by LENA DIAZ,
He flipped open his cell phone. “Hey, trouble. Where are you this time? Rome? London?”
Thirty minutes later he hung up the phone with a rueful grin. Leave it to Madison to trick him into revealing more than he’d meant to about Amanda. He’d purposely not told her anything about the serial killer or the case because he didn’t want to worry her, but he’d admitted he had Amanda in protective custody.
From that statement his sister had leaped to the conclusion he and Amanda were a couple. She wanted to come to Shadow Falls to meet her but he was adamant that she not, assuring her that he and Amanda were not a couple and that he was working an important case and couldn’t afford any distractions right now.
His sister was astute. His protestations about his feelings for Amanda not being serious didn’t fool her. Thankfully she was three states away, vacationing in Louisiana. He was safe from her prying and her avowed role as matchmaker in his life.
After the call with his sister, he hurried out of his office and down the elevator, but paused as he opened the front door of the building. The mayor was standing behind a podium set up on the landing at the top of the steps. Flanking his sides were Riley and Pierce.
Logan exited to his left, taking care to stay close to the building and avoid drawing anyone’s attention as he hurried toward the parking lot.
Riley looked miserable. He was sweating profusely and kept shoving his hair out of his eyes. Pierce looked bored, resigned.
As the mayor rapped a gavel on the podium to signal the start of the press conference, Logan hurried down the last steps.
His car was parked in the slot marked “Chief of Police.” A man in an oil-stained, tan jumpsuit leaned against the brick side of the building. Logan didn’t know him, but he recognized the uniform as the type worn by the mechanics who maintained the police cruisers. A half-smoked cigarette dangled from the man’s lips. A baseball cap was pulled down low over the right side of his face and he wore his hair shaggy, shoulder-length. Logan nodded in answer to the man’s wave, then put his briefcase in the Mustang and started the engine.
He backed out of his space and put the car in drive, but instead of pulling out onto the street, he stopped. The smoking area for employees was in the back of the building, not the side. And something about the man put him on edge. Logan looked back toward the building, but the mechanic was gone.
The shrill sound of a microphone brought his attention to the front steps. The press conference was starting. One of the reporters glanced his way and excitedly gestured to the cameraman beside him. Logan pressed the gas and sped away.
Chapter Fourteen
When Logan arrived at home, he climbed the stairs to the back deck and found Karen and Amanda sitting at one of the umbrella-topped round tables, hunched over a board game.
Amanda’s back was facing him and she didn’t hear his approach. Karen glanced up, but Logan shook his head and pressed a finger to his lips, motioning for her not to let Amanda know he was there.
She smiled and looked back down at the game board. Logan was carrying a basket and he set it beside the French doors before stepping behind Amanda’s chair.
Curious to see what had her so engrossed, he peered over her shoulder. Scrabble. Karen must have brought the game with her, because the only games he had at his house involved cards, poker chips, and when a woman was playing, as little clothing as possible.
The thought of playing strip poker with Amanda was a tantalizing one, but not something he wanted to think about with Karen sitting three feet away.
He leaned down next to Amanda’s ear. “Honey, I’m home.”
Startled, she jumped half out of her chair, bumping the table and sending her tiles flying.
Karen laughed, shaking her head as she set the Scrabble box on top of the table and started to rake the tiles off the board into the drawstring bag.
Amanda scooted her chair back from the table and stood next to Logan with her hands on her hips. “I could have won if you hadn’t done that.”
“Really?” he asked as he looked at the score pad. “Did you have an eighty-three-point word you were about to put on the board?”
She smirked and shoved him out of her way. Logan’s breath caught as he watched her crawl under the table to retrieve the tiles that had dropped to the deck, her shorts tightening around her shapely rear.
The sound of a throat clearing had him jerking his gaze back to Karen. She gave him a wink. “I’ll leave the game here, Amanda. I’ll see you two later.”
“Oh, okay,” Amanda called out from under the table. “Maybe I’ll have better luck tomorrow. Thanks for playing.”
“Good night, Logan,” Karen said as she struggled unsuccessfully to suppress a grin.
Logan gave her his sternest glare but she only rolled her eyes, chuckling as she walked across the deck to her car.
“Got you, you slippery little devil.” Amanda crawled out from under the table, triumphantly holding up a wooden tile.
Clearing his suddenly-dry throat as her gaping tank top revealed far more than she probably realized, Logan forced himself to meet her gaze. “If you’re through crawling around on your hands and knees, I thought you might like to get out of here for the evening.” He grasped her hand and pulled her to her feet.
She dusted off her knees then pitched the tile into the Scrabble box. “What do you mean, get out of here? Go into town?”
“Not exactly.” He retrieved the basket and placed it on the table, flipping the top open to reveal the food packed inside.
“A picnic?” A delighted smile lit up her face as she rummaged around in the basket. “It looks and smells wonderful.”
He swatted her hand and she jerked it back, allowing him to close the lid. “You can look at all of that later. Daylight’s wasting.”
After grabbing her shoes, Amanda followed Logan across the deck and down the steps that led to the backyard. “Uh, Logan, your car is the other way.”
