by Theresa Weir
She continued to glare at him, not saying anything. As if she wanted him to be angry at her. To hate her.
He leaned forward in his recliner. “Dexter told me this morning to call if I need anything. I know Dexter isn’t as sharp as he used to be, but his wife seems to know everything that’s going on in town. You don’t have to tell me anything. All it will take is one phone call to Alma.”
“I didn’t know you were interested in gossip.” Her voice was like a knife, and if her nose rose any higher, it would start bleeding. “If you’re so interested, go ahead and call Alma. I doubt she knows.”
“You want to put money on it?”
Her face closed up, all emotion hidden, but her shoulders slumped. “I’ll pass. Call Alma. I don’t care. You want to hear tonight’s story or not?”
He wanted to say no, but he’d become addicted to her nightly stories. And maybe it would give him a clue as to what was happening to her. All her stories seemed to have a connection to her, each one a piece of the puzzle that made up her life. “Go for it.”
“Once upon a time, there was a magician and a witch.”
“Another witch story.”
“A good witch.”
“It’s so hard to tell the difference.”
She stared at him, her eyebrows raised imperiously, until he sat back in his recliner, in listening mode. “Are you ready to let me continue?” she asked. “With no interruptions?”
“Yes to the first question. No to the second.”
“I bet your teachers loved you.”
He flashed her a smile. “I inspire either love or hate. No middle ground.”
“I like the middle ground.”
“I’m not surprised. The middle ground feels safe, doesn’t it?”
“Not today. Okay, here’s my story. There was a magician who really was a lousy magician. But he fooled a lot of people into thinking he was good. Because he looked like a magician. His father had been a magician before him, and he knew all the important people in the night clubs where he performed, and he wore all the right clothes. So they had no idea that he really had no magic tricks, and that he’d found a young witch who did all his tricks for him. And no one knew the difference.”
“Why did the witch do that?” he asked.
“Because the magician was about to retire, and he’d promised her she could have his act when he quit.” Her voice grew hard. “You can guess what happened next.”
“He didn’t quit.”
“His son, who’d been a magician in a bigger city, lost his magician job. The magician broke his promise to the witch, giving his son the job instead. She could’ve found another job during this time, but she hadn’t looked for one because of the promise. It was a bad time of the year, a time when there aren’t a lot of jobs—”
“The end of the year, right?”
“Maybe.” She shrugged, no expression on her face, just a dullness in her voice when she continued. “She told the magician she wasn’t going to do his work anymore, and that meant she probably wasn’t going to get a good recommendation from him.” She made a face. “In fact, he’ll probably do a lukewarm one, so he won’t get sued. He’s that kind of politician. I mean magician.”
“They’re all that kind of politician.”
“Magician,” she said in a firm voice that matched her closed expression. “But she’s not sorry.”
“Of course not. She’s a woman of passion.”
“She’s a witch with a mean broom.”
“I’ve always been partial to witches.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“So, what’s the end of this story?” he asked. “Did she hex the magician? Did she put him under a spell that would make him give her a good recommendation? Or did she erase all the trick instructions from her computer?”
Her eyes narrowed, and she went still again. He couldn’t hear her brain humming, but he could see it in the unseeing eyes with the occasional blink.
Then she frowned and inhaled, her nostrils flaring, a pained expression on her face, and her mouth twisted in a grimace.
“You’re not going to do it, are you?” he asked.
“She’s not going to do it. It would hurt…other people who depended on the magic acts she’d put together.”
“A town full of people,” he said, and she just stared at him. “And don’t tell me this isn’t about you. As a master liar, I can see right through you.”
“That doesn’t sound very comfortable. No wonder you’re a cynic.”
“Cynics aren’t made, we’re born. But this is about you, not me. I can get you a job in L.A. like that.” He snapped his fingers.
“I don’t know if I want to live in L.A.”
“Where would you like to live?”
“A good place to raise Zach.” One side of her lip lifted in a sad smile, no longer trying to fool him. As if she could. “A place where I can get a decent job. I feel like I’m back where I was five years ago.” She shrugged. “This time I have some money, at least.”
“And a GPS,” he said.
“My phone comes with one.”
“What about the town board? What do they say about the administrator electing his own son?”
“The town board hires the new administrator.” Her forehead creased. “Kevin Spindlebottom from the board implied that it was a done deal. I’d noticed the other members avoided me lately, but I just thought they were too busy to talk.”
“So-called friends tend to avoid you after stabbing you in the back.”
“Or the heart.” Slouching, she glanced down at her hands.
He got up from the recliner and stepped toward her. Her head snapped up. She watched him, wary, like a cat watching a dog, as he sat on the ottoman, reached down, and picked up her right foot.
“What are you doing?” Her voice rose.
“Giving you a foot rub.” He put her foot on his thigh. “Isn’t that what you like? It was on your list.”
She jerked her foot off his thigh. “I don’t think—”
He grabbed her ankle and drew her foot back to her thigh. “Stop thinking and just relax.” He held on firmly. Bending his head, he used the fingers of both his hands to massage her foot.
