Fiancé at Her Fingertips (23 page)

Logan raised an eyebrow. “And where might that be?” he asked, suspecting he would regret it.

She put an arm around his neck and pulled his head toward hers. “Oh, I think we were about here,” she said. “But I’d better
check to make sure.” Logan knew what was coming next. Sure as his receptionist, Mickey, would take a ninety-minute lunch. Sure as his father would check the Suburban’s service tag the next time he saw him. Sure as there would be a message on his voice mail from his mother asking when he would be home next. He saw it coming. The warning system was sounding the alert siren.
Danger. Danger
. But instead of jumping up and pushing her away and making his escape, Logan just sat there like a straw-stuffed dummy and let her kiss him—in a public restaurant filled with cops and attorneys and government employees. He moaned, fully aroused.

“Logan, I overreacted. I came back to apologize. If you say you don’t know this woman then—”

Logan’s sexy stalker eased her lips from his. When his vision cleared, he saw Melanie looming over them.

“Don’t know her, huh? Never met her, huh?” Melanie said, tapping a foot against the floor. She gave him that “you’re toast” look that could only bode ill for the recipient. “I’ll see you in court, Counselor,” she said, and before Logan could anticipate her next move, she tipped Logan’s glass of water over and it poured onto his lap. She turned and stomped away.

“Geez!” Logan said. The ice-cold water soaked his pants clear through to his boxers. “Dammit, that’s cold!”

“Here, let me help you.” The cause of all his recent anxiety grabbed a napkin and prepared to mop his lap. He caught her hand before it could descend on his crotch.

“The hell you will. You’ve helped me more than enough already. God help me if I have to face her in the courtroom in the near future.”

“I’m sure when you explain to her, she’ll understand.”

Logan pressed a wad of napkins against his pants. “Explain? How the hell do I do that when I don’t even understand myself?”

His stalker stuck her bottom lip out and bit it. “You said you were ready to end this lunacy. I thought you were going to forgive and forget.”

Logan scowled at the large dark spot on the front of his
khaki trousers. He would have to be wearing khaki. Hell, he looked like he had bladder-control problems. “I
am
ready to forgive and forget. Especially the ‘forget’ part,” he said. “I just want to forget this entire unfortunate episode in my life. Delete the whole past week.”

She smiled at him, and Logan caught himself thinking she had the sweetest smile.

“You don’t know how happy I am to hear you say that, Logan,” she said. “So very happy.”

“Good. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to run by my apartment and change.” Logan waited for her to move out of the way, but she didn’t budge. He wedged his briefcase between them and inched it toward her.

“Would you like some company?” she asked.

Logan looked at her. “What?”

“Would you like some company?”

“Hell, no, I’m going home to change my pants!”

“I know that.”

“Why the hell would I want your company for that?”

“Well, duh. If you don’t know the answer to that, I’m not going to tell you.”

Logan’s eyes crossed. Hadn’t they agreed to an amicable separation? “See you—no hard feelings. Get some counseling”? “Listen, Miss Daniels, I thought we agreed this was going to stop. I’ve been extremely patient with you. But my patience has been worn down to a nub where you are concerned, so please move those impossibly long legs and that nice little rear end and let me out, or I will do it for you.”

She swallowed twice in succession. He could see the surprise and disappointment in her eyes. He fought the urge to feel sorry for her and began to move his briefcase and his body across the seat toward her. Her face was so easy to read. She realized his intent a second before her fanny hit the floor of the restaurant. Logan slid past her and held his briefcase in front to hide the damp spot on his pants. He threw a ten at the startled waitress.

“Now, that’s what you call a lady-killer,” Logan heard a nearby male customer comment. “Guy comes in with a redhead. He’s joined by a blonde who cozies up to him. The redhead gets mad and leaves, then returns to find him kissing the blonde. Furious, Red leaves again. Then he turns around and knocks Blondie on her butt and walks out. Yep, that’s what I call a real man!”

“I wouldn’t be too impressed, Harry,” a strident female voice cautioned. “Looks to me like Mr. God’s Gift wet his drawers.”

Logan cursed. He almost ran from the restaurant. He checked the parking lot again for the red car and made his way to his Suburban. It was then that he noticed the woman’s bicycle chained to a pole, and snarled.
Little sneak
, he thought.

He threw his briefcase on the seat and pulled out of the parking lot. He’d driven a few blocks when his cell phone started ringing.

“Logan Alexander,” he answered.

