by A. C. Arthur
“She’s Cheyna Dansfield and whoever the guy that was harassing her was, he came from the reserved section of the floor seats where Cheyna had been also,” Logan said, his tone only slightly calmer.
“She’s my wedding planner,” Alex added. “Monica had a meeting scheduled with her today and when she couldn’t make it to Cheyna’s office without being late for this event, she asked Cheyna to meet her here.”
“And how do you know their wedding planner?” Perry asked Logan.
“Because his biggest client is the father of the bride,” Jagger chimed in.
“I was in the city meeting with another security expert about the gallery and agreed to join Alex and Monica for dinner after this event,” Sam said. “Now, that we’ve finished with the roll call. I’ll go find out more about who this guy was. If the paramedics clear her you should get her out of here. Until we know who this guy is and what he wanted with her, it’s probably best to keep them away from each other.”
Sam headed toward the door.
“Call me the minute you find out who it is,” Logan said to him. After talking so much at the gallery on Sunday, Logan and Sam had exchanged numbers and agreed to meet up for a beer when Sam was in the city again. That wouldn’t be tonight, of course, but Logan liked the guy so he was certain they would hook up at some time. Possibly some time really soon considering what Sam, the owner of a private investigation firm, could find out about the bastard who’d accused Cheyna of murder.
When Sam opened the door to leave, the paramedic who had first come in to examine Cheyna returned. Logan and the others had shooed the guy out when they began talking about what happened.
“I should check her vitals,” the paramedic was saying as he moved around Jagger and Alex who were in a protective stance close to the door. Perry was on the opposite side of the stretcher from Logan. “If she doesn’t wake soon, I think a trip to the hospital might be necessary. It could be a concussion.”
“She didn’t hit her head,” Logan said. He had caught her before any part of her body could touch the dirty floor.
The paramedic pulled a small bottle out of his bag and unscrewed the top. “Then she should awake to this.” He waved the top beneath Cheyna’s nose and, as if on cue, she shook her head and squinted her eyes.
“Good,” he said. “Now I’ll check her vitals.”
He reached for Cheyna’s hand that Logan still held and when Logan didn’t release it, the paramedic sighed and leaned over the table to take her other hand. Cheyna opened her eyes while the paramedic was checking her pulse.
“Hey,” Logan said and leaned in closer to her face. He wanted to be the first person she saw. He wanted her to know instantly that she was safe.
“Hey,” she said staring at him in confusion.
“Hi, ma’am,” the paramedic interrupted. “Can you tell me your name?”
Cheyna answered that question and the other three the paramedic asked to make sure she was coherent.
“She looks like she might be a little dehydrated. That and its pretty warm inside the arena so maybe she became overheated. But she should be fine. Get some food and water into her and a good night’s sleep and she’ll be all better in the morning. If not, contact your primary care doctor immediately.”
Cheyna nodded to acknowledge his spiel while Logan took her other hand and helped her to a sitting position on the stretcher.
“I’m so embarrassed,” she said when the paramedic packed up his bag and left the room.
“Don’t be. It happens to the best of us,” Alex said. He’d come to stand at the end of the stretcher and reached over to touch Cheyna’s knee. “I’m going to go upstairs to let Monica know what happened. But I expect you to do exactly as that guy said. Get some food and some rest. No more work tonight. Not on our wedding or any other event. You got that?”
Logan noted the guy’s joking tone but he knew Cheyna did not like what he was saying. Telling her not to work was like telling her not to breathe. Logan had only known her for two weeks, but he’d already figured that out.
“Come on, I’ll take you home,” Logan said and helped her off the table.
“No. I have my car. I can drive.”
He’d also known she was going to say that.
“I know you have your car but I’d like to take you home. Just humor me, okay? Just this one time, Cheyna.”
Perry shook his head and tapped Cheyna on the shoulder. “FYI. He’s stubborn and tenacious. We’ll be here all night with him insisting on taking you home. I’ve had a long day and I’d really like to go home since it seems I won’t be shooting any hoops. Have mercy on me, please.”
Jagger chuckled. “Hi Cheyna, I’m Jagger West. I work with Logan and I can attest to what his brother just said. The guy’s relentless. Do us a big favor and let him take you home. Here’s my card. Feel free to call me if he gets out of line in any way.”
“Wow. Is that the support I get?” Logan joked because he knew Jagger and Perry were trying to lighten the mood for Cheyna’s sake.
They’d all heard Logan recite what the guy had said to Cheyna. And they were all wondering if there was any truth to it, or if not, why a man would accuse her of such a thing. But nobody was going to ask her that. They were leaving it totally up to Logan to get to the truth. Logan had no idea how he was going to do that, but he knew he had to, because the last thing he wanted was to feel that sudden, severe sense of loss he’d felt the moment Cheyna collapsed in front of him, again.
She shrugged finally and accepted Jagger’s card. She did not say another word to Logan until they were in his car.
“You’ve got a great dunk shot.”
