Ms. Starr’s Most Inconvenient Change of Heart (A Raven's Run Romantic Mystery Book 1)

by Dorothy St. James

  “Wait. I need you to sign—” I tried to dig my heels into the carpet, but despite his nerdy looks, he was strong. Crazy strong. He continued his march, dragging me along with him. “You can haul me wherever you want, buster. I’m not letting you get away from me again.”

  He stopped and looked at me. Really looked at me. From head to toe. Not in the creepy way the executive had looked at me. Not like he was trying to peer down my dress. This was different. It was such an intense scrutiny I could feel his eyes on me as surely as I’d feel his caress. My mouth turned suddenly dry.

  “Your signature,” I said. Those two words came out way too breathy. I cleared my throat. “I really—”

  “Why did we lose touch?” The question seemed to burst from his mouth without his permission. His dark eyebrows knitted. “I mean, we were good friends. The best of friends. Hell, apparently, we were truly married. So how is it possible we didn’t even know if the other had lived or died?”

  Before I could even begin to explain what had happened at the hospital and why I’d left so abruptly, he shook his head and tightened his grip on my arm. “It doesn’t matter. As soon as I finish this project I’ll contact you and sign whatever you want me to sign.”

  I couldn’t let him just push me out the door. I needed to get this done. “Just sign the—”

  “Right now you need to go. I’ll look at the papers later. I promise.” He pressed a quick kiss on my forehead.

  My entire body tingled in response to that silly little kiss. “You did promise you wouldn’t die and managed to keep that promise.”

  “That I did.” He flashed a crooked smile.

  Legs that shouldn’t feel at all noodlely stumbled over themselves as he gave me a gentle push toward the exit. I windmilled and did a little hop-trip dance just as the double glass doors swung open.

  Before I could find my balance, my face landed in the lapels of the slick executive’s perfectly fitted Zenga suit.

  “Oh! Excuse me,” I said as I struggled to peel myself off his chest. When my gaze reached his face, he didn’t look half as handsome as I’d remembered.

  Perhaps his good looks completely disappeared whenever he scowled. Or perhaps his allure had disappeared because he was no longer alone. Standing behind him in the long, beige hallway were half a dozen beefy men dressed in black. Every single one of them held a rather large and deadly looking assault rifle at the ready.

  “I-I know I’m not supposed to be here. But I was just leaving,” I stammered. “That is, as soon as I get Logan here to sign my papers.”

  “Logan?” The executive’s eyebrows rose. “So, your name is Logan, not Forest Hibben our IT expert out of Texas?”

  “What? No, I’m Forest.” Logan held out a name badge that had the name Forest Hibben clearly printed next to a photo of Logan’s face.

  “Then why did your wife call you Logan?”

  It was Logan’s turn to scowl at me. “She’s not my wife. I’m not married.”

  “Not your wife, eh?”

  “Do you think someone like her would marry someone like me?”

  “She said she did.”

  “Then she’s delusional, Jason. A shame, don’t you think? She’s beautiful.”

  “Really? You think I’m beautiful?” Sure, I knew it was the dress with its power to defy gravity that made me appear beautiful. In normal clothes I was simply my plain-Jane skinny-girl-self. But I was touched, truly touched to hear Logan, my dear not-dead Logan, say the words.

  “Believe me, Jason, I would have remembered if I’d hooked up with a hottie like—”

  “So, she’s not your wife.” Jason made an impatient sounding sort. “Fine. I believe that. What I don’t believe is that you’re Forest Hibben.” While keeping his gaze locked on Logan, he reached into his inside suit pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. He unfolded the paper as he spoke. “I had our Texas branch email a security picture. This is Forest Hibben.”

  He shoved a picture in our direction of a heavyset African American man with tiny wire-rimmed glasses perched at the end of his long nose.

  The man in the picture was definitely not Logan.

  Chapter 3

  “Clearly the Dallas office sent the wrong picture,” Logan said cool as anything after glancing at the printout. I could never have gotten away with such a bald-faced lie. My cheeks always turn red and blotchy.

