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

by Alison Kent

"Hannah, I'm so sorry."

  "It's from the seatbelt, Logan. Why are you apologizing?" She lifted his hand, pressed his palm to her cheek, and kissed the inside of his wrist. The gesture, unexpected and incredibly forgiving, rendered him speechless.

  He ached with the need to tell her everything, but was too much of a coward. He'd tell her later, when this was all finished, when the loose ends were wrapped up, when the risk of her hating him wasn't quite so high. He'd tell her when hell froze over.

  For now all he wanted to do was kiss her. To feel her fire again. To soothe her wounds. To soothe his own.

  He leaned forward, brushing his lips over her collarbone, doctoring the bruise with his own bedside manner. She drew in a shaky breath.

  He followed the trail of her injury with his mouth, raining feather light kisses as far as he could before coming up against the obstacle of fabric. He wanted to rip it away, to toss it aside, to fling away everything keeping them apart, knowing how stupid he was to be thinking beyond this case.

  But he was thinking beyond this case. Thinking of quitting the whole rotten business. Thinking he better before someone got dead. Thinking if he didn't taste her now it wouldn't matter.

  Hooking one finger in the vee of her neckline, he tugged. He nuzzled up her neck until he found her mouth, that sweet confection that tasted like Hannah. A taste he'd dreamed of for the past several days, a taste he'd thought he'd never feast on again.

  The elastic slipped over one shoulder and caught on the peak of one breast. He closed his eyes and remembered how she'd looked on the beach, the full swells shadowed by the moon, the darker tips sweet temptation. He remembered the softness pressed against him, cupped in his hand as he kissed her.

  And he remembered she'd almost died. Because of him.

  He jumped away so quickly he bumped the breakfast tray with his knee, sloshing coffee onto his leg and nearly upsetting the remains of the barely touched breakfast. Hannah steadied the tray. Logan steadied himself, not an easy feat considering how unbalanced he felt, how the very walls seemed to be tilting, the ceiling falling.

  "Do you mind?" Hannah asked, lifting the tray.

  He took it without a word, watched while she swung back the muffin and coffee splattered covers, and endured when she dangled her legs over the edge of the bed. She was jittery when she first stood, but quickly gained control, smiling up at him with what he could tell was pure female meanness.

  "I kinda like you on your toes," she said. "Makes me feel safe. Like I'm in good hands." She tiptoed across the four feet separating them and in all her tousled glory gave him the look, the same one he'd seen when he kissed her, the same one he'd seen in his dreams.

  Deep down inside, where he was having trouble separating right from wrong anyway, he knew she was up to no good. He was right.

  "Logan," she murmured, running one finger around the low-slung, dangerously taut waistband of his jeans and knowing with his hands full he couldn't do a damned thing. "Thanks for breakfast and ... everything. This morning was the best I've ever had. I think I'll take a shower now."

  She left him there, standing foolishly in the middle of the floor, and sashayed her shapely backside right out of the room.

  He wouldn't have missed it for the world.

  "Leave it to a man," Hannah grumbled staring down into the bag of her belongings Logan had thrown together. Cosmetics, a strange assortment of lingerie, a red satin cocktail dress. She hitched the towel tighter under her arms and grimaced, feeling the bruises from her accident more sharply than she liked.

  "Where does he expect me to wear this?" she asked herself, shaking two days worth of wrinkles from the dress. She opened the closet, finding it empty but for three lonely looking wire hangers and a box of old comic books. She hung the dress as best she could and considered her dilemma again.

  Apparently, Logan had expected her to remain in bed permanently from the looks of what he'd packed. That thought provoked a strange variety of others. Had he been so worried about her that he hadn't thought beyond getting her home to rest? Had bad memories taken precedence over all logical thought?

  Or did her really want her in his bed?

  The thought of being in his bed snuggled comfortably into her mind. And that surprised her. She wasn't one to take a physical encounter lightly. Her one and only affair had been the culmination of supposed true love. But here she was wondering about Logan, wanting Logan. How could she not after that kiss?