Logan had just pulled out onto the street and was about to turn on the radio so she could relax to some music when she spoke. He’d had women tell him he was sexy or good looking before. He’d even had a much older woman tell him he had a great butt. All of those things had stroked his ego on a very basic level. Appearances weren’t everything, Logan knew that for certain. But hearing Cheyna compliment something so inconsequential to him as a dunk shot was…it made him feel…Logan was speechless.
“I’m hungry. Mind if we make a stop for something to eat first?” he asked.
“No.”
Her quick answer was a surprise.
“Afterwards we can go to your place.”
That comment almost had Logan veering into the opposite lane. Instead, he gripped the steering wheel tighter and nodded. “Okay. We’ll get pizza.”
The words sounded weird to him, not because he didn’t like pizza, but because they weren’t smooth and did not possess his normal charisma. To be honest, everything that was normal in Logan’s repertoire with women was tossed out the window the moment he realized Cheyna was in trouble. Now, he was operating solely on the concern that bubbled deep inside him. Something was definitely going on with her and that older man, something that Logan assumed wasn’t good. Something he wanted desperately to know about so that he could make it go away.
Chapter 8
Logan’s corner apartment was on the tenth floor in a high-rise building on 63rd Street. Large-planked, lightly-stained wood floors greeted Cheyna when she stepped into the foyer. Two large closets held space for Logan to take and store her coat and her bag after she’d retrieved her phone and the charger she carried. He turned on lights as they went deeper into the space and Cheyna glimpsed elegant baseboards and crown molding along with modern-styled light fixtures. To her right was a table with brass legs and a glass-top. Logan told her to plug her charger into the wall and set her phone there. Also to her right was a narrow hallway that led to a half bath and the open kitchen. Immediately in front of her was a breakfast bar with three black-cushioned stools. Straight ahead, across the wide open space was the dining/living room combo decorated in black, white and gray. More glass-top tables, a black couch, two gray curved back chairs, gray and white striped rug, large flat-screen television mounted on the wall and windows with a west facing view of the city
.
“This is a nice apartment,” she said.
It was very nice and very spacious for one man. He seemed to have stuff everywhere—black and white pictures hung on his walls, mostly of buildings and homes old and new, photos of what she assumed were his family members on a tall brass stand in a corner, magazines strewn across the coffee table, and trophies on the end table closest to the wall. All pieces of him and his life. Cheyna stood in the living room wondering absently where she fit in. His voice interrupted her thoughts.
“It’s my home away from home.”
Her head turned sharply to stare at him where he stood by the breakfast bar.
“What does that mean?”
He shrugged. “I grew up in a brownstone in Brooklyn that my mother purchased when she was married to my father. After she threw him out, she worked really hard to keep our house and when she re-married she insisted her new husband move-in with us there. That will always be my first home.”
Cheyna inhaled slowly and turned away to walk over to the windows.
“I don’t have a home.” It was a solemn statement, but one that Cheyna had come to accept a long time ago. “I lease a nice apartment in East Harlem because it’s affordable and close to my office. From what I was told my mother signed away her rights to me just six hours after giving birth and my father never showed up to put his name on my birth certificate. I lived in eight foster homes before I turned eighteen. I received a full scholarship to NYU and moved here from Portland three months later. When I turned twenty-one I subscribed to one of those ancestry research sites and hired a private investigator to track down my original birth certificate. My mother was African American. I’m assuming my father was white and that’s where the English, Scottish and Irish strands of my DNA come from.”
He was silent after she clapped her lips shut and Cheyna continued to stare out to the buildings and the traffic whizzing by below.
“I have bottled water, wine and beer. I never buy sodas. Guess I should have asked what you liked to drink when I picked up the pizzas.”
Cheyna could hear Logan moving when he finally started to speak. She did not look away from the window.
“Red or white wine?”
“I’m more of a beer type, but my sister Maxie is really into wine. She gets on me each time she’s here and there’s nothing for her to drink so I try to keep something here she likes. Cabernet Franc is her favorite or there’s some type of moscato that she wanted me to try. Maybe you should just have water. That’s better for dehydration.”
Cheyna didn’t care, water wasn’t going to calm her nerves. “I’ll take the cabernet.”
He’d told her his sisters’ names before.
“That guy at the arena, he was your brother?”
“Yeah, my oldest brother Perry. He runs a non-profit company and we were at the tournament as one of the grant recipients.”
It was harder for her to hear him now so Cheyna walked away from the window and over to the breakfast bar. Logan was in the kitchen fixing her glass of wine. The pizza box he’d brought in with them was on the bar’s gray marble-top counter. There were stainless steel appliances, a gas range, white subway-tile backsplash and superhero magnets on the refrigerator door.
“Two brothers and two sisters, right?”
He turned from the counter opposite the breakfast bar and walked over to give her the glass of wine.
“Right.”
Cheyna accepted the glass and immediately took a sip. She took another because the chilled liquid felt good against her parched throat.
“Evan and Sarah are the only ones to ever visit my apartment. They say we’re a work family. I think they’re good employees.”
