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She waved a weary hand. “Whatever.”
When he came back in with two bottles of beer in one hand and a plate of cold pizza in the other, Elena was collapsed against the back cushion of her chair. He handed her a bottle and put the pizza on the scarred end table between the two recliners, nudging over the remote control to make room.
She took a long swallow of beer then cast him a look. “You really quit Chase Electronics?”
He took a chug from his own bottle. “Yep.”
“You moved out of your condo and bought this Victorian. On my side of town.”
“Yep. Though the condo is actually Griffin’s. He and Annie will live in it when they get back from the honeymoon. Until they find their own house, anyway.”
“You quit Chase Electronics,” Elena repeated as if still not quite believing it, then took a longer swallow from her bottle.
“And I bought my buddy Reuben’s rehab business—which doesn’t mean much more than his tools and this house which he was only half finished converting into apartments. But he wanted to move to Oregon with his girlfriend and I wanted to break the chains tying me to my desk at Chase Electronics. A match made in heaven.”
“You know how to do all this?” She gestured with her beer toward the wallpaper and then the bay windows. Half the trimwork around them was missing, the other half was shedding paint coat number fifteen.
He shrugged. “We’ll find out.”
Her jaw dropped.
He laughed. “It’s not as reckless as it sounds. Though I got my MBA at Stanford, I have an undergraduate degree in Industrial Arts. I’ve always wanted to work with my hands.”
It had been his brother almost passing up on love and his parents celebrating forty years of a merger instead of a marriage, to wake Logan up to that fact. He’d opened his eyes to find himself tied to a dreary job in the family company and also tied to an almost-fiancé. Both fulfilled other people’s expectations—but didn’t do a thing for him.
Elena drank from her beer again. “Your father…”
“Is predicting disaster. Me on my knees begging for my old position back at Chase Electronics.”
“You look determined to prove him wrong.”
“Yeah.” Logan had overcomplicated his life for years by going along with dear old dad, but it was simple now. He’d focus solely on building his business—a business that would satisfy him. “People are interested in restoring the Victorians and California bungalows around town—even more so since last summer’s earthquake damaged several of them.”
At the mention of the earthquake, she frowned and then quickly drained her beer and carefully set the bottle on the floor. “Well, I’m sure both of us have better things to do. I came to pick up my painting.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “You mean my painting?”
Her lips compressed in annoyance. “I’m paying you for it,” she said, patting the pants pocket of her overalls.
“I never said I’d sell it.”
“Logan. I didn’t have time for this yesterday, I had to get to work. But there’s no point in arguing. I have the money.” Her hand went to her pocket again as she jumped to her feet. Then she swayed, looking dizzy.
Logan rose in concern as she put an unsteady hand on the back of her chair. “Elena?”
She blinked at him. “I’m fine,” she said quickly. “I just stood up too fast.”
He took a step toward her anyway.
Thank God. It gave him enough time to catch her as she fell.
He figured she was fainting. Or maybe she was passing out from a combination of no food and that one beer. Either way, he expected she’d keep her mouth shut.
But cradled in his arms as he climbed the stairs toward his second-floor apartment, Elena gave him grief.
“Put me down. I’m fine. Just a little tired or something. Put me down. Let go. I stood up too fast. I’m fine. Put me down.”
He let her drone on, which she did, of course, until he dropped her onto the mattress in his bedroom. Then he told her to shut up.
Unnecessary, though. Because her mouth had snapped closed, mid complaint, when she saw what he’d hung on the wall opposite his bed.
Damn.
Her gaze moved to him accusingly and she struggled to her elbows. “You told me yesterday that you wouldn’t hang it! You promised.”
He shook his head. “I promised I wouldn’t let anyone see it. But enough about that. You need to lie back and rest.”
“I need to get my painting back!”
Double damn.
He sighed. “It’s my painting, darling. And you’re not going anywhere until we figure out why you went down for the count. Should I call a doctor?”
“Of course not.” She sat up.
His hand on her shoulder, he forced her back to the pillows. “Did you eat today?”
She looked ready to take a bite out of him. “I assisted at the cooking school this morning. We made seven-grain waffles with strawberry syrup. I’m sure I took a taste.”
A taste. “And then what?” he asked.
“And then I spent a few hours wading through the summer admission applications stacking up in my office, if that’s any of your business.”
