by Shelly Bell
“Don’t you normally report crap as well?” he asked, holding out a turkey sandwich for her.
She tried not to be offended by his question. “No, unlike anchors, I’m responsible for my own stories and not a mouthpiece for the network. As an investigative reporter, I sift through the mountains of crap to uncover the truth.”
She unwrapped her sandwich, cringing. Ugh, mayo. She despised the condiment, but right now if she had been a vegetarian, she’d kill her own cow if she needed to in order to eat. She wolfed down a couple of bites before noticing Logan staring at her intensely. “What?”
Exhaling loudly, he ran his hand over his scalp. “I’m sorry. You know, about this morning when I unjustly accused you of making a phone call and compromising us. I know you would never use our predicament to advance your career.”
She shrugged. The fact was she would do almost anything to advance her career, but she prided herself on following a strict moral code. She’d never endanger someone else for a story. “It’s okay. You don’t know me well enough to trust me. I understand.”
“You’re wrong. I do know you. You’re a woman who will risk her own safety to protect a dog.” He turned down the television. Then he put his hands on her hips and lifted her onto his lap, so that she straddled him. Sliding the ends of her hair through his fingers, he stared at her intently. “Back at the port, you had a chance to escape when Evans had his gun on me, but instead, you stayed. Why?”
She lowered her gaze. “We’re in this together. You would have done the same for me.”
“Look at me.” He tipped up her chin, so that she had no choice but to look into his warm eyes. “I’ve never been more scared in my life as when I thought Evans was going to shoot you.”
“Me? He had a gun on you a minute later. You put yourself in front of me, protecting me from Evans.”
He caressed her cheek with the tips of his fingers. “I wasn’t worried about myself. I wanted you safe. That’s all that mattered to me. Do you understand what I’m saying?” He wrapped his hand around her nape and drew her face closer. “You matter to me.” He blew out a breath. “Since leaving the army, it has all been about control for me. I’m not impulsive and I don’t act based on emotion. At least I didn’t.” He swallowed hard. “When I’m with you, all rationality flies out the window. I may have control over you in the bedroom, but you have to know you have more power over me than anyone else in my life. Do you get me, Tiger?”
Hummingbirds fluttered their wings in her belly. It sounded as if he was saying he was falling for her.
“What about Kate?” she blurted out.
Frowning, he cocked his head. “What does Kate have to do with you and me?”
“You know . . . ” She waited for him to figure it out, but he stayed quiet, his brow raised in question. “You’re in love with her.”
He reared back. “I’m not in love with Kate. I’ll admit I had a crush on her before she shot me down, but since that time I’ve only considered her a friend and law partner. If anything, I look at her as more like a sister, which is why we make sure not to play at Benediction on the same night.” Cupping her cheek, he stared into her eyes. “I misjudged you, and for that I’m truly sorry. Because now that I’ve gotten to know you, I realize how much time and energy I’ve wasted fighting my attraction to you this past year. The woman I’ve come to care about is selfless, compassionate, and sexy as hell. I apologize for having accused you of having less than noble reasons for doing your job. You’ve trusted me these past couple of days, and I want you to know I trust you too. I know we agreed to an expiration date, but I’d really like to see how far we can take this.”
Hope bloomed in her chest. He wasn’t in love with Kate. But how would Logan feel about her when she told him she was going to do a story about what it was like when they were on the run? Would he understand or would he try to stop her?
She leaned in and kissed him softly on the cheek. “Me too.” She quirked up her lips. “This may surprise you, but you’re not the only one with control issues.”
He grinned. “You don’t say?”
She took a breath, preparing herself to tell him something no one knew about her. It had taken her several years after leaving home before she was no longer embarrassed by her upbringing, but by then, Rachel Kaczynski had faded into a distant memory and it had seemed easier to keep her that way. Unlike Rachel Kaczynski, Rachel Dawson didn’t take shit from anyone. No one could ever confuse her with the girl who’d grown up believing women were subservient to men.
“Remember I mentioned I had been raised in a religious household?” she asked, linking her fingers together on her lap. “What I didn’t tell you was that my father was our church’s leader. Our preacher.” She huffed out a laugh at the shock on Logan’s face. Sometimes, she couldn’t believe it herself. “Calling it a church gives it much more credibility than it deserves. In a lot of ways, it was more like a cult. Even though I grew up in suburbia, surrounded by people of all faiths and cultures, I may as well have lived in the middle of nowhere like your uncle Joe. We were kept isolated from the rest of society, deprived of televisions, Internet, radios. We were only allowed to associate with other members of our church. Our school was at the church and taught by church congregants. Boys were encouraged to go to college and have careers while girls were expected to marry young and have lots of babies. I was taught that my opinions didn’t matter. That I was less than boys simply because I had a vagina. That as a female, it was my job to serve my father and then my husband.”
She paused to clear her throat, years of resentment toward her parents bubbling up from deep inside her and spilling from her mouth. But as difficult as it was to finally reveal the truth about her past, it was equally as freeing. Because if she continued to keep it a secret from Logan, he would never really know her. And she wanted that. She wanted that more than anything.
