Chapter 7

Inner-thigh sweat. It was something nobody talked about, but Brooke would bet her bottom dollar that every woman experienced it. How come her favorite magazines never tackled that topic? Eighty-seven ways to give a blow job, sure. Which, btw, happened maybe twice a month, tops. But inner-thigh sweat never got mentioned, and it happened every stinking day. That’s what she needed tips on how to handle. It’d easily be worth three impulse dollars in the grocery store checkout line.

She lifted the yellow-and-moss-striped skirt of her maxi-dress. Contemplated tucking it under her arm. Vetoed that as there was every chance she’d run into someone she knew in the four blocks between her car and her destination. Its length had been a smart choice to keep everything covered in the too-cool airplane. Here in D.C., however, it dragged on the sidewalk and trapped all the heat.

It’d been maybe three years since she’d attended one of the ACSs’ famous Fourth of July parties on the roof deck of Logan’s house. Of course, he hadn’t been there. Brooke hadn’t asked where he was. She’d been there with a boyfriend and didn’t want to fake nonchalance if his name came up. The street name was easy to remember. Brooke didn’t need the exact number. The bright yellow, enormous former rectory would be easy to spot when she got close. It dwarfed all its neighbors on the tree-lined street. Plus, the giant—and immensely incongruous, given the amount of sex that occurred in the house with five smoking-hot bachelors living there—metal cross on the roof kind of gave it away.

Brooke was so busy looking up for it that she almost didn’t notice Logan walking down the sidewalk from the opposite direction. The first flutter in her stomach was at seeing him again. The second was at him seeing her. Would he think she’d turned into an insta-stalker? Should she go back to her car and wait until he got inside?

No. That would make her seem stalkerish. Or at least feel that way. Which couldn’t be further from her intent. So she tightened her grip on her purse and kept going. And blatantly stared.

Logan still wore the shirt from their dinner together. Albeit significantly more wrinkled. His head was down, so she just drank in the sight of his tanned calves working below his shorts. Yup. It hadn’t been vacation goggles. Logan was every bit as sexy as she remembered…from all of a day and a half ago.

He stopped at the foot of the more than a dozen steps up to the front door. Dropped his duffel. Let his shoulders slump forward but made no move at all to head inside. When he lifted his head to look at the enormous house, Brooke gasped. He might not have changed his shirt, but he sure looked different, thanks to the bruising around his eye and the cut on his cheek.

“Logan,” she called out, without any thought. Or plan. Or shred of self-control. But what woman could muster up any control against his golden eyes, muscled bod, and soft brown bed head? The man was a walking temptation. All Brooke wanted was a metaphorical spoon to tuck right in and scoop him up.

His head whipped up and around. At first he looked confused. Then a giant smile washed across his face in a wave, ending in delighted bemusement. Logan loped forward the last few feet to close the gap between them. “Brooke? What are you doing here?”

Awkward. Sooooo awkward. This conversation wasn’t supposed to happen. They weren’t even supposed to see each other. Brooke did the obvious and stalled. With far too much care she switched her purse from one shoulder to the other. “Do you mean in the United States? Or practically on your doorstep?”

“Both, I guess.” He reached out to stroke a finger down her pale arm. “Thought you’d be tanning on the beach right about now. I might’ve even spent more than a few minutes, on my four planes, picturing you in that red bikini.”

Brooke tingled. Both from the touch chasing goose bumps across her skin and at the knowledge that she hadn’t been out of sight, out of mind to him. “That’s nice to hear.”

“I don’t suppose you want to change into it right now?”

It’d go in the compliment column, for sure. But she still wouldn’t do it. “Logan. Dupont Circle is just a few blocks away. I’m not stripping down.”

“Pity.”

She pointed at his duffel. “Are you actually just getting home?”

“Yeah.” Logan scrubbed his palm across his eyes. “The first flight out was held up for a few hours. Then it only went as far as Puerto Rico. But it barely got me ahead of the storm. Then I hopped over to Mexico. Down to Belize. And then finally to D.C.”

“That explains how I beat you here.” Teasing, she held up one hand and ticked points off on her fingers. “Even though I got to sleep late, had mango-filled crepes for breakfast, picked my way through the storm detritus on the beach, napped on a hammock, and enjoyed dinner out on the porch.”

