by Cindy Skaggs
“Pilsners?” Blake’s voice teased. He lifted the beer bottle in his hand. “When did you get so…girlie?”
Logan didn’t have time for his BS. “You want to bring a beer bottle to the dinner table, you take it up with my mother.”
Blake scrubbed a hand through his long hair. “You’re the boss.”
“Sure, now you recognize my superior leadership.”
“It’s my Christmas gift to you.”
“See if you remember it in the new year.”
The wide grin transformed Blake’s serious face. “Probably won’t happen, boss.”
“A man can dream.” Logan slapped Blake on the back. “We good?”
“Not even a thing,” Blake assured him.
Logan headed to the kitchen, which was overrun with estrogen. His mother was shouting orders while the rest hauled bowls and platters to the table. Norma had opened the white wine and poured herself a glass. She sat on a bar stool with her legs swinging her long skirt as she watched the show.
Sofia stood off to the back near the pantry, her face unreadable. Man, he hated that look on her, so he veered past and grabbed her arm, pulling her into the wine pantry with him. The room was cooler than the rest of the house, as if the heat from cooking couldn’t penetrate the solid door. The right wall was lined from floor to ceiling with cubbies. “Help me pick out a couple bottles of wine.”
The features of her pale face were set to neutral. That damned invisible wall made Logan want to invest in dynamite, but he wasn’t confident in his ability to blast it open. Not for good.
He grabbed her frigid hand, and she shivered against his touch. He had no clue as to what he wanted to say or how he wanted to say it; he only knew he couldn’t stand the separation and the cold air between them. “Sofia,” he muttered, half demand and half plea. He didn’t wait for a response but pulled her tight against his chest. He dug his hands in her long, dark hair and crushed his lips against hers.
Her mouth opened on a gasp, and he swept inside, taking the kiss deep. She relaxed against him, and her hands slowly slid up his chest before wrapping around his neck. “Yes,” he whispered around the kiss. “I never get tired of this.” Nothing separated them on the physical plane. The chemistry had been off the charts from the moment she exploded into his life. A ride across town had turned into an explosion and a race across the country to find Eli. He hadn’t looked back. The woman was fierce and loyal and protective as hell, and she was his, whether she wanted to accept it or not. In his arms she responded, because on some level, she recognized the bond tying them together.
“Hel-lo,” someone said in a long, low burst.
Logan started at the voice behind him. Sofia stepped back from the intrusion and reached for a bottle of wine.
“Sorry,” Blake said, although the teasing glint in his eyes said otherwise. “Sandy requested your presence in the dining room.”
Sofia shoved a bottle of wine at Logan before escaping out the door.
“Bro, your timing sucks,” he said to Blake.
“Not from where I’m standing. A few more minutes and I’d have gotten a real eyeful.”
“Shut up.” Logan shoulder checked him as he walked through the door.
They walked back to the dining room together. “Admit it,” Blake said. “You missed me.”
“You’ll never hear those words from me.” But that didn’t make it less true. Logan’s eyes sought Sofia, who had swiftly moved to put the table between them. He didn’t have a clue if he’d helped his cause or hurt it by reminding her of their connection. She was solidly closed off. Today was the longest Christmas in recorded history.
…
The discussion over who should sit where ended quickly. “Sit wherever you like,” Sofia told everyone. Her ex-husband’s table had been balanced like those of heads of state—the power players lined up while the minions were left to fend for themselves at what amounted to the kids’ table. Sofia had no interest in sitting at the head of the table and even less interest in assigning positions. Instead, she sought out Peter, who appeared to have fewer social skills than she did. After a cursory question—“So you’re with Logan?”—he’d retreated to focus on the food.
Wedging Eli into a booster seat next to her, she effectively blocked herself between an extreme introvert and a child. No unwanted attention was getting through those barriers.
Something in her had panicked after they found Eli. When Logan wrapped around them, she’d felt for a brief second like a complete family, and the panic had started in earnest. She wasn’t an idiot. Logan wanted a life. He’d discussed marriage more than once, but she’d deflected. She’d chosen so wrong with Nick, and it had nearly cost Eli his life. Why on earth would she trust herself to make such an important decision after the complete failure last time?
