It’s just a new house, that’s all. A new place. It always takes a while to get settled somewhere new. To learn all the sounds and idiosyncrasies.
Including new, inconsiderate neighbors who drive ridiculously loud motorcycles at two in the morning.
Old me would have asked for a ride . . . I don’t want to speculate which type of ride that would have been, but suffice it to say, old me wouldn’t have hesitated either way.
New me is all about the hesitation.
Sometimes, I don’t like it at all, but what am I gonna do?
The motorcycle revs for what seems the hundredth time right outside my window, and I choke back a scream. Then, the guy laughs, and I give up my plan to be the nice, understanding neighbor.
I throw back the sheets and put my feet to the cool wood floor. Without the intense heat from the sun, the air is distinctly chilly, so I add a robe atop my shorts and tank top that serve as my pajamas. I belt it loosely as I slip my feet into flip-flops and head for the door without giving myself a chance to second-guess my decision.
Shadows blanket the space between my bedroom door and the living room. For a moment, I hesitate, contemplating the length of the hall. My fingers grip the wood frame and a shiver that has nothing to do with the temperature wracks my body. Then, the motorcycle revs again, breaking me from the moment and allowing me to shake off the fear as it’s replaced again by annoyance.
I open the front door out onto the modest porch and squint against the bright light from the naked bulb above my head. When my eyes adjust to the darkness, I’m able to discern a shadowy figure standing beside a massive chromed out beast of a machine.
“Excuse me!” I yell, but my voice is down out as he punches the gas.
Gritting my teeth, I start down the porch steps and cross the white-gravel drive. He doesn’t look up until I’m nearly standing right next to him, and when he does my words of protest whither into nothing as our eyes meet.
Without a change in his expression, the man unfolds himself from the seat of the motorcycle and comes to stand at his full height in front of me. I immediately take a preemptive step back just to look at him without straining my neck. I know I’m not ridiculously, but I’ve never felt as physically small as I do standing in front of this massive man.
He’s six foot and change with broad, formidable shoulders, slim hips and thick, muscular thighs. But even though every female part of me recognizes his raw masculinity, it’s his eyes that give me pause.
I’ve never seen such a beautiful color, and I’d spent many days when I lived in Miami and then in Jacksonville staring at the ever-changing color of the ocean. They’re blue-green—almost jewel-colored. They are framed by long, thick lashes that stand out against the caramel tone of his skin.
It would almost be unsettling if the rest of his features didn’t soften the stunning effect with rough edges. The dark slash of his brows and the distinct line of his jaw from a Roman nose and full, enticing lips, which are currently pulled into a frown.
Remembering why I got out of bed at such a god-awful hour, I draw myself up and set my features into what I hope is a careful balance between friendly concern and firm admonishment. I would offer my hand, but I am afraid I might not get it back, so I just wrap both of them around my waist.
“Need something?” he asks before I can say anything.
“I . . . uh, yes, actually.” I point over my shoulder to my house. “I was wondering if you could keep it down.” I make a pained face. “It’s just that it’s a little late, and I’m trying to sleep.”
He glances over my shoulder at the house and then back at me, his eyes pinning me to the ground. Without saying anything, he reaches back and removes the keys from the ignition. The resulting quiet is nearly deafening.
“Thanks,” I say. By sheer force of will, I manage to unglue my feet from the ground to turn and walk back to the house. Relief blankets me. Still feeling chilled, I rub at my arms and resolve to get back and bed and never leave.
But his voice stops me before I can make a full retreat. “That’s it?” he asks.
I really should ignore him and get back to the warm comfort of my bed. New me should, anyway, but apparently, there’s enough old me left somewhere deep inside, because I find myself swiveling around to face him. “What’s that?”
He ambles closer, his eyes intent upon me. I’m going to have to start wearing full body armor when we’re in the same vicinity, which could be a lot considering we live less than twenty feet from one another. It’s either the armor, or living with the daily feeling of his eyes caressing my bare skin. He looks at me like a man who looks at a woman in preparation to devour her.
I take an automatic step back. I’m too damn tired to be devoured. “Well?” I ask a bit more testily than I mean to, but dammit, it’s two a.m., and I’m exhausted. It’s his own fault.
He follows after me automatically. “I said, is that it?”
“What else would there be?” I ask as my feet make it to the bottom step on my porch.
His lips twitch in what could be a smile. “Introductions,” he says. “Since you’re new to the area and all. I’m Logan. Logan Blackwell.”
“I think your motorcycle was doing that well enough, Logan,” I say without thinking.
I switch my weight from my right leg to my left and run a hand through my hair. The action causes my robe to slip down the side of my arm, baring my shoulder. Before I can fix it myself, his hand lifts and catches the material and drags it the long, slow journey back up my arm.
Our eyes catch as he reaches the top where his hand pauses on my shoulder. I take another step back and cross my arms over my chest, ignoring the tingling from his touch. “Good night,” I say, mostly out of habit, and then reach for the screen door.
When it doesn’t budge, I look up to find his hand above me and frown. I blow out a breath and shoot him a look. “You mind?”
“When someone introduces themselves, the polite thing to do is to give them your name in return,” he says.
