 Logan
Riley repeatedly pressed the television remote control buttons
until he had passed through all two hundred cable channels. Nothing
was on television that would remotely interest a twenty-eight years
old single man. He wasn’t surprised. It was Saturday night.
Television programmers figured that most men his age were on dates
or drinking beer and acting wild with their single friends, out
having fun. Single men his age definitely did not sit at home alone
in front of the television on a Saturday night restraining the
urge to throw the remote control across the room.
Logan glanced at the silent telephone that innocently rested on
the sofa cushion next to him. It hadn’t rang all night. He
knew that meant that he was once more in trouble with the various
women in his life. Jennifer had been angry with him because he
hadn’t called when he said he would. Sheila had been angry
with him because he had accidentally called her ‘Liz’.
And Liz had been angry with him because she had seen him on a date
with Jennifer. He was only human. He didn’t know what these
women expected from him.
He finally flipped off the television then began to aimlessly
roam around his apartment, which didn’t take long since it
was only slightly larger than a department store dressing room.
He ignored the view of Golden Gate Park out the living room windows.
He definitely ignored the view of men and women walking on the
street below his top third-floor apartment towards the various
restaurants and bars only a few blocks away. Judging from the noise
and traffic on the street that drifted through the open windows,
everyone in San Francisco was doing something except him.
He strolled into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator door.
He stared at the half-empty contents which he had memorized twenty
minutes ago when he last looked in the refrigerator. He slammed
the door then glared at the telephone, almost praying for it ring.
He would talk to a telemarketer, a bill collector, anyone or anything
to relieve the boring stillness of his apartment.
Suddenly, a loud female scream ripped through the air. Another
ear-piercing scream immediately followed, and Logan identified
the noises as coming from his next-door neighbor’s apartment.
Adrenaline raced through his body as he sprinted into his bedroom
and grabbed his off-duty gun from the nightstand drawer. He ran
out the front door and down the hallway.
He gave a perfunctory knock on the door of Sean Weston’s
apartment, before he kicked open the door like he had been taught
in the Academy years ago. Wood from splintered and flew over his
head as the door swung in the opposite direction. In one smooth
motion that was worthy of the silver screen, Logan dropped to the
ground and rolled into the apartment, coming to one knee with his
gun pointed directly at the one figure who stood in the cluttered
living room.
With a stunned expression , Sean Weston gaped at his commando
entrance. He noticed the large red boxing gloves enveloping her
hands and a newly installed punching bag that hung in the middle
of the living room. Sweat glistened on her forehead and her messy
shoulder-length ponytail was in an even more wild state than usual
due to her obviously strenuous work-out. He also noticed that she
wore her usual after-work uniform of dark exercise pants and a
food-stained tank top that should have disintegrated by age a few
years ago. With disappointment, he also realized that she was alone.
He reluctantly engaged the safety on the gun then stood to his
feet. He once more scanned the apartment, hoping an intruder would
leap from behind the curtains but since there was no danger, he
stuffed the gun in the waistband of his pants. The idea of pounding
some sense into an intruder had almost made him forget how bored
he was.
“What are you doing?” Sean finally spoke, sounding
to Logan more irritated than grateful.
“I heard you scream and, even though it was you, I came
to help,” he easily replied. He walked into the kitchen that,
like his own apartment’s design, was separated from the living
room by a counter. “Do you have any beer?”
She ignored his question and tore off her gloves as she ran to
the door. “You ruined my door.”
“It’s all right,” he dismissed, while grabbing
a bottle of beer from the refrigerator. He smiled in victory when
he spied Chinese take-out containers that had not been in her refrigerator
the night before. It was just like Sean to try to sneak food pass
him. He shook his head in amusement because, although, they had
been neighbors for two years, Sean still had not learned. No food
passed his radar.
“What did you think you were doing, Logan?” she demanded,
glaring at him from across the room. “Starring in your own
private action-adventure movie?”
“I heard you screaming. You can thank me later.” He
forked noodles into his mouth then walked across the apartment
to examine the punching bag. “Did anyone ever teach you how
to use one of these things? You don’t have to scream at the
top of your lungs every time you hit it.”
