A Second Chance at Crimson Ranch (3 page)

“I think you've done plenty of talking this morning.” She walked past him up the aisle and out of the store, ignoring the stares from the men at the front counter.

To her surprise, Logan followed her down the street. Although it was sunny and clear, the air was still frigid and a layer of packed snow covered the streets.

“I'm sorry, Olivia,” he said when she stopped at her Mercedes SUV. He turned her to look at him. His broad shoulders blocked the sun, but its reflection shone in his blond hair and highlighted his strong features and jaw line.

He was so handsome in broad daylight. It was a little difficult for Olivia to meet his gaze. She'd never been comfortable around really masculine men. The alpha type was far too intimidating. And everything about Logan screamed alpha male to her.

“It's fine,” she mumbled, dropping her gaze to the sidewalk.

“I did go to the building site,” he told her.

“Why?” she asked. “What does the community center matter to you?”

“I have an interest in design. I like to work on renovations rather than new construction, especially historic buildings. I have a few more days in town and it made me curious.”

“And you found problems?”

“Nothing huge or structural.” He shrugged. “I don't think Jeremy was doing his best work. You can find someone better. This is the slow season in construction. Lots of guys should have the time to fit this in.”

She kicked her boot against a pile of dingy snow at the curb. “Not likely now.” She paused as an idea struck her. “Unless you take over the construction.”

So much for avoiding alpha males.

“No way,” he answered quickly.

“Why not?” she countered, raising her gaze to meet his. “Jeremy isn't going to come back on the project, and who knows how long it will take to find another contractor. With the tight timeline, I need someone I can count on.”

“What makes you think you can count on me?” His expression was guarded as he studied her.

It was crazy but the longer she thought about it, the more Olivia was convinced Logan could help her. That maybe he was the only person she could trust right now. “You're Josh's brother. I know he would vouch for you. That's a pretty strong reference.”

“You heard Jeremy. My reputation in Crimson isn't the best.”

“We all make mistakes.”

“Mistakes,” he repeated, laughing softly. “Right.” He looked past her to where the mountains sat in the distance. Olivia loved those mountains and realized she'd do whatever she had to do to stay living in their shadow. “I left here a long time ago. This isn't my home anymore.”

“You just said it's a slow season for construction. The whole thing should be finished in six weeks. There's an apartment over my garage that's empty. You can stay there.”

“You don't know me well enough to offer me a job and a place to live.”

“The fact that I don't know you is why I need you to take this job. You won't be affected by the gossip.” As a brisk wind whipped down the street, Olivia started to zip up her puffer jacket, but it got caught in the fabric. She struggled with it as she spoke. “You saw how Jeremy treated me, how those men in the store looked at me. I'm quite the topic of conversation in certain circles these days. Most people are supportive, but for others it's my fault that Craig had a wandering eye. I don't like it and I don't want it to detract from the community center. You're the only person outside of my small group of friends who doesn't look at me with pity.” She pulled harder on her coat, embarrassed that her fingers shook slightly. Glancing up at him, she said, “I can't take any more pity in my life, Logan.”

His mouth opened as if he would argue but then shut again. He took a few quick steps away from where they stood, then stalked back. “This is a bad idea.” He reached out to brush her hands aside. His long fingers gently worked the zipper free of the snag. He zipped up the coat to her chin, his knuckles grazing her jaw as he finished.

“But you'll do it,” she suggested, her voice the tiniest bit breathless.

“I never was known for my good judgment,” he answered. “Yes, I'll help you.”

“You won't regret it. I promise.” She smiled despite her nerves. “Would you be more comfortable staying with Josh and Sara? I'm sure they would—”

“The apartment is fine,” he interrupted. “At the ranch I'll only be in the way. I need to drive down to Telluride for a few days and wrap up some loose ends. My roommate can take care of the house while I'm gone.”

Roommate? Olivia couldn't help but wonder if that person was a woman or man. None of her concern. This arrangement was strictly business. She knew without a doubt that Logan Travers was too much for her.

Too attractive, too young, too dangerous.

