Chapter Two
STELLA’S BODY TREMBLED so hard her teeth chattered. She’d heard the guy who attacked her scramble away, but she still felt threatened. She couldn’t go back into the bar, couldn’t do more than stumble a few feet away from where the guy had attacked her. It was all she could do to remember to breathe. She’d seen Kutcher’s face, Kutcher’s threatening eyes staring back at her as she pleaded for the stranger to stop.
She felt a hand on her arm and jumped, screamed. To her embarrassment, she huddled against the brick wall, her arms pressed close to her chest, hands shielding her face, as if she could become part of the brick wall.
“Shh. It’s okay. I’m not the guy who hurt you.”
The Midwestern-sounding guy from the bar. He was so tall up close, and broad, which made her cringe closer to the wall.
He held his hands up in surrender, still breathing hard from the fight. “I’m not going to hurt you. I saw him follow you out.”
He peered over his shoulder, giving her a second to try to process what had just happened. He’d saved her. Ripped the guy off of her and beat the hell out of him. Blue eyes from the bar. You saved me. This repeated in her head several times as she tried to gain control of her senses and force her brain to function again.
“He’s gone. He’s not going to hurt you anymore.” His tone was confident, and she clung to that confidence like a lifeline. “Are you hurt?”
She didn’t know, couldn’t feel any part of her body. She shook her head, or at least she thought she did. She must have, because relief passed over his face, easing the tension in his jaw.
“I’m going to hold you.” It wasn’t a question. “Just to let you know you’re safe. You’re shaking and probably in shock.” He gathered her in his strong arms, and she bristled, unable to move. “You’re in control. I’ll stop if you want me to, but you’re safe.”
Safe. She didn’t know if she’d ever feel safe again.
He tightened the embrace, pressing a hand to the back of her head and splaying his other hand across the width of her back. “You’re okay. I won’t let anything happen to you. You can tell me to let you go, and I will.”
She didn’t know if she wanted him to let her go. She wanted to believe that she was safe so badly after being away from everyone she knew and hiding for so long. She needed safety, needed someone to turn to, to talk to. Stella didn’t know if it was his words, his confidence, or the way his body cocooned her rather than consumed her. Maybe it was all of those things that allowed tears to finally spill down her cheeks after she’d been brave for months, and her hands to fist in the lapels of his jacket as she accepted his comfort.
“I’m Logan. Logan Wild. Are you sure you’re not hurt?” He leaned back a hair, and she pulled him close again, afraid her legs wouldn’t sustain her.
“It’s okay, sweetheart. I’m not going anywhere,” he assured her as he held her close. She soaked his expensive jacket with her tears. Months of repressed sadness, months of proving her strength beyond what she ever thought possible, flooded out of her.
“Thank you,” was all she could manage.
“Are you sure you’re not hurt? How are you feeling?” he asked again.
It had been months since anyone other than her new boss, Dylan Bad, had cared enough to ask. Her mother would have asked if she’d kept in contact with her. He’d already threatened her mother twice, but her mother had taken out a restraining order, and that seemed to have convinced Kutcher that she was no longer an option for harassment, and he’d returned his focus to Stella. She’d learned the hard way that he knew people. Bad people. People who could trace phone calls and figure out where she was.
Street noises filtered into her ears as the fogginess subsided and her senses returned. She loosened her grip on her savior—Logan. “I think I’m okay.”
He searched her eyes for what seemed like forever. She wondered if he saw the person she used to be somewhere inside her. She was still there; she knew she was. Somewhere buried below the fear and the fatigue, below the false bravado and the harsh exterior she’d had to project in order to survive. Hopefully one day Stella would find a way to become that person again. But for now she had to figure out this man who an hour ago she thought was too dangerous to talk to. And now? Now she didn’t know what to think. He had saved her, comforted her, but Kutcher had been sweet and caring at first, too. Fear needled its way to the surface again, forcing her to push away from Logan.
