Mad enough to marry (10 page)

The recent dreams were just another layer on the mortification she'd suffered for years. That night

when she was sixteen she'd wanted him desperately, even though good girls weren't supposed to have those feelings. Even though good girls were supposed to be the ones to say no.

Elena stabbed at a lettuce leaf. Maybe it was genetic, she mused, that compulsion to say **yes" to the wrong man.

The phone rang. When Elena jogged to the kitchen and answered it, the identity of the person on the other end seemed like a bad omen. '*Gabby," she called from the kitchen. 'It's Tyler."

As she walked back to her place at the table, Elena pictured her sister's boyfriend in her mind. Blond, handsome, rich, in many ways a mirror image to the man now eating spaghetti at her table. That sense of foreboding redoubled.

She didn't meet Logan's eyes as she picked at her meal.

'*Are you all right?" he asked under the cover of Gabby's phone conversation. His voice was soft. Private.

Elena scowled at him. "Of course. Why wouldn't I be?"

Instead of answering, he reached across the table with his napkin. '*You missed some sauce."

She snatched the paper square away before he could touch her mouth. ''I'm not a child."

His gaze on her Ups, he leaned back in his chair and sent her a lazy grin. "No kidding."

She balled the napkin and barely resisted throwing it at him, even as she tried to compose her face into

neutral lines. Why couldn't she handle herself more coolly around him? But she'd never been able to.

Eleven years ago, his first kiss had melted her, more, it had inflamed her. Several kisses later, she'd been so excited by his touch, so eager to know what came next in the ladder of sexual desire, that she'd been breathless when he'd sUd his hand beneath her shirt and then beneath her bra.

None of her grandmother's admonitions had pricked her conscience, not when there were long, strong fingers on her flesh and Logan's praise whispering in her ears.

Her sister's reentry into the room returned Elena's focus to the present. Gabby dropped back into her seat. 'Tyler's coming over for dessert," she announced.

The happy note in her Uttle sister's voice suddenly put Elena's nerves on edge. "Didn't you see him today at school?"

Gabby paused, her fork halfway to her mouth. "Sure I did."

"Don't you think that's enough togetherness for one day?"

Before Gabby could answer, Elena's watch alarm pinged. With a sigh, she pushed back her chair and got up to fetch her shoebox with the egg babies. Back at the dinner table, she pulled out her journal to note the date and time of the latest feeding.

"How are the twins doing?" Logan leaned across the table to peer into the shoebox. "Hey—" he fished out one of the eggs "—they have faces."

'*Be careful," Elena warned. *'That's one-third of my class grade you're holdmg."

He was inspecting the Kewpie-cute face painted on the surface of the egg. "Gabby, these are charming."

*'How'd you know it's my work?" she asked, obviously pleased.

*'Elena in Bed/' he answered.

Elena looked up, a bit miffed. "What? What about me and Fred-the-Egg are remotely alike?"

Grinning, he shrugged. **I don't know. Maybe if I slept with Fred, Fd have a good answer."

"You've never slept with me!" she exclaimed, snatching the egg out of his hand.

Gabby and Logan exchanged glances, then laughed. At Elena's expense. When she scowled at them, they laughed even harder.

"Have you forgotten where my painting of you is hung?" he finally got out.

In his bedroom. Directly opposite his bed. Feeling awkward and embarrassed, she bent her head and pretended intense concentration on the tending of her babies.

Logan continued consuming his massive portion of food. "When did you start painting?" he asked Gabby, spooning another helping of spaghetti onto his plate.

She shrugged. "I remember loving those water-color sets little kids get. You know, the ones made out of aluminum with squares of dry paint and tiny brushes."

Elena glanced up. "Before you were even old

enough for kindergarten, you painted a landscape on the closet door of our room," she said. **Mama was so mad, because she was afraid we'd lose the security deposit."