Her struggles ceased. He heard a sigh whisper through her, but he still was alert for any attempt to resist. After a few minutes, he felt the tension leave her leg. She closed her eyes, and her shoulders loosened.
“I was going to suggest we make love,” he began, and her leg jerked back. He was ready for her, grasping it. “But I didn’t think you’d go for it.”
“You’re right about that.” Despite her leg jerk, her eyes were still closed, and the words came out dreamily.
“It would make you feel better.”
“I’ve made love before, and to tell you the truth”—her voice was so sleepy he could hear a small slurring—“none of the times was as good as your massage right now.”
“Then you had lousy lovers.”
“Possibly.” She raised her eyelids slightly and regarded him from beneath her lashes. “I’m sure you’re going to tell me you’re the exception.”
He glanced upward even as he kept massaging. “Some things are better shown than told.”
“Some things are better left to the imagination.”
“You’re imagining me making love to you?”
Her face flushed, and her leg pulled back. Once again, he was ready for this, holding her ankle. “Just relax. No more talking. Close your eyes. You know you want it.”
“Pig.” Her eyes closed, though. “I’m only doing this because I had a really bad day, and I need this.”
“And I’m good at this.”
Her eyes remained closed. “We already established that. How many times do you need to be told?”
“Never. I know how amazing I am.”
She laughed softly, and the tension left her leg and foot again. Completely relaxed as he found all the pulse points, she rested her head against the back of
the sofa, looking up at the ceiling.
He set her foot on the ottoman next to his hip, in contact with his jeans, then picked up her other foot and began to massage that. After a moment, he stripped off her sock. She made a sound of satisfaction. Glancing up, he saw she was gazing down at him, her eyes half-lidded as he massaged her foot.
“Just relax,” he murmured. “I’m just rubbing your feet. That’s all.”
Her eyes closed again, and another languorous breath sighed through her. He rubbed her foot for a few minutes before he said anything.
“I wonder why he was let go from his job at the other town?”
Chapter 13
She jerked her foot back, and this time he let her go. She angled forward on the sofa. “I never thought of that. I’ll Google it.”
He stood, the movement pushing the ottoman away from him. “I want to see this, too.”
She was already moving away when he grasped her right arm beneath her elbow. She glanced back, and he dangled her sock in front of her. A sense of lightness made her laugh, her body still relaxed, like marshmallows pulled until they were stretched into taffy. She grabbed the sock and kept going, one foot warm and one foot cold. The same way she felt about Logan, warm and cold. Though right now, the warmth was winning.
It had been a lousy day, and the place she’d come to for refuge seemed to be turning its back on her.
But Logan had been there for her with a foot massage. The ultimate relaxant. The ultimate aphrodisiac.
He reached her netbook on the desk at the corner of the living room first. “Put on your sock. I’ll Google.”
“It’s my computer.”
“Don’t worry. I know my way around a computer.” He gave her a wicked grin, silently telling her that a computer wasn’t the only thing he knew the way around.
It made her want to hit him. At the same time, his grin swept away the tension rising inside her, and she knew that was his intention to take her mind off what the town board had done.
She still might have argued, but it dawned on her, like a slap in the face, that he wanted to be seen as devilish, an old-fashioned rake, the bad boy. But in reality, he was a nice guy. All the evidence pointed to it. Keeping his grandmother’s house for nearly a decade for sentimental reasons. Letting her and Zach stay—and not calling the sheriff. And now, trying to help her.
Sure, not all of his intentions were noble. If she suddenly gave into her lust and hopped into his bed, she was pretty sure he’d hop in with her. He certainly was no saint—but who was? Besides, she suspected that a saint wouldn’t be nearly as interesting or fun. And a saint wouldn’t make her feel…desirable and interesting and alive in every sense of the word. Bodily and emotionally.
He asked her Duane’s name and the town he’d worked in then typed it in quickly for a man who only used two fingers on each hand. He hit enter then his fingers stilled, and he glanced up at her, two vertical lines between his eyebrows. “Something else is going on with you.”
What? Did he sense her thoughts? “Nothing. Are you a mind reader?”
“It’s my next profession.” His eyes glittered, and he gave her his I’m-a-devil grin again. “Don’t tell anyone, or the government will know I’m really an alien. That’s the real reason I left L.A. One day I noticed there seemed to be a lot of men in black wherever I went, and I decided to get out while I could. All the stuff I told you about the dark queen was bullshit.”
“No worries. Every time you tell me something, I suspect it’s bullshit.” She ignored his quick laugh and continued, her voice sharpening. “As for what’s wrong, you tell me the deeper issues about your life, then I’ll tell you mine. Until then, stop being so nosy, and let’s find the dirt on Duane.”
He narrowed his gaze at her. She raised her eyebrows and stared at him, unblinking, until he turned back to the screen. His face muscles tightened, and a frown etched on his forehead, his eyebrows slashing together as he clicked on one link and another. Finally, he swiveled on the chair.
“Nothing. All the other links are older and probably more obscure. None of them say anything damaging.”
