Sandpiper Shore
Page 20
The ginormous man on her left grinned at her. “Hey, foxy, your daddy let you take his bike out for a spin?”
The man with a braided white beard on her right said, “Nah. The way little ginger here rides, I’d say PMS.”
“I don’t have PMS, and this isn’t my—”
Both of them threw back their heads and roared. “PMS means you haven’t been out on your bike for a while, foxy,” ginormous guy informed her while wiping tears of laughter from his eyes.
Despite that she clearly amused them, they made her a little nervous, which might explain why she said, “I’m new to the life. This is my best friend’s hog.”
“You don’t say. Would’ve thought you were born to the life, ginger,” braided beard man said. At her frown, he explained, “Ginger on account of your hair.” He touched the long white locks trailing down his back. “It’s why Cueball called you ‘foxy.’”
“Oh, so you’re Whitey?”
He revved his engine and winked. “Shotgun.”
She revved her engine. “Nice to meet you, Shotgun and Cueball. Bottom light. Bye.” She waved, cringing upon realizing what she’d said. Old habits died hard. Because she was color-blind, Richard had taught her that the top light meant stop, the middle light slow down, and the bottom light meant go.
In the rearview mirror, she could see them laughing as they turned off Main Street. She totally just lost her cool factor by saying bottom light and giving them a cutesy wave. Long live the dorks. At the next stoplight, she revved the engine again, the sound giving her confidence a boost. She did it again, smiling as she felt the power of the bike rumble through her.
Then a truck pulled up beside her, and she felt the driver’s eyes on her.
She’d channel Shay. Her best friend would own the bike, rev the engine, and then give the driver a kick-butt stare, as in I’ll kick yours if you keep looking at me. Jenna tried one on for size and then twisted in the seat to give the driver a full-on glare that immediately turned into a full-on smile.
Logan laughed. “Quit revving the engine and flirting with bikers.”
Butterflies took flight in her stomach at the thought that he’d been watching her with Cueball and Shotgun. “I wasn’t flirting…Bottom light. I’ve gotta go.”
She took off like a shot and had to zig around one car and then zag around another to avoid hitting it. In the rearview mirror, she caught a glimpse of Logan. He was no longer laughing. She wondered if he’d believe she was practicing her defensive driving. But when she spotted the police cruiser parked outside Tie the Knot, she no longer cared what Logan thought. All she cared about was getting to her sister. She made it the rest of the way in record time, pulling in behind the cruiser, but it took her a minute to get the bike balanced properly. Once she did, she took off at a run, bursting through the door of Tie the Knot.
Arianna looked up from the computer on the reception desk. “Jenna, what—”
“No time. Where’s Serena? I have to talk to her.”
“In my office. But wait. She’s with—”
“Wait until what? He impregnates her along with his wife?” she yelled over her shoulder as she raced through the empty (thank God) fitting area to the office. She didn’t knock. She just flung open the door. “Stop, Serena. You have no idea what…Sorry, I thought you were someone else.”
“Chief Benson, this is my sister Jenna. At least I’m assuming it’s my sister under the helmet.”
She took it off her head. “Yes, it’s me. Hello, Chief Benson. I’m really sorry to interrupt you.”
“No problem. We were just wrapping up. All I need is your signature on the complaint, Serena, and then I’ll take appropriate action.”
“You’re filing a complaint against Ryan?”
Her sister worried her bottom lip between her teeth and nodded.
Jenna went to stand beside her. “Good, I’m glad. Chief Benson, I’d like to file a complaint against Officer Wilson too. He threatened me this afternoon. I never should’ve told him that he and my sister were meant to be, and I realize that I made a difficult situation worse, but it doesn’t justify him threatening me.” She repeated what he said to her, showing Chief Benson how he’d handled his gun.
“Did anyone hear him threaten you?”
“No. I’m pretty sure they didn’t.”
“It’d be better if we had a witness, but I’ll file your complaint as well.” He moved to the door, gave them a nod, and said, “I’ll be in touch.”
