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

by Dorothy St. James

  I crouched down and snatched a tampon out of his hand. “Let me do that.” I tried to push him out of the way. But my hands landed on his bare chest. His skin felt warm. Enticing.

  Oh heck, it didn’t matter how attractive I found him since he was so not interested in me.

  Interested or not, a sexy, masculine smile curved his lips as his gaze dropped to where my flat palms pressed against his rock-hard abs.

  Men and their egos.

  I tossed my hands in the air and reeled back so quickly, I fell on my butt. His smile grew a little wider. I was sure he knew too well the affect he had on women.

  “I’m only trying to help gather up your things.” He dropped a tube of red lipstick into my purse.

  “You can help by giving me back my phone.”

  “Sorry, Sammy Jammy. Can’t do that. Not until I know what kind of trouble we’re in.”

  “No one calls me that. Not anymore.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “It’s not like I’m thirteen.”

  “I can see that.” His voice grew husky again. His eyes darkened as he looked me up and down as if seeing me for the first time. “You certainly have—”

  “What’s going on, Logan?” Looking the way I did, like something you’d dig out of your sink’s trap, his scrutiny made me nervous and itchy. I didn’t want to hear him comment on my appearance. I’d much rather hear him try and explain his own actions. “What were you doing at Global Tech? Why were you using someone else’s identity? Why are you so good at lying?”

  He spread his hands. “It’s complicated.”

  “Is it? Or is it illegal?”

  “It’s...” Whatever he was going to say seemed to get stuck in his throat. “Look, I know this is going to be hard for you to believe, but I need you to trust me when I tell you that your life is in danger. I can’t fully explain why. I don’t have clearance. You see, the agency I work for is top secret.”

  “You’re telling me you’re a spy?”

  He nodded.

  I laughed. “A spy?”

  He nodded again.

  “Come on. You expect me to believe you’re like James Bond running around saving the world?”

  “Something like that.”

  Crud, he looked cute with those Caribbean blue eyes of his, especially when they were sparkling with that boyish wide-eyed innocence. Part of me wanted to buy into the story he was spinning for me. How could I not fall for it? He had to be telling the truth. Right?

  Wrong. He’d used the exact same innocent schoolboy look on the executive back at Global Tech when he’d sworn his name was Forest Hibben.

  “A spy?” I snatched my purse from the floor and jumped to my feet. “If you can’t be honest with me, I’m not staying.”

  My dramatic exit would have been brilliant if I were wearing shoes, makeup, a freshly pressed dress, and if the front door hadn’t stuck in the frame. I yanked and yanked on the doorknob before the door sprang free. As soon as it did, Logan slammed it closed again.

  “I can’t let you leave.” He leaned his warrior-sized body against the door and folded his arms over his chest. His bare chest.

  “Why? Why can’t I leave?”

  “Because it’s not safe for you to go home right now.”

  “Why? And don’t you dare lie to me again.”

  He groaned. “What can I tell you to make you believe me? I know you don’t like lies.”

  “You remember?”

  “Of course I remember. I also remember how you were the bravest girl I knew, much braver than I ever was. You’d demand the doctors and your parents tell you the truth about your prognosis.” He lowered his voice. “I never wanted to hear anything like that. I didn’t want to know that the treatments had stopped working. It broke my heart when you told me how you only had weeks to live, a month at the most.”

  “That’s when our parents hatched that silly plan to get us married.”

  Logan pursed his lips as if he wanted to say something.

  Another secret?

  “What?” I demanded.

  Instead of answering, he closed his hand around mine and led the way toward the sofa. “Let’s sit down. Please, Sammy Jammy. I’ll tell you what I can about what’s going on. I promise.”

  Chapter 7

  Logan couldn’t remember ever feeling this...dizzy. What had he been thinking? More importantly, what was he doing?

  It’d taken a Herculean effort on his part not to kiss Sam. Watching the look of awe spread across her beautiful face as she’d gazed out at the setting sun over the city had been his undoing. He’d been pulling off his shirt, intending to grab a quick shower and change into his battle gear before all hell broke loose on the Global Tech front. He knew it was only a matter of time before trouble came knocking on their door.

  But then he saw Sam. The warm light of the setting sun had made her sun-kissed skin glow. In that moment he’d never wanted a woman as powerfully as he’d wanted Sam.

  But what could he do about it? She was engaged to be married. And he knew she was an honorable woman. He was an honorable man. At least he tried to be.

  His honor had been sorely tested in the last several minutes.

  “She’s your wife,” a voice in his head had whispered relentlessly. Shouldn’t he be able to kiss his own wife?

  “Hell.” He dredged a hand through his hair.

  “What? You don’t have to get upset about this. I mean, you can trust me with your secrets. I’ve never told anyone what you told me the night of the storm.”

  “Those weren’t secrets.”

  Instead of sitting next to him on the sofa like he’d wanted her to do, she paced the length of the room. He should have been glad she was keeping her distance.

  He wasn’t.

  She stopped pacing and shook her head sadly. “No, they weren’t secrets, were they, Logan? They were dreams.”

  She was right. They were dreams he’d never thought he’d live long enough to pursue. He’d lived. And yet, he hadn’t pursued any of them.

