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

by Dorothy St. James

  Good. His ploy worked, though he suspected he’d pay for it dearly later. Sam had gotten herself well out of harm’s way. He doubted she would have gotten so far out of the line of action if she hadn’t believed Logan had just agreed to sell her. He needed her to be wary of him or else she might have stuck by his side in a charming attempt to protect him.

  And Dave, the pervert, had been distracted by her quick movements. He was now more interested in chasing after Sam than watching the real danger in the room.

  Sure, Logan couldn’t pull a gun on Dave.

  Guns were sloppy. Noisy. He’d had never liked using them. Give him the sharp sting of his flesh slamming against his enemy’s jaw any day.

  Which was exactly what he did.

  It took just one punch to knock Dave, who was already stoned half out of his mind, unconscious. The greasy man fell on the dirty carpet with a thud.

  He looked as if he’d be out for a while, but just to be safe Logan grabbed Dave’s ridiculously large knife and threw it with such force that it embedded itself nearly to the hilt in the wall that separated the kitchen from the living room.

  Since Sam was there and could still get hurt, he then knelt down beside Dave’s crumpled body and took the extra precaution of using the zip ties he’d stashed in his backpack to secure Dave’s hands and ankles.

  Then, and only then, did he dare let his gaze drift over to where Sam was standing.

  Her hands were pressed against her slightly gaping mouth. Her eyes, wide and watery, told him everything he didn’t want to know. His ploy had worked.

  He’d lost her trust.

  Dammit.

  “I wasn’t going to let him touch you,” he said in a low growl. “I would never have let him—”

  “I know that.” She bit off those words like they tasted sour in her mouth, her pretty delectable mouth. Her eyelashes snapped. “I don’t think you’re a monster.”

  “But you do think I’m...something.” Oh, if he could pull back those words. They sounded pathetic. He didn’t want her to regard him as anything other than her ticket to safety. Anything else would make his world that much more complicated. He so didn’t do complicated.

  “I don’t know what you are,” she whispered after a long pause. “You’re not the adventurous little boy I used to know and love.”

  His heart stuttered. Love? Instead of pressing her on that comment or demand she tell him why the hell she’d deserted him all those years ago, he said with a wan smile, “I’m still adventurous.”

  A nervous laugh sprang to her lips. “But you’re not a little boy.” Her deep brown eyes darkened as she gazed at him. “Not by a long shot,” she whispered.

  “We all grow up.”

  “But we weren’t supposed to. Not you. Not me. We weren’t supposed to grow up. We were supposed to die.”

  “Yes.” He didn’t know why his throat felt all tight or why his voice suddenly got scratchy. He coughed. “Things change. People change. It’s the way of the world. And I think we’ve given the cops long enough time to get inside the building. There’s a basement exit very few know about. Let’s get out of here.”

  He grabbed a pair of Dave’s sneakers that were in an untidy heap by the door. Dave had small feet. The shoes would probably fit Sam.

  “Here.” He handed them to her. While she silently pulled them on, he dropped a fifty-dollar bill on the broken side table and made a mental note to text Dave’s sister. She’d free him from the zip ties and get him back into rehab.

  Dave had been an adventurous little boy once, too. And then a damned good soldier.

  Seeing his friend lying on the floor like that made Logan wonder why things always seemed to change for the worse.

  POLICE OFFICERS HAD been posted at the apartment’s exits, but nowhere else. No one saw Sam and Logan squeeze out a small window in the basement’s storage room.

  Although he had friends, hell, close friends on the force, he hesitated to contact any of them. For one thing, he didn’t know how much of the force Global Tech owned. Knowing the NYPD and their strict standards, he suspected Jason controlled very few officers and none of the captains.

  So why had Logan balked at the thought of using his contacts to get Sam and him out of this jam?

  Because he’d learned more than once to be extra cautious about where he placed his trust. Betrayals could strike from anywhere. Even someone who acted loyal could one day walk out of his life, never to return.