“I don’t think you have any room to talk about manners. After all, you were the one trying to wake up the entire state at two in the morning.” I tug on the door, but it doesn’t budge since he’s still holding it shut.
“I didn’t say I polite,” he responds, and I realize that with his arm up blocking the door he has me penned against it and his big, towering form.
“Apparently not,” I snap, trying desperately not to sink into the debilitating fear that rolling just under the surface. This guy is not going to hurt me. “Look, it’s late and I haven’t had much sleep tonight. Can we not do this now?”
“Do what?”
I turn to face him and wave a finger between us. “This. Us. Whatever seduction routine you’ve got going on here. I’m not interested, and you’re just wasting both our time.”
His hand finally drops, and I open the door just enough to slip through before closing it soundly behind me. Unfortunately, it doesn’t give me the sense of security I’m hoping for. I have a feeling it will take more than a door to stop this man from getting what he wants.
For a minute, he just looks at me through the tightly woven black mesh, and I think he may actually press the issue. My heart doesn’t know if it’s excited or frightened at the prospect. Then he takes a step back, though his gaze doesn’t leave mine, and I release the breath I was holding.
While he’s moving backward down the steps, I lock the hook for the screen door. Though I didn’t have a reason to do it earlier, I have the sudden urge to secure everything in the house.
He reaches the bottom of the steps and then glances back up at me. “Nice to meet you, neighbor,” he says before disappearing into the darkness between our two houses.
I retreat to my room and wrap myself up beneath the covers. There isn’t a peep from next door all night, but I don’t sleep a wink.
* * *
I get into a good routine at the B&B once I settle in. It’s easy, familiar work. When I le
ft the travel agency to Chloe, I thought I’d miss being the one to give orders and be in control of everything. In fact, it’s nice not to be in charge all the time.
Two weeks pass, and I start to feel like maybe I can have the normal I’ve been craving. It didn’t seem like such a big deal to me a year ago, but now, as I watch happy families and lucky in love couples come and go, I’m reminded each day of what I’m missing.
I force a smile at one such couple as I check them out at the reception area. “Did you two have a great time?” I ask.
“The best,” the perky blonde gushes. “The absolute best. I told John here we’d have to come back this time next year.”
“We’ll see,” he says, but he indulges her with a quick kiss, and I can tell if I’m around next year that we’ll be seeing them again.
“We hope you do consider coming back,” I say by rote. “Fifteen percent off booking for return customers,” I add.
The woman squeals and they walk off, already chattering about their next vacation together. I spend the next half hour straightening brochures and wiping down counters and table tops, wondering if we have any more customers checking in or out today. I don’t think we do, but I stay close to the front just in case anyone needs me.
It’s just after two when Diane comes through the back door with her arms full of grocery bags. I rush to the kitchen to help her, taking all the bags she has dangling from her right arm.
“Thanks. It was a madhouse!” she says, shaking out her now free arm. “An absolute madhouse. I don’t know why I keep going on Friday afternoon when I know it’ll be so busy.”
“You should have let me come with you,” I say as follow her to the kitchen.
She makes a shushing sound. “Please, you do enough around here, and I’m perfectly capable of going on my own. You are certainly welcome to help me unload and put them away, though.”
“I’m on it!”
I head around the large center island and through the hallway to the garage access. Already thinking about the delicious menu for the night, I don’t notice until I’m halfway across the garage that someone’s already standing by Diane’s car.
“What are you doing here?” I ask before I can think to stop it.
Logan straightens from the trunk with his arms full of dangling grocery bags. “I could ask the same question,” he says.
I take a tentative step toward Diane’s car. “I work here.”
“And I would tell you what I’m doing here, but I don’t even know your name,” he says, and then passes by me and disappears inside.
It takes me a few seconds of frantic thinking before I remember I’m supposed to be helping. By the time I make it back inside, Logan’s helping Diane unload the bags and putting groceries away into cabinets. Wanting to question him about what he’s doing at my job, but at the same time not wanting to get involved, I bite my lip to keep my interrogation from spilling out.
To distract myself, I make two more trips back to the car for the rest of Diane’s haul, set everything on the counter, and help unload. All the while, Diane and Logan chatter in the background.
“Have you met our new hire, Sienna?” I overhear Diane say. “You’ve been away training and may have missed her. She moved into the bungalow next to you.”
My shoulders stiffen, and I pause for a second, one hand outstretched as I put a can of diced tomatoes away. There’s a moment of heavy silence while I wait for Logan to answer and then he says, “Sienna?” he repeats, and I swear I can feel him glaring at me. “Yes, we met.”
When he doesn’t add to it, I set the jar of tomatoes on the shelf, relaxing marginally.
“I don’t know what we’d do without her,” Diane continues. “I hope you don’t mind that I put her into the house next to yours. If we were further along with the renovations to the others, I wouldn’t have. I know you like your privacy.”
I hear Logan kiss her cheek and then say, “It’s no problem, Aunt Diane.”
