Mad enough to marry (5 page)

Elena climbed the chipped cement steps to Logan's house and knocked briskly on the front door. When there was no answer, she let out a relieved breath and searched her pockets for the house keys he had given her.

By the time she'd found them, Tyler and Gabby had joined her on the porch. Inserting the key in the lock, she hesitated before opening the door. "It doesn't look like he's home right now, but just remember we don't want him—"

"Involved," Gabby and Tyler said together.

Elena thought they were laughing at her again, so

she gave them a quelling look then pushed on the door. When the first floor appeared Logan-less too, Elena left the door standing wide open. *'We might as well bring some things in before going upstairs.'*

They returned to the cars parked at the curb and helped each other load up. With an overstuffed duffel slung over each shoulder, a toiletries bag hanging on each elbow and two large cardboard boxes balanced in her arms, Elena led the way up the two flights of steps to the second floor. Similarly burdened. Gabby and Tyler followed her. The door to their apartment was at the top of the stairs, while Logan's was farther down the hall. Elena paused, then groaned.

"What is it?" Gabby's voice came out muffled, her face half-hidden by the boxes she carried.

**The keys are in the back pocket of my pants." Elena tried shifting the weight of her burdens to one arm. One of the duffels slid down her upper arm, nearly unbalancing her as it smacked into the smaUer bag at her elbow. **ril have to put some of this down," she muttered, trying to figure exactly how to do that in the narrow hallway.

A voice spoke in the vicinity of the top of her head. **Needhelp?"

Elena froze, then carefully swung toward the sound. Logan.

**I thought I heard someone at the front door but I was in my apartment on the phone."

He looked at perfect ease and perfectly decked out in a pair of heavy cotton khakis and a silky black T-shirt. His dark gold hair gleamed in the shadowy

hall and Elena suddenly pictured herself as he would see her—^her hair in two messy braids and her oldest jeans grubby.

''Making a hot date for martinis at the country club?*' she asked, hoping she sounded more sneering than self-conscious.

He cocked an eyebrow at her, looking so cool and so amused that she wanted to kick him. "Jealous?" he asked softly.

"You wish," she retorted.

"True." His white smile deepened at the joke and she wanted to kick him again. Or kiss him. Again. He looked over her head. "Hi there. Gabby. Tyler. You two need some help? It appears Elena is her usual capable self and doesn't have a single use for me.

"We need into the apartment," Gabby answered.

"TTie keys are in Elena's back pocket and she can't reach them," Tyler added.

Before she could step away, threaten or even scream, Logan reached around her. Three long fingers sUd inside her left rear pocket, the movement caressing her backside. "Here?" he asked innocently.

Elena stiffened. Less than ten minutes after her last vow not to involve him in her life, and he was already involved in htx pants. Before she could betray herself and shiver, she did what she must.

She dropped everything she was carrying.

On Logan's feet.

He yelped and jumped back. She smiled sweetly and slowly retrieved her keys from her other pocket.

**You're right," she said, opening the door to her apartment with a flourish. "I don't have a single use for you."

Amusement flickered in his eyes again as he watched her shove the boxes and bags forward with her foot. "With the exception of my available—^and rent-free—apartment," he said.

"You have the painting." She slid him a warning look. "For now."

Gabby and Tyler trooped inside with their burdens. Before she could follow, Lx)gan's voice stopped her.

"What do you mean 'for now'?" he asked. "We have a deal. You get the apartment and I get the painting."

Her back to him, she took a breath, almost swooning when she caught the scent of his deUcious, expensive-smelling aftershave. It reminded her of the kiss he'd given her last week. He'd smelled delicious then too. His face had been freshly shaven and she'd wanted to rub her cheek under his jaw. She'd wanted to run her tongue across his lips.

"Elena?" He said her name softly, as if he sensed her desire.

Snapping to attention, she spun to face him. She shoved her hands in her front pockets, her pose aggressive, her face scowling. She was supposed to stay uninvolved and here she was thinking things that made her knees weak. "What?" she bit out.

He couldn't ever know he made her weak.