She turned to her sister. “I’m so sorry, Serena. I never should’ve said anything.”
“What are you sorry about? I’m the one who got involved with a married man.”
Jenna sat on the edge of the desk. “How involved were you?”
“Flirting, kissing, talking on the phone, meeting for a walk or lunch. He told me his marriage had been in name only for years. According to him, they stayed together because it made sense financially, but he was going to leave her. And then I found out she’s pregnant.”
“He’s not a nice man. I feel sorry for his wife. It was obvious today that she believed him.”
“So do I. I think we should talk to her, Jenna. He’s going to do this again. I’d be surprised if I was his first.”
“I know, but you didn’t see them together, Serena. And you didn’t hear or see him when he threatened me.”
“I just think it’s important she knows everything. You wished we’d been more forceful sharing our concerns about Lorenzo with you.”
“Arianna kind of was.”
Serena grinned. “She’s forceful about everything, and that’s the problem. But if Shay had shared her concerns, you would’ve listened.”
“I like to think I would have.”
Voices filtered back from the front of the shop. “Sounds like royalty has arrived.” Serena stood up and leaned over to hug Jenna.
“What’s that for?”
“I know we told you last night, but I’m not sure you realized how much we both appreciate what you did. Especially after how Arianna treated you. It couldn’t be easy letting Princess Isabella appropriate every last detail of your dream wedding. Arianna was up until three this morning making a sample of the dress for the princess to try. It’s almost identical to yours, Jenna.”
“At least she didn’t appropriate the groom,” she quipped, ignoring the tiny, telling crack in her voice. Jenna might have feelings for Logan, but it’s not like she thought in a million years she’d ever marry the man.
“No, but everything else. I can’t tell you how relieved Arianna was when all the deposits we’d paid out showed up in the business account.” She hooked her arm companionably through Jenna’s, who looked up as Arianna hurried down the hall, a panicked look on her beautiful face.
Jenna wondered if Connor had arrived for his fitting. “I’m sending Logan back. You have to keep him”—Arianna ran to the last fitting room and flung open the curtain; there was a tux hanging from the hook—“in here.”
“You want me to keep him in the fitting room? How? Why?”
“Because Lorenzo and Gwyneth just parked up the street, and they’re coming this way. We can’t have any drama, Jenna. Not here. Not with the press gathering outside on the sidewalk. It’ll ruin us. Please, keep him back—”
Serena cleared her throat and smiled. “Perfect timing, Logan. Jenna’s all set to fit your tux.”
Jenna noted that his surprise matched her own. But she also saw the near panic on Arianna’s face at the thought of anything going wrong with the royal’s fitting, and that won out over Jenna’s desire to walk straight to the front of Tie the Knot and greet Lorenzo with a punch in the nose right before she called the cops and then hauled her stepmother to the back of the shop for a heart-to-heart.
“Don’t look so nervous,” Jenna said, doing her best to keep her own nerves under control. “You’re in good hands, I promise. Go and put on your tux while I talk over the wedding plans with Arianna and Serena.” She shooed him off, waiting
until he was in the fitting room with the curtain closed.
“What is it?” Arianna asked, leaning back to look down the hall toward the front of the shop.
Lowering her voice to a whisper, Jenna said, “I understand why you don’t want a scene—”
“No, it’s not that I don’t want a scene, Jenna. I can’t afford one. So just get in there with Logan and keep him there,” Arianna said, steering Jenna toward the changing room.
Jenna dug in her heels. “Wait. You don’t understand.” She quickly filled them in on what Shay had learned about Lorenzo.
“Okay, so as soon as we get rid of them, I’ll call the police. And then, once Lorenzo is locked up, we’ll talk to Stepmother Dearest—” Arianna’s eyes went wide at the sound of a familiar accented voice coming their way, and she pushed Jenna toward the fitting room. “Don’t let Logan out until we tell you the coast is clear. He’ll cause a scene for sure.”
