On the Plus Side

by Alison Bliss

  “You know I do.”

  Her arms slid around his neck. “Then tell me.”

  Logan wrapped his arms around her and ran his hands up her back, pulling her closer to him. He bent his head until his forehead touched hers. “I hate myself for wanting you so much.”

  She gazed at him lovingly and smoothed her soft hand over his cheek. “I know you don’t believe this, but we’re not doing anything wrong.”

  He didn’t say anything. Just leaned down and brushed a tender, chaste kiss across her mouth as he held her tighter. Her lips parted slightly, and she sighed under her breath. Hooded blue eyes rose to his as a subtle, underlying tension began to form between them.

  Logan knew that look. It was the same unspoken proposition she’d given to him years ago, but she’d been only a teenager then. A kid, really. He was fairly certain that, at the time, she’d been untouched and hadn’t had a clue what she was offering him…or how much he’d wanted to take advantage of her naiveté.

  But he hadn’t laid a finger on her. Not because he was a nice guy, a gentleman, or even a saint. Though any guy who managed to ignore an offer like that from Valerie Carmichael damn sure deserved a title worthy of sainthood.

  Plain and simple, he’d done so out of loyalty. Logan sighed. “You know your brother is going to hate me for betraying our friendship.”

  “Are you saying we’re not doing this?” she whispered, her gaze still connected to his.

  He buried his face into her neck. “No. It’s too late to go back. I can’t stop touching you. Ever.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Valerie’s eyes fluttered opened.

  Her head rested in the crook of Logan’s arm as he lay behind her, softly snoring in her ear. His big, warm body outlined hers, spooning her from head to toe. She loved the feeling of waking up next to him, but the room had grown dim, and one glance at the window confirmed her suspicion. Darkness was falling fast.

  She rubbed her fingers over the heavy arm he’d draped over her waist. “Logan, you need to get up.”

  He released a low groan. “Again? Already?”

  She giggled. “Well, I wasn’t really talking about that, and although I’d love to extend playtime…” She shifted her body, turning in his arms to face him. “Don’t you have to go to work?”

  One of his eyes crept open. “I called James earlier and told him I’d be in late tonight. So I’ve got some time before I need to be there,” he said, opening the other eye. He stretched and yawned. “Thursday nights are always slow anyway.”

  “James really takes care of the bar. I bet he would make a great head bartender.”

  He smiled. “I know. I already offered him the position and gave him a raise. He definitely earned it. I’m going to announce it tomorrow when the whole staff is there.”

  “Well, he’s a much better choice than Paul ever was.”

  At the mention of Paul’s name, Logan’s forehead creased. “Did you date him or something?”

  “Who, Paul? God, no. I would never let that slime touch me.”

  Logan squinted at her. “But in the hallway—”

  “That wasn’t what it looked like.”

  “So you were just trying to make me jealous? Because if so, it worked.”

  She gazed up at him, hoping he could see the sincerity in her eyes. “I wasn’t flirting with Paul that night. You misunderstood the whole situation.”

  Confusion swam in his eyes. “Then what was that all about?”

  Valerie sighed. “I only went back there to ask Brett to take me home. But I caught Paul pocketing the cash Brett gave him for the T-shirt.”

  Logan blinked. “He was stealing from me?”

  “Yes. And I got the feeling that it wasn’t the first time that he’d done so. But when Paul realized I’d caught him and that I’d planned to tell you what he was doing, he cornered me against the wall and threatened me.”

  Logan shot into a sitting position, his muscles tense. “What? Why didn’t you tell me? I thought—”

  “I know exactly what you thought. And I was going to tell you the truth. But you were so mad, and well, Paul quit on you and walked out so it didn’t really matter anymore. The problem took care of itself.”

  His body was practically vibrating with anger. “The fuck it did. No one threatens you and gets away with it. Especially that bastard.” He started to crawl out of bed.

  She latched on to his arm. “Where are you going?”

