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She gave him a grumpy look. "I'm going to find a way to win an argument with you. Even if it requires a heavy skillet."
He chuckled. "I'll look forward to that. Are you hungry?"
She was, actually. Starving. But still she hesitated, putting her hand on his forearm. "I really haven't made any hard or fast decisions about any of this. You know that, right?"
"I'd know you were lying to me or yourself if you said otherwise." He brushed a kiss over her forehead. "Why don't we get you dressed and eat some Mexican food? The restaurant's only a short walk from here."
"You just want me to sit on my sore bottom and know I'm squirming because of you."
"There is that perk, yes." His eyes glinted. "But I'm also hungry. Come on. I'm buying."
*
She got a plate of burritos and a pretty lime green margarita. In contrast to the amazing twists and turns of their relationship thus far, this had the feeling of a regular date. Logan asked her questions about her life in Boston, her childhood with Alice. She asked him about his military service and his life before the hardware store. Being female, she couldn't resist asking about previous relationships. For that, she earned a quirked brow and rolled eyes.
"Why do women always want to know that? Men have no interest at all in a woman's previous lovers unless one of them happens to be her current husband."
"That's because men are so territorial. When they take over a pride, sometimes male lions kill off cubs that come from another male lion."
"Ouch." He winced. "Glad you have such a high opinion of us. How about we talk about your previous relationships, since I think they have a more significant impact on our current one?"
That did make her squirm, but he reached out, touched her hand. "I'd like to know what you're comfortable sharing, Madison. And don't give me sex details unless you want to see me go after some lion cubs."
That made her chuckle, as she was sure he intended. Actually, she was quite happy not to talk about the sex side of her failed relationships. The whole mediocre history was just embarrassing next to the sizzling heat that Logan could evoke in her with barely a glance. "There's honestly not a whole lot to say about them. They made me freakishly gun-shy when it comes to falling in love, because I don't trust my judgment. It is what it is. You're trying to distract me." She pointed a finger at him. "Previous lovers. At least tell me you've been married once."
He broke a chip in half, dipped it in the bowl of salsa between them. "Why?"
"Because you're forty, or nearly there. If you've never been married, that means there's something hinky about you. Dead body in the basement, mommy issues, pick your dysfunction. Maybe you're unwilling to compromise anything about yourself, which is problematic when it comes to meshing two people together in a relationship."
"Wow. All right. I've been married three times, and adapted wonderfully to every wife's quirks and foibles."
She blinked. "Three times? You're lying."
"Absolutely. You just said if I told the truth, that I've never been married, you'd assume I'm a lost cause."
She gave him an exasperated look, but when he caught her hand across the table, linked fingers, she couldn't find it in herself to pull free. "Whether you've had seven failed relationships or never had a single truly committed one," he said, "it all boils down to the same thing, Madison. We didn't find the right match."
"Do you think you and I are?" she asked. "Seriously. I know it's not a fair question, but . . ."
"On the contrary, it's pretty fair at this juncture." He held on to her hand as he picked up his beer, took another swallow from it. "I think we both see the potential. Are you willing to give it a try with me, or are you still pretending this is a fantasy fling you'll walk away from in a year?"
Alice's final letter to her had requested that Madison give running the store a year before deciding whether to keep or sell it. She withdrew her hand. "She told you about that?"
"I had to help her with the will, coordinate with the attorney. I saw the provisions."
She rubbed her forehead. "See, there you go again. Always a step ahead of me, waiting for me to play catch-up. It makes me feel like a child, like I'm being handled. That was how it felt with Alice, and what aggravated me so much. I mean, she fucking waits to tell me she's going to die, three days ahead of time . . ."
She bit back the words as the waiter came back to offer Logan another beer and top off the ice water she'd ordered with her drink. When he departed, she shook her head. "Christ. I'm sorry."
"You know she didn't intend it that way, Madison. I don't either." A look of frustration crossed his face, a rare enough occurrence that it sharpened her attention, drew her out of her resentment. "Here's the truth of it. I've never been able to sustain a relationship that's more than the Dom/sub thing, as you call it. I tend to get to know them first as submissives, inside that environment, and when we get out of it, it doesn't translate well. But it's such an important component to what I want with a woman, it's hard for me to go the opposite way. Imagine me picking up a woman at church. 'Hey, that was a great sermon on loving thy neighbor today. How would you feel about being tied up and spanked?'"
A smile wreathed her face. "You go to church?"
"Certainly. My mother raised me as a good, God-respecting, little-white-church-on-the-corner-of-Fifth-and-Main-whose-denomination-I-don't-know member. The ladies make great cookies for Sunday school," he added, as she choked on a laugh. Then he gave her a speculative look. "I know Alice ranged all the way between fiery Old Testament and New Age Goddess worship."
"Don't forget the Buddhist influence. She shaved her head when she was ten and went around for a week swathed in a harvest orange tablecloth our mother had from the seventies."
"What did you do?"