Of course he would, because Logan and his cousin Aidan believed Lorenzo was responsible for the break-in at the manor. Still… “He’s changing,” Jenna hissed at her sisters.
Serena whipped open the curtain, and Arianna shoved her inside.
Jenna fell into Logan, her hands landing flat on his bare chest. “Hi.” She looked down and quickly looked up again. “Sorry. I’m just really anxious to see you in your tux.” At least he had boxers on. She lifted her hands and took two steps back…into the wall. “Well, this is a little tight, but we’ll have to make do. We don’t want Isabella to get a look at you in your wedding finery before the big day.” And from the continuous chiming from the front of the shop, the rest of the royal entourage had arrived.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes, although it is a little warm. I’ll just take this off,” she said, attempting to get out of Shay’s leather jacket without hitting him.
“Turn around,” he said, helping her out of the jacket when she did as he said.
“Thank you.” She faced him with a bright smile and put the jacket on the chair in the corner. “Now it’s your turn.” He gave her a look, and her eyes went wide. “No, that’s not what I meant. It’s your turn to put on your tux. It looks lovely, doesn’t it?” She leaned in. “What color is it?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Powder blue.”
“Powder blue.” She pressed her lips together to keep from laughing, but it didn’t work.
“Yeah, powder blue.” He stepped into her, his hard body brushing against hers. She could smell his cologne and feel his heat. “So, do you want to tell me why your sisters want you to keep me in here?”
“I can’t.”
“You sure about that?” he said, his fingers trailing over her cheek as he tucked her hair behind her ear. He leaned closer and bent his head, his lips lightly brushing her ear as he whispered, “Don’t lie to me, Jenna. Tell me what you’re hiding.”
She fought the urge to turn her face so that his lips would be on hers, to wrap her arms around him. “Maybe they thought it was a good time for us to talk about…your song. You know, the song you’ll sing to Isabella. I’ve heard it’s a Gallagher tradition.”
And it worked, just like she knew it would. She’d reminded him of the woman he was about to marry, a woman he was supposed to be so in love with that he had a song just for her. A song that would tell the world how much he loved her.
He stepped away, and she felt cast adrift without an anchor.
She heard footsteps, and then his mother’s voice came through the closed curtain. “Logan, darling, what was the name of the man whose photograph you were passing around to the security guards this morning?”
He held Jenna’s gaze. “Lorenzo Romano.”
“Lorenzo. I thought it sounded familiar. I’m almost positive it was the man who was just in Tie the—”
Logan whipped back the curtain.
Chapter Twenty
Logan sat on the beach with the rocks at his back, a guitar on his lap. The full moon’s path shimmered across the water as the waves rolled lazily onto shore. It was a beautiful night, warm with the smell of woodsmoke on the air from a bonfire he could see flickering on a distant shore. It was a night that should be spent with the woman he was going to marry in his arms. Only Isabella had no interest in spending the night on the beach, and Logan wanted the wrong woman in his arms.
He strummed his guitar, waiting, hoping for inspiration to strike. Jenna had been right. So far, each of his cousins had serenaded his bride on their wedding day. It was expected now, the ultimate expression of the groom’s love for the woman walking down the aisle toward him. And the last thing Logan had wanted to be reminded of when he’d been pressed up against Jenna earlier. He wondered what would’ve happened had she not brought it up. He knew what he wanted to happen.
Kissing her had been pretty much all he’d thought about since last night in her room—kissing the icing from her lips at the cake tasting, kissing the scowl from her face when she looked over from the Harley to give him attitude, and kissing her when they were together in the fitting room.
With her body pressed tight to his, he’d come really close to giving in to his desire. He might have had his mother not interrupted them, alerting him to the reason Jenna had decided to join him in the changing room in the first place—Lorenzo Romano. A man Logan couldn’t remember but had heard and read enough about to want to go a few rounds with him. Supposedly that’s what Jenna had been protecting him from. He neither bought the excuse nor liked it.