Still, she felt relieved to have him working on the renovations with her. Something deep inside her relaxed with the knowledge that she wasn't alone on this project. She tried to convince herself it was simply having a contractor to handle the construction, but a part of her knew it had more to do with the man standing before her.

She took her cell phone from her purse and handed it to him. “Put your number in and I'll text you my address. I have some things to take care of in Denver over the weekend. We could meet at my house Monday morning, and I'll show you the plans and where we are on the project. You can get moved in, then we'll go from there.”

He watched her for several long moments, those ice-blue eyes giving nothing away. “Are you sure this is what you want?” he asked finally.

I have no idea what I want
, Olivia thought silently. Her plan was crazy, impulsive and the exact opposite behavior anyone would expect from Olivia Wilder.

“I'm positive,” she answered.

Chapter Three

T
he following Monday, Logan let himself into the building at the edge of town that soon would house the community center Olivia was working so hard to make happen. There was no lock on the front door, something he planned to change today. Although the rooms were still under construction and unusable, he didn't believe in taking any chances.

As if in answer to his concerns, he heard a sound coming from the far end of the building. He made his way through the early morning shadows, careful not to make any noise as he walked.

The glow of a flashlight was visible in the large room that occupied the back half of the first floor. He stepped through and realized he needn't have worried about noise. The preteen boy who was currently spray painting a large B on the wall wore headphones. Logan could hear the bass echo in the empty space. The kid wore a flannel hoodie and jeans that rode low on his narrow hips. His dark brown hair was sleep tousled as he concentrated on his task.

When the boy started on an
i
, it was clear where the graffiti was headed. Wordlessly, Logan approached from behind, grabbing the hood of the boy's sweatshirt with one hand and ripping the headphones off with the other.

“What do you think you're doing, punk?”

The kid flailed, arms and legs flying as he tried to fight his way out of Logan's grasp. Logan figured he had more than a foot plus a good fifty pounds on the boy. It wasn't difficult to capture his wrists before shoving him into the wall.

“L-let go of me,” the boy yelled.

“Not until you answer my question.”

“What's it look like?” The kid's tone was surprisingly belligerent, but Logan felt a tremor of fear slide down his arms. “I'm sending a message.”

“Who's it for?” Logan asked, although he could guess the answer.

“Olivia Wilder,” the kid said with a sneer. “She's the biggest bi—”

“Watch it,” Logan cautioned, pressing the boy a little harder against the wall. “She happens to be a friend of mine. What's your beef with Olivia?”

The boy's thin shoulders tensed and he was silent so long that Logan thought he might not answer. “My mom took off with her husband,” the kid finally mumbled. He deflated so suddenly, Logan had to practically hold him up so he didn't sink to the floor.

Logan sighed as the situation became clear. “What's your name?”

“Jordan.” The answer came through gritted teeth.

“How old are you, Jordan?”

“I'll be thirteen in two weeks.”

“Jordan, I'm going to let go of your wrists now so we can talk man-to-man. But I'm warning you that if you try to run away, I'll catch you and it won't be pretty.”

Slowly, Logan released the boy's arms. He backed up a couple of steps and waited for Jordan to turn toward him.

“Are you going to call the sheriff?”

“Not yet. I'd like to see if we can work this out ourselves.”

Jordan picked up the headphones Logan had knocked to the ground and placed them around his neck, keeping his gaze firmly away from Logan.

“I'm sorry about your mom,” Logan said finally.

Jordan's head shot up and his eyes blazed. “Olivia is the one who should be sorry. My dad says that if she'd been more of a woman, her husband wouldn't have needed to go after Mom.”

“Have you heard from her since she left?”

“She's called a couple of times.” Jordan's hands clenched into fists at his sides. “She's in Arizona. Told me she loves me and that I can visit her over the summer. My dad yells, then begs her to come back. I don't care if she ever comes back, and I'm not going to see her.”

“I don't blame you,” Logan said quietly. “But it's not fair to blame Olivia. She didn't force your mother to leave.”

“But my dad—”

“I understand what your dad is saying. He's angry. This must be really hard on him.”

