by JoAnn Ross
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You didn’t have to.” She held the door so he could carry the wood outside, then knelt down to open up the toolbox. “I can hear the judgment in your voice.” She pulled out her cordless drill and handed it to him, then poked through the contents of the box until she found the jar of screws. She also found a tiny metal flashlight and flipped it on, but the batteries were dead. She tossed it back into the toolbox.
His shoulder held the plywood against the building as he took the jar and flipped off the lid. “Believe me, I’m in no position to judge anyone.” Finding a few screws that satisfied him, he set the jar on the ground, then lifted the wood into place. In seconds, he’d secured it. Then he went back inside for another sheet, came out, and repeated the process. Soon, there were three large sheets of wood covering the gaping hole.
“Might as well wait until it’s light to clean up the glass inside,” he said as she came out with a push broom to clean off the sidewalk as best she could. He reached for it, but she didn’t let go.
“I’m perfectly capable of sweeping up the mess.”
“And apparently, you’re capable of building your own stock shelves,” he said, and deftly slipped the broom handle from her grasp. “I noticed you didn’t say that you and Sara planned to have shelves built, but that you planned to build them.” He shook his head a little. “Who would’ve thought?”
Annie crossed her arms and leaned back against the covered window, watching him work. She enjoyed it a little more than was comfortable.
Logan Drake had always been impossibly good-looking. Now, in dark jeans and a leather jacket, with his hair messy, his jaw bristled, and his hands capably dealing with wood and power tools, he was lethal. “You’re a chauvinist,” she observed faintly.
His laugh was short. “If that means I think men have a duty to protect women, then I s’pose I am.”
She looked away from the way his jacket gaped against his chest. “But women aren’t capable of protecting men?”
“Didn’t say that.”
“Or that men can’t protect men? Or women protect women? And I’m not talking about personal relationships, here.”
He paused, lifting his head to watch her through the darkness. “Neither am I. And believe me, Annie, there are men who’ll protect men at all costs.”
Disquiet sneaked through her, displacing her unsettling preoccupation with his physical appeal. There was something decidedly dark in his tone. “Speaking from experience?”
She thought he wouldn’t answer. He began pushing the broom again. Then finally his motions ceased. Just for a moment. He looked at her, and she felt as if that look seeped into her very pores, filling her right down to her toes with a strange sense of sorrow.
“Yes,” he said quietly. “I speak from experience.”
Chapter 6
“Heard you were back, Logan.”
“Good to see you back, Logan.”
“Finally came home, eh, Logan?”
How many times had Logan heard variations of that particular comment? And how many times had he shaken his head and assured the greeter that he was only visiting?
Too damned many.
It was well after midnight and the community center—a hive of activity for hours—was now nearly silent. A dozen lanterns had been placed around the large interior to help save the load on the generator that would have to last for who knew how many days. Now, the lanterns were dimmed as low as they could go without being extinguished, and in the faint glow they emitted, Logan looked around.
Victims of the storm were settled in on cots, borrowed sleeping bags and donated bedrolls. There were no crying babies at the moment and no more gales of laughter that more often than not had verged on the edge of hysteria.
Outside the still-open community center doors, the fireplace was dark. Despite the protective dome, the flame hadn’t been able to sustain itself when the rain went beyond mist to drops, to deluge. He could still hear the rain, but now there was no damaging wind, no lightning strikes.
At least he’d managed to get the sheet plastic down in time over the holes in Annie’s roof, though it’d been close. He’d managed only because Maisy had sent her handyman, Leo Vega, along in a golf cart to help him soon after he’d finished up with the boards over Island Botanica’s window.
While Annie and Riley stayed in town and continued helping out where they could, Logan, Leo and a half dozen other men from around town had made the rounds, including Annie’s place. They’d covered windows and roofs, using up even Annie’s leftover plywood on the worst, but some places had been damaged beyond repair.
And despite the work that had required all of their energy, there had still been plenty of talking going on.
Some things about Turnabout didn’t change at all. The grapevine was one of them. Without trying—and he had definitely not been trying—he’d heard about Dante Vega being up for parole again, about Diego’s latest bass-fishing trip and about the looker who’d arrived barely a week ago to stay at Maisy’s Place who seemed extraordinarily curious about the people and places on the dinky island.
And once they’d gotten on the subject of females, the talk really took off. From Darla Towers who’d just gotten a divorce because she was bedding any guy who’d smile her way, to Annie Hess who’d freeze out any guy stupid enough to look her way.
With a little pressure, Logan learned from Leo that he’d been working on getting Annie to go out with him for more than a year, with no success.
Even though he knew Leo—several years younger than his brother, Sam—from way back, Logan had wanted to nudge the guy off the roof they’d been covering. He’d satisfied himself with the egging comments Leo had gotten from some of the other guys that maybe Annie Hess’s refusals of Leo had more to do with her good taste than with a lack of passion.
Logan rubbed his hand down his face, brushing away the thoughts. It seemed a helluva lot longer than twenty-four hours since he’d been in Will Hess’s office, thinking he’d been given a convenient opportunity to make up for a long-ago sin by retrieving Will’s runaway daughter.