  “Silly childhood dreams,” he murmured.

  “They weren’t silly. They were beautiful. Did you get to hike the Grand Canyon? Or spend a year in Paris?”

  Those had been just two of the ten things he’d wanted to do before he died. There was another one that stuck out in his mind, the one she hadn’t mentioned, the one that had always been on the top of his list—he’d wanted to get married and have a family. He’d wanted a life.

  “No, I haven’t done any of those things.”

  “Really? None of them?” She appeared surprised. Without seeming to realize what she was doing she sat down next to him on the sofa and tucked his hand between hers. “Why not?”

  He shrugged. “I guess after getting out of the hospital, I never really thought of that silly list again.”

  That wasn’t quite the truth. He’d put aside his dreams the day she’d disappeared from his life. Thinking of them, remembering those times, only made him think of Sam. And that had been the last thing he’d wanted to do.

  He’d been convinced she’d died and that no one had been brave enough to tell the poor dying boy that his best friend in the world had lost her fight to live.

  His dreams had perished with her...or so he’d thought.

  He suddenly wanted to check off every single item on that list of his, especially the dream to get married and have a family.

  “We should,” he said clasping her hand tightly in his. “Once all of this is over, we should hike the Grand Canyon.”

  She stared at him. Her lips parted slightly.

  “It’d be fun. And afterwards we could hop a flight to Paris.”

  She pried her hands away from his. “I’m getting married in eight days.”

  Like a splash of freezing water. Or a kick in the face. Logan recoiled from the dangerous feelings that had made him completely lose his mind. “Of course, you are. It was stupid.”

  “It wasn’t stupid. It’s sweet. And you�
�re stalling, Logan. What’s going on in your life that has men shooting at you?”

  What could he tell her that wouldn’t put her life in even more danger?

  “After retiring from the military, I took a job with a private security firm. Well, partly private and partly an outsourced firm for the government. Almost all the work we do is confidential.”

  “Talk and they’ll kill you sort of thing?” She laughed.

  “Actually, it’s run by some great guys. They really care about the work we’re doing.”

  “Which is?”

  “Mostly contract work for the government.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “It’s the best I can do. As I said, most of it is classified.”

  “Okay. Then tell me what you were doing at Global Tech. Don’t tell me our government hired you to carry out corporate espionage in our own country.”

  “This is where things get murky.”

  Sam tucked a strand of her blonde hair behind her ears as she edged closer to him on the sofa. “Murky how?”

  “Several months ago, Rafe and I worked on a security project for Global Tech. We were tasked with testing their security system. Companies do it all of the time, hire experts to try and break in either through their computer system or with boots on the ground or both.”

  “So that’s what you were doing there? Testing their system?”

  “Not exactly. I was breaking into their system.”

  “To test it.”

  “No. We’d completed our job with them weeks ago.”

  She paused. “Then what were you doing there?”

  “I was breaking into their system.” He grabbed her hand again before she could call him a thief. “But it was for a good reason.”

  Without even realizing what he was doing, he started to trace small circles on the back of her hand with his thumb. The silkiness of her skin reminded him of cool satin sheets.

  “When we were performing our tests for Global Tech, Rafe and I spotted a few...er...irregularities in their network. Those irregularities made me suspect that they might be up to something...er...illegal.”

  He loved how intently she listened to him, how her big brown eyes gazed at him. Even Rafe had scoffed at his suspicions. And the upper brass at Hart Security had told him he was looking for devils where none existed. They’d then offered to send him to a shrink.

  “You needed proof,” she whispered. “That’s what you were looking for today, wasn’t it?”

  He nodded, surprised how quickly she’d understood his thinking. It suddenly felt like not a day had passed since the last time they’d been together. They were still so in sync Sam could practically read his mind.

  His gaze shifted from her eyes to her lips, her pretty plump lips. They were no longer a bluish tinge like they’d been when she’d lived at the hospital. Now they were a dusky rosy color, the shade of his favorite flavor of sherbet.

  “Did you get it?” she asked.

  Get what? Oh, right. The Global Tech recon. “No. I wasn’t able to retrieve anything from their network that I can take to the feds. But thanks to my little break in, I now know what they’re planning to do, and when. Unfortunately, I ran out of time and wasn’t able to download the proof. Or wipe it from their system.”

  “Because I barged in.” She screwed up those pretty lips of hers into a frown. Somehow it only made him that much more eager to put his lips on them, to taste them. “I bet you wish I had stayed dead.”

  “No.” He leaned a little closer to her. Close enough that he could feel her soft breath on his face. “Never that.”

  She placed her hand flat on his chest again.

  The moment her lips brushed his, she jerked back as if she’d tasted fire.

  “C-could you put a shirt on? Please?” Her voice sounded oddly strained.

  He glanced down at his state of undress. “Oh. Right.”

  Damn, what had he been doing? She was engaged. To another man. He hadn’t been thinking. At least not with his brain.

  Double damn.

  He dredged his fingers through his hair. He hadn’t meant to parade around the apartment in nothing but those uncomfortable polyester pants. Nor had he meant to almost kiss her.

