by Jackie Braun
She was tempted now. More than tempted, she decided. And the baby growing inside her wasn’t the only reason.
“Mallory—”
Her mother was gearing up for another depressing diatribe, but Mallory had heard enough. Nothing she’d said to Maude had changed her mother’s mind, but at least Mallory had had her say and experienced an epiphany of her own.
“Mom. I’ve got to go. Logan is waiting for me.”
“You look different,” Logan said as she stood chopping a red bell pepper at the kitchen counter.
She was using the Santoku knife the way he’d taught her, keeping the tip of the blade on the cutting board and levering the rest of it up and down to cut the vegetable. She’d already given the same treatment to an onion and a couple stalks of celery for the shrimp stir fry they were making.
“It’s your fancy lighting.” She used the knife to point to the trio of amber-glass pendant lights that hung above the counter, but a panicky part of her wondered if he could tell she was pregnant just by looking at her.
“No.” His eyes narrowed speculatively. “It’s more than that.”
“You’re making me feel self-conscious,” she warned when he continued to stare at her. “I’m liable to slice off a finger if you keep inspecting me like that.”
He wasn’t deterred by the prospect of bloodshed. “You look…lighter.”
Mallory blinked at that before setting the knife aside and crossing her arms over her chest. “Are you saying you thought I was fat before?”
He chuckled. “Not lighter in that regard. Lighter in spirit I guess is what I mean.”
She made a tsking noise. “Watch it. You’re coming awfully close to analyzing me.”
“Not close. I am.” He plucked a piece of red pepper from the cutting board and popped it in his mouth. “So, what’s happened?”
Where to begin, Mallory thought. She unfolded her arms and decided to keep to the most recent event. “I talked to my mother just before coming here.”
“Oh.” He nodded. “Is that why you were late?”
“Yes.” She wiped her hands on the front of her white chef’s apron, not because they were dirty, but because her palms suddenly felt moist.
“Is she okay?”
“Yes.” Then Mallory shook her head. “No, not really. I feel sorry for her.”
“How so?”
Logan was all doctor now, but Mallory didn’t mind. She’d come to appreciate this side of him. His calm assessments and keen insights. She offered some of her own. “My dad did a real number on her, but it was years ago.”
“Sometimes the passage of time is irrelevant if the hurt was substantial enough.” When she frowned, he said quietly, “I let ten years pass before I found myself in another serious relationship.”
“Because of Felicia.”
He nodded and the revelation caused Mallory to swallow. They had talked about a lot of things since that night in her apartment, but by unspoken agreement, they’d steered clear of this topic.
“A little ironic, huh?” His expression turned sardonic. “I counsel people on relationships, on moving forward with their lives despite adversity or after heartache. Yet I spent the better part of a decade in emotional limbo.”
“You’re not in limbo now.” She rose on tiptoe and kissed him.
“Nope.” He nipped at her lower lip.
“You’ve moved on with your life.”
“Full steam ahead,” he agreed. Then he sobered. “You know, I’m still not sure if I prefer what I’m doing to being in private practice, but for the first time since I went on the air, I no longer feel like a fraud.”
“I’m glad.”
“So, what happened with your mom?”
“She needs to move on. Forget limbo. The woman is in purgatory and she’s only too happy to try to drag me there, too. She’s lonely and bitter and absolutely determined to remain that way.”
“Have you accepted that her unhappiness is not your fault or your responsibility?”
“Oh, I accepted that a long time ago. What occurred to me today when she began lecturing me on the evils of men and relationships—” when Logan’s brows lifted, Mallory inserted “—yes, my mother finds your species to be without redemption. Anyway, when she trotted out the same old saw today, I got so angry that I actually argued with her.”
“You’ve never argued with your mother before? You?” he said again, his lips beginning to twitch.
“Are you insinuating that I’m contrary?”
He leaned forward to drop a kiss on the tip of her nose. “I wouldn’t dare. Now, go on with your story.”
“I’ve argued with my mom about plenty of things, but not about men in general or my dad in particular. I’ve always just let her have her say,” Mallory admitted.
“Avoidance,” he murmured.
“Maybe. Probably.” She shrugged. “But I didn’t think I’d put any stock in her words or that they’d had any impact on my life. Until today.”
“What changed?” he asked softly and reached for her hand. His fingers weaved through hers, a symbol of the bond that had formed between them. It gave her strength and Mallory smiled.
“I changed. I realized that until recently I was a workaholic. I didn’t just enjoy my job, I’d made it the focus of my life to the exclusion of all else. Well, except for loser guys.”
“Present company excluded, I hope.”
“Definitely. The men I dated in the past were…so wrong for me. I knew that, on a subconscious level at least, but I didn’t want to get serious with anyone. I didn’t want to chance a repeat of my mother’s life.” She shook her head slowly. “The funny thing is I was already living her life. Sure, the circumstances were different—no jerky ex-husband, no child to raise without support.” Her heart thudded at that, but she pressed on. “No mediocre job to toil away at because I didn’t have a college degree or marketable skills—but I had become every bit as lonely and jaded.”
