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

by Dorothy St. James

  “I trust you’ll keep me safe,” I told him, hoping to bolster his confidence, which had clearly been shaken by Jason’s revelations.

  “I wasn’t talking about this mess. I was talking about you and your upcoming marriage. I think—”

  “The marriage I called off.”

  He nodded. “I’m glad.”

  I bit my lower lip. “You are?”

  A strange feeling, one I’d long forgotten existed, flooded my chest. It felt something like hope. Would Logan be willing to let me into his life? Could a relationship bloom between us?

  “He wasn’t right for you,” he said. “You can do better.”

  My voice trembled a bit as I asked, “I can?”

  With you?

  “Sure, you can. Relax a little. Smile a bit more. And have some confidence in your natural beauty. You’re really beautiful without all that makeup. If you do that, you’ll see. You’ll meet someone in no time. And he’ll fall head over heels gaga in love with you.”

  “He will?” Those flutter hopes that had filled me a moment before suddenly flittered away into the darkness.

  “Of course he will. You don’t need to settle for anyone who doesn’t love you with his whole heart.” He finally turned away from the window to look at me. “You deserve to be loved like that. Like you’ve been knocked down by a hurricane and left trying to catch your breath.”

  Like the feeling I get when I’m with you? As much as I wanted to speak those words, I couldn’t.

  “You’re special, Sam. More special than I think you’ll ever know.”

  “I am?” Then why didn’t Logan want to throw caution to the wind to be with me?

  And what was with these two-word responses of mine? For better or worse, I generally had a knack for letting whatever thought that popped into my head fall out of my mouth. So why couldn’t I tell Logan how I really felt?

  The last thing I wanted to do was jump back into the dating pool. What I wanted was for Logan to open his eyes and see that I loved him. That I’d never stopped loving him.

  Those words refused to form on my lips.

  Logan placed a gentle kiss on my forehead. “You’re perfect,” he whispered.

  I lifted my head with a mind to convey with my actions what my words had failed say.

  But a soothing bong-bong-bong of a Tibetan chime filled the room before my lips had a chance to make their move.

  Logan broke away from me.

  “What was that?” he demanded.

  “My phone.” I found it doing a little dance as it vibrated and chimed on the coffee table.

  “Your phone?” he snapped.

  Had Logan finally decided to return my calls? I checked the screen for the caller ID.

  “You’ve had your phone turned on all this time?” His voice rose a little louder.

  It was my mother calling.

  What could I do?

  I took the call.

  Chapter 27

  “Samantha? Samantha? Is that you?”

  I had to hold the phone away from my head or risk losing my hearing. My mother’s voice, shrill under normal circumstances, shrieked out of the phone’s speaker.

  “Yes, I’m here. And I can hear you fine. You don’t need to shout.”

  “I can’t believe you turned the phone on after I’d specifically warned you not to use it,” Logan grumbled. He’d started to pace.

  I held up a hand. “I can’t have two conversations.”

  “What?” my mother shouted.

  “I was talking to someone else,” I said to her. To Logan I said, “I didn’t use the phone.”

  “But you turned it on,” he countered.

  “Yes, I turned it on. But I didn’t use it. Can we talk about this after I’m done talking with my mom?”

  “What?” my mother shouted again. “You’re with a man? Who is he? What have you done, Samantha? Talk to me.”

  “Sorry, Mom. I’m here.”

  Logan groaned and stomped out the room.

  “What in the world is going on with you? I just got a frantic call from George. He said you left him a voice mail in the middle of the night calling off the wedding. Certainly, that can’t be right.”

  I drew a deep breath. “He’s right, Mom. I called off the wedding.”

  “What?” she screeched. “You can’t do that! It’s only a few days away. Our guests have already bought airline tickets, booked hotel rooms.”

  “George and I, we aren’t right for each other. I need someone who can be there for me, to help me when I need help, to hold me close to him when I need to be held. I’ve been having a—” I didn’t want to get into the details of the misadventures I’d had these last few days. Heck, she didn’t even know about the marriage with Logan. “I-I-I’ve been having a few really bad days. And George, I needed his help. I needed someone I could talk to, someone who could help shoulder the burden with me, but he wouldn’t even return my calls.”

  My mom sighed. “Have I taught you nothing, honey? No man will do that for you. You are the only one you can depend on. You are the only one you should be going to when you need strength. Not a man. Never a man.”

  “Yes, yes, I know that.” But wouldn’t it be nice if it weren’t true? Logan had told me to wait to find a man who loved me. But how would I know if a man loved me, truly loved me? I could only see into my own heart and know if I loved him.

  And even if I suspected a man loved me, how would I know if he’d love me forever?

  No man loved forever.

  It was only happily-for-now in real life. For better and then see-ya-later-babe when the worse came rolling around. I had learned that well enough from how my father had acted toward me and my mom.

  “You’re simply having pre-wedding nerves. That’s all.” My mom’s voice softened. “You’ll see. Once you’re standing at the end of the aisle with that gorgeous Vera Wang gown George bought for you, you’ll have your moment in the sun. You’ll be happy.”

