Logan's Woman (10 page)

And yet, she’d never had a man other than her
father in her life…

She looked at Logan.

He took a bite of his sandwich, returning her
stare. Once he was done chewing, he asked, “How long are you here
till?”

Claire could have stayed for the rest of her
life. Not just because she wanted to, but because since she was
basically a dead person, she had no real obligations to go
anywhere. “I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “I would love to
go home someday. But until then, I guess I just plan…on
wandering.”

“Why can’t you go home?” he asked, a new light
entering his eyes.

Nervous, Claire put her sandwich down and
played with her fingers. “It’s just not a good time.” And it
probably never would be. Unless something happened to her father’s
competitor, she would always live in fear. Even if her father won,
he would come after Claire for revenge. She’d realized that last
night, after a very dark dream. Just winning the election wouldn’t
make her safe. His death would make her safe, but she wouldn’t have
a human life on her conscious, even if that’s what it took for her
to have a normal life.

Her stomach turned.

“But I thought you and your father got along,”
he said, his voice more reserved, eyes less open.

She hated the change, but there was nothing she
could do. She couldn’t explain and she couldn’t risk her already
waning security.

“We do. Just…things have happened. And it’s
time that I learn to live in the real world,” she said, more to
herself than him.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She shook her head, not replying. She finished
the rest of the sandwich by forcing herself to. Her appetite was
gone and she didn’t think there was a way to get it back. Not with
the suspicious look in his eye, or the turn her thoughts had
taken.

“Claire,” Logan said, voice deep. She realized
dimly how much she enjoyed the sound of his voice, especially when
he was saying her name. She looked at him from under her lashes,
wipping her mouth with a napkin.

“Hmm.”

“I don’t…understand you,” he said gruffly,
looking like he hated himself for the admission.

She smiled softly. “I don’t understand myself
either. Just a couple of weeks ago, I had a perfectly normal life,
and now? I’m here, on a picnic, with you. A cowboy with temper
issues who might have multiple-personality-disorder.”

He frowned. “I do not have
multiple-personality-disorder.”

She laughed. “I beg to differ! One moment
you're some Casanova, and the next you're as cold as ice. I swear,
we should name your other personality Mr. Hard-ass.”

“I take offense to that,” he said, trying to
keep a mean edge to his voice. He failed at it, though, and started
laughing with her.

“Casanova doesn’t, just Mr.
Hard-ass.”

“Where does Logan fit into this?” he asked, a
glint in his eye.

She sobered somewhat. “I don’t know. I’ve only
met two of you, not the third one.

“We’ll have to change that,” he said, smiling.
He took out two plates from the basket that was set up near the
tree, then a serving fork. Handing her a slice of cake, he got out
a fork as well and put a second piece on the other
plate.

She dug her fork into the spungy piece of cake
and took a bite. Her eyes closed with happiness as flavor burst in
her mouth. “Mmm...”

Her eyes opened to see Logan staring at her
like he was a wolf and she was a piece of steak. Her cheeks heated.
She would never get used to being looked at like that, she thought.
The way her stomach fluttered, her own desire for him... She took
another bite, this time not as open with her pleasure.

“It’s great,” she said -- more like
muttered.

“Yeah, it is...” For some reason, by the way he
said that, she thought he wasn’t talking about the cake. He hadn’t
even taken a bite yet.

With her cheeks flushed, she tried to finish
the cake and found she couldn’t. He still hadn’t taken his eyes off
of her.

“Claire,” he said, voice taking on a deep
edge.

“Hmm?” She peeked at him and took another
bite.

“I don’t want you to think that I sleep with
every woman I see. Because I don’t.”

Claire looked at him with wide eyes.
“Logan...”

“No, I’m dead serious right now. My first wife
screwed me over,” he said bitterly. “After that, I never even
looked at a woman. Madison is just a schoolgirl with a rich daddy
and a crush. Whatever she told you was not true, and I don’t want
you thinking it is.”

“Why...” She cleared her throat. “Why does it
matter what I think?”

He ran a hand through his short-cut hair,
looking as confused as she felt. “Hell if I know. But I don’t want
you thinking whatever she told you is true.”

“I think I knew that she was lying,” she
commented quietly. In the distance, their horses neighed and hit at
the ground with their hoofs. “She had an empty look in her
eyes...and her outfit was really outdated,” she said, letting a
little of her jealousy of the woman seeth into her
voice.

He raised a brow. “And you would
know?”

“Well, yeah. I wore it last year for one of my
father’s parties...”

“Very cultured, aren’t you?” he asked, a shield
coming over his face.

Realizing she might have said the wrong thing,
she backtracked. “No, no, it was just an important thing and he
wanted me to look my best so he...”

“It’s fine, Claire.” His voice didn’t make it
seem fine though.

She looked at him, at a loss for
words.

Then her shoulders dropped. She set down the
half-way finished piece of cake and got to her feet, picking up the
plates.

“What are you doing?”

She set them in the basket and didn’t meet his
eyes. “I think it’s time we go back now.”

He was silent, then helped her pack the
basket.

Minutes later, she was on Berry’s back and
urging her into a smooth gallop, away from Logan.

Chapter 7

The next week went slow. She avoided Logan and
he avoided her. If they were left in a room together, she was
normally the first one to leave it. Glenda, she’d come to realize,
was the sweetest woman ever--and probably one of the best cooks
around.

The first night that Glenda had made her
dinner, she had refused to come down, under the notion that it was
just Claire and Logan in the house.

