Playing Love's Odds (A Classic Sexy Romantic Suspense)

by Alison Kent

  Logan found it hard to argue after the evidence he'd dug up. Even if it turned out to be circumstantial, it was damned convincing.

  Seemed Hannah's finances had been strapped for more than a few years, since, in fact, her father had died, leaving her and her mother close to destitute. The medical bills approached astronomical. And some people would do just about anything for money.

  He ought to know. He'd sold his soul so many times the devil owned it ten times over.

  Still, the funny thing was that taking the pictures hadn't been enough. He'd wanted to follow her into the restaurant where she'd met Vandale. To be a fly on the wall and hear their conversation. To see what was on the papers she'd handed him. To find out if she was as guilty as the evidence painted her.

  He'd wanted to breathe her scent. He'd wanted to hear her voice. He'd wanted to place his palm in the small of her back and draw her close. And more than anything, he'd wanted to find a bit of the innocence he'd given up on finding.

  None of the reasons had anything to do with the case and everything to do with the woman.

  Logan flipped his blinker up, wedged the Mustang into an opening half its size in the far lane, and headed for his exit. Black and white photos had distinct disadvantages. Like not divulging the color of a person's eyes. He wanted to know about Hannah's eyes. To figure out why they hypnotized him, beckoned him, made him think of salvation.

  The traffic thinned the further he drove from the center of town. After a quick stop at the hole in the wall that served as his office, he would hit the road for the Gulf. He wanted to suck in gallons of sea air, feel the wind whip his hair, and let the salt spray sting Hannah Evans right out of his mind.

  He took the corner on two wheels and, leaving long strips of black rubber behind, fishtailed into his usual parking spot. Wrists draped over his steering wheel, he grudgingly eyed the sporty yellow Miata parked across the lot.

  So much for luck or making it to the beach any time soon. He vaulted out of the car and sent his office door open on a crash. The frosted window bearing eight out of the ten letters of his name rattled in the frame.

  "Who's th ... What's go ... Mr. Burke!" his secretary gasped. She pressed a shocked hand against her bosom then patted her helmet of blue-gray hair into place.

  "Now, Maggie, I'm just keeping you on your toes. I wouldn't want you to fall asleep on the job." He narrowed his eyes and arched one brow, trying to get a rise out of the unflappable grandmother. "I might just have to fire you."

  "I would never do such a thing," she answered, indignant.

  "Well, I wouldn't blame you for taking a snooze. There's hardly enough work around here for me, much less you, too." He parked his hip on the corner of her battered metal desk and studied the early garage sale decor of the room as if seeing it for the first time.

  Margaret tugged an envelope out from beneath him and swatted him on the arm. "Maybe if you'd learn to conduct yourself professionally instead of acting like the hooligan you are you'd have more people interested in hiring you.

  "In fact," she said, her voice a whisper. "Now would be a good time to start minding your manners. You've got a potential client waiting inside."

  "I saw the car. Looks like a banana." Logan stood and stretched, his muscles protesting. "I've gotta get to the gym."

  Margaret shooed him away, setting a stack of out-of-date magazines on the vacant spot then scooting a potted ivy up against them. "If I were you, Logan Burke, I'd worry more about getting to the tailor and the barber than to the gym. When that young lady gets a good look at you, she'll most likely hit the door at a run."

  Logan frowned down at the faded khakis slung low on his hips, the scuffed brown deck shoes sans socks, and the white cotton button-down that looked as if he'd pulled it out of the laundry hamper. He sniffed the armpits, dragged his fingers through the shaggy hair at his neck, found nothing so obscenely wrong with his appearance to warrant Maggie's prediction.

  "The way I see it she's buying my services not my body, though we might arrange a deal on the side," he added with a wicked curl of his lip.

  Margaret rolled her eyes and pinched a yellowed leaf off the ivy only to toss it at his head.

  Logan leaned across and bussed her on the cheek. "What would I do without you, Mags?" he teased, then ambled across the reception area and pushed open the door to his office.