  Even more so, how could she not be curious about a man who'd shown such uncharacteristic tenderness, such sensitivity? She touched her lower lip the same place he had, remembering the coiling ache he'd kindled inside her, the place she thought forever numb from lack of response to other men.

  Enough. She couldn't stand around naked, thinking more about Logan than about finding something suitable to wear. Or about how she'd come to be here to begin with. Thank goodness he'd grabbed her brush, she decided, jerking it through her hair and deliberating over the dress or the wilted nightshirt she'd been sleeping in the past thirty-six hours. Then she remembered the folded clothes stacked on the dryer in the laundry alcove.

  Fifteen minutes later, she left her room dressed in Logan's "Surfers Ride the Ocean’s Motion" T-shirt and the matching fish-trimmed shorts. Working through a sense of déjà vu, she went to find him. And she did, sprawled in a lounger on the deck. Only this time he was fast asleep.

  She stared for a minute, her gaze wandering the length of his body. He wore no shirt and his low-slung jeans had crept even lower as he slept. The near-blond dusting of chest hair gilded his skin, the effect more masculine than a heavy pelt, especially as it arrowed down in an eye-drawing line to vanish beneath his threadbare waistband.

  A pencil-thin scar followed the curve of one rib down his side. Another shorter scar branched off to disappear under his arm. Her gaze inched back to his face. His hair bore the signs of nervous fingers, like blades of grass crushed under incredible weight. The laugh lines around his eyes appeared more defined as he slept.

  She frowned, thinking he should look at ease, not like a tiger poised on the edge of attack. He wasn't relaxed at all, but stiff. The hand laying against his thigh jerked, a spastic tic in his fingers twisted his arm. The dream again.

  Even here, safe in his own space, in the light of morning, he wasn't free. She ached to offer comfort, to hell with his demons and her resolve not to get involved. She was involved and, if she were to be totally honest with herself, had been since she'd turned around in his office and seen his big bad boy persona covering up that little boy hurt.

  "Oh Logan, what have you done to me?" She pressed her fingers against her lips.

  The next second he cried out, a painful, strangling sound, and lunged upright in the chair. Hannah crossed the deck and dropped to her knees between his legs. He looked at her, his eyes wild and unfocused, then shook his head and tried again, this time driving punishing fingers through his hair, making fists in the length at back.

  Hannah reached up and circled his wrist, rubbing her thumb over his, urging him to let go. His eyes, still glazed and cloudy, met hers for a brief second before he closed them, shutting her out. At last he untangled his fingers from his hair and allowed her to draw both his hands away.

  She could only guess what sort of nightmares had the power to bring him to this state of near panic, to reduce him to inflicting pain upon himself. Did the physical anguish ease the mental? she wondered, holding his fingers in hers, stroking the backs of his hands.

  "How long has this been going on?" she whispered as much to herself as to him.

  His eyes shifted behind closed lids. He smiled a crooked smile, enough of one to let her known he wasn't about to give her a serious answer.

  "About a minute or so but you're welcome to keep it up as long as you want," he said in a voice gruff with sleep and hurt. He cocked one eye open, then the other, and frowning, made a quick visual sweep of her body.

  "I hope you don't mind," she began, "but it wa
s either wear this, the prom dress, or the centerfold get-up."

  "I vote for centerfold," he said flexing his fingers into the material covering her legs.

  "No doubt you would," she retorted shooing his hands away.

  He obliged, lacing his fingers behind his head and leaning back. For several minutes they stared at one another and Hannah could tell the effort it took for him to put on this phony front. His breathing came in shaky fragments, the pulse in his neck racing at breakneck pace.

  Then, without warning, he came to his feet. She gripped the frame of the lounger to keep from being upended. Snagging the cigarettes lying on the deck table, he lipped one out of the pack and paced the deck, inhaling the unlit tobacco.

  What was eating at him? What torment had he seen or suffered—or caused—to turn him into a bundle of nerves? She knew the consequence of pain first hand, but this, this was different. He strode back toward her, stopping to offer his hand.