Annie sat down beside him with a rustle of her baggy denim jeans. She let out a long sigh, then tilted her head to look at him.
The wetter it had gotten outside, and the drier inside, the wavier her hair had become. Now, in the lantern glow, it looked as shining as moonlight, as soft as spiraled cotton.
Little more than twenty-four hours, he thought, and he had sinning on his mind all over again.
“You okay?” Her voice was barely a whisper.
He was a damned fool, is what he was. “Yeah.”
She stretched out her legs, then a moment later drew them back up. Nervous energy radiated from her, and she betrayed it further with the hand she brushed through her hair, causing the curls to spring even more fully to life.
Her hair always had been incredible. He still remembered the way it had felt winding around his fingers when he’d sunk his hands into it. As if it were yesterday instead of more than a dozen years ago.
He quietly thumped his head against the wall behind him.
“I can’t believe the storm nearly leveled the Seaspray Inn.” Her soft voice pulled at him. “It’s a miracle there weren’t more injuries. I heard the man who had a heart attack during the storm is doing well, though, at your dad’s clinic. Dr. Hugo’s been working nonstop.”
“A real saint,” Logan drawled.
Her gaze glided over him, snagging when it met his. She moistened her lips, and pushed her hand through her hair again, looking away.
“Maisy had some vacancies,” Logan told her. He knew he was keeping the conversation going only because he wanted her to look at him again, so he could see the soft, pink sheen of her lips. “The guests displaced from the Seaspray have filled her cott
ages to the top. Some of the residents took in people, too.”
“I heard. I don’t know why, but I always have to remind myself that you and Sara are related to Maisy Fielding.”
“By marriage.” He held a lot more fondness for Maisy than he did for his own father, that was for damned sure.
She’d closed her arms around her up-drawn knees and she rested her cheek on top of them. Her hair drifted over her shoulders. “She and your father are an item, you know. They have been for some time now.”
“I’ve heard.” It had been yet another topic for gossip during that evening.
“What do you think about it?” If possible, her voice was even softer.
“I thought she had better taste.”
“What’s the problem between you and your dad, anyway?”
He looked at her.
“Well, you pretty much know what the problem was between me and my parents.” She was matter-of-fact. “I was a total screwup where they were concerned.”
“Sitting on the floor in the big building in the middle of the night must make you feel chatty.”
Her lips twitched. She turned her head, looking around. “The cots and bedrolls are all used up.”
“I saw Riley with some other teenagers watching a few toddlers.”
“Yes. She asked if she could stay here, keep helping with the children tomorrow while the parents continue the cleanup. She seemed genuinely interested in helping. I figured it was okay.”
He frowned, wondering if it was his imagination, or if Annie really thought she needed to justify her decision. “She seems like a good kid.” Despite worrying her entire family and the devil-take-you attitude. The few kids he’d ever had cause to have dealings with had definitely not been of the “good” variety. And having Riley in the middle of several dozen Turns was about as safe a place as she could be.
“She is good. And maybe if she feels useful, she won’t try anything foolish again.” She fell silent for a long moment, then abruptly rolled to her feet. “Well, I’m out of here.” She pushed back her hair again. Lifted her lips in a bad imitation of a smile and started to leave.
He rose, grimacing at the stiffness in his joints from sitting on the floor. He caught up with her near the still-opened doors, stopping her short with a hand on her arm.
Her wary gaze skipped over him, taking in the room beyond them. “Is there s-something you need?”
“A bed.”
“Well, all the cots are used, I think, but maybe there’s a—”
“Spare bed at your place,” he interrupted her. “If Riley’s here tonight that means you’ve got a spare.”
Her curls shimmered in the pale-gold light as she shook her head. “No. Absolutely not. I appreciate everything you’ve done today, but...no.”
He saw several heads rise up from sleeping bags and cots to look their way. He waited long enough for them to settle back down before he spoke again, keeping his voice low. “There’s no floor space left to sleep here, and your house is in better shape than some.” He had no desire to sleep on the floor in the community center, though he’d slept in worse places. But tonight, he was determined, and it had a lot more to do with Annie than with finding a softer place to rest his old bones. “It’s the least you can do after today, don’t you think?”
“Sleep at Sara’s place.”
“According to the manly gossip-session I was blessed to hear, Sara doesn’t own a bed. She sleeps in a hammock. And how the hell Leo Vega knows that is something we’ll have to have a talk about later.”
“No.”
“You’re going to turn away an old friend, Annie? The brother of your best friend?”
She gave a little start, and took a step back. “We’re not friends, we’re hardly acquaintances. And if anybody else said that, they’d sound like they were whining.”
He almost laughed at that. They both knew he wasn’t whining. And they both knew he wouldn’t be dissuaded. Lastly, he wasn’t going to get into an argument about “what” they were.
