Marrying For A Mom

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“Hey, Whitney! Down here!”

Whitney spun on her heel. Two hundred feet away, Logan, bare-chested and up to his knees in water, stood next to the dock. A white sand beach, gouged with clogs, and sand pails and lounge chairs, crooked around the uneven shoreline. Moored farther out was a sleek speedboat, a lazy looking pontoon and two jet skis. She waved, an involuntary smile sliding onto her lips.

He lifted a bare arm, and beckoned. “Come on down!”

Her stomach clenched, and her blood ran warm, then hot, as that old familiar tap dance drummed through her veins. Against the glassy water, he was all angles and chiseled planes. The neat wedge of his shoulders. A chunk of sculpted chest over his tapered waist. Lanky arms. Solid legs.

Whitney shivered, staring down at Logan Monroe’s near nakedness. He was at least six inches taller than she. How in the heck was she going to come eyeball to chest hair with him and know where to look? Right now her eyes were practically falling out of their sockets.

The hems of his swim trunks were wet, the weight pulling the fabric down from his belly, to expose a pencil-thin patch of white skin. The rest of him—his shoulders, his chest—were nothing but lean, mean bronze.

She started moving down the path to his private beach, crazily thinking that her body worked as if on autopilot: her senses honed in like radar, her ears pitched to the gently lapping water, her sights were set on Logan as if he were a target. A whispery soft sensation struck her, near the temple, where Logan had kissed her barely a week ago.

She had to get her reactions under control soon. Logan Monroe was big trouble, she reminded herself.

Trouble with a capital T.

T as in tall, tanned and teeming with testosterone.

It wasn’t her fault, to be thinking like this. There ought to be a law. Men like Logan Monroe should not be permitted to stand around half-naked in Lake Justice. It messed up the female brain wave pattern.

Oh, God have mercy on her aching soul. She shouldn’t have come here. It was just like a couple of weeks ago, when he came in the store and intuition told her something was going to happen. Today, she was going to make a fool of herself, she knew it.

She stepped onto the beach, and fine white sand trickled through the straps of her sandals. Down here, two hundred feet from the house, the air stirred up a virtual potpourri of smells. Honeysuckle and sun-baked wood. Fish and suntan lotion. Gas and motor oil. Ripples of water thudded dully against the fiberglass boat. The pontoon bounced awkwardly over them, the aluminum offering up hollow burps of noise.

“Well, hello,” Logan greeted, water lapping at his ankles. “This is a nice surprise.”

Whitney smiled, and lifted her hand to shield her eyes from the glare off the water.

“I suppose you wanted to see if I’m doing a good job, repairing this dock.”

“No,” she countered, her protected gaze drifting over his body. “I wanted to come down and see you this bare—” She choked and immediately coughed, momentarily slapping her knuckles against her mouth. “I mean, come down and show you this teddy bear.”

Logan raised an eyebrow.

“It, um—”

Logan sauntered nearer. Water droplets glistened like a lure on his shoulders, his chest.

“You’re bare. I mean…your teddy bear.” She let the explanation dissolve. “You know,” she said, going breathless, “maybe I caught you at a bad time….”

Logan chuckled, and grabbed a T-shirt that was hanging over a post at the end of the dock. “No. Not at all.” He stretched the hem of his shirt between his fists, then plunged his arms into the sleeves, accordian pleating it to his elbows.

“I stopped by your office and your secretary said I could find you here, that it wouldn’t be a problem. But—”

“It isn’t.” He lifted his arms to pull the shirt over his head.

“I feel like I’m intruding. You probably have a lot of work to do.”

His shoulders slumped, and both elbows dropped as he paused. He still hadn’t pulled it on, and the T-shirt sagged against his middle as he frowned at her. “Whitney. You’re a friend. You’re doing me a huge favor. You’re making it sound like I wouldn’t take time for you.” He cocked his head. “By the way, aren’t you taking off in the middle of a workweek? Isn’t that against your nature, or something?”

She shrugged. “Sort of. But I have someone who helps me out on Tuesdays. It’s my day to run errands, go to the bank and the post office, that kind of thing. But today was slow, and it was so nice out, I just thought I’d make this an errand and drop it off.”

“Really?”

“Mmm.”

“Great. Since you’ve got the time, then, I’ve got an errand for you.” He intentionally paused, then winked. “Meet me in the middle of Lake Justice.”

Whitney stared at him, confused.

“Amanda’s got a half day of school, and she’s up at the house, getting us lemonade. The sandwiches and chips are already stowed. We were just about to have a lazy afternoon and take the pontoon out. Kick off those sandals and hop on board.”

“Oh, I—” Whitney quickly fumbled in the pocket of her slacks, to pull out the copy of the teddy she wanted him to see. She couldn’t spend any time with Logan. She couldn’t. He’d already upended her hormones, and made her give in to wishful thinking. Paper in hand, she tried to smooth out the creases before extending it.

“Show me later,” Logan advised smoothly, glancing up to the back of the house. “We already have company.”