Logan's Way

by Lisa Ann Verge

  “Ah.”

  “She had this great big plot of land in upstate New York, half of it cultivated, half left to grow wild,” she explained. “She was an amateur herbalist and knew the name of every plant on her property.”

  “As brainy as her granddaughter,” he murmured. “You spent a few years there, then.”

  “Oh, no,” she said. “My parents would never have allowed that. I had school, I had…lessons.” Piano lessons. Dance lessons. Etiquette lessons. “I spent summers there, that’s all.”

  The best summers of her life, she remembered. Not a scheduled activity for two and a half months. Not a single textbook that had to be read, not a single concerto that had to be memorized. Long days bright and full of discovery by her grandmother’s side as she plucked samples for the house. Rosemary, thyme, sage, wild daffodils, vervain, Saint-John’s-wort, fragrant and mysterious and full of magic. She and Granny would spend hours wandering over the property, watching a seed go from sprig to flower to berry. Quiet, slow hours that stretched on forever.

  That, perhaps, was the greatest gift Granny had given her; the memory of all those sweet, shared, uncluttered hours. The feeling that she—tall, skinny, bigbrained Eugenia—had been important enough in someone’s life to merit the deep-focused expenditure of a commodity as precious as time.

  “What are you thinking of?”

  She glanced up at him and took in a sharp, painful breath. He’d spoken in a low voice, deep and resonant, and he stood just by her side. Big. Big and breathing, warm and man.

  “Tell me,” he urged, “what you were just thinking of.”

  “Why?”

  “Your whole face changed.” He traced his finger down her cheek. “You went soft, Ginny. Like you were thinking of a lover.”

  She sucked in a breath. His hand was gritty against her cheek. Then he laid his hand against her jaw, a warm pressure. The world beyond him spun, a kaleidoscope of color and light.

  A lover. She knew nothing of lovers, nothing of passion, nothing of the crazed mindlessness that overcame a sane woman when she was in love, though she’d seen it happen to her friends over the years. Such a strange phenomenon, she’d thought each time she witnessed that distinct intensity. Such a waste of energy and time, lolling about gazing into a lover’s eyes. What did they see? She’d never seen it in Michael’s eyes, dear, sweet, kind Michael, who had left her with such biting words.

  Logan’s eyes were deep, vivid green, far clearer than the pine boughs swaying beyond his head, an odd color for a man’s eyes. Deep and full of shifting currents, strange messages, strange meanings, strange emotions—concern and curiosity and something far darker, far more needy, far more intense.

  The pressure of his hand on her jaw intensified, and she felt another pressure, deep inside her, a heated, coiling sensation in the hollow of her abdomen. A fierce and sudden hungry taste in her mouth for things she’d not known in years—the touch of hot flesh, the taste of a man’s sweat, the hunger of sex.

  The need was visceral, soul-deep and sent shock waves right down to her boots.

  “My grandmother,” she said swiftly, shaking herself. “I was thinking of my grandmother. We had many good years together before she died.”

  He didn’t say anything. He didn’t move. She could see the reflection of her own quivering response in his gaze. He made no attempt to move back and break the invisible vines that held them to the spot.

  His grip tightened suddenly on her jaw. “Hell, Ginny. This is going to happen sooner or later.”

  Then he crushed her mouth with his lips.

  4

  HAD LIGHTNING JAGGED from the sky and lit the grass aflame, or the river swelled with spring thaw and overrun its banks, Eugenia knew she’d still stand in this patch of sunshine, oblivious, locked in Logan’s kiss. For in her mind all the world had stilled around her—the leaves in the trees suspended by a halted wind, the tea-colored froth of the river frozen in place, the birds’ song silenced in midwarble.

  There was nothing gentle in this kiss. The bristles of his beard needled her chin as his mouth angled against hers. He stole the breath from her lungs then filled them anew with the coffee-scented heat of his own. His fingers dug into her jaw then raked through her hair to seize her head and hold it captive, hold it still.