“I know how to use it,” she protested, resembling
like a petulant child as she crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m
a law enforcement officer just like you are.”
“I’m a cop, Sean. You’re an FBI agent,” he
corrected.
“We’re both law enforcement officers,” she insisted.
Logan rolled his eyes then sighed in resignation. Sean would never
understand the fundamental difference between being a homicide
inspector for the San Francisco Police Department and being an
agent, who sat behind a desk staring at a computer all day, for
the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Logan’s older brother
also worked for the Bureau and even Cary admitted that Bureau work
was dull. Logan could admit though that his brother wasn’t
exactly objective since Cary had been an undercover agent for the
United States government before he joined the Bureau.
“I wonder how much you’re going to have to pay to
fix my door,” Sean mused.
“You’re good with stuff like that. I’m sure
that you can fix it yourself,” he dismissed then leaned against
the counter to watch Sean study the door as if he had destroyed
a priceless work of art.
Logan suddenly noticed her breasts emphasized by the tight tank
top. Sean Weston had breasts. He wondered when that had happened.
Most days when he saw her, she had on shapeless suit jackets and
blouses that hid any hint of her having breasts. He was almost
ashamed to admit it, but he hadn’t even thought of her as
having breasts. It would have been like thinking his partner, Gray
Arnold, had breasts. He had noticed her long legs because he would
have to be blind not to notice the four miles of walnut-colored
legs that she occasionally bared.
For the first time, he realized that Sean actually had the other
equipment that most women had. Besides the legs that would have
made his mouth water if any other woman was involved, she had flawless
brown skin that probably had never seen a speck of make-up, shoulder-length
black curls that could have been sexy in a just-got-out-of-bed
way if she ever ran a comb through her hair and didn’t just
throw it in a ponytail. And apparently breasts. Big breasts.
Not that the “equipment” made Logan doubt her abilities
as a cop. He knew that she could handle herself in a dark alley
with a suspect – he had personally seen it when one day they
had gone to the movies only for Sean to detour and take off running
after a mugger, who Logan had felt sympathy for when she caught
him – but there was also a softness in her almond-shaped
brown eyes that Logan knew she cursed each day when she looked
in the mirror. Because regardless of all the equipment, the equipment
belonged to Sean Weston and if there was one thing she wanted,
it was not to be soft.
He couldn’t believe that he had lived next door to her for
almost two years and he had never noticed her breasts. That was
almost unthinkable for a man like Logan who prided himself on noticing
every aspect of any nearby woman. Although, Logan wasn’t
certain if Sean qualified as a woman since she probably didn’t
consider herself one. However, as neighbors went, he couldn’t
have asked for more. She always had beer in her refrigerator, and
she only protested for a few seconds when he took one. He could
look past the breasts, even though for some reason he felt betrayed
at their discovery.
“What are you staring at?” she demanded, slamming
close the front door. She frowned at the tiny space near the door
knob.
“You know what, Sean? You’re not half bad.”
She directed her full attention to him and Logan smiled at the
anger that sparked in her eyes. Maybe his weekend was shaping up
better than he thought. Sometimes he actually thought that he would
rather trade insults and football scores with Sean than walk into
another dark bar to meet another woman, who would become angry
with him and not want to go out on a Saturday night when he was
bored out of his mind.
She grunted in disgust then dryly said, “I must be going
half-insane, but I’m going to ask . . . What is that supposed
to mean?”
“With make-up . . . If you actually combed your hair once
in a while, maybe one Saturday night you could be on a date instead
of sitting around your apartment screaming at a poor, defenseless
punching bag.”
“Don’t make me hit you,” she muttered then stalked
across the room to grab a bottle of water from the counter. She
seemed to talk to herself as she said, “I walked right into
that one, but it’s my fault. I asked.”
“I’m just saying, you have about as much to offer
as any woman out there,” he said sincerely.
“You are such a chauvinist pig,” she said matter-of-factly. “Why
do I have to offer a man anything? Maybe he should offer me something.”
