Mad Enough to Marry - By Christie Ridgway Page 0,17

closer, he tapped her arm with his elbow. "Kinda like a doggie bag, sleepyhead. It's what every pitying mother sends home with her single son after a family dinner."

The comers of her lips quirked. ' 'Ah. And how was your evening with Mr. and Mrs. Chase?"

How to explain his parents and their strange, yet

Strangely contented relationship? Their distant marriage had nearly convinced his brother Griffin that the Chase men were incapable of love. Maybe Logan was partly to blame for that too. After all, he'd stuck with one woman for years out of nothing more than habit and their parents' wishes.

"My evening with Mr. and Mrs. Chase was as all evenings with Mr. and Mrs. Chase. Dad obsessively talked business and didn't listen to anything anyone else said. Mom serenely let Dad talk obsessively about business even while trying to make me feel like I wasn't one of the dining room walls."

''Serene is exactly the way I'd describe your mother," Elena said, nodding. '1 bet she's rock-solid in a crisis."

*'You're right. Every day is a crisis—a business crisis—^for my father and she manages to breeze through it all." He frowned though, thinking that there was something different about his mother lately. Ever since his parents had celebrated their fortieth wedding anniversary a couple of months back, Logan had detected a brittleness to Laura Chase's usual equanimity.

But he didn't want to think about that, so he turned to Elena and smiled. "What about you? What's kept you out so late tonight?"

She shrugged. "The usual. Work, a parents' meeting at the high school. Grocery shopping."

"And baby-tending?"

Her cheeks flushed. "I hoped you'd forgotten that."

He didn't think he'd ever forget the sound of that lullaby and the sight of a baby blanket cuddled against her awesome breasts. But it would be a big mistake to hand over such a confession, so he lightly elbowed her again. **What? Afraid I'm going to turn you in for yolk-neglect?"

She reached down to retrieve a tote bag wedged between the groceries and set it on her 1^. *'Yolks happy and accounted for. See?"

The bag yawned open. He leaned over, and sure enough, the eggs' shoebox-crib was perched atop a stack of envelopes and a pile of p^)erwork. His gaze rose to hers, their faces just inches apart. "Yeah. I see."

He saw too that her eyelashes were so thick diat the upper and lower ones tangled at the outside corners of her blue eyes. He saw that the flush hadn't yet receded from her creamy-gold skin. He saw that her tongue was pink and wet when she darted it out of her mouth to nervously lick her bottom lip.

Just like that, the big, three-story house shrank to one step, one woman, one man.

Her perfume, that scent of flowers in paradise, curled around his body, drawing him closer. He remembered he'd intended some friendly, neighbor-to-neighbor catching up and suddenly mouth-to-moufli seemed the logical method to make that happen.

Her pupils expanded. ''No," she said. It was faint.

*'Yes," he repUed. Decisive.

She shook her head.

He was so close to her that the motion sent a lock

of her hair whispering against his cheek. His body clenched, impossibly tight, just with that mere, unintentional caress.

*'I have to get going," Elena said.

He watched her lips form the words, thinking how they would feel moving against his. "After," he said. He lifted the tote bag from her lap, set it aside. Intending to turn her toward him, he circled each of her upper arms.

She jerked.

Then jerked away from him and jumped to her feet. *'I said I have to go."

"Elena..."

Her mouth was set in a stubborn line and her eyes flashed blue fire. "I didn't ask for this."

"Of course, but—"

"I don't want this," she spat out, even more fiercely.

"Fine, but—"

"Is this—" she gestured between them wildly "—^why you're letting me stay here?"

Shocked, he stared at her. "For God's sake, Elena. Tell me you don't believe that."

Instead of answering, she whirled way from him and started snatching her belongings from the floor. Groceries, tote bag, purse, they were all more than an armful and her angry movements hindered the task.

He rose and reached out to help. His hand brushed her shoulder.

"Don't!" she said, latching on to another bag of groceries.

'*Let me help."

But she was in full defense mode. **I don't need any help," she said, an angry, dangerous Ice Queen. Her belongings gathered around her body like armor, she began ascending the stairs. **rm perfectly fine by myself."

The strong words were hardly weakened when she had to make