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Blame It On The Cowboy
Delores Fossen
Every cowboy has a wild side—all it takes is the right woman to unleash it…All of Logan McCord’s carefully laid plans erupt the day he walks in on his would-be fiancée getting…well, not so carefully laid. Tonight, just once, Logan is acting on instinct. And that instinct is telling him to say “Happy to oblige” to the cute stranger looking for a no-strings fling with a Texas cowboy.When chef Reese Stephens made her bucket list, she mistakenly thought she had weeks to live. Not that she regrets her one-night-stand with the gorgeous rancher. But she does regret leaving an heirloom watch as a parting gift. Tracking Logan down is easy. Walking away again is another matter. Because Reese’s crazy past and Logan’s battered heart are no match for the kind of chemistry that could turn one night into the start of a passionate lifetime.


Every cowboy has a wild side—all it takes is the right woman to unleash it...
All of Logan McCord’s carefully laid plans erupt the day he walks in on his would-be fiancée getting...well, not so carefully laid. Tonight, just once, Logan is acting on instinct. And that instinct is telling him to say “Happy to oblige” to the cute stranger looking for a no-strings fling with a Texas cowboy.
When chef Reese Stephens made her bucket list, she mistakenly thought she had weeks to live. Not that she regrets her one-night-stand with the gorgeous rancher. But she does regret leaving an heirloom watch as a parting gift. Tracking Logan down is easy. Walking away again is another matter. Because Reese’s crazy past and Logan’s battered heart are no match for the kind of chemistry that could turn one night into the start of a passionate lifetime.
Praise for Delores Fossen (#ulink_3e53e5da-8a8b-5fd3-9e26-0d22b507470d)
“The perfect blend of sexy cowboys, humor and romance will rein you in from the first line.”
—New York Times bestselling author B.J. Daniels
“From the shocking opening paragraph on, Fossen’s tale just keeps getting better.”
—RT Book Reviews on Sawyer, 4½ stars, Top Pick
“Rustling Up Trouble is action packed, but it’s the relationship and emotional drama (and the sexy hero) that will reel readers in.”
—RT Book Reviews, 4½ stars
“While not lacking in action or intrigue, it’s the romance of two unlikely people that soars.”
—RT Book Reviews on Maverick Sheriff, 4 stars
Blame It on the Cowboy
Delores Fossen


www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Contents
Cover (#ud4456b6a-a30f-5149-b7ef-7413fbd6ef8c)
Back Cover Text (#u6bdb1404-4705-564e-9575-0362c9f6879b)
Praise (#ub2fa860d-566e-5059-a53a-ee06e28e38eb)
Title Page (#u279f4e76-73ad-59df-ad1d-f8c5f1a4201c)
CHAPTER ONE (#u38156df0-1de4-5557-8b29-bd8456ee93d3)
CHAPTER TWO (#ufa50c887-8db8-5ac3-b8cb-3aaaa78e262f)
CHAPTER THREE (#u820ffe1f-fcde-5db6-8667-f2f44aea5bbb)
CHAPTER FOUR (#u8bf1f0be-2fff-5800-9c7c-374716cb3a7a)
CHAPTER FIVE (#udc2f8aae-38b2-57c6-ac96-67fb8f588564)
CHAPTER SIX (#uc7db4651-bb85-519e-b404-49b2242c4909)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINETEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_90d7f330-9cc7-5049-a094-58ef6d1c69a8)
LOGAN MCCORD HATED two things: clowns and liars. Tonight, he saw both right in front of him on the antique desk in Langford’s Interior Designs, and he knew his life had changed forever. He would never look at a red squeaky nose the same way again.
Ten minutes earlier
LOGAN GLANCED AT the four signs and groaned.
Marry
Me?
You
Will
It was not the way he wanted to present this proposal to his future wife.
His younger brother, Riley, was carrying the You. His twin brother, Lucky, the Will. Riley’s wife, Claire, the Marry. Lucky’s girlfriend, Cassie, the Me?
“Unless I want this proposal to sound like Yoda, switch places,” Logan insisted.
Since everyone but Logan had clearly had too much to drink in the precelebration prep for this occasion, he took them by the shoulders and one by one put them in the right places.
Lucky. Riley. Claire. Cassie.
“Will you marry me?” Logan double-checked. Then he checked again.
Logan wanted this to be perfect while still feeling a little spontaneous. Just the day before, his longtime girlfriend, Helene Langford, had told him he should be a little more whimsical.
Somewhat wild, even.
Logan was certain most people in their small hometown of Spring Hill, Texas, wouldn’t consider him wild even when the expectations were lowered with that somewhat. That was his twin brother Lucky’s specialty. Still, if Helene wanted something whimsical, then this marriage proposal should do it.
Helene was perfect for him. A savvy businesswoman, beautiful, smart, and her even temperament made her easy to get along with. She’d never once complained about his frequent seventy-hour workweeks, and he could count on one hand how many disagreements they’d had.
She was the only child of state senator Edwin Langford and a former Miss Texas beauty contestant. Her family loved him, and Logan was pretty sure his own family felt the same way about her.
“You got the ring?” Lucky whispered. Or rather, tried to whisper.
Yeah, his siblings, sibling-in-law and future sibling-in-law were buzzed on champagne, all in the name of celebrating the fact that he was finally going to pop the question to the woman he’d been dating all these years.
Logan double-checked the ring. The blue Tiffany box was in his jacket pocket. It was perfect, as well. A two-carat diamond—flawless like Helene—with a platinum setting. It would look just right on the hand of the woman who would eventually help him run McCord Cattle Brokers.
He took another bottle of chilled champagne from his car. This one he would share with his future bride right after she said yes, and he’d do that sharing without his family around. He wanted to get Helene alone, maybe show her just how spontaneous he could be by having sex with her on her pricey antique desk. The very one she had professionally polished every week.
“All right, no talking once we’re inside,” Logan reminded them. “No giggling, either,” he warned Claire.
It was dark, after closing hours, and any chatter or giggling would immediately carry through the building and all the way to Helene’s office in the back of her interior design business. He wouldn’t have to worry about other customers, though, since it was Wednesday, the night that Helene used to catch up on paperwork.
Logan eased his key into the lock, turning it slowly so that Helene wouldn’t be alerted to the clicking sound. He gave the sign crew one last stern look to keep quiet, and they all tiptoed toward the back. Well, they tiptoed as much as four drunk people could manage, but he wouldn’t have to put up with their drunken giddiness much longer. Logan had already arranged for the town’s only taxi driver to pick them up in fifteen minutes.
Leading the way, Logan headed to Helene’s office. The door was already cracked so he pushed it open, motioning for the others to go ahead of him and get ready to spring into action. They did. Lucky. Riley. Claire. Cassie. All in the correct order, but what they didn’t do was hold up their signs. That’s because they froze.
All of them.
They stood there, signs frozen in their hands, too.
Logan’s stomach went to his knees, and in the split second that followed, he tried to figure out what would have caused them to react like that.
Hell.
If Helene had been hurt, at least one of them would have rushed to check on her, but there was no rushing. Even though it was hard to wrap his mind around it, the freezing could mean they’d just walked in on Helene doing something bad.
Like maybe she was with another man.
She couldn’t be, though. Helene had never given him any reason whatsoever not to trust her. Ditto for giving him any reason whatsoever to believe she was unhappy. Just an hour earlier she’d called Logan to tell him she loved him.
Riley looked back at Logan, shaking his head. “Uh, you don’t want to see this,” Riley insisted.
But Logan did. He had to see it. Because there was nothing in the room that was worse than what he was already imagining.
Or so he thought.
However, Logan was wrong. It was worse. Much, much worse.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_a592284f-68c3-5031-a636-378b8489bb65)
LIARS AND CLOWNS. Logan had seen both tonight. The liar was a woman he thought loved him. Helene. And the clown, well, Logan wasn’t sure he could process that image just yet.
Maybe after lots of booze, though.
He hadn’t been drunk since his twenty-first birthday nearly thirteen years ago. But he was about to remedy that now. He motioned for the bartender to set him up with another pair of Glenlivet shots.
His phone buzzed again, indicating another call had just gone to voice mail. One of his siblings no doubt wanting to make sure he was all right. He wasn’t. But talking to them about it wouldn’t help, and Logan didn’t want anyone he knew to see or hear him like this.
It was possible there’d be some slurring involved. Puking, too.
He’d never been sure what to call Helene. His longtime girlfriend? Girlfriend seemed too high school. So, he’d toyed with thinking of her as his future fiancée. Or in social situations—she was his business associate who often ran his marketing campaigns. But tonight Logan wasn’t calling her any of those things. As far as he was concerned, he never wanted to think of her, her name or what to call her again.
Too bad that image of her was stuck in his head, but that’s where he was hoping generous amounts of single malt Scotch would help.
Even though Riley, Claire, Lucky and Cassie wouldn’t breathe a word about this, it would still get around town. Logan wasn’t sure how, but gossip seemed to defy the time-space continuum in Spring Hill. People would soon know, if they didn’t already, and those same people would never look at him the same way again. It would hurt business.
Hell. It hurt him.
That’s why he was here in this hotel bar in San Antonio. It was only thirty miles from Spring Hill, but tonight he hoped it’d be far enough away that no one he knew would see him get drunk. Then he could stagger to his room and puke in peace. Not that he was looking forward to the puking part, but it would give him something else to think about other than her.
It was his first time in this hotel, though he stayed in San Antonio often on business. Logan hadn’t wanted to risk running into anyone he knew, and he certainly wouldn’t at this trendy “boutique” place. Not with a name like the Purple Cactus and its vegan restaurant.
If the staff found out he was a cattle broker, he might be booted out. Or forced to eat tofu. That’s the reason Logan had used cash when he checked in. No sense risking someone recognizing his name from his credit card.
The clerk had seemed skeptical when Logan had told him that his ID and credit cards had been stolen and that’s why he couldn’t produce anything with his name on it. Of course, when Logan had slipped the guy an extra hundred dollar bill, it had caused that doubt to disappear.
“Drinking your troubles away?” a woman asked.
“Trying.”
Though he wasn’t drunk enough that he couldn’t see what was waiting for him at the end of this. A hangover, a missed 8:00 a.m. meeting, his family worried about him—the puking—and it wouldn’t fix anything other than to give him a couple hours of mind-numbing solace.
At the moment, though, mind-numbing solace even if it was temporary seemed like a good trade-off.
“Me, too,” she said. “Drinking my troubles away.”
Judging from the sultry tone in her voice, Logan first thought she might be a prostitute, but then he got a look at her.
Nope. Not a pro.
Or if she was, she’d done nothing to market herself as such. No low-cut dress to show her cleavage. She had on a T-shirt with cartoon turtles on the front, a baggy white skirt and flip-flops. It looked as if she’d grabbed the first items of clothing she could find off a very cluttered floor of her very cluttered apartment.
Logan wasn’t into clutter.
And he’d thought Helene wasn’t, either. He’d been wrong about that, too. That antique desk of hers had been plenty cluttered with a clown’s bare ass.
“Mind if I join you?” Miss Turtle-shirt said. “I’m having sort of a going-away party.”
She waited until Logan mumbled, “Suit yourself,” and she slid onto the purple bar stool next to him.
She smelled like limes.
Her hair was varying shades of pink and looked as if it’d been cut with a weed whacker. It was already messy, but apparently it wasn’t messy enough for her because she dragged her hand through it, pushing it away from her face.
“Tequila, top shelf. Four shots and a bowl of lime slices,” she told the bartender.
Apparently, he wasn’t the only person in San Antonio with plans to get shit-faced tonight. And it explained the lime scent. These clearly weren’t her first shots of the night.
“Do me a favor, though,” she said to Logan after he downed his next drink. “Don’t ask my name, or anything personal about me, and I’ll do the same for you.”
Logan had probably never agreed to anything so fast in all his life. For one thing he really didn’t want to spend time talking with this woman, and he especially didn’t want to talk about what’d happened.
“If you feel the need to call me something, go with Julia,” she added.
The name definitely wasn’t a fit. He was expecting something more like Apple or Sunshine. Still, he didn’t care what she called herself. Didn’t care what her real name was, either, and he cared even less after his next shot of Glenlivet.
“So, you’re a cowboy, huh?” she asked.
The mind-numbing hadn’t kicked in yet, but the orneriness had. “That’s personal.”
She shrugged. “Not really. You’re wearing a cowboy hat, cowboy boots and jeans. It was more of an observation than a question.”
“The clothes could be fashion statements,” he pointed out.
“Julia” shook her head, downed the first shot of tequila, sucked on a lime slice. Made a face and shuddered. “You’re not the kind of man to make fashion statements.”
If he hadn’t had a little buzz going on, he might have been insulted by that. “Unlike you?”
She glanced down at her clothes as if seeing them for the first time. Or maybe she was just trying to focus because the tequila had already gone to her head. “This was the first thing I grabbed off my floor.”
