Caught Up in the Touch (19 page)

Jessica checked her math. Adaline’s made a fair amount more than expenses each month. Not a fortune, but the growing excess was sitting in a low-yield account at the bank. Possibilities had her twirling a pen in her fingers, an old trick that helped her concentrate.

*   *   *

He propped himself in the doorway of his office, studying her. Damn, she looked sexy behind his desk, a little crinkle between her eyes, her body language oozing total confidence. Papers were neatly organized into stacks, and a spreadsheet was open on his computer. “You sure know how to make yourself at home.”

She startled, the pen she twirled flying across the desk to skitter across the floor. Her hand rose to play at the short hair at her neck, her confidence taking on a dynamic tension. “You gain comfort from trees and wild bunnies, I gain comfort from invoices and spreadsheets.”

“Like I always say, there’s all kinds of weird in the world.” He found a shadow of his easygoing teasing manner in her company, but the day had damaged his normally positive outlook.

“Everything going okay out there?”

“All closed up. You ready to head out?”

She shut down the computer and hiked her purse strap over her shoulder. Fluorescent lights led them to the heavy metal back door. The night air had cooled enough to be refreshing after his time on the floor of the restaurant. The back of the restaurant abutted a wall of twenty-foot evergreens giving the passage an alleylike feel.

He turned to padlock the back door keeping her in his peripheral vision while she walked ahead. An odd-shaped shadow moved at the edge of the Dumpster and materialized into a man. Adrenaline sped through his body, his overriding instinct to protect Jessica.

Before he made it to her, she said, “Hi, there. It’s Scott, isn’t it? I met your mother tonight after the game. Congrats on the win.”

Logan wrapped a hand around her wrist and pushed her behind him. Scott ignored her, leaving no doubt the menace in his voice was for Logan. “Where is it? I know it was you.”

A warning zinged up his spine. Logan pushed Jessica farther back, hoping she’d get the hint to stay the hell out of the way.

“What was in it?”

“Saline,” Scott said shortly. His feet braced apart, his hands in fists, he was as tall and even brawnier than Logan, but he was still a kid, a stupid kid.

“Don’t lie to me.” Logan couldn’t stop the frustration from biting his words.

“You’re the liar. What’s your mantra? Put in the work and you can accomplish anything. That’s bullshit.”

“Scott, I’m going to give you a chance to tell me the truth, get clean, otherwise, I’ll have to take this to Coach Dalton and things will get even uglier.”

“Fuck you.”

Chaos erupted. Scott grabbed Logan’s collar and pulled him forward. Logan chopped his forearm down on Scott’s, breaking the boy’s hold. Scott threw a punch, but Logan dipped, and Scott’s hammy fist only glanced off his shoulder, sending a numbing wave down his arm.

Logan dodged another jab, staying on the defensive. Scott was big, but he was fighting like a third-grader, flailing his arms with no real intent. Logan was a former Army Ranger, trained in hand-to-hand combat. His only worry was how to stop the fight without hurting Scott.

Scott grunted or cursed with every punch attempted. Through sheer luck in numbers, he landed a couple on Logan’s torso that would bruise later. Finally, Logan sensed an opening. Scott heaved forward in a tackling-style bear hug, but with a neat flip over his leg, Logan had Scott on his belly, his face squished onto pebbled asphalt, his arm twisted behind him. Scott squirmed under the knee he had planted in the middle of his back.

“Settle down. I don’t want to hurt you,” Logan said.

Scott stopped moving, and Logan rose to a semi-crouch. Scott pushed himself up and ran the heel of his hand across his cheek, dislodging stuck pebbles. He’d gone from menacing bully to pathetic kid on the verge of tears. Logan reached out to take his arm, but Scott turned and ran, his footsteps fading quickly.

Jessica grabbed Logan’s arm and spun him toward the weak light coming from the parking lot. Her fingers trembled as she inspected his face, neck, and shoulders.

Off in the distance, tires squealed, and Logan heaved a sigh. “I guess that answers the question of his guilt.”

“Are you okay? He got some good hits in.”

One side of his mouth drew back in a strained smirk-smile. “Please. I was more worried about pulling a muscle.”

She narrowed her eyes, not taking the bait. “Are you going to go to the police?”

She’d blown his façade to rubble, and worry filled the void. “Not yet. I’ll go to Dalt first. Damn, I didn’t want to pull him into this mess.”