“Peter, help the girls move another table setting to the head of the table.” Michelle glanced at Sofia. “If that’s okay? They’re small enough to share one seat and even up the numbers on both sides.”
“Of course.” Sofia liked the way innocence was placed higher than age and position in the hierarchy of the Stone family.
Seats were quickly rearranged to give more room. Logan plopped in the empty chair on the other side of Eli.
“Sofia, honey, do you want to say the prayer?” Sandy asked.
“God, no.” She’d be struck by lightning before she said amen. Good thing Logan’s family didn’t know about her mob-family connections. “Please, why don’t you do the honors?”
Sandy said a short prayer of thanks for new family and friends and for returning the children safely. By the time Sandy was done, Sofia was a basket case, wishing her barriers were bigger than Peter the Silent and Eli the Lost.
The dishes of food were passed around the table along with overwhelming conversation. Logan dished up Eli’s food while keeping up a stream of conversation with Mick and Blake. Two more different men she’d never seen. Blake was suit and tie but with wild brown hair that hung to the collar of his dark gray suit jacket. Mick was leather and denim with tattoos covering one arm from his wrist to the line of his leather vest. They weren’t FBI, so Sofia wasn’t sure how they knew Logan. He’d never said, and she’d never asked.
When Logan dumped an adult-size portion of potatoes on Eli’s plate, Sofia laughed. “He’ll never eat all that.”
The crinkles around Logan’s eyes deepened with his smile. “Sure he will. He went on an adventure today.”
“That’s right,” Mick added. “He went on a man-size adventure, so now he has a man-size appetite.”
Eli grabbed a spoon. “I want man size.”
“Now you’ve done it.” But she couldn’t stop the laughter.
Across the table, Blake lifted his hands in a sign of surrender. “I had nothing to do with it. This time.” He grinned. “But I want some man time with that dino sanctuary.”
Eli dropped his spoon. His eyes filled with rapture. “Now?”
“Can’t. It’s Christmas, so we have to go see family.” Blake scrunched his nose like that was the worst thing since kissing girls. “But how about next weekend? That dino deal is the coolest thing since the Super Soaker.”
“Can he, Mom?” Eli pleaded. “I want playtime with Bake.” The mispronunciation was sweet and heartbreaking.
“Hold on, little man. I don’t do playtime.” Blake pointed at him with a fork. “I do man time.”
Like most little boys, Eli was dying for quality time with a grown man, and he didn’t have a father. Sofia sighed. She had wanted to isolate herself from Logan’s friends so she wouldn’t have more to lose when they split. If they split. Why was she worrying about splitting? “Fine, you can have man time with Blake if you eat a man-size meal now.”
On the other side of Eli, Logan grinned and she realized what she’d done. She’d made plans, a commitment to both Logan and his friends.
Logan glanced down at Eli’s plate and then his own. “What are we forgetting?”
&nbs
p; We. He made the mental conversion to couplehood so easily, like it wasn’t the complicated equation she knew it to be. She glanced down the length of the table, covered with more food than an all-you-can-eat buffet. Five people lined either length of the table, most already digging into the food. “What could we possibly have forgotten?”
Sandy snapped her fingers from across the table. “Your grandmother’s cranberry sauce. I’ll get it.”
“I got it,” Logan said, motioning his mother back to her seat. In a few moments, he returned with the bowl brimming with cranberry sauce, the red like wine through the crystal. “You first.” He handed it to Sofia and let their fingers graze before pulling away.
Did he know how often he touched her? And every time, it made her heart jolt. Happiness. Sofia breathed it in and let it soak into her bones.
“Sofia,” Sandy said between bites, “Logan tells me you have an art degree.”
The weight of his gaze landed on her, though Sofia refused to give in and look his way. “Art history, for all the good it’s done me.”
“I don’t know a thing about art,” Sandy said. “I just know what I like.”
“The purpose of art is to make you feel,” Sofia answered. “So if you like it, you probably like the way it makes you feel.”
