Between Honor and Duty

by Charlotte Maclay

  She glanced at Logan across the table from her. He seemed content with the silence between them. Despite his occasional teasing ways, he was a serious man. Oddly studious for a firefighter. Not at all the devil-may-care bachelor that Jay Tolliver and Mike Gables had been until their recent marriages. Someone who held in his emotions. A man she could rely on.

  Perhaps that’s why his silence felt comfortable. She didn’t feel a need to be anything except herself. A single mother with two children who appreciated his friendship.

  “I hope you’re not being generous with both your time and your money because of survivor’s guilt.”

  “Nope.” His smile crinkled the corners of his eyes and to her delight, a crease appeared in his left cheek, a dimple of happiness she hadn’t noticed before. “We’re here because I’m addicted to pizza.”

  She forced herself to concentrate on the conversation instead of his slightly lopsided grin. “I thought you were totally into gourmet cooking.”

  “Everyone needs to go slumming once in a while.”

  She barked a very unladylike laugh. “Thanks a lot!”

  “No, I didn’t mean—” He leaned forward, covering her hand with his. “How about if I admit I enjoy your company? And your kids, too, of course. I think Ray was a fool to have even looked at another woman.”

  She felt a stab of pleasure, then chided herself for being flattered by his comment. For being so needy and vulnerable. He was probably only trying to make her feel better after the day’s revelations. Doing a good job of it, too, she mused. Although no one would be able to soothe entirely the knot of pain Ray’s infidelity had caused her, or the self-doubt that maybe she was partly to blame.

  Regretfully, she slid her hand from beneath his.

  “I want you to know I’d never blame you or anyone else in the department for Ray’s death. Fighting fires is a dangerous business. It comes with the territory. Ray knew that. So did I. The business with the blonde—” Her gaze slid away from his so he wouldn’t see the depth of her pain. Or her confusion because she felt she should be even more angry than she was. “That sort of blindsided me. I should have recognized the signs. His second job was so demanding.”

  As though not sure what to do with his hands, he toyed with his fork, practicing the magic trick he’d showed the children, pretending to bend the fork and straightening it again. “You sure he had another job?”

  “He came home with cash periodically. Sometimes as much as a thousand dollars at a crack. He said he was getting paid under the table. His boss wanted to save taxes, you know.”

  “What was he selling?”

  “I, ah…He was a little evasive about that.” She wondered if all women with cheating husbands put their heads in the sand, or if she’d been the only fool. “But if he didn’t have a job, where did he get the money?”

  “When we were going through your credit-card records, I saw a lot of charges from Las Vegas.”

  “That was part of his sales terri—” Her jaw dropped open like a cartoon character’s as realization dawned. “Gambling. He got the cash from gambling.”

  “I’d say that was a fair assumption.”

  She glanced toward the children. They were playing on the same game together, a pair of cars racing along side by side on an electronic highway that was weaving and bobbing in front of them. Janice felt suddenly sick to her stomach.

  “At least he was winning,” she said. “The extra money he brought home—”

  “I’d say he would have been lucky to break even. Vegas thrives on losers who keep going back to make up their losses.”

  Covering her mouth with her hand, she groaned. Maybe that’s why he hadn’t paid the insurance premium. He’d already spent the money. Dear God, why hadn’t she paid more attention to their finances?

  Because Ray hadn’t wanted her to. Worse, he’d been keeping secrets from her. Living a whole other life. How long had that been going on?

  “I’m going to have to track down every one of those bank accounts we have—or had—to see if there’s any money left in them. What a nightmare.”

  “You’ll get it straightened out.”

  “Ray never thought I was smart enough to handle the books, or so he said. But he was lying, wasn’t he? About everything.”

  “You’re plenty smart enough.”

  With that simple statement of encouragement, he bolstered her spirits. “You know, I had almost two years of college when I dropped out to marry Ray. My grades were pretty darn good, too.”

  “What was your major?”