  "I need some fresh air," he mumbled, the cigarette still dangling from the skin of his lip. "You feel like a walk?"

  What a funny thing to say, she thought, surrounded as they were by more fresh air than one man could breathe in a lifetime. "As long as it's a short one," she answered, placing her hand in his.

  She followed him down the stairs, slowing as they reached the bottom. Her gaze moved from the white T-Bird to the red Mustang convertible parked under the carport next to it.

  "Logan?"

  "Yeah?" he answered distractedly.

  "Whose car is that?"

  He pulled up at the bottom step. She stopped one stair directly above. For a long minute she thought he wouldn't answer. Finally, he glanced over his shoulder, his eyes full of indecision. "Mine."

  "The Mustang, not the T-Bird," she clarified wanting to make sure he understood.

  "The Mustang is mine."

  "It wouldn't be a false assumption, would it, for me to think it's the same one I saw sitting in your parking lot? The same one that got doused in a sudden rainstorm?"

  The only hint of his broken control came when he snapped the cigarette in half and thumped it across the carport.

  "The Mustang is mine," he repeated, none too willingly.

  "And you prefer rain water to the car wash."

  Hands braced on hips, he hung his head with an aggravated shake. "You're not gonna let it go, are you?"

  The stair gave her a two-inch height advantage. She took it all, wanting a clear, honest answer. "I don't understand. Why would you subject a gorgeous piece of machinery to that kind of damage?"

  The look he gave her backed her up another step. He took two at a time until he towered over her. "C'mon," he growled, lacing his fingers tightly through hers and pulling her behind him at a gentle, though insistent, pace. "Let's walk."

  She shot a last confused look at the cars and circled under the staircase to hit the beach. The touch of Logan's palm against hers, his fingers curled around hers, was nice. More than nice. Comfortable. Like their hands belonged together. Just as comfortably, they matched their steps through the loose-packed sand.

  Logan chose their destination, stopping no more than twenty yards down the beach where discarded trees created a manmade dune and abandoned fence posts formed a makeshift bench.

  The small windbreak of trees at the edge of his house provided a smidgen of shade. He dropped to the ground to lie on his back. Gingerly, Hannah lowered her body to the sturdiest section of the bench, stretching her legs out with a mild groan.

  Logan glanced up at the sound. "You should've said something if the walk was too much. We could've turned back."

  She shook her head. "I'm okay. Just stiff in a couple dozen places." She pulled her knees to her chest finding the position put less of a strain on her bruises. "Talk to me Logan. About the car." First, she added silently, then we'll take care of the rest of your nightmares.

  "I haven't felt anything ... real ... or good for a long time. You intrigued me, that day in my office. So fiery and righteous. I didn't want you to walk out of my life."

  The words flew out in such a breathless squall she figured he'd been holding them in for a very long time. "You sacrificed your car on my behalf."

  His laugh was quick, directed more at some inner thought than anything she'd said. "Gideon was a might pissed when he first saw it."

  "I can imagine. He rebuilds them and you buy them?"

  She thought he shrugged but it was hard to tell since he was lying down. "Something like that."

  "I'm surprised you don't have a vintage Corvette tucked away somewhere."

  He visibly stiffened, slowly sat up, the damp sand sticking to his back. She wanted to reach out and brush it off, but as if he'd read her mind, he flinched away.

  What had she said? Something about a car? "Do you own a Corvette?"

  "I did."

  The words barely reached her ears. "Did you wreck it?"

  "No."

  "Sell it?"

  "No."

  "Then what?"

  "I used it to kill a child."

  Chapter Nine

  That wasn't what he'd meant to say. Of all the things he could've said, of all the things he needed to admit to, that was one confession he'd never intended to make. It was his own desperate secret to keep.

  Or it had been until Hannah Evans had wormed her way into what pretended to be his soul. He didn't make a habit of flaying himself open, but for Hannah he'd done so with one hell of a dull-bladed knife.

  Reluctantly, he glanced her way, steeling himself for the revulsion, the telling disgust certain he'd see in her eyes. Other than appearing pale, her face was relatively void of expression. She was watching the waves, or the seagulls, or the tiny crabs scuttling across the sand.

