Page 59 of More Than Meets the Eye

Eva looked at him, defiant even in the face of defeat. Man, but he loved her spunk. “We can’t sit back and do nothing, Logan.”

He smiled at her, thankful for the chance to be her hero once more before tumbling off his knightly steed into the mud. “I’m not the do-nothing kind, sweetheart.”

A snort echoed behind him, but Logan didn’t care, not when hope lit Eva’s face and her eyes glowed with absolute confidence in him. He savored that look for a heart-stopping moment, knowing it would probably be the last time he saw such unwavering faith, at least for a while, then thrust it aside to get back to business.

“I said we couldn’t go to the sheriff without proof. So what do you say we get some?”

Evangeline’s heart nearly burst from the sudden onslaught of love gushing through her. Love . . . and fear. Logan looked so capable, standing there with that cocky smile and loose-limbed stance. Yet as much as she wanted Christie to be free of the man bent on hurting her, she didn’t like the idea of Logan taking all the danger upon himself.

A masculine throat cleared at the back of the room. “I’ll help.”

Zach. Of course. Evangeline shot a thankful smile across the room to her eldest brother. Zach might act like a lone wolf, but he was a protector by nature. He’d never stand idly by and let a woman be persecuted if there were something he could do to prevent it.

“Me, too,” she immediately volunteered, crossing her arms over her chest and jutting out her chin to let Logan know she’d not be relegated to the sidelines. “What can I do?”

Logan’s jaw tensed. “You can stay as far away from Mr. Benson as possible.”

And there he went, relegating her to the sidelines. He better think twice about that snap judgment before she—

“Please!” Christie raised her hands to her head as if grasping for purchase in a windstorm. “Everyone’s speaking too fast. I can’t keep up.”

Evangeline glared a warning at Logan that their discussion of her involvement was not over, then moved in front of Christie. “I’m sorry,” she said. “That was rude of us.”

“I don’t care about rude,” Christie responded, her voice agitated. “I care about understanding what you plan to do.” She stepped away from Seth and marched over to Logan. “You want to go after the ledger, don’t you?”

Logan tossed his hat onto the settee. “Yep. I think I know where he keeps the logbooks stashed, at least the ones containing Earl’s accounts. And if he mixed his ledger up with Earl’s on the day you retrieved it, it follows that he must keep them both in the same general vicinity.”

“But wouldn’t the mix-up cause him to change that pattern?” Christie asked. “You could be searching in the wrong place.”

Logan shrugged. “Possibly. But we won’t know until we look, will we?”

Seth crossed to Christie’s side, and Evangeline followed. Zach joined the group as well so that they all stood in a circle.

Seth took Christie’s hand and squeezed it. “How often does Earl have Benson check his accounts?”

“Every two weeks.”

“Then we have some time.” Seth cast Logan a meaningful glance. “If Earl collected his ledger from Benson yesterday, that gives us a dozen days to strategize.”

Logan frowned. “Why do we have to wait for Earl’s ledger to come back into Benson’s possession? Benson’s account book is the one we care about.”

“Discrediting Benson and getting him behind bars where he can’t hurt Christie is the main objective. But it’s not the only one.” Seth brought the back of Christie’s hand up to his lips and laid a gentle kiss on it. “I have a young boy to find.”

Christie’s eyes filled with tears as she bit her trembling lower lip. Evangeline patted her friend’s back, her own eyes misting.

“If we go after Benson’s ledger now, we’ll spook Earl and lose our chance to get our hands on the information we need from his account book. We need to make our move when both ledgers are in Benson’s possession. Two birds, one stone.”

Logan’s forehead scrunched, making the scar across his left eye more pronounced. “What does a kid have to do with anything?”

Evangeline touched his arm. “I’ll explain later. The two of us need to talk anyway.”

She ignored the raised eyebrows of the two other men in the room, concerned only with the man to her left. The man whose gray eyes had just clouded with . . . dread.

Suddenly, outmaneuvering a murderous schoolmaster seemed far less worrisome than cracking open her heart to her inscrutable neighbor.

24

“Let’s go out the front,” Evangeline said, steering Logan out of the parlor and finally escaping the weight of her brothers’ stares.