“He sits on the couch in the dark every night. I can't even get him interested in any hockey games, and he loves hockey.”

“He loves your mom, and he's hurting. I imagine you are, too.”

“I don't care about her,” Jordan said, his voice an angry hiss. “It wasn't like she was a good cook or anything. I can heat up frozen dinners myself.”

Logan felt a mix of sympathy and admiration for the kid. He remembered what it was like to put on a tough attitude to mask the real pain and how much trouble that could lead to. He pointed to the letters on the wall. “You're going to have to clean that up.”

“I'll be late for school.”

“Enough time this morning to write out one word but not much else?”

Jordan glared at him.

“Come back after school. Wear old clothes because you'll be repainting that wall.”

“What if I don't show?”

“Crimson is a small town, buddy. It won't be hard to track you down.” Logan picked up the can of spray paint and the flashlight. The room was beginning to brighten as morning dawned more fully. “I'm going to be working on renovations for this building, and I'll come looking for you if there's any vandalism while I'm here. But I'm going to need an extra hand for the small stuff. You interested in making some money?”

The kid's eyes widened. “You're going to give me a job after I did this?”

“Give me your dad's number and I'll run it by him. I'll have an answer by the afternoon. We all make mistakes.” Logan smiled as he repeated Olivia's words from yesterday. “You get this chance on one condition. You need to leave Olivia alone. Your mom leaving wasn't her fault.”

“Some people are saying—”

Logan cut off Jordan's words with a wave of his hand. “Some people are idiots. Don't be one.”

“Fine,” the kid said on a huff of breath.

Logan held out his hand. “Give me your headphones.”

Jordan shook his head. “No way. These are Beats. Do you know how much they cost?”

“I do.” Logan took a step forward. “You can have them back once the wall is clean.”

Jordan muttered a few choice curse words under his breath but handed over the headphones. He picked up his backpack from the floor. “School lets out at three. I'll be here after that.”

“See you then.” Logan took a deep breath as he watched the kid disappear through the doorway. He'd come back to Crimson for his brother's wedding and now he had a job in town and a potential delinquent on his hands.

For someone who prided himself on keeping his personal connections to a minimum, today was a big departure. He wasn't sure what had possessed him to offer Jordan work, other than recognizing a boy who was carrying a lot of emotional baggage on his shoulders and who might need an outlet for some of that pent-up anger and frustration. Maybe if someone had given Logan a little help years ago, his life wouldn't have gone off track.

He certainly felt out of his comfort zone right now.

He took some measurements and made notes about the state of the progress before heading to the address Olivia had given him. He walked the few blocks to her house near the center of town, hoping the morning cold would clear his muddled head.

The house was situated on a block of renovated Victorian two-stories. It had a large front porch. The exterior had been painted a sage green with white trim and shutters framing each of the windows. As a kid, he'd walked these streets with his twin sister, imagining which of the homes they'd want to move to. Anything would have been an improvement over the dilapidated farmhouse outside of town they'd grown up in. His oldest brother, Jake, still owned the land, but the house had burned down in a fire a few years after their mother's death.

As he stepped onto the porch, the front door opened. Olivia smiled nervously and gestured him inside. “I saw you coming up the sidewalk,” she explained quickly. “Not that I was watching or waiting. I happened to be near the window...watering a plant...and you were...well, come on in.”

He smiled as color crept into her cheeks and felt the anxiety his memories produced slip away. She wore a cream-colored turtleneck sweater and slim pants that made her legs look a mile long. Her hair was pulled back again, and he realized he wanted to see it down around her shoulders. To know whether it was straight or held a bit of curl, if it all would feel as soft in his hands as the bit he'd fingered during their dance.

“Good morning,” he said as she scooted aside to let him in. He took a strange satisfaction in the fact that she seemed as affected by him as he was by her. It wasn't the six-year age difference that made his awareness of Olivia so foreign. She was in a totally different league than him. Normally he'd respect that invisible barrier. But something about this woman made him want to forget all of the very rational reasons she was not for him. Because as much as his brain understood that, his body wasn't cooperating.

