Playing Love's Odds (A Classic Sexy Romantic Suspense) (19 page)

"Logan," she protested, trying still to shrug off his hands. "What is it?"

"No," he ground out, his voice a gritty rumble.

"No, what?"
Please God, don't tell me he doesn't feel the same. Don't tell me he doesn't want me.
"I don't understand."

"This is wrong. All wrong."

He seemed to be speaking more to himself than to her. She tried to touch him but he backed farther away. "There's nothing wrong in what I feel for you."

"Hannah," he groaned, putting three feet between them and rubbing both hands over his face in a weary struggle. "I don't want this to happen this way." He shook his head. "Not because we're two lost souls groping in the same blasted dark. We've barely known each other five days."

"It seems like forever," she admitted knowing it to be true. She'd waited a lifetime for him.

"I'll be the first to admit time hasn't mattered a whole hell of a lot. Physically, we're ready. But emotionally." He shook his head. "I think both of us are still strung a little high on the past. I'm not Romeo or Heathcliff. I don't do tragic anymore. I can't give you anything. And I'm not selfish enough to take what you're offering."

A bubble of anger, fueled by fear and frustration, rose up her backbone. She stiffened and crossed her arms over her chest. "Don't play martyr for me, Logan Burke. You're not being noble. You're out and out scared. You want so damn badly to let go of the pain that's holding you back from living but know if you did you wouldn't have that crutch to fall back on when things got too rough."

She advanced a step. He retreated a step. The water level dipped dangerously low on his belly. She glanced that direction. "You want me. Don't try to deny it."

His laugh was gutter ripe. "There ain't no doubt about that, baby. Every fish in the sea's getting some kind of eyeful. One more step and it'll be there for all the world."

"Go ahead," she said, fuming. "Laugh it off with your smut. But your kiss told a whole different story. You need me more than you want me. The hard-on in your heart is twice as big as the one between your legs."

"Oh, who's talking gutter now?"

"Maybe I am but, dammit Logan, you can't go on blaming yourself for that child's death. It was an accident. You've got to let it go. You've got to let yourself live."

"I don't want to talk about it. I talked about it today and look where it got me tonight."

"Where exactly did it get you?"

"The same place I spend most of my nights." His glare was menacing in the dark. "Except most of the time I manage to find a little peace."

"Talk to me. Get it off your chest and you'll find more," she implored, aching for him, wanting him to put the past away.

"Go back to the house, Hannah."

"Logan, I ..."

"Go back to the house."

Salty foam surrounded him in a swirling eddy. Logan dived deep, fighting hard not to suck the brine into his lungs. Stroke after stroke he swam, dragging his exhausted body through the relative safety of the open sea. Away from Hannah.

He was incredibly stupid. Or absolutely brilliant. What did one call a jerk who walked away from the best thing that had ever happened to him? At least he gave himself credit for recognizing what it was he was throwing away.

Maybe he wasn't so stupid after all. Just smart enough to know what he had to do to survive. It sure as hell wasn't living.

He wanted her. But his want went beyond taking her to bed and learning the hot little secrets of her body, feeling her fever build from simmer to boil. Admitting it to himself was hard, but Hannah made him think. Forced him to open one of his blind eyes and assess where he was going.

Where he was going was nowhere. And whether or not he admitted it, he wasn't taking the trip alone. Gideon's remarks painfully reminded him of that. He hadn't seen his folks in years. His self-imposed exile from life hadn't been easy on them.

So why had it taken this episode with Hannah to make him see that? Had he been too blind, too obstinate? Or had he grown too comfortable with the entity he'd become?

He couldn't afford to care about anyone. In this instance, he had to be selfish. It was for their own good, to protect them all from this curse he lived under.

Didn't he have the right to refuse to drag others down? Wasn't his no-fault, numb way of living better than being responsible for another needless accident?

It was too late to change. So Hannah had to go.

He'd swim until he could sleep, or maybe until daylight, and first thing in the morning take her home. Detective McCandliss could handle things from here. He was history. Gone. Adios. Sayonara. Hannah would be fine. In fact, she'd be better off without him. Too bad the reverse didn't apply.

