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He laughed and sent back: You know I have trust issues. Now answer my question.
Home. Not great driving the length of LI with no license in the car.
You should have stayed here.
No. He definitely should not have sent that message. But somehow his thumbs had just started moving before he’d thought it through.
Logan held his breath, waiting for a reply.
But after ten minutes when none came, he grabbed the beaded purse, grabbed the keys to his Ferrari, and raced off to the garage.
The drive was agony, thanks to rush hour traffic, his foot on the pedal heavy unless he saw cops, his ear listening for the buzz of his phone in case Jinx replied. Sure, it was illegal to answer while he was driving, but he could pull over to see what her message said. He just hoped it would not be anything that made him turn around and go back to his lonely penthouse.
It was just after seven when Logan parked on the street in front of the address he’d seen on her license. He walked up to the door of a two-story clapboard cottage that was a couple blocks from the bay and heard a dog barking inside. He climbed the front steps to a wide, roofed porch that reminded him of the one at her parents’ house.
As he stood there, memories he had stuffed away surfaced, memories of summers he had spent out here on the North Fork with Vic, the cherished friend he had considered a brother. With Victor’s warm and generous parents and his two sisters. Natalie, the clone of their mom, and Jinx, the baby that he had always adored in brotherly ways—and in not-so-brotherly ways he could never let himself acknowledge.
Until now.
He saw her standing at the screen door watching him, a dog by her knees.
“Were you ever going to ring the doorbell?” she asked.
With a quiet laugh, he said, “I was just thinking this porch could use a glider.”
That brought a smile to her pretty face. And it wasn’t only his dick swelling at the sight of it—it was his heart.
Jinx opened the door and her dog came out and sniffed him.
“How come your dog isn’t barking at me? Or trying to take my arm off.” Logan reached down and scrubbed behind the ears of the small black-and-white mutt whose breed he could not guess.
“Teddy can tell good guys from bad ones,” Jinx said.
That hit Logan deeper than he thought, and he realized being here with Jinx was dangerous territory in more ways than one. It made him vulnerable in a way he had not allowed himself to be for the last seven years.
Unsure of what to say, he pulled her purse from the inside pocket of his suit jacket and handed it to her. She looked great in black capris and sneakers. Her hair was pulled into a braid that hung down her back. Her yellow fitted tee showed off her breasts. They were really big for someone so short, but they were perky like her. The memory of their sweetness that he had savored last night tormented him.
“Oh, thank you,” she said, taking the purse. “Did you come straight from your office? I see you are still in you business duds.”
“Yeah, with a pit stop home to grab the bag and car keys.” No way would he tell her he had gone home hoping she would still be there.
“Do you have time to visit?” she asked.
“Sure.” As if seeing her was not the reason he’d driven like a madman to get here, after leaving work at an hour that was unheard of for him.
She held the door open for him. “I remembered you said something about a flight to LA. That’s why when I didn’t hear from you I freaked out thinking you were on your way across the country already, so I just got in my car and prayed no policeman stopped me.”
“That meeting got put off.” Yeah, he’d cancelled the LA meeting and rearranged his schedule—another thing he had never done before. And certainly not for a woman.
He followed her inside as she walked past the cozy living room with upholstered chairs and a sofa, a fireplace at the far end, to the kitchen in the back of the house. A really big kitchen. “Now this is what I’d call a country kitchen. And you said you don’t even like to cook.”
“This was Natalie’s house, and actually it still is, but I rent it from her. I told you my big sister has made a career out of her love for cooking and feeding people. And now she is married to Shane Stone and lives not far from here.”
“That’s great. Trying out her latest recipes used to be one of the highlights of visiting your family.” He looked around, wondering if they were alone. “And you live here with Anthia, right?”
“Yes. She’s working until two a.m. at Cleo’s Bistro tonight. She has two jobs because she’s got another year of college to pay for.”
Nice timing—he hoped. “What is she studying? Anthia waited on me every morning at Maxwell Point and I never thought to ask.”
