Magic Kiss (Hope Falls Book 11) (8 page)

“Are you sure you want to see this?” His left eyebrow rose as he held the phone out to her.

Finally having found words to speak that weren’t “As you wish” a la Wesley from
The
Princess Bride
or “Yes, Master” a la Jeannie from
I Dream of Jeannie
, she cleared her throat. “Yeah, it’s fine. I’m fine. It’s just been a long couple of days.”

Taking the phone, she saw that Caroline needed a response sooner rather than later. Feeling backed into a corner, Emma breathed in deeply as she typed back the only response she could.

“Is everything okay?” Logan asked.

She waved her hand dismissively. “Mmm hmm. It’s just that the offer we wanted for optioning the series came in and the only stipulation was that they needed to have the series completed in two months instead of six due to production schedules.”

“Is that bad?” Logan’s tone remained neutral.

“No. I mean, yes. I mean, no, it’s not bad that our first choice has come in with an offer. But yes, it’s bad that I have eight weeks to finish two books. Which isn’t good for several reasons. The first is, I’ve been suffering from an epic bout of writer’s block, and Drew still has six weeks left of summer break. Usually, I try to work less to spend time with him. With this deadline, I’ll have to work pretty much round the clock,” she explained in one breath.

When she finally paused, she noticed that Logan’s expression was unreadable, and it hit her that he might’ve been asking out of common courtesy and not genuine interest.

This wasn’t his problem.

None of this had anything to do with him. Her life had nothing to do with him. Yesterday, Drew had shown up on his doorstep uninvited. Then her business had gotten extended and flights had been delayed and grounded. And now that she had finally gotten here, she was having a mini nervous breakdown. The poor guy must’ve been counting the seconds until she and Drew headed back to Seattle and peace and quiet was restored to his bachelor domain.

“Sorry. I’m just being dramatic. Everything’s fine. I’ve got this,” she said confidently. “I’m just going to freshen up and I’ll be right out.”

For a moment, Logan remained in place. Not moving a muscle. His stare boring down into hers.

Before she could launch the second line of her “I’m fine” defense, her stomach growled so loud that she wouldn’t have been surprised if Drew had mistaken it for the bear he’d seen earlier that day.

“You need to eat.” With that statement, Logan headed out of the room, shutting the door behind him.

So many emotions were flooding Emma’s system and competing for attention, but when the room was filled with the sound of her stomach doing its best MGM-lion-roaring impression, she decided to tackle one thing at a time. First, she would eat. Then she would figure everything else out.

She hoped…

‡

“D
id you ask my mom if I could go back to Mountain Ridge?” Drew worked beside Logan, setting the table.

“No.” He was having a difficult time concentrating on what the kid was saying. He hadn’t been able to string two words together, much less engage in any kind of conversation since he’d left Emma in the back room.

The shower had turned off a couple of minutes ago, so he figured that the woman causing his brain to short-circuit would be out shortly. Never before had the sound of running water been such torture. From the second he’d heard the liquid running through the pipes, he’d been bombarded with images of Emma naked, the water cascading over her supple, soft skin. Her long, wet hair slicked down over the sleek curve of her back, falling just short of the flair of her hips.

“What were you and my mom talking about?” Drew set the third fork down, his brow knitted together.

“Work stuff.” Emma’s voice sounded from behind Logan in the hallway.

“Oh.” Drew looked past Logan at his mom and his eyes glazed over.

Logan could practically hear the kid saying, “
Booorinnnng
.”

“You guys didn’t have to wait for me,” Emma said over the sound of a chair squeaking against the wood flooring.

Turning around, Logan stepped into the dining area. “Yes. We di—”

Holy shit.

What he saw looked like a live-action Playboy College Co-ed pictorial. Emma’s damp hair framed her face, which had been scrubbed free of any makeup. She was wearing a white V-neck T-shirt that fit snuggly against her chest, and cut-off sweatpants that hit her mid-thigh, showcasing her toned legs.

She was a walking, breathing fantasy. His fantasy.

“Well, it smells delicious.” Emma’s voice shook as she sank down into her seat.

Logan’s eyes shot to hers. He hadn’t meant to make her feel uncomfortable, but he’d just ogled her like a starving man at an all-you-can-eat buffet. However, the same hunger he was experiencing was mirrored back at him in her eyes. The energy between them crackled with awareness.

“Do you want soda, Mom?” Drew asked, completely oblivious to any tension, sexual or otherwise, that might’ve been passing between his mom and Logan.

Emma blinked and shook her head slightly, looking at the empty plate in front of her. “No. Water’s good.”

Drew emerged from the kitchen carrying a bottle of water and a can of soda.

“You guys go ahead and dig in,” Logan instructed before dipping back into the kitchen to take a moment to get himself together.

Women had always been easy for him. That was the one area in his life he hadn’t had to work at—at all. Females came in and out of his life. He enjoyed their company when they were there and never really gave them a second thought when they weren’t. Up until now, he’d always blamed his career for his not having a serious relationship, but he was beginning to wonder if it wasn’t something else. Because never in his thirty years had anything affected him as strongly as Emma had by just walking into a room.

Maybe it was because he’d built her up to be something she wasn’t. For the last five years, he’d created a fantasy of what she was. Day after day, night after night, he’d played the moment they’d shared in her kitchen like a movie in his mind. And every time he did, it played out differently and with a lot less clothes than they’d had on in reality.

Emma entered the kitchen. “Everything okay?” she asked timidly.

Logan heard the uncertainty in Emma’s question. He pushed off the counter he’d been leaning against, turned towards the fridge and opened it. “Yep. Just grabbing the ketchup.”

“Oh, okay.” Her eyes narrowed slightly.

