Magic Kiss (Hope Falls Book 11) (14 page)

While he was doing his best to remain casual, his older brother was doing the exact opposite.

Levi was at Shelby’s side so fast that, if he were a cartoon character, there would’ve been a streak behind him. With his brow furrowed and his jaw set, he wrapped a protective arm around his wife’s waist, stopping her in her path that led directly to Logan.

“What’s wrong, baby?”

Logan could honestly say he’d never seen his new sister-in-law this aggravated. Or upset. Or whatever she was. In fact, he’d watched her—on numerous occasions—handle an entire bar full of people with grace and ease. Nothing seemed to ruffle her feathers. Not drunken idiots hitting on her. Not inebriated women hitting on Levi. Not frat boys getting into bar brawls. And the one that had personally impressed him the most—not even tipsy girls who started crying at the drop of a hat.

Apparently, he’d done something that had pissed her off though. He just had no idea what the hell it was.

Shelby’s eyes were wide and wild as she threw her hands up in frustration. “I just heard from Amy, who heard from Nikki, who heard from Karina, who heard from Amanda, that your
brother
knows
Chelsea Paige
and that she is
staying
with him.”

“Oh. That.” Levi relaxed, his shoulders lowering from their fighting posture.

That must not have been the right response, because she turned her accusatory index finger towards her husband and poked him in the chest with it. Betrayal tinged her voice as she asked in disbelief, “You knew!?”

Seeing her reaction must’ve alerted Levi to the error of his ways, and the man started backpedaling faster than a Ferrari in reverse. He raised his hands in feigned innocence and began pleading his case.

“I didn’t know she was staying with him until right now. I just found out. I asked him about it right before you came out here.”

Logan shook his head in disbelief. Never in his life would he have imagined that his big brother would be whipped. Yet the evidence was standing right in front of him.

All of his life, he’d watched Levi go through woman after woman. Some stayed a little longer than others, but never had he seen his brother as scared of one as he was of the brunette poking him in his chest. It was entertaining as hell.

After several beats of staring her husband down, Shelby must’ve believed him, because her attention once again turned to Logan. Then she folded her arms in a defensive stance, raising her eyebrows. “Details, please.”

“Details?” Logan was at a loss. She already knew that Emma was staying with him, what else was there to tell?

Shelby looked at him like he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed as she started lifting her fingers one by one, while she ticked off questions. “Why is she staying with you? How long have you known her? How did you meet her? Is she your girlfriend? When did you—”

Levi tightened his grip around his wife’s waist and started to turn her back towards the bar. “Let’s give Logan some space. I’ll tell you everything later.”

Logan’s chest tightened. He knew what his brother was doing. It’d been a long time since someone had stuck up for him or tried to protect him. He remembered the first time it had happened, and it had been Levi.

Lucky and Logan were five when they’d accidently broken old man Westin’s window while they had been playing catch. When the crankiest son of a bitch who lived in the trailer park came after them with a baseball bat, eleven-year-old Levi stepped between the crazy, old man and his twin brothers and said that if anyone was going to get a beating, it was going to be him, because he was in charge.

Growing up, Logan had always looked up to Levi, but that day, he’d officially become his hero.

Today, though, he didn’t need his big brother’s protection. With the way information traveled around this town, chances were Shelby would find out what she wanted to know anyway, so he figured she might as well hear it from the source. This way, the story that circulated would at least be an accurate one. He’d have to answer questions about Emma and Drew, but now, he’d just have to tell one person—one he liked and trusted—and that would be that.

He hoped.

“What? Did I say something wrong?” Shelby whispered to her husband, who was ushering her back to the door she’d burst through.

“It’s all right, Levi.”

Both Levi and Shelby stopped and turned before they made it inside.

“I’ve known Emma, who writes as Chelsea Paige, about twelve years. I served with her husband, Andrew, who was killed six years ago. I’m her son, Drew’s godfather. He snuck out of a camp he was supposed to be at in Lake Tahoe and took a bus here to see me. I don’t know how long they’re staying. And no, she’s not my girlfriend.”

He’d answered all of her questions, but Shelby was practically vibrating with a million more. Fortunately, his new sister-in-law could read a room, and instead of indulging her impulse to pepper him with a slew of inquiries, she just smiled.

“Oh wow. Okay. Well, that’s sad about her husband, but it’s awesome that she’s here. If she’s still around tomorrow night, let her know that we’d love to have her at Book Club.
When It’s Real
is one of the only books
all
of us have actually read.”

“Okay. I’ll let her know.” Logan stood a little taller, and his lungs expanded to their fullest as he took a deep breath.

The amount of pride he was feeling was ridiculous. He had absolutely nothing to do with Emma’s success. But he couldn’t help it. He was so proud of all she’d accomplished under such dire circumstances.

“Thanks,” Shelby beamed. Her entire face lit up as she smiled a dazzling smile—which he was sure was one of the things that had attracted Levi to her. Then she spun around and grabbed the screen door, but she glanced over her shoulder before entering. “Oh, and if she doesn’t want to come to Book Club, could you please, please, please bring her by here before she leaves? I would
love
to meet her.”

“I already asked him, babe. I’m on it,” Levi assured her as he playfully swatted her backside.

“Thanks, babe.” She lifted up onto her toes and gave her husband a quick kiss before disappearing in the doorway.

Levi walked back to where Adam and Logan were still posted up on the retaining wall. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s fine.” Logan assured his brother before starting to clean up the workspace.

For years after Andrew had died, Logan didn’t want to talk about him. Every time Lucky or Levi had brought him up, he’d changed the subject. After a while, they’d caught on and stopped even uttering his name.

