This Heart for Hire

by Marie Ferrarella

  With a sigh Jessica put the letter back on the desk. She was in Dane’s office with Dane and Logan on either side of her. The door was closed to keep anyone else from hearing. Not that word wasn’t somehow leaking out, she thought, even as they were discussing the matter. Like water questing for the one tiny hole it could use to flow through, secrets always seemed to find a way to be discovered.

  She looked from one brother to the other. Like the masks for tragedy and comedy in the theater, they looked as if they had completely different reactions to the same situation. Dane was worried while Logan was mildly entertained.

  Well, he might be entertained, but she certainly wasn’t. She shifted her attention to Dane, the sensible one.

  “My first thought is that we really should call the police.”

  Dane looked horrified. “Didn’t you read the letter?” He started to jab a finger at the paper, then thought better of it. The fewer prints, the better. “He said no police, or he’ll set a bomb off in one of the warehouses or the office building. There’s no way we can tell where. If word gets out, the whole merger dies right here.”

  “Not to mention how many people could get hurt.” Logan’s mild tone understated the seriousness of the statement.

  “Yes, of course.” Dane ran a nervous hand over his thinning hair. “That, too.” His eyes darted from Logan to Jessica. Ever since the first letter had appeared, he’d been like a man on a journey to an inevitable nervous breakdown. “Jessica, we can’t risk calling the police in on this.”

  “I agree with Dane.” Logan folded his arms before him, perching on the edge of Dane’s desk with the air of a man who didn’t have a care in the world. “No police.”

  This was beginning to feel bigger than she was. She looked at the letter again.

  I warned you. Don’t impede the merger or you’ll forfeit your life. Call the police and some of your people will forfeit theirs. Bomb, bomb, where’s s the bomb? The office? The warehouse? You won’t have to guess if you talk to the police.

  Uneasiness undulated through her. She looked at Logan. “They can take steps to protect you.”

  It seemed odd, to be comforting her about his death threat. Opportunities came in strange packages. Logan took her hands in his.

  “You know and I know that’s not true. They can’t do anything except help me get a restraining order issued.” A smile played on his lips at the irony. “If they knew who was supposed to be restrained. Their hands are tied until someone actually tries to kill me.”

  A chill swept up her spine. He was right. “Been doing your homework?”

  He inclined his head. “Just trying to keep up with you.”

  She realized he was still holding her hands. Straightening her shoulders, she pulled away. “This isn’t the time to flirt, Logan.”

  He raised one brow as a smile she once thought she couldn’t resist curved his mouth wider. “You’ll tell me when, then?”

  She didn’t know whether to laugh in disbelief, succumb or just hit him. Instead, she chose to hold her ground and her temper. “This is serious, Logan. Will you finally get that through your thick head?”

  He rose from the desk, glancing at his brother. Dane looked a little pale. For his sake, Logan sobered. “Consider it ‘gotten.’” He looked at her, looked past her angry expression and into her eyes. Into her soul. “We all deal with tension in our own way. Me, I flirt with you.”

  “Or anything that’s breathing.” It was an automatic, flippant response, said without thinking. She knew it was beneath her. Jessica held up a hand before he said anything. “Sorry, that’s old territory and I’m not going there. You need protection—”

  He couldn’t resist. “Why, are we going to make love?”

  “Logan!” Maybe hitting him was the way to go. With a two-by-four.

  He grinned, hands raised as if to defend himself against her if she decided to let loose. He knew he’d crossed the line, but having her angry at him was preferable to having her indifferent to him. Anger was a passionate emotion, and passion was what he ultimately wanted to evoke from her.

  “Sorry. I’ll try to be serious.”

  Dane cleared his throat Jessica looked in his direction. “You’re right about the protection.”

  Finally. “At least someone’s making sense here,” she said with relief.

  Dane fished out his personal checkbook from his breast pocket. “Name your price.”

  A little of the relief began to fade. “Excuse me?”

  Dane pushed down the top of the gold pen his grandfather had given him years earlier. Given to sentiment, he saved pieces of life rather than live them. “I’m assuming that you’ll charge extra to be Logan’s bodyguard.”

  Dane had taken one hell of a large leap from point A to point B. Jessica felt herself being backed into a corner and dug her heels in.

  “You just stopped making sense, Dane.”

  Not looking at Logan, Dane pressed on. “Isn’t one of your functions to be a bodyguard?”

  It wasn’t something she did with any frequency, but she had assumed the role two or three times, when the situation warranted it.

  “Yes, but—”

  “Jessica, there is no ‘but’ about it.” He waved a hand at Logan. “We both know Logan won’t stand for a stranger shadowing his every move. You two have a history. He’ll let you near him.”

  Logan only allowed others to speak for him when it served his purpose, but even now he found himself getting annoyed at being treated as if he were part of the furnishings.

  He stepped between them. “Sometimes Dane takes being a big brother too far. But he is right.” He looked down at Jessica. “If I have to have a bodyguard around, cramping my style and getting in the way, I’d want it to be you or no one.”

  There were more pitfalls for her here than in a fully loaded minefield. She’d be a fool to agree to this. “Logan—”

  “Or no one,” he repeated quietly.

