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Thea’s conscience tsk-tsked her. He’d been showing all the signs of a man shadowed with grief. Now she’d upset him even more with her “don’t worry about little old me, my IQ hovers safely below yours” routine. He didn’t know if she was ditzy, kidding or seriously intellectually challenged. That tended to yank the carpet out from under a guy.
“You really shouldn’t do that,” she found herself saying as she studied him.
“What?”
Because she was a touchy-feely person, Thea came forward, and stroked his jaw with her forefinger. His skin was stubbled and rough to the touch. Of its own accord, as if entranced by the texture of his cheek, her finger continued to trail over his skin.
The Hot Shot froze.
Mortified, Thea snatched her hand back, oh so aware that her finger had started to stray toward his lips. She never reacted to men this way, as if she were a brazen woman of the world. For crying out loud, she was Thea Gayle, dateless Ph.D. candidate. Everybody knew that. Happy, harmless, lonely Thea Gayle. Well, that last lonely bit was her descriptor, but in the dating world, she was definitely not a player.
She shoved her hands back into her pockets to keep them occupied, out of trouble and away from the firefighter. Her face felt warm. “You shouldn’t chew on your cheek. It must be painful for one thing, but it can’t be healthy.”
He must think she was an idiot. She was a talker by nature and babbled to ease awkward situations. Usually, her babbling didn’t bother her, but this time Thea longed to escape. Only, she couldn’t leave the girls until she was sure Logan would care for them better than Wes had, and not turn them out.
He wouldn’t turn them out, would he?
She peeked at the man through her lashes. He opened his mouth, about to say something, then snapped it shut and shook his head. His jaw worked, as if he was trying not to bite the inside of his cheek again.
“What do your friends call you?” she managed to say, trying once more to put him at ease.
“Logan McCall.” There was the barest trace of a tease in his voice, as though he was reluctant to admit her question amused him.
That teasing note meant a lot to Thea. It meant he wasn’t heartless. The girls would be fine. “You don’t have a nickname or something? Lo? Mac?”
After a telltale pause, he denied it. “Nope.”
Thea grinned, grinning wider when his mouth turned ever so slightly up at the corners in an almost smile.
From the kitchen, she heard Glen’s tremulous voice.
“Oh, I almost forgot them.” Thea grabbed Logan’s arm and tugged. “They can’t wait to see you.”
Well, that wasn’t quite true. Still, Thea wanted to believe in happily-ever-afters, even if she knew firsthand they rarely existed. She could hope for Logan and the girls. The sooner she got this reunion over with and smoothed things out for them, the sooner she’d be able to get back to her own life.
The thought was unexpectedly distressing.
“I THOUGHT I HEARD VOICES.” Aunt Glen pushed open the swinging kitchen door with one sticklike arm, smiling when she saw Logan. Much as Logan had tried to keep meat on Aunt Glen’s bones this winter, she was skinny as a rail. “Back so soon, Logan?”
Moving past Thea, Logan swept his fragile aunt into a careful hug. “Can I get you anything? Coffee? Something to eat?”
“Not a thing, dear.”
Logan released her, more than a little annoyed by the arrival of his nieces and Wes’s ditzy girlfriend. She’d thought a Hot Shot was a stripper? The sooner Logan found out what was going on and sent her on her way, the better.
Glen’s voice stopped Logan in the doorway. “Well, perhaps you could make a fresh pot of coffee. Deb drank the last of it before she went on her walk.”
Logan gripped the kitchen door frame. Aunt Glen spoke of his sister in the present tense. Glen was slipping further and further into her own reality, just when Logan needed her to hang on to his.
“I’ll make some.” Thea slipped into the kitchen.
Aunt Glen seemed to sway as Thea passed her. Afraid she might fall, Logan put his arm around her back and, with one hand on each of her elbows, guided the frail old woman to the couch.
“You treat me like I’m old,” she said, setting her mouth in a tight line.
“No, I treat you like the lady you are.”
Glen’s expression eased. “When I was younger, no one treated me like a lady. I was a broad and proud of it.”
“You’ve always been both to me.” She’d always been there, trying to shield Deb and Logan from the horror that was their childhood. She’d taken them in when their parents died, and tried to give them a normal life.
“What a sweet little dog,” Glen said, reaching down to pet Whizzer. “Is he yours?”
The kitchen door creaked behind him and Logan turned.
“Uncle Logan?” Hannah took a tentative step forward.
Logan’s eyes watered as he saw his sister in her daughters’ faces. Tess had her chin jutted out in Deb’s stubborn manner and Hannah’s lip trembled just like Deb’s did before she cried. But they’d changed, too. Hannah had filled out a bit and Tess looked almost anorexic.