“You know this means war, don’t you, Lawyer Logan?” Debra Daniels’s voice came across the wireless. “And it could get ugly. But, hey, all’s fair in love and war, isn’t it, Logan? If you wish to discuss a cease-fire or terms of surrender, you know where to reach me.” She disconnected.

Logan stared at the phone. Had he just been threatened or propositioned? Or both?

“Okay, so explain to me again what we’re doing and why we’re doing it at this wretched early hour.” Debra’s red-eyed, reluctant golfing buddy stifled a yawn. “That maniacal madman kept me working late again last night, and you know how cranky I get when I don’t get my eight hours of Zs,” she said.

Debra snorted. “Get real, Suz. You’re cranky all the time.” Suzi shook her head, and Debra tried not to laugh at how crooked her braid was.

“I’m cranky because not only do I have to put up with Battle-ax Beverly at work, now I have to contend with Criminally Callous CEO Clay.”

Debra paused in the act of tightening the strap around her golf bag. CEO Clay? Where had she heard that name before? Suzi’s continuing litany of complaints drew Debra’s thoughts back to the present.

“Who plays golf at this unholy hour, anyway?” she was saying. “The chipmunks? Those little squinties that dart out of the bushes and scare you half to death? Masochists? Obsessive compulsives? Who?”

“Lots of perfectly sane, rational people, just like you and me,” Debra said, and finished securing her bag.

“Make up your mind,” Suzi said. “They’re either sane and rational, or they’re like you and me.”

“That’s not funny,” Debra said. “Come on. Get a move
on, would you? Gram moves faster than you do, and she’s got fifty years and arthritis on you.”

“I’m gonna tell her you said she was old and arthritic,” Suzi snapped, and slouched over the cart’s steering wheel.

“I’ll get your bag, sleepyhead,” Debra said. “But pick up some Geritol next time you’re at Wally’s World, would you?”

“Hey, it’s not my fault.” Suzi’s voice was muffled. “Blame that tyrant Clay ‘I need you to work late’ Sinclair. He’s had me working my fingers to the bone every night this week. It’s the old downsizing shuffle. ‘Let’s see who our next lucky dancer will be to take that stroll down unemployment lane.’”

Debra smiled and let her friend vent.

“I’m expected to help determine who is essential and who is nonessential,” Suzi continued. “Then, once I’m done doing that,
I
will no longer be essential and I’ll be asked to hand myself my own walking papers and do the termination tango. You’d think corporate would be satisfied with the megaprofits they’re making now, instead of sending in some bloodthirsty hatchet man to savage the little guy for the sake of the almighty dollar. Enter Clay Sinclair, complete with long fangs and pointed ears. Mr. ‘It’s nothing personal, Ms. Stratford; we have to sort out the deadwood and eliminate it to keep afloat’ Sinclair. As if people are nothing more than waterlogged, rotting, termite-infested stumps. They’re not people to CEO Sinclair. They’re ants to be squashed. Those itty-bitty grease ants to brush off without a second thought other than making sure they are all eliminated. All in the name of cost cutting. And me? I get to be the lucky one to sit across from those teeny-tiny ants and blow to the four corners the tiny anthills they’ve spent years constructing. It’s barbaric. I don’t know how Clay Sinclair sleeps at night.”

Debra cast a curious look at her friend. Never, in all the years she’d known Suzi, had she ever seen a man get to her. Until now.

“You feel strongly about this guy, don’t you?” Debra said,
and shoved her friend across the seat before placing herself behind the wheel and gunning it. “This Clay Sinclair seems to push all your buttons. I’ve never seen you so…so…”

“Furious? Indignant? Outraged?”

“I was going to say aroused, but I think I’d better change that to animated.”

“Animated? Try infuriated. Incensed. Enraged. That cad never misses an opportunity to humiliate me and put me in my place.”

Debra stopped the golf cart. “Good Lord, Suzi! Do you realize what has happened?”

Suzi grabbed the front upholstery of the cart. “No! What?”

“You’ve discovered your male counterpart,” Debra teased.

“You have no idea how you have insulted me,” Suzi said. “No idea at all. Maybe I should take my clubs and go home.”

“And do what? Go back to bed?”

“On second thought, I might play a decent round for a change. I’ll picture CEO Clay’s face on each one of my balls before I whack it. If that isn’t incentive enough to nail that puppy, I don’t know what is,” Suzi said. “Forward-ho, woman.”