Some losses you just can’t recover from, especially when you’re responsible for them. Logan had had to push down his memories of Andrew. It was either that or let them completely consume him. He’d put them in a chest, mentally locked said chest with chains and padlocks around it, and sunk it deep in his consciousness.

But, ever since Drew had shown up, the kid had been asking a ton of questions about his dad. Logan had had to unlock it and bring those memories to the surface. It wasn’t as painful as he had thought it would be. He still missed Andrew; he always would. He still felt guilty and responsible for what happened to him; he always would. But now, he could remember the good times without the searing pain of the reality that he was gone.

Logan was only half listening. Adam and Levi started talking about Lucky’s next fight, which was in Vegas in a couple of months, as they all cleaned up.

He was too busy wondering if his grief process was anything like Emma’s. If it had ever gotten easier for her. He wanted to ask her about it.

The only time they’d talked about Andrew was that night in the kitchen. She’d broken down, collapsed in his arms. He’d wrapped her in his arms, and she’d sobbed into his shoulder. His entire body had ached with grief and pain as he’d held her tiny form and his heart had shredded.

Then, when her tears had dried up, her hands had wrapped around his neck and she’d buried her face in his neck. He couldn’t say the exact moment when the energy between them had changed. First, her breathing had started coming in shallow pants. Next, he’d felt the soft touch of her lips against his neck. Logan had done his best to ignore it. After all, she had been grieving. But, somehow, the hand he’d been stroking her hair with had threaded through her hair. The hand that had been running up and down her back in comfort had dipped lower to her hip…

On second thought, maybe asking her wasn’t a good idea.

‡

“S
o, how did the writing go today?” Logan pulled three glasses from the top cabinet.

“Good.” Emma didn’t glance up from the sauce she was stirring.

But her cheeks grew red, and he was fairly certain it had nothing to do with the heat from the stove.

“You really didn’t have to cook. That was part of the deal, remember? I said I would cook.”

When he and Drew returned home fifteen minutes ago, they’d walked into the delicious aroma of garlic bread and spaghetti sauce. He had planned on cooking spaghetti himself, but Emma had beat him to the punch.

“It was no problem. I finished my word count today.” She glanced up, her eyes bright and radiating joy. She continued stirring as she explained with glee, “The words were just pouring out of me. My hands were having a hard time typing fast enough to keep up with my brain.”

He had never really given a thought to what her writing process might be like, so he asked, “Does that happen a lot?”

Letting out a forced laugh, she shook her head. “No. It does not. It only happened today because…” Snapping her mouth shut, she stopped mid-sentence and turned her attention back to the stove. Then her breath caught as she brushed a hair that had fallen in her face off her cheek.

Actions had consequences—even innocent ones. Emma’s totally harmless gesture had led to two residual effects Logan was trying to ignore. First, her shirt had lifted with her arm but never lowered with it, revealing a tantalizing strip of bare skin between the waistband of her jean shorts and the hem of her white shirt. The second was a red smear of sauce across her cheek.

In one large step, Logan moved beside her. Drawn like a moth to a flame, his arm rose and his thumb rubbed against the smooth surface of her skin. When her eyes shot up at him, he lamely said, “Sauce.”

He cleaned the offending tomato smudge in one swipe, but his hand remained cupping her chin. His mind short-circuited with all the things he wanted to say to her, to do to her. Instead of telling her that she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, instead of crushing his mouth to hers, he asked, “It only happened today because of what?”

Again, actions had consequences—even innocent ones. What he had thought was a totally neutral follow-up question caused Emma’s eyes to dilate, her breath to quicken, and her lips to part. All signs his body was reading as green lights to do and say the things he wanted to.

“Is dinner ready yet?” Drew’s voice came from the hall.

Logan dropped his hand and stepped away from Emma just as Drew came around the corner. His brown hair was still wet from his shower and looked like he’d barely run a towel over it. But the layers of Mountain Ridge dirt that had covered him from head to toe were gone.

“Almost. Why don’t you set the table?”

The shakiness in Emma’s voice was almost undetectable, but Logan definitely picked up on it.

“’Kay, Mom.” Drew grabbed the three plates Logan had placed on the counter and did as his mom had asked.

Logan was feeling more off-balance than what was normal since Emma’s arrival. Every second he spent around her was proving more and more difficult for him to keep his distance—or even his sanity. If he didn’t figure out how to deal with whatever he was going through, he was sure that not only was he going to be trying to hide his perma-boner all the time, but he was also going to lose his mind.

She was making him crazy and she wasn’t even doing anything. Just seeing her baby-blue eyes, her full pink lips, her creamy skin, and her silky hair was bad enough. But add to that smelling her fresh, clean, intoxicating scent, which he would put money on wasn’t bottled but natural, and hearing her sweet, honeyed voice was enough to put him in a straitjacket.

For years, Emma was just Emma. Andrew’s Emma. Logan hadn’t noticed the curve of her thigh as it dipped behind her knee, which looked so mouthwatering that it would tempt a priest. The sway of her hips as she walked with enough sex appeal to hypnotize a blind man. The graceful slope of her back as it curved into her ass, which spiked his blood pressure so high that he wasn’t sure a monitor could read it.

Back then, she was simply his best friend’s wife. That was all he’d seen when he’d looked at her, when he’d thought about her. Why couldn’t he see her that way anymore? Yes, Andrew was gone, but that didn’t change who Emma was to Logan.

She was still Andrew’s Emma. If anything, she was more off-limits now.

Drew skipped back into the kitchen. “Can I have a soda?”

“Have you had one today?” Emma poured the pasta from the boiling pot into a strainer.

Drew didn’t answer, just looked down at his shoes.