  “Nothing very useful, I’m afraid. History. In retrospect, accounting would have been a better choice.”

  His lips slid into one of those smiles that brought a catch to her throat. “History wasn’t exactly one of my favorite classes.”

  “I loved hanging out at the library poring through old books looking for some arcane fact that nobody else knows or cares about. I’d probably be pretty good at writing up trivia questions but not much else.” Tired of the smell of cold pizza, she stacked their plates on the pizza pan, shoving the mess farther down the long picnic-size table.

  “I can think of a lot of things you’d be good at.”

  Her head snapped up. Surely she hadn’t heard Logan correctly, or at least had misinterpreted the low, throaty sound of his voice, the sexy way he’d spoken. There was no reason her heart should have skipped a beat or her breathing gone shallow on her. He wasn’t being flirtatious. That wasn’t his style. Besides, why would he be interested in her?

  “How long were you married?” she asked. “Not that it’s any of my business.”

  “Less than a year. We were far too young when we got married. I was a probie, just starting my probationary period, still feeling my way on the job.” He paused while a busboy cleaned up their dirty dishes and gave the table a haphazard swipe with a dirty rag. “Torie didn’t know what to do with herself on the nights I was working. Instead she just fretted about me, afraid I’d have a terrible accident. She started having really bad dreams and claimed she couldn’t sleep while I was gone.”

  “Strangely, though I suppose all firefighters’ wives know there’s a chance their husband will die on the job, I more often pictured Ray jogging around the track at the park or working out down in the gym, not fighting a fire. I suppose that’s some kind of a self-protective mechanism so I didn’t go crazy with worry.”

  “Torie’s inability to cope with my job wasn’t exactly healthy, I suppose. But I don’t plan to put another woman through that same ordeal.”

  Janice suspected if the right woman came along, he’d change his mind. Logan was so steady and down-to-earth, he should be a family man. A husband and father. But he was making it abundantly clear he had no plans to tie the marital knot anytime soon.

  Neither did she, at least not until she proved to herself she could make it on her own. Then maybe, years from now, she’d consider marriage again. She hoped the next time around she’d find someone as steadfast as Logan.

  “How about Torie? Is she still in the picture at all?”

  “I heard she got married a couple of years ago—to a man whose idea of fun is watching reruns of old sitcoms. A regular couch potato.”

  She choked and began coughing. “She certainly isn’t into risk-taking, is she?”

  “A woman can have a lot to lose.”

  “In Torie’s case, I think she must have a high tolerance for boredom when it comes to men.” With a shake of her head, Janice pushed her chair back from the table. She couldn’t imagine trading a marriage to Logan for the sake of security alone. “Let’s see if we can stop the drain on your supply of quarters. It’s time to get the kids home, and I’ve got to call the head of the soccer league to tell him Kevin’s team has a couple of brand-new coaches.” She eyed him across the table. “Unless you’ve had a change of heart.”

  Slowly, he stood, and her gaze followed him up to his impressive height. “Once I make up my mind to do something, I generally follo
w through.”

  Every instinct in her agreed that was true. He’d never go back on his word. He’d be loyal to a woman—or his friend—even at the cost of his life.

  Once upon a time, despite the circumstances of their marriage, she’d believed that about Ray, too. Obviously she’d been wrong. In her case, intuition wasn’t a reliable yardstick.

  She’d be wise to remember that. And wise to keep in mind Logan’s vow never to marry again.

  A FEW MINUTES LATER, just as the summer sun dipped below the coastal hills and cast the neighborhood into twilight, Logan pulled his Mustang up to the curb in front of Janice’s house.

  “Hey, Mom, what’s that guy doing with Dad’s car?” Kevin tried to shove the passenger seat forward before Janice managed to open the door and get out.

  “I don’t know, son, but I intend to find out.” From the looks of things, a tow truck had backed into the driveway, the driver in the process of hooking up the convertible to haul it away. Stealing it.