Annie Hess was not going home alone tonight. They had unfinished business, and he wanted that rectified before he took Riley back where she belonged. “I’m coming with you, so pocket the outrage for now—unless you want to stand here and keep whispering as if we’re ten-year-olds cheating during a math test. I want a bed. You’ve got one.” And he’d be smarter this time around. Which was maybe why he was so determined. To prove he could be stronger, smarter, than he had been before.
She jerked her arm out of his hold and spun on her heel. Her tennis shoes squeaked loudly against the hard floor as she hurried through the doorway, which drew another round of lifted heads and curious eyes.
She was standing by the cold fireplace when he followed. He pushed the doors nearly closed, then held up a small key ring. “Leo’s golf cart.” He started toward the vehicle.
“Did he lend the keys to you, or did you browbeat him into it?” She hurried after him, her voice an angry whisper above the soft scuff of their shoes on the wet, grass-sprigged gravel.
“Does it matter?” He slid into the cart and turned the key. The motor turned over with a faint whine. “Get in. You’re getting soaked again from the rain.” He felt around on the dark panel in front of him for some sort of light, but apparently the old cart didn’t come equipped with one.
“I suppose this is another example of how you protect women?”
“It’s a fact that I intend to sleep on a reasonably comfortable, reasonably dry mattress tonight,” he said.
She finally huffed, then moved around to the driver’s side. “Move over,” she said flatly. “I don’t want you driving off a cliff, and you won’t be able to see the road at all considering how dark it is.”
“I doubt the road has changed in the past fifty years,” Logan countered, but he moved to the passenger seat. She climbed in the driver’s seat, setting the cart into motion with a jerk. Then she twisted the wheel, veering around a bicycle lying on the gravel.
“When’s the last time you drove?”
“Shut up.”
His lips twitched with a jolt of amusement. That was more like the Annie he knew. She’d been a firebrand. Set on having her way, no matter what obstacles she might encounter. Including him.
His comment notwithstanding, however, she did drive capably, unerringly, despite the bumps and potholes, the mud puddles and storm debris. And she didn’t say a word to him. It was as if she were pretending he wasn’t beside her, their thighs and shoulders brushing whenever she hit a bump in the road.
Shortly after she turned down the gravel lane toward her little beach house, she veered around the palm tree blocking it, took a short cut to her front door via the patch of waterlogged lawn, and stopped so abruptly he figured she lost a foot of turf under the wheels because of it. She slipped from behind the wheel. He heard, more than saw her disappear inside the house. The latch of the closing door was barely audible above the beat of rain, and he wished that she’d just slammed the door instead.
The Annie of old would have done that.
This Annie, the one who lived the quiet existence he’d heard about again and again that evening, was something—someone—he didn’t have a handle on yet.
Logan ran his hand down his face. Slicked back his wet hair. Sighed.
Then he followed her inside.
She’d already lit a few candles—probably the same ones he’d taken from her dresser earlier that day—and they sat on the breakfast bar, casting a small glow that danced off the modest furniture to birth a dozen shadows. He headed down the hall, stopping short when she stepped out of the bathroom, the flashlight in her hand. She turned it on and aimed it at his face.
“How much did Will pay you to come get Riley? Whatever it is, I’ll pay you double. If you’ll just go away. As soon as the ferry is run
ning again, I’ll make sure she gets home myself.”
“Thought you didn’t want to force Riley into going where she didn’t want to go.” Will had told him that.
“Yes, well, obviously I was wrong. She’ll be safer at home. So...how much?”
He narrowed his eyes against the glare of light. “I didn’t take anything from Will. My time is not for sale.” Which wasn’t strictly accurate. “And even if it was, you couldn’t afford it.” Which was definitely accurate.
She made a scoffing sound, and he grabbed her hand, intending to redirect the beam of light away from his eyes.
But he felt her hand shake.
He gentled his movement, sliding his fingers around hers, slipping away the flashlight with his other hand and turning the beam toward the floor.
“Are you cold?” It was dry inside the house, and chilly, but not nearly as bad as it was outside. “Too bad you don’t have a fireplace.”
“I’m not cold.”
He tightened his hand around hers. “You’re shivering.”
“Fine, then. I’m cold.” Her tone was short. She tugged her hand away from his, and turning sideways slid past him toward the smaller of the two bedrooms.
He heard a thump, a muffled oath, the squeak of a drawer. He directed the flashlight through the doorway to see her dump something bulky on the box spring. A quilt, he guessed.
“You’ll need to get the top mattress out of the bathroom,” she said, and moved past him again. “Since I have no idea how you fitted it in there in the first place. And I doubt it’ll be very comfortable anyway. The side that was up during the storm is filthy.”
She was all business.
Except that she’d been shivering. Trembling.
And her hand had not been cold.
“I’ll manage,” he murmured. She’d headed back to the candlelit kitchen. He watched her crouch down on the floor next to the fallen cupboard and ruined dishes. She didn’t go for a broom, didn’t reach out to rescue any salvageable items. Just sat there, hunkered down on her heels, strands of her hair gleaming in the dim candle glow, her arms wrapped around herself.