Logan could sense a follow-up inquiry. So he said, “After you.” Lifting his arm, he gestured back towards the dining room, hoping to avoid any further conversation about his well-being or lack thereof.

Following his lead, Emma turned and when she did, Logan’s head dropped in relief. On its way down, his eyes caught sight of something that had his body once again filled with tension and his mouth going dry. The full, rounded curves of the most perfect backside Logan had ever seen were directly in front of him. The indentation of the soft, gray, cotton material that dipped between the spectacular twin globes displayed the walking piece of art like an easel light above a Picasso.

With each step she took, her hips swayed. They hypnotized him as each cheek alternated moving up and down.

“All right. I want to hear all about this bear sighting.” Emma sat down on the source of his hypnosis, snapping him out of his lust-trance state with rubber-band effectiveness.

“It was crazy!” Drew’s hands flew into the air. “All day, Justin’s little brother was talking about how he’d seen this bear. He said it was huge and it walked right up to the fence, but I didn’t believe him.”

Logan moved to his chair after placing the condiments he’d grabbed as a part of his cover story in the center of the table. While he sat, he was only half listening. As he started putting all the fixings on two burgers, Drew’s voice was barely registering.

Part of his distraction stemmed from the fact that this was the fourth time he’d heard the story, but it wasn’t really the story’s repetitive nature that wasn’t holding his attention. It was that, since Emma had stepped through his doors, she’d hijacked every brain wave, every hormone, every cell in his body. He was sure her intention was not to consume him mind, body, and soul. But that was exactly what she’d done.

“Mom, please!”

The desperation in Drew’s voice pulled Logan back into the conversation.

“I’ll do the dishes every night for a month, vacuum every Friday, and I’ll mow the lawn every Sunday,” Drew bargained.

“This isn’t about chores, bud.” Her tone didn’t bode well for the kid’s cause. “I have a big deadline and I need to—”

Drew interjected, “I know! And if we stay, I’ll be gone all day and you’ll have a bunch of time to write.”

Logan quickly caught up to what they were discussing and was much more invested in the conversation now. A glance over to Emma told him that she had cracks forming in her defense. He could practically hear the wheels churning in her pretty head.

Apparently having zero shame, the kid resorted to begging. Logan had to admire his commitment.

“Please, Mom. Please, I promise that I won’t interrupt you when you’re at your computer the rest of the summer. Please.”

“Let me think about it. I need to organize my thoughts and figure some things out.”

For the first time since she’d arrived, Logan noticed the dark circles beneath her bright-blue eyes.

Breathing in deeply then exhaling loudly, she ran her hands through her damp hair. “How about we eat and then we can talk about it later.”

Not dissuaded by his mother’s attempts to put the conversation off, the kid doubled down. “Can I at least go tomorrow? Justin said if I came back tomorrow, I could ride Unicorn. I wanted to ride Thunder, but he said that I needed to start with Unicorn. Please, Mom. I never got to ride a horse before, and Justin said I did a really good job fixing the fences today, and tomorrow, he would teach me how to patch the rafts that they use for river rafting and maybe even work at the snack shack if I keep—”

Emma interrupted her son’s all-out campaign. “Okay.”

“Okay, I can go tomorrow, or okay, we can stay the rest of the summer?”

Logan hadn’t been listening earlier, but Drew must’ve asked his mom if they could remain in Hope Falls until school started. Both Logan and Drew silently stared at the woman who—Logan was beginning to fear—held both of their destinies in her hand.

She didn’t say anything for several beats, and Logan’s chest constricted, which made him realize he was holding his breath in anticipation of her response. Which was ridiculous. If anything, he should want her to go. Logan was supposed to be using this time to unwind, reset, decompress. Emma’s presence made that impossible. Around her, he was wound tight, unsettled, on edge.

Emma was the epitome of the itch he couldn’t scratch.

Since he’d picked Drew up at Mountain Ridge earlier that day, and the kid had been talking about wanting to finish his summer break there to work in the Junior Ranger program, an idea had been planted in Logan’s mind. All evening, every time Drew had opened his mouth—which was a lot—that seed had been watered, so it had begun to grow. But finding out about Emma’s deadline situation had caused it to take root and mature.

Drew could stay in California with Logan and Emma could head back to Seattle to write. It was kind of brilliant. Logan would finally get the opportunity to live up to the promise he’d made to Andrew and be there for the kid. Emma would have uninterrupted writing time—which, after having the last couple of days with Drew, he now knew was probably hard to come by. And the kid would get to have the summer of his dreams.

It was win-win-win.

He had wanted to talk to Emma privately about his plan, but it looked like he might need to speak now or forever hold his peace.

Just as he was about to throw his triple-win scenario out, though, Emma began speaking.

“You can definitely go back tomorrow, and I’ll look into rentals after I meet my word count. I’m not promising
anything
, but I’ll see what I can do.”

“Really!?” Drew squealed.

“Really.” She nodded, a small grin appearing on her angelic face.

“Why don’t you both stay here?” Logan heard himself offering. He hadn’t just thrown his win-win-win scenario out the window. He’d catapulted that sucker into deep space.

“What?” Emma’s eyes widened, and her jaw dropped so wide that it would’ve hit the floor if not for the table.

“Really!?” Drew’s eyes also widened, and his jaw did some dropping of its own.

Logan looked between the two jaw-droppers as he himself tried to process what he’d just said. The difference between the son’s and the mother’s similar expressions was that Drew’s looked to be born from excitement whereas Emma’s appeared to be spawned from horror.

Logan could relate. He really hadn’t meant to say that. Even so, he continued full steam ahead.

“Yeah. I have the extra rooms, and I’m not doing anything. I can help take Drew back and forth to Mountain Ridge and make dinners. I not only know how to grill up some mean burgers, but I have also mastered the art of pizza ordering.”