  Or return when she needed a fucking divorce.

  No. Hell, no. He wasn’t going to put his life, or Sam’s, into anyone else’s hands. He’d gotten them into this mess. And it was up to him to get them out of it.

  Alone.

  I shouldn’t be alone, dammit.

  He prayed Rafe was still alive.

  If not for Sam, he’d have set out on a rescue mission for his partner. But he didn’t dare leave Sam unprotected. And taking her with him on a mission into the heart of the NYPD would be a sure way to get her killed.

  Which meant Rafe was on his own as well. Logan hated that.

  As soon as they were away from the apartment building and the police, the first thing Logan did was buy a throwaway cell phone from a corner pharmacy. It was the cheap kind that could only send and receive texts and make phone calls, which meant Global Tech wouldn’t have its tentacles in the software. From here on out, he planned to be overly cautious whenever he could.

  Just walking through the streets of this neighborhood made them too vulnerable. The back of his neck prickled at every sound.

  “Had to ditch the car,” he said, hoping that talking would help settle his jumpy nerves. “Wasn’t my car anyhow. It was a company car. Had a GPS in it. So even if the police hadn’t found us, we wouldn’t have been able to keep it.”

  Sam kept her head facing forward as they hurried down the street. She’d been oddly silent since they’d left Dave tied up in his stinking apartment.

  “Hart Security is cooperating with the police.” He was surprised at how bitter his voice sounded. “Apparently protecting their reputation is more important than protecting the world from the virus Global Tech is planning on releasing. Or its agents.”

  Her silence only served to rattle his normally unflappable nerves.

  “I have a friend who’ll lend us his truck. No one at Hart Security knows about him.” Not even Rafe. “So, we’ll be safe in it.”

  Still, she said nothing.

  “It’s just a few blocks away. He leaves the keys in the wheel well.”

  More silence.

  “Are you going to let me keep yammering on like a...like a...like a woman?”

  Finally, she turned that stiff neck of hers and looked at him. The way she stared, as if she were silently accusing him of causing all the ills in the world, made him wish she’d turn her head away again.

  “You’ve always yammered,” she said.

  “Have not.”

  At that she laughed.

  The sweet sound of it melted the tension that had been building in his shoulders. Despite the danger, he stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and stared at her. Did she know how beautiful she looked when she laughed?

  “Bet you talked your way into remission fifteen years ago,” she said, without slowing her stride. “Lord knows it wasn’t the drugs that saved you. I remember you’d talk to the walls if you couldn’t get anyone else to pay attention to you. Heck, I walked in on you in the middle of a lively conversation in your hospital room more than once and you were the only person in the room.”

  Talk about someone who liked to yammer. He’d forgotten how once Sam started talking, it was nearly impossible to get her to stop.

  He’d missed that about her.

  A smile creased his lips as he hurried to catch up. The smile faded just as quickly as it had appeared. His shoulders tightened again when he remembered just how dangerous it was to have Sam around.

  Dangerous, though not only to her—sure, her involvement with him had a
lready put her life at great risk—the danger was also to him.

  He’d faced down terrorists.

  He’d confronted enemies with one thought in their heads—kill.

  He’d even battled leukemia.

  And never in his life, even when it looked as if he wouldn’t live to see the morning, had he felt this scared.

  Sam, and the feelings he had toward her, scared the hell out of him. And he didn’t know what to do about it.

  Chapter 11

  Logan told me he was going to get me out of the city. Just for a little while. I figured we’d end up somewhere in Jersey, which was fine by me since I lived in Jersey.

  By the time we’d left Brooklyn the sun had started to sink over the horizon leaving a shimmering glow in the sky as the city lights grew brighter. My eyes felt heavy. Each blink was longer than the last. The old truck he’d borrowed from his friend jerked and jostled me over every bump in the road. The springs in the bench seat squeaked. It shouldn’t have felt soothing. But it did. I was dozing even before we managed to reach the interstate.