Bingo. If that was her first grab, there was no telling how bad the outfits were beneath it.
Julia tossed back her second shot. “Have you ever found out something that changed your whole life?” she asked.
“Yeah.” About four hours ago.
“Me, too. Without giving specifics, because that would be personal, did it make you feel as if fate were taking a leak on your head?”
“Four leaks,” he grumbled. Logan finished off his next shot.
Julia made a sound of agreement. “I would compare yours with mine, and I’d win, but I don’t want to go there. Instead, let’s play a drinking game.”
“Let’s not,” he argued. “And in a fate-pissing comparison, I don’t think you’d win.”
Julia made a sound of disagreement. Had another shot. Grimaced and shuddered again. “So, the game is a word association,” she continued as if he’d agreed. “I say a word, you say the first thing that comes to mind. We take turns until we’re too drunk to understand what the other one is saying.”
Until she’d added that last part, Logan had been about to get up and move to a different spot. But hell, he was getting drunk, anyway, and at least this way he’d have some company. Company he’d never see again. Company he might not even be able to speak to if the slurring went up a notch.
“Dream?” she threw out there.
“Family.” That earned him a sound of approval from her, and she motioned for him to take his turn. “Surprise?”
“Shitty,” Julia said without hesitation.
Now it was Logan who made a grunt of approval. Surprises could indeed be shit-related. The one he’d gotten tonight certainly had been.
Her: “Tattoos?”
Him: “None.” Then, “You?”
Her: “Two.” Then, “Bucket list?”
Him: “That’s two words.” The orneriness was still there despite the buzz.
Her: “Just bucket, then?”
Too late. Logan’s fuzzy mind was already fixed on the bucket list. He had one all right. Or rather, he’d had one. A life with Helene that included all the trimmings, and this stupid game was a reminder that the Glenlivet wasn’t working nearly fast enough. So, he had another shot.
Julia had one, as well. “Sex?” she said.
Logan shook his head. “I don’t want to play this game anymore.”
When she didn’t respond, Logan looked at her. Their eyes met. Eyes that were already slightly unfocused.
Julia took the paper sleeve with her room key from her pocket. Except there were two keys, and she slid one Logan’s way.
“It’s not the game,” she explained. “I’m offering you sex with me. No names. No strings attached. Just one night, and we’ll never tell another soul about it.”
She finished off her last tequila shot, shuddered and stood. “Are you game?”
No way, and Logan would have probably said that if she hadn’t leaned in and kissed him.
Maybe it was the weird combination of her tequila and his Scotch, or maybe it was because he was already drunker than he thought, but Logan felt himself moving right into that kiss.
* * *
LOGAN DREAMED, AND it wasn’t about the great sex he’d just had. It was another dream that wasn’t so pleasant. The night of his parents’ car accident. Some dreams were a mishmash of reality and stuff that didn’t make sense. But this dream always got it right.
Not a good thing.
It was like being trapped on a well-oiled hamster wheel, seeing the same thing come up over and over again and not being able to do a thing to stop it.
The dream rain felt and sounded so real. Just like that night. It was coming down so hard that the moment his truck wipers swished it away, the drops covered the windshield again. That’s why it’d taken him so long to see the lights, and Logan was practically right on the scene of the wreck before he could fully brake. He went into a skid, costing him precious seconds. If he’d had those seconds, he could have called the ambulance sooner.
He could have saved them.
But he hadn’t then. And he didn’t now in the dream.
Logan chased away the images, and with his head still groggy, he did what he always did after the nightmare. He rewrote it. He got to his parents and stopped them from dying.
Every time except when it had really mattered, Logan saved them.
* * *
LOGAN WISHED HE could shoot out the sun. It was creating lines of light on each side of the curtains, and those lines were somehow managing to stab through his closed eyelids. That was probably because every nerve in his head and especially his eyelids were screaming at him, and anything—including the earth’s rotation—added to his pain.
He wanted to ask himself: What the hell have you done?
But he knew. He’d had sex with a woman he didn’t know. A woman who wore turtle T-shirts and had tattoos. He’d learned one of the tattoos, a rose, was on Julia’s right breast. The other was on her lower stomach. Those were the things Logan could actually remember.
That, and the sex.
Not mind-numbing but rather more mind-blowing. Julia clearly didn’t have any trouble being wild and spontaneous in bed. It was as if she’d just studied a sex manual and wanted to try every position. Thankfully, despite the Scotch, Logan had been able to keep up—literally.
Not so much now, though.
If the fire alarm had gone off and the flames had been burning his ass, he wasn’t sure he would be able to move. Julia didn’t have that problem, though. He felt the mattress shift when she got up. Since it was possible she was about to rob him, Logan figured he should at least see if she was going after his wallet, wherever the heck it was. But if she robbed him, he deserved it. His life was on the fast track to hell, and he’d been the one to put it in the handbasket.
At least he hadn’t been so drunk that he’d forgotten to use condoms. Condoms that Julia had provided, so obviously she’d been ready for this sort of thing.
Julia made a soft sound of discomfort. He hoped it wasn’t from the rough sex because he got a sudden flash of himself tying her hands to the bedposts with the sheets. It’d been Julia’s idea.
And it’d been a darn good one.
Ditto for her idea of tying him up, too. He wasn’t one to add some kink to sex, but for a little while it had gotten his mind off Helene and what he’d seen in her office.
Clearly, he hadn’t known Helene at all.
Logan heard some more stirring around, and this time the movement was very close to him. Just in case Julia turned out to be a serial killer, he decided to risk opening one eye. And he nearly jolted at the big green eyeball staring back at him. Except it wasn’t a human eye. It was on her turtle shirt.
If Julia felt the jolt or saw his one-eyed opening, she didn’t say anything about it. She gave him a chaste kiss on the cheek, moved away, turning her back to him, and Logan watched as she stooped down and picked up his jacket. So, not a serial killer but rather just a thief, after all. But she didn’t take anything out.
She put something in the pocket.
Logan couldn’t tell what it was exactly. Maybe her number. Which he would toss first chance he got. But if so, he couldn’t figure out why she just hadn’t left it on the bed.
Julia picked up her purse, hooking it over her shoulder, and without even glancing back at him, she walked out the door. Strange, since this was her room. Maybe she was headed out to get them some coffee. If so, that was his cue to dress and get the devil out of there before she came back.
Easier said than done.
His hair hurt.
He could feel every strand of it on his head. His eyelashes, too. Still, Logan forced himself from the bed, only to realize the soles of his feet hurt, as well. It was hard not to identify something on him that didn’t hurt so he quit naming parts and put on his boxers and jeans. Then he had a look at what Julia had put in his pocket next to the box with the engagement ring.
A gold watch.
Not a modern one. It was old with a snap-up top that had a crest design on it. The initials BWS had been engraved in the center of the crest.
The inside looked just as expensive as the gold case except for the fact that the watch face crystal inside was shattered. Even though he knew little about antiques, Logan figured it was worth at least a couple hundred dollars.
So why had Julia put it in his pocket?
Since he was a skeptic, his first thought was that she might be trying to set him up, to make it look as if he’d robbed her. But Logan couldn’t imagine why anyone would do that unless she was planning to try to blackmail him with it.
He dropped the watch on the bed and finished dressing, all the while staring at it. He cleared out some of the cotton in his brain and grabbed the hotel phone to call the front desk. Someone answered on the first ring.
“I’m in room...” Logan had to check the phone. “Two-sixteen, and I need to know...” He had to stop again and think. “I need to know if Julia is there in the lobby. She left something in the room.”
“No, sir. I’m afraid you just missed her. But checkout isn’t until noon, and she said her guest might be staying past then so she paid for an extra day.”
“Uh, could you tell me how to spell Julia’s last name? I need to leave her a note in case she comes back.”
“Oh, she said she wouldn’t be coming back, that this was her goodbye party. And as for how to spell her name, well, it’s Child, just like it sounds.”
Julia Child?
Right. Obviously, the clerk wasn’t old enough or enough of a foodie to recognize the name of the famous chef.
“I don’t suppose she paid with a credit card?” Logan asked.
“No. She paid in cash and then left a prepaid credit card for the second night.”
Of course. “What about an address?” Logan kept trying.
“I’m really not supposed to give that out—”
“She left something very expensive in the room, and I know she’ll want it back.”
The guy hemmed and hawed a little, but he finally rattled off, “221B Baker Street, London, England.”
That was Sherlock Holmes’s address.
Logan groaned, cursed. He didn’t bother asking for a phone number because the one she left was probably for Hogwarts. He hung up and hurried to the window, hoping he could catch a glimpse of her getting into a car. Not that he intended to follow her or anything, but if she was going to blackmail him, he wanted to know as much about her as possible.
No sign of her, but Logan got a flash of something else. A memory.
Shit.
They’d taken pictures.
Or at least Julia had with the camera on her phone. He remembered nude selfies of them from the waist up. At least he hoped it was from the waist up.
Yeah, that trip to hell in a handbasket was moving even faster right now.
Logan threw on the rest of his clothes, already trying to figure out how to do damage control. He was the CEO of a multimillion-dollar company. He was the face that people put with the family business, and before last night he’d never done a thing to tarnish the image of McCord Cattle Brokers.
He couldn’t say that any longer.
He was in such a hurry to rush out the door that he nearly missed the note on the desk. Maybe it was the start of the blackmail. He snatched it up, steeling himself for the worst. But if this was blackmail, then Julia sure had a funny sense of humor.
“Goodbye, hot cowboy,” she’d written. “Thanks for the sweet send-off. Don’t worry. What happens in San Antonio stays in San Antonio. I’ll take this to the grave.”
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_99449d98-4ef5-55ed-827f-ddbe5975930a)
HAVING ONE FOOT in the grave was not a laughing matter, though Reese Stephens tried to make it one.
So, as the final thing on her bucket list she’d bought every joke book she could find on death, dying and other morbid things. It wasn’t helping, but it wasn’t hurting, either. At this point, that was as good as it was going to get for her.
She added the joke books to the stack of sex manuals she’d purchased. Donating both to the same place might be a problem so Reese decided she’d just leave them all in a stack in the corner of her apartment.
“You’re sure you want to get rid of these?” Todd, her neighbor, asked. He had a box of vinyl albums under one arm and a pink stuffed elephant under the other.
Since Reese had bought the vinyls just the month before at a garage sale, it wouldn’t be a great sentimental loss. She could say that about everything in her apartment, though.
Now that the watch was gone.
Reese hadn’t intended to leave it with the cowboy, but it’d just felt right at the time, as if it were something he would appreciate.
As for the elephant, she’d found it by the Dumpster and couldn’t stand the thought of it having the stuffing crushed out of it so Reese had given it a temporary home. Temporary was the norm for her, too, and she made a habit of not staying in one place for long.
“Take them,” Reese assured Todd. “I won’t be able to bring anything with me to Cambodia.”
Reese wasn’t sure why the lie about Cambodia had rolled so easily off her tongue, but it did now just as it had the first time she’d told it. So had the other lies needed to support that one because as she’d quickly learned one solo lie just led to more questions.
Questions she didn’t want to answer.
As the story now went, she was moving to Cambodia to do a reality show about jungle cooking. She wouldn’t be able to communicate with anyone for at least a year, and after that, the producers of the show were sending her to Vietnam. It was surprising that everyone believed her. Of course, everyone wasn’t close to her. That was her fault.
In my next life I need to make more friends. And not move every few months.
But with mental memos like that came the depression. She wouldn’t cry. She’d already wasted too many tears on something she couldn’t change. Though if there was more time, she would have run to the store for some books on coping with grief.
“Knock, knock,” someone called out from the open door. “Food pimp has arrived.” Jimena Martinelli wiggled her away around a departing Todd, ignoring both the elephant and the heated look Todd gave her.
Jimena was the worst chef Reese had ever worked with, but she was also Reese’s only friend. In every way that counted, she was like a sister.
The genetic product of an Irish-Mexican mother and Korean-Italian father, even in a blended city like San Antonio, Jimena stood out partly because she was stunning. Also partly because she drank like a fish, cursed like a sailor and ate like a pig. Her motto was If it’s not fun, don’t fucking do it, and she literally had those words tattooed on her back.
Reese had first met her when they were sixteen, homeless and trying to scrape by. At various times they’d been roommates. Other times Jimena had stayed behind to be with a boyfriend or a job she particularly liked when Reese had felt those restless stirrings to move. But eventually Jimena had felt similar stirrings—or else had gotten dumped—and had caught up with Reese.
Jimena was also the only person other than Reese’s doctor who knew her diagnosis. The sole reason Reese had told her was so there’d be someone to tie up any loose ends in case the last-ditch treatment failed.
Which it almost certainly would.
A 2 percent chance pretty much spelled failure.
“I brought the good stuff,” Jimena announced. She breezed toward Reese and sat down on the floor beside her despite the fact Jimena was wearing shorts so tight that the movement alone could have given her an orgasm.