Though officially an “administrative assistant,” Logan had heard she virtually ran the admissions office at the local community college single-handedly. He shook his head. “Elena, it’s Sunday. You worked two jobs today and you went to work yesterday as well. No wonder you’re dead on your feet.”
She glared at him. “Some of us can’t afford to sneer at overtime.” One hand slid into her pocket and the other grabbed his. Paper slapped against his palm. “There. Your money.”
Instead of green bills, he looked down at a section of the newspaper folded into a small rectangle. “What’s this?”
She made a little huff of irritation and fished through her other pocket. “A mistake.” She drew out a wad of cash. “Here.”
He avoided accepting it by unfolding the newspaper to glance at the circled ads. “You’re moving?”
“Temporarily. If I can find something we can afford for a month or two.”
“Why?” He looked at her over the top of the newspaper.
She sighed. “They did another round of earthquake inspections in my area and guess what? They found serious damage to our foundation. Gabby and I have to be out while it’s being repaired.”
“No earthquake insurance?”
Her blue eyes tried to wither him. “I don’t own any diamond mines either,” she said, then swung her legs over the bed to sit up.
She had to flatten her free hand to the mattress to steady herself and her face seemed to go paler.
That sign of vulnerability made him feel a little sick. “Are you having any luck finding someplace to live?”
She took a fortifying breath. “On my budget? Not yet. But I have a few other places to check out today.”
“Today? Hell, Elena, you don’t even have the strength to stand up.”
She didn’t protest, but she didn’t agree either. Instead, she mutely held out the wad of cash.
He hesitated, mulling something over in his mind. If he made the offer, certainly she’d refuse. But hey, that was smart, he thought, because just the offer alone would earn him Good Guy points. In the game of Elena vs. Logan, nobody knew better than he that he needed all he could get.
She flopped the cash at him, both the bills and the gesture tired-looking. That did it. Witnessing yet another crack in that tough shell of hers made his stomach roll over and his last shred of self-preservation play dead.
“I’ll give you the painting back on one condition,” he said. “That you and Gabby move in here with me.”
Her eyes widened. Oh yeah, Logan thought with great relief, she was gonna say no. And he was gonna get to keep Elena in Bed where she belonged.
Chapter Three
“I really had no choice, Gabby,” Elena said a week later, avoiding her sister’s eyes as she shoved another duffel bag into the already stuffed trunk of her car.
“I didn’t say anything,” Gabby answered, her voice threaded with a hint of laughter.
“No, but I can hear what you’re thinking,” Elena replied grumpily, then slammed the lid of the trunk with more ferocity than necessary. “Believe me, if there was another option we wouldn’t be moving in with Logan.”
Gabby didn’t answer. Elena turned to watch her sister slide more boxes into the back seat of their old four-door sedan. Her graceful movements and the sweet expression on Gabby’s face distracted Elena from her bad mood.
Her younger sister was precious to her, she thought in a sudden rush. Gabby summed up all the best qualities of the women in their family. She was beautiful, like their mother, but also full of Nana’s good sense. And, like Elena, she didn’t shrink from hard work.
Her sister had managed to avoid their flaws though, thank God. Their mother, Luisa, had carried an air of resigned sadness from the moment her husband had left her until the day she died. Nana hadn’t wanted much from life, but that meant she expected too little too—both for herself and the two granddaughters she’d taken into her home after their mother’s death. Marriage, babies, a man to provide, that was what their grandmother had told them to want, over and over again. She’d never considered that her granddaughters might desire something different for themselves.
She’d never considered that Elena had learned, in a few painful lessons, that it was foolish to depend on a man for anything.
As Gabby turned to take another box from her boyfriend Tyler, the sweet smile she gave him made clear she was much more trusting than Elena. It was one of two of Gabby’s traits that made Elena uneasy.
“You’re sure my art supplies are in your car?” Gabby asked Tyler.
That was the other.
Elena worried that her sister’s preoccupation with her hobby of sketching and painting might affect their long-term goal—Gabby’s medical degree. “You don’t need to worry about your college information either,” she told Gabby. “It’s in the bright-blue accordion file, right there between the front seats. We won’t lose sight of that.”
“No,” her sister replied, sending Tyler a pained look.
A look Elena decided to ignore. “I guess that’s all we can fit for our first trip. When we come back we’ll figure out some way to strap the futons and the table on the roof.” Making a mental note to find some rope, she circled the car and pulled open the driver’s side door.