  Loaded with rage, his fierce eyes met hers. “To kill Paul. I know where he lives.”

  Valerie shook her head. “No, please don’t. He didn’t hurt me. He was only trying to scare me, that’s all.”

  “That’s a death sentence in itself, if you ask me. No one is going to scare my woman and live to tell about it. No one.”

  Though the words lashed out of him in anger, Valerie couldn’t help but grin. “Your woman, huh?” Yeah, she liked the sound of that. “So you’re staking a claim on me?”

  “Baby, I’ve had a claim on you for years. It was just that neither of us knew it at the time. Now move your hands. I’ve got somewhere I need to be.”

  “No.”

  “Valerie.”

  “Please, I’m begging you not to do this. The last thing I need is for you to end up in jail. Promise me that you’ll let this go.”

  He stayed motionless and didn’t respond.

  “Logan, I’m serious. Besides, Paul didn’t leave there unscathed. I crushed his nuts so hard in my hand, I’m sure they hurt for a week straight. Now promise me.”

  He flopped back on the bed with a loud groan. “Fine. I promise I’ll let this go…for now. But if I ever see Paul anywhere near you again, he’s going to have a lot more to worry about than just his balls.”

  She was glad he agreed, but she wasn’t stupid. He had other ways to get to Paul and make him pay. “And you can’t say anything about this to Brett either.”

  Logan grinned maliciously. “You know me too well.”

  Valerie leaned into his chest and sighed. “Well, I don’t know everything about you. Like you never told me why you wanted to open a bar in the first place.”

  “I guess I thought it would be nice to have one place I couldn’t get kicked out of,” he said with a chuckle.

  “Come on, I’m being serious.”

  “So am I. Do you know how many bars Brett and I were thrown out of when we were younger? We were always getting into some kind of trouble.”

  She shook her head. “You weren’t all that bad. Just mischievous perhaps.”

  “No, it was more than that.” Logan hesitated but then finally said, “I was getting into a lot more trouble than anyone knew. And I was dragging your brother down with me.”

  “Are you kidding me? I can’t imagine anyone having to drag Brett into anything. He lives for trouble.”

  “You apparently don’t know your brother as well as you think you do. He’s not the troublemaker everyone thinks he is. I mean, sure, the guy can be a real asshole and has his moments, but if it wasn’t for him, I would’ve spent a hell of a lot more time in jail than I did.”

  Valerie didn’t know what he was talking about. Granite was a small enough town that she would’ve heard if he’d been arrested. “You were in jail? When?”

  “Do you remember that trip your brother and I took down to South Padre?” She nodded so he continued. “Well, one night we found this little pool hall in a bad part of town. Brett warned me not to do it, but I hustled this big guy at a game of pool. He and his two friends jumped us in the parking lot, and one of them had a knife.”

  She gasped, the sharp intake of breath making her light-headed. “Oh my God. Did anyone get hurt?”

  “No, thank God. The moment the guy lunged for me, Brett jumped on him and knocked the blade out of his hand. Someone called the cops, and they took all five of us to jail. But if your brother hadn’t been there to save my ass that night, I probably wouldn’t be here now.”

  “I never knew about
that.”

  “No one does. We were released by the judge the next day on our own recognizance and made it back in time for your graduation. I’ve never told anyone that story before. And as far as I know, Brett hasn’t either.”

  “Then why tell me now?”

  “Because I wanted you to know the kind of guy your brother really is. Yes, he can be a real jerk at times, but that doesn’t mean he’s not a stand-up guy. I wasn’t a good influence on him. That’s part of the reason I decided to leave town.”

  “And the other part?”

  “Was because of you.”

  Her eyes widened. “Me?”

  “Yeah, you.” He paused, breathing out a sigh. “When you were younger, you would flirt with me constantly behind your brother’s back, and it was cute. I ignored it though because you were just a kid. Then you turned seventeen. Your body filled out in ways that were harder to ignore, and your messages became a hell of a lot less subtle. But I was twenty-one.”

