Chapter Three
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Thank God he had fantastic reflexes, honed by his time in the military, Logan thought as he strode toward the house, the dogs racing ahead of him. It had been worth risking an uppercut to his face to get that kiss—and to see Lena’s expression afterward. She’d been shocked. Outraged, maybe.
But he didn’t think she’d been disgusted.
Her mouth had been soft under his, and his body thrummed with interest when he thought of kissing her again. He needed to be patient, though. Give her time to get used to him. Used to the idea he meant to be her man.
Lena’s man.
He liked the sound of it. Liked the solidity it would lend to his life. The period it would put to his parents’ dream of him entering the priesthood. And if Alice was right, and Lena was the woman he was meant to save, so much the better. Anything to get St. Michael out of his dreams.
He spent the rest of the morning in the guest room answering emails that had accumulated in the last weeks of his service, checking news sites, and generally wasting time until lunch. When the noon meal rolled around, Logan couldn’t help but feel anticipation, mixed with a dash of concern. What if Lena blew them off?
But she didn’t. She rose to the challenge they’d given her and posted a roster of duties near the kitchen door—the first thing he saw when he walked in.
The second thing he saw was Lena. Her watchful gaze resting on him.
He checked the roster again.
There were a lot of jobs listed under his name.
But if she thought she could run him off with hard work, she was mistaken. He might be a joker, a class clown when the situation warranted it. He was also a Marine. And Marines weren’t afraid of hard work.
In fact, when the meal was over, the busy afternoon came as a welcome relief from all the months he’d spent at a desk at USSOCOM. For the first time in ages, he made use of the muscles he’d spent years building.
“Feels good, doesn’t it?” Brian remarked at one point when they passed each other between the barn and the pastures where the cattle grazed.
“Feels fucking amazing,” Logan told him.
It was nearly dinnertime, and the sun was low on the horizon when Lena came to check on them, ticked off the jobs on a list she’d written on a piece of note paper and sent them back to the house for dinner.
“What about you?” Logan asked when everyone else turned to go.
“Be there in a minute. I’ve got a couple of things to finish.” She kept her gaze on the paper in her hand, refusing to meet his.
“We did everything you asked.” He wanted to be sure she knew that. He had a feeling Lena would do what she could to send him packing.
“I know that. Go eat.” She waved him away.
He wanted another kiss, and he followed her into the barn when she walked past him. When she realized he was still behind her, she faced him and put her hands on her hips. “Scram!”
“I can help, whatever it is,” he offered. “Get you in to dinner that much sooner. You must be hungry; I sure am.” Lena had worked all afternoon, too.
“I don’t need any help. There’s just something I want to do.”
Why was she acting so squirrelly? Was she hiding something? Logan took a step closer. She was definitely hiding something.
“I’ll wait for you. We can walk back together.”
“I don’t want to walk back together.”
“Then we can—”
“I want to be alone. Can’t you understand that? Don’t you ever just want five minutes to yourself?”
Logan backed off at Lena’s outburst. He could understand that. All those years in the military, in close quarters with other Marines—
“Yeah, I do. Sorry—hard not to want to spend as much time as possible with such a pretty lady—” Logan jumped out of the way of Lena’s fist, bobbed and weaved and caught a chance to snatch a kiss. He ducked out of the barn before she could retaliate. Damn, he liked kissing Lena. All that outrage made her spicy.
He’d have to do it more often, Logan decided, and headed back up to the house, grinning the whole way.
She was going to kill him if he kissed her again, Lena told herself as she climbed the ladder to the hayloft. She made her way to the space under the window she’d claimed as her own after that disaster with her cousins when she was seven, behind the bales of hay. She opened the old steamer trunk she’d brought from the attic as a child, pulled out a dusty horse blanket to sit on, the battery-operated lantern her mother had given her—its light bright enough to read by but safe around all the hay—and the paperback novel she’d taken out from the library.
Redcoats at Dawn was a fast-paced, thrilling spy story that featured an intrepid young Revolutionary War soldier named Caleb who infiltrated the British Forces time and time again, and brought the intelligence he gathered back to General Washington. Lena had long thought she’d make a brilliant spy—and that she’d been born in the wrong era—
And the wrong gender.
To be a man at the dawn of the nation. To fight to form a new country on the ideals of freedom—
To be respected for your accomplishments—
The closest she could come to any of that was to read a damn book.