*'I can top that," Logan said, shaking his head. *'My grandfather gave me a beginning woodcarver's set. I carved my name in several pieces of heirloom furniture before my mom found out and took the tools away. I wasn't allowed to play outside with Griffin for two weeks and I had to go into work with my father on Saturdays and Sundays for a month."

**Ouch," Gabby said. **Did you get your wood-carver's set back?"

**I have no idea what happened to it," Logan replied, a faraway look on his face. '*! don't think I ever asked." Then he blinked and smiled at Gabby. **I don't know much about art, but I can say that from one person who works with his hands to another, you have a remarkable talent."

Her face turned pink. "Thanks," she said. "I love to paint."

"You love the idea of being a doctor," Elena automatically reminded her. "Don't ever forget that."

Two pairs of eyes turned on her, one blue, one brown. "They're not mutually exclusive," Gabby said, her voice tightening. "Can't you lighten up fcH" even a minute, Elena?"

"Not when it comes to your future," she replied. "Not when it's so important."

Gabby let out a long breath. "Okay. Fine." She

Stood up. "I think FU go over to Tyler's instead of having him come over here.'*

Elena frowned. '*Gabby..."

Her sister stiffened. ''Don't start with that again, Elena."

''What?"

"Don't start about me and Tyler." Gabby's face flushed and she sounded annoyed. "You're not my parent."

"No, but I'm the closest thing you have to one," Elena retorted, trying to hold on to her own temper. "I'm just trying to make sure—"

"That I don't jeopardize my future as Gabriella O'Brien, M.D." Gabby's eyes were blue fire, but her voice now cooled to ice. ' 'You want to be sure I don't get off the course you've set by getting caught up in my painting or getting caught up by a man who will dump me the way our father dumped our mother."

Before Elena could think of an appropriate response. Gabby was already at the front door. "Well, I'm tired of that boring old story. Maybe you can interest Logan, but I'm done with it."

Logan. As the realization that he'd witnessed the embarrassing exchange sank in, the front door slammed shut behind Gabby.

"Well." Not knowing what else to do, Elena stood and began stacking plates, looking forward to escaping alone to the kitchen.

But Logan instantly followed her lead.

She shook her head at him. "You don't have to help."

"I want to.*'

She shook her head again. **Really. It's my dish night. But I...I should apologize for what we just put you through."

**Would you like to talk about it?" he asked quietly. "My shoulder is perfectly willing to be cried upon."

*'Cry?" Not in front of him. Not ever. Her spine steeled. 'I'm not much of a crier. Especially over a minor skirmish with my little sister."

His golden eyes searched her face, but then he shrugged. **You know, Elena, you are the toughest cookie I ever met."

She smiled at him. **Now you're talking." When she carried the dishes toward the kitchen, she didn't even mind him trailing behind her. A tough cookie like herself could handle him and think about the argument with Gabby later.

While Elena started filUng the kitchen sink, Logan leaned against the opposite countertop, as if he didn't have another place in the world he'd rather be. *'I assumed your father had passed away," he said after a few minutes.

Elena stiffened, then forced herself to relax. She'd just said she could handle Logan, right? "No. He's a lawyer in his family's firm in L.A."

''His family? Isn't that family yours too?"

She was glad her back was turned, because tough cookies didn't show emotion and she didn't know if she could talk about her father without doing so. "My father and his family want to forget all about me and

Gabby. He took a job with legal aid and married our mother—^she was a cocktail waitress at his favorite Mexican restaurant—^as rebellion against his stuffy parents. For the next ten years or so, my mother and father lived together in wedded un-bliss."

'*Then what happened?"

She shrugged. *'His snobbishness overcame his need to rebel? He was more embarrassed of us than he was interested in making a point? You'd have to ask him. I only know that when Gabby was bom, he gave up slumming, his Mexican-American wife and his two daughters. I believe he's now a civil litigator and the proud father of three sons in prep school."

"Jesus, Elena." Without her noticing, Logan had snuck up behind her, and now he touched her hair. 'Tm sorry—"

*'Not for me." She whirled to face him, defiant. "You better not be sorry for me."

