On the Plus Side

by Alison Bliss

  His heart jackhammered into his ribs. Coming from her, words like that were dangerous. For both of them. She was everything he wanted, yet had no right to take. “Friendship, Valerie. It’s the only thing I can give you.”

  “And if I don’t want that?”

  “Then that’s your decision. But you deserve a guy who’s all in and can give you what you want. I’m sorry I can’t be that guy for you.”

  She paused thoughtfully then bit her lip. “It’s because of Brett, isn’t it?”

  Valerie’s brother had always handled her with kid gloves, treating her as if she were a rare, precious gemstone that might break in the wrong hands. But he’d only done what most big brothers would probably do. He slid his sister behind a glass barrier made up of trust and friendship.

  Logan had always refused to go there, but the threat hadn’t stopped all of Brett’s friends in the past. In fact, the hands-off factor only succeeded in making Valerie more appealing, if that was even possible. Some guys had a tendency to want something they couldn’t have. He should know. “No. That’s not all of it.”

  “But he’s part of it?”

  Of course he wanted to keep his relationship with Brett on solid ground. Brett might be a meathead with the unsavory temperament of a pissed-off bull, but he was also a damn good friend. The kind who would follow his buddy to hell just to make sure he got there okay. Logan wasn’t scared of Brett, but the guy wasn’t someone he really wanted to piss off either. “Yes, he’s part of it.”

  “Oh, that’s just great. I can’t believe you of all people are actually worried about my brother.”

  Logan rolled his eyes. “Not in the way that you think. I’ve sparred with Brett enough times over the years to know how evenly matched we are. It would be a fair fight.”

  Most people who got a good look at Brett’s muscular frame and surly attitude walked in the opposite direction at a very fast pace. But Logan had never been afraid of him. Logan just understood the need to protect family.

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “Let’s just drop this, Valerie. All you need to know is that I’m not the right guy for you.”

  “Even if you’re the only one I want?”

  He didn’t want to encourage her, but he couldn’t help but grin. “That alcohol is giving you loose lips.”

  “No. That’s not it. No matter what happens or doesn’t happen between us now or in the future, I want you to know how I feel. I’ve had a pretty permanent crush on you for years.”

  His eyebrow rose. “Permanent, huh?”

  “Yeah. It’s been around long enough that I don’t think it’s ever going to go away.” She shrugged. “Guess you’re just going to have to live with that knowledge.”

  He grinned. “You’re so going to regret telling me all of this tomorrow.”

  “Something tells me you already knew anyway.”

  He nodded. “I had my suspicions,” he said, though that was putting it mildly. He heard a vehicle pull into the driveway and lifted his head. “Sounds like Brett’s home. I guess now that my relief is here, I should probably get out of here before Brett sees your dress on the floor and thinks I’m the one who put it there.”

  He stood, but Valerie’s hand reached out and touched his arm, stopping him from moving away from her. “Thanks for coming to my rescue tonight. I guess that makes you my knight in shining armor.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” he said, flashing her a quick grin. But everyone knew that the knight was the one who usually died alone in battle while the prince rode into the sunset with the girl. He leaned forward and pressed his lips to her forehead. “Good night, princess.” Then he eased off the bed and headed to the bedroom door.

  “Logan?”

  He paused in the doorway. “Yeah?”

  “Why do you call me princess?”

  He hesitated to tell her the truth, but he doubted she would remember it tomorrow anyway. “Because you deserve someone better than me.”

  Chapter Ten

  Valerie couldn’t breathe.

  She lifted her head and realized that she was lying on her stomach with her face stuffed into her pillow. Her head pounded mercilessly, and her throat felt gritty like she’d spent the night in the desert eating sand.

  “About time you woke up,” a piercing voice said. She glanced over and saw Brett lazing in a chair across the room with his legs stretched out in front of him…as if he’d been there all night. “Morning, sleepyhead. Glad to see you’re alive and still kicking.”

  Jesus. Why was he talking so loud? She groaned and stuffed her face back into the pillow. “What time is it?” she asked, her words muffled by the fabric.

  “It’s two o’clock.”

  Valerie shot into a sitting position and gazed out the window, noting the bright gold light filtering through the curtains. “Two o’clock? As in the afternoon?”

  “No, it’s the middle of the night, and the sun decided to pay us a visit.” He gave her a sardonic look and shook his head. “Wow, you’re a quick one today. How much did you drink last night?”

  “Oh, shut up. You know what I mean. I was supposed to work at the bakery this afternoon. I’m way late and pretty sure Leah is going to kill me.”

  He grinned. “She already called. When she saw that you weren’t home, she got worried. I told her that your lazy ass wasn’t coming in because you got hammered last night. She said she would cover your shift for you.”

  God, had he always had such an annoying voice? “I wasn’t hammered. I was…tipsy.”

  “Uh-huh. Right. Tipsy with a side of hammered.”

  His voice grated on her nerves even more than his smug grin did. “Whatever. So what happened last night?”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “I don’t know…I think I do. Bits and pieces anyway.”

  Brett smirked. “Logan said he didn’t think you would remember much.”