She threaded her fingers through his. “He’s your friend.”

“Yeah, but this will cast a pall over the season, the team, and the head coach.”

“What about you?”

“I’ve dealt with worse. I’ll be fine.”

She shook her head as if she didn’t quite believe him, but the tight line of her mouth relaxed. He threw an arm around her shoulder, squeezing her close as they walked toward his truck.

They didn’t talk on the short drive to Lilliana’s. He turned the truck off but made no move to get out. Neither did she. Instead, they turned toward each other, still in sync, their fingers twining. He dropped a kiss on her temple. “I don’t suppose you’d let me schmooze with you a little?”

She darted her eyes around the truck cab. “Here? You could come in. We are adults.” She craned her neck to look to the side of the house. “And, I don’t see Lilliana’s SUV.”

He circled his hands around her rib cage, a couple inches shy of her breasts. His breathing turned shallow. “I can’t wait that long. I’ve been dying to kiss you again.
Dying,
baby.”

“Can you die from sexual frustration?” she teased.

“I don’t know, but I heard tell you can go blind from too much masturbating. Thanks to you, I already need glasses.”

“Logan, you are so bad.” Her laugh was one of scandalized amusement.

He hummed and nuzzled under her ear. Goose bumps broke over her arms. He moved his hands closer to her breasts. She squirmed and arched toward him. Satisfaction twisted his guts. She was as hot for him as he was for her.

“What do you want?” He hoped she didn’t recognize the thread of desperation in his voice. While the context was sexual, what he really wanted to know was where their flirtation was headed.

“I want”—her eyes closed, and she inhaled slow and deep—“a kiss.”

“That’s all?” Again, he was after more than a sexual answer.

She kept her eyes closed, her answer vague and dreamy. “I don’t know.”

He’d never had to broach the subject of getting serious with a woman. Either the woman brought it up, sending him backpedaling, or they were both in it for fun. He had no idea where he stood with Jessica. The only thing he was sure of right now was that she was in his truck and wanted a kiss.

His lips touched hers with a promise he couldn’t put into words. He would be patient. If things stayed uncertain, then he would enjoy her in any way he could, but he’d lay in wait for a signal she wanted more than sex.

The kiss deepened naturally, and her hands slid around his neck, a soft needy noise coming from her throat. He heeded the call, skimming his hand from her waist to the underside of her breast.

“Yes,” she hissed against his mouth.

He smiled against her lips, liking it when her assertive nature edged into their private moments. Would her passion or her logic dominate in the bedroom?

He cupped her breast, his thumb stroking her nipple. It came to attention beneath the layers of fabric.

“Let’s take this inside,” she whispered, skimming her lips along his jaw. She nipped at his earlobe, and pleasure suffused his body. Yet, he hesitated.

Was the bedroom the final destination or a pit stop? He definitely got the irony of the situation. He was worried she wanted only sex, and if he gave her what she wanted, would she lose interest? For the first time, this wasn’t fun and games for him. It felt more like life or death.

Headlights flashing through the cab saved him from choosing between the call of his heart or his body. “We’d better make it another time and place, darlin’”

She looked out the back of the cab. “It’s Lilliana. I guess I’ll see you at Adaline’s?”

She scooted away, but he grabbed her wrist and leaned in for one last too-brief kiss. He watched Jessica and Lilliana walk into the house together, his body screaming in frustration and his heart cramping with longing.

Chapter 14

Logan paused in the doorway of Dalt’s office. Scott and Ben Larkin occupied two chairs, side by side, facing Dalt’s desk. The back of their heads looked identical, ashy-brown hair trailed to thick necks that fed into Falcon-blue polos. Scott fidgeted while his father sat stock-still.

Logan had been on the wrong end of the law enough in his youth to get an instinctive shot of adrenaline seeing a police officer present for the meeting. Things had escalated quickly. Rick Jackson, in police blues with his sidearm present, sat next to Falcon High’s principal, who crossed and uncrossed his arms in a nervous, OCD-like rhythm. Sitting catty-corner to the desk, Rick spotted Logan lurking, but he didn’t offer a greeting beyond raised eyebrows.

The tension in the office was as thick as a July summer day, oppressive and stifling. A poison needed excising. Even though Logan had instigated the meeting, he felt strangely outnumbered and vulnerable.

