Mad Enough to Marry - By Christie Ridgway Page 0,16

he would swear that stillness cost her. There was a tremor there, rigidly controlled, beneath her flawless golden skin. A quivering reaction to his presence, his touch.

His heart pumped hard against his chest, but he ignored it. This was about what he did to Elena. His gaze dropped to the pulse-beat in her throat. It was fluttering, fast, he thought. Very fast.

**Lx)gan—"

**Logan!" It was his name again, but not in Elena's voice this time. *'Logan!" It echoed through the first floor and then there was a heavy thumping on the stairs. '*Where are you, son?"

Elena instantly twisted away from him. *'Isn't that your father's voice?"

Danm. Just when things with Elena were getting interesting. Logan bent his head and took a calming breath, then another to fortify himself. "Yeah, that's him."

Logan knew why he was here, too. His father didn't take Logan's decision to leave Chase Electronics seriously because Logan had so rarely bucked his father's decisions. It wasn't that he'd been weak, Logan thought, but he had been lazy. He'd taken the

path of least resistance for years, never realizing he was sinking furth^ and further into boredom until he'd finally hit rock-bottom unhappiness.

He could feel Elena's puzzled gaze. "Shouldn't you tell him where you are?"

"Yeah." Logan straightened. "Hiding from him never lasts."

Chapter Four

After four days, Logan wondered if the O'Brien sisters were hiding from him. Living with Elena and Gabby was hke Hving with ghosts. Their scents lingered in the hallway and the soft echoes of their voices sounded late at night and in the still-dark hours of the morning, but he never caught sight of them.

If it wasn't for the Elena-size sweatshirt he'd found on the stair landing one morning he might have believed he'd dreamed up the move-in day, perhaps prompted by the many times he gazed upon Elena in Bed. But any painting-inspired fantasy would surely have her moving in with him —or him moving in her—and the cotton sweatshirt had not only been real, but smelled really good, like that heated-flower perfume that the flesh-and-blood Elena always wore.

Still, when he unlocked the front door of his house about 10:30 on Thursday night, he bUnked a few times before he accepted what his eyes were seeing— Elena slumped on the bottom step, her arms folded over her knees, her head on her arms. Overstuffed grocery bags and other paraphernalia sat at her feet.

*'Elena?" He kept his voice quiet, afraid to startle her.

She mumbled something.

*'Are you all right?" The door snicked shut behind him.

**Mmm." She Ufted her head, her eyes half-mast and her mouth soft. "Promise you won't tell anyone I was drooling?"

It might have to be a mutual vow. Because she looked delectably appealing with her hair mussed and a sleepy half-smile on her face. Too tired to have her defenses up, let alone her claws out, Logan decided. He leaned back against the door, enjoying the moment. Sleeping Beauty barely awake.

'*Long day?" he asked.

She Ufted a hand toward her hair, then dropped it as if the move cost too much effort. '*Yes. You?"

He ran his gaze over her body. She wore a long-sleeved dress of some Ught, silky fabric that was navy blue and scattered with dime-size white polka dots. At a stand, the dress likely ended just above her knees. But her seated position hiked up the hem to reveal a ftill half length of her nylon-encased thighs as well as her knees and calves. She wore sling-back navy pumps—^the only thing his ex-girlfriend had

shopped more for than beauty products was shoes, so he knew the correct term—that had heels three inches high and displayed a distracting amount of toe cleavage.

''Logan?"

Damn. She sounded like she was waking up a little and here he was, getting hard just looking at her feet. Pasting a concerned frown on his face, he pretended he was inspecting the hardwood floor at the bottom of the steps. "Is that a scuff mark or a scratch?" he murmured, striding forward.

As he neared, she drew in her heels and peered over her knees. "I don't see anything."

He let out a sigh. "You're right. Nothing to worry about." Hoping she took the last as a subliminal message, he dropped to the step beside her. There was nothing wrong, nothing to worry about for either one of them, in a little friendly, neighbor-to-neighbor catch-up.

"Where have you been tonight?" she asked.

He lifted the large disposable container he held. "The bachelor bag doesn't give it away?"

"'Bachelor bag'?" Her heavy black lashes slowly swept down, then up.

Shding