Sandy laughed. “I’ll take your word for it. I may not know art, but I do know a gallery owner in downtown Denver. You know who I’m talking about, Steve? We met him at that lunch deal we went to for Rudy’s retirement.”
“Sure.” Steve plopped a scoop of cranberry sauce next to his stuffing. “Nice guy from back east somewhere.”
Sandy bumped his arm with her shoulder. “Right. He’s expanding into Old Colorado City early next year. He hasn’t started staffing as far as I know. I can introduce the two of you if you’d like.”
The pounding of Sofia’s heart echoed above the sounds of laughter and conversation, even louder than Eli’s subconscious little hum. “That would be lovely,” she said with a smile, when inside, her heart hemorrhaged with hysterical laughter. And hope. Thanks to her grandparents, she didn’t have to work, but for her own sanity, she wanted—needed—to prove her worth to the world. Opportunities like this didn’t just land in your lap. In the art world it wasn’t what you knew, but who you knew.
“Maybe you can drive up for lunch next week,” Sandy suggested. She lived an hour or so north. “We can talk about it then.”
A bite of asparagus lodged in Sofia’s throat. “Sure,” she rasped. Lunch with Logan’s mom shouldn’t inspire fear, but it did. Oh, dear heavens, it did. “Sounds great.” She’d add it to her to-do list right behind a root canal. She’d thought having his family over for a holiday meal sent her blood pressure into the red. Try a one-on-one lunch with his mother.
The rest of the meal tasted like sawdust. Sofia swallowed it down with a sip or five of wine and counted down to Eli’s afternoon naptime, past due because of the midday adventure. The women moved on to talk about a new comedy at the movie theater and the men continued with sports. Peter, bless him, kept silent and focused on his food.
The dinner couldn’t end soon enough. She’d had her fill of drama and people and conversation. She needed a break to pull herself together. Her hands shook when she stood to get a washcloth to clean Eli. The WITSEC counselor who had stayed in touch said panic attacks were par for the course. Sofia didn’t like the course. Rolling her neck to ease the tension, she ran the cloth under hot water and let it warm the chill from her hands. When she returned to the dining room, the worst of the tension had eased.
Mick and Blake rose and apologized for not staying for dessert, but they still had dinner with Mick’s mom.
“Boys like you could probably stand to put away a second meal,” Norma said with a wink. The gray-haired woman might look like a granny, but inside beat the heart of a lioness. She kept trying to get the book group to read erotica. Purely to broaden their horizons, or so she claimed. Beside her, her daughter, Gina went red in the face and swallowed a gulp of wine.
Logan stood to walk Mick and Blake out.
“You go ahead and say good-bye.” Sandy grabbed the rag from Sofia’s hands. “I’ll clean Eli up.”
“Oh, but—”
“I’ve had two kids and two grandkids. One little boy won’t get away from me,” she insisted, heading for Eli before Sofia had even said yes.
Outmaneuvered, Sofia headed with Logan to say good-bye to Mick and Blake. Blake motioned for her as she drew near. “That’s a pretty cool setup you have with the back fence.”
For her, it was a reminder of a time when she’d needed emergency exits and contingency plans. “After today, I really just want it boarded up.”
“Don’t,” all three men said in unison.
“It’s too cool,” Mick said. “Blake and I could have gotten into some serious trouble with something like that as kids. Plus, it would have impressed the chicks, which at sixteen was all that mattered.”
“Your mom would have beaten us senseless,” Blake said with a sarcastic grin. “It would have been worth it.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Sofia admitted.
“It’s like having a secret garden,” Blake said. “We went to check it out after you found the kids. Then we went up to the garage apartment. It wasn’t locked. I hope you don’t mind.”
Sofia shook her head. “I can’t believe we forgot to lock it.”
“No big, gave me time to explore. I locked up when I left.” Blake leaned down and gave her a chaste kiss to the cheek. “Tell Victoria to watch her back,” he said softly.
“You know my sister-in-law?”