  It is the truth or nothing for me. Heck, simply listening to Logan lie to a man who had an army crowded behind him made my face feel like it had just burst into flames.

  Jason—who looked downright ugly with that snarl—must have noticed my near combustion. He suddenly turned his probing attentions to me. “If this guy is Forest Hibben, why did you tell me his name is Logan?”

  “Because-because—” Not only did I have no talent for getting away with lying, I also didn’t have the imagination to come up with a plausible lie.

  “Well?” he pressed. “You don’t have an answer for that, do you?”

  “She doesn’t because she thinks my name is Logan,” Logan answered for me. He rubbed the back of his neck. “I-er-well, I lied to her about my name. I think that’s why she’s turning purple.”

  Logan quickly held up his hands like shields as if he expected me to sock him in the jaw.

  If I hadn’t been so busy trying to figure out where he was going with his endless string of lies I might have socked him.

  “Now hear me out, I can explain,” he said quickly. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. And I sure as hell didn’t expect you’d think that Vegas marriage ceremony was real. I mean, we were having fun, right? Yeah, so I’m not Logan Dalton.” He turned back to Jason. “Logan is my old college roommate. We trade names all the time. You know, for protection against—”

  “Against what?” I couldn’t stop myself from demanding even though I knew he was Logan.

  “Against this.” Logan gestured toward me with what could only be described as a frenetic spurt of frustration. “You shouldn’t have been able to find me. Not here. Not in New York City.” He then turned toward Jason whose snarl was only growing nastier by the moment. “It’s the crazy ones. Why do they have to be so pretty? They’re like bloodhounds. Am I right?” He laughed nervously.

  Neither Jason nor anyone in his army of guards joined in on the joke and laughed with him.

  “Fine. Fine.” Jason hooked his thumb in my direction. “Your story might explain her. But it doesn’t explain why your face doesn’t resemble Forest Hibben’s. I’m mean come on. You’re not even Black.”

  “Jason, Jason, I already told you. They obviously sent the wrong security photo. That’s Greg Thornton. Does he look like he knows anything about computers? Well, he doesn’t. He works in Accounting.”

  “Accounting?” Jason’s scowl remained locked in place.

  Even so, Logan nodded like a wide-eyed innocent choirboy. “He’s a genius with numbers. But talk with him about a string of computer code, and all you’ll get is a blank stare.”

  “If you’re telling the truth, then you wouldn’t mind taking a little trip down to security to check your story out with the Dallas office.”

  “I don’t mind,” Logan said with so much confidence I started to wonder if his name was Forest Hibben. Good gravy, am I chasing down the wrong man?

  “I’m glad to hear it.” Jason relaxed his tight expression just a bit. “Let’s go.”

  “Sure.” Forest—I mean, Logan—gave me a little shove toward the door again. “And I’ll thank you, darling, to not sneak into high security buildings just to torment me. We had fun. But we’re not married. And really, no one thinks stalking is cute anymore, especially when it might cost me my job.”

  “Wait,” I said, shaking the divorce papers and his pen at him. “You didn’t—”

  “Don’t worry your pretty little head about losing sight of your boyfriend,” Jason drawled as he tried to leer down my dress’s front again. I instinctively pulled it up, which only managed to boost “the girls” an
d make them more prominent in the dress’s amazing push-up front. “I’m not letting you go anywhere.”

  “What? Why?” Logan sputtered. “Haven’t you been listening? She has nothing to do with this job or with me. She’s just some crazy chick I picked up at a bar one night. The sooner I get rid of her the better, you know?”

  “It might be better for you. But no one is leaving until I’m satisfied I know exactly who you are and what you did with our computer system.” He nodded to the men with the guns. One of them started to advance on me.

  I stepped back, but there was nowhere I could go. The elevators were down the beige hallway, past the crowd of armed men.