  I’m sure I fell asleep because of the strain from the day. It was probably a protective mechanism kicking in to shield me from having to deal with being shot at, jumping off a tall building, and wanted by the police. How much more could a girl handle?

  And I don’t know how long I’d slept when the truck jumped violently.

  I jerked awake to find the sun shining brightly again.

  “Sorry about that,” Logan said, his voice scratchy from lack of sleep. “Ran right into a monster pothole.”

  “Where are we?” I held up my hand, squinting from the light streaming through the windshield just as the truck sped past a large sign announcing, Welcome to South Carolina.

  “South Carolina?” That couldn’t be right. I turned around in the seat, desperate to read the sign again. But we’d zoomed past it. Certainly, the sign hadn’t said South Carolina.

  “I know a place on a lake,” Logan explained as I craned my neck this way and that still trying to read the back of the sign. “It was my uncle’s cabin. No one will think to look for us there.”

  “In South Carolina? Of course, no one would think to look for us there. Does anyone even live there? I mean, other than toothless hicks and big-haired—”

  “Watch it,” Logan said sternly. He glanced over at me and grinned. “My entire family calls the Carolinas home. Even the ones who’ve moved away.”

  He needed to shave. A dusting of stubble covered his jaw line. His hair was a mess. It looked as if he’d dredged his fingers through it too many times. On him, a lost night of sleep looked as sexy as hell.

  I knew what a lost night of sleep looked like on me, so I resisted the urge to peek in the truck’s sun visor mirror. I didn’t need to see the deep lines etched around my eyes and mouth, the blemishes on my shiny forehead, not to mention the weirdly shaped nose that only creative light and shadow makeup could hide.

  Where was a paper bag when I needed one?

  Forget the bag. Logan was only going to be in my life for a few more hours. As soon as I got new copies of my divorce papers, I could leave him in the middle of nowhere to fight his enemies while I tackled the last-minute details for my upcoming wedding.

  Wedding details that couldn’t wait, which meant I needed to get back to the city. Immediately. If not sooner.

  “So...South Carolina?” My voice warbled as my mind reviewed the items that were at the top of the multi-page to-do list I’d left sitting on my desk in my apartment. In Hoboken.

  Tick. Tick. Tick. Time was running out. “You know we can’t be in South Carolina. It’s too far away from everything.”

  “But that’s where we are.” Logan had turned his attention back to the road. “Don’t worry. We’ll be at the cabin in about a half-hour. And we’ll be safe there.”

  “Don’t worry? Don’t worry? Do you know what it takes to pull off a wedding these days? I took this week off work so I could dedicate every waking hour to making sure every detail is perfect. Per-fect. I still haven’t been able to get the florist to confirm the order of—”

  “Don’t tell me. Purple lavender flowers,” Logan said.

  “Yes. Lavender. How did you know?”

  “You don’t remember? You threw a fit when the hospital gift shop couldn’t get the lavender flowers for our wedding.”

  “Of course, I’d wanted it. It’s a healing flower,” I said suddenly feeling silly. I was repeating history by becoming a demanding bride when it came to the flowers. I wanted to use lavender as the main flowers in the bouquets and flower arrangements.

  Logan glanced in my direction. “Lavender for your new guy, eh?” The rest of his question seemed to hang unspoken in the air. “What in your relationship with your fiancé needs healing, Sam?”

  No, that was probably my imagination. He wouldn’t know to question my relationship with George.

  “It’s a pretty flower,” I said. Not a lie, but an omission of the truth. My relationship with George wasn’t perfect. It was...comfortable, convenient.

  Before Logan could press me on it, I started explaining to him—in great detail—the meals the caterers still needed my input on, the seating charts for the six hundred invited guests that still hadn’t been finalized. By the time I’d finished ticking through the list of work I needed to do today, the truck had bumped and creaked its way down a rutted dirt road and had stopped in front of a rustic cabin buried deep beneath a canopy of towering oaks and pine trees.