  Fury ripped through her as Janice got out of the car. Damn it! She’d be happy enough to see Ray’s grownup toy gone, along with the reminder of his infidelity, but she needed the cash she’d get from selling the car. Needed it badly.

  Logan was several steps ahead of her, striding toward the thief. “Something we can do for you, fella?”

  The scruffy tow-truck driver with stringy gray hair combed over his bald spot and wearing half-zipped, sloppy work pants, lifted his hands. “Take it easy, mister. This is all legal. I’ve got the court order in my truck. I’m repossessing this baby and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

  “You’re what?” Janice cried.

  “How ’bout I take a look at the papers,” Logan said calmly. Despite his shorts and T-shirt, he was an imposing figure of a man as he kept walking forward. The tow-truck driver retreated a step.

  “Mom, don’t let him take Dad’s car!”

  She physically restrained Kevin before he went after the stranger, too. “Stay back, honey. I’ll…I’ll take care of this.” Surely of all their bills, Ray would have kept up the payments on his precious car. Unless he’d gambled away all of their money. Dear God, what would she do if that was the case?

  Maddie latched onto Janice’s leg. “What’s happening, Mommy? I’m scared.”

  Hobbled by both of her children, Janice could barely move. “Don’t worry, honey. Everything will be fine.” She never lied to her children. Now seemed like a good time to start.

  Keeping a cautious eye on Logan, the interloper edged toward his truck. He reached inside the cab and produced some official-looking documents. “It’s all here,” he insisted. “You’re months behind in payments. I can’t do nothin’ about it now, but if you wanna see the dealer after I haul the car off, maybe you can make a deal.”

  Logan made a show of studying the papers, but Janice knew deep down in her gut what he’d find. Ray hadn’t been paying the bills. Any of them, she guessed.

  “Let him take the car,” she said with a dull sense of failure. Why hadn’t she known? Why had he lied to her? Betrayed her?

  “But Mom!” Kevin whined.

  “Hush, honey. We don’t need Daddy’s car anyway. We’ve got the van.” She forced a smile that made her cheeks hurt and almost broke her heart. “You’re not quite ready to drive yet. One car is plenty for us.”

  The keen disappointment in her son’s eyes hurt even more than the knowledge of her husband’s infidelity. How dare Ray hurt their son! How dare he betray them all!

  Logan handed the man back his paperwork. “Can she get any personal possessions out of the car?”

  “Sure.” With a relieved look, the stranger gestured toward the car. “Help yourself.”

  “I got everything I needed this afternoon,” Janice said. Given a choice, she would have burned the purple thong panties hours ago but the scent of melting nylon would have made her sick to her stomach.

  She looped her arms protectively around her children. “Come on, guys, it’s getting on toward your bedtime. Logan’s going to make sure no one hurts your dad’s car.” She sent him a pleading look, and he nodded. “In the house, both of you,” she repeated to the children.

  They objected, but she herded them inside, talking to them about school the next day, asking if Kevin had done his homework, which she knew he had. Anything to keep them from hearing the creak of the tow truck lifting their father’s car off the ground, pulling it out of the driveway, the throaty sound of the truck’s transmission as it accelerated away with the convertible dangling behind it. God, Ray would have hated that.

  It was his own damn fault!

  Janice hadn’t realized how much anger she’d been holding inside as she got her children into bed. Not grief but rage that Ray had left her. Deserted her. And dumped a world of problems on her shoulders that should have been his to solve.

  She wanted to scream so badly her throat ached, but that would only scare the children…and she was terrified that once she started screaming she might not ever be able to stop.

  Downstairs again, she whirled when the back door opened. Logan stepped inside.

  His gaze swept over her with more caring, more concern than she’d ever seen in her husband’s eyes.

  “I keep asking you if you’re all right,” Logan said, “and that’s got to be the dumbest question of all.”