His brows knitted together. She took a step away, and her back met the bricks again. She winced in pain. It seemed all of her senses had returned, and as she gulped in a lungful of the cool night air, she cataloged the pain in her upper back, wrists, and the back of her head. Great. This was just what she needed.
“You’re hurt.”
“I’m fine. Just shaken.”
His eyes pierced through her lie with ease as he visually assessed her again, reaching a hand behind her head. She dodged his touch, moving to the right and sending a sharp pain down her neck. She blinked back tears that threatened to weaken her resolve.
He held his hands up again in surrender. “I was just checking for a bump on your head. Maybe I should take you to the hospital. You need to report this to the police.”
She shook her head, forgetting about the pain. She winced, and Logan reached a hand toward her, then dropped it, as if he knew she’d pull away. The police would want her real name, and she wasn’t taking any chances. She didn’t know how Kutcher was tracking her, but he was getting out of jail in four days, and she’d done a good job these last few months of living under his radar. There was no way she was going to lead him to her.
“No. No hospitals. No police.”
Those compassionate, confident eyes of his narrowed again, this time with irritation. He turned his head slightly to the right, keeping his wise eyes trained on her. For a second he had the dark and dangerous look of a man who had seen the ugly side of life, and when he turned to face her again, that darkness lightened and somehow turned back to compassion. Stella didn’t trust herself enough to decipher what that meant.
“No hospitals? No police? Why?”
Did her savior have to be inquisitive, too? Couldn’t he just walk away now that he’d taken care of the threat? She didn’t really want him to walk away, but she didn’t want to be taken to a hospital, either.
“No insurance.”
He seemed to buy that—for a second. “The clinic, they’ll see you. You have to get checked out.”
“I’m fine. Really. Look—”
“Logan.”
“Logan.” She didn’t want to push away the only person who had reached out to her, the man who had put himself in harm’s way for her, but she had no choice. The guy who held her captive was nothing next to Kutcher.
“I don’t want to go to a clinic or a hospital. Thank you for helping me.” Her shoulders dropped a little with the words, with the reality of what could have happened if he hadn’t come to her rescue.
“Thank you so much.” Stay strong, strong, strong. “But I’m fine.”
He stepped back and ran his hand though his hair, placed his other hand on his hip, and paced. His shirt was untucked from the fight, his jacket torn at the shoulder, and when he spoke, his tone softened—not at all like the seductive man he’d been in the bar. It was like he’d switched into caregiver mode. How did a person do that? Seductive one minute, savior the next, followed closely with compassion?
“My brother’s a doctor. He’ll check you out free of charge. Let me at least take you there. Head injuries are never good.”
She shook her head, still unwilling to give in and be trapped in a car with him. “I don’t even know you.”
“What does that have to do—” He held his hands up again. “I’ll have him come here to check you out.”
The bar. Oh God, my job. Her eyes shot to the door. She’d been out here so long Dylan must have thought she’d taken off.
Logan scrubbed his face with his hand, and his gaze softened. “Look…I’m a private investigator. I know Dylan Bad, the owner of the bar. I’m not going to kidnap you.”
She desperately wanted to trust him. She wanted to trust someone. It was exhausting being strong all the time. He’d saved her. He was offering to bring his brother here to check her out, and he knew Dylan?
“Fine,” she relented.
His smile smoothed all his sharp edges. “Good. Great. Let’s get you inside, and I’ll call my brother Heath. What’s your name?”
Stella made a habit of not giving out her real name except when she had to. Dylan knew this about her, as she’d been asked her name many times at the bar. She debated giving her real name to Logan. After all he’d done for her, didn’t she at least owe him that?
He draped a protective arm around her shoulders, and she bristled, pulling out from underneath it and eyeing him cautiously. Just because he’d saved her didn’t mean she was his to possess. She’d come too far to slip backward.
“Stormy. My name is Stormy Knight.”