The Sheriff's Daughter Page 8

  It was envy. A far more complex emotion.

  She wanted, not just Logan, but what he had with the woman on the other end of the phone—a relationship so clearly defined in the tone of his voice, in the softness of his replies and the almost complete absence of his customary gruffness when he’d spoken to her.

  Love.

  The single word caught her in the chest like a blow, and she had to remind herself to breathe. For two years, ever since she and Louie had split, she’d told herself she wasn’t lonely, that her friends and her father gave her everything she needed.

  But what if she’d been lying to herself? What then?

  “You okay?” Logan’s voice at her shoulder was a jolt, the rush of warmth an uncomfortable reminder.

  She shifted away. “Fine. You want anything else?” She lifted her choices, having picked a few things for him based on what she’d seen in the wreckage of her kitchen.

  The thought added a tremble of nerves to her general upset.

  “What you have is fine.” He paid for the snacks over her protest and led the way back to the truck, darting glances into the shadows as though daring Trehern’s men to try for her. But there was no sign of deadly danger.

  Not yet.

  Logan took the wheel and Sam didn’t bother arguing. He looked sharp enough, and the greater part of her wanted to curl up into a ball and wait until the day was over. Maybe the week. Hell, even a month, because who knew how long this would take?

  A month under Logan Hart’s protection. The idea was as frightening as it was thrilling.

  “That was my sister,” he said abruptly into the tense silence. At her guilty flinch, he glanced over, then away. “Nancy. My sister.” He shrugged. “I just thought you should know that.”

  Relief shivered through her, followed by new tension. Then shame for her nasty thoughts. But over it all, the tension. “Why?”

  She wanted him to be the one to acknowledge the kiss, to say there was an attraction between them that neither could deny.

  Instead of answering, he stared through the wind shield at the lamp-lit road that would take them to the city. “Her husband, Stephen, works for HFH as an infectious-disease specialist. They send him places sometimes. This last time, he didn’t come home.”

  Instant empathy and a sharper flare of guilt pierced Sam. She’d been so caught up in the flurry of activity and danger surrounding her over the past few days, she hadn’t really stopped to consider that Logan had a life outside of Black Horse Beach.

  Maybe she hadn’t wanted to.

  But though she was an only child, she could imagine Logan’s worry on his sister’s behalf. Worse, she could hear a hint of it in his voice, see a slice of pain in his cool expression.

  The kernel of vulnerability in Logan’s expression touched a chord, and Sam felt a stab of pain for his sister. She knew how it felt to watch a man walk away after things were said and done. How much worse could it be to have him disappear when the love was still strong?

  She shifted on the bench seat. “I’m sorry.”

  He nodded, then continued, jaw tight. “He’s been gone a little over three months. Yesterday, a ransom demand arrived. They’re waiting for proof that he’s still alive.”

  His fingers flexed on the steering wheel like he wanted to lash out, and she couldn’t blame him. Of course he wanted to be there with her. Family was family. And though she’d never consciously considered what his life might be like away from Black Horse Beach, it didn’t surprise her to learn that he was close to his family.

  Unfortunately, it made her like him more, and she couldn’t afford to do that.

  She crossed her arms and settled back against the seat, wishing she could do something more helpful than repeat, “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. It’s not your fault I rented your cottage, led hired killers to your door and pretty much ruined your life.” Before she could contradict him, he ground out, “It’s my fault. Mine and Trehern’s.”

  “More Trehern’s than yours,” she argued. “You didn’t ask him to be a criminal.”

  “Yes, but I put myself in the line of fire, just like Stephen did. And neither of us thought about the collateral damage.” His words went ragged, though he fought them back to gruff before she could comment. He shot her a sidelong glance. “That’s not the sort of thing it’s fair to ask a woman to put up with.”

  And then she got it. This was his roundabout way of telling her there was no future for them. For all his harsh manners, Logan was trying to do the right thing.