Jimena didn’t ask what most people would have asked: How are you feeling? Nor did she give Reese any sad sympathetic looks. That was the reason Reese had told her. Jimena perhaps wanted to know, but asking Reese about her death diagnosis wasn’t fun, therefore it wasn’t something Jimena was going to do. And that was fine.
Especially since Reese wasn’t sure how she felt, anyway.
She’d been drinking too much, eating too much, and she’d had a headache since this whole ordeal had begun. Of course, she wasn’t sure how much was because of the tumor, which she’d named Myrtle, or if the overindulgence was playing into this. Reese suspected both.
“Milk Duds,” Jimena said, taking out the first item from the bag. There were at least a dozen boxes of them. “Cheetos.” Three family-size bags. “Not that reduced-fat shit, either. These are orange and greasy.” She pulled out powdered doughnuts next. “Oh, and Diet Dr. Pepper. The store clerk said, ‘Why bother?’ when he saw it was diet, but I told him I try to cut calories here and there.”
Reese wished that all those food items, either separately or collectively, would have turned her stomach. After all, she was a chef with supposedly refined tastes, but she was a shallow foodie.
“I’ve already eaten so much my jeans are too tight,” Reese told her while she was opening the Milk Duds. “At this rate, I won’t be able to fit in my coffin.”
Jimena started in on the Cheetos as if this were the most normal conversation in the world. “You said you wanted to be cremated, anyway.”
“I might not fit into my urn,” Reese amended.
“Then I’ll make sure you have two urns. Eat up. You can’t be miserable while eating junk food.”
Well, you could be until the sugar high kicked in, but that would no doubt happen soon.
“Making any more progress with the bucket list?” Jimena asked, taking the notepad that Reese had placed next to her.
Number one was “give away stuff.”
Now that the vinyls and elephant were gone, Reese could check that off. The only things left were the blow-up mattress she used for a bed, the books, her clothes, a box of baking soda in the fridge and a three-month-old tin of caramel popcorn that was now glued together from the humidity. She would toss it, of course, but Reese had wanted to look at the cute puppies on the tin a few more times.
Oh, and there was the backpack.
She’d named it Tootsie Roll because of the color and because it frequently contained some of the candies.
Reese tipped her head to it, the only other item in the living room. “Everything in there goes to you,” she told Jimena.
Jimena looked at the worn hiker’s backpack as if it might contain gold bullion. Then snakes. “You’re sure?” she asked.
“Positive.”
Jimena was taking care of her death wishes so it seemed only natural to give her the things Reese had carried with her from move to move. Most of the stuff in the backpack would just disappoint her friend, but there was a nice pair of Shun knives Jimena might like if she ever learned how to do food prep.
“Number two,” Jimena read from the list. “‘Quit job.’ Well, we know that’s done after what you said to Chef Dante. I heard the part about you saying you wished someone would crush his balls with a rusty garlic press.”
Yes, Reese had said that. And Dante had deserved it and worse. That was the first thing she’d checked off the list, and Reese had done it the day after she’d gotten the diagnosis. Not that she’d heard much of the actual diagnosis after Dr. Gutzman had said the words that’d changed her life.
Inoperable brain tumor. Vascularization. Radiation treatments.
She’d gone in for tests for a sinus infection and had come out with a death sentence.
Those 2 percent odds were the best she had even with intense radiation treatments, and the doctor estimated she had less than a month to live. He’d also explained in nauseating detail what the radiation treatments (the ones that stood almost no chance of working) would do to her body.
Still, Reese would have them, starting tomorrow morning, because an almost chance was the only chance she had. However, she’d wanted this time to get her life in order while she still had the mind to do it.
“Number three,” Jimena continued to read. “‘Donate money to charity.’ You finished that?” she asked, stuffing eight puffy Cheetos into her mouth at once.
Reese nodded. “It’s all done. I kept just enough for me to live on...” Or rather, die on. She didn’t have much, but she had tried to figure out where it would do the most good. “I divided it between Save the Whales, a local culinary academy and a fund for cosmetology scholarships at a beauty school.”
Because on one of her find-the-best-tequila quests, Reese had decided the world needed more beauty, good food and whale protection.
Number four was “find the best tequila.”
She’d checked that off only because they’d all started to taste the same.
Number five was dye her hair pink, and number six was eat whatever she wanted and in any amount she wanted. Reese wasn’t sure exactly how much weight she’d gained, but she had been forced to wear a T-shirt and a skirt with an elastic waist.
And yet she’d still managed to accomplish number seven.
Have sex with a hot cowboy.
“It’s ticked off,” Jimena said, looking at number seven. “You actually went through with it? You didn’t chicken out?”
Reese nodded. No chickening for her.
“Any, well, you know, bad memories?” Jimena asked. “And sorry if I’m bringing up bad memories just by asking if it brought up bad memories. Because you know the last thing I want is for you to remember the bad shit.”
Despite the semirambling apology, Reese knew what Jimena meant and dismissed it. “No bad memories.” It was true. There hadn’t been, but the bad memories always felt just a heartbeat away. Because they were. “It was nice. He was nice.”
Jimena smiled, and yes, she did it with that mouthful of chewed-up Cheetos. “So, how nice is nice? Tell me all about it.”
“It was good.” Reese wouldn’t do the tell-all, though. The cowboy was the bright spot in all of this, and the last thing on her bucket list she’d gotten around to doing.
Jimena stared at her. “That’s it? Good? If you checked it off, it must have been better than just good, or you’d be looking for another one.”
It was more than just good, but even if it hadn’t been, Reese wouldn’t have looked for another one. No time. After the radiation treatments started tomorrow, she’d be too sick and tired to pick up a cowboy in a hotel bar.
“He was hot,” Reese settled for saying, and she showed Jimena the picture she had taken on her phone. Definitely not an Instagram-worthy shot, but Reese had wanted something to look at after she left him.
Jimena squealed. “Yeah, he’s hot. Like on a scale of one to ten—he’s like a six-hundred kind of hot.”
She made a hmm-ing sound, looked at Reese, and even though Jimena didn’t say it, she was no doubt thinking how the heck had Reese managed to get him into bed. He was a six hundred, and Reese was a six on a really good day.
Last night hadn’t been a really good day.
Jimena took the phone, studied the picture. “You know, he looks kinda familiar. Is he an actor or somebody famous?”
Reese had another look for herself. He didn’t look familiar to her, but he was special. He’d given her the best sex of her life. Right in the nick of time, too, since he would be her last lover.
“Are you going to try to see him again?” Jimena asked.
“No. I don’t even know his name. Besides, this morning I found an engagement ring box in his pocket so I think last night for him must have been a sow-your-wild-oats kind of thing.”
“Ewww.” She jabbed the button to close the photo. “Then he’s a hot asshole cowboy.”
Yes, he was, if that’s what had happened. “But it’s possible his girlfriend turned him down. I figure there’s a reason he was drinking all that Scotch, and he seemed almost as miserable as I was.”
At least, that’s how Reese was choosing to see it.
“And the watch?” Jimena pressed.
“The cowboy has it.”
However, if Reese had seen that ring the night before, she wouldn’t have landed in bed with him or given him the watch. Which meant, of course, that she’d given her most prized possession to a potential hot a-hole, but since this was her fantasy, she preferred to believe that he would treasure it as a reminder of their one incredible night together.
“Good.” Jimena made a shivery, ick sound. And Reese knew why. Jimena had this aversion to antiques or rather what she called “old shit previously owned by dead people.” That’s the reason Reese hadn’t given the watch to her one and only friend.
“So, what’s left?” Jimena said, looking at the bucket list again.
“Nothing.”
And no, Reese wasn’t counting throwing away the popcorn glue. Since she’d traveled all over the world, there weren’t any places left that she really wanted to see. Besides, she’d learned about four moves ago somewhere around Tulsa that, like tequila, places were really all just the same.
So, there it was—everything important ticked off her bucket list.
For the past week there’d been times when it felt as if a meaty fist had clamped on to her heart to give it a squeeze. That fist was doing a lot of squeezing now.
“I started my own bucket list of sorts,” Jimena said. “I’ve decided to sleep my way through the alphabet so last night I had sex with that busboy named Aaron.”
Most people put travel and such on their bucket lists, but this was so Jimena. She didn’t have any filters when it came to sex and saw it more as a recreational sport. Unlike Reese. Sex for her was more like forbidden fruit. It meant tearing down barriers, letting someone into her life, and while it had been an amazing night with the cowboy, part of that amazement was that he hadn’t known who she really was.
Not exactly a pleasant reminder.
Reese stood to excuse herself so she could go lie down on the air mattress. Jimena wouldn’t even question it, thank God, but before Reese could say anything, she heard the movement in the still-open doorway.
“All the stuff is gone,” Reese said, figuring this was just another neighbor responding to her “free stuff” sign that she had taped on the side of the apartment complex’s mailboxes.
But it wasn’t a neighbor.
It was Dr. Gutzman.
Since Reese had never seen the stocky gray-haired man outside his office and never dressed in anything but a white coat, it took her a moment to realize who he was. Another moment for her to think the worst.
“Did you come to tell me there’ll be no radiation, after all?” Reese managed to ask.
He opened his mouth, closed it. Then nodded. “You won’t be having radiation,” he confirmed.
As much as Reese was dreading the treatments—and she was indeed dreading them—they’d been the tiny sliver of hope. Her 2 percent chance of survival. Of course, she hadn’t truly embraced that sliver, but now Dr. Gutzman had just taken it away.
“I’d rather not die in a hospital,” Reese volunteered.
Jimena stood and took hold of her hand. Reese could feel the bits of sticky Cheetos on her friend’s fingers.
The doctor nodded, came in and eased the door shut. He glanced around the nearly empty room and frowned. Perhaps because of the junk-food stash.
“You’re not going to die in a hospital,” he said. “At least, not in the next week or so from an inoperable brain tumor.”
Reese was still on the page of thinking the worst. “Does that mean I’m going to die even sooner?”
He huffed, glanced around as if this were the last place he wanted to be. “There was a glitch with the new electronic records system. Your images got mixed up with another patient. When I realized the mistake, I had a look at yours, and other than an enlarged left sinus cavity, you’re fine.”
Reese couldn’t speak. She just stared at him, waiting for the other shoe to drop. The doctor didn’t look like a prankster, but maybe this was his idea of a really bad joke.
“Did you hear me?” he asked.
She had. Every word. And Reese was desperately trying to process something that just wasn’t processing in her mind.
“So, there’s really nothing wrong with her?” Jimena asked.
“Nothing. She’s as healthy as a horse.”
Reese hadn’t been around too many horses to know if they were especially healthy or not, but she would take the doc’s news as gospel.
Right after she threw up, that is.
God, she was going to live.
* * *
LOGAN SLAMMED DOWN the phone. Jason Murdock, his friend and the rancher Logan had been buying stock from for years, had just given Logan a much-too-sweet deal on some Angus.
Hell.
Much more of this and Logan was going to beat the crap out of somebody. Especially the next person who was overly nice to him or gave him a sweet deal on anything.
For the past three months since the mess with Helene, nearly everybody who called or came into the office was walking on sonofabitching eggshells around him, and it not only pissed him off, it was disrespectful.
He’d run McCord Cattle Brokers since he was nineteen, since his folks had been killed in a car crash, and he’d run it well. In those early years people had questioned his ability to handle a company this size.
Silently questioned it, anyway.
But Logan had built the image and reputation he needed to make sure those questions were never spoken aloud. He’d done that through ball-busting business practices where nobody but nobody walked on eggshells. Yet, here they were all still doing just that. After three months.
Not just his family, either.
He’d halfway expected it from Riley, Claire, Lucky and Cassie because they’d been at the scene of what Lucky was calling the great proposal fuckup. Logan expected it, too, from his assistant, Greg Larkin, since he was the sort who remembered birthdays and such shit.
But everybody in Spring Hill who’d had a reason to come to Logan’s office door had looked at him with those sad puppy-dog eyes. He could only imagine how bad it was when those puppy-eyed people weren’t right in front of him. All the behind-the-hand whispers were no doubt mumbles about poor, pitiful Logan and what Helene had done to him.
Logan tried to make a note on the business contract he was reading and cursed when his pen didn’t work. He yanked open his desk drawer with enough force to rip it from its runners, and got another reminder he didn’t want.
That blasted gold watch.
Why he still had it, Logan didn’t know, but every time he saw it he remembered his night with Julia. Or whatever the hell her name was. She should have been nothing but a distant memory now and soon would be once he found her and returned the blasted watch. Until then, he moved it to his bottom drawer next to the bottle of Glenlivet he kept there.
Of course, if it hadn’t been for the Glenlivet, he probably wouldn’t have slept with Julia and wouldn’t have had the watch in the first place.
Logan moved it to the bottom drawer on the other side.
Damn it all to hell!
