Her Temporary Hero (a Once a Marine Series book) (Entangled Indulgence)

by Jennifer Apodaca

  Logan creaked as he adjusted in his saddle. “Let me have the baby.”

  Becky sucked in a breath, ready to put a stop to this if either her daughter or Logan wasn’t up to doing a stepdad-and-daughter moment on the horse. So far, Sophie hadn’t shown an ounce of fear, but Logan hadn’t held her yet.

  Pam crossed to her brother and lifted the baby. Sophie held her arms up, reaching for Logan. Her face glowed with excitement. She began babbling her joy.

  Becky’s heart skipped a beat. Her sweet girl wanted Logan.

  As Logan closed his hands around her baby, a lingering gentleness chased out the last traces of anger on his face, and erased all worry from Becky’s mind.

  Her daughter was safe in her stepfather’s arms.

  It was Becky’s heart that was in danger.

  …

  Logan met those incredible, trusting eyes in her baby face. Then Sophie smiled, revealing her gums. And just like that he was lost. He tried to fight it, tried to resist. If he took her, this little girl was going to rip all the carefully constructed Band-Aids off his wounds, leaving him exposed and vulnerable. If he made the wrong choice and Sophie got hurt, it’d shred him into a living mass of bloody pain and endless nightmares. He closed his hands around Sophie and lifted her. She was so light and tiny. His hands circled all the way around her, his fingers touching.

  Don’t squeeze too tight.

  Logan sat frozen, holding the baby out like a squirming puppy. She kicked her little legs, a huge smile carving her face. Her hazel eyes stared at him with complete trust. Remembering to breathe, he inhaled her powdery baby scent.

  A memory washed across his mind—Pammy when she was about four or five, pretending to run from him as he pounded across the pasture atop his horse. Logan would lean over and easily sweep her up. She’d throw her arms around his neck, laughing with the wild abandonment of a child.

  Okay, if he could do that when he’d been a teenager, he could hold a baby on his horse. “Let’s do this.”

  The kid babbled something, as if agreeing. She held her pudgy arms out to him. Her fingers were so tiny, maybe half the length of his little finger. It’d be so easy to break her. He carefully tucked her into his the crook of his arm.

  Don’t hold her too tight, but tight enough to not drop her.

  The constant directions from his brain were making him clench his jaw hard enough to hear a popping sound in his ear. He glanced down. Sophie gave him another gummy grin and bounced.

  Damned if he didn’t smile back. How could he help it, this kid had no fear. None. She wanted to ride. He urged Remy into a walk.

  Sophie giggled, craning her head back and forth to see everything. Her small body wiggled in unrestrained happiness. Logan could imagine her in a few years—a girl with Becky’s blond hair on her own horse tearing across the pastures.

  He grinned…until the picture in his head changed, and all he saw was that baby in the mud house….

  Focus. He wasn’t in Afghanistan. He was in the saddle on his ranch where he had control.

  Turning, he headed toward Becky. She’d dismounted and leaned a shoulder against the tree. Her beaming smile hit him square in the chest, like an anchor, that grin held him right here in the present.

  “Hold up,” Kendra said. “Act like you’re showing your stepdaughter the land and her heritage now that she’s a Knight.”

  He’d practically forgotten Kendra. She was running around, snapping pictures. Okay, he could do a few more minutes. Logan stopped Remy, then carefully shifted Sophie, and leaned his head close, pointing off into the distance as if he were showing the kid something.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Pammy’s sharp voice jerked his attention to his sister and wife by the tree. What the hell?

  Becky was dancing frantically and waving her arms around her body. “Bees! There’s bees.”

  “Crap, a hive.” Pam got the horse’s reins and led her away.

  Logan went on alert. A ticked off hive was dangerous. He opened his mouth to tell his wife to calm down and move away when Becky whirled around and ran. What the hell was she over-reacting for? That wasn’t like her.

  “Logan!” Pam screamed. “Becky says she’s allergic to bee stings!”

  Allergic. He hadn’t known. “Shit.”