He tucked her hair behind her ear. "No, sweetheart. I'm sorry for your father. Sorry that he doesn't know Gabby. Sorry that he doesn't know you."

Elena swallowed, fighting off the weak, silly urge to step into Logan's arms. He wasn't supposed to know her either! She was supposed to be keeping him at a distance and not letting him past her guard.

She firmed her jaw and looked into his eyes, will-mg herself to give nothing away. "I think that you should go."

Logan gazed at the cool mask of beauty that was Elena's face. She was kicking him out again.

Damn her.

He'd gone quietly, even willingly, the other night, though she'd been half-naked in his arms. With the taste of her perfumed skin still on his tongue, he'd managed to walk away from her.

Conversation with Elena, let alone near-copulation with Elena, was a complication to his life he'd known he didn't need at the moment.

He'd been aware too, that he'd left her as sexually frustrated, as sexually hurting as he was himself. A consolation. Even retahation—^it only seemed fair that they both suffered.

But what she was feeling now wasn't physical pain. He could tell she was emotionally hurting from her argument widi Gabby and from talking about her father. It pissed him off that she wouldn't even admit it—or give him a chance to comfort her.

**You won't let anyone get too close, will you Elena?" he said tightly.

Her expression didn't flicker. "I'll walk you to the door."

How many feet away could it be? Twenty? Yet with each step he felt another surge of that unfamihar and hot, although also strangely exhilarating, emotion rise within him.

When she put her hand on the doorknob, he thought of the beautiful girl in the ice-blue prom dress who had snatched the corsage from his hand. Emotions rippling across her face, she'd thrown it down to grind it into the.cement with her shoe.

He'd been intrigued and awed by all that honesty

and temper, so different from the iron fist that his family used to control their feelings.

But now, he thought, despite the habitual verbal barbs and the occasional flash of real temper, she had grown to be like them. Under that impenetrable outer shell, she held everything she felt close to her heart. She wasn't like the fiery Elena he remembered at all.

And because he thought he might be in some way responsible for that change, he only felt angrier. She drew open the door. He slammed it shut with the flat of his hand.

*'No," he said.

She turned those cool blue eyes on him. "What?"

"Fm not going to let you push me away like this again."

Oh, she was good. Her eyebrows rose in a way perfected to frighten off the male half of the world. It was a look that could shrivel a man—^his ego as well as his erection—^unless that man knew what was underneath all her aloof condescension.

Wariness. Hurt. Her own fear, he suspected.

He leaned against the door, his adrenaline pumping, something telling him that a comer could be turned here if he pushed her. Pursued her.

Reaching out, he cupped her cheek with his palm. Her skin was velvety and warm. He remembered cupping her breast, the skin there was velvety too, and he'd felt her heartbeat racing against his fingertips.

She didn't budge, but there was just the sHghtest catch in her voice. "You don't want to do this, Logan."

Rationally—no. The good-natured, even-tempered Logan he'd been all his life was somewhere inside him, pointing out in reasonable tones that involving himself with Elena would only mess him up. But that voice was part of the same analytical, conamon-sensical Lx>gan who had stayed chained to a desk job at Chase Electronics for too many years.

Maybe it was time for a different kind of thinking. Or, better yet, not thinking at all.

His thumb stroked across her cheekbone. ''This isn't just for me," he said.

Uncertainty flickered in her eyes and he delighted in it. She licked her bottom lip. "Oh, I suppose I should be honored that you want...that you want to spend time with me?"

She was still trying so hard to push him away.

Ha. **Give an inch, Elena," he whispered, his thumb brushing across her face again. *'You don't have to give it all, just an inch."

**I don't know what you want." Now she sounded nervous, almost defensive.

He pressed, knowing this was the opening he needed. '1 want you to talk to me, Elena. Admit what's going on with you and Gabby. Admit what's going on with you and me."

She stiffened against his hand. *'You know there's no you and me."