One of his eyebrows made a long trek up his forehead, and he stepped closer to her. "Forgotten al-

ready, darling? I was reminding you of our deal. You get the apartment for as long as you and Gabby need it. I get the painting. Forever."

She could smell him again. Her heartbeat kicked up and she had to force her gaze off his mouth. "Fve reconsidered," she said, tilting her chin. **My side of the bargain is too generous. For six weeks I get the apartment and for those same six weeks, only six weeks, you get the painting." She pointedly turned her back on him and went into the apartment, pretending not to notice he was right behind her.

As his new housemates bustled about their apartment's small Uving room, Logan shook his head. Elena was up to her usual tricks.

She'd reneged in their original deal to irritate him. As always, she was working hard to push him away. But now he found himself with a hankering to know exacdy why she wanted him to keep his distance. He had suspicions about that. Intriguing suspicions that had entered his mind just as he'd teasingly slid his hand over her luscious, rounded backside in ''search" of the keys.

What he'd seen on her face in response to his touch wasn't that unsettling vulnerability in the kissing booth, it wasn't that purely physical weakness of the following day, it wasn't her customary prickliness.

Yet what had waved off her could very well be the cause of all that prickliness. K he was right, if what he'd briefly glimpsed was Elena responding to him as

a woman...well, that was just too interesting a possibility to leave alone.

He'd spent the last few months—since the beginning of Griffin and Annie's courtship—at the mercy of Elena's beauty and her sharp tongue. Now she was Uving with him, and even when she moved back to her own place, her best friend's marriage to his brother would mean they'd be together often. It would be a hell of a lot easier for him if their relationship was on a more equal footing. Maybe, just maybe, he'd found the key to that equality.

So, sorry Elena. He wasn't backing off. There was no time like the present to determine whether she felt at least some of the pull of attraction that he did.

Gabby and Tyler acted as his unspoken but wiUing accompUces. Throwing him an assessing look, Elena's sister *'innocently" remarked they could use a truck to retrieve a final few items. With a grin, Tyler one-handedly caught the pickup's keys when Logan immediately fished them from his pocket and tossed them over. They both emphatically declared the errand required only two pairs of hands.

Elena was frowning as the apartment door closed behind them. Then she turned on him like a cat about to sharpen her claws on her favorite scratching post. **What did you do that for?"

A tower of white bath towels was stacked in her arms. Ignoring the question, Logan approached her and she stepped back, until the heels of her sneakers bumped a cardboard box. **What's got you so

jumpy?" he asked, his voice mild. "It couldn't be because we're alone, could it?"

She shook her head, her face stony. "I don't like Gabby and Tyler alone. That's what I worry about."

Logan slid his arms under Elena's and cupped her elbows in his palms. He watched her swallow.

*'What are you doing?" Her question sounded more uncertain than annoyed.

He slid his hands across her skin then Ufted the towels. ''Helping out. Do you want these in the bathroom?"

She hugged herself. "Oh. Okay. Thank you." He didn't think she was aware she was making little circles on her skin with her palms, right where he'd touched her. It was as if she was trying to erase the sensation—or perhaps her reaction?

He hid his satisfaction by turning in the direction of the bathroom. Once inside, he flij^ed on the light with his elbow, then piled the neatly folded towels on the open shelves above the commode. Turning back toward the door, he met his own eyes in the mirror.

He looked pleased. And eager.

Too pleased. Too eager.

Damn. That gave him pause...and second thoughts. A short while ago he'd broken up with his long-time girlfriend because he'd reahzed their relationship was nothing more than a habit. That wasn't the problem with Elena, of course, but he was supposed to be simplifying his Hfe right now—^focusing on working on the house and building his business. Nothing else.

Heading out of the bathroom, he decided then and

there against any more Elena-exploration. Because who was he kidding? Toying with her would only lead to him being ice-bumed or homet-stung or worse. This particular female regularly armed herself with foot-long, razor-sharp thorns. He'd be much better off—safer—^heading back to his own apartment.

As he reentered her Uving room though, Elena's voice caused his feet to stumble. The sound was breathy, soft.

She was singing in Spanish.

A lullaby.

At the other end of the room, she sat cross-legged on a folded comforter, her back to him. He couldn't see what she was crooning to, but her body was curved over an object in her anns as she rocked back and forth.