  He held her mind captive as easily as her mouth. She stayed still—first out of shock, for nothing in her whole life’s experience had prepared her for this sensation of being completely and utterly overwhelmed by the touch of a man’s lips. Then, as his mouth opened, as he stroked her lips with his tongue, Logan made a sound deep in his chest unlike any sound she’d ever heard a man make in her presence, a sound she understood only out of some previously unknown instinct—a sound of fierce wanting.

  The intensity of his wanting throbbed in the air around them, in her ears, in her mind, in her mouth. He wants me. The knowledge shot through her, galvanizing her to abandon all that was left of her sensibilities, and she opened her mouth eagerly to kiss him back.

  There was that sensation again—me same sensation she’d had earlier in the day when he’d fallen into step beside her—that sublime synchronicity of thought and motion. Their mouths moved against each other as if they were part of one creature knotting in upon itself. No awkwardness in this, no clanking of teeth, no muscled wrestling of tongues. They anticipated the other’s movements with an unspoken, instinctive sensitivity, with all the ease and grace and beauty and seductiveness of a dance between two longtime lovers. The more they danced this kissing dance, the more she wanted it to go on and on.

  They could have been kissing for an hour or a minute, she could have kissed through the day and night…but then he drew a rough, cold hand up the warmth of her rib cage to the tingling swell of her breast.

  With that shock of sensation, the enormity of what was happening exploded upon her. She startled. Their lips separated. She stumbled back out of his grip, off balance on the flat ground, and stared wild-eyed at the man who’d just kissed her senseless. She pressed the back of her arm against her lips in a vain attempt to stop them from throbbing.

  He just stood there spearing her with his fierce green gaze while his chest rose and fell at a rate that matched hers. He took a step closer.

  “Uh-uh,” she said, throwing up her arm to ward him off. “Stay right there, Logan.”

  “What, until you start thinking?”

  “And breathing, too.”

  “I don’t want you to think. And I’ll help you with the breathing part—”

  “Logan.”

  He stopped. He curled his hands into fists. “Damn it, Ginny, I want to kiss you.”

  “You just did.”

  “I just started—”

  “I don’t even know you.” The words were true, but they felt like a lie on her throbbing lips. “I don’t even like you.”

  “You could have fooled me.”

  “You took me by surprise. Do you usually go around kissing the socks off unsuspecting women?”

  “No.” His gaze scoured her body. “And it wasn’t your socks I was trying to get off.”

  She realized with a shock that the hem of her shirt hung out over her belt. She still felt the shape and texture of his hand upon her rib cage, over the swell of her breast, as if she’d been branded with his palm print. With frantic, fumbling fingers she struggled to tuck herself back in. “Listen,” she said, her mind racing, “if this is some kind of man-in-the-wilderness, return-to-our-native-state kind of thing, find another girl. I’m not your type.”

  “I thought the same until about five minutes ago.”

  “A little sexual attraction—is natural,” she stammered, not believing the things coming out of her mouth, “between two healthy people in our situation. But that’s no reason to indulge in—”

  “I really got all your circuits crossed, didn’t I?”

  “I hope you didn’t think by bringing me out here you could talk me into a more intimate relationship,” she continue
d, feeling her face grow redder by the minute, “because I’m not interested, not even a little bit.”

  “Actions speak louder than words, Ginny, and your actions were just about screaming—”

  “I think it’s time we headed back.” She yanked her belt a notch and turned her back to him. At her feet lay the bag of honeysuckle blossoms she’d collected. It had burst open—undoubtedly when she’d dropped it as he’d kissed her—and a dozen blossoms were strewn across the ground. She crouched down to stuff them back into the bag. “Then you and I are going to have a nice sensible talk across the kitchen table about the limits of this—Ouch!”

  She heard the angry buzz, felt the vibration against her hand as something pierced deep into her finger. She stumbled on her backside, yanked her hand out of the bag of blossoms and splayed it in front of her, just as the body of the bee fell from the stinger lodged in her skin.

  She winced as the pain shot straight up to her elbow, intensifying with each throb. She shook her hand in a vain effort to diffuse it.

  Then Logan was there, crouching in front of her. “You got stung.”

  She gritted her teeth. “Obviously.”

  “You, a botanist, stung by a bee.”