She turned the lantern on just bright enough to read by in the lowering light, curled up, her back against a hay bale, and began where she’d left off. Caleb was shadowing the British Forces again, about to slip in among them to figure out their next move. She knew he was going to be caught this time. She could feel it.
At the same time, the British Forces were closing in on the rebel Americans, and even though she knew how the Revolution played out, the claustrophobic feeling was all too familiar to Lena. Her situation was becoming untenable, too. She didn’t know how much longer she’d have a place at Two Willows, despite the men’s pretense they were merely hired hands. Bad enough Logan had come here to usurp her.
For him to taunt her with kisses was too much.
She lifted a hand to touch her lips, the words on the page blurring as her thoughts wandered.
She wasn’t immune to men. When she’d met Scott, she’d been ready for a fun relationship. She’d loved his recklessness. Loved the way he expected her to keep up with him, no matter what they did. She’d loved riding motorcycles with him, taking life fast and loose. Sex with Scott had been reckless, too. She’d thought she’d met her match. Now she knew how stupid she’d been. All along he’d only wanted her ranch—just like Logan. And when push came to shove—literally—he’d knocked her down without a second thought.
She and her sisters got the last laugh, of course. Scott was in jail. She hoped he rotted there.
Lena sighed. As much as she resented the reason Logan was here, she couldn’t place him in the same category as Scott. He wasn’t a criminal. She couldn’t imagine Logan hitting a woman. Brian, Connor and Hunter wouldn’t stick by him if he did. As much as it killed her to admit it, the men the General had sent were upright, decent men.
And the way Logan kissed her—
That was different, too. It was a like a greeting. A way for him to let her know he was here and interested. Scott had always grabbed her and pressed her against him like he was trying to leave a mark. She’d thought he was passionate, but she’d been wrong. All of it had been about control.
Logan, on the other hand… well, she couldn’t say what he was after, and she had a sinking feeling he might be the man she’d thought Scott had been—a man who liked to throw himself into fun, active pursuits, a man who’d treat her like an equal.
A man who’d blow her mind between the sheets—and allow her to blow his mind, too.
Unfortunately, he was here at the General’s beck and call, a man whose mission was to make sure she relinquished her post as overseer of this ranch. To keep her in her place. She couldn’t let him do that no matter who he turned out to be.
She was only allowing the men to work with her so she could be like Caleb in her novel, walking among the enemy, listening to their talk.
Learning their plans to take over.
They’d lose in the end, just like the British troops, she told herself, settling down to read again. And she wouldn’t miss Logan when he was gone.
But she wasn’t sure she believed that.
“What are you working on?” Logan asked Alice, keeping one eye on the track leading to the outbuildings. Everyone else sat at the kitchen table, finishing their dinner, but she had pushed away her plate a few moments ago, grabbed a sketchbook, climbed up to a perch on the refrigerator, much to his surprise, and started drawing furiously. Logan hadn’t eaten yet. He was still waiting for Lena to join them. Getting worried. Maybe he should go track her down.
“Costume sketches.”
“For the movie?” Brian had told him she’d been approached by a producer looking for new talent. She’d been offered a chance to become the lead designer on a historical drama, but first she had to submit a number of samples for inspection. According to Brian, she was working against a deadline, stressing the details.
“Yes. It’s really exciting—the movie requires tons of costumes for the ballroom scenes—” Alice stiffened. “Incoming!” She set aside her sketchbook and pencil, pushed herself to the edge of the fridge, slid down to put a foot on the counter and leaped to the floor gracefully. When she rushed to the window, Brian and Connor quickly followed, Cass and Sadie scrambling after them to see, too.
“What is it?” Cass asked.
Alice pointed to the sky. Brian swore under his breath.
Then Logan saw it—a small shape hovering above the maze.
“It’s another drone,” Sadie exclaimed. “Alice and I saw one early yesterday morning. What’s it doing on our property?”
Logan stepped out of the house, the others spilling through the door after him. Alice brushed past him, hurrying toward the maze.
“Get out of here,” she shouted at the drone. “Scoot! Go!”
“Whoever’s driving that can’t hear you,” Sadie said. She picked up a rock and chucked it at the thing.
Brian lagged back with Logan. “Is that one of ours?” he asked under his breath.
“Pretty sure it’s Jack.” Logan filled him in on the conversation he’d had with the soldier back at USSOCOM.
“I’ll call him. Tell him to get it out of here before Alice goes ballistic. She’s pretty protective of that maze.” He hurried back into the house, his phone already in his hand. Moments later, the drone buzzed away.