  She stood in silhouette, gazing out the window set into the far wall. His first impression was legs. Black-stockinged. Long. Made even longer by the black heels gouging tiny dents in his indoor/outdoor carpet.

  Rubbing his left thumb across his right palm, he let his gaze roam over her ankles, itching to stroke the delicate curve with his finger. Or his tongue. On the visual trip from her calves to her tiny waist, he asked himself if this brief corporeal pleasure was worth the physical discomfort. Or the twinge of guilt poking at the negligible remains of his conscience.

  Staring was impolite. Leering was despicable.

  He'd stop in a minute.

  The line of black exploded in a profusion of reds and greens, blues and yellows splashed across an exotic, tropical print blouse. She was a blast of living color infiltrating his drab existence. Her hair, a thick straight sheaf of uncompromising brunette, hung to a point between her shoulder blades and rang a familiar bell way back in his mind.

  All he could think of was Paradise. Hot Hawaiian nights. Sweet hibiscus and spiked fruit. Drunk on rum and coke. Seduced by the primitive beat of pagan drums.

  Relaxed to the point of forgetting his past. Numbed to the point of thinking he had a future.

  Cursing that depressing thought for bringing him back to the even more depressing present, he closed the door, leaned back against it, and cleared his throat. "Can I help you?"

  "Are you Logan Burke?" Her voice was sweet, soft, an intoxicating caress.

  This fantasy had gone far enough and was setting off an uneasy tic in his jaw. "The one and only."

  "Then perhaps you can. I'm being followed. I'd like you to find out who and why."

  He heard a touch of nerves in her words, a response that had that ol' guilt pickin' double-time. "Why don't you give me some details and we'll see what I can do?"

  Ignoring the voice telling him he was being stupid and was overlooking something patently obvious, he shoved himself off the door, crossed the room to his desk, and stopped dead in his tracks as Hannah Evans turned to face him.

  Something was wrong here. Definitely wrong. Logan knew his attitude hadn't been up to par lately, but he'd never let anything affect his work.

  Granted, he dressed on the down side of casual. And had a few shameful moments when he displayed the manners of a barn-raised heathen. He even admitted, somewhat sheepishly perhaps, that his driving would best be done on a track. Alone.

  None of that mattered where it counted most. The only place that counted at all anymore. Work. When it came to his craft, he was a consummate professional. It was the one area of his life he still controlled. And he'd just lost it.

  A pro didn't screw up something as easy surveillance. A pro didn't make stupid mistakes. Unless his mind wasn't where it should've been.

  So, where had he slipped up? He'd have bet one of his vintage cars she hadn't noticed him following her. It was easy to tell when a mark was spooked. They went out of their way to act normal. Or they ran.

  Hannah had done neither. She'd been easy to follow. She'd gone about her business like she didn't have a thing to hide. But then Hannah wasn't his usual quarry. He was used to the scum who stuck to the bottom of the pail, not the cream that floated to the top.

  Reining in his wobbly equilibrium, he crossed the room, fingering the cigarettes in his pocket.

  "Now, Miss–" Logan caught himself just in time.

  "Evans. Hannah Evans," she supplied and Logan noted with a jolt of awareness that her eyes were green.

  "Miss Evans. Please have a seat." Logan gestured to the cushioned armchair in front of his desk, that one chair being his o
nly concession to professional office decor. He wanted his clients to feel comfortable. He wanted to know they were comfortable. A small thing, sure, but it gave him an edge.

  Hannah settled into the chair, set her purse on the floor, and crossed her legs. Logan's eyes were drawn to the enticing display, but reminding himself of who she was, he rolled the squeaky chair out from under his desk and dropped into it.

  "How did you find me, Miss Evans? I don't do a lot of advertising." Logan propped his feet, ankles crossed, on the corner of his desk.

  Hannah smiled and sparks of amber flashed through the green of her eyes. "Julian said as much."

  "Vandale?" Logan asked.