  “I suppose...” Just imagining standing in front of everyone and pledging myself to George made me feel nauseated. If I felt this sick now, what would I do when we were actually in the church? Would I throw up all over that one-of-a-kind lace dress?

  Now that would be a disaster!

  “Do you remember Logan, Logan Dalton?” I asked, trying to shake the image of a ruined Vera Wang from my mind. “From the hospital?”

  “Yes, of course I remember him.” Her voice turned clipped. My mother never liked to talk about that time at the Sisters of Mercy Children’s Hospital. “What about him?”

  “He-he’s alive.”

  “So?”

  “So, isn’t that wonderful?”

  There was a long pause. “Yes, I suppose so, dear. Now let’s get back to the issue of your wedding and getting you over this silly case of cold feet.”

  “It’s not cold feet.”

  “Sure, it is.”

  “If that’s what’s wrong here, if all I have is cold feet, why didn’t George return my calls? Why didn’t he tell me I’m suffering from cold feet and do his best to reassure me? Why did he call you?”

  “Heavens, honey, is that’s what’s bothering you? He called me because he knows you better than you know yourself. He knows you need your mother’s calming voice, not his, right now. He’s a smart man.”

  And he was a keen strategist. George knew how to get what he wanted. Clearly, he wanted the wedding to go forward. He wouldn’t have pulled out the big guns and attacked my biggest weakness otherwise. He wouldn’t have called my mom.

  “Um...” Logan’s return to the living room caused what I’d been about to say to evaporate.

  His hair was slicked back and wet from a shower and looking sexier than I’d ever seen him. Without looking in my direction he plopped down on the sofa and then pulled out his laptop.

  How did he do that? How did he take a shower so quickly and end up looking perfect?

  “Samantha? Are you still there?” my mother yelled into the phon
e.

  “Yeah, Mom, I’m here.” I turned away from Logan. Looking at him proved too distracting. “I just don’t see how I can go forward with the wedding, not after what I’ve—”

  “Hush, don’t talk like that. Whatever you’ve done in this fit of panic, George will forgive. He’s not perfect. You’re not perfect. See? That’s what makes it a good match. Unlike me and my marriage, you understand what you’re getting yourself into. You know better than to chase after a fairytale.”

  Like a moth attracted to a flame, my gaze kept turning toward Logan.

  “I don’t know,” I said absently. “I just I don’t know how I can go through with the wedding.”

  Logan, who’d had his nose buried in his laptop, looked up.

  “You just do,” my mom said. “You tell yourself that you’re going to marry George because he’s the best man...for now. And you need to stop pestering George with your crazy texts and voice mails. He’s a busy man. He doesn’t have time to hold your hand all the time. I about died when he called me. I thought something was wrong with you and you know...”

  “You were worried about my heart? It’s fine. I’m sorry to have worried you.”

  “Honey, it’s my job to worry about you. But I’m not going to be around forever. Lord knows how hard I work just to pay the bills. I don’t know how long I can keep it up. Most of my friends have retired. But I can’t. You know that. You don’t want to end up in the same position I’m in when you’re my age. So you’re going to do the right thing?” she pressed.

  The. Right. Thing.

  How could I deny her a better life and a chance to finally be happy?

  I sighed. It wasn’t as if Logan was willing to take a chance on me—on us. And I wasn’t getting any younger or prettier.

  “I guess it would be wrong to call off the wedding at the last minute like this.”

  Logan’s mouth dropped open, but he didn’t say anything. No matter how hard I wished it, he didn’t say anything to stop me. Why couldn’t he be the one man who was different from the creeps in the world, creeps like my father, and like George who always put their happiness before everyone else’s?

  I pressed my hand to a sharp pain that radiated from my chest. Logan didn’t want me.

  George did.

  I’d been chasing a fairytale, a childhood fantasy. But Logan and I were no longer children. We’d grown up. We had separate lives. Lives that didn’t involve each other.

  I needed to accept that and get back to reality.

  Chapter 28

  Logan found himself gritting his teeth again. If he kept this up, all his teeth would end up cracked before the end of the week. He forced his gaze away from where Sam was standing and directed his attention back to the computer screen in front of him. He’d been using all his contacts, all his resources to track down Rafe.

  The clock for the virus was ticking down. He needed to find Rafe and get him to dismantle the virus—if Rafe had indeed planted it. He didn’t need to save Sam from marriage, even if her marriage was obviously doomed to end in disaster.

  Still, he couldn’t help but wonder what her mother said to her to make her change her mind.

  No, it was none of his business.

  None.

  Of.

  His.

  Business.

  Finding Rafe. That was his business. His fingers flew angrily across the keyboard as he dug a little deeper, pressed a little further into the murky areas of the Internet only hackers knew existed.

  He didn’t know how long he’d been working when the head of Global Tech stomped into the living room with an arrogant swagger.

  His jaw grew a little tauter.

  “Any luck?” Jason bent toward him, leaning over the sofa and Logan’s shoulder to peer at his computer screen.

  He closed the laptop with a snap. “Not yet. I’m still laying the groundwork.”

