Deanna Talcott - Marrying For A Mom

“You’re goading me into playing hooky,” Whitney chided. “I have rent to pay and shelves to stock.”

“And you work too hard. You’re too dedicated.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s almost closing time anyway. A four o’clock sundae is the perfect way to end the day and spoil your supper.”

Whitney considered supper. It would be another single serving size eaten in front of the TV.

“My treat,” Logan persuaded as Amanda slipped off his lap.

“They have Chocoholics Anonymous,” Amanda said, balancing on one foot as she wiggled the other bare one into a sandal. “When I don’t get that, I get Mississippi Sludge.”

Whitney raised an eyebrow, and squelched a smile over Amanda’s Mithithippi Thludge lisp. “Mmm. Sounds yummy.”

“Daddy says I’m a chocolate freak.”

“A trait I share,” Whitney admitted. “I never ever pass up chocolate.”

Logan offered Amanda an oversize shirt to slip over her tights and leotards. The shirt, though clean, looked like it had spent the last few weeks forgotten in the bottom of the dryer. “I take it that’s a yes,” Logan said, as he helped Amanda turn the sleeve right side out.

“Okay. I can’t refuse. Besides, the day’s shot anyway.”

Logan’s expression grew pensive, thoughtful. Then he looked at her, and winked. “Somehow, I get the impression it’s just beginning.”

The Ice Crème Shoppe was rocking. A group of teenagers were celebrating a sixteenth birthday and the jukebox was cranked up full-blast. Amanda, who knew two of the teens as baby-sitters, didn’t miss a trick. She was elbow to elbow with them, oohing and aahing as the guest of honor opened her presents.

Seeing she was occupied, Whitney extracted the flyers on the teddy bears and offered them to Logan. They were in a circular back booth, isolated and protected from the noisy crowd. “Here. Look at these. See what you think.”

He studied the hot pink flyers, then stopped at the full page advertisement she’d torn from a collector’s catalog.

Fascinated by Logan’s intensity, Whitney couldn’t imagine ever tiring of his focus, his concentration. He’d always been like that. In high school chemistry, Logan could crack jokes one minute, then buckle down and become absorbed in the most complicated lab experiment the next. That part of him had always intrigued her.

“Whitney. I don’t think…this is quite what…They aren’t right.” He shook his head. “How close are they?”

“Not very.”

A sinking feeling washed over Whitney. She’d spent three grueling days hunting for this teddy bear, and she knew, from what Logan said, time was short. “Logan,” she said carefully, “this could take a while.”

He folded up the papers and reluctantly handed them back to her. “I never imagined the world had gone teddy bear crazy. I thought I’d just get another one…for old time’s sake—or a fresh start. For her, you know.” He shrugged, trying to make it look like it didn’t matter. His gaze narrowed, the blue color almost disappearing as he looked over to Amanda, who, at the player piano, sang along with the crowd.

Whitney watched Amanda from the corner of her eye. “Logan, why don’t you bring her over to my shop and let her look at the teddy bears? Maybe she’ll find something she likes. We could do it later tonight, or…” She let the words trail off, lifting her shoulders.

Logan tapped his thumb against the table’s edge, momentarily debating. “I can’t tonight. I’ve got a seven o’clock appointment for a closing.”

Whitney chose to ignore his abrupt tone. “Maybe another time?”

A shadow crossed his handsome features. “Maybe.”

Whitney knew it would never happen. Not knowing what to say, she feigned interest in all the activity around her, swiping at the perspiration on her water glass.

Logan sighed. “You have to understand, Whit, that I’m being selfish about this. I don’t want her to just pick out another toy…it means more to me than that.”

“I understand.”

The strains of “Happy Birthday to you,” faded, then someone tacked on a falsetto version of “and we do…ooo mean you.”

“This is stupid. How the hell can you replace something like that?”

Logan’s angry words sent chills through Whitney; she knew he wasn’t talking about the teddy bear; he was talking about Amanda. When she was six, Whitney would have crawled over hot coals and bargained with the devil to have a daddy like that.

“You can’t, Logan,” she said softly. “You can’t replace this wonderful, precious child you’ve raised. But…if it helps…I’ll find you the bear. I promise.”

“Thanks. I…” Logan’s attention remained on the partygoers clustered around the piano. Then, with a burst of energy that startled Whitney, he swiveled on the bench beside her, and tossed an arm around her shoulders.

Whitney went weak, feeling too much of him: the warmth, the bone and sinew. She shivered, her mind fast-forwarding to recount how many times he’d thrown an arm around her in high school. Three? Four? She’d cherished every moment of his attention, and every time he made her feel special, she had fallen a little bit more in love with him.

“I don’t want you to think I don’t appreciate all you’re doing,” he said, leaning closer and making the words go fuzzy against her ear. “I do.”

Whitney’s eyes involuntarily closed, and she savored the inexplicable whisper of sexual attraction. “You baffle me,” she said without thinking.

“What?” He absently rolled his thumb over the shoulder seam of her sweater. “Why?” he probed.

Whitney opened her eyes, aware Logan’s face was only inches from hers. “Because you have it all, Logan. You own a successful company, you have a lovely home, and a standing in the community. Friends. Family. And yet your priority seems to be keeping your little family together.”