  The sting of rejection was foolish, Sam told herself. She’d planned on telling him that she had no intention of becoming involved with another he-man who would never settle in a small town. Her heart couldn’t stand doing that again.

  And she had a feeling that if she and Logan tried an affair, the inevitable crash would be worse than any of the others she’d experienced. So why risk it?

  She was trying to be smarter these days.

  He glanced over again and she shook her head and put him out of his misery. “Don’t worry. I get it. And if it’s any help, I was preparing this whole speech about why it was a bad idea for us to get involved, too.”

  “Oh. Good.” He didn’t look as relieved as she’d expected, and she didn’t feel as relieved as she’d expected, either, especially when he signaled a turn off the expressway into Chinatown, shot her a glance and said, “And what about down on the beach? The kiss?”

  Her face flamed as she remembered the torrid embrace. “We’ll just forget it happened.”

  Which was a little like trying to ignore a giant schnauzer sitting in the centerpiece of a fancy-dress dinner. Impossible.

  His molten look said the same, but aloud he said, “Good. Then this shouldn’t be a problem.”

  He sent the truck into an enclosed parking garage. The walls echoed to silence as he parked near a key-coded elevator lobby and killed the engine.

  Sam shivered slightly at the sudden quiet and the grim darkness of the parking garage. “What won’t be a problem?”

  He slid from the truck and reached back in for both of their suitcases. “My bosses and I have agreed that you’ll be safest in the suite with me. You’ll have your own room, and we’ll share the bathroom and the kitchen. But that won’t be a problem, seeing as we’ve agreed that we’ll simply ignore the attraction. Right?”

  His narrow-eyed stare and tense shoulders suggested that he might have been as offended by her quick agreement as she’d been by his well-camouflaged brush-off. But Sam couldn’t deal with that right then. Her brain was too full of the buzzing words share the bathroom and the kitchen.

  Hell, no!

  She couldn’t share a suite with him. Impossible! They’d see each other in the morning. At night. At odd hours in between as they, and the HFH operatives he’d promised for help, searched for Trehern’s hired guns.

  Her door opened abruptly, nearly sending her to the asphalt. Logan braced her with a strong hand, then stepped away and extended that same hand as though asking for her decision. “Okay?”

  No, it wasn’t okay. The whole situation was anything but okay. But she found herself nodding and taking his hand, letting him lead her to the elevators and watching while he keyed in a code.

  The security lock flashed green, he opened the door and gestured her through—

  And a cool, deadly voice spoke from behind them both. “Welcome home, Doc. I’ve been waiting for you.”

  HELL! LOGAN SHOVED Sam through the door and spun toward the voice, damning himself for the lapse. He should’ve been paying better attention, should have been searching the shadows rather than worrying about his and Sam’s not-gonna-happen relationship. He snapped over his shoulder, “Take the elevator upstairs and call Security.”

  A figure stepped from the deep shadows behind the elevator, where a bulb had burned out. Or, Logan realized now, been shot out.

  Viggo was nothing if not thorough, and expected his men to be the same.

&nbs
p; “No elevator. No Security.” The smooth voice brought back memories, as did the sight of William Caine, Trehern’s trusted lieutenant.

  William was about Logan’s height and weight, about his age. By looks, the two men could have been brothers. Oddly, they could have been friends, as well. They had been, once, but that friendship had been based on a lie.

  Logan’s lie. And he saw the anger of it, the betrayal of it, sharp in the other man’s normally cold eyes. Though he’d been jailed in the same raid as his boss, William had turned minimal evidence in exchange for his freedom. At the time, Logan had hoped he’d decided to go straight.

  Now he knew. William was out for revenge against the man who had been instrumental in destroying his employer. His way of life.

  Logan was dead. He and Sam were both dead.

  Spurred by the thought, by desperation, he yelled, “Sam, run!”

  He leaped at William and pulled his weapon, hoping surprise, or maybe their false friendship would slow the other man’s response. But there was no such luck. Trehern’s man sidestepped and kicked the gun out of his hand. Logan reversed direction, determined to keep his own body between Samantha and William while she escaped.