  “Sorry.” He’d dated scores of beautiful women over the years. They served as vacations from his dangerous high-pressure job. Stress-relievers. Some were damn good at relieving his stress, too.

  But he’d never let his attraction for a woman distract him from his work. And he’d never let his libido go into overdrive as it just had from simply sitting next to Sam.

  “I can’t seem to...” he started to say, moving closer to her again instead of doing the smart, rational thing and getting as far away from her as possible.

  Sam didn’t move. Her pupils grew wide with what he hoped was a similar yearning coursing like lava through his veins.

  His pants suddenly got tight and uncomfortable as his desire for her grew stronger still.

  “Oh, Sammy Jammy. I can’t tell you how glad I am that you are alive and are sitting—”

  The secure phone that had been tucked in an inside pocket of his ugly blazer chirped. When he’d ignored it, it just kept chirping.

  With a silent curse, he reached over and grabbed the blazer he’d dropped on the arm of the sofa. He retrieved the phone from its pocket.

  “Don’t move,” he whispered.

  But the spell had already been broken. She scooted as far away from him as the sofa would allow. And as if that wasn’t far enough, she rose and then walked all the way across the room and into the kitchen attached while Logan read the phone’s text message.

  It was from Rafe.

  911. URGENT.

  Right. Global Tech. Sam’s life could be in danger. He shot up from the sofa, grateful for the interruption. If not for Rafe’s texts, Logan might have acted on those urges he had no right feeling. Worse, he might have made the deadly of mistake of getting emotionally involved during a mission. Something stupid like that would likely get Sam killed.

  “I’ll be right back,” he rasped.

  Chapter 8

  The chilly autumn air smacked Logan in the face as he fled, like a man running from a pack of wolves, onto the apartment’s tiny balcony. He welcomed the cold. The taste of the coming winter did a good job of freezing out the desire raging inside of him.

  Just sitting next to Sam had made him feel as horny as a teenager. Like he was fourteen again. Only this time around, he was healthy enough and skilled enough to do something about those urges.

  “But I’m not going to do anything,” he said aloud, hoping that by putting voice to what he needed to do would help it seep into that thick skull of his. He needed to stop thinking about Sam and what he wanted to do with her. He needed to stop thinking about pulling her down onto the sofa and...and...

  With a frustrated growl, he punched in the number for Rafe’s cell phone.

  “Talk to me,” he said to Rafe who’d answered the call on the first ring.

  “We’ve got trouble, dude. Jason is out for blood. Your blood. And he’s talking with Thacker to work out how to get his hands on you.”

  Ben Thacker was one of the founders and CEO of Hart Security. And while the top brass generally supported their field agents, Logan couldn’t imagine Thacker being pleased with Logan’s latest off-the-book mission.

  “We have to get something tangible against Global Tech that we can hand over to Thacker,” Rafe continued. “Tell me you can quickly get your hands on something. Anything. No matter how small.”

  “No can do, Rafe. As I already told you, I didn’t have time to download the files. But I was able to read the code. It’s a virus inserted into Global Tech’s virus protection app. As computer and cell phone owners update their programs the virus will be downloaded with it.”

  “Do you know what it’ll do?”

  Logan closed his eyes as he tried to remember the lines of code he’d seen. He’d needed more time on Global Tech
’s system. He’d needed a chance to download the damn thing, so he could study it and what it intended to do. “I think it’ll open up every computer and cell phone that’s using Global Tech’s programs, making them vulnerable to outside attacks.”

  Rafe whistled. “Isn’t it estimated that about forty-five percent of all the computers are using their software?”

  Logan mentally flipped through the stacks of files he and Rafe had collected regarding Global Tech. “That’s worldwide. In the US, the number is closer to seventy percent. And many of those computers are in banks, at the stock exchange, and very recently on all the federal government’s computers.”

  “What will a virus like that do to air traffic control, the department of defense, and our intelligence agencies? A terrorist organization could strike during a security blackout and no one would know who did it or be able to respond. This is bad, really bad.”

  “You don’t have to tell me that, Rafe.”

  “Come on. Tell me you managed to get some piece of proof? We need proof.”

  He shook his head. Of course Rafe couldn’t see him moving his head so he added, “I was lucky to get out of there with my own neck.”

  “Then we’re back to your word against Global Tech’s. And you’re the one who broke into their high security server after we’d been paid to make certain their systems and offices were secure. You know how bad this looks?”

  Logan uttered a creative curse. He was surprised to see the water vapor float in the air from his breath. “Yeah, I know.”

  Rafe’s voice grew shriller. “Now when this virus gets activated—”

  “In nine days,” Logan said. The day after Sam’s wedding.

  “Nine days?” It was Rafe’s turn to start swearing albeit in his native Spanish. “That doesn’t give us any time. You know when it gets activated, Jason can and will point his finger at you. He’ll tell the world you were the one who uploaded it into everyone’s system. You were the one who activated it several days later. Poor victimized CEO of Global Tech. Even though the company tried to do everything to keep the public protected, big bad wolf Logan Dalton and Hart Security broke in and planted the tool to put an end to the world as we know it.”