The engagement ring was still there, too. The bottom drawers of his desk were metaphorical land mines, and this time he made a note. Two of them.
Get rid of the ring.
Find Julia and have someone return the watch.
Logan didn’t want the ring around because he was over Helene. And as for the watch—he didn’t want it around in case there was something to the blackmail/extortion theory he’d had about her. Even though it had been three months since their encounter, that didn’t mean she wasn’t out there plotting some way to do something he wasn’t going to like. That’s why he’d hired a private investigator to find her, but so far the PI had come up empty.
“Don’t,” Logan barked when Lucky appeared in the doorway of his office.
He hadn’t heard his brother coming up the hall, but since Lucky was wearing his good jeans and a jacket, it probably meant he was there for a meeting. Lucky certainly wouldn’t have dressed up just to check on him.
“Don’t interrupt you, or don’t draw my next breath?” Lucky asked. He bracketed his hands on the office door, cocked his head to the side.
“Both if you’re here to talk about anything that doesn’t involve a cow, bull or a horse.”
“How about bullshit?”
Logan looked up from the contract to see if Lucky was serious. He appeared to be. Just in case, Logan decided to clarify. “Bullshit that’s not specifically related to anything that involves my ex?”
“Well, unless Helene has started secretly pooping in the pastures, it doesn’t,” Lucky confirmed.
Logan was almost afraid to motion for Lucky to continue, but he finally did. Curiosity was a sick thing sometimes.
“You haven’t been to the house, well, in a couple of months,” Lucky went on, “but I had thirty bulls delivered to those pastures and corrals we talked about using.”
So, definitely not a Helene problem. And Logan knew which pastures and corrals Lucky meant. The pastures were on the east side of the house, and with the right mixture of grasses for the young bulls they’d bought so they could be trained for the rodeo.
“The wind must have shifted or something because, this morning, all you could smell was bullshit in the house. Everybody’s complaining, even Mia,” Lucky added.
A first for Mia. To the best of Logan’s knowledge, the four-year-old girl never complained about anything. Unlike her thirteen-year-old sister, Mackenzie. Lucky and Cassie had guardianship of the pair, but the girls were yin and yang. If Mia was complaining, Logan didn’t want to know how much Mackenzie was carrying on. Or the longtime housekeepers, Della and Stella, who also lived at the ranch.
“You’re sure it’s bullshit and not cat shit?” Logan asked. Because along with inheriting guardianship of the girls, Lucky and Cassie had also inherited six cats. Five of those cats were now at the ranch.
Lucky shook his head. “Definitely bullshit, and I should know because I’m a bullshit connoisseur.”
Since Lucky had been riding rodeo bulls for more than a decade, that did indeed make him an expert. Not just on the crap but the bulls themselves.
“That means I’m going to need to move them,” Lucky went on, “and I was thinking about the back pastures. But Rico said you were planning on putting some horses back there.”
He was. Or rather, Riley was since he was in charge of the new cutting horse program that they’d started. And Riley and Logan had indeed discussed that with Rico Callahan, one of their top ranch hands.
Logan sat there, debating on which would smell worse—horseshit or bullshit. It was a toss-up. “Move the bulls to the back pastures,” Logan finally said. “When the horses arrive, I’ll have Riley split them in the other pastures for the time being.”
It was a temporary fix since Riley would eventually want the cutting horses together so they’d be easier to train, and that meant they needed to prep one of the other two pastures they weren’t using. The problem at the McCord Ranch wasn’t enough land—there was plenty of that—but with their operation expanding, they needed someone who could manage the ranch grounds themselves. Someone more than just the hands.
“Hire whoever you need to fix this,” Logan told his brother.
Whenever he was talking to Lucky, his twin, Logan always tried to tone down his voice. After all, Lucky could have been co-CEO, but in his will, their father had named only Logan. Logan supposed he felt guilty about that, but then until recently Lucky had shown zero interest in being part of McCord Cattle Brokers. Since it was something Logan had always wanted—all of his siblings helping him with the family business—he didn’t want to push any of Lucky’s buttons that might be waiting to be pushed.
Lucky mumbled that he would hire someone and checked his watch. “Say, it’s lunchtime. Wanna go over to the Fork and Spoon and grab something to eat?”
Logan figured that was Lucky’s plan all along, to get him out of the office because Lucky could have just called with the bullshit problem. Lucky did have an office just up the hall, but he rarely used it. He wasn’t a behind-the-desk kind of guy. Plus, he still had his own rodeo promotion company to run. What with raising two kids and being in a fairly new relationship, Lucky didn’t have a lot of free time.
Which meant this was a coddling attempt on Lucky’s part.
“No.” Lucky held up his hands in defense as if he knew what Logan was thinking. Maybe he did. Logan had never experienced that twin telepathy thing, but it was possible Lucky did. Of course, telepathy wasn’t needed since Lucky had seen what Helene had done.
“You’re not here to check on me?” Logan clarified.
Lucky shook his head. “Della’s on a health kick and is making baked chicken and salad for lunch. I want a mystery-meat grease burger and soggy fries from the Fork and Spoon.”
Logan gestured for him to go for it.
Lucky huffed. “The waitresses,” he said.
And Logan got it then. Not from telepathy, either. But Lucky had a reputation as a player, and despite the fact that he was now involved with Cassie, the waitresses and some other women in town seemed to enjoy testing Lucky’s commitment to Cassie. His brother must want that burger pretty bad to go through another round of that.
“I’m not running interference for you with women,” Logan warned him.
“No need. They’ll be feeling so sorry for you that they’ll leave me the heck alone. The last time I was in there, Sissy Lee spilled ice tea on my crotch and proceeded to wipe it off. Really hard and fast. I think she was trying her damnedest to give me a hand job.”
If that had come from any other man, Logan would have considered it an exaggeration, but women did stuff like that to Lucky all the time, and it’d started around the time they hit puberty. Logan didn’t get it. Lucky and he were identical, but if you put them in the middle of a bunch of horny women, 90 percent of them would go after Lucky first.
“You won’t run into Helene,” Lucky continued. “She hasn’t come back to town since everything happened.”
Yeah, Greg had mentioned that, but when his assistant had tried to give him more details, Logan had told him to get his butt back to work. He didn’t need details about anything that involved Helene.
“I don’t suppose you’ve heard from her?” Lucky asked.
Logan managed to stave off a scowl. “No. And I don’t expect she’ll call because I doubt she’ll want to explain what was going on in her office that night.”
“Oh, I’m pretty sure I know what was going on.”
Yes. Logan was sure of that, too. Helene had been fucking a clown.
In hindsight, it was sort of surreal, like a perfect storm of Logan’s nightmares. Well, it would have been if he’d had nightmares about Helene being unfaithful. He hadn’t because it hadn’t even been on his radar. But the clown nightmares? He’d had plenty of those since he was nine years old and had sneaked a copy of Stephen King’s It from his dad’s office.
“Still no idea who the clown was?” Lucky went on.
This time Logan did give him a scowl and no answer. Because no, he didn’t have a clue. Nor did he want to know.
Once you saw your girlfriend screwing a clown, it didn’t matter who was wearing those big floppy shoes and was behind the white face, red lips and red squeaky nose.
“So, what do you say about having a burger with me?” Lucky pressed when Logan didn’t budge, answer or quit scowling. “I want to talk to you on the walk over. Nothing else about Helene, I promise. This is something else. Something personal.”
Since the Fork and Spoon Café was only a block and a half up from the McCord building, it would be a short conversation, but he wasn’t sure Lucky was going to give up on this. Besides, Logan wanted a grease burger now, too.
Logan slipped on his cowboy hat, grabbed his phone and headed out. “Don’t make a big deal about this,” he warned Lucky, and then gave the same warning to Greg when they walked past his desk.
The lanky assistant jumped to his feet as if trying to contain his excitement. Maybe because it was the first time Logan had left the building in more than a week. Easy to stay under the roof of the converted Victorian house when he had a studio apartment on the third floor. It was even easier now that he was having his groceries delivered. The only time he left was for a business meeting out of town.
“Not a word,” Logan added to Greg because Logan thought he needed to say something to wipe that gleeful look off his face. And Logan tried not to look too displeased that the guy was wearing a purple suit. Yes, purple. “And do the paperwork to finalize the sale of those cows I just bought from Jason Murdock.”
Greg nodded, too eagerly, and Logan was sure he was still eager-ing when Lucky and he walked out the front door.
Logan immediately had to pull down the brim of his cowboy hat to shield his eyes. He’d gone too long without sunshine, and it would continue. The less contact he had with people right now, the better. In a couple more months when the gossip died down, he’d try to get back to normal.
After he learned what normal would be for him, that is.
“Two things,” Lucky said as they walked. “How are you? And before you blast me, Della put me up to it. She and Stella are worried about you. I’m not. Because I know if your head was still messed up, you’d tell me.”
No, he wouldn’t. Logan wouldn’t tell anyone, but he was semipleased that Lucky would think that. Or maybe Lucky knew it and was playing a mind game to get him to talk.
“I’m fine,” Logan assured him.
That wasn’t even close to the truth. He’d had two migraines in six days, and it felt as if another one might be tapping on his shoulder. He wasn’t sleeping well, and when he did, he kept dreaming about what he’d seen in Helene’s office. Part of him wished he’d asked her for an explanation. Any explanation. But then again, what was she going to say? Nothing that would have helped Logan understand, that’s for sure.
“By the way, I’ve never told you this, but before we walked in on Helene, I didn’t know what she was up to,” Logan said to Lucky. “I had no idea she could, or would, cheat on me.”
“Yeah, I figured that out. I read somewhere that repressed people do all sorts of weird sexual things.”
Logan waved off anything else Lucky might have added because two women were walking toward them. Misty Reagan and Sandra Morrelli. He definitely didn’t want them to hear anything he had to say about Helene so Logan put on his best smile, tipped his hat in greeting and then proceeded to talk to Lucky about those cows he’d just bought. Lucky cooperated, of course, but the conversation must have looked intense enough for the ladies not to issue more than smiles and greetings of their own.
Two bullets dodged.
“What’d you want to talk to me about?” Logan asked.
When Lucky hesitated, Logan thought he knew where this was going. “You want to make things official with Cassie and ask her to marry you, and you’re hoping I’m okay with it. I am. You two should be together.”
“Thanks for that.”
It wasn’t a grand gesture. Logan had never believed in the misery-loves-company notion. Besides, he was getting daily calls from Stella about how she didn’t think it was a good idea for Cassie and Lucky to be living in sin, that it wasn’t setting a good example for Mia and Mackenzie.
“When will you pop the question?” Logan asked.
“As soon as I get the ring.”
Logan thought of the one in his drawer, the one that no one in his family had seen, and he considered offering it to Lucky. But then maybe it was jinxed or something.
Hell, maybe he was jinxed.
“Along with marrying Cassie,” Lucky continued, “we’ve started paperwork to adopt the girls. Surprised?”
“Not in the least.” But just three months ago, he would have been. However, Logan had no doubts now. None. Because his brother was in love, and Logan was completely happy for him.
They were still a few yards away from the Fork and Spoon when Logan got a whiff of the burger that brought in lunchtime diners. Today was no different. Because of the glass front on the café, it was easy to see that the place was packed.
Crap.
He nearly turned around, but Lucky took hold of his arm and maneuvered him inside. The chatter stopped immediately, and the place went silent as a tomb. He should have just ordered takeout and had Greg pick it up.
“They need to see you out and about,” Lucky whispered to him. “And it won’t be long before they’ll have something else to gossip about.”
Logan wasn’t betting on that. Despite three months passing, Helene was still the most tongue-wagging topic with Logan coming in a close second. The speculation about what he’d seen in Helene’s office had probably reached levels of absurdity times ten.
“Hey, maybe I can start a rumor that I knocked up Cassie?” Lucky suggested.
Logan appreciated that, but he thought the offer might have something to do with Sissy Lee Culpepper, who was sauntering over to them. The busty blonde in the skintight Pepto Bismol–pink uniform eyed Lucky. Then she eyed his crotch. She then did the same to Logan and smiled, maybe because she remembered he was the lone McCord male left on the market.
“The only thing open is the counter,” she said, “but I can shoo away someone from a booth if you like.”
“The counter’s fine,” Logan insisted. “Could you get us two burger plates and make it fast? We’re in a hurry.”
“I want a root beer float with mine,” Lucky added.
“Sure thing, sweetie.”
Sissy Lee called everyone sweetie, honey or darling so it wasn’t exactly a term of endearment. More like a ploy to get a bigger tip.
“And for what it’s worth,” Sissy Lee said, “I think Helene is lower than hoof grit.”
That got some mumbled agreements from the other diners. Logan hoped that the conversation would end if he gave a noncommittal nod.
It didn’t.
“I got a name for a woman like that,” Sissy Lee added in a whisper. “Hick-dead.”
