He still wasn’t sure he wanted Kate to see him yet, but he would call her and apologize. Just as soon as he could find someone’s phone to borrow.
Regardless of what Julia had said to him, he knew he had to keep moving forward, placing one foot in front of the other and keep walking. With a woman like Kate holding his hand, what could possibly go wrong?
* * *
Kate knocked on the ornate door and a minute later, Logan yelled through the door, “Who is it?”
“Logan, it’s Kate, your optometrist.” She had waited as long as she could for this confrontation, but when he didn’t make an attempt to reach out to her after Julia’s visit, Kate decided to take it upon herself. Sure, he had told her to leave him alone, but she deserved an explanation. It was the least he could do after tricking her into loving him.
Logan yanked open the door with a scowl. He looked terrible and not in the least bit happy to see her, but she kept the smile plastered on her face anyway.
In fact, he looked like he’d gone twelve rounds with Muhammad Ali with one arm tied behind his back. Purple and black bruises surrounded his swollen eye and it took every ounce of her willpower not to reach up and caress his cheek.
“I didn’t know eye doctors made house calls,” he said, bitterness curling around his words.
“Normally, I don’t. But I wanted to check and see how you’re doing.”
“How do you think I’m doing? I’m on the IR and I may never play hockey again.”
She had meant physically, but she didn’t tell him that. “Are you having any headaches or pain of any kind?”
He cocked his head to the side in an annoyed gesture. “Really?” She’d ignored his plea for her to stay away and now she was here asking about his goddamn health?
She blew out a breath, her patience obviously wearing thin. “Can I come in?”
Hesitantly, Logan waved her inside. He was having as much luck at keeping the Kapowski sisters out of his house as he was coming to the realization that he may lose vision in his eye.
Kate stepped into the foyer and spun around to face him. “Tell me to my face that you don’t want to see me. Me.” She poked her finger into her chest. “Kate.”
He looked down at his feet and shook his head.
She stood there, the piano in the room behind her, somehow knowing this was a pivotal moment in their relationship.
When he finally looked her in the eyes, he said, “I can’t.”
Her shoulders slumped and the expression on her face softened.
“I’m sorry, Kate. Everything’s so fucked up right now.”
The façade of arrogance slid away to reveal a look of panic, fear and loneliness. Kate imagined this was how he must have looked as a child. Although he was a grown man experienced in the ways of life, innocence clung to him and had her reaching out to him to comfort and soothe. “It’s okay. I understand.”
“I didn’t want you to see me like that…like this.”
She went to him, slid her arms around his body and held on tight. “Just close your eyes and let me love you.”
“I need you, Kate,” he choked out.
“I need you, too. Please don’t push me away.”
Their tears mingled together as their tongues found each other and mated frantically. They drank from each other. Hands groped, tongues touched. His fingers fisted her hair, his lips claimed her mouth, her neck and then bit at her shoulder.
Fix me, his body seemed to say.
I’ll try, hers promised in reply.
She pushed his shirt up and he pulled it up over his head, taking care not to graze his stitches. A soft sigh warmed his ear when he touched her skin. He plunged his hands up under her blouse and found her breasts. Pebbled nipples greeted his hungry hands.
Frantic to make it up to the bedroom, he pushed her to the stairs. When her heels bumped the first step she climbed backwards. One, then two steps.
They didn’t make it to the third step.
He knelt over her and she grabbed for a condom from her purse. His hands skimmed down her body. Metal rasped against metal as she pulled down the zipper on his jeans. He leaned closer until their thighs brushed.
Before she could even spread her legs for him, he was nudging at her entrance. She braced herself on the stairs and he slid home.
“God, I missed you, Kate.”
His breath was hot in her ear. She ducked her head to take his nipple in her mouth. She nibbled and sucked until he moaned with pleasure/pain. It didn’t take long before they were both spent and satisfied.
Afterward, she snuggled against him and he stroked her hair.
“I met Julia today,” he said softly.
“Oh?”
“She came over this morning with her killer watch dog with the intentions of giving me a piece of her mind, but she just ended up charming the pants off me.”
She smiled. Julia had that effect on people. “But you kept your pants on, I presume.”
“She’s amazing, Kate. Why didn’t you tell me she was blind?”
“We hadn’t really gotten to the stage of meeting each other’s families yet. I wanted us all to sit down to dinner sometime, but...”
“Does that mean I get to introduce you to my parents?”
“Only if you want to,” she replied coyly. “I’m not here to pressure you, Logan.”
“I’d like you to meet my parents. They’re flying in when I have the operation. Is Julia why you became an optometrist?”
“Yes. I wanted to better understand what was going on with her eyes and also to help people understand their own. I’m still fascinated with how the eye works. How it reacts to light, how it can distinguish millions of colors, how the iris controls the size of the pupil… The eye is a magnificent organ.”
As soon as she said the word ‘organ’ he smirked.
“Don’t you even say it.” She grabbed him by the shoulders and spun him around so she could straddle him. Then she bent down and kissed him until he could say nothing at all.
