by Lori Foster
“What took you so long?”
“I was…busy.”
“With your neighbor.” Rowdy made a sound of displeasure. “It’s looking awfully cozy.”
Her heart hung heavy in her chest. “Yes.” Very cozy. She relished her every minute with him.
And she missed the sex a lot.
“Should I check the GPS tracker?” Impatient, he asked, “Has he had any unaccountable time away? Any reason for suspicion?”
“No.” And with every day, she became more convinced that Rowdy was chasing down a dead end. Other than quick trips to the grocery, where Logan often invited her along, he went very few places. Occasionally he jogged, and she so badly wanted to join him…
“His hand’s still injured?”
“Yes. But it’s better.” He’d even grumbled about being bored.
“Do you know when he’ll get back to work?”
Logan remained on the balcony, his back to her, seemingly uninterested in her conversation. But just in case he could hear her, she lowered her voice more. “Tomorrow.” And she’d grown so accustomed to having him around she would miss him while he was gone.
“I’ll give him a little time, then, before I check it. If he’s making any stops he shouldn’t, we’ll know.”
“Yes.” But she just couldn’t imagine it. From what she could tell, Logan was exactly what he claimed to be: a bachelor who liked her company.
They watched rented movies, shared newspaper articles, cooked meals together. They talked and laughed. She liked him and admired him.
She loved the casual company.
Not quite as much as she’d loved the physical release, but close enough to cherish their time together.
“While you’re making yourself at home there,” Rowdy said with an edge in his tone, “at least scope out the place. Keep your eyes open to anything that seems out of place, any clue that’ll tell us more about him. Don’t let your infatuation—”
“Okay.” Oh, shoot. She hadn’t meant to snap. Logan looked back at her, smiled and then stood to lean over the railing, watching the street traffic beyond. Pepper dropped her head forward, took a breath. “Of course I will.”
Rowdy was quiet for several seconds. “I’ll call again in a few days. Just don’t do anything crazy, okay?”
Like have sex with an almost-stranger whom her brother suspected of nefarious dealings? She let out a sigh. “All right.”
“Love ya, kiddo.”
“You, too.” She disconnected the call but hesitated to rejoin Logan.
He fixed that by coming in behind her, and though he didn’t quite look at her on his way to the kitchen, she felt the tension surrounding him.
She cleared her throat. “Sorry about that.”
“Don’t be.” He set the empty ice-cream dish in the sink. “Not a big deal.”
He waited, but what could she tell him?
She shook her head and said again, “Sorry.”
Clearly disgusted, he smirked. “You can keep your secrets, Sue. If you have another guy calling you, hey, we don’t have any agreements, right? We’re not even having sex anymore. Is that why? You’ve found someone else?”
What? That’s what he thought? She laughed at the absurdity of it.
Eyes narrowing with menace, he crossed his arms. “That’s funny?”
“Well…yes. A little.”
“Glad I could amuse you.”
Wow, he really did sound angry. “I’m sorry.”
He muttered, “Fuck.” Then with just as much annoyance, he said, “Stop apologizing already.”
She approached him. “That wasn’t another man.”
“Then who was it?”
Blast. She’d really gotten herself into a corner. “I mean, it was a man, but not in the way you’re thinking.”
“What other way is there?”
She made a split decision. A good way to test him would be to give him just a tiny taste of information—and watch how he reacted to it. “My brother.”
Chagrined, he took that in, then smiled. “Oh.” After an awkward moment, the smile turned into a laugh. “Shit.”
She tipped her head, gauging the sincerity of the sound. “Now you think it’s funny?”
“Considering I was jealous, yeah.”
“Jealous?”
“What did you think?” Taking her by surprise, he kissed her, quick and light. “I didn’t know you had a brother.”
Jealousy was outrageous and sort of endearing. “We don’t see each other often.”
“How come?” As if it didn’t really matter, he took her hand and led her to the couch. “You’re not close?”