  Trehern’s assassin closed in, but didn’t pull a gun. This was pure hand-to-hand combat. Logan had some formal training, and had picked up twice as much informal experience since enlisting with HFH, but he knew William had been born into middle-class obscurity and had clawed his way into the tight ranks of Trehern’s empire through fighting skills and sheer tenacity. He was reputed to know every pressure point in the human body. With one touch, he could knock a man out for a minute or an hour.

  Or permanently.

  With a growl, William bared his teeth and leaped forward.

  “Logan, look out!”

  He didn’t need Sam’s scream to know she hadn’t followed his orders, hadn’t escaped upstairs while he bought her precious time. “Damn it, Sam, get out of here!”

  He crouched and got in a lucky blow, driving his shoulder into William’s gut hard enough to knock the breath out of the other man.

  “I’ve called 911,” she said loudly. “The police will be here any minute.”

  William sucked in a breath on a raspy chuckle, but he didn’t look worried. They both knew cell signals were nonexistent in parking garages. “Gutsy, isn’t she?” He feinted at Logan’s jaw with his left hand, then swung hard with his right and connected.

  Logan’s vision blurred as he reeled away. He struck out blindly and connected with a solid smack of flesh on flesh. “Stay away from her, you bastard.”

  “I’m not interested in her. At least, not directly.” William was panting now. Blood trickled from a split lip and from a gash above his eyebrow.

  Logan saw the change in his eyes, saw them go from cool blue to disinterested ice.

  The way they’d changed just before Viggo shot Sharilee, as though William had known something awful was about to happen, didn’t like it, but didn’t care enough to stop it. Logan braced himself for a bullet.

  He got a fist to the jaw.

  Sam screamed. Logan stumbled back, spun, then howled when William’s arm snaked across his throat.

  Then he didn’t have the breath left to howl as William tightened his grip and Logan’s windpipe folded.

  “Let go of him!” He heard footsteps running toward them and yelled inside his head, Sam, get out of here! Go!

  He didn’t want her to see this. It had never been her fight.

  When William shifted his grip to one-handed and reached into his pocket, Logan drove his heel into the other man’s shin and shot an elbow back. He didn’t get free, but the arm across his throat loosened enough for him to rasp, “Leave me! Run!”

  “No.” There was a click at Logan’s temple as William continued, “She should stay. This involves both of you.”

  Logan froze, eyes locked on Sam’s stricken expression. But even as he wished with fervid intensity that he’d never left the city, never rented the pretty cottage on Black Horse Beach, his mind asked one insistent question.

  If William was armed, why the fistfight?

  “The bloody nose was for me,” the other man said calmly, his thought patterns having mirrored Logan’s as accurately as they had before, when the men had been friends separated by differing agendas, “this is for my former employer.”

  Punishment before he died, Logan realized, then braced himself for the shot.

  Rapid-fire emotions flared in his gut. Regret for the things he’d done, the things he hadn’t done. Sadness for Nancy, who would probably never see Stephen again. Pain for Samantha, who would be haunted by his execution just as he’d been haunted by Sharilee’s murder.

  Fear. Gut-numbing fear.

  But the shot never came.

  After a moment, William chuckled dryly in his ear. “Had you scared, didn’t I?” He pressed a folded paper into Logan’s hand. “This is from Viggo Jr. He wants you to bugger off.”

  And the arm across Logan’s throat and the gun at his temple were gone.

  Logan stumbled forward into Sam, then scooped his fallen weapon and crouched, ready for another attack.

  But Trehern’s enforcer had been swallowed up by the darkness near the shot-out light. Moments later, a well-tuned engine purred to life and the sleek shape of a pricey sedan disappeared from the garage.

  God, Logan thought in that instant, thank you, God.