* * *
When Kate received a phone call from Dr. Mallan, it was an unexpected surprise. When he told her that Logan had called and cancelled his surgery, she was even more surprised. In fact, she was livid.
“You didn’t cancel it, did you?” she asked Dr. Mallan.
This was not good. Surgery was the only chance he had at being able to play hockey again.
“No,” Dr. Mallan answered. “I have confidence in your ability to persuade him it’s the right decision.”
It was the only decision in Kate’s mind.
When she called Logan, he didn’t answer. Realizing she shouldn’t have even bothered trying to contact him by phone, Kate did what she should have done in the first place. She raced over to his house and marched up to his front door, prepared to give him a piece of her mind.
When he swung the door open, she let loose. “So, you fire Dr. Mallan and then you won’t return my calls?” She planted her hands on her hips.
“I didn’t fire him, I’m just not having the operation. And my phone is broken. I have to get a new one.”
“And why the hell aren’t you having the operation?” she shrieked.
His expression changed. “God, you’re gorgeous when you’re mad.”
“I’m—” She didn’t finish the sentence because he cupped the back of her neck and crushed his mouth to hers. At first she protested, but when his tongue pushed through her lips, she opened for him and greeted him with her own. She kissed him hard.
His lips moved over hers with a passion she’d only read about. He pulled her inside the house, slammed her against the wall and pinned her there while his mouth had its way with hers. Then his hands moved over her arms, then her waist and then up to cup her breast. She moaned at the contact and he swallowed the sound as it escaped her lips.
He was a man, no animal, possessed. Driven by need and desire. Desperate to escape the turmoil in his head. She was warm and as hungry as he was and he needed her
to distract him from reality. Needed her in order to cope. But he also wanted her. Wanted her in ways that had nothing to do with the situation with his eye.
She ran her hands up under his shirt and found his toned abs and hard chest. Her hands slid over his smooth skin and tangled in the course hair on his chest.
His mouth claimed the hollow of her throat, the slope of her neck and her clavicle. He needed her and she couldn’t think of anywhere else she’d rather be.
When they had rid each other of their clothes, he pushed inside her, stretching her to accommodate the length of him. He slowed down the kiss and kissed her nice and slow.
Pinned between the wall and Logan’s hard body, Kate rode the waves of pleasure and clung to him as she climaxed. With one final grunt, he moaned and collapsed against her, claiming his own blessed release.
Unable to hold up her own weight any longer, her legs began to tremble. He guided her down to the floor and sat her on the steps. They’d been in this exact same position before and this time the sex hadn’t been any less satisfying.
They sat on the stairs catching their breath, basking in the afterglow. There was definitely something magnetic between the two of them and Logan knew he’d been foolish to try and fight it.
“We seem to end up like this a lot,” Kate pointed out while lazily stroking her fingers over his chest.
“Yeah,” he panted.
“One of these times we should try and make it to a bed.”
“I can never wait that long.”
When his hand snaked up her bare thigh, she stopped him. If he thought he could keep using sex to escape from his problems, then Logan Murray had another thing coming.
“Don’t think you can distract me with sex,” she warned.
“You’re not going to be happy until we talk about this, are you?”
“I just want to understand.”
Tension tightened his muscles and his hands curled into fists. When he tried to pull away from her, Kate held tight.
“There’s nothing wrong with being afraid,” she said gently. “It’s okay to be scared.”
“I’m not scared,” he snapped.
The truth was that Logan was more scared than he’d ever been before. More than the time his sister had fallen through the ice at Moln Lake. More than the time he’d thought he’d been passed over for the draft. More than when he had thought he’d lost Kate.
He was scared shitless that the operation wouldn’t work and he’d be blind in one eye for the rest of his life. Blind.
Blind.
Just the sound of the word scared the hell out of him because he knew what it meant. It meant he would never be able to play hockey again. Hockey. His lifeblood, his passion, his everything.
Kate ignored his stubbornness. “If it were me, I know I’d be scared out of my mind. But I know how determined you are. I know how hard you worked to get into the UNHL in the first place. And I know you would do anything it takes to keep playing hockey. Even if that means taking the biggest risk of your life to do it.”
He sighed. “That’s some pep talk you’ve got there, Doc.”
“I just know how important the game is to you. And I know that everything is riding on this operation.”
“Yeah. Everything. My future. My sight. My life. God, Kate, how the hell could you even know what I’m going through?”
She didn’t. But she did know what was important to him. “If you don’t have the operation you won’t be able to play hockey anyway.”
That stabbed him straight to his core.
Logan raked his hands through his hair. She was right. She was right about everything. The same way her sister had been right about his bullheadedness. But it still didn’t change the fact that fear clawed at him during every waking moment.
“What if he fucks it up, Kate?” Human error was what frightened him most. People made too many damn mistakes. He couldn’t get the oil changed in his car without somebody screwing something up. How the hell was this Dr. Mallan guy going to patch up his eye good enough so he could play hockey again? Once wrong slice and he could be permanently blind in that eye.
But sometimes a man had to push past fear and into the unknown. Even if it was only darkness that awaited him.