“It’s not that. We’re actually very close. We only have each other. But he doesn’t live around here.”
“You lost your parents?”
She nodded. “A very long time ago.”
Solemn, he cupped her face. “You never told me.”
“Because it’s not an uplifting story.”
His thumb brushed her cheek while he studied her face. “I’d still be a good listener.”
He seemed so sincere, so sympathetic, that she wondered how a few truths would hurt. She’d never had anyone whom she could confide in. Only Rowdy.
But no one knew the details of their background, so it wasn’t information Logan could use against her—even if he was a threat, which she didn’t believe. Out of necessity, she’d learned to be a good judge of character.
Logan didn’t feel like a bad guy to her, not in any way.
“My brother and I grew up in a trailer on the riverbank.” Memories crowded in: days spent swimming, playing in the mud; Rowdy teaching her how to fish, and how to fight; sunburns and late nights camping out and watching the stars. As kids, they’d had some good times—just not enough. “My parents weren’t…great. Neither of them kept a job, and they drank too much. My brother and I were pretty much left to raise ourselves.”
“Damn.” Appearing genuinely hurt for her, he took her hand. “What’s the age difference between you and your brother?”
“Just three years.” She couldn’t help but smile. “But he’s so alpha, way more outgoing than I am, you’d think there was a bigger age span.”
“Alpha?”
Mega alpha. She smiled at Logan. “He’s pretty fearless, and too daring for his own good.”
Logan stilled, then lifted her hand to his mouth to kiss her knuckles. “How did your folks die?”
“Just a dumb car wreck. Dad was driving, but they were both drunk. There were a total of about six cars involved, but luckily no one else died.”
Though she’d tried to keep a physical distance between them, she found herself leaning on Logan’s shoulder, accepting the arm he put around her and the kiss he pressed to her temple.
“How old were you?”
“Fifteen. Young and dumb and…” Vivid memories settled over her, making her heart heavy, her chest tight. “Unprepared for social services to take me away.”
“Shit.” He turned her face up to his. “That’s what happened?”
She nodded. In a mere whisper, she confided what only Rowdy knew. “It scared me so badly, I spent two days crying. I didn’t want to go to a foster home. I didn’t want to lose my brother.”
Logan’s strong arms closed around her, holding her tenderly, protectively. “Of course not. No young girl should be put in that position.”
“My brother took care of it.” He took care of me.
“How’s that?”
Much as she enjoyed Logan’s embrace, his warm attention and especially his caring, she put a little space between them. The more she depended on him, the more she wanted to, and that was a dangerous path to go down.
Rowdy wasn’t wrong about that.
“He knew they wouldn’t let him be my guardian, so he packed us up and we ran off together.”
Disbelief, and maybe a little pity, showed in Logan’s expression. “An eighteen-year-old and a fifteen-year-old?”
Sh
e nodded. Rowdy had promised her that they’d never be separated, and he’d done his best. But despite all his efforts, too many promises had been impossible to keep.
Introspective, too quiet, Logan stroked his hand over her head, down the length of her ponytail. Finally he asked, “He got a job?”
“We both found work wherever we could.” They’d learned to be pretty tough, too. Out of necessity, they’d stayed in cheap, sleazy places. Danger abounded, so Rowdy taught her how to defend herself.
But more often than not, he followed up whenever he found out anyone had hassled her. Guys learned to leave her alone unless she showed an interest. And even then, Rowdy never missed a thing. He’d started hovering, and to this day, he kept a quiet vigilance over her. There wasn’t much she did, there wasn’t much she thought, without Rowdy knowing.
“Must have been really rough.”
Logan sounded far too maudlin, causing her to smile. “We survived off a very limited budget. But it wasn’t all bad. I looked at it like an adventure. My brother sort of made it seem that way. He’d tell me that we were free, independent, that we could do anything, be anything.” Remembering so many different times that Rowdy had been there for her, she grew somber. “We didn’t have a lot, but we had each other.”