  “Dammit.” Logan swung and punched Jason in the jaw hard enough that he knocked the slimy executive backwards through the double glass doors and out of the computer room. Without even pausing to take a breath, he delivered a perfect roundhouse kick to the advancing guard’s head.

  The guard dropped to the ground like a brick. When the unconscious man landed, his finger squeezed the assault rifle’s trigger. A short rat-a-tat of bullets peppered the room.

  I screamed like a girl and leapt into the air. Don’t ask me why I jumped. I don’t have a clue.

  Logan didn’t even seem fazed by the attack or the gunshots. Moving at lightning speed, he snatched up the assault rifle and jammed it through the double door’s handles, locking the guards out of the computer room. And us in.

  “Come on!” he shouted as he darted across the room and back to the computer he’d been working on. “Sam! If you want to live, move those feet of yours!”

  He cursed as he scooped up two slate gray backpacks that were on the floor next to the computer desk.

  My feet wanted to move. I’m sure they did. But they didn’t. Fear had frozen me to that spot right in front of the double doors with the angry Jason and his armed guards a few feet on the other side. Time seemed to slow as I watched one of the guards raise his rifle.

  I stared directly down the barrel.

  Still, I couldn’t move.

  Logan grabbed me around the waist and tossed my stunned body over his shoulder just as the gun fired and the glass in the doors shattered.

  I screamed again. It wasn’t my finest moment. Not even close. In my defense, no one had ever shot at me before, so I hadn’t had a chance to perfect my response.

  My heart pounded painfully in my chest as Logan hauled me toward a small metal door at the back of the room. Since I was bobbing up and down as he ran, I had a good view of what was happening behind him. I watched in horror as the guards thundered through the threshold of the shattered doors.

  “Don’t let them get away!” Jason cried, which only encouraged the guards to start shooting again.

  Bullets flew past my head so close I could feel the breeze they made in the air.

  With a curse, Logan swung open a metal door and tossed a black cylinder toward the guards in the computer room. He then ran into the back stairwell and kicked the door closed behind us. Not a heartbeat later, a loud explosion shook the walls.

  “A flash bang,” he muttered. “It’ll slow them down, but not for long.”

  Although we were no longer in the computer room with the armed madmen, the narrow utility staircase didn’t feel like much of an improvement. As Logan moved in the tight space, my head banged against the plaster wall.

  “Let me down.” I pounded on his back, the divorce papers clutched in my hands crinkling even more.

  “No.” He started to take the stairs two at a time.

  “Wait.” I pounded on his back even harder. “You’re going up.”

  “To the roof,” he confirmed.

  “Are you crazy? We’ll be trapped.”

  “We’re already trapped. You don’t think they’ll just let us waltz down these stairs and out the building, do you?”

  “But up? I think we should be going down. Definitely down.”

  “Shh...” He smacked my butt.

  “Hey! Watch those hands.” I would have said more, blistered his ears for acting too friendly, but we’d reached the top of the stairs. I twisted around to see the metal door that greeted us there.

  Logan jiggled the doorknob. It was locked. We’d reached a dead end.

  “Dead.” Like us.

  “Not yet,” he said. With one well-placed kick, he had the door open. Holy cow, what kind of geek knows how to do that?

  “Stick close to me.” Finally, he set my feet back on the ground. Just as I’d feared, we were on the building’s roof.

  A blast of chilly air tinged with rain hit me in the face as I followed him to the edge of the building. He leaned over the high parapet wall, peered down, and then turned back toward me.

  “How’s your heart these days?” he asked.

  “Not-not so good.” I could barely catch my breath. My heart was beating so hard I was afraid it might burst through my chest. “Those men. They’re—they’re shooting at us. W-why?”

  He frowned at me. “What do you mean your heart isn’t doing so good?”

  “I mean those men were shooting at us!” I screeched.

  “But your heart...you’re not going to—?”

  “Die? No, not unless I get shot, which seems inevitable at this point. What is going on? Why did you tell that man your name was Forest? And why are they shooting at us?” I screamed that last part.