'*You know there could be." He took a step toward her, his gaze nev^ leaving hers. '1 thought the attraction was just an echo of the past. But I was wrong.

because it's not going away and it's only getting harder to ignore."

'*Well, ril do fine without scratching that particular itch, thank you very much."

''Damn you, Elena." His temper burned and he heard that wolf begin howling inside his head. Only she brought out in him something so untamed. ^Tm not going to let you drag it down to that level."

She jerked her face away from his hand. '*What other level is there?"

Anger flared again, but this time not at Elena, but at whatever—or whoever—^had made her so distrustful. He grabbed her chin and turned her face his way again. **Take something from me," he commanded her.

She blinked. '*What are you talking about?"

*'Not just about kisses, caresses, sex. Fm offering, Elena. Giving. Take my comfort, take my support, take me as someone to share your worries with."

Her eyes widened. Emotions rippled across them, like disturbances in the depths of an icy lake.

**Let me in, Elena. I want to know you again. Know you."

Elena shook her head. *'We can't be friends. You know how ridiculous that is."

If not friendship—^because she was right about that—^what did he want from her? Peace, he thought, and simpUcity. Not that he'd ever have either with Elena buzzing about, bringing up old memc«ies and past regrets. Not with her beautiful face and stubborn heart as a constant source of howling frustration.

*lt's just as ridiculous to think we're going to keep avoiding whatever we akeady are," he said slowly. **And what we never became. I think we should play out what's between us this time. Finish it, once and for all."

*Tinish it once and for all," she murmured, as if trying out the idea.

He saw the surrender on her face and his heart kicked into high gear. This made so much sense.

Then she bit her bottom lip. **Let me.. .let me think about it."

God, could she never do anything the easy way? The wolf howled again and he clung to control by his fingernails. **Fine." He was on his way out of her apartment before he did something stupid like punch a hole in a wall...or beg. **Let me know when you've decided."

Chapter Seven

Jjy late afternoon the following day, though Logan's body was exhausted he continued working, hoping to tire out his brain as well. He'd made progress on stripping the paint from the wainscoting in the dining room. Now he was positioned at the far end of the first-floor hall, replacing water-damaged floorboards.

He measured the length he needed to cut, then measured again as a double check, scribbling the number on a scrap of wood. Normally he could keep something so simple in his head until he reached the well-lit location where he'd set up his chop saw, but he was too preoccupied today, thinking of Elena.

She'd gone ghost on him again. Even though he'd risen with the sun, she'd already left the Victorian by the time he'd made his bleary-eyed way out of his

own apartment Though he'd caught Gabby before she'd left fw: school, she hadn't been much help in Elena mood-analysis.

There had been a mischievous spark in her eyes, however, when she'd shared her sister's schedule for the day. Elena would be back around 6:00 p.m.

Logan planned on being showered and irresistible by then. He'd greet her with a smile and insist on taking her out to dinner. They had important matters to discuss.

The latest whine of blade cutting oak was just diminishing when he heard a knock on the front door. He'd left it propped open to diss^)ate some of the fumes from the paint-stripper he'd been using, so he just yelled, **Come in," and then headed in the direction of the foyer.

Jonathon Chase stepped over the threshold, looking as freshly pressed and as tightly necktied as...as Logan had looked for too many years. Conscious of the coating of sawdust on his forearms and hands, he grinned to himself as he reached for his father's outstretched palm and shook it.

Handshake over, Jonathon looked down at his gritty fing^x, perplexed.

'*Sorry, Dad." Logan bit back another smile and reached for his handkerchief. It came out of the back pocket of his jeans in a flurry of more sawdust '*Oops."

*'Never mind." His father had already found his own and was wiping his hand clean. "How are you, son?"

'*Busy." Avoiding looking at the sheaf of papers under his father's arm—^Jonathon was continually trying to draw him back into the family business with new proposals or projections—^Logan shoved his handkerchief away. "Would you like to see my progress?"

The question seemed to throw the older man off his stride. "Well, uh, sure."