Logan suddenly snapped his fingers, as if he reached a startling
revelation, then he said, “Now, I understand why you’re
always home alone on a Saturday night.”
She rolled her eyes and plopped on the sofa. He laughed then threw
the empty carton of food in the overflowing trash can in the kitchen.
He surveyed the living room and shook his head in hopelessness
at the clothes, papers, and law enforcement magazines littered
the room.
Before Logan realized what he did, he went around the room picking
up clothes and stacking the magazines on the coffee table. He balled
the clothes into a bundle then stuffed them into the stacked dirty
clothes basket in the hall that had never quite made it to the
laundry room. He shook his head at the pile of dirty clothes. His
hands itched to transfer the pile to the washing machine and dryer
in the basement. At the last minute, he talked himself out of it.
Sean already teased him about being a “neat-freak.” If
he started cleaning her apartment on a Saturday night, she would
never allow him to live it down.
Logan heard Sean’s chuckle and he turned to see her watching
him with an amused expression.
“You’re itching to clean this apartment from top to
bottom, aren’t you?”
Logan ignored her question and knowing grin and grabbed his bottle
of beer from the counter before he sat next to her on the sofa. “There’s
a fight on pay-per-view tonight. Do you want to watch it?”
“Of course, I already ordered it . . .” The excitement
about the boxing match vanished from her face replaced by suspicion
as she studied him. “As you mentioned, it’s Saturday
night. What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be taking one
of your brain-dead dates to an expensive restaurant so they won’t
eat?”
“I’m having women problems,” he reluctantly
admitted.
“When are you not having women problems?”
“Yeah . . . Too bad I don’t have a woman to talk to
who can translate women to me.” He waited for her offended
expression and laughed when she predictably glared at him. She
was such an easy target. This night was actually shaping up to
be fun. He stood as he said, “I have to lock up my apartment,
put away the gun, then I’ll be back.”
“I’ll call for pizza.”
“If you were a woman, Sean, I think I’d be in love.” He
winked at her then sauntered from the apartment.
Sean groaned as soon as Logan closed the door to her apartment.
She had just told herself that morning that she would not allow
herself any more Logan-Fixes. He was hazardous to her health. She
was a twenty-seven year old woman with a crush on her next-door
neighbor. It was almost embarrassing. When she didn’t want
to knock him senseless for some of the things he said to purposely
annoy her, she wanted to throw her arms around him and taste the
plump lips that she had dreamed about for the last two years. How
could a woman not love a man who didn’t even question that
fact that she installed a punching bag in the middle of the living
room.
But, Sean’s “relationship” with Logan was strictly
confined to her dreams and fantasies. Besides the insurmountable
obstacle that Logan would never see her as anything but “one
of the guys,” she told herself that she wanted a man who
would love her, and only her. A project like that would be insurmountable
for a man like Logan Riley. She hadn’t seen him with the
same woman more than three times in the last two years – not
that she paid attention to his dates.
She vowed that when she fell in love, it would happen once, and
it would last forever. She had never admitted her vow to anyone
because then she would have to admit that she liked perfume, fingernail
polish, and that she occasionally leafed through Cosmopolitan at
the supermarket. Sean wanted a one-woman man, who would accept
her for who she was – a woman who loved watching the WWF
more than Days of our Lives – and she knew that
Logan Riley was not that man. Logan’s women were gorgeous,
sophisticated, and the epitome of everything female that Sean proclaimed
to dislike, but sometimes late at night, she wondered if she didn’t
like it because she didn’t understand it. Whatever it was
that made women soft and sweet, she didn’t have it. And she
doubted that she would ever would, which meant she and Logan had
no chance for a relationship. She always made certain to add to
her pep talk that she didn’t want a chance with him because
he was an unredeemable playboy.
Sean reached for the cordless telephone on the floor to call her
favorite pizza restaurant just as it begin to ring.
“Hello,” she said, trying not to sound surprised that
her phone actually rang on a Saturday night. Normally she would
have thought it was her mother, but that weekend Sheriff Sandra
Weston was hunting with some of her deputies.