Slogging across the sand he made his way back to the beach house—the darkened beach house, he noted with a singularly heavy feeling of relief. Rinsing off in the utility shower closeted under the carport, he thought of Hannah asleep upstairs. He turned the faucet to cold knowing he'd never get a decent wink of sleep with her under his roof. Not that he ever did anyway.

But this insomnia was different. This gnawing need reduced him to someone he wasn't sure he recognized. Someone he wasn't sure he liked. Weakness was a trait he'd never tolerated yet found himself possessing in abundance. Control was an attribute he demanded, yet found himself totally lacking since Hannah Evans had barged into his office. Into his life.

Making him do what he'd swore never to do again. Feel. Not just the counterfeit emotions that got him through from day to day. But something real. Something that mattered. Something that hurt. Too damned much.

He trudged up the stairs and dragged himself across the deck. Muscles used to the rigors of his nightly swim ached. Skin conditioned to the salty water and shell-strewn sand stung. And worst of all, his mind, inured to thinking of nothing but here and now and making an honest if not easy buck, was thinking of the future. And Hannah. A volatile combination.

Stepping through the doorway he blinked, wanting what he saw to be an apparition, the result of his traitorous thoughts. She was an apparition, all right, dressed in that filmy nightshirt, sitting on the arm of his couch like a sprite, smelling of soap and sweet woman. The light from the moon spilled through the windows to touch her. Like he wanted to touch her.

He hitched the towel up around his hips, curling his fingers into the damp material. "Thought you'd be asleep by now."

"Thought you'd be exhausted by now," she replied softly.

Apparently he'd never be exhausted enough if his body's reaction was any indication. Why did she have to be everything he'd ever wanted while not even knowing he was missing it? "Pretty much so. Figure I'll head on to bed."

He started across the room.

"I'd really like to talk, Logan."

Not now. Please not now when he was so close to losing his last thread of control. He stopped, averting his face. "Doesn't seem talk's done me much good lately." He advanced further into the room, further away from Hannah. "See you in the morning."

"Logan, wait." She reached out to brush her fingertips down his arm. "About what happened while ago—"

He jerked, hastily taking himself out of the range of her touch. He'd done enough to her already. He couldn't compound his original sin until he'd had a chance to atone. If she touched him again, he didn't think even the fragments of his conscience would keep him from taking her.

"Nothing happened," he ground out. "I want to keep it that way. That's why I'm going to bed. Alone."

"I know you want me."

Using the wall to support his weary bones, he bit off a bark of a laugh, rubbing the heel of his hand over his tired eyes. "When has what I wanted mattered as far as you're concerned?" He glanced sharply her way, finding the easiest way out of this situation to make her hate him more than he hated himself. "When has what I wanted mattered since the day I met you?"

She slid from the arm of the couch to cower in the corner, pulling the hem of her nightshirt down over her knees. "I don't understand."

The sad confusion in her voice told him he'd hit the mark. So why did it hurt so bad? She appeared incredibly tiny against the stuffed cushions of his couch, like she needed his protection.
Right, Burke. Just look where your protection has got the both of you.

"I told you I only take cases where involvement's not part of the deal. That's the way I work. It's taken me three long years to get to this point in my life. To pick and choose where I live, what I do, the cases I take."

He stalked, hating himself as she retreated further. He braced both hands on the arm of the couch and leaned over, putting his face inches from hers. "You come along and blow my routine straight to hell. I've learned to live with the nightmares, as long as during the day I don't have to dwell on them. That part of my life is sewn up tight. At least it was until you started unraveling me."

She glanced down at her lap, picking at the hem of her gown. "I couldn't have unraveled you, Logan, if there wasn't a loose thread. All I did was pull."

He wrenched upright, planting his fists against his hips, wanting to shove one through the wall. Or the window. "Is that what this is all about? Some kind of power trip for you. Well, it ain't gonna happen, baby. You're outta here come morning." He gestured, a quick jerk of his thumb over his shoulder.