Putting one hand on his chest, Logan staggered back dramatically a few steps. “Ouch. Did you have to rub that in?”

“Yes. I really think I did.” After all, he was the one responsible for cutting their night of bliss short. Brooke understood why he did it. She didn’t fault him at all for making that choice. But she’d darn well poke at him a bit in reprisal for his action, no matter how well justified.

“I don’t get it. After all that fun, why’d you cut your vacation short?”

Brooke beamed. She felt the smile stretch her cheek muscles. Felt its radiance shoot out from her heart and sparkle her eyes. The temptation to jump high in the air and land in a split was only tempered by the limitations of her wedges and long dress. “I didn’t need it anymore.”

“You’re nuts.” He gently rapped his knuckles against the side of her head, as if testing for hollowness. “Who doesn’t need more of the ocean and hammock naps?”

This conversation was going off the rails. Mostly because, yet again, It wasn’t supposed to be happening. If she hadn’t wanted to discuss her Very Serious Problem with Logan when it made her burst into tears, she certainly didn’t need to do it now that her emotions were back under control. The trip had been about figuring out how to get past the guilt and grief of dealing with her student’s suicide after all these months. Ignoring it. Trying to let other things fill her brain instead of just dwelling on the past.

Brooke licked her lips. “Me. Because I didn’t go down there to vacation.”

Vacations were fun. Relaxing. When she got on the plane to Dominica, Brooke had almost forgotten what fun felt like. And she certainly had no intention of relaxing. It was a lost skill. Like the Spanish she’d learned in high school. And how to knit. She wouldn’t tell her grandmother that skill had disappeared before they’d even backed to the end of the driveway.

She licked her lips again. Thought for an instant about how nice it would be if Logan licked them instead. After what he’d shared with her about Madison? Brooke owed him something. Some infinitesimal piece of the truth. Not enough to bring it all flooding back, though.

“I went down to the island to escape.” She lifted one bare shoulder in what hopefully came off as a no big deal shrug. “To work my way through some stuff.”

“The stuff you dodged telling me?”

“Yes.” Darn it. Logan put the pieces together. Why couldn’t he be a typical guy who didn’t listen? Who wasn’t perceptive? Who didn’t know her better after a ten-year break than her last boyfriend had before they broke up three months ago? “Which is immaterial,” Brooke insisted.

She shook her head just enough to set her ponytail twitching across her back. Right over the bug bites she must’ve picked up on their hike. Now they itched. As if she wasn’t twitchy enough from ducking his questions.

Logan raised one dark eyebrow. Gave her the stink-eye stare down she used on her students when it was obvious they were fibbing. “Probably not.”

“It is.”

“People don’t go all the way to another country to escape and then get over it in a day.”

“Trust me, I did. I’m quite sure. That’s the reason why I’m here, on your doorstep.” And she wondered why they were still on the doorstep. Or the doorstep’s steps, to be precise. They were good friends. Used to be, anyway, and Brooke certainly thought they’d, ahem, rekindled that friendship. If rekindle was the new euphemism for sexed it up and set it on fire. Why wouldn’t he ask her inside?

Logan leaned back against the trunk of a towering magnolia. It was dotted with waxy flowers Brooke could smell from two feet away. Which made her think again of the perfumed air they’d shared on the island. He crossed his feet at the ankles. Lots of tan skin, sexy hairiness in all the right places, and an amused tilt to those wide, kissable lips. “Okay, I’ll bite. Why’d you leave after two days to show up at the rectory?”

“First of all, I didn’t think you’d be here. My plan, in fact, hinged on you not being here.” Brooke rummaged in her bag, then triumphantly waved a postcard showing the Emerald Pool. Their pool, as she now thought of it. “Here. Proof that I didn’t intend to see you at all.”

Snickering, he said, “A postcard’s just proof you killed some time in the airport gift shop.”

“Nope. You lose on a technicality. There is no gift shop at the airport.” No gift shop, no coffee—it was basically a pre-flight purgatory. “So this is also proof that I put premeditation into purchasing this postcard. Well, it isn’t a postcard. Not just a postcard.” And now Brooke was babbling. Rats. If she wasn’t careful, more might spill out.

“Don’t tell me. It doubles as a coaster. Or you figured out how to use it to interrupt the signal on a silent alarm and we can go downtown and rob the Mint.”

