Magic Kiss (Hope Falls Book 11) (17 page)

As the women started throwing out their orders of red or white, Emma hung back. Turning to Amanda, she quietly said, “Wow. You weren’t kidding about everyone being happily attached.”

“I know.” Amanda nodded enthusiastically then lowered her voice. “Would you mind signing a few books? I know that the ladies would love it.”

“Of course.”

“Great! Red or white?” Amanda asked.

Normally, Emma wasn’t a drinker, but a glass of wine sounded like just what she needed. “White.”

“Coming right up.” Amanda made her way across the room, and before she’d made it two feet, Shelby was at her side.

The night ended up being so much more fun than she’d imagined. The women gladly shared their tales of happily ever after as Emma took notes. They also all gave her their opinion on who Tina should end up with.

She still didn’t know who it was going to be, but she did know that, no matter how much fun she was having, it didn’t stop her from thinking of the one distraction she couldn’t seem to shake.

Logan.

He consumed her thoughts, and without even meaning to, she spent the night counting down the minutes until she would see him again.

*

Logan had checked the clock every three minutes or so for the last two and a half hours, which meant he only had to do it ten more times until it was time to pick Emma up. He could justify his time preoccupation with the fact that he was worried about Emma, which he was. She might’ve tried her best to convince him that everything had been fine and she had been happy about going to the book club meeting, but he knew better. She hadn’t been looking forward to the get-together.

That wasn’t the reason for his compulsive time watch though. The truth was he just missed her.

Not that he wasn’t worried. He was, and not only that, he was responsible. He had seen the turmoil in her eyes when he’d stupidly brought it up last night in front of Drew. As soon as the words had left his mouth, he’d wished he could’ve sucked them back in, especially after Drew had started in on the begging.

Logan wasn’t used to forgetting things. Ever. So to misstep and say something that he’d specifically said he wouldn’t was a very new, very foreign experience for him. He was chalking it up to the fact that all of the blood had drained from his brain to the area below his belt when Emma had fallen back against him in the kitchen.

All day, all he’d thought about was the feeling of her body pressed tight to his. The flowery scent of her silky hair as it had brushed against his neck. The way her breath had caught when he’d tightened his grip on her hip. It made all kinds of unwanted images of her gasping as he slid inside her slick heat…

“You been spending any time with him?” Levi handed Logan a water as he motioned across the gym at Drew, Charlie, Noah, and Noah’s father, who were playing Horse.

The guys he’d been playing with were taking five on the bleachers while Eric dealt with a call from the station. Logan was actually relieved to get the break. He hadn’t played a real game, five-on-five, for years and his body wasn’t happy about it.

If, before this game, someone would’ve asked Logan if he was in as good of shape at thirty as he had been in his early twenties, he would’ve said that, no, he was in better shape. But clearly, he was delusional, because that in no way was the case. His back felt like it’d just been used as a punching bag, and his legs were on fire.

“Yeah. He’s staying with me,” Logan said, answering his brother’s obvious question.

“Not Drew. Charlie,” Levi clarified.

“No.” Logan knew he should’ve been. That was part of the reason he was in town.

Levi dropped his head back as he took a long swig from his water bottle. Then he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and sighed. “He’s not the same, you know. I think he’s really changed.”

Logan and Lucky had never known their father. But Levi had. Charlie had been in and out of Levi’s life on a fairly regular basis until he’d gotten their mom pregnant with twins. Then he’d stopped coming around.

“Lucky talks to him every day.” Levi stared across the gym at their father.

“Yeah, I know,” Logan said as Charlie showed Drew a shooting technique.

He wasn’t bad, actually. At least now he knew where he and his brothers had gotten their athletic abilities.

“He’s even calling him
Pops
.”

“I know.” Logan’s tone was flat.

He wasn’t sure how to feel about the whole “prodigal father returning” thing. Lucky was totally on board. But Lucky was like that. He lived in the moment. Never really thought about the past—or the future, for that matter. It probably helped that Lucky’s memory wasn’t as acute as Logan’s.

Chances were his twin didn’t remember what their father had said when he’d found out that the only thing left to him in their mother’s will was them. He had been the proud owner of twin twelve-year-old boys. Charles Dorsey had not taken that news well.

Levi had ushered them out of the lawyer’s office as fast as he could, but not before Logan had heard things he could never
un
hear.

“He said he had dinner the other night with you, Emma, and Drew.” Levi sliced a glance towards his brother.

Logan saw this for what it was, his brother’s blatant attempt at fishing for information.

Since Levi was more of a father than Charlie had ever been, Logan decided not to give him a hard time about it and tell him what he wanted to know. “Yeah. I invited him before Drew showed up. I really have been trying… It’s just…”

Levi rested his elbows on his knees and ran his fingers through his hair. “Yeah, me too. I only invited him tonight because I knew there’d be so many people here I wouldn’t have to talk to him one-on-one.”

The men sat on the bleachers and watched Drew shoot around with their dad. Logan would bet one month’s salary that the irony wasn’t lost on Levi that Charlie was being a better father figure to a kid he didn’t even know and had no blood relation to than he’d ever been to either of them.

“Sorry, guys,” Eric said as he came back into the gym. “I gotta go.”