Stifling a gasp, I take extra care setting the next few cans in an orderly line on the shelf in front of me. I never would have pegged them as related, but now that he’s mentioned it, I can’t help but see the resemblance. Well, hell, I went and insulted my boss’s nephew. I have to resist the urge to slap my forehead as I gather all the empty bags and put them in their storage container. God, I’m such an idiot.
They continue to chatter behind me, though I doubt chatter is a word many have used to describe any activity involving Logan’s deep, rumbling voice, and I pretend it doesn’t affect me at all by getting out all the ingredients Diane will need for tonight’s dinner. The kitchen seemed much smaller with him in it, though.
“You know I just worry about you,” Diane says while I gather the spices from the top shelf over the commercial-grade range.
“So you’ve said,” Logan replies, “Many times.”
“I thought your deployments were hard—”
“Aunt Diane,” he says and there’s no mistaking the warning tone in his voice.
I move to the fridge to grab the defrosted chicken, not because I’m somewhat intrigued and certainly not because I want to know more about him. When I look back at them, Diane is waving away Logan’s protests. “I don’t want to hear it. I’m allowed to worry about my favorite nephew.”
Logan smiles down at her, and it’s quite possibly the most perfect smile I have ever seen. I must have made some sort of strangled noise, because his eyes find mine. My. Good. God. He is beautiful—so much so that my whole body refuses to listen while my brain screams for me to turn away. Diane flutters about, unaware of the tension that suddenly fills the room. After a moment, he breaks the contact and pulls Diane into a hug.
The smile on her face is warm and she says, “I just don’t like it. That’s all.” She pulls back to put a hand on his cheek. “You promise me you’re careful?”
He kisses her forehead. “I promise.”
“If your momma were alive, she’d have kittens. A cop!” Diane exclaims. “After all the trouble you got into as a teenager. She’d never believe it.”
The heat growing in my belly extinguishes, and my whole body runs cold. Without looking at the pair of them, I cross the kitchen and set the chicken on the counter next to the other ingredients, hoping it doesn’t slip out of my now trembling hands.
Of all things, I never expected him to be a cop. A criminal maybe, but a cop?
I almost would rather he be the outlaw I thought he was. A cop asks too many questions and I’d really prefer the past stays where it belongs. Already I can sense them ticking around in that brain of his.
I school my expression into a sunny smile and turn back, my attention on Diane. “Is there anything else you need before I take off?”
Diane turns to me, one arm still slung around Logan’s waist. “You don’t want to stay for dinner?”
“Thank you, but I’ve got something at home and a good book calling my name.”
“All right,” she says. “I’ll make sure to save you a plate for lunch tomorrow.”
I give a silent prayer of thanks for Diane’s undemanding nature. “I’d love that.”
The hairs on the back of my neck prickle with awareness as I turn and stride out of the kitchen. Even though I can’t see him, I know Logan’s watching me all the way back to my house.
Keeping secrets is hard, but keeping them around a cop is going to be even harder. I should strangle Chloe forever recommending I move to Nassau.
My phone vibrates against my pocket on the short walk home and I take it out, glancing at the screen.
Speak of the devil.
“I couldn’t wait for you to call me anymore. Are you settling in okay?” Chloe asks without preamble.
I harrumph into the phone. “Yeah, but you could have told me Diane’s nephew is a jerk.”
“Awe, honey, I’m sorry about that. The job is going alright, though, isn’t it?”
“Absolutely. I couldn’t be happier. Thank you again for referring me.�
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“Thank God. I told Gabe you’d be fine. And it’s no problem at all, sweety. You did the same for me. Now tell me what Logan did to piss you off.”
I try not to let my sigh of disappointment turn the line to static. “It’s okay. I can handle him.”
I’ve been through worse things than having to ignore a gorgeous cop, right?
“Are you sure? I bet we can get Gabe to rough him up if he’s such a big pain in the ass.”
“No,” I rush to say. “No, please. You’ve done enough already. I’ll figure something out.”
“Are you sure?” she asks, concern softening her tone.
No. “Yes, I’m sure. It’s not a big deal.”
“If you say so.” There is a beat of silence before she says, “Well,” she says, “I’ll see you around sometime.”
“Hopefully soon. Maybe a hurricane will ruin business and you’ll be able to take some time off,” I say, then wince. “I didn’t mean it the way it sounded.”
Laughter bursts from her side of the line. “Sure you didn’t. I’ll let you know if something starts going around.””
“I’d appreciate it, thank you.”
“Bye, Sienna.”
“Later,” I say, then tuck the phone back under my thigh for the remainder of the drive.
Once upon a time, I had a thriving business and employees. Back then, I’d felt a modicum of safety. Now, I knew better. Now, I take whatever job comes my way, keep my head down, and aim for simpler things. Like making sure my bills are paid, I have a roof over my head, and food in my stomach.
Of course, none of that will take away my painful memories or protect me when my past catches up with me, but I’ll figure something out. Hopefully Phil, the journalist whose followed me all over the country waiting on his next big scoop surrounding the murders, will take a hint and leave me the hell alone.
I can’t even comprehend what will happen if he doesn’t.
So I force myself to think of happier things instead. As I near the drive of my new little bungalow, I remind myself that this is a new start.
Savior (First to Fight Book 4) Page 7