He turned the chair around backward and straddled it. “Before you start getting any wrong notions, she’s just a friend.”
Marlene walked into the nearby pantry, returned with two paper plates and began dishing out food from the stove. “Are you sure about that friend designation? One of the hands said you seemed distracted, and nothing distracts a man more than a woman.”
Double damn. “Just because I temporarily lost one of the heifers that left the herd doesn’t mean I was distracted. It happens.”
She shot him a backward glance. “It doesn’t happen to you. But I’m glad you’re finally getting back into the dating scene.”
He could set her straight, or let her think what she would. He chose the first option. “Look, I’m handling a legal matter for her. That’s why she’s here.”
After covering the plates with foil, Marlene turned and leaned back against the counter. “Is there potential for it being more than a client-attorney relationship?”
“It might, but I’m not in the market for anything permanent at this point in time.” If ever.
“Does she know this, or are you leading her on?”
She had an uncanny knack for seeing right through him. “I’m not going to do anything to hurt her, if that’s what’s worrying you. Besides, she doesn’t strike me as the kind of woman who’s looking to nab a husband. Not only is she widowed, she also has a five-year-old daughter to consider.”
Marlene frowned. “Have you told her about Grace?”
He should’ve seen that coming. “You know I don’t talk about that with anyone but you, and that’s only because you prodded me about my past.” After he’d had a few too many during a party she’d hosted that happened to have fallen on Grace’s birthday. He’d spent the night on her couch and woken the next morning with a hangover and more than a handful of regrets over baring his soul.
“Maybe you should talk to someone else about her, Logan,” she said. “Keeping all that guilt and grief bottled up isn’t doing you any good. You can’t move forward if you stay stuck in the past.”
“I’m not stuck.” He tempered his tone, which sounded way too defensive. “I like to keep my private life completely private.”
“And if you keep that attitude, you’re never going to be happy.” She took the chair next to his. “Honey, you’re a good man. You have a whole lot to offer the right woman. You can’t let yourself get bogged down in mistakes you think you might have made. One day you’re going to have to forgive yourself, go on with your life and take a chance on love again.”
He had made mistakes. Unforgivable mistakes. “Isn’t that the pot-and-kettle thing, Marlene? You never remarried after Charles died.”
Marlene turned her wedding band round and round her finger. “No, I didn’t. But that doesn’t mean I cut myself off from love.”
Exactly what he’d assumed, along with everyone else in town. “You mean you and J.D.”
“I didn’t say that.”
She didn’t have to. Logan saw the truth in her hazel eyes. He’d also seen something else in her at J.D.’s funeral, that soul-binding sorrow that he’d known all too well. “Come on, Marlene. You lived here with J.D. all those years after you both lost your spouses. No one would fault the two of you for being close.”
“He was totally devoted to the kids and Ellie’s memory.” She sighed. “His wife meant everything to him and he never really got over her.”
Which meant Marlene’s love could have been one-sided. “Are you going to deny he cared for you, too?”
She shook her head. “No, I’m not, because he did care. But I couldn’t compete with his cherished ghost. Regardless, we had some very good times.”
That led Logan to believe the pair had been lovers, not that he’d ever request verification. “I tell you what, when you decide to have a serious relationship again, then I’ll consider it, too.” He figured he was pretty safe with that pact.
Marlene smiled sagely. “You never know what the future holds.”
After checking the clock on the wall, Logan came to his feet. “I better get back to the house, otherwise Hannah might not speak to me again.”
“Hannah?” she asked, more concern than curiosity in her voice.
“Yeah. Hannah Armstrong. Why?”
She attempted another smile but it fell flat. “Nothing. I’ve always thought it’s a lovely name for a girl.”
Logan wasn’t buying that explanation, but he didn’t have the energy to question her further tonight. He’d set aside some time later and have a long talk with her. Marlene Lassiter’s relationship with her brother-in-law could be the key to solving the mystery of Hannah’s past.
Yeah, he’d wait a little while before he sought more information from Marlene. If she did hold the answers, then Hannah would no longer have any reason to stay. And he damn sure wasn’t ready for her to leave.
* * *
She wasn’t quite ready to leave the heavenly bath, but when Hannah heard sounds coming from downstairs, she realized the dashing attorney was finally home.
After extracting herself from the jetted tub, she hurriedly dried off and prepared to get ready to greet him. And since she’d had headphones stuck on her ears until a few minutes before, and she hadn’t checked her cell for messages in the past hour, she had no idea when Logan had returned.
