Mad enough to marry (7 page)

Not that, by God, He didn't deserve that thrown at him and he couldn't let her think for another hour that it was true.

As soon as he had his temper back under control he'd speak to her again. It was time to discuss what had happened. He should have initiated the conversation weeks and weeks ago, he thought wearily. Maybe then the tension between them wouldn't have risen to this degree.

He took a breath, let it out slowly, then dried his dripping face with a towel. But it was going to be okay. Better than okay, once he cleared the air between them. He would feel like himself and once again peace would prevail in his world.

Elena took her sweet time answering his knock at her door. He remained patient though, even trying to look pleasant when she inched it open.

He had a view of the tip of her nose and half of one blue eye. **May I come in?" he asked.

*lt's late.'*

At that, he considered just shoving her purse through the crack in the door and giving up on explanations. But ah-eady his tension was coiUng again and he was so unaccustomed to feeUng this wired that he knew he'd never get any sleep unless he got the wcwds inside him out first.

*Tlease let me in," he said, trying to sound calm. '*I have your purse and some things to get off my chest."

The door opened slowly and he stepped inside. The groceries were already put away and those papers and envelopes he'd earUer seen in her tote bag were spread across a card table in the dining area. **You have more work tonight?"

**Requests for applications for the fall semester. I never seem to get them all mailed out unless I bring some home every night." She'd changed out of her dress and was wearing low-slung plaid flannel pants that were cinched around her hips and a T-shirt short enough to reveal a half-inch of skin at her belly.

Pajamas? He shied away from the thought and watched her sit back at the card table then expertly trifold two double-sided papers and sUde them into an envelope. She set it aside and picked up another set of pages.

Logan hung her purse on a hook by the door and then walked to the card table. Curling his hand on the back of one of the metal folding chairs drawn up to

it, he watched her stuff another envelope. *'Will you cut my head off if I sit down and help?"

She sUd him a look, then one shoulder Ufted in a shrug. ''Earlier, with the groceries, I should have been more gracious. Fm... sorry.' *

Her apology should have eased his mood, but still somethmg pumped just below the surface of his skin. Maybe because of that glimpse of her taut Uttle belly, he decided. Or because he still had his own sorry to get through.

Ignoring the feeUng, he sat down and pulled a stack of envelopes and appUcations in front of him. ''There's not a trick to this, is there?"

She shook her head, then watched him fumble through his first attempt. When he was done, she continued looking at him, her forehead creased. "Really. You don't have to do this. I can manage without your help."

She didn't sound mad this time, just puzzled, and it was an easier emotion to confront. "I know that," he said. "But you need to know something too. There's no reason to throw my offers of aid back in my face or even make elaborate bargains in order to take what's freely given."

She bUnked at him. "You mean you'll allow me to stay here without letting you keep Elena in BedT^

Fm an idiot, he thought. / walked right into that one. "No," he repUed flatly. "The painting stays where it is."

She sniffed, that one little sound letting him know what she thought of him.

His tension tightened a notch and he worked hard not to let it show. Reasonable, he reminded himself. Rational. * 'Elena, sometimes you make it damn hard for a guy to do you a good turn."

Her gaze was on the papers she was folding. **Maybe Vm out of practice. Not all that many have come my way."

"Guys or good turns?" The first he wouldn't believe; he didn't know about the second.

**What Fm trying to say is that I'm used to doing for myself."

**I get that. You're independent."

Shaking her head, she stuffed another envelope and moved on to the next, her movements efficient and automatic. '*You don't get it. What I mean is, I have only myself to depend upon. And Gabby is depending on me too."

Logan's fingers stilled. ''There's just the two of you?"

"Yes." She went about folding and stuffing as if they were talking about the weather instead of what she'd weathered in her life. "When I was sixteen my mother died and we moved from L.A. to Strawberry Bay to live with my grandmother. Then Nana passed away two years later and I was given custody of Gabby. I already had my job at the community college and I'd been paying the bills out of my salary for months."