  Becky’s long legs ate up ground as she fled. He couldn’t see if any bees followed her. Then he heard her yelp. Stung or hurt in another way? Thrusting Sophie into Kendra’s arms, he said, “Get the first aid kit in my truck.” He urged Remy into a run. The horse responded, easily covering the ground. As he closed in on Becky, he heard her panting over the pounding hooves. “Becky, stop!”

  She kept running in a full-blown panic. Fear that she’d trip and break her leg spurned him into action. Once he caught up to her, he leaned low, hooked his arm around her waist, and hoisted her up. “Swing your leg over.”

  Becky latched onto him, wheezing. She was straddling him, her arms around his neck, face buried against his shoulder. “It’s okay, baby. Hang on.” He slowed and turned the horse, heading straight for the truck. Hot fear burned his veins. What did he do? Call the paramedics? Take her to the hospital? He threw Pam the reins.

  “Look at me.” He eased Becky’s head back.

  Her face was beet red, eyes swollen and wet from crying. Jesus, she was terrified. Then her eyes widened. “Sophie! She could be allergic, too!”

  Pam put her hand on Becky’s leg. “She’s safe in the truck with Kendra.”

  Becky relaxed a little bit, but she was definitely struggling to get air.

  “Did you get stung, or just scared?”

  She held up her arm. “Stung. Purse in truck. Throat’s swelling. Injection.”

  Jesus Christ. Logan saw at least four or five welts on her arm. Alarm fired in his guts and chest. Dismounting with her in his arms was tricky, but he got them on the ground and to the truck. Yanking open the passenger door, he set Becky down. He grabbed her purse off the floorboard and fished out the injection pen. Snapping off the cap, he caught her face. Her eyes were dialed with raw panic. “Thigh?”

  She barely nodded.

  No time to think, he plunged the needle into her leg, then picked her up, and cradled her on her lap. “Breathe, Becky. Nice and easy.”

  “Paramedics are on their way.” Pam’s blue eyes were worried as hell. She had a pair of tweezers from the first aid kit. “Hold her arm.”

  While his sister worked to get the stingers out, he pitched his voice low and soothing. “You’re okay. Just breathe.” Her body was rigid, but he could hear air moving.

  Thank God the paramedics arrived fast. They slapped oxygen on her and Logan gently settled her on the gurney, all the while his thoughts raced. Had he been fast enough with the shot? An anaphylactic reaction could be fatal. “You’re okay, sugar. Just relax.”

  Becky fought, yanking the oxygen off. “Sophie.”

  A second wave of alarm spread through him. He’d be alone with the kid. He could hear the baby crying in his truck. What the hell would he do?

  One look at Becky’s frantic eyes told him what a selfish bastard he was. He pressed the oxygen back on her face and held her hands in his. Her painful wheezing tore at him, and he firmed his voice. “We’ll take care of her, I swear it. I’ll meet you at the hospital. Just do what they tell you.”

  “We need to go. Now.”

  He saw the young paramedic’s concern. They had the equipment in the vehicle to help her. Logan would only be in the way. It took everything he had, but he let her go.

  Once the ambulance left, he spun and headed toward his truck. Kendra had climbed out of the vehicle, and both she and Pam were desperately trying to calm Sophie. The sirens had terrorized her.

  Pam looked up at him. “She wants her mom. Maybe you can try holding her?”

  He stared at the kid’s red face, her huge eyes flooded in heartbreaking tears. That baby loved her mama more than anything in the world. He should have known his wife was severely al
lergic. Should have moved quicker, gotten to Becky faster.

  Sophie arched back from Pam and reached her arms out to Logan. For a second, time stopped. All he saw in that desperate baby was longing for him to make it all better. Fix it. His pulse hammered, his heart stuttered. He couldn’t breathe as the familiar panic banded around his chest, squeezing tighter and tighter.

  Escape. He had to escape.

  Forcing his lungs to work, he croaked out, “I have to get to the hospital. Take Sophie to my house. Jiggy’s there, maybe seeing the dog will calm her.” He raced off. In his rearview mirror, he saw the baby bury her face in Pam’s neck, her entire body shuddering with sobs.