  Valerie grinned. “Practically an old pervert.”

  Logan barked out a laugh. “Yeah, basically. You were so young and innocent compared to me. I just wanted to keep you that way. But if I had stayed…”

  The rough timbre of his voice swept over her skin, lighting it on fire. “I wouldn’t have been so young and innocent anymore?”

  “No, you would have still been young,” he said, locking eyes with her. “Just no longer innocent.”

  Something hot pulsed between her legs. “Would that have been so bad? I wish that I had lost my virginity to you.”

  He shook his head. “No, you really don’t. I’m not known for being all that gentle, and although I would’ve tried my best not to, I probably would’ve ended up hurting you.”

  “You wouldn’t have,” she assured him.

  “Well, I wasn’t about to take that chance. Especially with you. You deserve someone better than me.”

  Valerie sat up and looked him directly in the eye. “Why do you keep saying that? It’s not true.”

  “It is true.”

  “You’re wrong.” She eyed him suspiciously. “Is that why you call me princess? Because you’ve put me up on some kind of pedestal?”

  “No, I do it to remind myself that you’re out of my league and that I’m not good enough for you.”

  “Logan.”

  “Don’t tell me it’s not true. I’m too much like my father, and that bastard never deserved my mother either.”

  It was common knowledge that Logan’s father was an addicted gambler who spent more time in the casinos than he did at home with his wife. And their marriage had suffered greatly for it. They’d split up six months ago. “Is your dad back in town?”

  Anger twisted his features as his hand clenched into a ball on the sheets. “No. And he better not show his face around here after what he did to my mom.”

  “Your mother? Does this have something to do with how strange she was acting the other day in the bakery? Is she okay?”

  “She will be. I’m going to make sure of it. But if I ever see that man again, I don’t know that I’m going to be able to control myself.”

  “What did he do?”

  Logan sighed. “I’m sure you already know that he has gambling problems. That’s been going on for years.”

  “Yes. Well, I mean, I’ve heard rumors.”

  “They’re true,” he said with a nod. “My mom and dad have both always worked, but he had a hard time keeping a job because of all the gambling binges he went on. So Mom kept a separate bank account from him so that he couldn’t blow every last dollar they had. My mom’s always been a saver rather than a spender, and she’d built a sizable nest egg that she’d hoped to retire on.”

  Valerie cringed. “Don’t tell me your dad—”

  “Yep, it’s exactly what you’re thinking. Not only did he max out every credit card they owned, but he committed check fraud by forging her signature and cleaning out her bank account before disappearing from town. He left her flat broke and with a ton of bills to pay. That was six months ago.”

  “Oh no,” Valerie said, covering her mouth. “I’m so sorry to hear that. Now it makes perfect sense why she got so upset when she didn’t have money on her the other day. I had no idea. I knew they’d split up, and I assumed it was because of the gambling stuff. But I had no clue it was over something like that. Your mom is the kindest, sweetest lady I know. I hate that he did that to her.”

  “You and me both. But that’s not even all of it.” He wasn’t going to tell her about the foreclosure, but if he didn’t come up with the rest of the money this week, it would be common knowledge all over town anyway.

  “God, there’s more?”

  “Yeah. She hasn’t been able to pay her mortgage for nearly six months so the bank is trying to foreclose on her house. If I don’t come up with ten thousand dollars by next week, she’s going to lose her home. It’s the only damn thing she has left.”

  “That’s not true. She has you.”

  His brows pulled down over his eyes. “Yeah, but I’d been telling her to leave my dad’s sorry ass for years, and she never did. So when everything happened, she was too embarrassed to even come to me and ask me for help. And since I wasn’t living here at the time, I had no way of knowing about any of it.”

  “So how did you find out?”

  “After I moved back, I went to visit her one day and spotted the foreclosure notice sitting on her kitchen table. She hadn’t realized that she left it there.”