Part of Logan wanted to hug them, part of him burned with guilt over letting his sister down and not fighting to keep them in his home, and part of him wanted to shatter with the physical reminder that his sister was gone.
“I need to take a shower.” Logan escaped to the back of the house rather than face his nieces and admit—again—that he wasn’t the man he needed to be.
CHAPTER THREE
AFTER HIS SHOWER, Logan pushed through the kitchen door in search of caffeine. Thea stood at the counter wiping down a coffee cup, humming a tune and moving her body almost imperceptibly to some beat only she could hear. The coffeepot was gurgling with life, but it was Thea’s energy that held Logan spellbound.
Colors. Bells. A woman’s voice.
How long had it been since he’d felt happy enough to go out dancing? Never mind that he’d spent much of the last eight months recuperating from his broken leg. When was the last time joy of any sort had surged through his blood and energized his body?
Logan yanked at the neck of his T-shirt, which suddenly seemed to be choking him. His sister had died in this house. Her two daughters had witnessed Deb growing weaker by the day. There was nothing to celebrate here. How dare this woman—this stranger who had replaced Deb in Wes’s life—come into his kitchen and bop around as if she hadn’t a care in the world.
The kitchen door creaked softly as it settled into place.
Thea started and turned, stopping when she saw Logan staring at her. She gave him a half shrug and a half smile as though he should understand that she couldn’t help herself.
But she did stop moving.
“Are you through?” he asked between gritted teeth.
She blinked those milk-chocolate eyes of hers. If he was expecting a fight, he wasn’t going to get it.
Logan struggled with his temper. Lately, anything could light his fuse. He’d been yearning for a good fight, and had even considered hitting a bar down the mountain in the hopes of finding trouble. Lately? Who was he kidding? He’d battled his temper since the day he was born.
With more than ten years as a Hot Shot, Logan had been in his share of brawls—mostly after long days on a fire when he was too keyed up and exhausted to sleep. The Sun Valley fire, with Spider riding his ass every day, had been tough. Coming home to his nieces had been tougher.
“Coffee’s ready. Milk or sugar?”
Logan didn’t have to look at Thea to see the smile on her face. Cheerfulness filled her voice.
“Half a cup with both,” he managed to say, biting back his irritation.
“One sweet cow, coming up.” She’d already found the milk and sugar. In no time, she’d fixed his coffee. “Would you like a slice of apple pie? Mary brought it by yesterday.”
“No, thanks,” Logan mumbled as he took the cup. He tried sitting, but he was too strung out to relax. His body demanded movement or total release. Besides, the kitchen table was cluttered with books and papers. He paced the kitchen. “Where is everybody?”
“Outside with Whizzer.” She pushed back the curtains over the kitchen windows to let in more light, filling the room with tinkling bells and rays of dust-ridden sunshine.
The command “Don’t,” died in his throat as the suddenly too-bright room dazzled him. He blinked and squinted. “I thought Wes hated dogs.”
“We rescued him along the way. He’s a sweetheart if you don’t make him nervous. And he has a tendency to mark things, which is how we came up with his name. I’m hoping that with a little love and stability, he’ll settle down.”
Without much sleep and without his sunglasses, the light was almost too much to bear. “I suppose strangers make him nervous,” he said, recalling how the terrier had tried to mark him.
“And new places, loud noises and too much excitement.” She added in a dramatic whisper, “I’d keep your voice down if I were you.”
Was she teasing him?
She couldn’t be. But she did seem to be flirting.
The idea that Thea was treating him as if he was an old friend or her big brother, when she didn’t even know him, didn’t seem possible. Or flattering. He was the Tin Man, damn it.
“Aunt Glen seemed to like Whizzer.” She probably likes you. The thought rose unbidden and unwelcome. For whatever reason, Thea was with Wes and, therefore, not to be trusted. “What did you ever see in Wes?” Logan demanded, hoping her answer would put the kibosh on whatever it was about her that intrigued him.
“A place to live and a steady paycheck.” She sounded almost relieved to be talking about it.
The thought of Thea sleeping with Wes turned his stomach. Wes must have really put one over on her.
Thea smiled, but it was an apologetic smile. “Maybe I wasn’t clear before. I’m the girls’ nanny. I took the job because I’m working on my Ph.D. in textiles.” She gestured to the mess of books on the table. “Wes is my employer. Although Wes hasn’t paid me since I started, hasn’t been home in more than four weeks and his cell phone is disconnected.” She blurted it all in a rush and then blushed, as if embarrassed to admit the extent of their problems.
Which were really Logan’s problems.
The good news was she wasn’t shacking up with Wes. It was just her legs and Logan’s lack of sex that had his mind in the gutter. But…Logan sank into a kitchen chair as the meaning of her words sank in.
