Chapter Eighteen

He couldn’t wait.

Couldn’t wait to get . . . started. With this exploration.

Oh, the mural was important too. He really wanted this restaurant to be a huge success, and not just because it was located close to his home. He had a sense, a pinging in his gut, that with her taking part in the décor, it would be downright gorgeous, and ambiance was everything in the restaurant business.

But really, he couldn’t wait to get her alone again.

“We can go by now and have a look at the site,” he suggested. “You could take some photos and start thinking about ideas. It’s still under construction, but everything is ready for you to start work right away.”

It thrilled him that she nodded. Smiled.

Damn, he loved her smile.

“Are you ready?” he asked, though part of him wasn’t asking about the trip across town. Part of him was asking about something else entirely.

She met his gaze, steady and strong. “Yes,” she said.

He hoped she was responding to his unspoken question. A shiver of anticipation walked through him. He held out his hand. “Great. Let’s go.”

Rafe popped his head out of the kitchen as they stood, confirming Logan’s suspicion he’d been listening in. “Where are you going?” he asked, a shit-eating grin on his face.

“We’re heading for Red Oak. So Hanna can get the lay of the land.”

Rafe’s eyes lit up. Probably with mischief. “Oh, I want to go.”

Logan glared at him. “Don’t you have something you need to do here?”

“Not really.”

Logan could have punched him. He was itching for time alone with Hanna. The last thing he wanted at this stage of the game was an interfering brother. One who looked at her with interest that was a little too bright.

“Yeah. I’m pretty sure you need to do that thing.”

Rafe frowned. “What thing?”

Logan didn’t respond. He hustled Hanna toward the door, gratified when she followed his lead without demur. It made him think she might want to spend time alone with him as well. “See ya.” He sketched a wave at his brother over her head. His message was clear.

Butt out.

Of course, Rafe laughed. But he didn’t follow them. Thank God.

“We can take my truck,” Logan suggested as they made their way through the parking lot. He unlocked his rig and helped her climb in.

“Lordy,” she muttered, hefting herself into the seat. “What is it about men and big trucks?”

He shot her a grin. “Overcompensation?”

She snorted in response.

He made his way around the rig and hopped into the cab on the driver’s side. But before he started her up, he glanced at Hanna. “You ready?” he asked. Though again, he wasn’t necessarily asking about the visit to the restaurant.

She rearranged her purse and her portfolio before she answered. Then she met his eye. “Let’s do this thing.”

“All right.” He turned the key and the engine roared to life and he pulled out into traffic. He knew the way to the new store like it was the back of his hand, which was a good thing, because he was totally fixated on her. Her scent. The rise and fall of her breasts as she breathed. The glimmer of her hair in the corner of his eye. He reminded himself it would probably make a bad impression if he rear-ended the little old lady in a Pinto in front of him, so he attempted to focus on his driving.

She spoke into the silence and threw him for a loop. “I thought you were a ranch hand.”

He chuckled. “You did?”

“Yeah.”

“Only when I lose a bet.” He winked at her.

Their gazes met. It took everything in him to keep his focus on the road. “Do you gamble much?”

“Only with Cody. And I won’t be doing that again.”

“Do you see him very often?”

Logan shrugged. “Not as often as I’d like. But it’s a long way from here to Snake Gully.” In more ways than one.

She went quiet, as though she caught the bite in his tone and wondered over it. “Why did you leave Snake Gully?”

He couldn’t help glancing at her. Couldn’t help frowning. He certainly couldn’t tell her everything. “I got in a fight.” There. That was close to the truth. “I ended up in the hospital. Here, in Dallas.”

Her eyes widened. “They brought you here?”

Medevaced him. Helicopter and all. “Yeah. I was . . . There was some doubt I’d make it. I was here for a while.”

He could feel her attention on him. It burned. “What kind of fight did you get into that landed you in the hospital?”

He shrugged. “Just kid stuff.” Damn. He didn’t want her to dig any further. “Anyway, while I was in the hospital, my mom took an apartment here in Dallas and got a job working as a waitress in a restaurant. So she could be close to me.”

“I can’t imagine what that must have been like for her.”

“Yeah. It was tough. We didn’t have a pot to piss in. The prospect of huge medical bills was beyond her. But she’s so damn brave. She just did it.”

“I’d love to meet her sometime.”

He shot her a grin. “Oh, you will.” If he had anything to say about it, she’d meet them all. All of his family. Just not too soon. He needed time alone with her first.