She quickly dressed in a white tank with built-in bra and black jeans, then had a crisis of confidence and covered the top with a coral-colored, button-down blouse. She brushed her teeth, applied subtle makeup and opted to leave her hair in the loose twist atop her head. Danny had often told her she looked sexy with her hair up...and she really shouldn’t be thinking about him while in the home of another man. An undeniably sexy man who’d commandeered her common sense from the moment she’d met him. And that lack of common sense had her slipping the first three buttons on the blouse to reveal the lace-edged tank beneath. An obvious indication of a woman bent on seduction.
Bracing her palms on the vanity, Hannah leaned forward and studied the face in the mirror. The same face that looked back at her every morning. Yep, she looked the same, but she felt very different. Her nerves sang like a canary and she felt as if her skin mi
ght take a vacation without her.
What was she thinking? It took a good three months for her and Danny to consummate their relationship. She’d only known Logan for three days. Yet she was older, and wiser, and lonely. She wanted to be in the arms of a man she was beginning to trust. Why she trusted him, she couldn’t say. Intuition? Or maybe she was simply so foggy from lust that she wasn’t thinking straight at all. That didn’t keep her from sliding her feet into a pair of silver sandals and dabbing on perfume when she thought she heard him calling her name.
After rushing out of the bathroom and jogging through the bedroom, Hannah stopped in the hall to catch her breath. Seeming too enthusiastic might lead to misunderstanding. She might be happy to see him. She might be game for a little more serious necking. But she didn’t know if she had the courage to go any farther than that.
She took her sweet time walking down the stairs and basically strolled to the great room. When she didn’t find Logan there, she entered the kitchen to find it deserted as well. She did discover a pair of boots in the mudroom and his keys hanging on the peg, and detected the sound of the dryer in the adjacent utility room that was about as large as her den back in Boulder. At least she hadn’t imagined he’d returned, but maybe she had imagined he’d called her.
Determined to locate the missing lawyer, she explored all the rooms he’d shown her, to no avail. That left her with only one uncharted location—his bedroom. She didn’t dare go there. If he needed to speak with her, he could come and get her.
Two hours had passed since she’d eaten the ham sandwich, so she retrieved a bottle of water from the fridge and then perused the pantry for some sort of snack. She targeted the bananas hanging on the bronze holder and snapped off the best of the bunch.
Hannah had barely made herself at home on the bar stool when she heard heavy footfalls heading in her direction. The thought of seeing Logan gave her a serious case of goose bumps. When he walked into the kitchen, dressed in only a low-slung navy towel, she thought she’d been thrust into some nighttime soap opera starring a half-naked Hollywood hunk. He had a twelve-pack’s worth of ridges defining his torso, a slight shading of hair between his pecs and another thin strip pointing downward to ground zero. Broad shoulders, toned biceps. Oh, boy. Oh, man.
While she sat there like a mime, appropriately clutching a phallic piece of fruit, Logan flashed her his dimpled grin. “You’re here.”
“You’re wearing a towel.” Brilliant, Hannah.
He pointed behind her. “I’ve got clothes in the dryer. I thought maybe you’d gone to bed already.”
She noticed what looked to be a red tattoo on his upper right arm, but she couldn’t see the details unless she asked him to turn toward her. Right now speaking at all was an effort, and the frontal view couldn’t be beat. “It’s not even six o’clock. I never go to bed that early.”
“Maybe that theory was a stretch, but you didn’t answer when I called you. And you didn’t respond to my text.”
She was surely responding to him now. All over. “I was taking a bath. The jets in the tub were going and I was listening to my MP3 player.”
He cocked a hip against a cabinet and crossed his arms over his extremely manly chest. “Did you enjoy the bath?”
Not as much as she was enjoying the view right now. “Yes. Very relaxing. You should try it.”
“I’ve got a big tub in my bathroom, but I’m not a bath kind of guy.”
Maybe not, but he was one gorgeous guy. “Most men aren’t into taking baths.”
“True,” he said. “Showers have always suited me better. A lot less effort. Easy in, easy out.”
That conjured up images Hannah shouldn’t be having. “I prefer showers, too, but I like a good bath now and then.”
When he pushed away from the counter, she held her breath. She released it when he started toward the laundry room. “My clothes are probably dry now, so I better get dressed.”
Please don’t, she wanted to say, but stopped the comment threatening to burst out of her mouth. “Good idea.”
The dryer door opened, followed by Logan calling, “If you’re hungry, there’s a plate of food in the refrigerator Marlene sent with me.”
Hannah unpeeled the banana she still had in a death grip. “Thanks, but I’ve already eaten.” She took a large bite of the fruit. Probably too large.
“Did you do any online research today?” he said over the sound of shuffling clothes.