  It was, she knew, an ultimatum. Damn him, anyway. “I could call your bluff, you know,” she informed him, unconsciously rising on her toes. “Just walk out”

  He knew her too well. Or hoped he did. “You’ve got too big a heart for that, Jessi.”

  In the space of a second, she heaped enough curses on his head to make his blood curl if she’d said them out loud. “For two cents—”

  “It’ll be a lot more than two cents—” Logan promised. Whatever her price, it didn’t matter. This was a tremendous opportunity to bring her back into his life, really bring her back. And face his own demons.

  He was beginning to think he owed whoever was writing these letters a vote of thanks.

  “I don’t need the money—”

  Logan knew she was partially estranged from her family but had no idea what her current financial state was. Jessica wouldn’t let on even if she was hurting for funds. It wasn’t her way. “We’ll make the check out to your favorite charity, then.”

  The less time she wasted here, arguing with him, the more she’d have to solve this thing. Besides, she’d managed to survive these last two years, getting over him. What difference could one more week make?

  “Fine.” She bit off the word, thrusting her hand out toward Dane rather than Logan. “You’ve got yourself a bodyguard.” She glanced toward Logan. “But just until the stockholders’ meeting on Saturday.”

  He couldn’t resist teasing her. It was either that, or sweep her into his arms and allow himself to get lost in the scent that was hers exclusively. A scent no manufacturer could come close to duplicating “Could we reciprocate once in a while?” His eyes were soft, sensual despite their gleam. “I’ll guard your body instead of you guarding mine?” He held up his hand, an innocent Boy Scout taking an oath of allegiance. “I promise to do an excellent job.”

  “Don’t push me too hard, Logan. I’m carrying a gun.”

  His eyes met hers and held. “Lethal women always did turn me on.”

  It was going to be the longest four days on
record. “You are hopeless, you know that?”

  Ignoring Dane, who’d cleared his throat to gain their attention, Logan slipped his hands down along her arms to cup her elbows. The humor in his eyes settled down to a gentle amusement.

  “No, Jessi, I am never without hope.”

  A sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach warned her that she had just bitten off an immense piece that defied consumption. Only inherent stubbornness made her determined to see this through. She was not going to succumb to a man who could only offer her a one-way ticket to absolutely nowhere.

  Worn heels hit the floor arrythmically as he paced from corner to corner within the room. Thinking. Planning. Anticipating.

  He wondered how long he should toy with his prey. He was impatient for the end to come. Impatient for the cleansing feeling to wash over him, telling him that he had finally closed that chapter of his life.

  Yet anticipation had its rewards. And torture its thrills.

  He wanted to make his prey suffer in all the ways that he had himself come to suffer.

  That required time.

  With a magnanimous wave of his thin hand, he made his decision, awarding his prey a little extra time. And so, in giving a little, he would have more.

  He was already enjoying it.

  A squeaking sound escaped his lips, sounding like a child’s giggle. There was no one to hear him in the apartment.

  “You’re staying at his house?” Albert’s voice was almost a squeak, coming over her apartment phone.

  She doubted he would have sounded more disapproving if she’d said she was moving into a brothel. Probably less.

  Jessica could just visualize his expression. “Wipe the disapproving look off your face Albert, I can hear it in your voice.” Moving between her closet and the open suitcase on her bed, Jessica selected clothes and tossed them in the general vicinity of the valise. “Logan’s getting more threats, and he won’t go to the police. Can’t, really,” she amended.

  She remembered the look on Logan’s face when he pointed out that deaths other than his own would result if he went to the police. He’d actually been con— cerned. She supposed that there was hope for him yet.

  Juggling the phone, she took a white-trimmed navy sheath from the hanger and added it to the small collection near her valise. “This person we’re looking for could very well be desperate enough to try to hurt him.”

  “If he can hurt Buchanan, he can hurt you.”

  She paused, smiling to herself. He really was more a big brother than an assistant.

  “Albert, I’m a private investigator. A little danger goes with the territory. If I wanted to be safe, I would have become a taxidermist.”

  “It has its pluses.”

  Jessica didn’t have time to debate this. She’d promised to return to Logan’s office in an hour, after she’d packed and dropped her clothes off. “I just called to let you know where you can reach me in case the cell phone doesn’t pick up your signal, not to argue about this with you. And to find out if you’d come up with anything on your end yet.”

  “Turns out one of the ladies on the board of Buchanan Tech ran afoul of the law when she was a teenager. One Cynthia Darrow. Daddy used to be VP at Washington Savings and Loan until that nasty scandal when they went belly-up. Her juvenile records were sealed, thanks to ‘Daddy,’ when she turned eighteen.”

  Finally, something. She knew she could count on Albert. “You sly dog. Any way to find out what was sealed in them?”

  She heard the keyboard clicking as he answered, “I’m working on it.”

  “My hero.” Receiver propped up against her shoulder and neck, she pulled open her lingerie drawer. “You’ve been a great help, Albert.”

  “I can be an even greater help if—”

  She headed him off before he could start in again. “Just work the list, Albert.”