“I’ll ride with Tyler,” Gabby said.
Elena frowned, worry niggling at her again. It wasn’t that she begrudged her sister time with her boyfriend, but shouldn’t they be weaning themselves from all this companionship? They would be heading off to separate colleges in a few months, after all— Gabby hours away at Berkeley and Tyler at the prestigious art school thirty minutes south of Strawberry Bay.
“All right,” she finally agreed, with a little sigh. “But listen, both of you, no bothering Logan when we get to the house, okay?”
Gabby looked as if she was holding back a smile. “I don’t think Tyler and I are the ones who bother him.”
Elena made a face at her. “Ha ha. What I mean is…I don’t want him, um, involved with us, you understand?”
Gabby shook her head. “Elena, we’re going to be living at the man’s house for goodness sake. How are we going to manage to keep ourselves uninvolved?”
“We’re staying in a separate apartment in his house. There are two on the second floor. One is his, one is ours.” She looked down at the keys in her hand, trying to make clear—if just in her own mind—how she wanted this co-habitation to proceed. “We’re there not as family of course, not even as friends, but purely on a business basis.”
“I thought we were getting the apartment for free.”
Tyler spoke up for the first time. “Sounds pretty friendly to me.”
Elena glared at them both. “We have a bargain. You’re right, no money is changing hands, but it’s still strictly business.”
Gabby giggled and then stage-whispered to Tyler, “She’s letting him keep Elena in Bed.”
An embarrassed heat crawled up Elena’s neck. “It seemed sensible, Gabby. We need every penny we can save.”
Gabby shared a laughing look with Tyler. “Oh yeah, big sister. Very sensible. Very uninvolving.”
Instead of defending herself, Elena jumped in the car and drove off. Brats. But she found herself smiling as she glimpsed the two of them in her rearview mirror, following in Tyler’s fancy SUV. Despite their smart mouths, they did make an adorable couple, Gabby’s exotic looks a foil for Tyler’s blond all-American handsomeness.
And he did adore her sister. Though their breakup was inevitable, she didn’t think he would hurt Gabby in the same way that Elena herself had been hurt by boys like him. The way their mother had been hurt by their father.
It took less than five minutes to reach Logan’s large but run-down Victorian. It still surprised her, even though a week had gone by since her first visit, that he’d quit his job as a vice president of the Chase family company. And it surprised her even more that he’d left the posh side of town to live in this blue-collar neighborhood.
The homes here were a mix of old Victorians and bungalows, along with newer, modest dwellings and apartment buildings. It wasn’t that the area was seedy, or even particularly neglected, but the people in this part of Strawberry Bay worked long hours at demanding, often labor-intensive jobs. The kind of jobs that left little money, time or energy for the kind of niceties found on the pages of Martha Stewart’s Living or Better Homes & Gardens.
Elena climbed the chipped cement steps to Logan’s house and knocked briskly on the front door. When there was no answer, she let out a relieved breath and searched her pockets for the house keys he had given her.
By the time she’d found them, Tyler and Gabby had joined her on the porch. Inserting the key in the lock, she hesitated before opening the door. “It doesn’t look like he’s home right now, but just remember we don’t want him—”
“Involved,” Gabby and Tyler said together.
Elena thought they were laughing at her again, so she gave them a quelling look then pushed on the door. When the first floor appeared Logan-less too, Elena left the door standing wide open. “We might as well bring some things in before going upstairs.”
They returned to the cars parked at the curb and helped each other load up. With an overstuffed duffel slung over each shoulder, a toiletries bag hanging on each elbow and two large cardboard boxes balanced in her arms, Elena led the way up the two flights of steps to the second floor. Similarly burdened, Gabby and Tyler followed her. The door to their apartment was at the top of the stairs, while Logan’s was farther down the hall. Elena paused, then groaned.
“What is it?” Gabby’s voice came out muffled, her face half-hidden by the boxes she carried.
“The keys are in the back pocket of my pants.” Elena tried shifting the weight of her burdens to one arm. One of the duffels slid down her upper arm, nearly unbalancing her as it smacked into the smaller bag at her elbow. “I’ll have to put some of this down,” she muttered, trying to figure exactly how to do that in the narrow hallway.
A voice spoke in the vicinity of the top of her head. “Need help?”