Oh, he was in a mood, all right. “Look, I wrote you a thank-you card, okay? Maybe it’s old-fashioned or cheesy, but I did it.”

Logan straightened. His arms fell to his sides and his mouth dropped open. “You did that for me? Nobody’s ever written me a thank-you card.”

“Come on.”

“Nope.”

“Don’t you get them for wedding presents?”

“Brooke, I’m a man. Our species holds out on marriage as long as possible. We also don’t write notes. Hell, we don’t write at all. That’s why we started the Naked Men blog in the first place. It was the only way to stay in touch when we all went off to college. Because the group email thing was so not happening.” He raked his hand through the air to grab the card. When she pulled it out of reach, he said, “Gimme.”

“First, I want to be clear.” Because she had her pride, darn it. “I know we said we weren’t going to see each other again. I’m still moving to North Carolina. You’re still going to vanish the next time nature takes down a village in the middle of nowhere.”

“I know.”

“This isn’t some lame attempt at another hookup. I’m not stalking you. I’m not going back on our agreement. I’m not clingy.”

“I never said you were.” Logan cupped one hand around her shoulder and put his other on her cheek. “Was I an idiot? Did I say something to make you think I’m not happy to see you?”

No. Not at all. Not even an iota. She’d gone all hair-trigger on him by letting her past shape her present. Whoops. As an apology—not just because she wanted to touch him again—Brooke slid her arm around his waist. Leaned her forehead against his rock-hard pecs. “I’m sorry. Let’s say that old habits, old accusations, die hard.”

“More of the bad stuff you don’t want to tell me?”

Darn tootin’. And Brooke was relieved not to be looking into his dreamy eyes, which would totally tempt her to spill everything. Because she knew that she couldn’t say no to Logan. Not really. Not ten years ago, and still not today.

“It’s pointless to waste time bringing up that drama if we’re not going to see each other after today. Better to concentrate on the good things.”

“Okay. But for the record?” He kissed the top of her head. “You are the good thing. I’m really happy you’re here. On my doorstep.” Logan cinched her in tight against him. “Back in my arms.”

“Me, too.” She sank into the embrace. Just let her whole body sort of ooze into his and meld into a single being. Sure, that was over the top. But everything lined up. Everything fit together so perfectly with Logan. Brooke just wanted to inhale the moment until it became a part of her just as the air she breathed became part of her blood.

Whispering into her ear, he said, “Can I have my postcard now?”

“You mean that hug was a bribe?”

“No. I’m guessing that’d be wrong.” He pulled back to quirk his lips at her. “Unless it worked.”

When Logan turned on the charm, it didn’t just trickle from the tap. It was like standing underneath Niagara Falls. Something about his humor combined with the startlingly golden eyes contrasting with his dark hair just melted her resistance. Darn it.

Brooke tapped the corner of the postcard against her palm. “I don’t want you to read it while I’m here. It’s embarrassing.”

“So it’s a thank-you for all the top-of-the-line sex I gave you? Any chance you’re specific about positions?”

“Logan!” Brooke wriggled out of his arms. “There are people around.” She jerked her head to indicate the two men holding hands walking toward them. What if one of them knew one of her students? Well…her ex-students…

“Them? You think they’ve never heard of sex? This is D.C., not the Small World ride at Disney World.” Logan tipped back his head and shouted “Sex!” at the bright blue July sky.

To his point, the men didn’t even pause in their conversation. But Brooke spun in a circle, checking to see if anyone else had noticed besides the two seagulls that squawked as they flapped away.

“Now you’re just trying to embarrass me.”

“Yeah. It’s fun to watch your cheeks try to match your hair.”

Aack. The curse of being a redhead. Her every emotion could be read from her skin tone. “Now you’re embarrassing me even more.”

The smirk dropped off his face, replaced by a frown. “If anyone in this conversation gets to be embarrassed, it’s me. The twenty-seven-year-old loser sporting the shiner.”

Finally. “I’m so glad you brought it up. I’ve been dying to ask. Does it hurt?”

“Yeah. Funny, you always forget how much a sock in the eye hurts until it happens again. I don’t think I’ve had a black eye since college.” And he did look embarrassed at the fact. Like a puppy caught ripping through a roll of toilet paper.

Brooke stood on tiptoe to press a gentle kiss just beyond the fresh bruising. “You poor thing. Did you get mugged?”