Her hair was parted down the center and a braid fell over the front of each shoulder. The style left the nape of her neck bare and with his eyes he traced the fragile-looking bumps of her vertebrae. They pushed against her thin T-shirt until it disappeared in the waistband of her jeans.

A hot, heavy river coursed down his own spine. He walked toward her quietly, drawn forward almost against his will by her siren's song.

**What are you doing?" He touched her shoulder.

She jerked. A swathe of goose bumps rose on the exposed skin between her hairUne and the neck of her T-shirt. Her head whipped toward him, a blush rushing across her cheeks. Her mouth opened, then closed.

*1 thought you'd left," she finally said helplessly. *'How embarrassing.**

Puzzled, he hunkered down and peered over her shoulder. **Why? What's going on?"

She hunched over whatever was in her arms. **You're going to laugh.'*

"No, Fm not.*'

She narrowed her eyes and sent him another look over her shoulder. *'If the tables were turned, Fd laugh dXyou^

Now he was really curious. '*Yeah? But I'm nicer than you are."

**Nicer?" She appeared to consider that for a moment. '*This from the man who eleven years ago—"

**Cut it out, Elena.*' It was so clear to him now that her needling was a form of self-preservation. '*I promise I won't laugh."

She sighed. "I'm taking a college course."

* 'On top of two jobs and the volunteer work you're doing for the senior prom?"

"I'm working on my bachelor's degree one class at a time." She uncurled her body. "This semester it's Twenty-First Century Womanhood."

Logan leaned nearer to see what she'd been holding so protectively.

Against her full breasts. That was the first thing he noticed. So sue him, but this close and from this angle, they were truly eye-catching—throat-drying—^the plump curves outlined faithfrilly in clingy T-shirt fabric. Nestled between them, Elena pressed a small blanket-wrapped bundle of twin—

*'Eggs?*' he asked, suddenly bewildered.

The faint beep of a wristwatch sounded and Elena stood up, her shoulder nearly cUpping his nose. She walked away from him and he rose to follow her into the kitchen. He watched as she carefully placed her blanket bundle in a shoebox lined with cotton batting that sat on the counter.

He bhnked. **What are they?"

''Who are they," she corrected. *Tred and Ethel. Fred and Wilma. Freddie and Krueger. Take your pick. I can't seem to decide."

He stared at Elena, then down at the ordinary-looking chicken eggs she was caring for as if they were... babies. "Ah. This is some kind of motherhood experiment?"

'^Motherhood experience. We've been assigned to keep a journal describing what it's like to be a single parent in the era of sperm donors and multiple births." She turned her attention to her watch, resetting the alarm. *lt's similar to what kids do in high schools. I'm required to spend a certain amount of time each day caring for the babies."

He thought of her singing that lullaby, her voice gentle, her pose maternal and almost...serene. It was the most relaxed he'd ever seen her. **You looked— now don't take this the wrong way—sweet."

You would have thought he'd insulted her. 'I'm not sweet!"

'*Well, no, not usually. At least not to me."

She tried shrinking him again with the laser beam of her blue eyes. *'Not to anyone.*'

He smiled, because he liked the sound of that. Then he settled back on his heels. Even with all her thorns firmly in place, he didn't feel Uke leaving now. Not when he could still hear her voice in his head, not when he remembered those goose bumps that had gathered in response to his hand on her shoulder.

Just an inch, that was all he was asking. If he could prove to both of them that he could get beneath her skin just a scant inch, then he could go back to his new life a happy man, secure in the knowledge that the next time he encountered her he would be better insulated. The thought made his smile widen.

*'What are you grinning about?" she asked.

He angled his head, considering what had prompted his change of heart. A few minutes ago in the bathroom he'd decided she was too dangerous to take any further risks with. But now that he'd caught her singing to yolks, well...

**For the first time in our acquaintance, I'm finding you kind of cute."

She bUnked. **Cute?"

He wanted to laugh. Poor Elena. With her looks, men had probably been a constant source of flattery— wanted or not. But no one would e\&r have labeled her devastating package of femininity cute. She looked as if she didn't know whether to approve or be appalled.