“But you don’t consider them family.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know what family is.”
Logan turned back to reach into a cabinet. He pulled out two dark colored plates and went into the box to place slices of pizza on each. Two slices for him and on her approval, one for her. After heating each plate in the microwave, Logan came around to join her on a stool at the breakfast bar.
“I’m not really hungry.” The slice was huge, hanging off the edge of the plate at the end and dripping with the extra cheese he’d ordered. It smelled good but her stomach felt weird and she wasn’t sure it was willing to accept the sustenance.
“Try to eat at least half. You need something to eat and drink like the paramedic said.”
“I’m not sick. I just fainted.”
“People don’t normally go around fainting, Cheyna. So that’s kind of sick.”
She wanted to argue that, but couldn’t think of the words. Perhaps she did need to eat, her mind definitely did not seem to be working on its normal trek. If it were, she wouldn’t be sitting in Logan’s apartment right now. She thought about that while she chewed the first bite slowly.
Why had she told him to bring her here? Because she didn’t want to go to her apartment. She was alone there. Just the way she normally liked it. But not tonight. Being alone tonight would remind her of the memories that frightened her. Cheyna did not like to be afraid.
They continued to eat in silence. Logan had a third slice while Cheyna worked hard to finish her first. She drank one glass of wine and readily agreed when Logan offered her another one. When they were done, he put the leftover pizza slices in the refrigerator and came to stand next to her.
“We can watch a movie or talk. I can take you home or you can stay here. I have a guest bedroom that my sisters often inhabit or I can hold you until you stop shaking.”
At his last words Cheyna looked down at her hands. They were still shaking. She’d felt it in the car during the drive and then again as she’d walked through the door. While she ate she’d fooled herself into believing that she was getting back to normal, but that was probably because she was focusing so hard on eating that slice of pizza without hurling it all back up. The wine wasn’t helping as much as she wanted it to.
“A movie.” She selected that option because it meant she wouldn’t have to talk about what she knew Logan wanted to hear. And she still did not want to go back to her apartment.
Logan’s movie selection consisted of everything superhero related to anything featuring lots of action. She opted for a superhero movie because she thought the implausibility of the genre would put her at ease about her reality. It worked partially as she found herself chuckling through some parts and cordially debating others with him. He knew everything about the characters and their backstory and countered just about every argument she posed. By the time the first movie was over Cheyna was feeling the strong urge to prove him wrong just once. So she agreed to another movie. When that one was over and she was certain she’d laughed more than she had in the last few years, Logan took her hands and stood, pulling her up with him.
“It’s late. You should get some sleep.”
Somewhere between the third glass of wine and Iron Man’s fight with Captain America, she’d taken off her boots and removed the jacket to her suit.
“Are you kicking me out?”
He grinned and the turmoil that had begun to simmer churned in the pit of her stomach once again.
“Not on your life,” he replied. “But I do think it’s time you lay down. So, guest bedroom?”
“I don’t want to be alone.”
She could admit that now without feeling like a total idiot. She’d been with him for the last five hours and not one time had Logan said anything to make her feel like she was being ridiculous or high strung. He hadn’t mentioned what had happened at the arena except to make sure she abided by everything the paramedic told her. She felt safe with him and whether or not that was a good or smart thing, Cheyna decided to go with it.
“Your bed. If you don’t mind.”
He lifted both her hands to his lips and kissed the back of her fingers. “I would never mind having you in my bed, Cheyna.”
Logan turned off the television and took the time to put the movies
on the shelf in the same spot he’d taken them from. Cheyna made herself useful and took her now empty wine glass and Logan’s empty beer bottle into the kitchen to put into the dishwasher and the bin marked “recycle”.
As she did not know where his bedroom was, Logan met her once again at the breakfast bar and took her hand. He’d locked the front door after they’d come in so as he walked her toward a room on the other side of the kitchen, he hit a switch that turned out all the lights in the dining/living room area. A few more steps and they walked through a doorway to a good sized bedroom. There was another television mounted on the wall directly across from the king-size bed. A nightstand was on each side of the bed, a walk-in closet and a picture of Mohammed Ali on a far wall.
“I’ll get you something to change into.” He released her hand and went into the closet. Seconds later he came back and offered her a shirt. “Bathroom’s through there.”
She followed his direction and changed in the bathroom. Bringing her folded clothes out, Cheyna set them on a chair near the closet. Logan wasn’t in the room so she went directly to the bed, pulled back the comforter and sheet and climbed in. When Logan returned seconds later, he’d changed as well. The sweatpants he’d pulled over that basketball uniform was gone and he now wore a different pair of shorts and a tank top. He turned off the big light he’d switched on when they first entered the room and came around to the other side of the bed.
“Do you normally sleep on this side?” Cheyna asked.
“I’m not partial to any side. I’m usually so beat by the time I hit the bed I can sleep anywhere.”
She curled closer to the end of the bed, pulling the soft pillow closer to her face.
“Do you want the lamp on?” he asked.
“No.”