  “There’s no time to explain.” He unzipped a pocket on one of his backpacks.

  “I disagree. Now seems like the perfect time.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “It’s not like we have anywhere to go. If you haven’t noticed, we’re stuck on the roof. Men with guns will be here any moment. In that direction is a very, very long fall. So, humor me. I’d kind of like to know before I get shot why you lied about your name. And, I don’t know, why are those men going to kill you...and me?”

  “It’s a long story.” He looped the straps of the backpack through his arms and...and...hopped up onto the roof’s very narrow ledge.

  “Wh-what are you doing?” I demanded. “Get down from there!”

  I knew I shouldn’t, but I couldn’t stop myself. I stood on the tips of my toes, so I could peer over the top of the parapet wall. “For Heaven’s sake, get off there before you fall!”

  “Don’t worry. Remember I always have an escape plan at the ready. Even at the hospital, I always had an escape planned out.”

  “Yes, that was when we were kids. You were only plotting escapes from the doctors. Not from angry gunmen. And I’d like to remind you we’re sixty-five stories above the ground.”

  “Probably seventy stories now,” he corrected.

  “That’s even worse. Please, get down from there.”

  “No.” He held out his hand to me. “This is our escape route.”

  “What? I’m not sure you heard me.” I flapped my arms in frustration. “We’re seventy stories above the ground. I’m not going to jump off this building with you. It’d be suicide.”

  “Samantha, trust me.”

  I stared at him. Glared, really. His gaze held steady. His hand remained outstretched for me to take.

  “Trust me,” he repeated.

  Those two words, softly spoken despite the situation managed to turn back the clock fifteen years. Back when we were simply two scared kids stuck in a hospital with no hope of a future. Night after night he’d sneak into my room and whisper in my ear, “trust me,” before leading the way on some grand and forbidden adventure.

  Hearing those two words again melted me just a little.

  “What the hell,” I said and stepped onto the wall. “I’m sure you’re not going to have us jump to our death. Right?”

  Instead of answering, he pulled me close to him. So close, there was no room between me and his rock-hard chest. From this vantage point I was able to peer down, down, down at what was going to be my certain and painful death.

  But, of course, we weren’t going to jump.

  That would be crazy.

  His nimble fing
ers worked to loop a strap around my middle and hooked both ends to his backpack. With a quick tug, he pulled the strap so tight it felt like our bodies had been melded into one.

  “You’re sure your heart is okay?” His arms tightened around my middle.

  “It-it’s from a healthy donor and—”

  “A heart transplant?”

  I nodded. “From a healthy donor. It’s supposed to last fifty years or so...if I live that long.”

  “You will.” He pressed a quick kiss to my lips.

  And then jumped.

  With me tucked tightly against him.

  He’d jumped off the freaking building.

  Chapter 4

  Samantha screamed.

  From seventy stories up Logan’s one and only love—the girl who’d forced her way back into his life at the absolute worst moment—shrieked with raw terror. In. His. Ear.

  Even after the parachute had opened, she kept screaming.

  He wondered if he’d ever hear properly again.

  Even so, he enjoyed how she’d wrapped her slender arms and shapely legs tightly around him. Like she would never let him go.

  Yeah, right.

  Fifteen years ago, she’d disappeared at a low point in his life. His leukemia had taken a turn for the worst. The treatments had left him constantly sick and wishing he could escape from his body. It had been a time when he’d needed his best friend more than ever. And she’d left him. Checked out of the hospital without even saying goodbye. Without even sending him a note or a forwarding address.

  Nothing.

  A few weeks earlier she’d sworn, just as he had, that they’d stand by each other and love each other until their dying breath. But she’d let him go.

  Dammit. Think of something else.

  The memory of her disappearing on him like a thief in the night ignited a firestorm of emotions. He couldn’t wrangle with his feelings and hope to safely guide their parachute through the cavern of buildings in midtown New York. One wrong move and they’d both tumble to their deaths. So, he pushed the memories away.