“Nope.” Logan grabbed her hand, rubbed his thumb over the back of it, and gave her a full hit of those liquid gold eyes. “Now can I read my thank-you card?”

“You’re not getting this until you’ve seen the last of me.” Stuffing it back into her bag for safekeeping, Brooke continued, “I’ll take it home, put a stamp on it, and send it to you. Suffice it to say that our fling was exactly the kick in the pants I needed to get back to normal.”

“Are you telling me that the version of you I was with in Dominica was substandard? Because I don’t know if I could handle any more perfection.”

Brooke rolled her eyes. There was charm, and then there was laying it on like a fresh coat of sticky asphalt. “I’ll bet people all the way down in Arlington could smell that line.”

“You lobbed me a softball. What was I supposed to do? Not hit it out of the park?”

Oh. Oh. It hit her that Logan wasn’t flirting. He was evading. Distracting her from the very simple question she’d put to him. “Now you’re the one dodging like a prizefighter. Which is the perfect segue back to…how’d you get the black eye?”

“Got in a fight,” he said tersely.

Logan had been nowhere but airports and cramped planes since he left her. It didn’t make sense. “Over what—who got the last bag of pretzels on your flight? Tell me.”

With a sigh, he went back to leaning against the tree. Then he just let gravity win and slid down its length until his butt landed on his heels. “I realized that I didn’t have Madison’s address. And that, coincidentally, the Naked Men podcast was going down. I went to the station to see my friends and get her contact info.”

“That’s an itinerary. Not an explanation.”

“It is, actually. The fight was with Knox.”

“No. Way.” On the island, he’d told her that they’d never had a real fight before. Going straight to fisticuffs was a huge deal. Overachiever.

“Hey, he threw the first punch. I just defended myself.”

Brooke hitched up her dress to kneel on the grass next to him. “I know that you’re mad at him, but Knox is your best friend. Why did anyone throw a punch?”

He closed his eyes. Tipped his head back. “We had a serious difference of opinion.”

“Your first hour back?” Talk about horrific timing. It was just bad form to jump all over someone with jet lag. Who was clearly too exhausted to be responsible for anything he said. Men. They had a tendency to be so clueless about dealing with anything that ran deeper than face value.

“Yeah. I made a one hundred percent justifiable assumption. It turned out to be whack-ass wrong. But Knox didn’t explain that until it was too late. Didn’t cut me any slack, either.”

Brooke put a hand on his big biceps. “That’s horrible.”

“I agree.”

“Were the rest of the ACSs there? Was it an all-out brawl?”

“Nope.” He shrugged the opposite shoulder. “I mean, they were there. But nobody jumped in to take my side.”

Wow. Brooke’s protective instincts flooded outrage through her system. They hadn’t treated him right. They hadn’t treated their brother in all but name, who’d been gone for months, right at all. She wanted to run down to that studio and give them all the lecture on loyalty they so clearly needed. “No wonder you haven’t gone in the house yet.”

Logan flopped his wrists over his knees. “I’m working up to it.”

Okay. This was probably crazy. And it would only make her very-much-rekindled crush on the sexy man even harder to shake off once she moved. But Brooke decided to go with her gut. “No, you’re not.” She stood up and offered him a hand. “You’re coming home with me.”

That popped his eyes back open. “I am?”

“You’re exhausted. A wreck. The last thing you need is to get into a confrontation with the man who just beat you up, or with the others who stood by and watched him do it.”

He took her hand and lithely rose. “Let’s be clear. Knox didn’t beat me up. We each got in a good hit. No winner, no loser.”

“Of course.” It was adorable the way he was both defending his honor and still defending his best friend. Logan Marsh—loyal to the nth degree. Honorable. Nope, he hadn’t changed a bit since high school. Except that all of his good qualities—muscles included—had strengthened. Been honed.

Logan grabbed his duffel. But then his grip tightened on her hand. “I’m four days past tired. Not fit to be around anyone. You sure you want to do this?”

Oh, yes. The certainty that she wanted Logan in her house, receiving badly needed TLC from her, was immutable. In fact, Brooke was certain that she wanted to spend as much time with Logan as possible before she left. Or he left. The time she’d spent with him had been so fantastic for her. He’d brought her true self back to the surface. More of him could only be good for her. With the added bonus of those drugging, totally addictive kisses.

“I’m positive.”