“Do you want coffee?” she asked as she led him through a formal living room filled with antique furniture and real art—the kind that looked like it cost a lot of money. A few spaces on the wall were noticeably blank, but he didn't comment as he followed her into the kitchen.

“I'd love a cup,” he answered, taking in the modern appliances and warm butcher-block counters. “Nice space,” he told her.

Her hand faltered as she reached up to take a mug from the cabinet. “Thank you. The kitchen is my favorite room in the house. It's the only place that doesn't feel stuffy to me.” She flashed a tentative smile. “The garage apartment is nice, too. It was going to be my studio, but...”

“You're an artist?” He pulled out one of the stools and sat at the island's counter.

“A painter. Sort of. Not really.” She shrugged. “I like to paint and studied art in college, but I haven't had much time for it lately.”

“I took a ceramics class in high school. Before I got suspended for the second time.”

The mug she held clattered to the floor but didn't break. He watched as she scooped it up, set it in the sink and took out another one. He shouldn't have brought up his misspent youth, but he'd needed to remind them both how different their lives were.

“Were you any good?”

“I didn't have a chance to find out,” he told her. “They put a lot of the troubled kids with one of the art teachers. Kept us busy and out of the way of the students who gave a damn.”

She turned, her gaze curious. “Why didn't you care?”

“I was angry, stupid and young. A bad combination. I managed to graduate, mainly because the school wanted to be rid of me.”

She set the cup of coffee in front of him. “Milk or sugar?”

He shook his head.

“But things got better after you left Crimson?”

“After a while,” he answered as he took a drink. “I grew up. Realized I didn't have to turn out the way most people expected me to. I had a choice not to fail, to prove them wrong. I made that choice.”

She took the seat across the counter from him. “Maybe the problems you had when you were younger shaped you into a person determined to be better.”

He actually laughed out loud. “I've never heard anyone suggest that.”

“I have a lot of experience putting a good spin on bad situations,” she answered with a small grin.

How was it that talk about his wild past seemed to melt away her nerves? He'd brought it up to keep her at arms' length, not as an ice breaker.

Her smile slowly faded. “I wasn't sure you'd come today. I figured maybe once you'd left town you wouldn't be back.”

The thought had crossed his mind more than once in the past few days. He'd even interrupted Josh on his honeymoon to run Olivia's plan by Sara. He'd figured his new sister-in-law would have something to say about Logan returning to town and working so closely with her friend.

To his surprise Sara had loved the idea. She'd told Logan that Olivia needed someone on her side, and he'd be the perfect person to take over the renovations. Even Josh had seemed happy that Logan would be spending the next month and a half in Crimson.

Logan wasn't used to people being happy to have him around. He'd felt as though he had an itch he couldn't quite reach ever since he'd agreed to this plan. He didn't know how to make it go away, so he was doing his best to ignore it.

“I gave you my word,” he answered.

She nodded as if that made perfect sense. He wanted to reach across the table and shake her. Didn't she see that he was not worth the trouble he was bound to cause? Maybe that was what he found so irresistible about Olivia Wilder. He couldn't remember the last time someone had believed the best about him, whether or not he deserved it.

“I have the plans and the proposed budget.” She pushed a stack of papers toward him. “Not that I want to cut corners, but if there's any way to reduce expenses, that would be a big help.”

“You know I'm cheap labor.” He was only teasing but loved the blush that colored her cheeks once again.

“That's not what I meant. I'm going to put some of my own money into the project. At least until I can line up more outside funding. The new mayor has the best of intentions, but his plate is overly full at the moment. There's a chance the community center could get waylaid if there's something more critical that needs money from the town. I don't want the work delayed any more than it has been.”

“Where did you get the money?”

“What?” She looked at him as though she didn't understand the question.

He studied her. “You said at the wedding that Craig had drained your bank account. I know the community center is important, but you need to take care of yourself first. You don't need to do anything foolish just to get money. Things will work themselves out, Olivia.”

She busied herself with emptying her mug into the sink. “Easy for you to say. And it's none of your business where I got the money.”