by Jean Oram
“What do you mean?”
“That you’re an easily swayed woman.”
“I’m a sucker, Grandma.”
“You’re smart. You outsmart yourself every time and make sure your relationships fail.”
“No, I don’t.” Did she?
“You’re perceptive, and what you see in a man is always his best. I admire that. Most people see the bad, but not you. If you saw good in that man—enough to marry him in a couple of days flat—then that man is a keeper, Ginger McGinty. A keeper.”
“No, Grandma. He’s like Kurt and all the others. He’s already left me.”
He’d let her walk away. A man who loved a woman didn’t do that. She’d thought he was the kind to stay, but what did it matter? He’d used her for a visa as per their agreement, and she’d been foolish to let herself believe that he might want to join her life in Blueberry Springs, that she was worth more than a piece of paper.
“Did he leave you or did you leave him? Because I’ve seen you leave a lot of men.”
“I haven’t left a single one of them.” She was not her father.
“You left Kurt before he could leave you.”
“No, he didn’t come to school with me.”
“You asked him to go clear across the continent. He couldn’t afford it. He had a family ranch that needed his help on long weekends.”
“He had brothers, and a man who loves a woman would have moved,” Ginger said weakly.
“So it was a test? And he failed?”
She remained silent. Her once just argument felt a bit flat and selfish. Unfair, too.
“You could have gone to a closer school, but you didn’t. What does that say about you?”
“High school relationships never last, Grandma.”
“You were afraid he was going to leave you so you left him. Face it.”
Ginger sighed. Okay, maybe that was a tiny bit true. But high school relationships rarely lasted once kids got out in the real world, so what did it matter?
“You choose men you know will leave, simply to reinforce your beliefs. You create self-fulfilling prophecies for all of your relationships.”
“I don’t.”
“You do. When was the last time you dated a man who wasn’t due to leave the country within a few months?”
“Grandma…” Ginger racked her brain for an example. Surely there had to be at least one besides her high school sweetheart. “But…”
She was really attracted to accents. Unless she was actually attracted to those men for reasons her grandma was stating…
“Honey, if you married that man, he’s a keeper. So get over yourself and go find him.”
“I have a business to run in Blueberry Springs and he has commitments here.”
“Excuses.”
“Good ones!”
“You’re married, Ginger. Now’s the time to make it work. You think me and my Tony walked into an easy, strong commitment? We didn’t. We had to work for it. And why do you think I offered you money to marry Matias? Because I’m wealthy and generous?” Her grandma didn’t wait for an answer. “No, because I saw what you were doing. You were pulling away, creating the self-fulfilling prophecy about being left, when he was doing all he could to stay. The money was a nudge to try and help you get over yourself.”
Wanda was forgetting the reality ending. “He left me. And he wanted me for my medical plan.”
“Of course he left. You all but kicked him out. The man was quiet and you started to act like it was personal. And as for the medical plan? You’re just reaching.”
“He was the one withdrawing!”
“Because you were picking silly fights and working longer hours and acting like you didn’t care about him.”
“But he…” Shoot. She kind of had started to push him away, hadn’t she? Just like today—she’d started pushing Logan away, closing off. But it hadn’t been all her today. He’d woken up distant and then broken into Vito’s office.
Anything I say or do is about me. Not you.
He’d said that with heartfelt honesty, but she’d taken it personally, made it about her.
But he’d been snooping through stuff he shouldn’t have. Plus he’d started pushing her away, and she knew what that meant.
“Stop making excuses,” her grandmother said gently. “If you want this man, go get him before it’s too late.”
“But he has a secret side he won’t let me know about.”
“Then find a way to get to know it.” Wanda said goodbye and ended the call.
And how was Ginger supposed to do that when she had a day and a half left here and he’d already walked away?
It was three in the morning and Logan had one of the men from Vito’s yacht in a headlock hold, his arms under the man’s armpits from behind, his hands pinned behind the other man’s neck. Logan was comfortable. The man under him trying to breathe sand was not.
He’d been one of Vito’s guards on the yacht that afternoon and had no business at this time of night hanging outside Ginger’s cottage. He’d come by around nine, now again. Nobody visited with good intentions at 3:00 a.m. and Logan had a feeling the armed man wanted his wife as collateral to ensure Logan did his boss’s bidding, knew this game they were playing was in fact hardball.
Logan had spent some of his evening watching the honeymoon cottage before gathering more intel from his hidden cameras, sneaking aboard Vito’s yacht, where he found a large stash of conflict diamonds, and finally calling up HQ. The team had begun working to set up meetings, traps, and by this time tomorrow he expected Vito to be in custody.
Zach had already had his meeting with Vito, mere hours after the yacht trip, and was on board to play the stone cutter’s part. Things were moving fast.
“What are you doing here?” Logan whispered harshly in his captive’s ear.
The man under him struggled, but didn’t say a word. Logan began pushing the guy’s head down, knowing it was awkward, painful and soon to be suffocating.
“I’ve got all night,” he said calmly.