Logan wasn’t sure if she was attempting pig Latin and was really calling Helene a dickhead. And he wasn’t interested in trying to figure it out. He gave Sissy Lee another noncommittal nod. But it was Lucky’s wink and smile that got the waitress moving. She added a wink of her own, and using her best femme fatale hip swish, she walked away.
Logan took the stool at the far end of the counter. Not ideal since the grill was just on the other side of a partial wall, and the smoke from the sizzling burgers came right at them.
“Other than a knocking-up rumor,” Lucky continued, “you could give them something new to talk about by going on a date.”
Logan gave him a blank stare. “There are no eligible women in town that you haven’t slept with already. I don’t need that kind of gossip. Or that kind of woman.”
Lucky shrugged, made a sound as if that were possibly true. “There are always those dating sites.”
He’d rather personally shovel every bit of bullshit from the pasture, one cow patty at a time. “No thanks.”
“Then what about—”
“No. Thanks,” Logan said a little louder than he intended.
It got people’s attention. Not that their attention had strayed too far from him, anyway. He could practically feel the sympathy pouring over him.
“Suit yourself, but I was going to say you should ask her out.” Lucky tipped his head to the fry cook. “She’s new in town, and I haven’t slept with her.”
Logan looked up, at the veil of greasy-scented gray smoke that was between them and the cook. And his stomach dropped to his kneecaps.
Maybe Lucky hadn’t slept with her, but Logan sure had.
Julia Child was in the process of flipping a burger.
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_89327613-28d4-5b0e-b4c9-6ef43c0d6d40)
OH, GOD. THERE wasn’t just one cowboy but two. And they didn’t just look alike. They were identical.
Now what?
Reese tried not to react, tried not to give in to the gasp that was inching its way from her throat toward her mouth. But mercy, this was gasp-worthy.
She’d come to Spring Hill hoping to find the hot cowboy she had slept with and get her grandfather’s watch back. And she’d wanted to do it without attracting any attention to herself—or to him. Especially since he might be engaged or even married by now. She definitely hadn’t wanted to intrude on his life, not after that promise she’d given him.
What happens in San Antonio stays in San Antonio. I’ll take this to the grave.
Reese had made that promise when she thought the grave was imminent, and she’d wanted to finish that idiotic bucket list. Well, she had finished it, but now she was in the process of undoing it.
But how did she undo this without admitting that she didn’t even know which one she’d bedded? And here she had thought this might be the easiest thing left on her undoing quest.
She had finally lost the weight that she’d put on from her carb and sugar binges and had gotten her money back from the canceled cremation. She’d gone through with the charity donations, though, because it hadn’t seemed fair to screw them over just because Myrtle the tumor had turned out to be all just a computer glitch.
That left the cowboy and the watch.
“Uh, you’re sorta burning those burgers, sweetie,” Sissy Lee said, giving Reese a nudge with her elbow.
Reese forced herself out of her panicking trance and looked down at what had been two one-third of a pound patties of prime Angus beef. They now resembled squashed cow dung.
“Sorry,” Reese mumbled, and she pushed those aside, scraped down the grill and added two fresh burgers.
She didn’t know the owner, Bert Starkley, that well, but it was possible he’d take them out of her pay. That was minor now compared to the fact that everyone in the café was looking at her and the stenchy smoke she’d created.
“No worries,” Sissy Lee assured her. The woman got busy making an ice cream float. “Bert’ll just give them to his dogs. But you should make the next ones medium rare since that’s how Logan and Lucky like ’em.”
Logan and Lucky.
So, those were their names, and since it was obvious that Sissy Lee knew them, Reese would be able to pump her for information.
The only other thing Reese knew was what she’d learned from the hotel clerk after she’d hurried back there to find the cowboy. The clerk couldn’t give her the cowboy’s name, but he’d said that he saw him driving a truck with a business sign on the side, and the only thing he could remember about the sign was that it had Spring “something or other,” Texas, on it.
There were a lot of Spring “something or others” in Texas, Reese had learned, and that’s why it had taken her all this time to track him down. Her search had left her a little low on money so she’d stayed around and started the job at the café.
While keeping a close eye on the burgers, Reese risked glancing up at the pair. The one at the far end of the counter glanced at her at the same time. Or maybe he, too, was just looking at the smoke because he gave no indication whatsoever that he knew her. It was possible he couldn’t even see her, though. Added to that, her hair was back to its natural color now—dark brown. And the final factor affecting this? He could have been too drunk to remember much of anything.
“Lucky and Logan?” Reese said to Sissy Lee. “Twins, obviously.”
Sissy Lee chuckled. Not just any ordinary chuckle. “Yeah, all the women in Spring Hill have fantasies about a threesome with those two.”
Reese didn’t know about a threesome, but her twosome had been pretty amazing.
“You know them well?” Reese asked, fishing while frying. She added some sliced onion to the grill, swirled it around in the grease runoff from the burger—an artery-clogging topping that Bert had told her his customers loved.
“Of course. Everybody does. They’re the McCords. And they’ve got a brother, Riley. He’s taken, though. Actually, Lucky, the one on the left, is maybe taken, too. Everybody in town figures he’ll be popping the question to his girlfriend soon.”
“Oh?” Reese had hoped her noncommittal response would keep Sissy Lee talking, but when it didn’t work, Reese had to come out and ask. “What about Logan? Is he involved with anyone?”
“Was,” Sissy Lee said, lowering her voice and speaking behind her hand. “I’ll tell you all about it later,” she added just as another customer came in.
“Carry those burgers out to Lucky and Logan when you’re done, will you?” Sissy Lee scooped up some fresh fries and put them on the sides of the plates. “I’ll give Lucky his float and take care of Daniel.”
Judging from the dreamy way Sissy Lee said Daniel’s name, he was a juicy catch. But then Sissy Lee seemed to feel that way about every single guy who came into the café.
Reese finished the burgers, drowning them in the fried onions and thick slabs of American cheese—again as Bert had instructed. Her waitressing skills were a little rusty, but she balanced the plates, along with two glasses of ice water, and made her way to the counter. She set down the food and drinks, thinking it might be a good idea to make a quick exit and watch the McCords from the kitchen.
That didn’t happen.
“You’re new here,” the one on the left said. He flashed her a smile that could have melted heavy-duty aluminum foil. He still didn’t show any signs of recognition. “I’m Lucky McCord.” He hitched his thumb to his brother. “This is Logan.”
No melting smile from him. No sign of recognition, either. She should have asked Sissy Lee if the third brother was their triplet.
“And you are?” Lucky asked.
“Reese Stephens,” she said.
Still no signs that they knew who she was, but then she’d used an alias for the hotel. Julia Child. She looked to see if either of them had caught onto the lame joke of her using a superchef’s name when she was nothing but a glorified fry cook. But nada.
Logan checked his watch. “I just remembered a meeting I have in Bulverde,” he said, standing.
Lucky had just taken a big sip of the float, and he had to swallow first before he could respond. “What meeting?”
“With that seller. Could you please box this up?” he asked Reese after sparing her a glance. “I’ll have my assistant come by and pick it up later.” Logan dropped two twenties on the counter and walked out. Not in a hurry exactly but not a man who was dawdling, either.
“It’s not you,” Lucky said, watching his brother leave. “Logan’s had it rough lately. I’m sure you’ve heard.” His gaze drifted to Sissy Lee, who had practically put herself body to body with Daniel.
“I only arrived in town yesterday,” Reese said. “I haven’t had a chance to hear any gossip.”
“Trust me, that’s plenty of time. Six seconds is enough time.” He paused, tilted his head to the side and looked at her. “Say, do I know you from somewhere?”
Reese pretended to study him, too, though she knew every detail because she’d studied the selfie on her phone. Often. Dark brown hair, cool blue eyes, a face not too chiseled. But it was also a face that was a lot more relaxed than the one on her phone.
“I think I saw you driving around town,” she finally said. “Were you in a truck with some kind of sign on the side?”
He nodded, tackled a couple of his fries after he dragged them through some ketchup. “McCord Cattle Brokers, the family business.”
Reese needed a bit more than that. “And it had Spring Hill, Texas, on the sign?”
Another nod just as he took a bite of the burger.
So, it was Lucky she’d slept with, and since Sissy Lee had already said he would likely get engaged soon, then Reese needed to figure out how to get the watch without messing things up for him. She definitely wouldn’t ask about it here. There were at least six customers seemingly hanging on their every word.
“The trucks were Logan’s idea,” Lucky added a moment later. “Good advertising, he said. That’s why we all drive one. Even our housekeepers do.”
All? Well, heck. That put her back to square one.
“Man, this burger’s good. I think you’re the best cook Bert’s ever hired.”
“Thanks,” she mumbled.
Since it was obvious he was interested in eating his lunch and because she didn’t want to pique his attention, Reese took Logan’s plate back to the kitchen to box it. She’d barely gotten started, though, when Sissy Lee put in another hamburger order.
“Daniel likes his burger still mooing,” Sissy Lee added.
Sissy Lee took over the boxing duties while Reese got started. “I didn’t figure Logan would stay too long.” She shook her head. “It’s the first time he’s come over for lunch since Helene, that hick-dead girlfriend of his, messed him up.”
As gossip went, that was fairly lacking. “How’d she mess him up?”
“Well, that’s just it. We’re not really sure. The only person who got a glimpse of it was Walter Meekins, the taxi driver. Logan had called him to drive Riley, Claire, Lucky and Cassie back home after Logan proposed to his girlfriend.”
Reese didn’t have a clue who Claire and Cassie were, but she didn’t want to interrupt Sissy Lee. It wouldn’t take that long to cook a rare burger, and then Sissy Lee would go back out to flirt with the customers.
“Anyway, Walter didn’t see exactly what happened when Logan and the others went into Helene’s office,” Sissy Lee explained, “but he said he saw this clown running out the back.”
“A clown. You mean like something in a circus? Or a horror novel?” Because Reese wasn’t sure if Sissy Lee meant that word in a general sense.
“Circus or rodeo kind of clown,” Sissy Lee verified. “Walter said when Logan came out he looked like he’d seen a ghost. He’s never been the same since.”
Lucky had been so sure that the gossips had filled Reese in by now, but obviously the townsfolk didn’t know as much as the McCords thought they did.
“Of course, we don’t know who the clown was,” Sissy Lee went on. “I thought it was Brian, the guy who worked for Helene, but it turns out that he’s gay. Of course, I guess he could actually be bi or else—”
“How long ago did that clown stuff happen to Logan?” Reese interrupted.
Sissy Lee shrugged. “This past summer.”
That fit with Reese’s timeline of her one-night stand three months ago. Maybe.
Sissy Lee put Logan’s boxed burger meal aside, and while Reese dished up Daniel’s plate, she got an idea. “Where do the McCords live? Because I’ll have a break soon, and I can drop that off to him.”
“It’s that big house on the edge of town. Can’t miss it. Except Logan doesn’t spend much time there anymore. You know that Victorian building just up the street? Well, that’s his office, and he has a loft apartment there.”
Reese had noticed the house. In fact, she was in the Bluebonnet Inn on the same block. She checked the time—still an hour before her break, but maybe Logan’s assistant wouldn’t come for the burger before then.
Because Reese wanted to get inside that building. She had some spying to do.
* * *
“REESE STEPHENS.” Logan repeated her name under his breath as he read the initial report the private investigator had just sent him.
There wasn’t much info yet, but then when Logan had called the PI the day before, the man had said it might take a while, that the woman wasn’t showing up in his usual search engines.
There had to be a reason for that.
Logan didn’t know what game she was playing, but she was up to something. No doubt about it. After all, she had that photo of him on her phone, so even if she’d been too drunk to remember, she would have seen it later and then recognized him at the café. Of course, there was the possibility that she hadn’t known whether it was Lucky or him who’d gotten into that hotel bed with her, but there was still no reason for her not to fess up.
No good reason, anyway.
So, why was she here in Spring Hill? The private investigator’s initial report certainly didn’t help with that. Her name was Reese Violet Stephens. She was twenty-nine, single. She’d attended culinary school in New Orleans and worked as a cook or chef at various restaurants all over the US. However, she’d never stayed at any of them for more than a couple of months. No criminal record—under that name, anyway.
And that was it.
She had no social media accounts, no driver’s license, no paper trail that people usually left. That only made Logan even more suspicious. The PI, too, and that’s why he was digging deeper. Hopefully, that digging wouldn’t take too long.
Logan parked in the circular drive in front of his family’s home, and he hadn’t even stepped from his truck before he got a whiff of what Lucky and he had discussed the day before.
The manure.
Yeah, it was a problem all right. The bulls had already been moved, but it might take a while for the stench to clear out.
He was about to head up the steps to the porch when his phone buzzed, and after Logan saw the name on the screen, he knew it was a call he had to take.
Bert Starkley, the owner of the Fork and Spoon Café.