Debra laughed and pulled the cart up to the tee on hole one. Two men, both very tall and broad and smartly dressed, were eyeing the distant pin. One moved toward the tee-off area and sank his tee into the ground. He placed a white ball on it. The other watched from a respectful distance. She hesitated. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, after all. Maybe she should do exactly what Lawyer Logan had suggested: cease and desist.

No. For weeks he’d dogged her steps, cosying up to her family, attending weddings and golf tournaments, in general, driving Debra to distraction. So why shouldn’t she turn the tables on him? Let him know how it felt to be relentlessly stalked, his emotions toyed with—his body tormented by irresistible sensations. And if he and Catrina had recently
come to an understanding? Then he could tell her so. Until then, it was game on!

Ah
. Her quarry was in her sights.

Logan drew his club over his head. Arms outstretched, he twisted his body back and forth a couple of times to work the kinks out. He addressed the ball and took a couple of practice swings. Something didn’t feel right. He realigned himself, concentrated on the ball, and—”

“Ten to one he whiffs it.”

Logan tried to cancel the brain impulse that had already been dispatched with the command to swing. He brought the club up at the same time he swung, and he watched the ball dribble off the tee and roll a few inches away. He stared at the ball in amazement.

“Ye gods, Logan. What the hell’s the matter with you? You whiffed it, man,” Clay exclaimed.

Logan took a deep breath and tore his eyes away from his ball. “Thank you for pointing that out to me,” he snapped.

His eyes narrowed when he saw the golf cart parked an indiscreet distance away.
Hell
. He’d know that blond head anywhere, visor, sunglasses, and all. He clenched his teeth. She should take up private-investigation work. She shadowed him like a pro.

He picked his ball up and walked toward his friend. “I think we should let those ladies play through, don’t you?” he asked.

“No, I do
not
think we should let those ladies play through. It will take them a dozen shots to make it to the green, and I’m not about to sit and watch them dig holes all morning. No bloody way. Not after the week I’ve had dealing with a vituperative, insubordinate, smart-mouthed employee who undermined me every chance she got. No friggin’ way.”

“Trust me on this one, buddy. If we don’t let them play through, we’re going to live to regret it.” Logan motioned to the occupants of the waiting golf cart as it made its way toward them. He glanced at the passenger, a cute brunette
with a scowl as broad as his own. Then his attention strayed to the driver. He touched his visor. “Ladies, my friend and I have decided to let you play through. We’re not up to par today, pun intended, and believe we would slow you down, so please be our guests and knock yourselves out.”
Literally
.

“Oh, we couldn’t do that,” Investigator Daniels exclaimed. “And we’re not in any hurry at all.”

“The hell we aren’t,” her partner said. “I want to go back to bed.”

Logan looked from one woman to the other. Fair and dark. Tall and short. Ornery and ornerier.

“What seems to be the holdup here?” Logan’s longtime friend sauntered up to the cart. “Are we playing golf today or socializing?” He stopped. “You! What the bloody hell are
you
doing here?” he said.

Logan turned to see what had caused his friend’s outburst. He was surprised to see Clay wagging his finger at the brunette in the passenger seat.

“What does it look like I’m doing? Kayaking? Polo? I’m playing golf! My tyrant of a boss must have had an uncustomary lapse. It’s the first free time I’ve had in almost two weeks!”

Logan saw Clay’s jaw clench, and he knew this was the smart-mouthed employee Clay had made reference to earlier. Why wasn’t he surprised that the thorn in Clay’s side was on good terms with the burr under his own saddle?

“The weekend isn’t over, Ms. Stratford,” Clay said, the tic in his jaw becoming more prominent.

“Well, I’ve turned off my phone for the day, and even a tyrant wouldn’t expect me to come in tomorrow. It’s Sunday.”

Clay moved with quiet intent toward the cart. “I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” he said. “Tyrants, by definition, don’t care if it’s Sunday, In de pen dence Day, or even Christmas Day. The CEO tyrant says, ‘Jump’, the employee not only asks, ‘How high?’ but also, ‘How long do I stay airborne, sir?’”

“Aren’t you too old for fairy tales?” the brunette replied.

“Suzi, you can’t mean…Are you saying…? Is this CEO Clay?”

The brunette gave her blonde golfing companion a terse nod.

“But he’s not at all as you described. His ears aren’t pointed in the least!”

The brunette grunted.

“Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend, Ms. Stratford?” Clay asked.

“No. You see, I’m rather fond of her.”