He plucked at the guitar strings, feeling more than just pressure to come up with a song. Jenna wasn’t the only one who was lying to him, and it was becoming more obvious as each day went by. He’d been down there half the night, racking his brain for the lyrics that would fit with how he felt about Isabella. There was a reason he couldn’t think of any. He didn’t love her. He barely knew her, a woman he was going to marry in a week. He was torn between confronting her or keeping up the charade for a few more days to get a better idea of what was going on in case Isabella’s life was in danger.
After all, he’d been hired and paid well to protect her, and there’d been the kidnapping attempt months before. Was this just a deeper layer of protection made possible because of his amnesia? Or was he putting off confronting Isabella because this was his dying mother’s dream come true?
A bouncing beam of light caught his attention, and he slowly put down his guitar, careful not to make a sound. There were guards posted around the grounds, but this wasn’t a member of the security detail. He’d put himself on the rotation tonight. He had a two-way radio and turned off the volume so as not to alert whoever was coming onto the beach. For a second, he thought it might be Isabella taking him up on his earlier offer. The woman was slight and about her height. His reaction to the thought was telling. As was his reaction seconds later when he realized who the woman was.
Jenna bent down, her profile captured in the lantern’s light for a second before her auburn hair fell forward. She murmured something, set Pippa on the sand, and then turned with her back to him, looking out at the ocean. She wore a simple white cotton nightgown that fell to her calves. The light from the lantern gave subtle hints of the body beneath. His breath hitched when she reached down to gather the hem of the nightgown in her hands, a whisper of sound as the fabric slowly moved its way up, revealing an inch of smooth, silky skin and then another. There was nothing he’d rather do than sit back and watch her strip in the moonlight, but…
“Jenna, you’re not alone.”
She screamed, pressing a hand to her chest. “Sweet baby Jesus, you nearly gave me a heart attack.”
“And everyone else in a mile radius.” He turned on his radio and let the security team know everything was all right. Pippa raced across the sand toward him. “She scared you too, did she?” he asked as he picked up the peep and brought her to his chest. “She’s awfully cuddly for a bird, isn’t she?”
Jenna walked over and sat down beside him, leaning in to rub her cheek against Pippa�
�s head. He looked down at her hair spread across his chest, the temptation to stroke the shiny red mane difficult to resist. His stomach muscles tensed in response to her hand resting on his abs. She went perfectly still and then slowly withdrew her hand and sat up. “She’s only a few weeks old. I’ve had her almost since she was born.” She glanced at him. “You were with me when I found her. You and Poppy.”
Given how she looked at him and the reluctant way in which she made the admission, he figured it had something to do with the night they’d spent together at the beach. “I wish I remembered.” She had no idea how much. “How did we find her?” His voice came out rough, thick with emotions that he shouldn’t be feeling, especially on a warm, sultry night drenched in moonlight. He cleared his throat.
“Poppy had heard that a nest had been found on the beach and had come to take pictures. Baby sandpipers have always been a big deal in Harmony Harbor. Anyway, she kind of found us at an awkward time—”
“We weren’t—”
“No! We were on a public beach, and it was morning.”
He grinned at her outraged expression. “Good to know we were at least a little circumspect.”
“I wouldn’t go that far. You had clothes on, but I didn’t.”
“Really? That doesn’t sound very considerate of me. I should’ve done a better job protecting you.”
“You did a very good job protecting me that night. At least two times, and then—”
“I don’t know if I’d classify practicing safe sex as doing a very good job protecting you, Jenna.”
She placed a hand over her face. “I wasn’t talking about sex and condoms.”
“We did use one though?”
“Yes, we did. But I was talking about everything else you did to protect me that night, not only from Lorenzo but from falling off the pole at the bar and breaking my neck.” She made a face. “And for the record, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you Lorenzo and Gwyneth were at Tie the Knot. I don’t exactly agree with how Arianna and Serena chose to handle it, but I wasn’t about to argue with them.”