Logan had called him the night before, but Bert hadn’t answered so Logan had left him a voice mail. Nothing specific and Logan had to make sure he didn’t say anything to Reese’s employer that would make the man suspicious. Or make Bert think Logan was interested in her. The last thing Logan needed was more gossip about him and a woman. Especially a woman who was almost certainly bad news.
Later, he’d curse himself again for that one-night stand, but now he needed to find out anything he could about her.
“Logan?” Bert said when he answered. “Is everything okay?”
It was a valid question, considering that Logan had never before called the man. “Everything’s fine.” And he chose his next words carefully. “I was at the café yesterday for lunch—”
“Yep, I heard. Sissy Lee,” Bert added as if that explained everything. Which it did. The waitress had no doubt blabbed to everyone that Logan had left the café in a hurry.
“I had to leave for a meeting,” Logan lied. He hated liars, but this little white one was necessary. Even if Bert didn’t totally believe that lie, maybe he’d still repeat it to diffuse some of Sissy Lee’s gossip. And he didn’t have to think hard to imagine what that gossip might entail. It almost certainly hinged on Helene.
“Sissy Lee mentioned the meeting, too,” Bert verified. “How can I help you? Is this about the catering job?”
Logan frowned. “What catering job?”
“Something Della wanted us to do for her.”
This was the first Logan was hearing about it, but then he was too busy to get involved with the daily workings of the house. “No. I was calling about your new cook.” Logan left it at that, to see what Bert would volunteer about her.
But nothing.
Clearly, Bert was waiting to see what Logan would volunteer.
“Renee?” Logan finally said. “Is that her name?”
“Reese.” Again, that was it. Hell, Bert wasn’t cooperating with this at all.
“She looked familiar,” Logan continued. “I just wondered how you’d found her?”
“She came into the café, asked about the help-wanted sign that I had in the window. I gave her a trial run to see if she could cook. She can, by the way. I hope you enjoyed that burger she fixed.”
He hadn’t. Logan hadn’t eaten a bite of it, so rather than lie again, he just made a sound of approval. “Reese dropped it off at my office after I had to leave. I wasn’t there, but she left it with Greg.”
Considering Logan had told Reese that Greg would be picking it up in the first place, he was even more suspicious that the woman had personally delivered it.
“You probably heard that Maggie’s got to have some surgery,” Bert added a moment later.
Maggie, Bert’s wife, and yes, Logan had heard. Female problems, which was the only thing Logan had listened to after hearing those two words. “I hope Maggie will be okay,” Logan said.
“Oh, she will be. Female problems,” Bert repeated. “But it means I’ll be out of the kitchen for a while. Reese said she’d have no trouble pulling double shifts for me.”
Logan was even more leery. Why was she being so accommodating? Of course, the obvious reason might be that with double shifts she would be earning double pay, but Logan wasn’t ready to cut her that kind of slack just yet.
“So, Reese had references when you hired her?” Logan pressed.
“Oh, I get it now. You’re wanting to make sure she’s experienced enough to do the catering job for Della?”
No, that wasn’t it at all. “Is she qualified? What did her previous employers have to say about her?”
“Didn’t check them out after I tasted a couple of things she cooked for me. The woman bakes, too. Melt in your mouth pies and cakes. She did this lemon thingy that had all the customers going on about it.” Bert paused. “But if you’re worried about her, I can check her references. Are you, uh, worried about her?”
The question was reasonable, but Logan heard something in Bert’s tone. He’d used the word worried but what he really meant was interested. Hell’s bells. Bert thought Logan was looking to hit on Reese.
“I just want to make sure Reese is the right person for the catering job,” Logan clarified, though he was dead certain that wouldn’t quell any of Bert’s interested suspicions since Logan hadn’t even known about the catering job before this phone call. “If you could follow through on her references, I’d appreciate it.”
“Sure. I’ll get back to you.”
Logan ended the call, ready to go inside, but once again his phone buzzed. Good grief. At this rate, he’d never get in the house, but again it was a call he needed to take.
Jason Murdock’s name was on the screen.
Logan and he had been friends since high school, and when Jason had taken over running his uncle’s large ranch about thirty miles from Spring Hill, it made sense for them to do business together. Jason had cows to sell, and Logan needed to buy huge herds so he could resell in smaller groups and make a profit.
But there was a problem with Jason.
“If you’re going to give me another pity deal,” Logan said when he answered, “then I don’t want it.”
“Good. Because you’re not getting pity from me. I don’t do pity deals, pity fucks or pity anything else. I needed to unload those cows because I didn’t have the room for them.”
Logan wanted to believe him, but their friendship might have caused Jason to bend his no-pitying rule.
“I’m calling about Helene,” Jason said a moment later. “And yeah, you can hang up if you want, but her mother, Mary, called me this morning. She was boo-hooing all over the place. She wanted me to try to talk you into seeing Helene.”
“No.” Logan didn’t have to think about that, either. “Why would Mary call you?”
“Because she figured you’d just hang up on her. Let’s face it, Logan, you’re not exactly the forgiving sort.”
He wasn’t, and Logan liked that just fine. “Why did Mary want me to see Helene?” Logan asked.
“Hell if I know. And she wouldn’t say. She just said it was important.” Jason paused. “You know if you ever want to talk about what happened that night with Helene, all you have to do is call me.”
“Thanks but no thanks.” Logan had enough of those images in his head without reliving them through conversation.
Clowns and liars.
“If Mary calls back,” Logan told his friend, “have her call me directly.” Not that he especially wanted to talk to his ex’s mom, but he also didn’t want her pulling Jason into this.
Logan ended the call and went inside to ask Della about this catering issue. However, the moment he opened the door, he realized he might not be able to make a beeline for the kitchen as he’d planned. That’s because Lucky and Cassie were down on their knees in the foyer. At first Logan thought he’d walked in on something sexual—always a possibility where his twin was concerned—but then he saw that this was something much more intimate.
Lucky was proposing.
He was in the process of slipping an engagement ring on Cassie’s finger, and Cassie had tears in her eyes. Judging from her smile, they were tears of a happy variety.
“Crap,” Lucky grumbled. “Sorry. I didn’t want you to see this,” he added to Logan.
Perhaps because Lucky thought it would bring back bad memories of Logan’s own botched proposal. It did, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t happy for Lucky and Cassie. They were suited for each other, though that wasn’t apparent to them when Cassie had come back into Lucky’s life almost four months ago.
“I didn’t like Lucky being on his knees alone,” Cassie said, getting to her feet. “I said yes.”
She held out the ring for Logan to see. Since he still hadn’t closed the door, the sunlight caught the diamond just right, causing it to glint into his eyes.
It was their mother’s ring.
Of course, Logan had always known that it was Lucky’s to use if he wanted. Despite their mother only being in her forties when she’d been killed, she had made it a habit of saying which jewelry she would leave for each child. The engagement ring she’d wanted for Lucky. The wedding band for their kid sister, Anna. Logan had gotten her pearl necklace and Riley a gold bracelet.
Precious mementos.
But to Logan the most precious thing was his father’s pocketknife. That meant as much to him as the engagement ring had meant to Lucky.
Logan gave Cassie a kiss on the cheek and his brother a hug. “Congrats to both of you. It’s about time you made it official.” He tried to keep his tone light, and he did mean the congrats. Still, that didn’t help with the sudden lump in his throat.
“I’m going to tell Della and Stella,” Cassie said, glancing at Logan.
She hurried away, probably because she sensed Logan needed some time with his brother. Or time alone. But while Logan would take that time alone, later, for now he needed to do a little business with Lucky.
“I won’t keep you,” Logan assured him. “I figure Cassie and you will want to celebrate before the girls get home from school.” And by celebrate, he meant they’d want to have sex. “I just wanted to make sure the bull situation had been fixed before I leave for Dallas.”
The Dallas trip was legit. Logan was on a 3:00 p.m. flight and would be gone at least a couple of days, but considering he was slammed with work and getting ready for several magazine interviews, he was BS-ing about asking about the BS.
Lucky’s flat look told Logan he wasn’t buying the reason for this visit. “All right, what’s wrong with you?”
Logan hated to play the scorned-lover card, but he would this time. “You know what’s wrong with me. That doesn’t mean I’m not happy for Cassie and you. I am.”
Lucky’s flat look continued. “Does this have anything to do with the new cook at the Fork and Spoon?”
Either twin telepathy again or a good guess was in play here. “Why do you ask?” Logan settled for saying.
“Because of the way you lit out of there like your balls were on fire. But maybe they were on fire because of the lie you told her. You didn’t have a meeting.”
“But I did.” One that Logan scheduled as soon as he left the café.
Lucky clearly knew he was semilying, again, but Logan didn’t intend to let him in on anything. If Reese had meant “what happens in San Antonio stays in San Antonio,” then maybe she had a good reason for not wanting the one-nighter spilled, either.
Of course, that good reason might have something to do with blackmail, but for now Logan would use that possibility to his advantage. Besides, he didn’t want Lucky or anyone else to know he’d done something so stupid as to sleep with a woman he didn’t know.
Lucky kept staring at him. “Reese and I chatted after you left,” his brother tossed out there. And he watched, no doubt to see how Logan would respond.
Logan merely shrugged. At least he hoped that was the only thing his body was doing. “Let me guess—she flirted with you?” Easy guess because most women flirted with Lucky.
“No flirting. She asked about our trucks, said she thought she’d seen me driving one.”
Logan’s stomach tightened. He’d driven one of the company trucks to that San Antonio hotel, and if Reese had gotten a glimpse of it, then that could explain how she’d found him. Of course, he’d been on the cover of several Texas magazines, too, so perhaps that’s how she had made the connection.
“You’re not going to tell me what this is really about, are you?” Lucky asked.
Finally a question where Logan wouldn’t have to lie. “No. I need to talk to Della,” he said, heading for the kitchen.
Logan didn’t have to ask if that’s where Della was. He followed the scent of something cinnamon-y to the kitchen and found her taking some fresh bread from the oven. Perhaps an attempt to cover up the bull crap outside, and if so, it was working.
“Well, this is a surprise,” Della said. It managed to sound like a greeting and a scolding all at once. A scolding because it’d been a while since he’d been home. “Great news about Lucky and Cassie, huh? She went to the garden to find Stella to tell her. You okay with this?”
“Of course.”
“Okay with the ring, too?” Della pressed.
“Of course.” Logan moved closer and thanked her when Della cut off a piece of the hot bread for him.
“So, was it lucky timing that you were here for the proposal?” Della continued.
Logan took a second, bobbling the hot bread in his hand and blowing on it. “Bert mentioned you were having something catered? Are you doing that for Lucky and Cassie?”
“For Mia. It’s her fifth birthday in two weeks, and she wanted a fairy-princess tea party. I thought I’d have Reese do it.”
Reese?
So, they were on a first-name basis. Logan wanted to ask how that’d happened, but Della had an even better radar than Lucky. Logan definitely didn’t want her thinking there was something going on between Reese and him.
“She’s got experience doing kids’ parties?” Logan asked.
“Don’t know about that, but everybody in town is talking about what a good cook she is. She made these lemon thingies that folks are going on about.”
“Yeah, I heard. But does she have experience doing kids’ parties?” he repeated.
“Don’t know, but she’s obviously got experience baking. I’m having her do a cake and make some party food. She’ll be kinda busy what with Maggie’s female problems.” Della whispered those last two words as if it were some kind of secret. It wasn’t. Then she paused, nibbled on a piece of the cinnamon bread. “So, any word from Helene?”
Logan had expected the third degree about his own well-being. Not that, though. “No. I won’t hear from her, either.” He waited, figuring there was more.
There was.
“Her mother, Mary, called me,” Della continued. “We’ve gotten to know each other over the years because of coordinating Helene’s schedule for family events and such. Anyway, I thought you should know that Helene had some kind of mental breakdown. She’s in a hospital in Houston.”
Suddenly, the bread didn’t taste as sweet as it had a few seconds ago. Logan let the news sink in, and he was thankful that it wasn’t the heart-crushing blow it would have been just three months ago. Still, he wasn’t immune to the news because Helene had been in his life a long time.
“You want to know any other details?” Della asked.
Thankfully, Logan didn’t have to make a decision about that because his phone buzzed, and he saw the new text from the PI. The subject was Reese Stephens aka Reese Stephenson.
So, that explained why the PI had found so little on her during his initial search. Stephenson was her real name. But clearly the PI had learned something else.
“I need to read this,” Logan said to Della, and he went out onto the back porch.
Reese’s age hadn’t changed from the original report. Ditto for her going to culinary school and moving around. But there was a whole lot more to the woman he’d bedded in that hotel.
Logan read through the text, and once he got his jaw unclenched, he actually managed to say something.
“Shit.”
CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_c5d1cbd6-cb57-59db-af85-49e86cc07e54)
REESE HADN’T COUNTED on being able to make this trip to the McCord Ranch so soon after seeing the twins, but she was thankful that their housekeeper Della had called and asked her to come over and discuss the party plans. It was the perfect excuse for Reese to get the information she needed about Logan and Lucky.