Debra stuck out a hand. “I’m Debra Daniels, a friend of Suzi’s, who, as you may already know, is quite the kidder.”

It was Clay’s turn to grunt. “Have you known Ms. Stratford long?” Clay asked.

“Forever,” Debra said.

“And ever,” Suzi added.

Logan stepped forward. “Since we’re observing the niceties here, and Clay isn’t cooperating, I’ll introduce myself.” Logan extended a hand to Suzi. “Logan Alexander,” he said, and watched her jaw drop. “I take it Debra’s told you about me.”

The brunette’s head moved up and down.

“I have a marvelous idea,” Logan said, as an idea took root. “Why don’t you two ladies join us? We’ll make a foursome out of it.”

“What a fabulous idea, Logan,” Debra squealed. “I should have thought of that.”

Oh, she’d thought of it, all right. But what she didn’t know was that he planned to turn this little coup of hers into a coup d’état for him.

“Ladies first,” he said, and motioned toward the ladies’ tees.

“Why the hell did you ask them to join us?” Clay chided as they walked back to Logan’s golf cart. “The last thing I want is to spend more time with Little Mary Sunshine over there!”

Logan smiled. “I’ll take care of Mary. You take Blondie,” he said.

Clay’s jaw relaxed, and Logan could see him assessing
Debra. Logan wasn’t sure he liked the speculative smile that replaced Clay’s fierce scowl.

“You got a deal, pal. Blondie it is. But keep that ill-tempered, brown-haired shrew out of my way, or I may have to show her how much of a tyrant I can really be.”

Logan laughed, and the men looked on while the two women grabbed their clubs and balls and argued.

“I do
not
want to play golf with him. Unless he’s standing out there in the open,” Suzi said, “an easy target.”

“You still couldn’t hit me if you stuck a bright orange flag on me and placed me ten feet in front of you,” Clay taunted.

“Oh, could we try? I’ll help you stick in the flag,” Suzi said. “I know just where to put it.”

Debra winced and set her ball on the tee. This wasn’t going as she’d planned. Who could have known that Logan’s friend would turn out to be Suzi’s nemesis? And Logan? Well, he was still acting as if she didn’t exist.

Debra hit a competent tee shot, and Clay applauded. She smiled at him, wondering what the devil there was about the man that antagonized her friend so. He was tall and broad shouldered, with an athlete’s easy grace. He had thick, shiny hair the color of warm maple syrup, and when he wasn’t scowling at Suzi he was extremely handsome. A bit rough around the edges, she decided, but that merely enhanced the impression of rugged virility that oozed from his every pore. He was very different from Logan, but she sensed he shared the same appeal to women.

She glanced over at Lawyer Logan. He frowned at her. Well, what else was new? She sighed and looked back at Clay. She wished his presence made her heart race and her mouth dry. She wished his smile sent shivers down to her toes. She wished it were his voice—not Logan’s teasing, lazy drawl—that seduced her better judgment and corrupted her best intentions, and his warm, caressing fingers that turned her mind to mush and fired her body’s nerve endings. She wished his mouth could have been the one to kiss away every
cynical inch of her and replace it with a kinder, gentler Debra Daniels.

Debra’s breasts tingled. She stared down at her tank top and was mortified to see her nipples standing at attention. She gasped and crossed her arms, then looked up and caught Logan’s eyes on her, dark and brooding. She looked at Clay and read speculation and interest in his face.

“God, what a pig!” Suzi said, and grabbed a ball. “He’s standing there leering at you. Leering!” She shoved her tee into the ground and slammed her ball onto it.

“Who?” Debra said, with hope in her heart.

“Who else? The corporate cretin. The restructuring renegade.”

Debra’s heart sank. She’d been hoping—

Whack!
Suzi’s ball went sailing straight and true down the fairway like a shot from a tommy gun. Debra gazed at the ball in amazement. Suzi had never hit a ball like that before. “That was awesome,” Debra congratulated her friend. “What a super tee shot!”

Her friend nodded, as if she made a shot like that every day, and stripped off her glove. “The ball seemed to take on a life of its own,” she said, looking at Clay.

“Brilliant shot, Ms. Stratford,” Logan said. “I don’t think I’ve seen a better tee shot on this hole.”

“Why, I hit one at least thirty yards longer than that the last time we were here, Logan,” Debra said. “We had a bet and I won.”

Logan’s eyebrow raised. “Oh? I don’t recall that. What did you win?” he asked.