Logan brushed his fingers up and down her arm. The gentle strokes on her skin soothed her, encouraging her to continue.
“When I was sixteen,” she said quietly, “I discovered my friend Leah was being physically abused by her father. She had bruises all over her body. At first she denied it, making those excuses you hear about falling down the stairs, but I didn’t believe her. I mean, I could see the fingerprints on her arms. As the daughter of our church’s religious leader, I felt it was my duty to tell him. She was so scared. I can still picture her shaking and sobbing in my arms in the girls’ bathroom at our school. I went home that night and sat with my father in his office, telling him all the horrible things I’d learned about what went on in Leah’s house. I was sure he’d call the police. Instead, he scheduled some counseling sessions with her father.”
He resumed holding her hand and squeezed it. “It wasn’t enough to stop him, was it?”
She sighed. “No. It was the first time I saw my father as fallible. Not only did the abuse not stop, it got worse. Leah wasn’t allowed to speak with me anymore, and she no longer changed her clothes in front of me, but I saw the stiff way she moved and the way she’d wince when anyone touched her. I begged my father to call the police, but he refused. It was a ‘community problem.’ So for the first time in my life, I broke one of my father’s rules. I called the police myself and reported the abuse.”
It had torn her up inside to go against her father’s wishes, but she was sure he’d forgive her.
“Did it help?” Logan asked.
She shook her head, remembering. “Leah lied to them and said she’d fallen down the stairs. Her father stormed over to my house, sure my father had called the cops on him. Instead of being proud of me for standing up for the weak and defenseless, my father apologized to the abuser and grounded me for breaking the rules. I realized at that time I couldn’t stay in a community that was more worried about showing skin than the bruises hidden underneath the clothing. In my senior year of high school, I secretly applied to state colleges and got loans to afford it. I left for college the day after I graduate
d high school.”
The two years between the incident and leaving for college were the longest of her life. In some ways she wanted to savor each moment spent with her family, knowing her time with them was limited. In others, the inability to speak her mind or act on her beliefs caused her to resent her parents.
She loved them. She missed them. But she’d never become them.
Logan kissed the center of her palm. “What happened to Leah?”
“I’d been expected to marry the son of my parents’ best friends.” The boy whom she’d given her virginity to a month before she left for college. “It wasn’t an arranged marriage per se, but if I’d stayed in the community, I have no doubt I would’ve married him to please my father. Jacob was a good man. Before I moved away, I encouraged him to take care of Leah. They were married a few months later, and they now have five kids.”
She needed him to understand what drove her. “When I left my parents’ house, I swore I’d never be powerless again.”
He drew her in for a kiss, his warm lips lingering as they breathed into one another.
She’d do just about anything to hold on to what she and Logan were building together. He was nothing like her father, and yet doubt lingered. Logan was a Dom. Didn’t that mean he expected his partner to be submissive? Just because Rachel allowed him to take charge during sex didn’t mean she’d take that role outside the bedroom.
She hadn’t lied when she swore she’d never be powerless again.
Even if it meant losing Logan.
“The store carried clothes, so I got you a pair of University of Miami shorts and T-shirt. I bought us some toiletries. I don’t know about you, but I could use a shower.”
A shower sounded heavenly, especially if Logan would be joining her. But right now, she needed food more than anything.
Logan turned up the television volume, and they listened to the news as they ate their sandwiches and washed them down with ice-cold bottled water.
The reporter segued into the chaos that had erupted on Capitol Hill within the past two days. Senator Hutton, the chairman of the United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, had successfully filibustered Senator Byron’s bill to cut the budget of Homeland Security, taking the Senate floor for a record eighteen hours. As a result, he delayed the vote until the Senate reconvened from a two-week nonlegislative period, giving him time to launch a campaign to sway public opinion and swing the Senate votes in his favor. A panel of political analysts debated whether Senator Hutton was paranoid or justified in believing that a bioterrorism attack was imminent.
The report cut to a part of Senator Hutton’s speech.
“No one thought Ebola would ever make it to our homeland, and yet recent events have proven otherwise. Our country was caught unprepared, and now, more than a year later, we’ve done nothing to address the issue. Imagine what would happen if a virus worse than Ebola crossed into our borders. Now is not the time to decrease the Homeland Security budget, not when terrorists all over the world are plotting attacks on the United States. Do we really believe we can keep our people safe from the greatest threat to our national safety? Bioterrorism isn’t a possibility. It’s a reality. With the amount of power and money these terrorist groups are accumulating, how long before they get their hands on a biological weapon and release it in our country? Viruses including Ebola, but also Marburg, dengue fever, smallpox, and malaria. Or possibly even the obscure Leopold virus, an airborne pathogen originating in what was formerly known as Leopoldville, Congo. This virus is similar to Ebola, but far deadlier . . . and airborne. According to the research performed by the Centers for Disease Control, this virus has the potential to wipe out the entire United States population within days of initial infection.”
Rachel froze. Did he just say Leopold? She elbowed Logan in the gut. “Did you hear him say Leopold, or am I going crazy?”
Pale, he shook his head. “You’re not going crazy.”