  “Should have done that as soon as Rafe went missing,” Jason said as he cradled his broken hand.

  “I’d been told he was dead, remember?”

  “Ah,” Jason said. “And you believed it.”

  He had. He’d believed his partner was either dead or being tortured by Jason’s goons over at Global Tech.

  And now? He didn’t know what he should believe. Part of him held out hope that his friend had a damned good reason for keeping hidden and silent.

  Speaking of keeping silent. “Sam, if you’re done with your phone calls, could you please turn the phone all of the way off and keep it off this time? We don’t need anyone else tracking its signal to my uncle’s cabin. It’s already been as busy as Central Station around here.”

  “I don’t see what the problem is,” she complained, but turned off the phone. “I didn’t use it.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Jason answered, adding his unwelcomed two cents. “That’s how we tracked you.”

  “What? No. That can’t be true. I swear, Logan, I didn’t use the phone. I didn’t. I only turned it back on in case someone needed to text me.”

  “Cell phones are constantly pinging nearby cell towers and sending out signals that can be traced,” Logan explained. “It’s not just when you’re talking on the phone.”

  “You should have told me that.”

  “I thought I had.”

  “Well, you should have done a better job at making sure I’d understood what you were telling me, because obviously I didn’t understand,” she snapped.

  He couldn’t imagine why she was so upset with him about the phone. He wasn’t the one who’d led Global Tech directly to them. He’d told her to keep the phone turned off. What about, “don’t turn the phone on,” had been difficult to understand?

  Thankfully, he had enough smarts when it came to women to not voice that question.

  “I’m going to take a shower and get dressed, unless you think that’ll cause someone to find us.” She practically tossed those words at him like someone hurling rocks.

  Again, he had no clue where all that anger was coming from.

  “Okay,” he said to her retreating back. He wanted to say more. He wanted to tell her not to marry a man who clearly wasn’t good enough for her, and he wanted to talk about what had almost happened last night and what it might mean. But it didn’t mean anything and even if it did, he couldn’t talk to Sam about anything with Jason hanging around.

  “The beautiful ones are always temperamental,” Jason said.

  “Shut up,” he grumbled and went back to work on his computer, rereading the virus’ code. If he couldn’t find Rafe, perhaps he could figure out how to activate the kill switch code and disable the virus himself. That was, of course, assuming the virus contained a kill switch.

  Think man. Keep your head in the mission.

  His normally sharp focus was nowhere to be found. Instead of directing his attention on saving the world, his mind kept traveling back to the overheard conversation Sam had had with her mother.

  One night. He’d promised Sam one night of passion. And even that hadn’t worked out thanks to this madman who was now hovering like a freaking gnat.

  Jason paced and moaned about his hand and made unhelpful suggestions. That, Logan found, he could easily ignore.

  It was the unfinished business he had with Sam that nibbled away at his concentration and his sanity. He had a mind to march into the cabin’s tiny bathroom and kiss her until she forgot all about marrying a man she didn’t love. He ached to finish what they’d started last night. With Sam, he could easily lose himself, could easily forget why he’d spent so many years doggedly guarding his heart.

  He was about to set his laptop aside when one of his programs pinged. He opened the program’s window.

  “Got you,” he said without the rush of joy he’d thought he’d feel at finding his best friend alive.

  And in Raven’s Run.

  Chapter 29

  “Um, Sam.” Logan knocked lightly on the bathroom door. She’d been in there for nearly an hour. “Are you almost done?”
He knew some women took forever in the bathroom, primping and whatever. For the most part he could never tell the difference in the before and after. Yeah, there was usually more makeup than he liked. And the clothes were different. But really, what did women do in the bathroom that took so long?

  While he didn’t have a clue about what could made women take so long in a bathroom, he did know enough to not rush her or question the value of the time spent in there. He wouldn’t be knocking now if it wasn’t important.

  The door slid a crack. “Yes?”

  “We need to leave,” he said, knowing he’d catch hell for not explaining the whats and whys of where they were going. He didn’t care though. Talking about it would be too—

  It’d take too much time. That’s why he didn’t share any further details.

  “What in the world are you wearing, Logan? You look like a terrorist.” She tilted her head this way and that. “You really need to work on your wardrobe.”

  “Later. We need to go.”

  “You can’t leave this cabin looking like that,” she said, standing her ground.

  Women. As long as he lived, he’d never understand them.

  “We can talk about how I look later.”

  She didn’t budge from the bathroom doorway or give any indication that she would follow him anywhere.

  “You’ll scare people,” she said instead. “And in this part of the world, where everyone and his brother totes a gun with them, you’ll get shot.”

  He chuckled at that. “Don’t worry. No one will see me.”

  “Are you sure? You’re pretty conspicuous.”

  “Standing in a brightly lit hallway, yeah. Not on the lake with it still pretty dark.”

  She frowned. “The lake?”

  “I’m afraid you’re going to have to come too. And we have to go...now.”

  “Me?”

  He dredged his fingers through his hair. The last thing he wanted to do was take her into danger, but what other choice did he have? “I can’t...won’t...leave you here with Jason.”

  “Because you don’t trust him.”