Never let anger impact your ability to get what you want on a job. Be ruthless.
Definitely don’t think about the fact that the man had been trying to get into his wife’s cottage for unknown reasons.
Wife.
Logan let up his hold without thinking, and the guy took advantage, rolling, a knife brushing Logan’s side as muscle memory had him dodging, eluding the hit.
He wrestled with the man, sand flying through the air as they fought for dominance. Logan felt the dune’s grit between his teeth and his eyes stung when the man tossed sand in his face. Logan swung out with a leg, knocking his opponent down. He grabbed him, silently placing himself on top, pinning the man once again. Even though their fight had been quiet, he glanced up to ensure they hadn’t woken anyone. The last thing he needed was to cause alarm as he wrestled a man capable of murder just outside the honeymoon cottage, which now had a lamp flicking on inside.
Honeymoon.
He shook his head.
What had his world come to?
He was sitting on an armed henchman on a cold dune instead of being inside that cozy little haven wrapped up in a woman who saw inside his soul and still seemed to care for him.
Well, she had until she’d finally seen the man he truly was.
But she’d cared for him once. And maybe could again.
Logan cursed under his breath as the heartache ripped through him. The man under him opened his mouth to scream and Logan knocked him out with one punch before sliding off his limp form with a dejected sigh.
This wasn’t the life he wanted.
Ginger had been sleeping in fits and starts.
What her grandmother had said on the phone had struck a chord.
She left men. They didn’t leave her. Well, they finally took a walk, but it was because she pushed them away repeatedly until that was the only thing left that they could do.
A keeper. Logan was a keeper.
/> There had been plenty of good in Logan.
She didn’t know him, that was true.
But she trusted him, even though he’d been up to things she didn’t understand. How could she possibly still trust him?
She rolled out of bed and flicked on the bedside lamp. It was three in the morning and she thought she’d heard something on the front porch. At this time of night Logan was usually wandering the beach, and she wondered if he was returning. She moved to the window, to find the moon shining bright.
No Logan.
What did she expect? To see him rising out of the ocean like a marine again?
Like a marine.
The gun. The secrets.
She stood in the middle of the room, mulling things over. Then she began rifling through the small cottage, looking for clues. She started in the bathroom, searching for the mysterious gun. Behind the toilet tank, inside it, under the sink. When she came up empty-handed, she turned around in the small room.
Who was Logan Stone and why did she have a strong feeling things were hidden inside this cottage?
She moved to the bedroom. Under the mattress? No. Too obvious.
Hands on her hips, she stared at the wall beside the couch. A watercolor print of the beach. She strode over to it, lifting it from its place. She turned the picture around. Nothing was taped to its back, nothing on the wall.
She sighed and studied the room. Where would she hide something? She lifted the picture to rehang it and heard something slide, like it was tucked behind the papered back. She peeled away a corner of the backing. A passport was inside.
She hesitated, then opened it. There was a photo of Logan Stone, but the man’s name wasn’t Logan.
She continued her search, reminding herself to breathe as she eventually came up with a knife, some sort of gadget she didn’t understand, a cell phone, cash and a gun.
If she didn’t know any better, Logan Stone was either a spy or a man on the run.
But how did he end up with Annabelle if he was a spy?
Which meant he was a man on the run. Hiding.
From who?
He didn’t like Vito. She could feel that coming off him.
But Vito didn’t seem to mind Logan.
There was something there. She could feel it.
Someone banged on the front door and Ginger squeaked.
The lights were on. She was obviously awake, which meant there was no hiding out this time.
“Ginger! It’s Ted. Is Nadia with you?”
Ginger went to the door. Ted was looking pale and worried.
“I can’t find her anywhere.”
“What do you mean?”
He held up a note. “She said she was going for a walk. But when I got back from the bar where I was talking with Vito I couldn’t find her. Nobody’s seen her for hours and the police say they won’t start looking until she’s been gone twenty-four hours or there’s evidence of foul play.”
“It’s…” Ginger checked the time “,,,three thirty in the morning.”
“I’ve looked everywhere.” He dropped onto the couch, his hands in his hair. “I don’t know what to do. Who to ask.”
Logan.
I care for you. A lot.
Anything I say or do is about me. Not you.
Whatever happens today, just trust me. Know that you know the real me.
But she didn’t know the real him. She knew that because she had a passport with a name in it that wasn’t the one on their marriage certificate.
He’d known something was up today. He hadn’t been nervous about sailing, he’d been nervous about Vito. That made Ginger worry that Nadia was in trouble. And Logan was the man who knew what to do about it.
But how was she going to find him?
Logan had tied up Vito’s henchman and left him in the scuba shed, knowing the man would be discovered shortly after dawn if Logan didn’t hurry up and deal with the loose ends that were starting to unravel.
He hurried to the Tiki Hut, popping the lock meant to keep trespassers at bay, and removing a panel behind the bar that he’d added months ago. Behind the false front was a stash of gadgets, and he set himself up in the quiet to begin running through his feeds once again, looking for new intel, peeking out every once in a while to make sure he wasn’t being scouted.