  Without requesting permission, he crossed the room and took her in his arms. He was warm and strong, his body lean and muscular. She clung to him as though he were a life raft in a stormy sea. She desperately wanted to be independent, succeed on her own. But for the moment, she needed someone, needed to be weak. Later, she told herself, she’d be strong. She’d find a way to survive. But not right now.

  Her body quivering with a raw mixture of anger and need, she inhaled deeply. Logan’s spicy scent. The residual smell of car soap. And something that was uniquely his own—tough and masculine, heroic yet amazingly gentle.

  Forcing herself to lean away, she looked up into hazel eyes so dark they had become a deep brown. Her hands rested on his biceps. So strong. Powerful. She fought the urge to wrap her arms around his neck, kiss him. Invite him into her lonely bed.

  She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed being held. Being intimate with a man.

  “God help me,” she murmured, her feminine need and what she saw in his eyes warring with her good reason. It had been years since she’d responded to a man this way, that achy sensation of need building from somewhere deep inside.

  Forcefully, she put that thought aside and tried to focus on the myriad problems she faced. “After all of this, I’ve got this awful feeling another shoe is going to drop.”

  Chapter Five

  Two days later, Janice shaded her eyes with her hand to watch Logan walking across the schoolyard toward the soccer field. He had the look of a long-legged, loose-limbed cowboy, but she knew on a playing field or in a crisis he’d act swiftly. No question, she could get seriously addicted to seeing the man in shorts. Odd that she’d never realized what fascination muscular legs held for her.

  Kevin and his teammates were jogging around the field to warm up before the scheduled practice. Logan said something to them as they passed him by, and the boys picked up the pace. He kept strolling toward her.

  “Hey, coach,” he said as he drew closer.

  His easy, sexy smile made her wonder if all of his body parts, including his sensual lips, held a special interest for her. Kissable lips, neither too thick nor too thin, and she shouldn’t be thinking like that. “Hi, yourself.”

  “Looks like you’ve got things underway.”

  “The league director loaned me a book—first warm-ups, then basic skills like dribbling and passing. After that we can have a scrimmage.”

  “Bet the guys would rather start playing right off.”

  “They’d pull muscles if they didn’t warm up first,” she said confidently. After all, she’d already read through chapter three. “So I laid down the law to them. My
way or the highway.”

  He grinned at her. “You’re gonna make a great coach.”

  “Oh, you—” She took a half-hearted swing at him, her hand connecting lightly with his arm. “You were pulling my leg, weren’t you?”

  “Now there’s an idea with a lot of merit.”

  A flush stole up her neck to heat her cheeks. She had no right to react to him this way. She had enough problems without asking for more trouble—manwoman trouble she was no expert at handling.

  Before she spoke again, she glanced across the schoolyard to where Maddie was playing on the climbing apparatus with a couple of neighborhood youngsters—safe and unaware of the turmoil that had been roiling through Janice the better part of the day. Then she turned back to Logan.

  “The other shoe dropped today.” She tried to say the words lightly, as if the entire remainder of her world hadn’t collapsed on her with the mail delivery.

  A neat V formed between his brows. “What shoe?”

  “A letter came for Ray from a Las Vegas casino. It seems he had rotten luck at the tables. He was in the hole almost as much as his state death benefit.”

  She named the six-figure amount of Ray’s gambling debt, and Logan swore. “How can that be? Who the hell extended him that much credit? Firefighters don’t make that kind of money. Somebody should have stopped him.”

  “Evidently that’s not the casino’s policy. And I hope to God Ray played at only one casino.”

  “Maybe you’re not liable—”

  “The letter was very threatening—just short of broken knee caps, reading between the lines. I don’t think anyone gets off the hook simply by dying.” She folded her arms across her chest as if she could stop the terror from building within her. Her life had turned upside down, her security vanishing like water through a sieve. At the rate bad news kept pummeling her, there was a real possibility she and her children would be homeless. But she had to hold on. Her kids were depending on her.