Logan took him on a brief tour of the downstairs rooms. "I'm hopscotching around, trying to determine exactly what needs to be done and how long it will take to do it."

"It looks like a hell of a mess to me," his father said, staring at the half-peeled wallpaper in the parlor.

Logan shrugged. "Yeah. More mess to come if I'm going to turn this floor and the third into more apartments. But now I'm thinking of scrapping that idea."

Jonathon pressed his lips together and nodded with satisfaction. "You want your desk back at Chase Electronics."

Logan half-smiled. "No, Dad. I'm thinking of turning this house into my company headquarters. Business offices on the first floor, living quarters on the second and third stories."

"You need business space?"

Logan nodded, holding on to his pleasant expression. "I've got an architect coming on board with me in three months as well as a couple of subcontractors who are interested in full-time employment instead of scrambling for job after job."

**Someone has to find the work," his father pointed out.

'*That will be me." Logan waited for Jonathon to launch some doubts on that score, promising himself he wouldn't bother to tell his father he already had two large renovations Uned up and the verbal promise of a third. He wouldn't bother telling the old man that he still planned on doing a lot of the work himself, too.

Instead, his father surprised the hell out of him by merely nodding. He looked away, then back at Logan. *'Have you spoken with your mother lately?" he asked abruptly.

Logan bUnked. **Not since we all had dinner together the other night."

Jonathon nodded again but then let silence fall.

Puzzled, Logan cleared his throat. *'Uh, Dad. Did you drop by for some reason? I notice you have papers with you." It's not as if he'd avoid whatever his father's purpose was anyway.

Jonathon bUnked, seeming to awaken. Then he looked down as if noticing the papers for the first time. *'I don't know why I brought these in with me," he said slowly. *'I was on my way to drop them... somewhere."

It sounded as if Logan's mind-like-a-shark father couldn't remember where that *'somewhere" was. Alarms pinged. **Are you feeling okay, Dad?"

His father shook his head, as if clearing it. *'0f course. I'm okay. Everything's okay. Everything wiD

be perfectly okay as soon as you give up this foolish notion and come back into the fold."

Over his dead body, Logan thought, but he smiled pleasantly yet again. '*No, Dad. Fm going to hold on to this foolish notion, but thanks for your good wishes all the same."

His father didn't even catch the edge of sarcasm in Logan's voice. After a few more minutes he left, with only another odd comment about Logan's mother. *'She wasn't home on Monday night for martinis."

**God," Logan muttered, as he returned to his work. *'No martinis on Monday night." How did the old man's world keep turning?

It was his world that recaptured his thoughts, though. More precisely, how it would be changed depending upon what words would drop from the delectable lips of one blue-eyed brunette when she returned home today. He supposed she might assume she had more time to make her decision, but Logan was discovering he wasn't as patient a man as he'd always thought.

"Logan?" The sound of that familiar voice calling through his still-open front door was almost eerie. It was the voice of the personification of that very patience.

''Cynthia?" he caUed out. "Is that you?"

He made his way back to the foyer, and sure enough, it was Cynthia Halstead. Though rumors of their long-expected engagement had always been greatly exaggerated, he had dated her almost exclusively for several years.

Standing in the entry, she tossed back the long fall of her straight blond hair and gave him a tentative smile. '*So this is where you work?"

"And Uve,** he reminded her. They'd ended their romantic liaison before his change in careers and residences, but he still occasionally talked to her on the phone.

Their relationship had been so cool it hadn't adversely suffered from the breakup, strange as that might sound. The people most disturbed by it seemed to be their parents, who had dreamed up a marriage when Logan and Cynthia were in their cradles.

*'How are Peter and Meredith?" he asked poUtely. *'And your brother?"

*T.J.'s fine. Mother and Dad..." Her slender hand flapped, and then she stepped past him. Her walk was fluid, one of those runway-model saunters that ate up space but didn't seem to go anywhere at the same time.