“He’s kind of slimy,” she said. “I bet he had an affair with someone and was caught.”
Logan clicked onto the website of the town board where Duane had worked before. He nodded his chin at the image of Duane, still in the town board photos. “He looks like a former quarterback in high school, gone to fat. The kind of guy used to getting any girl he wants. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was something sexual.”
“Someone under eighteen. Or the wife or daughter of someone on the board.”
“I hope so. Then they’ll be more likely to talk.”
“Talk to who?”
He just smiled, pushed back, and stood.
“I want to talk to them,” she said.
“Better not. You might get in trouble.”
“Are you hiring an investigator?”
He just smiled at her. “I’m going upstairs to write. I feel motivated.”
“I didn’t even tell you a story tonight. Not a real story. I was spewing.”
“Sweetheart…” He looked down at her as if she were his favorite ice cream and he wanted to eat her. “Holding your bare feet in my palms more than made up for it.”
He strode away, leaving her staring at his back with her throat too tight to say anything without squeaking.
Damn him. He’d irritated her on purpose.
But there were a lot of men who were douches, and she was ninety-five percent sure he wasn’t one of them.
It unsettled her. She’d feel…safer if he was one. She couldn’t deny she was wildly attracted to him. She was human. Blood ran through her veins, and he was pretty to look at. He probably got hit on all the time. Probably by both sexes, though the way he oozed testosterone, she was ninety-nine point nine percent sure he was straight. The fact that he was turning out to be one of the good guys was just going to make it harder to say no to him.
None of it mattered. He was in love with one of the most beautiful women in the world, and any short affair she might have with him would not have a happy ending. Unlike him, she preferred happy endings in her fiction, and in her life. The next time she took that leap with a man, she needed to be sure that the guy she was leaping to would be there to catch her. And that man wasn’t Logan.
* * *
In the bedroom upstairs, Logan stood at the window and looked out at the dim night and breathed deeply. Since Olivia had come to his house in Beverly Hills to tell him they were done, he’d felt numb. Only half alive.
That had slowly changed, starting the night he’d walked into his grandmother’s house and found it occupied by the very prim, on the surface, Madelyn Barrymore. He’d quickly discovered she had depths and a few murky spots. Her audacity at living in his house for so long, mixed with her ferocity when her son was concerned and the way she’d helped others in town, had gotten to him that first night. Had awakened dormant senses.
Tonight he felt fully alive, all his senses stirred and awakened.
The unfortunate part was that he wanted to lie down with Maddie more than ever.
And he could tell by the way she darted looks at him and the flush in her cheeks that she wanted to lie down with him, too.
Naked.
Touching.
Kissing.
Licking.
Locking her legs around him.
Begging him to love her. Pleading. Until he finally said yes and eased his way into her.
She’d be tight, because it had been so long since she’d had sex. Her muscles would clasp him.
So would her arms.
She wouldn’t want to let him go.
It would be ecstasy.
It would be—
A mrrrwl sounded, and something slashed his hand.
He snapped around and stared at the hissing cat. Then, as if nothing had happened, the cat turned and padded out. In no hurry. Her tail up in the air.
Looking down at th
e back of his hand, he saw four streaks of blood.
Jesus, did the cat really know what he was thinking?
Impossible. His hand stung, and he crossed to the bathroom to wash off the blood. The cat reminded him of too many women he knew back in L.A. Cute and deadly.
Move over, guard dogs, he thought, the guard kitties are vicious.
Chapter 14
The tap of shoes on the floor gave Maddie a ten-second warning. Time enough to switch from the dating site on her computer to the office site. She twisted around in time to see Patty Kohlman from the town board stomp in. The years hadn’t been good to the former beauty queen, but she didn’t appear to give a damn. In her late-fifties, she wore no makeup, no hair dye, no high heels. What Maddie had appreciated most was her policy of no bullshit.
Until today. Patty sat heavily in the visitor’s chair and looked Maddie straight in the eye. “I wanted to tell you earlier.”
Maddie raised her eyebrows, not saying anything. She’d already found out that a lover could stab her in her back. Now she knew that people she’d considered her friends did the same thing.
Patty leaned forward. “Kevin said you were angry.”
Maddie still didn’t say anything.
“It’s nothing personal.”
“Really?” She couldn’t hold back any longer. “It’s personal to me.”
“Duane is experienced.”
“I’ve been doing the job of the town administrator for a good four years while George signed whatever papers I told him to. I’m pretty sure you all knew that. So I have more experience in this town, and I have the degree. Besides that, I was promised the job. You promised me the job, and so did the others.”
“Things changed. Duane has a wife and two children.”
“Good. Let him look for a job. With his experience, he should have no trouble, right?”
“You are angry.”
“You’re damn right I’m angry.” Her voice rose, words spewing out, her control shattering. “I could’ve been looking for a job since August. The board asked me not to, telling me to hold on. And now you tell me that ‘things changed.’ This is ugly, and I feel that I’ve been taken advantage of. I think there could be some gender discrimination here, too.”