“Who said we were taking the car?”
She rushed to keep up with his long stride as they stepped down onto the grass. With her hand in his, she followed behind, her brows shooting up when she realized where they were going, the path that led to the creek. Remembering the disaster that had been last time, her delight over the prospect of a picnic began to fade.
When they reached the creek, instead of turning to the right as she expected, he turned in the opposite direction. “Where are we going?” she asked, slightly out of breath from trying to keep up with his pace.
He looked back and immediately slowed. “We’re almost there.”
The path led to a narrow wooden footbridge that arched about three feet high across the creek. Rope handrails were strung between posts placed every few feet on each side.
Being dragged across the deck and through the woods was one thing, but Amanda wasn’t about to be forced across that rickety-looking bridge. She tugged her hand from Logan’s grasp.
He turned around with a questioning look on his face. “Something wrong?”
She crossed her arms and rolled her eyes. “Are you kidding? That old bridge looks like it would fall into the water in a stiff breeze, and you haven’t even explained why we need to cross it. Either tell me where we’re going or I’m turning around.”
“I bet you never liked surprise parties when you were a little girl,” he teased.
“You’re right, I didn’t. When you’re a kid, your whole life is wrapped up in what other people think of you, so it’s important to always look your best. If the party is a surprise, you might be caught without makeup or wearing some ratty old outfit you wouldn’t ever want your friends to see you in. I like to know what’s going to happen and plan for it.”
He leaned back against a post and swept her with an assessing glance. “If I’d given you more time, what would you have done differently?”
“More time?”
“Instead of trying to surprise you, which is proving to be very difficult.”
“Su
rprise me with what?”
“If I tell you, it won’t be a surprise.”
“Oh, good grief,” she said, pretending exasperation. Knowing he wanted to surprise her put everything in a different light. She was suddenly looking forward to whatever he wanted to show her, even if it meant crossing that sorry excuse for a bridge. The water didn’t look all that deep, should she have to go for an unexpected swim. And she was confident Logan would keep her from drowning if it came to that. He seemed capable of just about anything. “Let’s just get on with whatever you want to show me,” she huffed. “If you don’t hurry up I’ll starve to death.”
He gave her a smug smile, as if he knew she was bluffing, and took her hand again. Matching his stride to hers this time, he tugged her along beside him across the bridge.
Thankfully the bridge didn’t even wobble as they crossed. “Did you build this bridge?” she asked as they stepped off on the other side and continued on another path through the woods.
“My dad. He owned this property when I was growing up, but he sold it after he retired. When I moved back here, one of the first things I did was buy the property back. The bridge was still in good condition. All I had to do was restring a new rope handrail.”
“You mean, the house you live in now—”
“Is the one I grew up in. Yes.”
She studied his profile as they walked along the path. Knowing he’d gone to so much trouble to buy the house he’d grown up in surprised her. Who would have thought tough-guy Logan Richards was a sentimental softy on the inside. “What did your dad do for a living?”
He pushed a small branch out of her way. “He was a regular guy, blue-collar. Married mom right out of high school, didn’t go to college. Worked for thirty years at the paper mill.”
“Sounds like he was a good man, took care of his family.”
“You make him sound boring.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“I’m teasing.” He shrugged. “Most people would probably think his life was boring, but he was happy. We never had a lot of money, growing up. The only reason he was able to afford this place was because it was handed down through the family. As it was, he had to sell it to pay the taxes later on. We never did the Disney thing, or Six Flags, places like that, but we did things as a family. The beach, picnics, movies.”
“You’ve never been to Disney?” she asked, genuinely shocked. Her parents hadn’t had much money, either, but she’d been to Disney so many times she’d lost count. She’d considered it a rite of passage for all Floridians. Everyone went to Disney.
“Is that a sin?” he teased.
“If it’s not, it should be. When I have kids, I’ll take them to. . . .” She choked back the rest of her reply. Something about being around Logan made her relax, forget. For one moment, she’d actually forgotten she couldn’t have children.
He set the basket down on the path and gently gripped her shoulders. When she looked up she saw his teasing grin was gone.
“It’s a horrible thing what that man did to you,” he said, his voice low and gruff. “I don’t pretend to understand how you feel. But I do know there are an obscene number of kids out there who don’t have homes, kids who are shuffled around the foster system from family to family. There’s no reason in the world you can’t become a mother to one or more of them. You deserve that kind of happiness, the love of a family, and a man who will love you and adopt an entire houseful of kids with you.”
He hesitated, as if he wanted to say more, but then he abruptly grabbed the picnic basket and pulled her after him.
Before Amanda could recover from his surprising speech, they turned a corner in the path. Her mouth dropped open in astonishment when she saw what was waiting for them. The path ended at the beginning of a long dock. Tied to a massive wooden post at the end was a red and white boat. Low and sleek, it had twin motors and was built for speed. Not surprising for a man who chose to drive his personal Mustang GT to work instead of the typical sedan the police department would have provided.
“She’s beautiful,” Amanda said.
“Yes, she is.”