From the hallway behind him, Dalt clapped Logan on the shoulder, making him flinch, and pushed him forward into the room. Logan made his way around the desk to lean against a whiteboard covered in Xs and Os.

Dalt, with a grim, focused expression Logan had seen too many times in Afghanistan, dropped into the seat behind his desk, leaned forward, and swept his gaze around the room. “Let’s get this business over with.”

Principal Hammond wiped his forehead with an old-fashioned white handkerchief before tucking it back into the inside of his blazer. His foot bounced, jingling the change in his pocket.

“I concur.” Ben Larkin raised a hand as if Dalt had put the issue to a vote. “College recruiters have been sending material to the house. Any questions need to be buried.”

Dalt leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath. “The questions need to be answered, Ben, not buried. I want it understood that I run a clean program. Drug violations will not be tolerated.”

Ben Larkin’s mask of bravado fell. Lines creased his forehead and bracketed his mouth. He crossed his ankle over his knee, pushing out his slight potbelly. Suddenly instead of looking more like Scott’s older brother, Ben looked exactly what he was, an aging former athlete who had spent the last twenty years behind a desk.

“Mr. Larkin, you must understand the school’s position. We have been through this particular … situation before with disastrous results.” Principal Hammond’s voice, high and reedy, cut too loudly into the room at first, but as if hearing himself, the end of his sentence fell off, soft and strained.

Ben Larkin never took his gaze off Dalt. “Of course I understand, which is why I’m sure you’ll take the appropriate action when Scott informs you exactly who provided the drugs.”

Logan tensed. Hal Perkins. It had to be.

Distress and something akin to pain flickered over Scott’s face. No one but Logan seemed to notice.

Dalt’s voice rumbled, comforting yet commanding. “You need to tell us, Scott. Who provided the PEDs?”

Scott’s head whipped from staring at his father to darting around the room, landing on nothing and no one.

“Go on, son, tell them what you told me.” Elbows on knees, Ben Larkin steepled his fingers and transferred his gaze from Dalt to Logan.

Scott cleared his throat. “Coach Wilde.”

Logan straightened against the whiteboard. “Who was it, Scott? You can trust us.”

Scott tucked his hands under his legs and stared at the cheap linoleum. “Coach Wilde gave me the drugs. He took me aside before strength training a couple of times a week and gave me two shots in my hip. I don’t even know what was in the syringes. He told me to trust him, and I did.”

Everyone, even Dalt, turned to Logan. Aftershocks reverberated through his body like Scott had detonated a roadside bomb. Logan focused on the top of Scott’s head, his brown hair flopping forward, messy and teenager-like. His stomach dropped to infinity, and his limbs disconnected from his body, his vision narrowing.

Dalt spoke from the opposite end of a tunnel. “I don’t know who you are protecting, Scott, but I need the truth.”

“That is the truth. Coach Wilde supplied the PEDs. You can ask Hunter. He saw Coach Wilde shooting me up.”

Dalt muttered a curse and rose. He threw the door open and let it bounce against the wall. “Dixon. Tell Hunter to get his butt in here. Now.”

Logan took deep breaths. His organs settled like a jumbled puzzle, his stomach at his feet, his heart in his throat. He leaned over the desk, his palms flat. “Scott.” The boy kept his gaze on the floor. “Scott, look at me.”

Barely lifting his head, Scott’s gaze floated up, met Logan’s for a heartbeat but darted to focus on the whiteboard behind him. “Do you understand the consequences this lie will have?”

Scott didn’t respond in any way.

Hunter Galloway stepped into the room as if summoned to a firing squad. The backup quarterback possessed an innate feel of the game that couldn’t be taught. Once he grew into his still-gangly body, the boy would be an unstoppable force on the field if he could overcome his less-than-ideal family life. Even more than being falsely accused, Logan hated seeing Scott pull the kid into his lie.

Sweat had turned Hunter’s skin a glowing ebony. He wiped his face against his T-shirt, but more sweat popped on his forehead. His teeth went to work on his bottom lip while he closed the door and leaned against it, probably hoping to make a swift escape.

Scott’s father turned and inflated, but Dalt cut him off. “Hunter. We brought you in here to simply tell us the truth. Lying will not be tolerated. Is that understood?”

After watching Hunter enter, Scott turned around and resumed his blank stare. Hunter’s gaze darted between Rick, his gun, and the floor. “Y-yes, sir.”