Heaven help him. With Wes out of the picture, Logan had no choice but to take the girls.
“Why didn’t you call me sooner?” he asked when he managed to speak.
She smiled apologetically. “Believe me, I would have loved to have called you sooner. The twins didn’t tell me much about you until we got evicted. I kept us going as long as I could.” She hesitated. “Listen, I’m working on my Ph.D. and the exams are looming. I’ve got to take the tests starting in May, but it looks like you’re in a bind.” She laughed self-consciously. “If you wanted me to stay on, I wouldn’t turn you down.”
Invite all that noise and color to stay? “No, thanks.”
Logan shot up out of his chair. Swift steps took him to the window next to Thea. He wrenched the curtains closed.
“I don’t allow sunlight in here.” It reminded him of his sister’s sunny disposition—strikingly similar to Thea’s. “Or anywhere in the house.”
“I thought they were only closed when you were gone.” The dimples disappeared.
“No.” This close, he could smell Thea’s sweet perfume. He’d bet the fragrance had an optimistic name like Joy or Happy. He crossed to the other side of the kitchen.
“How do you know how to dress for the day if you can’t see outside?”
The question came out of the blue and had Logan’s usually quick tongue stalling on words for a couple of seconds. “I just wear jeans,” he finally answered, tugging the neck of his shirt.
“But—”
“Look, lady…Thea…deciding what to wear isn’t that big of a deal for me every morning.” His words were crisply delivered with just enough bite in them to have most people backing off. “We’ll do fine without you.”
Thea blinked, but didn’t retreat. “I would think that putting your clothes on right-side in or wrong-side out would be a big deal.”
Logan sucked on the inside of his cheek in an attempt to ignore the desire to yell. This woman was obviously a few volts shy of a full charge.
“Your T-shirt is on inside out,” she clarified. “And backward.”
That explained why his T-shirt seemed to be choking him. The heat of humiliation flushed uncomfortably under Logan’s skin, followed by a quick bolt of anger. He resisted the urge to tug the neck of his shirt again.
“Sometimes a little bit of light helps avoid embarrassment later.” Her smile was gentle, not triumphant, which was maddening considering he was itching for a good fight.
“I am not embarrassed.” To prove it, he stripped the shirt off in front of her, snapped it right-side out and pulled it back on. Then he stared at her and sucked on the inside of his cheek, waiting for her to lose her temper.
“Well—” she smiled easily as if they weren’t two strangers who’d just almost argued about something as inane as sunlight and inside-out shirts. “—about me staying…”
LOGAN MCCALL WAS out-of-her-league gorgeous.
Thea had been trying to make him laugh, or at least loosen him up so that he’d realize how much Tess and Hannah needed her here because he didn’t seem to want them. And then he’d gone and done that angry striptease and her mouth had gone dry.
He’d just ripped off his T-shirt to reveal a sculpted chest straight out of a magazine. Forget the Robert Redford comparison. The famous actor had never achieved such hard planes of muscle that tapered downward with a sprinkling of golden hair. And Thea had never come close to dating someone with such solid-looking arms, either.
With a physique like that, Logan must be the firefighter that carried damsels in distress out of windows or down ten flights of stairs without breaking a sweat. He had hero written all over that body. Why he acted more like a hermit living in a cave on a deserted island was beyond her.
Unfortunately, being a brooding hunk didn’t score points for Logan in the caregiver department, nor did the dark, sterile, incredibly uncluttered house. Thea sensed he cared for the twins. If he could just get past his grief, everything would be okay. But it had been more than half a year, and he appeared to be in a worse emotional state than Tess and Hannah. Leave them here with Logan, who could barely care for Glen? Thea’s conscience wouldn’t allow it.
“At this point, I’ll work for room and board, and gas money to get back to Seattle in May,” Thea offered.
She watched Logan pace the limits of the kitchen, wondering if she was pushing him over the edge or if he’d been dangling there these past few months. She hoped it wasn’t the latter.
Logan scowled at her. “You can’t stay.”
“Why not?”
“Because…because…” He looked stricken. “I don’t even know you.”
“But the girls do. I know they need family right now.” Thea’s throat clenched with the admission. “But they need some stability, too.”
“You can’t…I can’t…” He was all doom and gloom. He blew out a breath. “Look, I don’t think it would be good for Tess and Hannah if you stayed.” He wouldn’t look at her. “You’ve got those tests to study for and a life to get back to.”
“I understand. You’re all they have. Your sister would want you to take them,” Thea said because she did understand—she wasn’t wanted here. Still, she racked her brains for an argument he’d accept. She wouldn’t just walk away from the girls.