Well, hopefully it was.
Considering that everyone in town was talking about Logan’s fast exit from the café, it was possible that Della was going to try to pump Reese for info while Reese was pumping the woman. Either way, if this didn’t work, Reese was just going to have to come clean and admit that she did something so sleazy as have sex with a man she didn’t know. Then she could get back the watch and put this whole mess behind her.
Even if Reese’s body wasn’t letting her forget it.
Her body didn’t have a say in this, though. She’d learned the hard way that lust often drove really bad decisions, and it was obvious that sleeping with either of the McCord twins was a bad decision she couldn’t repeat.
Reese followed the crude map that Sissy Lee had made for her. It wasn’t that long of a walk, less than a half mile, and the house was so big that she could see it long before she got to it. Judging from the sheer size of it and the land surrounding it, the McCords were rich. Of course, she’d already guessed that, but this was rich-rich, and that meant either Lucky or Logan might be especially concerned about having spent the night with someone like her. If so, that could work in her favor because they could be eager to get rid of her.
Part of her wished that wasn’t the case, though.
If this had been just another ordinary town, Reese might have considered staying on longer than three months. The pay was decent, and Bert was a good boss. Shortly after he’d hired her, he’d even helped her find a place to live, temporarily. No way could Reese have managed to swing a stay at the Bluebonnet Inn on a daily basis, but Bert had talked the owner of the inn into renting her the converted attic apartment there. It wasn’t much, but then she’d never needed much, and this morning she’d learned it had a special view.
Of the McCord Cattle Brokers’ building.
She’d yet to see Logan or Lucky come and go, but from everything she’d heard, Logan only left for business trips, and Lucky was only there when he couldn’t avoid it. Or when he was checking on his twin. The buzz was that Lucky was still worried about Logan. Everyone in town was.
Logan was Spring Hill’s rock star.
And no one she’d encountered so far was taking his ex’s side in the breakup. The general consensus was that Helene should be burned at the stake for breaking poor Logan’s heart.
Reese walked up the circular drive, and as she neared the house, she caught the scent of poop. She hoped that wasn’t some kind of bad omen.
She made her way up the porch, but the door opened before she could even ring the bell. The outside of the house was so, well, pastoral looking, but that didn’t apply to the inside. The tall brunette woman in the doorway looked frazzled. With good reason. There were cats—lots of them—darting around.
Two small children, as well.
There were shouts of laughter. Plain out shouting, too, from a teenage girl on the stairs who apparently wasn’t happy about her sister using her makeup on one of the cats. Reese quickly spotted which cat. It was all white except for pink blush on its cheeks.
“I’m Reese—”
“Yes, I know. Della’s expecting you. No school today,” the woman said as if that explained everything. “I’m Cassie Weatherall. Please come in.”
Cassie as in Lucky’s soon-to-be fiancée. Reese recognized her from some TV talk shows, the sort where the host and his or her guests attempted to solve some huge problem in the span of an hour. Minus the commercials, of course. There were usually shouts and paternity test results involved.
Cassie looked around outside before she shut the door. “Where’s your car?”
“I don’t have one. I walked.”
She shook her head. “If you need to come out here again, just call the house, and someone can come and get you. Mia, don’t touch Mackenzie’s makeup again,” Cassie warned the younger girl without even pausing to take a breath.
“Sorry,” the little girl said as she flew past them. A little boy was chasing her with what appeared to be a magic wand and a chocolate-chip cookie.
The meager apology was apparently enough to get the teenager to whirl around and disappear into the hall off the top of the stairs.
“This way,” Cassie said after she shouted for the children to settle down.
Cassie might look like the prim and proper therapist, but her shout was all mom. According to the gossip Reese had heard at the diner, Cassie had fallen right into that role. Had fallen into the role of being a McCord, too. Cassie had given up her job as a celebrity therapist and had opened an office in Spring Hill. Considering the divorce rate was almost nil, the crime rate as well, it was possible she wouldn’t get a lot of business. Then again, there could be a lot of skeletons jangling in closets.
Reese didn’t mean to dodge Cassie’s gaze, but she couldn’t quite look the woman in the eye. She had no idea if Lucky had actually cheated on Cassie, but if so, it was a little stomach-turning to think that Reese could have been the other woman.
Cassie led Reese to the back of the sprawling house to an equally sprawling kitchen where a woman with pinned-up gray hair was at the stove.
“You’re here,” Della said, smiling.
But she wasn’t alone in the kitchen, and the person at the table definitely wasn’t smiling. Even though Reese couldn’t be certain, she thought this might be Logan.
“You’re late,” the man said.
Yes, Logan.
The brusque tone caused Reese to freeze. Not Della, though. The woman popped him on the shoulder with a wooden spoon. “What kind of welcome is that?” Della scolded him.
Reese suspected Della was one of the few people on the planet who could get away with that question. Or the spoon pop.
Cassie shot Logan a glare. “Reese had to walk here,” Cassie informed him.
Logan didn’t look exactly pleased with that explanation or the spoon popping. Or with Reese.
“Logan’s mad because I said I wasn’t going to ask you for references,” Della explained.
Oh.
Well, that told her loads. He was suspicious of her. Unless Logan was this careful about everyone who crossed paths with his family.
“We need to talk,” Logan told her, and he took hold of Reese’s arm.
“She’s here to go over the party,” Della protested, but she might as well have been talking to the air because Logan didn’t listen. And he was out of spoon range now.
Reese didn’t put up any resistance whatsoever. She’d come here hoping to have a private word with either Logan or Lucky, and she was apparently going to get it. Though it still didn’t mean he was the one she’d slept with. This little chat could be a warning for her to stay away from his brother. Or away from his family’s kitchen if he was truly concerned about her references.
Logan led her to the side of the house to a sunroom that overlooked one of the white-fenced pastures. Reese hadn’t smelled the poop in the main part of the house, but she certainly did back here.
“Yeah, we’re working on that,” he grumbled.
Until he said that, Reese hadn’t even been aware she was making a face. That’s because she was focused on the face Logan was making at her. Sissy Lee had said Lucky had a panty-dropping smile, but Logan must have missed out on that particular genetic trait. His abilities seemed more geared toward intimidation tactics.
“What kind of game are you playing, huh?” Logan demanded.
Since that could cover a lot of territory, Reese went with a question of her own. “What kind of game do you think I’m playing?”
Man, he was the rock star of glares, too. “What happens in San Antonio stays in San Antonio?” he tossed at her.
Bingo. So, he was the one. Part of her was relieved that he was the hot cowboy and not Lucky. At least this way Cassie wouldn’t be hurt.
“How did you find me?” he snapped.
“Your truck.”
He nodded as if no further explanation was necessary. Reese braced herself for the questions that would almost certainly follow.
Or not.
Logan inched toward her, and it didn’t appear he had question-asking on his mind. He moved close enough that Reese caught his scent. Very familiar. And as it done that night in the hotel bar, his scent slid right through her. Pretty amazing considering it wasn’t any particular scent and managed to completely erase the bull-poop odor.
For a moment, she thought he was going to kiss her. He moved in as if he might just do that despite the steely look in his eyes. And for a moment it might have seemed to him as if he were going to kiss her, too. His gaze dropped to her mouth before he snapped it away and met her eye to eye.
“I ran a background check on you,” he threw out there.
Of course he had. Reese wondered why she hadn’t considered it sooner. Oh, mercy. Not this, not now. Had Logan learned what had happened? She hoped not. She hated the thought of anyone knowing how stupid she’d been.
“Are you here to run some kind of con?” Logan added, and his glare didn’t ease up one bit.
So, he’d found out about that part of her past. He didn’t know about Spenser. Because if Logan knew that, he would have brought it up first.
“I’m not here to con you.” Reese was certain he wouldn’t believe her, though. And he didn’t.
Logan opened his mouth, no doubt to demand that she leave and never come back, but before he could say a word, someone yelled out, “No!” and it was followed by a loud cry.
Logan scrambled around her, running toward the sound of that cry, and when Reese caught up with him, she saw the little girl, Mia, on the floor at the bottom of the stairs. She was sobbing and holding her arm.
“Mia was chasing the cat on the stairs and fell,” Cassie explained.
Cassie wasn’t sobbing exactly, but she was crying. And looking very much like a concerned mom. So was the teenager who was coming down the steps to her sister’s aid. And the little boy she’d seen playing with Mia earlier. He also had tears in his eyes. Heck, so did Reese, she realized.
“I think it’s broked,” Mia said through the sobs.
Logan was the only one not in the crying/panic mode. He eased Mia into his arms and started toward the door. “Cassie and I’ll take her to the ER. Someone call Lucky and have him meet us there.”
“Do you need me to go with you?” Reese asked him.
“No, stay here and finish your chat with Della.”
Della took out her phone, and Cassie hurried to open the door. Logan followed Cassie out but not before looking back at Reese.
“This isn’t over,” Logan warned her.
* * *
REESE DREAMED ABOUT LOGAN. And tonight it was just as good as the real thing had been.
The kiss in the hotel bar especially.
Until that kiss Reese hadn’t been sure she could even go through with the last item on her bucket list, but that kiss had pretty much put to bed any doubts she’d had. And it had just been the start.
Logan had initiated the second kiss, in the elevator as they’d headed up to the room. In fact, the kiss had gotten so scalding hot that his hand had ended up under her top, his leg between hers, and there was a whole lot of pressure from his body pressing hers against the elevator door.
That’d been incredible until the door opened, and they’d tumbled out into the hall and landed on their butts.
The clumsiness hadn’t stopped there. Nope. They had been so busy kissing and grappling at each other that they’d banged into the wall outside her room, once with such precision that they’d nearly had accidental sex in the hall.
Even now in the dream, Reese could still feel that hunger. Hunger she hadn’t even known was there. And there were sounds that had never been in the dream before, either. Knocking sounds. It was almost as if Logan and she were having sex against the wall, after all.
Or not.
Because the dream changed. Not to sex with Logan but to another part of her life. One she didn’t want to remember. But she did.
Spenser.
It was hard to hide from memories in a dream because they chased you down, chewed you up, and there was nothing she could do to stop it.
But the sound stopped it. And the sound wasn’t part of the dream this time. Definitely not Logan. That became clear when she heard someone call out her name. Her real name. Logan had only called her Julia that night. And whoever was calling out her name now was also knocking on her door.
Jimena.
For a moment, Reese thought her friend might be part of the dream, as well. She staggered out of bed and went to the door, checking the time along the way. It was close to midnight.
And it was Jimena, all right.
“Food pimp,” Jimena said, holding up several large grocery bags. She came in, looked around. Not that she had to look far to take it all in. It was only about two hundred feet of space for the kitchen, bed, sitting area and bathroom.
“Uh, what are you doing here?” Reese asked.
Not that she wasn’t happy to see her, but when Jimena had dropped Reese off in Spring Hill four days ago, Jimena had said she was heading back to Houston to see some old friends. When they’d spoken on the phone earlier that morning, Jimena hadn’t mentioned anything about a visit.
“I’m here to help you.” Jimena handed her the bags of groceries, which Reese was certain contained nothing but junk food. She closed the door, took Reese by the hand and led her to the window.
“See that guy?” Jimena asked.
There were streetlights, but it still took Reese several moments to pick through the night and see the man in the back parking lot of the McCord building. Definitely not Lucky or Logan.
“Who is he?” Reese wanted to know.
“Some guy I met at a bar in San Antonio. His name is Elrond—you know like in Lord of the Rings? His dad was a huge fan. I know, I violated my bucket rule of making my way through the alphabet. I was up to the I’s, but all the I-guys I met didn’t do anything for me. Anyway, Elrond’s a great kisser, but he’s got something even better in his jeans.”
Reese groaned. She was so not in the mood for one of Jimena’s sex spill-alls. “I have the breakfast shift at the café. I have to be at work in six hours.”
“Well, this shouldn’t take long at all.” She pointed to Elrond again. “He’s got a key to the McCord building.”
Instant suspicion.
Of course Reese had told Jimena about her Lucky/Logan dilemma, but she certainly hadn’t expected Jimena to do anything about it. Especially anything illegal.
“Did he steal the key?” Reese asked.
“No. He was doing some renovations for the McCords a while back and forgot to return the key. I figured you could use it to look for the watch while no one’s there.”
Reese was still skeptical. “And how do you know no one is there? Logan has an apartment on the top floor.”
Jimena smiled. “He’s not there tonight. Don’t you ever listen to gossip? The clerk at the gas station said Logan was in Dallas for a meeting and won’t be back until tomorrow.”
It was the first Reese was hearing of this—and yes, she did listen to gossip. Hard not to hear it in a town this small. But she hadn’t been especially listening for gossip about Logan but rather Mia. It turned out that the little girl’s arm wasn’t broken, after all, just sprained and bruised.