“So what happened when you got out of the hospital?”

He snorted. “She swore a blue streak we would never go back. Never step foot in that town again.” And he hadn’t. Until he’d gone, haring in, searching for her. He still wasn’t quite over the terror he’d felt watching her drive off into the distance with Zack. He reminded himself she was safe. Here. With him. It helped to touch her. Unbidden, his hand found hers on the bench seat. He covered it. Squeezed. She flipped her hand over and wove her fingers in his. Her touch anchored him somehow. “I needed physical therapy. Lots of it.” He shot a glance at her. “They said I would never walk again.”

“Oh my God.” Her fingers tightened on his.

“They were wrong. Of course, Sam had a lot to do with that.”

“Sam?”

“Sam Wilder. He was my mom’s boss.”

“Sam Wilder?” Her eyes widened as she began to see the full picture.

“Yup. They met, fell in love, and eventually married. Though she was stubborn and resisted his proposals.”

“How many times did he propose?”

Logan shrugged. “About twenty, I suppose.”

“And why did she say no? Didn’t she love him?”

He took the off-ramp heading for the store. “Oh, she did. But he was rich and she was poor and for some reason she thought that made a damn bit of difference.” He couldn’t help but see a parallel in their situation, and she did too, judging from how she turned away to stare out the window. “Mom finally realized none of that mattered. Nothing mattered but being together. And that’s how I got three brothers.”

Three brothers who, apparently, loved to interfere. As he pulled into the gravel lot at the site of the new restaurant, Brandon’s blue Range Rover was parked by the door. And next to it, Ben’s Chevy.

Damn.

Rafe must have called them.

So much for getting her alone.

***

Hanna stared at the gray-cement façade of the restaurant. It didn’t look much like the one they’d just left, as it was clearly under construction, but it was finished enough to give her a sense of how magnificent it would be when it was done. Trucks and dozers and a cement mixer speckled the lot. Burly men in hard hats wandered around with clipboards.

Logan took a moment to survey the building and he sighed. “Coming right along,” he said, excitement threaded in his tone. He loved this, she realized. Really loved this. “The layout is a little different for this one,” he said, grabbing two hard hats from the backseat and handing her one. “The others are all based on the original store. This one, I designed.”

“You designed it?”

His eyes glimmered. “Did I mention I’m an architect?”

“No. You did not. Do that between stripping gigs?” she asked with a grin.

“Of course.”

She opened the door and made the long, precarious slide down to the ground. She set the hat on her head and held it there against a gust of wind. Little dust funnels whorled. Unlike the other, this restaurant was not set in a teeming cityscape, rather, in undeveloped land, land the nearby city was just waiting to envelop. Right now it was a great field of scrub, the two small bungalows across the road the only other structures for miles.

“In five years this whole area will be homes and shops,” he said coming around to her side. “We got the acreage for a song though, when land prices tanked a couple years back.”

“It’s large.”

He nodded. “Lots of room for expansion. This whole area will be the parking lot.” He waved at the gravel. “It’s getting poured in a couple weeks. There will be a garden over there.” He pointed to the left. “And we’re thinking a kid’s play park over here. Make it a place for families. Brandon wants to open a shop too, for merchandize, but we’re still debating that.”

“This is a huge project.”

His face broke into a grin. “I know.”

“And you’re in charge of it?”

“Yup. All of it.”

“And here I thought you were a ranch hand.”

“Like I said. Only when I lose a bet. Though, in the interest of full disclosure, I do own a ranch.”

“Do you?”

“Yup. I have people who run it for me. I mostly spend weekends there, because I’m so busy here.”

“Do you have a horse?” Hanna knew lots of people who owned ranches. That hardly made them ranchers. In her opinion, the measure of a true rancher was whether or not he rode.

Logan snorted a laugh. “Several.” He took her arm and helped her over the uneven surface. “I need to warn you . . .” This he murmured in a disquieting tone.

Hanna glanced up at him; his features were tight and pinched, his mouth puckered like a lemon. He stared at two men loping toward them across the lot. “About what?”

“About them.” He grimaced as one of the men hooted a greeting and waved his hat. They came closer and Hanna stared. Two drop-dead gorgeous men. Tall and scruffy and incredibly imposing. They both looked like younger versions of Rafe.

And they were identical in every respect, except one wore a red shirt and the other blue.

“My brothers,” Logan huffed. “They’re a pain in the ass.”

***

Damn it.