Alice, breathing hard, turned to fix first Connor, then Logan with an angry gaze. “That’s not allowed,” she said. “This is a sacred space. Not for photographing.”
“It wasn’t me,” Connor protested.
“Come on. Both of you,” she demanded and led the way into the maze. Sadie and Cass hurried after her.
Logan followed willingly, puzzling over Alice’s anger. Was she upset at the thought someone might learn the way to its center? He’d been curious about the maze since he’d first heard about it, and about the standing stone. According to the other men, no one knew who’d shaped the stone or put it there.
“It’s trippy,” Connor had told him. “You’ll see.”
Logan tried to pay attention to the twists and turns they took through the green corridors, but Alice was pacing fast, and he wasn’t sure he’d remember. When they turned a corner and entered the center of the maze, Logan understood exactly why the other men had described the standing stone in awe-filled tones. It stood far taller than he’d expected, solid and imperturbable.
Ancient. Although it couldn’t be that old, could it?
“Ask it,” Alice said, pointing at Connor. “Ask it if it likes to be spied on.”
To Logan’s surprise, Connor moved willingly to place his hands on the megalith and asked out loud, “Do you like being spied on?” He turned and winked at Logan. “Watch this.”
“Watch what—hey!” Logan ducked as a crow swooped down and buzzed them all, showering the ground with a spray of white liquid excrement. It just missed him. Sadie and Cass ducked, too, although they were laughing.
“I’ll take that as a no.” Connor wrinkled his nose and kept his eyes on the sky. “Can we go back and finish dinner?”
Alice folded her arms over her chest. “You tell whoever is doing this to back off. You hear me?”
Connor didn’t respond, and neither did Logan. Alice pointed at the stone. “You want me to sic it on you again?”
“We’ll get the word out,” Connor finally said.
Good answer, Logan thought, biting back a grin. It neither confirmed or denied their connection to the drone. “I’m starving,” he said aloud. “I’m heading back.” The others followed him, Connor quickly taking the lead when Logan turned the wrong way.
As they filed back toward the house, Alice asked, “What kind of a man needs to cheat his way through a hedge maze?”
“Someone really unsure about his place in the world,” Sadie answered grimly.
Logan wondered what Jack would think about that assessment of his motives.
Back at the house, Logan waited another ten minutes for Lena, but she didn’t show up. In fact, Lena didn’t return to the house until late that night after he’d gone up to the guest room to bed. The next morning, when Logan got up, aching all over from the unaccustomed work after months behind a desk, he found Cass standing by the kitchen stove, Connor at the scarred, wooden table eating a hearty breakfast and Brian pulling on a jacket before heading outside.
“Lena’s left us our assignments.” Brian jutted his chin in the direction of the bulletin board.
“I still think you all should get to choose your chores,” Cass said. “Lena shouldn’t—”
“She’s the overseer,” Brian told her. “We’re just the help. We do what we’re told.” He patted her barely rounded belly. “Take good care of my baby.”
“I will. But this thing with Lena is going to blow up at some point, mark my words.”
“I know what I’m doing.” Brian kissed her on the cheek and headed outside.
Cass handed Logan a plate and began to dish him out some eggs and bacon. “Toast is in the toaster,” she told him.
“I appreciate it,” Logan told her cheerfully. Breakfast was his favorite meal. He grabbed some toast, buttered it, piled it high with eggs and bacon, made a sandwich and sat across from Connor.
Connor watched him. “Morning, baby girl,” he said under his breath.
Logan chuckled. Connor was right; this was just like old times back at USSOCOM, although this was far tastier than the take-out breakfast sandwiches he used to get, and he didn’t need to kiss a photograph of Lena anymore. Now he had the real thing. Biting into his food, he decided he could be happy here.
Hell, he already was, despite Lena’s prickliness. He loved the outdoor work, the camaraderie with the other men and the company of the women.
“I mean it,” Cass said. “At some point, Lena will push you too far and you’ll all get into a big fight.”
“Have a little faith,” Connor told her, looking up from his plate.
She snorted. “Don’t think you men can get one over on her. She’s smart as heck; she’ll figure out your trick in no time.”
“We’re not trying to get one over on her. We’re trying to prove we’re not the enemy.” Logan took another bite. Heaven.
“That might be harder than you think,” Cass told him. She dished out a plate for herself and came to join them.
Alice had said a similar thing, Logan remembered.