His thumb stopped stroking the ridge of her shoulder seam. “Why should that surprise you?”

“Because this is your opportunity to walk away without any responsibility.”

“You think I’m the kind of man who would do that?”

“Most men would. I’ve known men who’ve walked away for a whole lot less.” He stared at her, the pressure on her shoulder going heavy.

“That’s what doesn’t make sense to me. Because you could—and you don’t.”

“Then you’ve known the wrong kind of men, Whitney. I guess you’ve known men who wanted the easy way out.”

Whitney grimaced, thinking Logan’s appraisal of her ex-husband must be somewhere between a cad and a cheat. What must he think of her for picking him?

“I’ve never been a man who took—or even wanted—the easy way out.” Logan studied her guarded reaction, and realized he’d delved a little too deeply. Her mouth wobbled—just enough to make the words kissable and comforting simultaneously roll through his head. Her eyes had a spark of fear, of vulnerability; one he wanted to douse and soothe. “Whitney?” he asked.

She nodded, but wouldn’t look at him. “Hey. I could have used you as a role model,” she said tremulously. “You know, the first man in my life, my dad, wasn’t ever around. Not ever. I remember my mom used to joke, and refer to him as the ‘phantom,’ the guy who simply visited in the middle of the night.” She hesitated. “And I guess I don’t have to tell you about my ex. He was a piece of work, wasn’t he?”

Empathy washed through Logan, and he shook his head, imagining the kind of verbal abuse she’d endured. “Whitney,” he said finally, “I know the men in your life left a lasting impression, but…” His hand strayed to her temple, to push back a wispy strand of her summer-blond hair and hook it behind her ear. “I’d like to leave one, too. Just a different one.”

“Logan—”

“No, listen. You’ve gone out of your way for me over this bear thing. If you need something, ever, you can always count on me. Okay?” he asked gently, his fingertips drifting down the smooth column of her neck before loosely settling on her shoulders. He leaned toward her, and without waiting for an answer, he impulsively brushed his lips against Whitney’s temple.

Against the side of his mouth he felt her eyelashes flutter, and they left tingly butterfly kisses in their wake. Her skin was so soft, and her hair smelled like strawberry shampoo. His lips inched down and he found himself spiraling into a vortex of male need as his mouth hovered near hers.

Yet the moment he felt her tremble, he pulled away.

Her eyes were huge and round, and filled with surprise and trepidation. “That,” she said, her voice jumping off track, “is a count-on-me kiss?”

For a moment Logan was so appalled at what he’d just done—in the middle of the Ice Crème Shoppe, no less—he couldn’t answer. What had gotten into him? Being that familiar with Whitney Bloom? “No, it’s a—” he swallowed “—a thank-you.”

Whitney’s jaw jutted slightly forward, as if she was hurt, and the silvery-white scar quivered as she lifted her chin. The brilliant color of her dark eyes faded between narrowed lids. “I don’t need that kind of a thank-you, Logan,” she said. “Two words will do it.”

Logan lived on the other side of “the point,” in a small cluster of homes that nestled into irregular chunks of land around Lake Justice. The moment her tires bumped over his easement, Whitney’s pulse quickened and her breathing grew erratic. What was she doing here in this section of Melville, walking into his life as if she belonged?

She forced herself to pull up next to the three and a half stall garage and climbed out of the car, squinting against the sunshine.

“Hey, Whitney! Down here!”

Whitney spun on her heel. Two hundred feet away, Logan, bare-chested and up to his knees in water, stood next to the dock. A white sand beach, gouged with clogs, and sand pails and lounge chairs, crooked around the uneven shoreline. Moored farther out was a sleek speedboat, a lazy looking pontoon and two jet skis. She waved, an involuntary smile sliding onto her lips.

He lifted a bare arm, and beckoned. “Come on down!”

Her stomach clenched, and her blood ran warm, then hot, as that old familiar tap dance drummed through her veins. Against the glassy water, he was all angles and chiseled planes. The neat wedge of his shoulders. A chunk of sculpted chest over his tapered waist. Lanky arms. Solid legs.

Whitney shivered, staring down at Logan Monroe’s near nakedness. He was at least six inches taller than she. How in the heck was she going to come eyeball to chest hair with him and know where to look? Right now her eyes were practically falling out of their sockets.

The hems of his swim trunks were wet, the weight pulling the fabric down from his belly, to expose a pencil-thin patch of white skin. The rest of him—his shoulders, his chest—were nothing but lean, mean bronze.

She started moving down the path to his private beach, crazily thinking that her body worked as if on autopilot: her senses honed in like radar, her ears pitched to the gently lapping water, her sights were set on Logan as if he were a target. A whispery soft sensation struck her, near the temple, where Logan had kissed her barely a week ago.

She had to get her reactions under control soon. Logan Monroe was big trouble, she reminded herself.

Trouble with a capital T.

T as in tall, tanned and teeming with testosterone.

It wasn’t her fault, to be thinking like this. There ought to be a law. Men like Logan Monroe should not be permitted to stand around half-naked in Lake Justice. It messed up the female brain wave pattern.