“You said you were anxious to get the watch and then leave town,” Jimena reminded her. “So, here’s your chance. Say, what made you so eager to leave, anyway?”
“Logan. He ran a background check on me.”
Jimena gasped. A reaction that Reese had had herself. Her past had a nasty way of coming back to haunt her. Usually she could outrun it, but this time it’d caught up with her.
“Did Logan tell your boss?” Jimena asked.
“Not yet. But he will.” If it hadn’t been for taking Mia to the ER and then this trip to Dallas, Logan probably would have already done it.
That meant tonight might be her last chance to find that watch. Bert probably wouldn’t fire her on the spot, but that was only because of his wife’s surgery. He needed her for both the breakfast and lunch shifts, but he would give Reese her walking papers as soon as he could find someone else. Or heck, maybe he would just close the café for a while.
“I don’t even know if the watch is in the McCord building,” Reese admitted.
“Elrond said Logan lives there, like all the time. Where else would he have put it?”
Maybe in the trash, but that tightened her stomach just thinking about it.
“If you find it, you won’t even have to do the breakfast shift,” Jimena said. “You can grab Tootsie Roll and ride back with me to San Antonio.”
It was past being tempting, and it wasn’t as if she had a ton of options. Now that Logan knew who she was, he might never give her back the watch because he might think she’d stolen it.
“You’re sure you can trust Elrond?” Reese asked.
“The man gives multiple orgasms. Of course I can trust him.”
There was no correlation to that, none, but Reese decided she had no choice but to risk it. She put the grocery bags on the counter, pulled on her jeans and a T-shirt and followed Jimena out to the stairs and then out of the Bluebonnet. They didn’t walk on Main Street but rather on the street behind the inn. Probably because Jimena wanted to make sure they weren’t seen.
Reese only hoped she didn’t regret this, but she already had a bad feeling about it.
When they made it to Elrond, he kissed Jimena, and they started in on a make-out session while he handed Reese the key. His aim wobbled, because he had his eyes closed while kissing, and Reese finally just snagged them. Part of her almost hoped the key didn’t work, that Logan had changed the locks.
But it worked just fine.
She slipped into the back door, the AC immediately spilling over her. The floors were marble, all shiny and cool, and even the walls had some kind of slick finish to them. The bottom floor was dark except for the base lighting around a copper and bronze sculpture of a longhorn. It was large enough to have been a real cow, and Reese dodged the lethal-looking horns as she made her way around it.
She also had to fight back a scream when something went zipping past her. Sheez. It was possibly a raccoon.
Or a very small, hyped-up guard dog.
It shot out of the reception area and disappeared. No growling sounds. No clawing sounds, either, so she hoped it wasn’t coming back for her.
Since she wasn’t sure how much time she had, Reese went straight to the hall. There were a series of offices, thank goodness with nameplates on the outside. Logan’s was all the way at the end.
And locked.
She tried the key, but it didn’t work. Sadly, she knew how to pick a lock, but she hadn’t brought the old tools of an old trade with her. Elrond probably had something that would work, but judging from the way Jimena and he had gone after each other, he probably had her on the backseat by now for another round of those multiple orgasms.
Instead, Reese went up the stairs. There were more offices here on the second floor, each door indicating the name of another person who worked for Logan and his brothers. She doubted he’d put a watch in any of these offices so she went up the final flight of stairs to the third floor.
There were double doors, wide-open, so she stepped inside.
Whoa.
Unlike her place at the Bluebonnet Inn, this loft was huge. It sprawled over the entire third floor. There were no overhead lights on, but thankfully there was enough illumination coming from the appliances in the kitchen area that she could see well enough.
And what she could see was a mess.
There were gouges in the walls as if someone had punched it multiple times. No, correction. Someone had thrown stuff at it because some of that stuff was still on the polished hardwood floors. Broken sculptures—including what appeared to be a porcelain breast of a woman. Books. Glass. Feathers. Even the remnants of a coffee table.
Had someone vandalized the place? Robbed it?
That caused her to mumble a couple of “Oh, Gods.” Because that might mean this was some kind of setup. Maybe Elrond had willingly given her the keys so she could take the blame for this.
Reese turned to run out, but she caught the movement from the corner of her eye. In case the burglar was still there, she picked up the first thing she could grab off the floor. The porcelain breast. Hardly a serious weapon, but she could hurl it at the person if he attacked, and the nipple might put out an eye.
But he didn’t attack.
He stepped from the shadows. Slowly. As if he had all the time in the world.
It was Logan.
And he was naked.
No, not naked. He was wearing boxers, but she had focused on the naked parts because they were more noticeable. He was sipping a drink, also slowly.
“Reese,” he said, his voice low and slightly dangerous.
Or maybe that was confusion in his tone because of the porcelain nippled boob she had aimed at him.
“You didn’t take this to the grave very long, did you?” Logan asked, and had another sip of his drink, clearly waiting for her answer.
CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_7e1133b7-2e40-5d13-ba29-7a2de4fbc879)
LOGAN WASN’T SURPRISED to see Reese. In fact, he’d anticipated it. In hindsight, though, he should have coupled his anticipation with a pair of pants. Greeting a burglar in his boxers just wasn’t very intimidating.
Reese noticed the boxers, all right. Her gaze slid over him, and even though he couldn’t see her eyes that well in the darkness, he thought maybe she was remembering the night in the hotel.
Logan certainly was.
In fact, when he’d dozed off earlier, he’d dreamed about it.
“Should I offer you a drink or call the cops?” he asked. The second one wasn’t really an option, of course. No way did he want to have to explain this to anyone. But Reese didn’t know that.
“You want the cops to find out you slept with me?” Reese tossed right back at him.
So she did know it was a bluff. She probably thought that made this a stalemate. It didn’t. Because Logan had something Reese wanted, and it didn’t have anything to do with the part of his body she was gawking at.
To stop the gawking, Logan took his jeans from the bed and pulled them on. She looked away when he did that. Maybe because she realized she’d been gawking, but her attention landed on the porcelain tit she was holding. She eased it back onto the floor with the rest of the broken clutter.
It wasn’t just any old porcelain tit, though. It’d been a “special” gift from Helene. Molded porcelain bookends of her breasts. An inside joke between the two of them. But one of the bookends had gone missing before she’d been able to give the set to him so Logan had instead used it as a decorative figurine.
Logan also took his dad’s knife from the nightstand and slipped it in his pocket. Not because he thought he might need it to get Reese out of there but because he didn’t want to risk her stealing it.
“By the way,” she said. “There’s a raccoon or weird dog running around downstairs.”
“Cat,” he corrected. “A couple of months ago my brother brought three cats here to stay temporarily. He moved the other two, but no one’s been able to catch that one.”
He could understand, though, how she’d mistaken it for a raccoon because it did look like one. And Reese suddenly looked a little horrified.
“Months?” she questioned. “Please tell me someone’s feeding it.”
He nodded, not that he wanted to have a conversation about the feline he’d dubbed Crazy Cat. “My assistant, Greg, leaves out food and changes the litter box.”
Though Greg had yet to see the cat. In fact, to the best of Logan’s knowledge, only he and now Reese had actually seen it since it had been brought to the building.
And this wasn’t at all what he wanted to discuss or think about.
“Redecorating?” she asked. She didn’t sound concerned that she’d just been caught breaking and entering. But she did look nervous. Reese was rubbing her hands along the sides of her jeans.
“More or less.”
Definitely less. The items were all things Helene had given him, and for some reason it gave him pleasure to smash them to bits. And then look at the bits. Strange because usually he couldn’t stand clutter or anything out of place, but he had no desire whatsoever to clean up this mess. In fact, he was enjoying watching the fine layers of dust build up with each passing week.
Reese stayed quiet a moment while she studied him. “It really was you with me in San Antonio. After I left your house, I considered the possibility that maybe you were trying to cover for your brother, and that perhaps he’d told you what the note I left in the hotel room said. You could have done that so his girlfriend wouldn’t be hurt. But it really was you. I can see it now.”
It did sting a little that she hadn’t been able to see it right off. He might look like Lucky, but they didn’t act anything alike. Of course, he hadn’t been acting like himself at that hotel, either.
“Julia Child,” he said to remind her that she had been the one to set the rules for that night.
Reese nodded, pushed her hair from her face. “Hot no-name cowboy.”
He waited to see if she was going to explain any of what’d happened that night. Apparently not.
“I came for the watch,” she said.
Yes, he’d figured that out. But what he hadn’t figured out was why. “Was it part of some con?”
Now, most people would have looked shocked and asked, What con? Or seemed outraged at such a suggestion. But because he’d run that background check on her and because she’d just broken into his place, Reese probably knew outrage and surprise would seem as genuine as the name she’d given him in that bar.
“I’d like to have that drink now,” she said.
Reese sank down onto one of the chairs in the sitting area. The stuffing was coming out of it, and it was covered with feathers from the throw pillows he’d gutted. Since it was copper colored, it looked like a huge molting chicken.
The drink offer hadn’t been genuine, but since Logan needed a refill, he flipped on the lamp and poured them each a glass. He handed it to her and then backed away. Even though he had on jeans now, he was still shirtless, and he was remembering the heated look she’d given him earlier.
A look he’d probably given her, too.
He didn’t understand why his body was attracted to this con woman, and he didn’t care. The attraction wasn’t going to play into this.
“How did you get into the building?” he asked. “Did you pick the lock?”
“Key.” She fished through her jeans pocket, came up with a key and dropped it on the small table next to the chair. “And don’t ask how I got it.”
“How’d you get it?”
She tossed back the shot and made a face just as she’d done after the tequila shots in the bar. “Found it. And no, I didn’t steal it. Nor did I steal anything once I was inside.” Reese paused. “You found out about my parents.”
“Yes,” he settled for saying. Logan didn’t add more. He wanted to see what spin she would put on this.
But there was no spin. She waited him out, and Logan decided he’d already spent too much time on Reese.
“Your parents, Marty and Vickie, are con artists. Your father died in prison a few years ago, but both have multiple arrests for pulling various scams. Scams in some cases where they used you.”
The PI had provided Logan with only one such case, but he figured there were more. In the one the that PI had learned about, Reese had distracted a store owner, claiming she fell and was hurt, while her parents stole items.
“That incident with Mia must have brought back some memories for you,” he snapped. “Of course, the difference is she wasn’t faking. So, what else did you fake? Did you pretend to be attracted to me—”
She came off the chair so fast that Logan didn’t have time to react. Reese took hold of him, jerked him to her and kissed him. It wasn’t the first time he’d been forced-kissed. It had happened one other time when he was a stupid teenager and had pretended to be Lucky so he could break up with a girl who was giving him some trouble.
That kiss was nothing like this one.
For one thing, there was some anger involved here. Not on his part. Logan was still trapped between surprise and “what the hell is she doing?” stage. Reese, though, was obviously trying to make a statement, and that statement was that she could make him feel the kiss in every inch of his body.
Every. Inch.
And she succeeded.
By the time she let go of him, Logan had moved on to the next stage. A hard-on. But since his dick had already caused him to make a bad decision by sleeping with her in the first place, Logan ignored the ache in his groin and stepped back.
“That’s why I slept with you,” she growled. “It didn’t have anything to do with who I am, your bank account, your ranch or your dusty stuff.” Reese flung her hand at the damaged items again.
The kiss obviously hadn’t affected her the same way it had affected him. Or so he thought. But then Logan heard her uneven breathing, saw the flush in her cheeks. Saw her glance at his hard-on. A long glance. That caused her breathing to become even more ragged.
It didn’t mean anything, of course.
So what if they were attracted to each other? It didn’t mean he was going to act on it. However, he was going to act on something else—getting her out of his life and away from his dick.
“For the record, I haven’t seen my mother in over two years,” she finally said, sinking back down onto the chair. “I really am a chef. Went to culinary school. And I wasn’t running a con on you.”
“Really?” He couldn’t have possibly sounded more skeptical.
“Really.” And she couldn’t have possibly sounded more pissed off. “What else did your spies dig up on me?”
Nothing. But clearly they’d missed something. Something that Logan would have them dig even deeper to find.
“Aren’t your con-artist parents enough dirt?” he asked her.
She stayed quiet again for several moments, but Logan thought she might be relieved. Yeah, there was definitely something else to learn about Reese Stephenson.
“I’ve done everything I can to distance myself from my parents and the things they did,” she finally said. “I never stay in one place for too long because I don’t want my mother to find me.”
“Then that should fit right into my plans.” He nearly brought up that he didn’t know what her plan had been, but he decided it wasn’t wise to risk another kiss. There were condoms in the loft, and he didn’t want that hard part of his body suggesting sex.
“What plans?” she asked.
“For you to leave.” He heard the words. The tone. It was probably a tone he used daily to someone involved in his business deals. But it did sound a little Old West, as if he were running her out of town.
Which he sort of was.

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