Logan trailed her passively. Cynthia was a part-time model and he was accustomed to the way she used movement to rev up her thought process. She wasn't dumb—and hated that stereotype—^but if she wasn't moving, she had a tendency to shut down her brain. She'd shared with him once her technique for sitting still in a makeup chair or under a photographer's lights for hour upon hour. To keep herself from screaming in boredom, she'd flat-line her mind, achieving an almost catatonic state, sort of like a bear going into hibernation.

Of course, no one with those miles of long hair and

legs resembled a bear, but the simile had stayed with him all the same.

Once she'd made a complete tour of the downstairs, she whirled to face him. *1 was really, really angry with you."

He stared at her. *'Huh?"

**When you broke up with me."

*'Hell, Cynthia." Flummoxed, he pushed both hands through his hair, not even thinking about the sawdust covering them. He'd thought she'd taken their breakup so well. "Why didn't you say anything?"

She shrugged. "You talked about it as if it was a mutual decision we were making. I had too much pride to tell you that my mother had already booked a room for our wedding reception and that we had started shoppng for wedding gowns."

Logan's jaw drc^ped. "What?"

Her shoulders moved up and down again. "Places to hold wedding receptions for a thousand guests are hard to come by around Strawberry Bay. You have to book over twelve months in advance."

A thousand guests? He shook his head. "I—^I don't know exactly what to say." Marriage? To CyntWa? The idea terrified him.

She smiled. "Say that you'll hold the first Saturday in February next year free."

He stopped himself from immediately declaring that in February of next year he'd be deep in training with the French Foreign Legion. "Tell me...tell me you don't mean..."

Her smile widened. '*rm getting married.'*

He backed up so quickly he tripped over his own feet. ''You're..."

Cynthia laughed. *'You should see your face!"

Logan pushed his hands through his hair again. **rm not following you."

"I'm engaged to marry Nicky LeGrand."

Logan stared. "Nicky *Let Me Care for Your Lawns' LeGrand?"

She lifted her chin. "You have a problem with that?"

"No! No, of course not." Except that the notion of Cynthia marrying someone else made him almost faint with reUef. "I didn't know that you and Nicky were even acquainted, much less dating."

Her pale complexion flushed bright red. "He's been taking care of the grounds at my parents' while our regular man recuperates from back surgery."

Logan bit back a grin. The only daughter of Peter and Meredith Halstead was engaged to marry the gardener! "I wish you the very best, of course, but...but..."

"How are my parents handUng it?"

He nodded.

Cynthia's smile turned mischievous. "To quote my father: 'At least he's not the pool man.' My mother appears immensely relieved I'm not pregnant and don't plan to be before the wedding. My cousin DeeDee just took her new baby and eloped with the driver of the diaper service truck, so I look positively saintly in comparison."

Logan laughed. *'The beauty of a small town— someone's private business is always more jaw-dropping than our own.'*

"That's one of the reasons I'm here," Cynthia said.

'*You came to tell me about your cousin DeeDee?"

She shook her head. "No. I came because I heard that Elena O'Brien is living with you."

"She's not living with me," he corrected hastily. If that got around, Elena would skewer him. "She and her sister are staying in a separate apartment from mine."

"Oh." Cynthia looked disappointed. "I thought we could exchange congratulations. And I wanted to thank you, too."

"Thank me for what?"

"For showing me what passion is." She grinned.

"/showed you?"

"In a backhanded sort of way. I thought the comfortable relationship we had was something to build a lifetime on. But then I found Nicky...." Her face glowed. "It's not comfortable, it's not even easy, but he makes me feel so alive,'^

Logan shook his head. Cynthia had always been as cool as the cucumber masks she slathered on her face every Sunday night. It should be impossible to consider her a passionate woman—^if he hadn't seen the look in her eyes when she mentioned her fiance's name.

"I'm so happy for you," he said, though her definition of a "not comfortable" and "not easy" pas-

sion made him distinctly wncomfortable. "Come here and give me a hug."

If Logan had wanted to make Elena's life miserable, he couldn't have done anything more than offer himself up—and then leave it to her to decide whether to take him.