  She nodded. "He gave me your card and said you might be able to help me." In a nervous gesture, she smoothed down her skirt—her skirt that didn't need smoothing, that hugged her gorgeous legs like cellophane wrap.

  Jaw clenched, Logan tightened his grip on the ratty vinyl chair arms. He didn't need this kind of distraction. With a supremely lazy effort that cost him more than he wanted to admit, he let his gaze climb back to hers. "Word of mouth is how I get most my clients."

  The grin she offered him leaned to wry but didn't quite reach her eyes. "Best as in terms of money to be made, or best as in terms of a challenge offered?"

  "One tends to balance the other," Logan replied, effecting a casual shrug while wondering which one of them was the better actor after all.

  "Well, I'm offering both."

  "Sounds intriguing." He arched one brow, hoping against hope he looked suitably intrigued rather than antsy which, according to the resident army firing salvos in his gut, was exactly how he looked.

  Why was she here? What could she possibly want? And did he really want to know?

  Hannah leaned back in her chair. "Then where do we start? The payoff or the hunt?"

  He lifted his feet from his desk and planted them hard on the floor. With his knees spread, he swiveled side to side and stared at her, looking for a sign of recognition. Finding none, he decided the best course of action would be to play the game her way.

  The more he thought about her request the more complicated it became. If he hadn't known better, he would've figured she'd imagined being followed. Ninety-five percent of his cases turned out that way.

  The problem was he did know better, the irony being that he was why she was here—in more ways than one. And the fact that she saw him as the solution, when he was in reality the problem, was more than his mind could assimilate.

  Especially when she kept swinging that leg, drawing his attention to the way her skirt rode higher and higher on her thigh. At the moment, he was too itchy to do any assimilating at all.

  He took a different tack and only had to clear his throat once to ask, "How do you know Julian?"

  "I used to work for him at Vandale Chemical."

  Facing forward, he propped his elbows on the desk. "Used to? Past tense?"

  She nodded, the quick move shaking loose a tendril of her sleek hair. "I've been working for ViOPet for the last six months."

  "Why'd you leave Vandale?"

  She met his gaze directly. "Does it matter?"

  "It might."

  "The reason I left Vandale has nothing to do with why I'm here."

  Then what were you doing with him at that restaurant? And what the hell was on the papers you gave him? "Why, exactly, are you here?"

  "I told you. I'm being followed. I want you to find out who and why."

  "Easier said than done." Not to mention being a conflict of interest, Logan thought to himself.

  She frowned. "I thought this was what you did for a living. Julian highly recommends you. In fact, he said you're the best."

  "I do and I am." Logan tapped his chin with both index fingers. One corner of his mouth curled drolly. "Most cases are easier said than done."

  "Just your standard comeback to throw off the faint of heart?"

  Logan shrugged. "Something like that."

  "Believe me, Mr. Burke, I'm not fainthearted. What I am is determined to see this through. With or without your help."

  "Then let's get one thing straight up front. If I take your case, I call the shots. Every last one of them." He paused to gauge her reaction. "Too often it's my ass that ends up on the line. And I'm awfully fond of my ass."

  Hannah tucked her hair behind her ear and gave a consenting nod. "Fine. I have no problem with that."

  Logan extended his legs under the desk, feeling the crinkle of Harrington's check in his pocket—an all too real reminder of exactly who was sitting across from him. He didn't like this situation. Didn't like it at all.

  And suddenly he didn't know how much of the information he'd given Harrington he believed to be the truth. "What makes you think you're being followed?"

  "Think?" she asked, rising from the chair to pace the room in a sudden gust of fury. "Why do you assume this is all in my head? Why not take my word for it?"

  Logan watched her walk the length of the office and back. "My assumption is based on experience. Too often this type of case is the product of a wild imagination. Or the result of something so simple the obvious has been overlooked."

  Hannah stopped behind the seat she'd vacated. Her crimson nails digging crescents into the cushioned chair back, she snapped, "You sound just like Julian."