  “Logan? Why would he say that? I didn’t work at the bar last night. How would he even—” No, wait. Logan had been there last night. That much she remembered. “He picked me up at Rusty’s Bucket, didn’t he?”

  Brett nodded. “The waitress tried to get a hold of me, but I wasn’t near my phone at the time. So they called Logan instead. I don’t know how the hell they knew to call him.”

  Valerie shrugged as if she didn’t know either, but she distinctly remembered mentioning Logan’s name more than once to the waitress while they were commiserating over their nonexistent love lives. “Who knows? Maybe she heard that he was your friend or something. You know how small towns are.”

  “Probably. Either way I appreciate him helping me out like that. I’m sure he gets plenty of you at work as it is.”

  Yeah, Logan had gotten plenty of her at work all right. Just two nights ago…and not in the way her brother meant. Her body tingled at the thought. “Why? Did he say something to you?”

  “No. I just know from personal experience how annoying little sisters can be.” He punctuated the dig with a wide grin.

  Valerie rolled her eyes. “Of course I frustrate the hell out of you. I’m supposed to. It’s my job as a sister. But Logan’s not my brother.”

  Brett shrugged one muscled shoulder. “Close enough.”

  Her stomach churned. “Um, no. Not really. I don’t look at him like a brother…like at all. Never have and never will.”

  “Well, I don’t know why not. Whenever the two of you are together, you’re always bickering about something. You act just like a brother and sister already.”

  Oh God. Make him stop. Bile crept up her throat, but she swallowed it back down. Brett needed to stop saying things like that. She’d seen Logan’s penis, for goodness’ sakes. That automatically disqualified him as brother material in her book. Not that she could tell Brett any of that.

  Now that she was fully awake, her synapses began firing off distant memories that hit her like a cannonball to the brain. She already knew Logan had picked her up from the bar, but what she hadn�
�t recalled until just now was that he’d also tossed her over his shoulder like a caveman and then…spanked her?

  For a second, she considered it had been a dream. But no. She had apparently committed to memory the way his large hand had come down on her backside with a sharp slap that had sent electricity zinging through her nerves and a wave of heat straight to her core. She doubted the hand print would still be visible, but judging by the memory of the pleasurable sting he’d inflicted, the mark had probably taken a few good hours to fade.

  That intimate knowledge invoked wicked sensations and sent heat spiraling up her neck. She felt wild and crazy, maybe even a bit naughty. Definitely not a princess.

  The second the thought passed through her mind, another memory from last night quickly followed. It was the last thing Logan had said to her before walking out the door. You deserve someone better than me. Valerie huffed out a hard breath. “Um, I need to get going. Could you give me a lift back to my car?”

  “Sure. But I don’t know why. Leah said you could take the day off since you’re covering for her next week.”

  “Well, that’s because she’ll be on her honeymoon. But it doesn’t matter. I still have to be at Bottoms Up by seven o’clock.”

  Brett glanced at the silver watch on his wrist. “You’ve got almost five hours. If I were you, I would go home and rest up before work. It’s Friday, and the bar is probably going to be packed tonight.”

  “Yeah, I’ll do that.” Not.

  Valerie didn’t need to go home and rest. What she needed was to go see Logan…and tell him how wrong he was.

  * * *

  Logan tossed the stack of papers onto the kitchen counter.

  Although he’d read over them at least ten times already, the words hadn’t changed no matter how many passes he made. He still had only two weeks to come up with ten thousand dollars or his mother was going to lose her home for good.

  He took in a deep breath, but it did little to help loosen the knot growing tighter in his stomach.

  When he’d first learned about the foreclosure, he had his mother assign him power of attorney privileges so that he could act on her behalf. Then he immediately set up a meeting with the bank manager in order to ask for an extension on the deadline.

  He’d hoped the business meeting would be productive, but it hadn’t gone as planned. Not only did they decline his request for an extension, but they also notified him that his mother wouldn’t qualify for any type of foreclosure relief programs, whether it be a loan balance reduction or refinancing.

  Having been in denial about how dire her situation really was, his mother had done the worst thing you could possibly do in this scenario. She’d ignored the signs of foreclosure and dodged the lender’s calls for six months, hoping they would go away on their own. And chances were good that they eventually would…but they were planning on taking her home with them.

  According to the bank manager, Mr. Anderson, six months was actually twice the amount of time that a financial institution would normally give someone in default to bring their account current. Thank goodness Granite was a small town and the man knew Logan’s mother personally. Even said he liked her and that she was a sweet woman. But although he’d done all he could to delay the foreclosure as long as possible, the board of trustees were now forcing his hand and he had no choice but to follow through.

  Logan couldn’t really fault Mr. Anderson for not wanting to risk his own employment to help his mom out more than he already had. The man seemed genuinely concerned about his mother, and he’d been more than fair already. Besides, Logan couldn’t help but think it was his own fault that his mother was in this desperate situation to begin with.

  Sure, he hadn’t known about her financial problems from the start. But that was only because he hadn’t been there when she’d needed someone to rely on. And even though they’d talked on the phone regularly, her embarrassment over the whole situation had ensured her silence. That knowledge still felt like a punch in the gut.