He tried wrapping his mind around what she'd said. "You've taken care of your sister by yourself since you were eighteen and she was...what?"

'*Nine." She looked up quickly, giving him a glare. "And we've done just fine, by the way."

*1 know that. Fve met Gabby. She's pre-med." He added that last bit because he knew it meant so much to Elena.

**Pre-med." Almost smiling, she nodded. *'We did it."

Logan thought over what Elena had said. She didn't accept help well because she hadn't often been offered it. But the truth was, she'd have a blocks-long line of men queued up to fulfill her slightest fancy if she wished it. She was that beautiful.

But she scared them all off.

She hadn't scared him. Not eleven years ago, anyway.

Logan closed his eyes, guilt tasting metallic in his mouth. **Elena..." He opened his eyes. '*We need to talk about that night."

Her gaze flew to his, surprise and something almost fearful on her face. *'That night?" she echoed.

'^Senior prom," he clarified, and saw her relax a little. He knew why. He didn't want to talk about the night they'd first met either. It had been a week before the senior prom and of all the things that were between them, that was the one he'd never examined or tried to explain.

Maybe because he knew he couldn't. Shouldn't. Whatever.

He reached out to put his hand over hers. Her fingers stilled, but she didn't look up at him. '*You don't

know how much I wish I could redo everything about the senior prom," he said.

She kept her eyes down. "Everything?"

She meant the fact that he'd invited her that night. **Maybe," he said, knowing he had to be honest. **Maybe if I could, Fd take that back too."

She nodded once.

He scooted his chair closer so that he could lift her chin with his free hand. *'Not because I didn't want to share that night with you. But because I hate myself for the way it turned out, for hurting you."

As he'd expected, her gaze jumped to his. **You may have humiliated me, but you never hurt me."

*'Cc«ne on—"

*'You come on. Come on to the fact that I'd just lost my mother and been forced to start a new high school nearly at the end of the year. Come on to the fact that I was sixteen, new in town, and the hottest boy at my new campus invited me to his senior prom. Me."

*'When I met you at that party—"

'*We're not talking about that other night!"

'*—^I thought you went to the Catholic girls' school across town. I thought you were a senior too. I think you know that."

Her face flushed, though she pretended she hadn't heard him. ' 'I bought a new dress and shoes with the babysitting money I'd brought with me from L.A. My grandmother curled my hair and Gabby painted my fingernails. They both helped me pick out a bouton-

niere for your lapel. Then the three of us waited for you to pick me up."

Logan looked away, coward that he was. *'I was wearing my tux. I'd washed and waxed my car, refusing to let anyone else touch it. The wrist corsage I bought you was in the refrigerator in the butler's pantry. Annie's mother was our—"

**Housekeeper, I know."

**She saw it and said the white baby roses I'd picked out were perfect. They were tied with a gauzy blue ribbon that I thought was the exact color of your eyes.'*

'*You said you'd pick me up at seven o'clock," Elena reminded him. "And then it was seven, and then seven-thirty. At eight o'clock I thought maybe I'd mixed up the plans and I was supposed to meet you at the high school. My grandmother thought I should stay home and wait, but I couldn't believe you would have stood me up. So our neighbor drove me to school and I waited outside the dance for you. I realized right away that people were whispering about me, but I pretended not to hear."

**You know that I eventually made it to your grandmother's."

**You know that I eventually made it back there myself."

**But we missed each other again when I went to school looking for you." Logan studied the way his hand covered hers and smiled a little. **Do you think if we'd had cell phones then that today the prom would just be a hazy, happy memory?"

He looked up and met her eyes. He even laughed. '*You're right.'* No matter what, he would have remembered each moment with her in vivid detail.

**But we went over all this that night, when we finally managed to be in the same place at the same time," Elena pointed out. "It was about 10:15 I believe. You gave me that wrist corsage and it was perfect."

**You didn't give me the boutonniere. You crushed it in your hand—pricking yourself with the pin as I remember—^then threw it and the corsage to the ground. You looked pretty perfect in that dress and those new shoes, by the way, even when you were using them to grind the flowers into the sidewalk." He had to grin, because he suddenly remembered how flummoxed he'd been, watching her stomp about, yelling at him in Spanish. He'd had no experience with someone so fiery and who so easily flung her emotions about.