After a long stretch of silence, Logan spoke. “I’d love to meet him sometime.”
That’d never happen. Not in this lifetime. “Maybe someday,” she hedged. She sat back to look at him again. “But now you know I’m not talking to another guy. I don’t even know any other guys that I’d want to talk to, or who’d be all that anxious to talk to me.” She bit her lip but had to admit the truth. “You’re the only one I’m interested in visiting. I promise.”
Logan’s gaze went to her mouth and then back to her eyes. “I’m glad that I’m here, with you.”
But for how long? A man like Logan would quickly grow discontented with celibacy. Maybe after her brother checked the GPS and found out Logan was safe, she could resume a real relationship with him. If she told him everything, how would he react?
Would he understand? Would he help to keep her cover?
Would he want her enough to live with the convoluted lie of her life?
Pepper realized they were sitting there watching each other in a taut silence. She’d gotten way ahead of herself, so she faked a yawn. “I need to get going.”
Instead of trying to dissuade her, Logan nodded. They stood together, and he walked her to the door.
“Sue?”
“Hmm?”
His hand slid around her skull, holding her still. “I could really use a good-night kiss right about now. I promise it’ll be that and nothing more.”
Dangerous, dangerous, dangerous, but… “Me, too.”
It felt different, the slow, gentle way his mouth moved over hers, just as hot, but now somehow more personal. As he lifted away, he said, “I’ll work tomorrow, but I’d love to share dinner again.”
“My turn to cook,” she said. And because she couldn’t stop herself, she kissed him again, quickly, then not so quickly. It’d be easy enough to segue into the bedroom, to get carried away one more time…
Again, Logan ended the kiss. “Soon as you’re ready, honey, let me know.” He touched the corner of her mouth, put his forehead to hers. “The second you give me the word, I’m as willing as any man can be. Until then, I’m doing my best not to push you. But much more of that, and I’m going to forget myself.”
So noble. So incredibly considerate. “Thank you.” Smiling from the inside out, Pepper stepped out to the hall. “Good night, Logan.”
“Good night, Sue. Sweet dreams.”
Like a true gentleman, he stood in the hallway watching over her until she got into her apartment.
Closing the door, choking on a resurgence of hope, Pepper hugged herself. If she couldn’t have a normal life, she at least had this, now, with Logan.
It was more than she’d learned to expect.
And maybe it was far more than she deserved.
CHAPTER NINE
A LITTLE MORE THAN A WEEK later, Rowdy sat in the parking lot of the bar, his laptop in his lap, disbelieving the results of his GPS tracker. Every day he’d wanted to check it, yet day after day, he’d put it off.
Pepper seemed so damned hopeful that he hadn’t wanted to burst her bubble by grabbing solid evidence off the tracker any faster than necessary. Neither did he want to check the damn thing too soon, thereby missing something important.
He’d kept a close watch on things, waiting to attack if Logan Stark made the wrong move, while hoping he wouldn’t. He knew he couldn’t put it off any longer, so while his sister sat all cozy with the bastard, watching a movie and eating pizza, he’d retrieved it.
With dread, Rowdy had anticipated how he’d break the news to her, how he’d explained that she’d been used…
Now, with the results right there in front of him, it looked as if he might not have to. Logan Stark had gone shopping, to various establishments in the area to eat or get a quick drink, back to his construction site only recently and to the apartment building.
The apartment where he spent an inordinate amount of time with Pepper.
Sitting back, restless on many levels, Rowdy thought about things. He and Pepper had survived by being cautious and by trusting instincts.
For some reason, despite the data before him, everything about Logan screamed a warning. But maybe that was Rowdy’s own prejudice.
How could any red-blooded guy be so attracted to Pepper for so long? Most times when Rowdy saw her, she looked like a drudge, like a plain-Jane with no redeeming features to draw in a man.
