Mad Enough to Marry - By Christie Ridgway Page 0,28

when she'd begged him to, Logan had said no.

Chapter Six

A couple of evenings later, Elena felt satisfied enough with her attempt to balance the scales between herself and Logan that she managed—barely—not to scream when Gabby came through the door with a bag of groceries and the information that she*d invited their **landlord" to dinner.

He'd accepted.

Apparendy noticing her dismay, Gabby made a face at Elena. *'Come on, don't be mad. You should see how pitiful and hungry he looked."

'TU bet," Elena repUed drily. Pitiful and hungry was the way she'd expected him to look after she'd told him to stop touching and kissing her two nights before. Instead, he'd gone aloof, his expression in-standy turning to a rich-boy cool that she'd been trying to emulate for years.

With a flare of teenage touchiness. Gabby spun and stomped toward the kitchen. "It's my night. If I cook, I get to invite who eats."

Elena bit back a retort. The fact that Logan had accepted the invitation meant she could only accept the inevitable and grit her teeth through the meal, anyway. To do less would be cowardly, and she refused to give him that. She'd just have to keep her distance... and keep him distant from her and her innermost emotions.

She knew now diat the man wasn't, couldn't be, her friend, though he wasn't her enemy either. He was nothing to her, so that's all he should know of her and get from her... nothing.

No cowardice—and no kisses, either.

While Gabby made her old standby, spaghetti and meatballs, Elena set the card table for three. She refused to be ashamed of the rickety table or even of their usual paper napkins, but she folded them neatly under the forks and checked the water glasses for spots before setting them down.

A knock on the door made her jump. "I guess that's Logan," she said out loud.

Gabby was tossing a green salad and looked over, her eyebrows going up as she realized Elena wasn't planning on answering the door herself.

"He's your guest," Elena said defensively.

Gabby rolled her eyes, then abandoned the salad to head for the front door. Within seconds, Logan was inside the apartment, his smile as easy, as attractive as always.

His gaze found Elena. '^'There you are,'* he said.

She dropped into one of the folding chairs and slouched, stretching out her legs to cross them at the ankle. A nonchalant pose. *'You need something?"

'*On the grounds that it may incriminate me..." One comer of his mouth quirked into a self-deprecating smile that some women might consider charming.

Hmphf. Leave it to him to go cute when she was working so hard to freeze him out. Without another word, she jumped to her feet and hurried into the kitchen.

**Let's get this show on the road," she grumbled at Gabby. She swiped the salad bowl off the counter and marched with it to the table. Gabby followed with a deep pasta bowl filled with a pile of steaming spaghetti.

Logan sniffed appreciatively as Gabby passed, then held her chair as she sat. He headed toward Elena next, but she whipped into her own seat as if she hadn*t guessed his intent.

When he laughed, as if he knew her intent was to avoid his nearness, she gnashed her teeth and snapped at Gabby to pass the salad. Okay, she was acting childishly, but her defenses were the only thing between Logan and losing her pride.

If he guessed the fevered dreams she'd been having every night since she'd asked him to stop, he'd probably laugh even harder.

The recent dreams were just another layer on the mortification she'd suffered for years. That night

when she was sixteen she'd wanted him desperately, even though good girls weren't supposed to have those feelings. Even though good girls were supposed to be the ones to say no.

Elena stabbed at a lettuce leaf. Maybe it was genetic, she mused, that compulsion to say **yes" to the wrong man.

The phone rang. When Elena jogged to the kitchen and answered it, the identity of the person on the other end seemed like a bad omen. '*Gabby," she called from the kitchen. 'It's Tyler."

As she walked back to her place at the table, Elena pictured her sister's boyfriend in her mind. Blond, handsome, rich, in many ways a mirror image to the man now eating spaghetti at her table. That sense of foreboding redoubled.

She didn't meet Logan's eyes as she picked at her meal.

'*Are you all right?" he asked under the cover of Gabby's phone conversation. His voice was