  But none of that was important now. The only thing that mattered was coming up with the money to get her mortgage reinstated.

  When a knock sounded on the front door, Logan answered it and found Valerie standing on the other side wearing a light purple sundress and staring up at him with her big blue eyes. God, she looked amazing. “We need to talk.”

  “Now is not a good time.”

  “Well, tough shit.”

  She started inside, but he threw an arm up in front of her to block the entrance. “Look, I’m tired and cranky as hell. I really don’t need this right now.”

  “Fine. Then we’ll have our little conversation right here in the doorway. But either way, I’m not leaving.”

  Goddamn it. He sighed. “What do you want?”

  “I want to talk to you about last night.”

  Figures. “What about it?”

  “Well, for starters, I…” She stared at him for a moment and then frowned. “Why do you look like you haven’t gotten any sleep?”

  “Because I haven’t, hence the part where I said I was tired and cranky.”

  After leaving Valerie in her brother’s care last night, Logan had returned to the bar and worked well into the night to get all of his paperwork done. Then he’d gone home and crawled into bed, hoping to get at least a few hours of sleep. But sleep hadn’t come. Instead, he’d spent a few hours in bed, tossing and turning, while letting guilt swallow him whole and contemplating just what a shitty friend he really was.

  “How come? Is something wrong?”

  Yeah, there was something wrong. If he didn’t get her out of his head soon, he was going to go fucking insane…or possibly lose the best friend he’d ever had. “No, everything’s fine. I was at the bar doing paperwork until early this morning.”

  “Oh, I see. Well, first off, I wanted to thank you again for—”

  “Don’t.”

  She cocked her head. “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t thank me.”

  “Why not? Isn’t that what you do when someone helps you out?”

  “Yeah, well, your brother already thanked me for taking care of you last night when he should’ve been drop-kicking me in the dick and stomping my nuts into the ground.” Maybe then he would learn his lesson and stay the hell away from her.

  “Um, I don’t get it.”

  “Oh, come on, Valerie. How do you think Brett would’ve reacted if he had walked in moments before when I had you bent over my knee while smacking my hand across your bare bottom?”

  Her very curvy, luscious bare bottom…Damn it.

  “So that’s why you’re so pissy? You’re feeling guilty?” When he didn’t say anything, she shook her head. “I’m an adult. It’s not up to Brett.” Her piercing blue eyes never left him.

  Okay, so she had a point. But still…“Yeah, well, you’re his sister…and he’s like a brother to me. So, like it or not, his opinion matters.”

  “No, this isn’t about Brett. It’s about us. Besides, he can’t have an opinion on something he doesn’t know about. I know you didn’t tell him about us.”

  Logan rubbed a hand over his face and shook his head. “Damn it, Valerie. There is no us. The only reason I didn’t tell him is because I didn’t want to throw you under the bus to your brother. But we can’t be a couple. You know as well as I do that your brother will never allow it, and I don’t like keeping stuff from him.”

  “I’m not suggesting that we keep it from him forever.” She shrugged. “I mean, who knows if this thing between us would even work. We could just try it out for a solid week and—”

  “We can’t do that,” he said, though the desperate hope of having something with her, even temporarily, was starting to cripple his mind-set. “It’s too risky.”

  “So what then? You’d rather just move on and pretend like none of this happened? Hope that I eventually let go of this stupid crush I’ve had on you for years?”

  Dismissing any thoughts of Valerie was impossible.
He didn’t want to forget her. Or the things she’d told him in her drunken stupor. Last night he’d gotten to see past her tough exterior down to her soft, vulnerable side, one that she didn’t share often, and the things she’d said had meant a lot to him. She meant a lot to him…and always had.

  Logan sighed. “No, goddamn it, that’s not what I want.”

  “Then what is?”

  His gaze locked on to hers, and a spark ignited in his gut. What the hell was wrong with him? This would never work. He’d been best friends with Brett since…well, forever. Maybe it was the heat of the moment. Or maybe it was a turning point in his life. Because even if it meant keeping their relationship a secret from her brother, Logan couldn’t stay away from Valerie another minute.

  The bottom line was that he wanted her. Had always wanted her. And this time, he couldn’t stop himself from having her. “I want the same damn thing I’ve always wanted. You.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Valerie couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

  For years, she’d longed for Logan to say those words to her but never thought he actually would. Now that he had, she had to wonder if they were doing the right thing. Which she knew was stupid. But she didn’t want to keep her relationship with Logan a secret. From Brett or anyone else, for that matter. And she wasn’t entirely sure Logan had thought it all through any more than she had when she suggested the stupid idea.

  But on the plus side, she’d finally gotten Logan to let down his guard. Yeah, Brett was going to kill…well, both of them. But at least she would die a happy death. A slow smile spread across her lips. “So do I get to come in now?”

  He moved aside, but the blast of heat from his eyes warned her to enter with caution. And she did. But apparently she wasn’t cautious enough. The moment he closed the door behind them, he wrapped his strong arm around her waist and spun her toward him and then walked her back into the wall by the door. She came to a dead stop, his hands still loitering at her hips.