Being a guy, too, he understood how the male mind worked. At first he’d written off the attraction as a challenge for Logan. After all, Rowdy himself had recently suffered the same type of challenge with the little waitress. He’d gone back to the bar a few times, but he hadn’t seen her again, which accounted for part of his restlessness.
But Logan saw Pepper damn near every day, so that reasoning didn’t make sense.
If he’d hoped to score with her…no, Rowdy hated thinking along those lines. Besides, that’d be impossible without Pepper blowing her cover, and she’d never do that. In so many ways, she was more protective than he could ever be.
So what the hell was happening between them? It made no sense. Logan had to be working an angle.
As a safeguard against all threats, Rowdy had furtively kept up with his past, with Checkers and with any info he could find on Morton Andrews.
For all intents and purposes, it was business as usual. Crimes committed without proof of personal transgression. Accusations that didn’t pan out. Cutthroat business that expanded by the day.
Ripe frustration among a select few in the police force.
But no mention, ever, of Rowdy or Pepper Yates. It seemed they’d been forgotten. Perhaps even the most corrupt villains gave up on loose ends after enough time had passed.
Could it maybe all be over?
Could Logan Stark really be no more than an honest guy looking for companionship?
Rowdy snorted. Before he made that leap, he wanted some assurances. And that meant breaking into Logan’s apartment, going through his things and seeing what he could turn up.
He’d uncover the man’s entire background, one way or another.
And he’d get started tonight…as soon as he got Pepper to cooperate.
*
FEELING LIKE A HUNTED MAN, Logan paced his small living room. Pepper would expect him in another hour. She didn’t realize that her personal style of platonic socializing had left him tightly strung.
With lust. Sympathy. Concern.
But mostly lust.
Jesus, each small smile from her was so precious that it left him in a vortex of conflicting emotion. And when she laughed—a very rare occurrence—it reduced him to a basic male animal, an animal who wanted to make a permanent impression on her in the time-honored way of men.
But she’d ruled that out. Though he knew she wanted him, too, she continued to draw back anytime things got too heated. That put him back at square one, having to cajole his way into her narrow social calendar all over again.
Now that he knew part of her background, it only amplified his growing feelings for her. God, but she’d had it rough, and her brother hadn’t helped. As a kid, she hadn’t wanted foster care. But she hadn’t been mature enough to decide what would be best for her.
And really…neither had Rowdy. Eighteen. Damn. That was so young to have so much responsibility. Logan could understand how easy it’d be to get off the straight and narrow. At eighteen, he’d had the world by the ass. Parents who spoiled both him and Dash. Independence given to him by indulgent parents. He’d wanted for nothing, certainly not security, comfort, support.
Or love.
Rowdy and Pepper had had none of that. Ever. As children, they’d been neglected by disinterested parents. As very young adults, they’d been threatened by an unknown system. He hated to admit it, but Logan could sympathize with Rowdy. He’d made tough decisions.
But he shouldn’t have dragged Pepper into that atmosphere. Though Reese had tried, he hadn’t found any clearer photos of Pepper. Nothing in color. Nothing of her body.
Not that it mattered. He couldn’t be more obsessed.
Thanks to the paper-thin walls, Logan needed no more than a handheld audio listening device to keep track of her routine. Whenever he wasn’t with her, he could still hear her moving around, occasionally listening to the radio or television, showering or doing dishes.
Or talking with her brother.
Many times, after he left her, she ran on her treadmill.
Endlessly.
She probably tried working off the same sexual tension that plagued him. He could have told her not to bother. Nothing but the real deal would do.
They could be so good together if she’d trust him a little, if she’d…but then again, she had good reason not to trust him.
Logan rubbed his face. Everything was far more complicated than he’d expected—because he couldn’t stay detached. He couldn’t stay cold and indifferent to Pepper, because she wasn’t cold or indifferent. Warm, funny, fickle and so damn sexy…yeah, he hadn’t expected that. Not from the grainy little black-and-white photos of her. Not when she hid all that fire behind concealing clothes and a reserved persona.