  She eyed him warily, saw the glimmer of humor on his face, but chose to ignore it. “Occupational hazard,” she muttered, still cringing from the pain. “It happens occasionally.”

  “Tsk-tsk. You should know better.”

  “Stop gloating. It isn’t attractive.”

  He held out his hand and made a futile attempt to suppress his grin. “Let me see.”

  “There’s nothing you can do about it.” She yanked her hand away from him, hating herself for acting so childishly. “The pain will go away in fifteen minutes or so.”

  “Sooner if you get the stinger out.” He sank his hand into his back pocket, then flipped his wallet to the ground. He thumbed out a gold credit card and waved it in her face. “C’mon, Ginny.”

  “You’ll push the stinger in farther.”

  “Trust me.”

  “I trusted you already, and that led to kissing.”

  “Well,” he said, shrugging those broad shoulders with a rogue’s grin, “I promise I won’t kiss the sting, okay?”

  She frowned at him. She wondered how he could be so lighthearted when she was still reeling from the aftereffects of that kiss. She wondered why she was behaving so utterly irrationally. Mentally berating herself for losing her cool, she shoved her hand toward him.

  He took her hand in his, turned it this way and that, then gently probed the lump forming around the stinger. “You’re not allergic, are you?”

  “No,” she said, biting her lip as he scraped the edge of the credit card across the plateau of the lump. “I’ve been stung before.”

  “You could still have a reaction.” His gaze shifted from her hand to her face, only inches from him. “You are flushed.”

  “The weather,” she said, flatly. “It’s hot.”

  His lips quirked. “Feeling any tightness in the chest? Having difficulty breathing?”

  She caught her breath in her throat. “Logan, can I have my hand back now?”

  “I’ve got to check your pulse,” he murmured, sliding his rough hand down to her wrist and probing the delicate bones. “You feeling itchy?”

  “Logan—”

  “I’m serious,” he said, the quirk turning into a slow and wicked grin. “We’ve got to check for hives.”

  “You want to look for them, too?”

  “You making an offer, Red?”

  She yanked her hand away and scrambled to her feet. “I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself.”

  “Not as much as I’d like to be.”

  She stared at him, a hard, fierce stare, but the glare that usually made graduate students scurry off to do her bidding only made Logan’s wicked grin dissolve in a deep chuckle.

  “Well,” he said, lumbering up to his full and imposing height, “that settles one question.”

  “What question?” She flexed her stiffening finger, wincing at the pain, as she went back to collecting the honeysuckle blossoms—more carefully this time. “What are you talking about?”

  “You might walk the walk and talk the talk, Red.” His gaze swept lazily over her figure. “But you’re no ice queen.”

  A shaky chill flooded over her, dulling everything from the sting throbbing on her finger to the desire throbbing in her veins. The words rang in her ears at a pitch that could shatter glass.

  As the coldness flowed through her body, stiffening her spine and making her neck muscles go rigid, she wondered why everyone assumed that just because she didn’t bat her eyes or sway her hips at any man who caught her eye, just because she was past thirty and did not exhibit any paroxysms of terror at her single state, just because she had the ability to hold her emotions in check—that she had no emotions at all.

  Because she did—she did. Logan’s words were proof positive, for the sting of them sank deep and were still shooting poison.

  She turned a gaze on him that she judged as frigid as an icicle, and just as sharp. “Did Dr. Springfield put you up to that kiss,” she asked, “to have something to titter about at the next conference?”

  “C’mon, Red.” His gaze dropped, then slid up her body again. “There’s no conspiracy. I didn’t expect this any more than you did. If I had,” he said, striding over to where his pack lay against a tree, “I wouldn’t have used that ice-queen crack.”

  Her nostrils flared, but she clamped her mouth shut. She’d said enough. She’d said too much. The cold flush that had shot through her ebbed, leaving her feeling hot, dizzy, out of sorts.

  “It always sends you into such a tailspin,” he continued, shoving his equipment back into the pack. “Whoever stuck that label on you must have been a real bastard. And blind, as well.”

  “Forget about it.” She dropped to her knees to cram her equipment back in her pack. “Let’s just forget about this whole day.”