  Man, he loved a fiery woman. One who knew how to burn him up. Too bad this one wasn't his type. She was wrapped just a little too classy, a little too cosmopolitan, and her nose rode a little too high in the air for his taste.

  Not to mention he had no business taking this association any further than this case, not if he valued his hide. He crossed his arms over his chest. "What does Vandale have to do with the trouble you're having?"

  "Nothing other than after talking to you both, it seems you've taken macho lessons from one another," she hurled back.

  He had to give her credit. She could give as good as she got. "But you have talked to him about your suspicions."

  Hannah's eyes flashed. "Yes."

  "Then your relationship with him is more personal than business."

  Her stare was enough to quell the most curious of cats. "My relationship with Julian is not under inspection here. I knew he'd used an investigator to try and locate his daughter. I also knew I could rely on his advice."

  "And what did he suggest?"

  "That I call you. Advice I'm quickly coming to regret."

  Growing tired of the game, Logan leaned his forearms on the edge of his desk and peered intently at Hannah. He knew when they got down to business he'd be toeing a fine, if not outright dangerous, line. "You can leave any time you want."

  He spoke the words with an untold measure of self-discipline as his internal battle raged. Logan Burke, the private investigator, wanted her out of his office. Logan Burke, the man, wanted her to stay.

  Hannah collapsed into the chair. She sat with her eyes closed, those dazzling, gorgeous eyes, and a guilty fist of remorse tightened around Logan's throat. For Hannah, this was no game. She felt justifiably threatened. But he could hardly reassure her without implicating himself.

  And even though it wasn't his place to do it, putting a little fear into her would give her a chance to reconsider whatever it was she was planning. White collar crime tended to be more costly than the participants ever imagined. That fact he knew too well.

  He dragged his hand down two days worth of five o'clock shadow and sighed. "Why don't you start at the beginning?"

  She opened her eyes, only to stare over his head with blank exhaustion. He forced himself to harden his heart. He'd captured her supposed betrayal with his own camera lens and printed the results in bold black and white. If those results were accurate, he wasn't about to play patsy in whatever scam she was pulling on ViOPet.

  "Miss Evans?"

  Hannah's gaze returned to his. She wet her lips with the tip of her tongue and took a deep breath. "About a month ago, I came across something at work I wasn't meant to see."


  Well, at least she had the guts to start off on a foot of truth. "What was it?"

  "Until I hire you, Mr. Burke, there are some things I'll consider privileged."

  Logan nodded. "Go on."

  "I kept it to myself, thinking I'd been mistaken, or that there had to be a logical explanation for what I'd found. Later I went back to double check, which was probably my undoing." She picked at a loose thread on the chair arm, and whether her performance was an act or not, Logan found his resolve coming just as easily undone. "Being in the wrong place at the wrong time once? Sure, but a second slip up wasn't as easily explained away."

  "You were discovered?"

  "Why else would someone follow me?"

  "You tell me."

  Hannah crossed and recrossed her legs. "I thought we'd been through this before."

  "I have to cover all bases, Miss Evans. If you're certain there's no other reason behind what you suspect, then for now, we'll assume the two incidents are related."

  Hannah smiled sweetly. Too sweetly. Not waiting for the dressing down sure to come, Logan hurried on to ask, "Do you have any specifics about your tail?"

  "Excuse me?"

  "The person following you. Do you have pictures, a plate number, anything distinguishing?" Logan held his breath.

  "At first it was more of a feeling than anything."

  "That famed woman's intuition?"

  She focused on him then, really focused, and seemed for the first time since he'd walked into the office to relax. "I guess so. Ranks right up there with the dreaded prerogative," she said, a wisp of a laugh escaping her throat.

  "And what did your intuition tell you?"

  "That someone was watching me."

  "Not one of your usual admirers?"

  "Definitely not," Hannah agreed.

  "Then you never saw the person you suspect." Logan kept his voice steady, the tone impersonal, but still his fingernails bit into the chipped wood of his desk as he waited ... and waited.