Amanda looked up and met Logan’s deep green eyes. He wasn’t looking at the boat. She swallowed hard. “I’m . . . ah . . . surprised you aren’t down here more often.”
“I don’t keep the boat here,” he said, walking with her down the dock. “She’s usually dry-docked at a marina. When I want to take her out I call ahead and have them gas her up and stock her with supplies. At the end of the day, they clean up the boat. All the fun of ownership without the work.”
Butterflies began racing around Amanda’s stomach. Logan had obviously gone to a lot of trouble to have the boat brought out here, just for her.
As it turned out, he’d gone to even more trouble than she’d realized. The picnic basket held an assortment of delicious pasta dishes, salad, and fine wine—prepared and packed by an exclusive Italian restaurant back in town.
After they ate and enjoyed some of the wine, Logan drove the boat almost all the way to the Gulf, pointing out different birds and plants to her as they rode by. A narrow waterway opened up on their right. He slowed the boat, turned, and cut the engines. They drifted on the slow current deeper into the marsh, with vegetation growing up so close they almost touched the boat.
The mud and grass and occasional swamp oak spread out as far as she could see, as if she and Logan were the only people for miles around. With anyone else, she’d have felt uneasy, but with Logan she was just . . . curious. She was about to ask him why he’d brought her here, but the words clogged in her throat when he pulled a pistol out of a storage bin.
“Logan, what are you doing?”
He checked the loading before handing it to her. “Take it.”
She eyed the gun with distaste. “Why?”
“Because I’m going to teach you how to shoot.”
Amusement swept through her and she couldn’t help but smile. “What makes you think I can’t shoot already?”
His brows shot up. “Can you?”
She took the gun, popped out the clip, checked the loading herself. She popped the clip back in and chambered a round. “Where’s the target?”
Logan eyed her thoughtfully and pointed out past the port side of the boat. “That tree stump.”
Amanda shook her head. “Too easy.” She raised a hand to shield her eyes from the glare of the setting sun. “There, that clump of driftwood.”
“That’s too far away. You’d need a rifle to accurately aim—”
The sound of her shot filled the air. A chunk of the driftwood snapped off and flew into the marshy grass.
Logan shook his head and his mouth curved in a wry grin. “Hell, you shoot better than I do. I guess you don’t need shooting lessons.” He took the gun from her and pulled out a cleaning kit. “Where’d you learn to shoot like that?”
Amanda wrinkled her nose in distaste. “Tennessee. My brother-in-law took me to a shooting range every day for months, insisting I needed to learn to defend myself after . . . what happened.”
“Sounds like a decent guy.”
“He wasn’t.”
Logan’s head snapped up. He slowly lowered the oil rag in his hand. “What do you mean?”
“When I moved to Tennessee I never planned on coming back here. Heather, my sister, is the only family I have. I wanted to stay with her, maybe buy my own house and move down the street once I was back on my feet. Her husband made that impossible.”
Logan’s eyes narrowed. “Did he hurt you?”
She shook her head. “He didn’t try to force himself on me, if that’s what you mean. He made it very clear that he wanted to sleep with me, but he never touched me.” She shivered and rubbed her arms. “Can we go back now? It’s getting kind of creepy out here with the sun going down.”
“I’d like to meet your brother-in-law someday.” Logan stowed the gun and cleaning kit beneath the seat and crossed to the captain’s chair.
“Why would
you want to meet him?”
“He needs a lesson in manners.”
Amanda grinned as Logan eased the boat forward through the small channel. Wouldn’t John be surprised if Logan showed up at his house! She’d like to see that.
The waterway suddenly widened and curved to the right. Logan gunned the engines, sending the boat racing back toward his property. By the time they were within sight of the dock, the moon was out, and the sun had long ago sunk beneath the horizon.
Expecting him to bring the boat on in, she was surprised when he cut the engines again and let the boat drift lightly on the current.
At her questioning glance, he sat back in his seat next to hers and raked a hand through his hair. “I wanted you to enjoy yourself, get your mind off everything going on. But I need to tell you something before you hear it on the news or from Karen in the morning.”
A sick feeling settled in her stomach. “Tell me what? Has there been another murder?”
“No, thankfully, not that. We arrested Frank Branson today.”
“Dana’s father?”
He nodded.
“Why?”
“He’s the one who left the rose and pictures at your house, and mailed you the threatening note.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive. He wasn’t good at covering his tracks. Even if we didn’t have fingerprints tying him to the pictures, we found the receipt for roses at his apartment. The paper the note was written on matched a pad of paper in his truck. And on top of all that there was a witness. Your neighbor, Mrs. Fogelman, identified him as the man she saw outside your house.”
She brushed her long hair back from her face. “Why would he do that? Is it because he blames me for Dana’s death?”
“If Pierce and Riley are to be believed, it’s because he’s the killer.”
She laughed. From the look on his face she guessed that wasn’t the reaction he’d expected. “You can’t be serious. I know the man who attacked me was wearing a hood, but his body type was nothing like Frank Branson’s. There’s no way he could be the killer.”