  “Too late. The genie is out of the bottle now.” He heaved his pack over his shoulder and shook his head. “Can’t shove it back in now, Red, no matter how much you want to.”

  “Watch me.”

  He was watching her, for he set those intense green eyes on her with sudden sharpness. “Are you all right?”

  ‘I’m fine.“ She crammed the last of her equipment into her pack and yanked the ties closed, hoping non of the vials would crack before she made it to the lab “I’ll be better when we’re back at the cabin.”

  “You sound hoarse.”

  She stood up and swung the pack over her shoulder “From arguing with you. An exercise in futility.”

  He took three steps toward her and slapped his hand on her forehead. “You’re warm. Feeling dizzy?”

  “Don’t start that again.” She shoved his hand away and brushed by him. “It wasn’t funny the first time.”

  “I’m serious.” He fell into step beside her. “You go any Benadryl in that pack of yours?”

  “No. I don’t usually get stung.”

  “Yeah, well, by all reports you don’t usually ge kissed senseless in the middle of the woods, either.’ He clamped his jaw as she shot him a look, then ho spoke more softly. “You should prepare for these sur prises, Ginny. Ever hear of anaphylactic shock?”

  “Listen to you.” She tried to quicken her pace, bu his long-legged stride always kept up with her. “I’ll take Benadryl when we get home, Dr. Logan. Satis fied?”

  “No,” he said. “You’ll take some when we get bad to the car. I’ve got a first aid kit there—I should have brought it with me.” He swung his pack over his shoulder. “By the way, it is Dr. Macallister. Logan Ma callister, M.D., specializing in emergency medica treatment.” He met her gaze as her eyes widened “Yeah, that’s right, Red. It’s for real. Apparently, nei ther one of us is exactly who we seem.”

  LOGAN. SANK THE BLADE of the chain saw into the pin trunk, holding the buzzing tool steady as steel me wood
, then sank deeper to spew off a shower of chaff He’d been working on this old trunk since morning, when dew still clung to the grass. Now, from the shelter of the shed, he could see that the sun had dried the grass stiff. Insects buzzed lazily in the heat. Sweat soaked the collar of his T-shirt where bits of wood fiber clung, making his skin itchy and raw. He ignored the irritation and concentrated on sizing the trunk. A few more passes of the saw and this log would be just the right length for his purposes. Then he could really get down to work.

  The saw slipped free of the trunk. A perfect circular slice of wood fell to a pillow of sawdust on the shed floor. Logan shut the chain saw off, planted it on the worktable nearby, then raised a can of cola to his lips. The drink had long lost its coolness and its tingle, but at least it was wet as it slid down his throat. As he finished the dregs, he swiped his arm across his forehead and stepped out the door of the shed, hoping to catch a breeze.

  His gaze shifted, inevitably, to the basement window. The glow of a bare bulb was visible through the grime. She was at it again. Rather, she was at it, still. In the two days since they’d returned from the park, it seemed as if she hadn’t budged from the gloominess of the basement. But for the sight of that bare bulb and the sound of clanking glassware coming from the basement, he wouldn’t even know that he had a gorgeous redhead for a roommate.

  He heard a crackling noise. He glanced down and discovered that he’d crushed the empty can of cola in one hand.

  He turned, lobbed the can toward the recycling bin in the shed, then ran his chaff-flecked fingers through his hair. Wasn’t he a charmer? The only woman he’d seen in over a year that he’d taken a liking to—a colleague of a friend, no less—and at the first opportunity he’d attacked her like an animal. He’d scared her away so thoroughly that she hid from him like a groundhog, popping her head out of her subterranean home only when he wasn’t around. The only evidence he had that she was eating was the slowly depleting supply of deli meats in the refrigerator. The only evidence that she was sleeping and bathing was the unmade bed and the vague scent of strawberry shampoo lingering in the hallway in the wee hours of the morning.

  A real jerk, that’s what he was. A genuine made-in-the-U. S.A. first-class jerk. He’d made it clear the moment she walked into the cabin that he wanted no visitors, and now he’d gone out of his way to prove it. Yeah, she was gorgeous. Yeah, he had the hots for her. He was acting as if he had as much control as a fifteen-year-old boy at a peep show.