Vito’s yacht had moved a few hours ago and was now anchored just offshore. Logan guessed a delivery of diamonds was going to occur, although that didn’t quite feel right. However, Vito had arranged to meet with Ted, Greg, Logan and Zach aboard the boat again just after dawn. Maybe he was stockpiling diamonds and was ready to move even faster than Logan had anticipated.
Logan’s main camera on the yacht had been knocked askew, so he could tell people were aboard via its audio but could see nothing as its lens was now aimed at the ceiling. In other words, nothing much definitive in the way of intel.
He pinged Zach Forrester, who relayed that the team was on the move and ready for an early morning rendezvous, and that Logan was to stay put until given the word.
Logan debated catching some shut-eye, but instead flipped his feed over to the recording from the cottage. He’d set up the surveillance like always, as he did when he settled anywhere. He knew Ginger was likely safe, with her main threat tied up in the shed, but he wanted to ensure no further dangers had appeared on her horizon.
He paused before hitting the button that would invade her privacy, then braced himself as he watched her cry into her phone in a scene recorded a few hours earlier. She peeked out the curtains around the time Mr. Henchman had popped by for his first visit. Logan had been in the tall grass near the cottage, watching, waiting, knowing the chances of something happening were pretty great. He’d also managed to successfully avoid Paul around that time. The police officer knew the reason for Logan’s impromptu wedding and didn’t seem to care that his current stay was legal. Paul was waiting for him to screw up, for there to be a lapse in his paperwork so he could send Logan back home. But there wouldn’t be a lapse.
But Ginger. Why was she was crying?
Obviously because of him.
He’d lied and she hated liars. He’d asked her to trust him, asked her to not take anything he did personally, had assured her the best he could, and he’d failed. He could have told her the truth, pulled out of the agency, and seeing her cry made him wonder why he hadn’t done that.
Right. That didn’t get the job done. Didn’t save villages from killers like Vito.
Logan fast-forwarded through hours of Ginger tossing and turning in bed, her supple form glowing in the strip of moonlight that slipped through the curtains. He paused the feed as it zipped past three o’clock—almost an hour ago. He rewound to the time when Vito’s man had shown up for his second visit.
She’d woken up and turned on a light. Looked out the window. Then she’d proceeded to rip the place apart while he took care of Vito’s man out in the sand dunes.
Logan rubbed a knuckle across his forehead, cringing as he watched her find his passport.
He stood, cursing. Then, realizing he was supposed to be hiding, he sat again.
Worst agent in the world. That’s what he became when she was around.
He watched, curious as to what else she’d find, and what her grainy black-and-white reaction would be.
She discovered weapons, cash. Just about everything, and he found himself smiling. She might act like she was just a bubbly, happy, small-town gal, but she had a lot going on. A lot he liked. Still smiling, he wondered if she’d consider becoming an agent.
He was almost caught up to real time with the recorded feed when he saw Ginger go to the door.
No!
Logan almost stood up again, ready to dash across the sand.
Had Vito sent a follow-up man?
What if Logan had already lost her?
He sped up the recording, his breath coming in jagged bursts. He nearly died of relief when he saw it was only Ted who’d come by, without his fiancée.
>
The man showed Ginger a note and Logan knew—Nadia was missing.
Ginger turned and looked straight into the hidden camera, and Logan knew it was time to tell her everything.
Chapter 6
Ginger went to the door, not at all surprised to find Logan standing there, decked out in black clothing. “Nadia is missing.”
“I know,” he said, setting her skin on fire as he brushed past her. His eyes swept the room, picking up Ted’s slumped form on the couch, the weapon and passport she’d unearthed and not put away.
“We need to talk,” she said.
“I know.”
“Privately.”
“Agreed.”
They both turned, marching to the bathroom as if of one mind.
Logan closed the door behind them and Ginger leaned against the vanity, arms crossed over her red pajamas.
“I’m sorry I had to lie to you.”
Ginger had been ready to drill him with questions, but paused as he took her hand, his expression softening with hope when he saw his rings still on her finger. “I need you, Ginger.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I do. You make me feel real, alive. You’re part of the life I want.”
“You lied to me.”
“Yes.”
“Because you’re a…” Which scenario should she pop on him? “…a thief.”
“A thief?” He hesitated as though about to agree, then shook his head.
Yeah, she didn’t quite believe that one, either. Even though he had stolen her heart.
“You’re a man on the run. You cross borders with various passports and—and…” She was too tired to think. “…you’re involved with something unbelievable, something out of the movies.”
“Close.”
“You’re an undercover cop?” she asked hopefully. She kind of liked that one. It wasn’t too scary. “A spy?”
He brushed her cheek with the backs of his knuckles. “Just know that I’ll do whatever I can to keep you safe, and any time I don’t tell you the truth it’s because I’m protecting you.”
She was so ready to cave. But she needed to stand strong. They couldn’t have a true relationship with secrets.