  “And you make sure he doesn’t work you,” Albert warned sternly. “Remember the last time.”

  “Exactly,” she answered.

  It was a good game plan. She fervently hoped she could stick to it.

  Chapter 7

  Rules, Jessica silently chanted to herself as she threw her suitcase into the back seat of her car. She needed to remember the rules. The cardinal rule—Never Get Personally Involved with a Client—she’d already splintered and broken. But if she changed the key word to Reinvolved, she might still have a chance of making it work.

  All she had to do was remember to abide by it.

  Bracing herself, Jessica started the car. She felt like someone about to undertake a thousand-mile journey across quicksand with only a narrow strip, set smack in the middle, that was safe ground. How long before she lost her balance and fell in?

  Jessica’s hands tightened on the steering wheel as she came to a stop at a light. If she felt that way, what the hell was she doing, taking this case?

  Because Logan wouldn’t have anyone else and his life might actually be in danger, that’s what. She didn’t want him back in her life, but she certainly didn’t want him dead, either.

  A rock and a hard place, that was where she was setting up residence. Jessica sighed. She should have packed something more comfortable to wear. Like protective foam rubber. Something told her she was going to be rubbed raw before the case was over.

  It didn’t take her long to drive to Logan’s house. Neil greeted her like an old friend, then opened the gates for her. She watched them dubiously before she drove through. The schematic had assured her that bypassing the system would take a real professional, and scaling the fence was next to impossible. The volts that coursed through them could easily light up the sky on the next Fourth of July celebration for miles to come.

  But every puzzle had a solution and every system had its master. She wouldn’t feel at ease about Logan’s safety until the vote was in on Saturday and the merger settled one way or another.

  After that, he was on his own.

  Just the way he’d always been, she thought. And always liked it.

  Parking the car at the end of the winding gray-and-white-paved driveway, Jessica took out her suitcase and hurried up the steps. She had a little time before she was to meet with Cynthia Darrow, enough to settle in.

  She’d called before leaving her apartment. The woman who’d answered Cynthia’s phone had been her secretary. She’d been reluctant to agree to a meeting, but Jessica had insisted. Telling her she was acting on Logan’s behalf was what had actually gotten her the appointment, though. After mentioning his name, it was as if doors opened and seas parted.

  He’d always had that effect on women, she mused, pressing the doorbell. All women.

  She was surprised to see Logan standing there when the door opened. She thought she’d left him at his office. Jessica rallied quickly enough.

  “What are you doing here?”

  He stepped back, holding the door for her. “I live here, remember?”

  He’d opted for being charming again. Mentally, she adjusted her armor and went on the attack. It was easier to deal with him when she was annoyed. “Did you have to release that story to the newspaper?”

  His hand slipped over hers and he took the suitcase from her. It felt light. Wasn’t she staying until the end of the week? “This all you’re bringing?”

  “Aside from the laptop.” For the time being, she’d left it in her trunk. “I travel light.”

  He led the way into the foyer. Memories echoed through his mind... were they really only two years old? “I can remember a time when all you needed to pack were your vitamins.”

  She swung around to face him. “And I can remember a time when I believed in fairy tales. All part of the past, Logan. And you’re changing the subject Why did you have to give the interview on the merger? That’s like poking a stick into the hole of an active beehive.”

  So, she still didn’t understand that he’d changed since his father’s death, he thought. Why should she? The change had come after they’d stopped seeing each ot
her.

  “I didn’t ‘have to,’ it was just another way to make my stand a little more public. I’m serious about this, Jess, and I want to get to as many people as possible about putting a stop to the merger.”

  Exasperation overtook her. He was smarter than that. The last thing he needed in his situation was to attract publicity for his so-called “stand.”

  “Well, there’s your answer why you got another poison pen letter from your pen pal so quickly. Damn it, Logan, he means business.”

  What did she have to do to make him appreciate that fact? Who knew what the person they were dealing with was capable of? Maybe he had a flagrant disregard of life, as long as it meant winning.

  “And I’m in business,” Logan said just as emphatically. He looked at her, struggling with his own anger. Anger because he had to watch his back because some degenerate with a printer was sending him empty threats. “I won’t be cornered, Jessica.”

  The laugh was dry, but not without feeling. “I, above all people know that, Logan. But a little discretion when you’re being threatened would be nice.” She glanced up toward the stairs, wondering which room would be hers. And if it had a lock on it.

  He shrugged carelessly. All water under the bridge. “Dane and I gave the okay for the story before this turned out to be a major issue.” Anger at his own impotence took hold. A man should be able to look out for himself. “What would you have suggested I do? Back down? Say ‘Sorry, someone’s sending me nasty notes so I can’t talk to you about the company my grandfather put together’? A company standing at its first crossroads in twenty years?” He shook his head. “Not my style, Jessi.”

  She knew all about his style and his way. They were what had drawn her in. And then caused the breakup.

  “Let’s hope you have some style left to speak of, after all this is over.” Staring at him, she watched for some sign of recognition as she asked, “What do you know about Cynthia Darrow?”

  He thought a moment, raising an image to go with the name. The present image wasn’t the one he kept under wraps. “Too many birds on her antenna.”