Glenda, though, had quickly reined her in. She
had a small Spanish accent, but her build was short and round, hair
white as a cloud, and skin as wrinkled as a prune. But she had kind
eyes and a pretty smile, and, Claire realized, the only one that
Logan actually listened too.

Claire still denied their invitation
to dinner. She had a feeling that it was more Glenda asking her to
eat with them than Logan. In fact, if she had to bet on it, she’d
say he didn’t
want
her to eat with them.

Whatever she’d said on their picnic in the
field had put out whatever flame he’d been feeling for her. And, as
weary as she was about men and Logan in general, she didn’t want to
make it worse. So she stayed away from him, and he didn’t seem to
mind.

Madison came over several times, and unlike
first time, Logan didn’t kick her out. Sometimes, after Glenda
brought up her dinner, Claire could hear Madison’s high-pitched
laugh. It brought an ache to her chest that Logan would turn to
Madison after coldly shutting off Claire, but she didn’t have a say
in it, and wouldn’t.

So desperate to avoid the hurt that she felt
whenever she saw Logan, another week later, it had been three days
since she’d seen him. Instead of snooping around the ranch and
doing what she really wanted, she didn’t leave her room. Not to
eat, not to help Glenda clean, not to do anything. She was grateful
that the bedroom had a connecting bathroom.

To the left of the bed, which was set against
the center of the wall with a large, elegant headboard, was open
and breezy. She kept it like that for the full two weeks that she
closed herself in. At least with the window open she could hear the
sounds of the ranch and get some sort of fresh air. She’d taken to
waking up, showering, and then spending the next hour leaning over
the edge, just relaxing and listening to the sounds.

Maybe she stayed there for so long because she
hoped to see Logan, or at least hear him. One morning, she’d woken
up to him shouting to get a hold of a bull that had gotten loose.
At the end of it, she’d heard him laugh and had realized that...she
couldn’t not have some way of hearing him or seeing him. His lack
of presence in her life was painful.

Two weeks.

Of nothing.

Of staying in her room, her own fears
overcoming her and turning into paranoia.

Of solitude and a dull ache in her chest
whenever she heard Madison’s all too happy laugh whenever she
showed up.

And one week of anxiety pills.

It was Saturday now. She’d asked Glenda earlier
to lend her a laptop so she could check the banking account her
cousin had set up for her. He’d loaded it.

That meant, to her, that it was time to
leave.

She had no reason to stay here anyways. She was
only getting more attached to Logan through her pain and unease.
She shouldn’t have stayed there in the first place. Now that
Madison was so clearly in his life, she had no reason. None at
all.

She got to packing.

Around mid-afternoon, Glenda came to get the
laptop. She knocked on the door and when Claire didn’t answer,
pushed her way in.

“Claire?” she called into the rooms softly. The
lights were on, the windows were open, and the bathroom door was
against the wall. She went over to it and stopped at what she
saw.

---------------------------------------------------------

“Daddy said that we should be getting in three
more bulls in the next week. And they are from this rancher
in...”

Logan listened to Madison’s voice with
disinterest, almost annoyance. For the past two weeks, she’d come
to his ranch every day at the same hour, and didn’t leave till she
dinner was over. Her father had called him the night that he’d
thrown her out of his house, asking him to be more gentle with his
daughter.

The man adored her, but he had no backbone. And
when you were dealing with Logan, the only thing you could hope for
was that you didn’t get a black eye in the process.

He tolerated Madison, but only until Claire
could stop overreacting and actually show her face to
him.

Right now, they were in the drawing room. It
was Madison’s favorite place to talk to him at and he really didn’t
care either way. If he had a say in this, he wouldn’t be talking to
her at all. Maybe talking to Claire, or Frank. Or even his dog. But
not Madison.

Today she was wearing a Pink sweatsuit, and her
pale blonde hair was pulled back sharply from her face. She had on
the most sparkly boots ever and she could have been the Poster
Child for “fake”.

His phone started to ring, and he took that
godsend of a distraction and left the room, Madison
mid-sentence.

“Marshal.”

“I’m calling from the Drake’s Pharmacy, we just
wanted to let you, Logan Marshall, know that the prescription your
ordered is up-to-date and can be picked up...” The automated voice
droned on about the prescription and he almost groaned out loud.
Not a distraction he had been hoping for.

Then the home phone started ringing.

He hung up his cell and went to the kitchen,
where the homephone was docked. He picked it up and heard what he’d
just listened to on his cellphone. He was just about to hang up the
phone when he heard, “...let you, Claire Brady, know
that...”

Logan pressed the phone to his ear,
listening.

Then, without conscious thought, he put the
receiver down and left Madison in the drawing room. In just a
couple of minutes, he was in his pick-up and going into town, to
Drake’s Pharmacy.

---------------------------------------------------------

“Claire? Claire, what is wrong? Why are you
packing?”

She heard Glenda’s voice, but couldn’t react.
She sat there, in the corner of the bathroom, her face buried in
her hands which were pressed against her drawn knees. Her breathing
was labored, pained. Ragged sounds of...sobbing, were coming from
her chest.

Claire didn’t know what was happening. Her mind
was blurry, her eyes glazed over. All she could feel was rushing
adrenaline and pain. Her stomach was churning and she felt as if
every muscle she had was strung tight, about to snap. Her teeth
were chattering because she was shaking so badly.

Cool hands pushed her hair back. Gentle hands,
small. Claire flinched away from them.