“Sean, darling, it’s Tina.”
Sean silently groaned at the sound of her stepmother’s high-pitched,
cultured voice. She rolled her eyes towards the ceiling and fell
on the sofa with a long-suffering sigh before she said through
clenched teeth, “Tina . . . How are you?”
“I’m as good as I can be considering my youngest daughter
is getting married in less than a week and two hundred guests will
be coming to town for the wedding,” Tina gushed, the excitement
more than evident in her voice over the impending marriage of her
beautiful and equally as bubbly daughter, Tracie. “We’re
all having such a wonderful time celebrating the wedding, Sean.
We’ve missed you so much, but I guess that work comes first.”
“It sure does,” Sean muttered, as she mimicked Tina’s
words in her head. She had used work as an excuse for every invitation
that she received from her stepsister during the months preceding
the wedding. Neither Tina nor Tracie saw through her ruse, but
Sean’s father had called her last week when she cancelled
on the gown final fitting party to tell her that he knew what she
was doing.
Sean loved her father, but not even for him would she spend a
whole day with her twenty-two year old stepsister and her giggling
friends from college, who stared at Sean as if she were an alien
because she didn’t have pearls and a clutch purse.
“I know that you have to work, sweetie. Your dad told me
how important your career is, but you absolutely must be in Santa
Barbara by Wednesday. We have receptions and cocktail parties and,
of course, the wedding rehearsal Friday afternoon and the rehearsal
dinner to follow,” Tina continued, and Sean could practically
envision the woman ticking one manicured nail after another at
the activities that she listed. “Then Friday is the bachelorette
party which Terri is planning—“
“Bachelorette party?” Sean croaked. She silently moaned
at the idea of her other stepsister planning the event. Terri was
twenty-four years old and, of course, she was as drop-dead gorgeous
as her mother and sister. Sean envisioned the bachelorette party
taking place in a bar that played ‘80s music. She would be
surrounded by a group of wealthy, beautiful Black women who would
force Tracie to drain drinks like “Sex on the Beach” and “Blow-jobs” while
they all hooted with laughter. In other words, Sean’s own
private version of torture.
“And then Saturday morning, of course, is the wedding,” Tina
finished with a dramatic sigh.
“And there’s one last thing . . . “ Sean heard
Tina’s hesitation over the receiver and Sean instantly straightened
on the sofa and gripped the telephone to her ear. She knew what
was coming. Since Tracie had announced her engagement almost a
year ago, every time Sean spoke to her stepmother, Tina broached
the same subject. Tina’s deep breath for courage was heard
over the receiver before she blurted out, “You haven’t
told us yet if you’ll be bringing a date to any of the events.”
“A date?”
“I know you will because I have faith in you.”
“Faith in me?”
“You’re such a pretty girl, Sean.”
Sean rolled her eyes as she heard the first chords of the same
speech she always heard from Tina. Tina just could not understand
how a “wonderful young woman” like Sean could be alone.
She had tried to explain to her stepmother that while mothers and
senior citizens saw her that way, most men her age did not. In
fact, men her age viewed her as tantamount to the bubonic plague.
“I’m a little busy fighting crime and protecting the
innocent. I don’t have time to—“
Tina continued, undeterred by Sean’s attempt to explain
why a wonderful women like herself was alone, “Because no
one goes to a wedding alone, not even you. Right, Sean? I just
know that you’ll bring a date, but your father thought that
I should still ask you.”
“A date . . . As in a man? For a whole week?”
Tina suddenly sounded nervous as she said, “I’ll just
reserve space for your date at all of the events. And, of course,
he can stay here with us at the house. I’m sure that he can
take a vacation from work – I’m certain that he works – to
come to Santa Barbara. Or if not for the week, at least for the
weekend.”
As if the matter was settled, Tina continued, almost speaking
to herself, “I have to call the florist, then the caterer,
and the seamstress, and . . . and a mother’s work is never
done. I’ll see you Wednesday, sweetie.”