  “We’re here,” Logan announced happily.

  “Oh, wait! I almost forgot about the—” I said, remembering a few other items that had to get done.

  “I’ll help wherever I can.” He cut me off mid-sentence. “But let’s get inside and regroup first. I’m bushed from driving all night.”

  I opened the door to slip out of the truck, but he stopped me with a hand on my leg. “Let me go in first and make sure it’s safe.”

  His gun was out. His gaze never stopped scanning as he jumped down to the damp drive. Gravel crunched under his feet as he headed cautiously toward the house.

  I did as he’d asked and stayed and shivered in the cab of the truck. With both doors open, the cool autumn air quickly chased away the heat that had been wrapped around the interior of the truck like a blanket.

  I shivered again and realized it wasn’t the cold that was bothering me. Seeing Logan approach a house he believed safe with such care really drove home the danger he thought we faced. He’d jumped off the top of a high-rise building without so much a tremor of worry. And now he was tiptoeing around a deserted building as if worried ninjas might jump out at him.

  We had to be in deep doo-doo for that to happen.

  I buried my head in my jittery hands and groaned. This was not good. Not good at all. I didn’t have time for one of Logan’s adventures, especially not a dangerous one.

  I couldn’t be stuck out here. I couldn’t waste time dodging madmen with guns.

  But I am.

  Which meant my perfect wedding was doomed.

  George was going to leave me out of sheer embarrassment when I failed to produce the wedding he’d been expecting. And if that happened, my mom would never get her chance to live the life she’d lost thanks to my illness.

  With that last thought, I started to cry.

  Chapter 12

  “What happened? What’s wrong?”

  I was crying so hard, I couldn’t answer Logan. My heart hurt for him. He sounded so scared, so worried. And I couldn’t even pull myself together enough so I could look up from where I’d buried my face in my hands to reassure him.

  Sobbing uncontrollably? Me?

  Surely Logan was counting the hours before he could get rid of me once and for all. I already looked like a fright from the harrowing escapes we’d survived the previous day. Add to that bloodshot eyes and robin-red nose to go with the horror-movie appearance I must have been sporting.

  A bag. A bag. My kingdom for a freakin
g paper bag to pull on over my head.

  I sniffled a bit before offering a sing-song, “I’m fine.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re crying.”

  No matter how hard I bit the inside of my cheek, I couldn’t seem to stop the tears from coming. So, since there was no denying it, I nodded.

  “You never cry, Sam.”

  I finally forced myself to lift my head and meet his kind eyes.

  “You-you don’t know that.” I popped open the glove box to search for a tissue. “Everyone cries.” Hysterically, apparently, when faced with a ruined wedding.

  “No. No.” He shook his head. He seemed to be genuinely worried about my tears. “People don’t change that much. People don’t go from stoically facing a death-sentence to breaking down like a leaky fire hose at the sight of a slightly disheveled cabin. They just don’t.”

  For some reason his reminding me of how brave I used to be made me weep all the harder. I buried my face in my hands again.

  He put his hand on my shoulder. “We’re safe here, Sam. I promise. I checked it out. Twice. We’re safe. That’s the only road in. And I’m sure we’ll hear a vehicle well before they get here.”

  “Th-that’s not the problem.” I sniffled some more.

  “Then what’s wrong? Tell me. I’ll fix it.”

  “C-c-c-can you fix a wedding?” I wailed.

  Silence.

  “It-it’s in eight...no, no, seven days. And I’m n-n-not even in the same state as my wedding party.”

  More silence.

  “And because of you, the p-p-police are now searching for me. They think I'm guilty of a c-c-crime. This is a disaster.”

  When he still didn’t respond, I lifted my head. What I found was a man wearing a tight expression twisted around pure anguish. I sighed. This wasn’t his problem. And it wasn’t fair to blame him for this mess. If I hadn’t broken all the rules and followed him into a high security building, none of this would have happened.