“We’ll just have to do our best,” he said.
Connor finished first, thanked Cass for the meal and slipped out the door. By the time Logan made it down to the barn, the other men had already headed out to clear brush where it was encroaching on the northwest pasture, a job he was slated to join them at, according to Lena’s list. But when he saw her mucking out Atlas’s stall, the stallion tied to a post across the barn, he went to help. Taking the pitchfork from her hands, he edged past her into the confined space and began to pitch the bedding into a nearby wheelbarrow.
“I’ve got it.” She tried to pull the pitchfork from his arms.
“No, you don’t. I’ve got it now,” he pointed out. “I’ll have this done in a jiffy.”
“I don’t need your help!”
“But do you want my help?” he asked in a silky voice.
He ducked when she tried to slug him, but she landed her second shot—a glancing blow to his chin. He caught her hand. Held it when she tried to pull away, placing the pitchfork behind him, safely out of her reach.
“I don’t think our relationship should be violent,” he said in a mock-serious voice.
“We’re not having a relationship!” She came at him with a clumsy left hook. Definitely not trained in hand-to-hand combat, Logan thought. He blocked the shot and grabbed her left wrist, as well.
“So, this is the point where you overpower me with your super-strength and show me who’s the man?” Lena spat at him. She was breathing hard, a wild look in her eyes.
“I’m definitely the man,” he said quietly. “And you’re the woman. And that doesn’t mean anything about our relative positions in life—but it does make things awfully interesting, don’t you think?”
He was trying his best to diffuse the situation. Lena was doing her best to pull away. He could barely keep up with the emotions crossing her face as she struggled. Fury, frustration—and something else.
Something awfully like—
Desperation.
Logan let go and stepped back, gut-punched by the realization. Lena whirled around and stalked out of the barn.
Lena avoided the house at lunchtime, ducking in early to grab a couple of pieces of fruit and escaping again before Cass caught her. By dinnertime she was starving but no less determined to avoid eating at home. She didn’t know what she’d do if she came within ten feet of Logan. He’d grabbed her. Held her in place—with no more effort than it took to pat a dog.
She hated the way her heart had pounded. Hated the scream that had built in her throat until he’d let her go. The world had spun. The walls of Atlas’s stall had begun to close in. She’d needed to get away, but she couldn’t—
She stumbled on the way up the track toward the house but forced herself to walk on. Logan wouldn’t have done anything, and if he had…
Lena swallowed the rage rising up in her throat. What would she have done if he had? Scott had proved she was no match for a full-grown man with the desire to hurt her. Logan was a Marine. More muscular than Scott had been. She patted the pistol in its shoulder holster. Much good it would have done her today—if Logan had been a true attacker. He’d gotten to her before she could even draw it.
Swearing under her breath, Lena charged up the back steps, pushed open the door and hightailed it through the kitchen, up the stairs to her room. She changed, ran a hand through her hair, made a quick trip to the bathroom and made it out the door again with a shouted—“Going to town, be back later”—before anyone could reply.
She felt better as soon as she got behind the wheel of her truck and was driving the winding road to Chance Creek. Out here, alone, she could forget about Logan. She cranked the radio up and sang along to the familiar country tune playing on her usual station. By the time she reached town, she was ravenous, so she popped into the Burger Shack, wolfed down two quarter-pounders with bacon and cheese, chased them with a soda and then made her way to the Dancing Boot to try her hand at a couple of rounds of pool.
As soon as she entered the bar she relaxed. She’d been here a thousand times, knew most of the patrons. No one would bother her here.
Heading over to the pool table, she met up with a couple of men she’d known all her life and beat the pants off them, which put her in a much better mood. A couple of beers didn’t hurt, either. More than once, she noticed a trio of men looking her way while she played. Strangers grouped by the bar. Lena wondered who they were. The older one kept his eye on her. The younger two—twins by the looks of it—turned to try to get the bartender’s attention.
Lena forgot about them when she bent to take her next shot. She won again and wasn’t surprised when her competitors said they planned to call it a night. It was early still, but Lena figured she should, too. Plenty of work waiting for her tomorrow, after all.
Before she could put away her cue stick, however, one of the twins she’d noticed plunked a stack of quarters on the edge of the table.
“Name’s Harley,” he said. “That’s Ray.” He nodded at his brother, approaching with three beers in his hands.
Lena looked from one to the other.
“Yeah, we’re twins,” Ray said in a backcountry drawl that wasn’t local. Southern, most likely. He was blond, like his brother. The same light blue eyes. Same weak chin and stocky frame.