“Wow.” He nodded appreciatively. “No wonder you look so light. You shed a ton of baggage.”
“Yeah.” She smiled. “I did.” They both had.
“And you did it all by yourself.” He pretended to frown. “You know, if more people could do what you just did, I’d be out of a job.”
“But I’d still need you, Logan.” She raised their linked hands to kiss the back of his. “Thank you.”
Logan’s smile was gentle, his steady gaze mesmerizing. “For what?”
“For not being a jerk.”
He laughed. “Thanks, I think.”
“I’m starving.” She released his hand, but instead of going back to chopping vegetables, Mallory began to untie the apron strings.
“What are you doing?”
Instead of answering his question, she asked one of her own. “Ever made love in a kitchen?”
“This kitchen?” His voice was hoarse and his gaze darkened when she tossed the apron aside and started undoing the buttons on her blouse.
“Or any kitchen.”
“No.”
“Neither have I.” Her blouse joined the apron on the floor. Her bra was new, a sleek and sexy number that created cleavage with the aid of an underwire. Her stomach was still flat, but her breasts were a little fuller, so she looked good wearing it as well as the matching pair of panties that were under her skirt. She unhooked her cotton skirt and let it slide down her legs. If she’d had doubts about her appearance, one look at Logan’s expression would have dispelled them.
“Ask me again in an hour.” He tugged the tails of his shirt free from his blue jeans and began to unfasten the buttons. She caught a glimpse of his muscular chest and the hair that covered it.
“An hour, huh? That’s a long time. You must be feeling pretty confident.”
Logan moaned. “I’m feeling a lot of things.”
While she was nearly naked, he was mostly clothed.
Mallory appreciated the fact that Logan liked to take his time when it came to intimacy, but his
progress with his shirt was much too slow for liking. She nudged his hands aside and made fast work of the remaining buttons.
Need was building, arcing dangerously between them like the current from an exposed wire.
“A lot can happen in an hour,” he said as she pushed the shirt off his broad shoulders.
“That’s what I’m counting on.”
“A reporter from the Herald is on the telephone. She insists on speaking to you,” Logan’s secretary informed him just after he wrapped up his morning show. “Should I take a message?”
“No.” He smiled, recalling the scene in his kitchen a couple evenings earlier. And the scene in his bedroom later that same night. And the scene in the shower the following morning. If they kept this up they were liable to kill each other. But what a way to go. “Put her through.”
“I was just thinking of you,” he said in lieu of a greeting.
“Really? That’s a surprise.”
And so was the voice on the other end of the line. It didn’t belong to Mallory.
Logan straightened in his seat. “My apologies. I thought you were someone else,” he replied stiffly.
“Obviously. I think I know exactly who you mean. I’m Sandra Hutchins. We met briefly at a charity dinner a couple months back.”
“I remember. Why are you calling?”
“I’d like you to confirm some information for me,” she began. “I recently learned that you were engaged to a Felicia Grant ten years ago.”
Logan had a sick feeling, but he managed to keep wariness from his tone when he said, “Yes. So?”
“You didn’t marry.”
“No, we didn’t.”
“Why?” the woman had the audacity to ask.
“You know, I don’t really see how that’s your business, Miss Hutchins.”
“Infidelity, I believe, was the culprit,” she went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “Miss Grant married another man mere months after your wedding was called off.”
“Old news,” he said nonchalantly.
“Perhaps.” The gleeful note in her tone worried him. “I assume you understand perfectly the reason Miss Grant divorced her husband less than a year after their marriage?”
“I wasn’t aware she’d divorced. She left town almost immediately after they got married, and I saw no reason to keep in touch with her family.”
“Really? No reason?”
Something was off here. Way off. Mallory had dug up this very same information, but Sandra was acting as if she had a huge bombshell to drop. Logan couldn’t imagine what it might be.
“I’m sorry to hear Felicia’s marriage fell apart. Contrary to what you apparently think, I harbor no ill feelings for her, especially after all this time.”
And especially now that he’d fallen in love with Mallory. The past was the past. It was the present and the future he wanted to concentrate on now.
“What about your son? What feelings, if any, do you harbor for him?”
CHAPTER TWELVE
LOGAN couldn’t breathe. He sucked air in through his mouth, but it didn’t seem to make it all the way to his lungs.
“What are you talking about?” he managed after a lengthy pause during which he pictured Sandra smiling gleefully on the other end of the line.
“Little Devon Michael Getty. Well, he’s not so little now. While Felicia’s ex was kind enough to provide the boy with his surname, it’s obvious you provided the DNA. He bears a striking resemblance to you, Dr. Bartholomew.”
A child? A son? No. It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be. Could it?
While nothing made sense at the moment, one thing was clear: Logan was not going to continue talking to a reporter on the record, especially when he didn’t know what he was talking about.
He gathered his scattered wits and managed to sound authoritative when he snapped, “This conversation is over.”
Even before he cleared the radio station’s lobby, he was on his cell phone with his agent. Briefly, he explained the situation, hoping Nina would offer some words of wisdom. Her response was anything but reassuring.