  Then a wash of shame hit him, along with the sure knowledge that he could have handled that better. He could have fought harder, smarter. But in his brain, William was irrevocably connected to the moment of Sharilee’s death, to the horrible things he’d seen. Worse, a piece of him still thought of William as a friend.

  Part of him had fought, true. But part of him had frozen, and Sam could have paid the price.

  “Logan.” She touched his arm. “Let’s get inside.” Only a slight tremor betrayed her fear.

  “Okay.” He herded her through the coded door into the relative safety of the elevator lobby, and pressed the button—normal actions, everyday actions that had little to do with the raw, fatalistic terror of the past few minutes.

  He’d thought he was dead, and Sam, too.

  He’d gone to Black Horse Beach to heal, but everything that had happened served to point out one irrevocable truth—that he hadn’t healed at all. He’d simply avoided the memories.

  The doors dinged with painful cheer. He gestured her inside the elevator and breathed in relief when the metal slabs glided shut, insulating them. Protecting them.

  The building was owned by Boston General, having been deeded to the hospital by head administrator Zach Cage right after he married his wife, Dr. Ripley Davis. Cage had bought the building back when he’d been a professional baseball player, and it had all the amenities that came with status—including security in the lobby and coded locks on every door. Above the garage level, it was secure.

  He hoped.

  “Logan? Are you okay?” Sam’s worried eyes fastened on his face. “Are you hurt? Who was that man?”

  “No, I’m not hurt.” He flexed his fingers into fists and was almost startled to feel paper crumple. He’d all but forgotten about the note. “And that was William Caine. He works for Trehern.”

  But he’d said the message came from Viggo Jr., which meant the organization was alive and well and under the rulership of Viggo’s son. Damn it. Just damn it.

  The beginnings of failure echoed hollowly in Logan’s chest. Had he given up eighteen months, had Sharilee given up her life only so they could jail one ruler and crown another in his place?

  Hell, what a mess.

  “What does the note say?” Sam asked quietly, as though understanding he wouldn’t tell her unless she pressed, that he wanted to keep her as far away from Trehern’s horror as possible, though it seemed less and less possible with each passing day.

  He met her eyes then, and felt a punch of power at the connection. A punch of power and a spurt of fear. Will
iam was smart. Too smart. If there had been any doubt in the organization about Logan and Sam’s relationship, it was gone now that William had seen them together.

  Logan had no power to hide his reaction to her, his consuming need to protect her, to keep her safe.

  To keep her near.

  “Logan? The note?”

  As that final realization shivered through him, he couldn’t deny that bringing her to the city had as much to do with what he wanted as it did with what was best for her.

  Rocked by the treacherous emotions, he unclenched his fingers and looked down at the crumpled white envelope. Edged with a thin ribbon of burgundy and gold, it looked expensive. Classy. Legitimate.

  Much like Trehern himself, it wasn’t until he looked beneath the surface that the evil became clear.

  The elevator car rose smoothly to the lobby and the doors eased open so they could check in at the security desk before taking a second lift to the penthouse suite.

  But Sam and Logan remained in the elevator. After a moment, the doors glided shut once more, shutting them in together.

  Logan broke the seal on the envelope and pulled out the single sheet of linen paper, which was embossed with the intertwined letters V and T, and the image of an arching tree. Hidden within the logo was a serpent with wickedly pointed fangs.

  Again, evil hidden within seeming class.

  Sam didn’t ask again, understanding that he needed a moment, that this wasn’t anything he wanted to get involved with. Not again.

  Then, damning himself for the delay, Logan unfolded the sheet of paper, where a single sentence punched him in the gut and left him reeling.

  I didn’t order the hit.

  Chapter Seven

  “What the hell does that mean?” Upset, Sam shoved her trembling hands in her pockets. “Who didn’t send what?”

  “I think Viggo Jr. wants me to know he didn’t send the assassin.” Logan stared down at the paper as though force of will might make more words appear. He scowled darkly. “But if that’s the case, then why tell me? And who did send the shooter?”

  When he glanced at her, she shrugged. “Beats me.”