He still didn't. **I never explained exactly what made me so late, though."

*'The battle between your second thoughts and your good manners, I imagine."

'That's not true, Elena. At least not in the way you mean."

'*Right."

**Fine. I'll admit I had second thoughts. I barely knew you, and it had been so...intense the night we met."

"We're not talking about the night we met," she said, sounding as if her teeth were clenched.

*'Okay, okay." He curled his fingers around hers and wasn't surprised when her hand remained stiff in his grasp. *'I was just about to leave to pick you up when my father called me into his study. An old friend had dropped by who he thought I should meet."

**You couldn't make your excuses?"

"You'd have to know my father—"

*'I do know your father." Elena sighed. "Okay, I can see him corralling you, even on the night of your prom."

"His friend was just like him. The minutes ticked on and on and they kept asking me questions, bombarding me with advice. Still, I might have left if my father's friend wasn't the president of Whitford College."

Elena stilled. "Where you were going to attend the upcoming fall?"

Logan nodded. "And I was in a big battle with my father over my major at the time. He wanted Economics or Electrical Engineering and I wanted Industrial Arts. That night, my father's friend listened to me and helped me convince my father that my choice was a good one."

And then he'd run out of the house and broken several speed limits to get to Elena's, afraid even to risk an explanation over the phone. Hell only turned hotter as he missed her at the house, then at the high

school. Finally, he'd sat outside her house until she'd arrived home. She'd been so angry that he'd not known what to say to her or even how to begin to make it up to her.

And she'd been so beautiful he'd found it difficult to find his tongue.

But then he'd discovered she was sixteen. Just turned sixteen! Her grandmother had called her inside, explaining to him in halting English that sophomores in high school had early curfews. '*You should have told me your age. I was stunned."

She shrugged. "What did my age matter? You didn't think I was good enough for you."

Logan shook his head. "I swear to you, that wasn't ever in my mind. And I wish I could take back how standing you up led you to that conclusion. If I could have prevented that, I would have. But there was another obstacle between us, Elena. Much more basic than what side of town we lived on or how late I was that night."

Her eyebrows rose. "What do you mean?"

"I think we might have made it past that mess— been laughing about it now—^if I'd called you again. If we'd made a date for the next night or the next week. Do you agree?"

She slid her hand from his and crossed her arms over her chest, regarding him out of narrowed, wary eyes. "Maybe. Okay, probably yes."

"Well, there's a very good reason that I didn't and it wasn't that I thought you weren't good enough for

me." He paused, then confessed the truth. *lt was that I thought you were too young for me...for the way you made me feel and what I wanted to do about it. For what I wanted to do with you."

Chapter Five

Oena was half a diet cola and four pretzels into her Friday-night routine when she heard a rap on her door. Startled, she knocked to the floor the paperwork she'd been looking over while at the same time watching ''Jeopardy." Before she could regather the papers, the rap sounded again. Elena grumbled beneath her breath and rose to her feet.

Gabby had already left for a date with Tyler, but apparently she'd forgotten something, including her key. Elena strode across the floor and pulled open the door. "What—"

But it was Logan there, not her sister.

**—^are you doing here?" she finished lamely.

*1 need you..."

Her mind spun off for a delirious moment

**...not to make a liar out of me," he finished.

She crossed her arms over her chest, immediately wary of whatever he had up his sleeve this time. Late last night she'd let him in and that had resulted in the uncomfortable rehash of their shared past.

Worse, shell-shocked by his admission that eleven years ago she'd been too young for what he'd wanted to do with her, she'd actually agreed to let that past go and be his Mend!

Without waiting for an invitation, Logan strolled into her apartment and she sighed again, shutting the door behind him. In a pair of worn jeans and an oxford-cloth shirt rolled up to the elbows, he looked nothing like the scion of the richest family in town. He looked too casual for that.