All Logan wanted was time with Hanna. Alone. He should have known better.

His brothers swooped down like vultures, their eyes way too bright as they studied her. Logan felt his hackles start to rise.

He’d never realized he had such active hackles until lately.

“Logan!” Brandon boomed, wrapping him into a big hug. “How’s it hangin’, bro?” Logan winced. And not just because of Brandon’s crass question. The hug was a bone cruncher. He suffered the same from Ben, who was only a tad more restrained. Then they turned their attention on Hanna.

“So, this is the artist?”

The glint in Ben’s eyes made something nasty shift in his gut. He set his teeth and practically snarled, “Hanna Stevens. Ben and Brandon Wilder.”

“How do you do?” She put out her hand, and winced as, in turn, they shook it. He should have warned her. Brandon and Ben were beyond enthusiastic in all things. Ebullient and sometimes dangerous hugs and handshakes weren’t the worst of it.

“Come on inside.” He attempted to extricate her from Ben’s grip. “Hanna’s here to look at the interior. She’s agreed to paint the mural.”

“Excellent,” Brandon’s eyes glimmered. “I love your work. I’m hoping we can have more of your paintings for sale in the restaurants.”

She nodded. “Rafe mentioned that. I have a couple new ones ready to go, but I don’t know if I’ll have much time to paint while I’m working on this.”

Brandon took her arm—which annoyed Logan to no end—and led her toward the entrance. “Sure. Whenever you get them done. They don’t have to be large. In fact, smaller ones may move faster, on account of the price.”

“The . . . price?” She glanced back at Logan, her eyes wide. Logan shrugged. Brandon was like a tsunami. There was no holding him back.

“Yeah. We’re thinking five hundred to a thousand for the large ones . . .”

“F-five . . . what?”

Brandon nodded. “And maybe two or three for the smaller ones.”

“That much?”

Logan hated the way his brother smiled at her. The way she responded. “It’s all what the market will bear. And people love your paintings.”

Her features softened, went all dewy. Damn. Damn. Why did she have to look at Brandon like that?

Logan wanted to smack him.

His brother opened the door and ushered her inside.

She stopped short, staring at his creation with her lips parted. “This is . . . This is . . .”

What? What?

She stared at him; his pulse thrummed.

What?

“It’s beautiful.”

Pride and joy rained through him. She liked it. She liked what he’d done.

“I just need to . . .” She fished around in her purse and pulled out her phone. “May I?” She gestured toward the interior.

“Sure,” Ben piped up, though clearly the question had not been aimed at him. “Go ahead. Take all the photos you want.”

She did, wandering through the empty space, snapping pictures here and there of the spots she planned to paint. Logan could see the excitement, the ideas, bubbling up in her. When his brothers seemed inclined to follow her, he held them back.

“What the hell are you two doing here?” he hissed.

Ben grinned. Dimples erupted on his cheeks. Where Ben was concerned, dimples were not a good sign. “Rafe called us.”

“I figured.”

“He thought you might need . . . a chaperone.”

Logan growled.

“Yeah,” Brandon chimed in. “He also said she was hot.”

Something red flashed through Logan’s vision. “He said what?”

“That. She. Was. Hot.” Brandon enunciated as though Logan was too slow to understand. Oh, he understood. He understood just fine.

“She is,” Ben felt the need to mention. “She is hot.”

And Logan felt the need to flatten his face. But he didn’t. Not yet, anyway.

“Keep your distance,” he muttered. “She’s here to paint a mural.”

“Is she?” Goddamn Ben and that arched brow.

“She is.”

“And Rafe mentioned we’re putting her up in one of the bungalows.”

“Yeah.” It made sense. More sense than her trying to drive in from Snake Gully every day. Besides . . . he wanted her close.

Brandon chuckled. “And which bungalow are we putting her in, exactly?” he asked. The bastard. “The empty one . . . or yours?”

The question scuttled his thoughts. Naturally, she would be in the empty bungalow. This whole exercise was about her discovering what she wanted.

But he would be right next door.

He wouldn’t complain, not one iota, if she decided to come over and visit one night. All night. Maybe every night.

He frowned at his brothers, both of whom were chortling like hyenas.

“Rafe was right.” Ben snorted. “He’s got it and he’s got it bad.”

Brandon grinned. “Yeah,” he said, with an evil look in Logan’s direction. “This is going to be fun.”

But it wasn’t. It wasn’t going to be fun.

Not with them around.

With them around, it wasn’t going to be fun at all.