  His wife was in an ambulance fighting a severe allergic reaction and he’d just bailed on his inconsolable stepdaughter. Did he need any more proof as to why he couldn’t have a real marriage and family?

  Right now, what mattered the most was getting to Becky.

  Chapter Eleven

  Grateful to be out of the hospital, Becky ignored her fatigue and achiness. The epinephrine shot had kicked in when she’d been in the ambulance, along with the IV they gave her, so she had stabilized quickly. Once home, she managed to get her exhausted and cranky daughter asleep. The shower had made Becky feel much better. With her hair wet, and wearing a tank and sweat pants, she padded barefoot to the kitchen.

  Logan’s green eyes hit hers and she stopped, slapping her hand down on the table. Her stomach flipped, and heat warmed her chest. The memory of her wild panic as she’d run from the bees, then Logan’s arm coming around her and yanking her off her feet tripped her replay button. It had been his eyes, his voice, his touch that had eased her terror and soothed her frantic worry. He’d stayed by her side at the hospital. Held her hand.

  And Becky had fallen in love. Wholly and completely. With a man who only wanted her temporarily to get his land. Smart, Becky, real smart. But what did she do now? How did she figure out a way to protect her heart?

  “Feeling better?”

  Crap, she stared at him like a moron. “Yes.” Except for her tight skin, tingling breasts, and the throbbing between her legs that was creating an edgy need to strip off her clothes and beg him to take her, possess her, drive them both to wild heights so she could feel safe and alive, not so damned scared and struggling to breathe.

  “Come sit down and have dinner. Just soup and sandwiches. Eating at the island okay with you?”

  Right, dinner. Not wild, hot sex to ease that frantic ache building in her. Nodding, she forced her feet to take her to a barstool. Logan slid a bowl of steaming soup in front of her, then added a thick grilled cheese sandwich. The scent of toasted bread and oozing cheese woke her stomach up. Better. Craving food helped take her mind off her supersized sex drive.

  “Is your arm sore?”

  He missed nothing, like the fact she was eating with her left hand. “A little bit. Most of the swelling is down though.”

  He could love you. Maybe if you figure out what he wants…

  No, that was the old Becky who had found herself pregnant, involved in a hit-and-run, and now fighting to keep her child. Besides, Logan had been clear what he wanted—

  No children.

  No matter how it had looked today when he’d held Sophie on that horse. That moment when his eyes met hers…Logan didn’t want children or a wife. He wanted his land, and to start and be a part of Camp Warrior Recovery. He was going to help a lot of men and women who deserved his passion and caring.

  And she was going to let him go.

  But for right now, tonight? She wanted him, no she needed him. Needed his arms around her, his body filling hers and pushing out the lingering terror. But she was going to keep her lines clear—it was sex, not love. The old Becky would cling after sex, struggling to form that bond she craved. This Becky wasn’t going to do that. They’d have sex and she’d go back to her room. Keep the lines clear. No emotional entanglements.

  “You should have told me you were allergic.”

  That jerked her from her thoughts. “It never came up.”

  Logan swiveled on the stool until he faced her. “You could have died. Why the hell haven’t you seen an allergist like the doctors told you to today?” Fury throbbed in the vein in his temple.

  “We didn’t have health insurance. In college my mom nagged me to do it, and I was just going to start them when I got pregnant, then mom got sick…” She shrugged. “Something else always took priority.”

  “Bullshit. Nothing takes priority over your health. You’re going this week.”

  She narrowed her eyes, ready for a fight. Anything to stop feeling this driving need. “Don’t start ordering me around.”

  “Do you want Sophie to grow up without her mother?”

  “No.”

  “Then don’t argue. This isn’t about money, your life could be at stake.”

  “Fine.” She slid off the stool, gathered up her dishes, and went to the sink. “Thank you.” It was time to get some distance.

  Logan’s image appeared in the window over the sink as he came up behind her. His gaze captured hers in the darkened glass. “You’re tired and a bit edgy.”

  She gripped the edge of the counter. “You’re right. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about my allergy and for flipping out today.” It took all her will to not look down. “I ran like a lunatic.”

  “You’re allergic. No one could blame you for panicking.”