  For all he knew she was staring at the empty sky. She just wasn't looking at him.

  "What happened?" she asked at last, startling him with the simple question. She didn't accuse. She didn't place blame. She didn't condemn or any of the things he'd done to himself. She approached the subject calmly, a feat he'd yet to accomplish three years after the fact.

  He drew his knees up, draped his wrists over them and burrowed his toes into the sand, wishing he could dig a hole deep enough to empty himself into. He didn't want to remember. He didn't want to think. Thinking hurt.

  It reached inside the shell around his heart and squeezed. Hard.

  The story was a long one. One he hadn't told himself in years. Maybe it was time he heard it again. He started with a sigh and at the very beginning. "From day one, my father preached good and evil to all his boys. He didn't come out with it in so many words. It was more in the little things. And by example.

  "Anything we screwed up, we fixed. Like the time I borrowed Simon's bike without permission. I had to wash it every week for two months. Didn't matter if it was dirty or if the weather was bad. I lucked out though, compared to Gideon."

  He shook his head and laughed softly to himself. "Gid was some kind of hellraiser. Classic bad boy. Souped-up car. Cigarette glued to his mouth." He gave a thoughtful one-shouldered shrug. "Anyway, once Mom was cleaning and found two joints on the floor beneath his bed. When Dad found out about the pot, he went ballistic."

  "What did he do?"

  It was the first time she'd spoken and, as hard as it was to believe, he'd almost forgotten she was there. He wondered what she was thinking about his trip down memory lane. He wasn't too sure how he felt about it himself. He hadn't been home in long time. Not since ...

  "Logan?"

  "Hmm? Oh, Gid. Yeah, well I don't know the details. Dad had a deep respect for privacy and Gid sure wasn't talking. His interest in cars really picked up, though, almost like he'd grabbed onto it as lifeline."

  "And what about you?"

  "Me? The usual teenage scrapes." He thought a minute and a smile made its way across his face at the assorted memories. "Got my ear pierced once. Dad didn't blink an eye. Just gave me two choices. I could let it grow back. Or, if I wanted to look like a girl, I
had to get the other one done."

  "So why'd you do it?"

  He tossed her his best Logan Burke grin. Straight from the heart of the kid he once was. "It was cheaper than a tattoo."

  She finally looked his way, and her answering smile did a lot to settle his nerves. "I don't know. I think you'd look good with an earring. And a tattoo. They'd both suit you."

  "A bit of a modern day pirate, huh?"

  "A sexy pirate."

  He filed her comment away for future reference. He had a feeling when he finished his story, he'd need all the memories of Hannah he could get. He wouldn't blame her for running. He'd been doing it a long time himself. "Yeah, robbing from the rich to give to the poor."

  "I think that's Robin Hood, not Blue Beard," she corrected, scooting off the log to sit at his side. "What else?"

  One memory, like it had been waiting for an opening, whipped from his subconscious straight into his mind. The full spectrum from sadness to joy, swept through him, leaving his heart racing, his eyes strangely misted.

  "There was this other time," he began, voice pitched low. "I couldn't have been more than ten."

  "Tell me."

  He cleared his throat. "I was playing with the gang I hung out with. This kid, Casey, hit a ball through a window across the street from the playground. They all took off. I stood there and stared at that jagged hole wanting more than anything to high-tail it after them. I couldn't. I kept thinking what Dad would say.

  "I walked up to the house and knocked, hoping no one was home," he admitted truthfully. "I was scared outta my shorts. Finally, this old woman answered. She was tiny, like a baby bird, you know." He gestured with his hands, drawing a vague shape in the air. "No neck or body, just this huge head with bulging eyes and a long hooked beak of a nose.

  "Anyway, I told her what had happened and that I was going home to get my dad. She only nodded, looking tired and resigned, like she didn't believe a word I was saying."

  "What did your father say?" Hannah prompted.

  "Not a lot. He didn't have to. I knew he was proud of me."