A cloud of sadness passed over his unusual eyes. “We should talk after the holidays. And I meant what I said about man time with Eli next weekend. Until then, don’t let Mr. Rule Book over there get you down.”
The need to defend Logan was an irrepressible impulse. “Oh, he doesn’t—”
Blake laughed and headed out the door with Mick behind. “Merry Christmas.”
Sofia closed the door behind them. The day suddenly weighed on her. Eli didn’t always take an afternoon nap, but Sofia desperately needed fifteen minutes of quiet.
Logan took Sofia’s hand and held her in the entryway. “Sorry. We don’t have to have them over again. I can get new friends.”
And even though there was a hint of joking in his tone, she knew he would do it. All she had to do was ask. “That’s ridiculous. They’re your friends. How do you—”
Eli came up and wrapped an arm around Sofia’s thigh, scattering her thoughts. “Ready for a nap, big guy?” She didn’t wait for him to respond but scooped him into her arms.
The look on Logan’s face said he knew what she’d done, but he didn’t argue. He leaned in and dropped a sexy, slow kiss to her lips. Eli smacked both their cheeks playfully as they kissed, and it was one of those sweet moments that terrified her.
“Come downstairs and play games after you get him to sleep?” Logan asked.
Sofia paused as she headed to the stairs. Coming back downstairs after getting Eli to sleep would be the right thing to do, the good hostess thing to do, but Sofia was one pleasant conversation away from Bedlam. “I want to call Vicki,” she said. It was the truth. There was something going on with Vicki, and she shouldn’t have to face it alone. Sofia knew firsthand how desperate isolation could make you. “I’ll come down when I get off the phone.” That part was a lie. She wasn’t sure she wanted to face the little bit of normal that had taken up residence downstairs.
There had never been any normal while living with a mobster. Occasions like this, according to Nick, were designed to create and maintain alliances. Entertaining guests had been one of those occasions when Sofia was expected to play the perfect wife and hostess. Or else. Logan didn’t expect that, neither did his family, but the weight of it nearly choked Sofia as she walked up the stairs. She was dialing Vicki’s number before she hit the landing.
Vicki’s phone went straight to voic
email. Again. “Eli’s fine. He and Logan’s nieces went on an adventure. What’s going on with you, and why are you in Fort Collins?” she whined, then swallowed back tears before continuing. “Why does normal terrify me so much?” Sofia hung up, knowing Vicki wouldn’t answer, and it made her sadder, more isolated. She just wanted to curl up and pout somewhere quiet.
Moving on, past the pain and the violence, took serious effort, but doing so alone took more energy than Sofia had stored. She laid Eli on her bed and curled up behind him. Eli wasn’t a fighter—thank God—so Sofia closed her eyes and snuggled him close. Just for a minute, then she’d gather her courage and head back to Logan and the family Stone.
Chapter Seven
Logan found them sleeping in the center of her big bed. The sight of them loosened the knot tied around his heart. Everything he wanted was in this house, in this room. He was so close, but the distance Sofia had erected after they found Eli wasn’t the kind he could easily breach. He should wait and have this conversation after their guests left for the night, but Logan couldn’t endure another few hours of playing board games and pretending everything was peachy. Everything was not okay. Not as long as Sofia felt the need to hide behind her damned mask of neutrality.
He sat on the edge of the bed. Neither stirred, wrapped as always in an isolated bubble. Eli’s hands fisted Sofia’s shirt as if he could pull her closer. Sofia’s hand wrapped under his head and around his shoulders. Even in sleep, her love was protective and fierce. Tucked next to her son, she looked younger and more innocent with thick lashes against silken skin. Logan brushed a hand over her cheek.
She started and pushed away from him in one move, pulling Eli toward the headboard. Her eyes rounded, still clouded with sleep. “I’m sorry,” she stammered, stress quivering in each word. “I didn’t mean to sleep. To leave the guests. I’ll just—”
“Stop.” Ice encased his heart, and he cursed, couldn’t bite back the hurt and frustration. “Quit comparing me to him.” Because his biggest goal right now was making her see that Logan was as far from Nick Calvetti as a man could get.