At the end of the short news clip, the anchor added that Senator Hutton would be speaking to some of the wealthiest businessmen in the country during an upcoming appearance at the Tuscany Hotel in Las Vegas, in an attempt to sway influential public opinion and to prevent Senator Byron’s bill from passing in the Senate.
She didn’t know much about viruses, but she didn’t have to in order to know that the Leopold virus would spread easily in a crowded place like a resort casino. “Could Fink and Evans be transporting the virus in the gas canister?” she asked Logan, a chill running down her spine.
Swearing loudly, Logan whipped out his phone and dialed. He put it up to his ear, his jaw tight and his eyes worried. “Looks like we’re going to Vegas.”
Chapter Fourteen
“SO ARE YOU going to tell me who the hell this friend is who is flying us up to Vegas?” she asked as they parked the truck across the street from a house with its own runway. Seriously, even the president didn’t have his own runway at the White House. And she’d thought Cole DeMarco, the owner of Benediction, was filthy rich.
They’d left the motel at the crack of dawn and had driven three hours down to a private strip of land in the Florida Keys, where Logan’s friend had arranged them to take a corporate jet.
“Yeah,” Logan said sheepishly, scratching his freshly shaven cheek. “You may have heard of him. Sawyer Hayes.”
Her jaw dropped just a little bit. “The billionaire?”
Everyone in America had heard of the man who’d become the youngest billionaire in the country at age eighteen when his parents died, leaving him as the sole heir to the entire Hayes estate. She’d been the same age and a freshman in college at the time, and although their reasons for not having family were vastly different, she’d identified with him and had thought the way the media had hounded him after he’d gone through such a tragedy was in poor taste. Then months later, he’d suddenly disappeared from the news, and she’d rarely heard his name mentioned again except in passing.
“Not anymore.” Logan tossed the keys in the glove compartment. “Some woman stole a big chunk of his money, but he still has more than anyone could spend in a hundred lifetimes.”
They got out of the car and headed up the patch of grass to the back of the palatial home where Sawyer’s plane was supposed to be waiting. Even with all her professional contacts, she didn’t have anyone who could not only give them a plane but owned a mansion with a private runway that lacked the typical security found at airports.
Must be nice to have friends in high places.
A knot settled in her stomach. “Are you sure the FBI won’t be able to trace us to this plane or to Sawyer?”
“There’s no official flight plan, and Sawyer sent one of his employees here on legitimate business. Plus any record of it will disappear a minute after we get into the air. It’s one of the perks of having friends who also happen to be the best hackers in the country.”
From what she could recall, Sawyer originally hailed from Arizona. “You mentioned you met your hacker friends in the army. Did that include Sawyer?” she asked.
“Yeah, I met him during basic training.”
That explained where he’d disappeared to all those years ago. It would be hard for the media to follow him while he served in the military, especially while overseas. Still, that seemed awfully extreme to escape the scrutiny of the media. With all that money, couldn’t he have just bought a private island to disappear?
Sticky from the morning’s heat, she lifted her shirt away from her chest a few times, fanning herself. “Why would anyone do that if they didn’t have to?”
Logan’s blue eyes darkened, his gaze colliding with hers. “I didn’t become a soldier because I had to.”
She stopped. “Really? So if your brothers hadn’t been marines, you would’ve still joined the armed forces?”
“Sawyer had something to prove, and that’s all I can say about him.” He thumped his chest with his fist. “I did it because I wanted to serve our country like my f
ather had and my brothers do. I made that choice all on my own. My family would have supported any decision I made, but for me, the only decision was what branch. Only, after a few months, I realized the armed forces weren’t for me. So after serving my four years, I didn’t reenlist and got out.”
“And went to law school.”
He shrugged one shoulder. “There are a lot of people out there who need defending. Too many innocents go to prison. They need someone to believe in them.”
Innocents like them.
The people Logan defended were blessed to have a man like him on their side. Not because he rarely lost, but because he truly gave 100 percent to everything he did. He believed in them.
Did he believe in her?
Exhaustion settled like a weight around her neck. “Do you think we’ll get out of this mess?”
Nodding, he wrapped his hand around her neck. “I do. I promise we’ll find out who’s responsible for all of this and we’ll take them down.”
She took a breath. “I’d like to believe you.”
His gaze dipped to her lips, and a flare of lust bloomed low in her belly. How could he arouse her from just a look? With a hand splayed on the bottom of her spine, Logan steered her around the corner of the house. As the plane with the Hayes Industries logo came into view, her heart flopped into her stomach, and perspiration that had nothing to do with the heat popped up on her nape.
Growing rigid, she froze. “We can’t fly on that.”
The sleek white-and-blue plane had two propellers, which meant it had two engines, so if one of them stopped working, they wouldn’t fall out of the sky. But what if they hit a bird and it took out both engines at once?
Logan frowned. “Why not?”
She balled her hands into fists, her nails digging into the flesh of her palms. “It’s not safe. He’s a multimillionaire with a private plane. Shouldn’t it be, you know, bigger, like the ones they’d show in the movies with a bedroom and a fully stocked bar? This thing would fit in my apartment.”