"That's just fine by me, tough guy." She scrambled to her feet and bore down on him, jamming one finger smack in the center of his chest. "Why I ever thought you needed a shoulder is beyond me. You don't need a thing. You're so self-sufficient it's a wonder it took your parents to create you. I'm surprised you didn't just evolve out of thin air.

"As a matter of fact, I don't think I'll wait until morning. I'll pack my things now and find a way home on my own. I'm damn self-sufficient myself, Mr. Detective." She turned to flounce down the hall, stopping to toss a final invective over her shoulder. "By the way, you're fired. I'll handle my problems with ViOPet on my own. Like I've handled everything in my life."

He caught her before she made it three feet and dragged her back to the living room, convincing her physically to sit down on the couch. "The hell you will. You don't have any idea what these clowns are capable of."

"I'd say I have a pretty good idea," she shot back. "Nearly losing one's life tends to broaden one's perspective."

Her caustic barb caught him off balance and made him realize he hadn't given much thought to the danger she was in. He thought about it now and he'd been damned if he'd let her leave on her own tonight. "Maybe you ought to use some of that broadened perspective and start thinking with your head. I may not like where this case has gotten us personally, baby, but I'm still calling the shots. What happened in my past is something I'll deal with my own way, in my own time. For now I'm dealing with it the best I can."

He spun and padded across the bare floor to the window, looking to the sea for a measure of tranquility. He'd often thought he should've been born a pirate. Perhaps he'd been one in a past life for he found the sea a haven, a respite for his soul. It offered breezes when he needed soothed, infrequent hurricanes to match his equally rare fits of temper, and a steady lulling tide to keep him moving from day to day.

None of it was working now. His only ally had abandoned him to the battle of nerves whipping through his insides. In frustration, he ran his hands through his hair, sensing more than hearing Hannah move to stand behind him.

He clenched his fingers in an agitated rhythm. "I don't want to do this."

"What?" she asked softly, her voice a whisper brushing against his back.

"Think. Feel," he mumbled to himself. He took a deep breath and eased around, speaking the first words that came to mind. "In the morning, I'll drive you home. I need to see if McCandliss has come up with anything anyway."
And I need to get away from you.

"You think he might have?"

"No, but before I drive back out to ViOPet I want to know where I stand."

She stared at him blankly then sighed and wandered back to the couch. "Okay. Just keep track of the extra expense I'm causing so we can settle up and call it even."

Call it even. It would never be even. The suppressed disappointment in her voice mirrored his own. He settled on the cushion beside her. The damp towel fell open between his knees. He ran his palms over his thighs, thinking how much nicer her hands would feel there.

Thinking himself a fool for what he was about to say. "I didn't mean for us to get involved, Hannah."

Immediately she melted into the Hannah that scared him the most. The one that touched him the deepest. "Oh Logan, don't you think I know that? You've got the costuming down perfect. No one who knows the surface Logan Burke would ever guess. But the part of you wanting help was the part I latched onto. The part I needed to find for me.

"I'd forgotten how it felt to be needed. To reach out, to take the risk." Her palm swathed a calming path down his damp back. He fought the urge to reach for her, instead pulled the edges of his towel tighter together. "I thought I'd forgotten how to feel everything except the hurt of loss. I was wrong."

He prayed for a distraction, any kind of natural disaster would work, anything to keep her from answering the question he was about to ask. "What are you feeling now?"

"Besides like I'm about to lose something important?" The barest trace of a self-censuring laugh reached Logan's ears. "Do you remember that Sting song?
If You Love Somebody Set Them Free?
Well, Logan, fly like an eagle."

He flinched at her words. Knowing he hadn't heard her right, because if he had he'd go crazy, he elected to go for humor. Humor was a safer route than insanity. Humor he knew how to deal with. "You're mixing your artists, Hannah.
Fly Like An Eagle
. That's Steve Miller."

"I don't really care."

"Well, I do," he ground out, suddenly past worrying about the reasons why he shouldn't. Only knowing that he did.