Sean viciously jabbed the disconnect button, her blood boiling
at every remembered word. She jumped to her feet to throw the telephone
across the room just as Logan opened the door and walked into the
apartment. Even in the midst of the usual anger and frustration
that resulted from a conversation with her stepmother, her heart
skipped a beat when she saw his dimpled grin. She cursed. Of course,
he had to have dimples and, of course, dimples were her weakness.
Logan was tall and lean with caramel brown skin, and just enough
muscles to make her drool, but not enough to scare small children.
He had black curls, that though cut short were still unruly enough
to make Sean want to run her fingers through them. But, the feature
that she dreamed about, besides his luscious mouth, was his piercing
amber-colored eyes that seemed to stare directly through to her
soul when he wasn’t laughing at her. Sometimes when she stared
into his beautiful eyes, she was completely oblivious to whatever
he rambled about. Then she would have to insult him just so he
wouldn’t notice how lost in his eyes she had been.
She had lived next door to him for such a long time that Sean
had seen Logan in every variety of outfit – suits, running
clothes, sweats – but she knew that her favorite outfit he
wore was wrinkled khakis and a wrinkled T-shirt. For some reason,
the idea of him looking wrinkled and rumpled, and not as immaculate
and impeccable as he always did, made her think of lazy Sunday
afternoons and reading newspapers in bed. Except she knew that
she and Logan would never read newspapers in bed together. Logan
would probably hit her with a newspaper, but that would be as close
to her fantasy as she would ever be.
She turned into Logan’s solid chest, surprised to find that
he had moved across the room to stand close to her. Laughter rumbled
deep in Logan’s chest as she rubbed her nose that had bumped
against the unyielding wall of human flesh. She was not a short
woman, she was 5’9, and it always made her heart beat a little
faster that her head barely reached his shoulders. If she ever
could feel feminine or dainty, she felt something akin to that
around Logan.
“Is the pizza on the way?” he asked, while falling
onto the sofa with her television remote control firmly planted
in his right hand where she knew, from past experience, it would
stay for the remainder of the night. As usual, he was completely
oblivious to her feelings for him. That was reason number 2,031
why Sean could not allow herself to be attracted to him. He could
be incredibly stupid sometimes.
“I haven’t ordered it yet.”
“Who were you talking to on the phone?”
“Tina,” she spat out then plopped onto the sofa next
to him and wailed, “Why can’t I have a wicked stepmother
like everyone else? Why do I have to have the cheerful stepmother
who wants to be one of my best girlfriends?”
Logan laughed as he said, “There are worst things in life
than a stepmother who likes you.”
“She only likes me because she knows how much it irritates
me.”
“Face it, Sean, you’re just loveable,” he said,
as he pinched her right cheek. She grabbed his thumb and yanked – hard – until
his hand was nowhere near her face. Logan laughed even as he winced
in pain.
Even though it didn’t hurt, she rubbed her cheek to attempt
to rid the feelings that the heat of his fingers sparked. She stood
from the sofa to grab a bottle of beer from the refrigerator, but
it was only a pretense to place distance between them.
“How are you going to survive next weekend, Sean?” Logan
mused as he watched the images on the television screen. “A
whole week around the Three T’s – Tina, Tracie, and
Terri. At a wedding, with happy people. And you’ll have to
wear a dress. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in a
dress.”
Sean’s retort faded from her brain as she realized that
Logan stared at her. He took a slow perusal of her body as if picturing
her in a dress. In an instant, her skin began to tingle with strange
bursts of lightening and the heat spread through her stomach and
lower like lava. She resisted the urge to cover her suddenly flaming
hot face with her hands.
His gaze finally rose to her eyes and Sean tried to speak but
her throat was suddenly dry. For the first time in their friendship,
she could not discern the expression on Logan’s face. His
golden eyes had darkened and he seemed completely still as if he
waited for her.
Almost in unison, they both moved, breaking the strange tension
in the air. Sean grabbed the telephone on the kitchen wall mumbling
about pizza, while at the same time Logan turned to the television
screen.
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