“Yes!” Eric’s little brother Jake, whose team Logan was on, pumped his fists in the air. “We win!”

Ignoring his brother’s victory dance and cheer, Eric turned towards Logan. “I heard that you were on leave. You looking to pick up some work while you’re here?”

Logan wasn’t surprised Eric knew he was a cop. This town could rival the CIA with the amount of information they had on everyone.

“Not sure. Why?”

“We’re short staffed. We’ll find out tomorrow night at the city council meeting if our funds were approved for new hires. If they are, I’d love to have you.” Eric’s phone buzzed again, and he picked it up before he grabbed his gym bag and headed out the double doors.

Jake didn’t look sorry to see his brother go. He was too busy giving everyone high fives and telling them, “Good game.” When he got to Logan, he added, “Sweet three-pointer. You know, if you become one of Hope Falls’ boys in blue, we’ll have to be on different teams.”

“Is he really looking for people?” Logan didn’t know Eric very well, but he didn’t seem like the kind of guy who talked out of his ass.

Not that the job appealed to him at all. It didn’t. But he did like to keep his options open, and to keep something open, he needed to know if it was an actual option first.

“Oh, yeah. So is the fire department. In the last four years, Hope Falls has had a serious influx of residents. It’s gone from five thousand to almost forty. It’s crazy. The town outgrew itself, and we’re all scrambling.”

Then Jake continued on his high-five mission.

“You thinking about staying?” Levi asked casually.

“No.” Logan shook his head.

Then Drew called his name from the three-point line. When he saw Logan look over, he set up—like Charlie had shown him—and shot. The ball sailed through the air and went in the hoop with a swoosh.

“Damn. He’s pretty good,” Levi noted as he and Logan clapped for the kid’s three-pointer.

“Yeah, he is,” Logan agreed. The dark cloud that he hadn’t felt hovering above him since Drew showed up at his door returned.

The thought of Drew going back to Seattle, playing games Logan wouldn’t be at, felt…wrong. Over the past few days, he’d really bonded with Drew. When he’d first showed up, he’d only wanted to talk about his dad. It was hard at first. But they had still managed to get through it.

However, now they talked about Mountain Ridge, Drew’s friends at home, how much he hated math. They still talked a lot about Andrew, but Logan felt like he was really getting to know Drew as a person, not just Andrew’s son.

He liked it. Almost as much as he hated the fact that he couldn’t stop thinking about Emma. Because he couldn’t. Not even for one minute.

‡

E
mma stretched her neck as much as she could as she exhaled loudly. Then, straightening her back, she reached her arms above her head and extended them as far as they would go, hoping to get her blood flowing. She released them to her sides, she shook them out and blinked several times before placing her hands back on the keyboard.

She was determined to finish—oh, and start—this pivotal scene before Drew came home. The last few days, she’d been able to complete her word count before dinner and then she, Drew, and Logan would play games or watch a movie. Her son had told her last night that it was his favorite part of the day, and that was saying a lot, because he loved being at Mountain Ridge.

A part of her was worried he was enjoying it so much because it felt like “family time” to him. The last thing she wanted was for Drew to get the wrong idea. They weren’t a family. She and Drew were a family and Logan was Drew’s godfather, but she and Logan were nothing.

Drew was smart. And he had dealt with enough in his life. If he liked playing games and watching movies with Logan, then so be it. Who was she to rain on his parade?

Which meant she
needed
to write.

“Okay, no more YouTube. No more Facebook. No more checking my e-mail. I have to write,” Emma mumbled to herself under her breath, which was not at all unusual. She talked out loud all the time when she was writing. Sometimes to herself, sometimes to her characters, sometimes to her life in general.

Staring at the cursor, which was mocking her by blinking on a blank page, she tried to summon some of the inspiration she’d felt after her rendezvous in the kitchen with Logan. That scene had poured out of her because she’d been able to key into the dominate male.

But this scene… This was the scene where Sean came home and surprised Tina, who’d been having a “no strings” relationship that consisted of only hot, sweaty sex with Kade for the last month.

She wanted the scene to be sweet and the reunion to be what all of her readers were waiting for, but she was just so…ugggh. Worked up. Apparently, sexual frustration wasn’t an easy thing to decompress from. It hadn’t really been an issue for her until now.

For years, she’d successfully shut down that part of herself. Thankfully, being around all the girls at Book Club had reinvigorated the romantic in her. How could being surrounded by that many happily-ever-after tales not?

But the other part of herself that had been reawakened had nothing to do with the women she’d met and everything to do with the brooding sex-on-a-stick godfather to her son. How one man could ooze that much sex appeal and not be aware of it, she had no idea.

“Write. Just start typing,” she instructed herself.

“Coming!” I yelled as I practically tripped over my own feet while rushing out of the bathroom. I haphazardly wrapped a towel around myself and tucked the corner in the middle so that it would stay in place.

There was another pounding rap on the door.

I couldn’t have been in the shower for more than fifteen minutes. I had no plans to meet anyone. Kade had left for a business trip with his new firm this morning, so I knew it wasn’t him. If it was Mr. Sands from 5A complaining about my music again…so help me.

People play music. You live in an apartment. Get over it.

Just as I reached for the knob, there came another rapid-fire pound, pound, pound.