  “I’ll clean up. You’ve done enough today and there’s no one here now. We don’t need to pretend.”

  Logan slapped his hands down on the counter, caging her. His front pressed against her back. “What does that mean?”

  “We have a deal. Nothing but a deal.”

  “Keep going.”

  “I need lines.”

  “Lines.” He said the word like it was a new concept.

  “We have to live together. In front of people you have to act like you care. I get that. You saved my life today and arranged for Sophie’s care. I’m grateful.” Her throat thickened. Becky dug her hand into the counter.

  “Are you saying that I would have left you to die if we’d been alone?”

  “Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous.” This wasn’t his fault and she needed to be straight with him. “Look, it’s me, okay? I’m not going to be able to resist you.” His eyes reflected in the window were a magnetic force that compelled her attention. “Even now, I want you. God, I want you.” She needed his arms around her, but she needed to protect herself at the same time.

  He covered her hands with his. “Baby, if you want me, I’m right here.” He brushed her damp hair aside, and kissed her neck.

  Shivers fanned out from every spot his warm mouth touched. Her nipples peaked and pleasure traveled lower. He spread his hand out on her belly, fanning her desperation to sink into him, to feel alive and not alone. But she would be alone again. Her stomach tightened. “No, wait.” She had to have some controls in place or she’d end up begging him to love her at the end of this deal, instead of gracefully letting him go.

  He lifted his head, meeting her eyes in the window.

  “I need to keep this separate. Sex is just sex. When we want it, we do it.”

  “With you so far.”

  “But I’m not sleeping with you. I’m not staying all night in your bed and confusing things. It’s just sex. Nothing more.”

  His eyes hardened. “It’s more.”

  Wanting to belong to someone, to have a safe place in a scary world ballooned in her until she could barely breathe. “The forever kind of more?”

  Logan sucked in a breath. “No.”

  The longing shriveled in shame. Why had she done that? Asked such a pathetic needy question when she knew the answer? Struggling to be strong, she said, “Then it’s just sex. For once in my life, I’m going to be smart and learn the difference.”

  His body went rigid. Ice coated his gaze.

  “When we’re around others, we’ll pretend. Alone we’ll concentrate
on our goals. You developing Camp Warrior Recovery, and me on Sophie and getting my degree.”

  “And having sex.” He snapped each word.

  “Meaningless sex.” Her brain rebelled, tapping out warnings. This wasn’t like her, not even close, but she refused to listen. It was time for her to grow up and accept that happily-ever-after was a fairy tale.

  “That’s what you want?”

  No. She wanted it all—a real marriage, a life partner who had her back. But that wasn’t going to happen between them. “Yes.”

  Logan kept stroking her arm, sending tingles up and down with each pass.

  “But you won’t sleep in my bed, won’t let me hold you, give you the tenderness you deserve?”

  She was too weak. Just like she’d done a second ago—wanting to believe he’d love her, really love her. The terror of today had been too much and she wanted to cling to Logan, but she couldn’t. “No.”

  “All right.” His hands went to her waist. He caught hold of her sweatpants and panties. While watching her with anger sharpening his eyes, he tugged them down to her knees.

  “What are you doing?” She was exposed from her belly to her knees.

  “We don’t need a bed for this. No one is here. No one can see us. If you want meaningless sex, I’ll give it to you.” He pulled her back against his chest and brushed her skin from one hip bone to the other. Turning her chin, he asked, “Is kissing allowed?”

  Confusion overwhelmed her. He was cold and mad, yet she could feel his erection pressing against her back. She longed for his hands on her, hated the distance between them. “Yes but—”

  His mouth crashed over hers and she could taste his anger. His hand slipped beneath her shirt, tweaking her nipple creating more paths of fire. Then his hand dipped between her thighs.

  Logan used his foot to push her feet apart. The sweatpants around her knees kept her pinned. She was being taken. Possessed. But not loved or cared for. Not even tenderness.

  Methodically, he parted her damp folds and teased, sliding back and forth over her clit until she ached and moaned into his mouth. He pulled back, his face a mask. “Good enough. I’ll get a condom and be right back.” He walked away.