  “Okay, wait, you lost me. If you didn’t know about any of this until you got here, then why did you suddenly decide to move back to town?”

  “It actually wasn’t as sudden as you think. The day my mom called me and told me that she and my father had split up, I’d planned on coming home. But at the time, I was making decent money at the bar I managed in Houston and couldn’t just pick up and leave. My apartment lease wasn’t up for another several months. So I used that time to save enough money to start up my own bar business.”

  “That was probably a smart move.”

  “I thought so too at first. But now that I know what my mom’s been going through for the past six months, I wish I had come home right away. I could’ve fixed things for her a lot sooner and kept her from getting into this predicament. If she loses her house, it’s going to be all my fault.”

  Valerie shook her head furiously. “You can’t seriously believe that. How were you supposed to know your mom was going through something so horrible if she didn’t tell you about it?”

  Logan cocked his head. “You don’t get it, do you? I left…way before my father ever did.”

  “So what? You were an adult, and you had your reasons. I’m sure your mom understood.”

  “Understood what? How her only son abandoned her and refused to come back home for a visit because she wouldn’t leave the piece of shit she was married to?” Hurt and anger flashed through his eyes. “You said it yourself the first night I saw you, Valerie. I didn’t come back. Not once.”

  She licked her lips and lowered her head. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. If I had known about all of this, I wouldn’t have been so quick to judge. What I said, it wasn’t right.”

  He shrugged. “You were just being honest. Though it stung a little at the time, you had every right to say it. That’s one of the things I love about you. How honest you are with me. If I’m acting like a jackass, you’re the first one to let me know it.”

  Guilt coursed through her. She hadn’t been honest with him. Not completely. Otherwise, she would’ve told him the truth about not having the certificate that she needed to work at the bar. “I’m not all that honest,” she said.

  He flipped her over, pinning her beneath his weight. “Oh, so you’ve been keeping things from me, have you?”

  She bit her lip as panic flashed through her. “Well, I, um…”

  “Is this your way of saying I’m a bigger jackass than you’ve let on?”

  He grinned to s
how her that he was playing, and she breathed a sigh of relief. God. If he ever found out that she lied to him, he was never going to trust her again.

  If anything, that made her the jackass.

  * * *

  Valerie blew out a slow breath and glanced around the big white tent while waiting for the ceremony to begin.

  “Your best man escort is here,” Max said, stepping up beside her in a gray tailored three-piece tux.

  She smiled at him. “And what a handsome one he is.”

  “You don’t look so bad yourself. You nervous, Val?”

  “Are you kidding me? I love this kind of stuff. I could do this all day, every day.” She smoothed her hands down her sides. “I look hot as hell in this dress.”

  “I wouldn’t exactly disagree with that statement,” he said, sporting a grin. “But then why do you keep looking around like you’re searching for an escape hatch?”

  A laugh fell from her lips. “I’m not. I’m actually checking to make sure all the exits are blocked off.” She shook her head furiously. “Leah isn’t like me. She hates to be the center of attention, and if I know her, she’s going to take one look at all those people out there and probably get ready to bolt. Sam might have to come down here and drag her down the aisle caveman-style.”

  “Don’t think for one second that he won’t,” he said seriously. “He’s crazy about the girl.”

  “Wait until he sees her in her wedding dress. She looks amazing.”

  Leah’s mother shuffled past them, clapping her hands to get their attention. “Places, everyone. We’re about to start.”

  “You ready to do this?” Max asked, offering his arm.

  “Absolutely.”

  Valerie laced her arm through his and allowed him to lead her over to the open doorway of the wedding tent. The sandy aisle in front of them led down between two large groups of people sitting on either side.

  “What happened to Leah having a small, intimate wedding?” he asked. “There’s probably over a hundred people out there.”

  Valerie nodded. “Leah’s mom had her way with the guest list.”