“Dr. Mallan is very capable,” she assured him. “He’s the leading specialist in complex microsurgery. You’ll be in good hands, I promise. He does exceptional work. I know firsthand because he performed my Lasik surgery.”
Huh. Kate had trusted him to laser her eyes and she could see just fine. Knowing that made Logan feel a little bit better about her colleague’s capability.
“Will you be there during the operation?” he asked.
“I can be.”
“Good, because I want you there when I go under the knife.”
In that moment, he decided he was ready to fight. And he definitely had something worth fighting for.
If Kate believed in him and their love, then he supposed it would be more than enough to see them through whatever the results of the surgery were. Kate told him to put trust in his medical team and Logan had faith in Kate. That was that.
He just hoped it was enough.
* * *
Julia waited patiently for news about Logan. She knew all too well the fear he was experiencing. The waiting and having no control. When she was a little girl, she knew she was losing her sight, just waiting for it to slip away completely. But Logan still had a chance. If the fates were feeling generous, he just might not be banished to a world of darkness like her.
When VINCE announced the call, Julia crossed her fingers and answered.
“He’s okay, JuJu.” Kate’s voice was shaky yet relieved. “The surgery was a success.”
Julia sat back with a sigh and patted Shamus on the head.
Thank goodness for small miracles.
Chapter Twenty-One
Hero
A week later, before Gabe even had the chance to sit down, his boss was calling him into his office. Or his assistant was at least. The guy didn’t seem to do anything himself. If it couldn’t be delegated, then it wasn’t a job worth doing. It was such a noble motto.
Gabe knew he wasn’t being summoned to reminisce about his vacation. No, Killingsworth was all business all the time and that was okay with him. Gabe didn’t require personal relationships with the guy who signed his checks, just aloofness and a common goal.
Gabe unwrapped a piece of gum, chewed it, then stuck it to the roof of his mouth.
Here we go, he told himself.
Suddenly it was all happening so fast. This was the meeting where he told Killingsworth that he’d have the software ready for distribution by the end of the month. Think of how many people would benefit from his program! Once he had it running at optimal performance it would literally change people’s lives.
Damn, it felt good to be a part of something so beneficial to society. Imagine the amputee who no longer had to control his computer with his teeth. The paraplegic who could interact with people worldwide from their computer. Or the blind teen who could surf the internet, check e-mail, and shop just by saying a few simple commands out loud.
Gabe walked into the executive’s office feeling much like he’d entered the lion’s den.
Killingsworth waved in to take a seat while he wrapped up a phone call. “Absolutely,” he was saying. “We are very excited. I’m putting my best guy on the project.” He looked at Gabe and Gabe briefly wondered if he was referring to him. He really didn’t want to start a new project when he had so many loose ends to tie up with VINCE.
Killingsworth hung up the phone, put his fingers into a triangle and looked at Gabe. He eyed the software designer in that critical way he had of looking at people. “I trust you enjoyed your vacation.”
The condescending tone of his voice made Gabe grind his teeth. It wasn’t like he’d spent months traipsing around on a world-wide vacation. He’d taken one measly week to finally go have a life—and he still had another week to
use later. But a guy like Killingsworth didn’t understand that. He expected Gabe and the rest of his employees to eat, sleep and breathe Intelliteck. Well, that’s exactly what Gabe had been doing up until last week. And now it was the only thing he had left to do.
“Yes,” Gabe said simply, keeping his thoughts to himself.
Killingsworth gave a curt nod and got back to business. “We are ceasing development on project…” He looked down at the notes on his desk. “VA7497.”
Gabe just stared at the man sitting in front of him.
VINCE was VA7497.
* * *
Julia was dreaming. It was hot, much too hot and the air was stifling. She couldn’t breathe. Was something heavy sitting on her chest? An elephant perhaps? Maybe she was dreaming about summers at the beach. When they were kids, Kate would bury Julia in the wet sand and the weight of it would sit heavy on her chest. She hadn’t been able to move her arms and legs and just wiggled until she could finally break free. The sun would beat down mercilessly on their shoulders and they would return to the beach house sunburned and their eyes gritty from the salt water.
When Julia wiggled her fingers and toes now, she soon realized her sheet covered her and not sand.
This wasn’t a dream.
After escaping the clutches of sleep and regaining her bearings, she could hear Shamus barking. It was a shrill, urgent bark. There must be another squirrel in the house.
Julia let out a groan. How was she supposed to keep the little critters from getting inside her apartment while still allowing Shamus outside?
“Shamus? What’s going on?” She sat up and immediately smelled smoke.
Shamus barked a reply using his “come on” voice.
The smell of smoke was getting stronger. “Is there a fire or something?”
Shamus barked again.
Cassidy hissed beside Julia on the bed. When Julia reached for the cat, she was met with Cassidy’s rigid body. Julia gathered her up and tucked her into the crook of her arm the best she could so she could have one hand free to hold onto Shamus. “It’s okay, honey,” she told the frightened cat.
Blind Ice (Razors Ice Book 5) Page 19