“You boys aren’t from around here.”
“No, ma’am,” Harley said. “We’re hoping you’re up for a game. Too boring to play each other.”
She hesitated.
“Come on, we don’t know anyone else,” Harley said. “We bought you a beer.” He nodded to the extra bottle in Ray’s hand. Ray held it out to her.
“What about your friend?” She nodded toward the older man, still nursing a drink at the bar.
“That’s our uncle. Forget about him. I want a game.”
What the hell, she decided. One more couldn’t hurt, and she pitied these young men who looked to be kept on a short leash by their uncle. They were young, twenty-two or twenty-three at least. More boys then men. She could keep them in line.
She took the beer, set it aside, racked up the balls for a new game and got ready to break.
“What brings you to town?” She indicated that Harley could start, but he motioned for her to do so.
“Opportunity,” Ray said, drawing out each syllable separately.
His brother nudged him.
“What kind of opportunity?” Lena asked.
“The money-making kind. What else?” Ray said.
“Ignore my brother. He talks too much,” Harley said. “We’re thinking about settling down in these parts. Right now we’re just checking it out. How about you? What do you do in town?”
“I’m a rancher.”
She liked the way that sounded. She was a rancher—and would continue to be unless the General screwed things up for her.
“A rancher, huh? Little thing like you?” Harley said.
Lena ignored his attempt to rile her and make her miss her shot. She broke and landed three balls in pockets.
Harley straightened. Whistled. “Guess you can play.”
“Guess so.” It felt good to show some prowess around men, even if they were little more than kids. With a few drinks inside her and a few games won already, her earlier fears were gone. To hell with Logan, she decided. She didn’t have to be bigger and stronger than him to kick him off her property once and for all.
“Seems to me a woman needs help running a ranch, though. You got a husband?”
“Hell, no.” She sank another ball. And then another.
Ray snickered. “You a man-hater?”
Lena missed her shot and felt her temper rise. She straightened up.
“She’s not a man-hater.” Harley edged her aside and lined up his cue to put a ball in a corner pocket. “She’s a woman who knows her own mind.”
“That’s about the size of it,” Lena agreed, but her heart sank as Harley made two more shots in rapid succession. He’d be hard to beat.
“I bet the right man could find a way to partner with you,” Harley said.
Lena couldn’t say why she thought of Logan. She didn’t want to partner with him. She wanted to run her ranch, clean and easy. And Harley was trying to throw her off again. She couldn’t let him if she wanted to win this game.
Harley missed his shot, and Lena stepped up to the table.
“What kind of opportunity did you say you were in town for?” she asked. Was it her imagination, or did Harley hesitate?
“We’re all about horses, me and Ray,” he finally said. “We’re looking for breeding stock. A stallion, in particular. Heard there are some good ones for sale in town. But don’t go spreading that around. People will jack up the price on us.”
Lena relaxed. “Jamie Lassiter’s the man to talk to about that.”
“Lassiter, huh? We’ll follow up on that.” But he didn’t seem too enthusiastic.
“Don’t you have horses? Thought you said you were a rancher,” Ray asked.
“I am a rancher. I’ve got horses. Everyone in Chance Creek has horses just about. That doesn’t make us breeders. Like I said, you should talk to Jamie Lassiter about that.” She took another shot.
“I’m not interested in his horses. I’m interested in yours. Any of ’em any good?” Ray pressed.
She scanned the table. Let the angles play out in her head. “Hell, yeah. I’ve got a stallion that puts the rest to shame in Chance Creek County.”
It was a familiar boast—she’d made it plenty of times before—but she caught the look that passed between the brothers and wished she’d kept her mouth shut. What had they been communicating to each other? She looked Ray over again. He was young but maybe not quite as harmless as she’d first thought. She needed to be careful; strangers kept showing up in town and causing them problems.
“Little lady, you sure know your way around a pool table,” Harley said. Lena looked him over, too, and relaxed again. She was being paranoid. Harley wasn’t a criminal. He was just a kid trying to chat up a woman.
A woman way out of his league.
Lena sank the last ball. “You got that right.” Her pride at taking the table diminished quickly when Ray stepped up and took the cue from Harley’s hand. Damn it, she was done with these two.
“My turn.”
“I don’t think so. It’s time for me to—”
“Chicken.”
Lena swore under her breath. “Rack ’em up, and let’s play.”