“I knew your getting mixed up with Mallory Stevens was a bad idea.”
“This has nothing to do with Mallory.”
“It’s a different reporter who called you today, but from the same paper. Don’t be naive, Logan. Mark my word, she had a hand in this. What have you said to her regarding your former fiancée?”
“Nothing. Well, very little. She admitted a while ago that she knew about Felicia and was aware of our breakup. She never explored it further. That was the end of it.”
“She didn’t,” his agent stressed. “She handed it over to someone else.”
Logan swore. No. He wouldn’t believe that. “This isn’t about Mallory. For that matter, it’s not even about a damned news story.”
“The one in question could very well cripple your career, not to mention cost you the nationally syndicated television show,” Nina reminded him. “The contract has been signed, but the fine print clearly allows them to yank the plug under certain circumstances. I think this would qualify.”
His agent was paid to think about business and his image, which is why he’d called her. Let her perform damage control. Logan had bigger issues to worry about. My God, what was Mallory going to think when she heard this news? Another thought struck like a blow. Had she already?
“Do whatever you think needs to be done, Nina. I’ll be in touch later. I’ve got to get to the bottom of this,” he said, hanging up even as his agent was still sputtering in outrage.
Did he have a son, a boy old enough to be just as confused and hurt by his defection as Mallory had been by her father’s? He needed to find the truth. For that he had to talk to Felicia. Unfortunately, Logan didn’t know where to find her.
But Mallory did.
Despite the rain, Logan stood on the deck of his sailboat, waiting for Mallory to arrive. After the cryptic phone call he’d left on her office voice mail, he would have understood if Mallory hadn’t come. He must have sounded unbalanced, asking her to meet him, to bring her notes on Felicia, and not to tell anyone at her office where she was heading. He spied her jogging along the dock under the protection of a polka-dotted umbrella and sighed in relief.
Mallory didn’t know what to make of Logan’s desperate-sounding message or their clandestine meeting. But she never questioned going. They had tickets for a Sox game that evening, but he wouldn’t have asked her to break away from work in the middle of the day to meet him on his sailboat without a good reason.
When she reached him, she noted that his hair was wet, his oxford shirt soaked through. Something was troubling him, though his manners were unaffected. He helped her aboard the Tangled Sheets and ushered her below deck.
“My God. You’re drenched.” Even so, she didn’t protest when he pulled her against him. He needed her. That much was clear.
“Sorry,” he mumbled as he pulled away. “Now you’re drenched, too.”
“Don’t worry about me.”
“Don’t worry about you?” He cocked his head to one side. “I can’t help worrying about you. It comes with the territory, you know.” His expression was fierce when he said, “I love you, Mallory.”
“I know. I love you, too.”
“Remember you said that.”
She frowned at the odd request. Some of the old doubts whispered in her head. The voice sounded suspiciously like that of her mother. Though the voice wouldn’t be silenced, she refused to listen to it. “Logan, you’re scaring me. Please, tell me why you asked me to meet you here.”
“You haven’t spoken to Sandra, then.”
Her stomach heaved. It had been doing that ever since she’d retrieved his phone message. She wasn’t sure if stress or pregnancy was the culprit.
“Sandra Hutchens? I go out of my way to avoid her. What does Sandra have to do with this?”
“There’s something we need to discuss.”
Mallory couldn’t agree more. She�
��d already decided she wanted to confide in him about her pregnancy. She’d planned to do it tonight, after the ball game. It was time he knew. She was growing more excited by the day. She wanted him to share in it. Besides, he was an astute man, a doctor by training. He’d figure it out soon enough if she continued to avoid alcohol and munch on saltine crackers to calm her nausea. He’d have every right to be angry with her then.
“You brought your notes, right?”
“Yes.” She reached into her satchel and pulled them out. Other than her editor, no one was privy to what was inside the small spiral notebook. She didn’t hesitate, though, before asking Logan what he needed.
“Felicia’s contact information.”
Mallory must have stumbled back a step. The next thing she knew he was holding her by the arms. “You want Felicia’s number?”
“I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important. Something’s come up.” He laughed harshly. “Actually, Sandra has brought something up. I need to find out if it’s true.”
“What…?” She let the words trail off and fought the urge to pepper him with questions. Now was not the time to turn on her reporter mode. Instead she ripped a piece of paper from her notebook and handed it to him. “Here.”
“Just like that?”
She swallowed, nodded. “No questions asked.”
He kissed her hard and quick. “I’ll let you ask all of the questions you want…later. Right now I have to get to the bottom of some things. It might take a while.”
She nodded, determined to stay strong. “That’s all right. I’ve got to get back to the office, anyway. Can you meet me at my apartment this evening?”
“I’ll come by right after I finish with my lawyer.”
“Lawyer! Are you in some kind of trouble, Logan?” Without waiting for him to reply, she offered, “What can I do? What do you need?”
“I need you,” he said quietly. “See you later?”
“I’ll be waiting.” We’ll both be waiting, she added silently.