“Yes, I did,” she replied, her words muffled due to banana mouth.
“Find anything interesting?”
She swallowed this time before speaking. “Not much other than business articles.” And a photo in his drawer that had piqued her interest.
While Hannah finished the fruit fest, Logan returned a few minutes later, fully dressed in beige T-shirt and old jeans. “I have an idea on how we might get some information on J.D.,” he said.
She slid off the stool, opened the walk-in pantry and tossed the peel into the trash before facing him again. “What would that be?”
He leaned over the island using his elbows for support. “I’ll let you know after I investigate further. It could end up being a dead end.”
The man was nothing if not covert in his dealings. Must be the attorney thing—confidentiality at all costs. “Fine. Just let me know if you turn something up.”
“I will.” He straightened and smiled. “Are you in the mood for a little entertainment?”
She’d already been quite entertained by his recent show of bare flesh. “Sure. What do you suggest we do?”
“Watch a movie in the media room.”
Not exactly what she had in mind, but what she’d been envisioning wouldn’t be wise. “I’m all for a movie. Lead the way.”
Six
Logan had chosen the lone theater chair built for two, along with a shoot-’em-up suspense film. But he hadn’t bargained for the racy sex scene that came during the movie’s first fifteen minutes.
He glanced to his right at Hannah, who had a piece of popcorn poised halfway to her mouth, her eyes wide as wagon wheels. “Wow. What is this rated?”
“R, but I thought that was due to the violence factor.”
She popped a kernel into her mouth and swallowed. “I can’t believe he didn’t take off the shoulder holster when he dropped his pants. What if the gun goes off?”
“It does give a whole new meaning to ‘cocked and ready.’” And he might have gone a bit too far with the crudeness.
Surprisingly, she released a soft, sultry laugh. “Ha, ha. It’s hard for me to imagine a man taking a woman in an alley in broad daylight, gun or no gun.”
That didn’t exactly surprise him. “Anything’s possible when you want someone bad enough.” Exactly how he felt at the moment.
She tipped the red-striped box toward him. “Want some of this?”
His current appetite didn’t include popcorn. “No thanks.”
As the on-screen bumping and grinding continued, Logan draped his arm over the back of the seat, his hand resting on Hannah’s shoulder. When he rubbed slow circles on her upper arm, she shifted closer to his side and laid her palm on his thigh. If she knew what was happening a little north of her hand, she might think twice about leaving it there. And if the damn movie didn’t return to the run-and-gun scenes real soon, no telling what he might do.
No telling what Hannah might do was his immediate thought when she briefly nuzzled his neck, then brushed a kiss across his cheek. His second thought...the cheek kiss wasn’t enough.
Logan tipped Hannah’s face toward him and brought her mouth to his, intending only to kiss her once before going back to the film that fortunately now focused on the suspense plot. But the lengthy sex scene had obviously ignited the sparks between them, and from that point forward, everything began
to move at an accelerated pace.
They made out like two teenagers on a curfew to the sounds of gunfire and cursing. He couldn’t seem to get close enough to Hannah and that prompted him to pull her up onto his lap. He wound his hands through her hair and continued to kiss her like there was no tomorrow.
With Hannah’s legs straddling his thighs, the contact was way too intimate for Logan to ignore. Every time she moved, he grew as hard as a hammer. To make matters worse, she broke the kiss, rose up and pulled away the band securing her lopsided ponytail. Obviously she was testing his sanity when she unbuttoned her blouse, slipped it off and tossed it aside, leaving her dressed in a thin tank top that left little to the imagination.
Seeing her sitting there with her tousled auburn hair falling to her shoulders, her lips slightly swollen and her green eyes centered on his, Logan’s strength went the way of the popcorn that had somehow ended up on the floor. And just when he’d thought she was done with the surprises, she slid the straps off her shoulders and lowered the top.
He’d dimmed the lights before he’d cued the movie, but he could still make out the details. Incredible details. Unbelievable, in fact. Too tempting to not touch. That’s exactly what he did—touched both her breasts lightly while watching her reaction. When Hannah tipped her head back and exhaled a shaky breath, Logan personally found it hard to breathe at all, and even harder not to take it further.
Pressing his left palm against her back, he nudged her forward and replaced his right hand with his mouth. Logan circled his tongue around one pale pink nipple, drawing out Hannah’s soft groan. When he paid equal attention to her other breast, she shifted restlessly against his fly. If she didn’t stop soon, it would be all over but the moaning. He damn sure didn’t want to stop completely. He had a perfectly good bed at their disposal...and a perfectly good reason to halt the insanity before he couldn’t. She deserved better than a quick roll in a chair, and he had no condoms available.