Blue Dahlia gt-1 Read online

  And this time there were a couple of young boys to consider.

  Wasn't that why the ghost had given him a good kick in the ass? It was hard to believe he was sweating

  in the steamy air under overcast skies and thinking about an encounter with a ghost. He'd thought he

  was open-minded about that sort of thing—until he'd come face-to-face, so to speak, with it.

  The fact was, Logan realized now, as he hauled mulch over for the skirt of the pool, he hadn't believed

  in the ghost business. It had all been window dressing or legendary stuff to him. Old houses were supposed to have ghosts because it made a good story, and the south loved a good story. He'd accepted

  it as part of the culture, and maybe, in some strange way, as something that might happen to someone else. Especially if that someone else was a little drunk, or very susceptible to atmosphere.

  He'd been neither. But he'd felt her breath, the ice of it, and her rage, the power of it. She'd wanted to cause him harm, she'd wanted him away. From those children, and their mother.

  So he was invested now in helping to find the identity of what walked those halls.

  But a part of him wondered if whoever she was was right. Would they all be better off if he stayed away?

  The phone on his belt beeped. Since he was nearly done, he answered instead of ignoring, dragging off

  his filthy work gloves and plucking the phone off his belt.

  "Kitridge."

  "Logan, it's Stella."

  The quick and helpless flutter around his heart irritated him. "Yeah. I've got the frigging forms in my truck."

  "What forms?"

  "Whatever damn forms you're calling to nag me about."

  "It happens I'm not calling to nag you about anything." Her voice had gone crisp and businesslike,

  which only caused the flutter and the irritation to increase.

  "Well, I don't have time to chat, either. I'm on the clock."

  "Seeing as you are, I'd like you to schedule in a consult. I have a customer who'd like an on-site consultation. She's here now, so if you could give me a sense of your plans for the day, I could let

  her know if and when you could meet with her."

  "Where?"

  She rattled off an address that was twenty minutes away. He glanced around his current job site, calculated. 'Two o'clock."

  "Fine. I'll tell her. The client's name is Marsha Fields. Do you need any more information?"

  "No."

  "Fine." He heard the firm click in his ear and found himself even more annoyed he hadn't thought to

  hang up first.

  * * *

  By the time Logan got home that evening, he was tired, sweaty, and in a better mood. Hard physical work usually did the job for him, and he'd had plenty of it that day. He'd worked in the steam, then through the start of a brief spring storm. He and his crew broke for lunch during the worst of it and

  sat in his overheated truck, rain lashing at the windows, while they ate cold po'boy sandwiches and

  drank sweet tea.

  The Fields job had strong possibilities. The woman ran that roost and had very specific ideas. Since he liked and agreed with most of them, he was eager to put some of them on paper, expand or refine them.

  And since it turned out that Marsha's cousin on her mother's side was Logan's second cousin on his father's, the consult had taken longer than it might have, and had progressed cheerfully.

  It didn't hurt that she was bound to send more work his way.

  He took the last curve of the road to his house in a pleasant frame of mind, which darkened considerably when he saw Stella's car parked behind his.

  He didn't want to see her now. He hadn't worked things out in his head, and she'd just muck up

  whatever progress he'd made. He wanted a shower and a beer, a little quiet. Then he wanted to eat his dinner with ESPN in the background and his work spread out on the kitchen table.

  There just wasn't room in that scenario for a woman.

  He parked, fully intending to shake her off. She wasn't in the car, or on the porch. He was trying to determine if going to bed with him gave a woman like her the notion that she could waltz into his house when he wasn't there. Even as he'd decided it wouldn't, not for Stella, he heard the watery hiss of his own garden hose.

  Shoving his hands in his pockets, he wandered around the side of the house.

  She was on the patio, wearing snug gray pants—the sort that stopped several inches above the ankle—and a loose blue shirt. Her hair was drawn back in a bright, curling tail, which for reasons he couldn't explain he found desperately sexy. As the sun had burned its way through the clouds, she'd shaded her eyes with gray-tinted glasses.

  She looked neat and tidy, careful to keep her gray canvas shoes out of the wet.

  "It rained today," he called out.

  She kept on soaking his pots. "Not enough."

  She finished the job, released the sprayer on the hose, but continued to hold it as she turned to face

  him. "I realize you have your own style, and your own moods, and that's your business. But I won't

  be spoken to the way you spoke to me today. I won't be treated like some silly female who calls her boyfriend in the middle of the workday to coo at him, or like some anal business associate who

  interrupts you to harangue you about details. I'm neither."

  "Not my girlfriend or not my business associate?"

  He could see, quite clearly, the way her jaw tightened when she clenched her teeth. "If and when

  I contact you during the workday, it will be for a reason. As it most certainly was this morning."

  She was right, but he didn't have to say so. "We got the Fields job."

  "Hooray."

  He bit the inside of his cheek to hold back the grin at her sour cheer. "I'll be working up a design for

  her, with a bid. You'll get a copy of both. That suit you?"

  "It does. What doesn't—"

  "Where are the kids?"

  It threw her off stride. "My father and his wife picked them up from school today. They're having

  dinner there, and spending the night, as I have a birthing class with Hayley later."

  "What time?"

  "What time what?"

  "Is the class?"

  "At eight-thirty. I'm not here for small talk, Logan, or to be placated. I feel very strongly that—" Her

  eyes widened, then narrowed as she stepped back. He'd stepped forward, and there was no mistaking

  the tone of that slow smile.

  "Don't even think about it. I couldn't be less interested in kissing you at the moment."

  "Then I'll kiss you, and maybe you'll get interested."

  "I mean it." She aimed the hose like a weapon. "Just keep your distance. I want to make myself

  perfectly clear."

  "I'm getting the message. Go ahead and shoot," he invited. "I sweated out a gallon today, I won't mind

  a shower."

  "Just stop it." She danced back several steps as he advanced. "This isn't a game, this isn't funny."

  "I just get stirred right up when your voice takes on that tone."

  "I don't have a tone."

  "Yankee schoolteacher. I'm going to be sorry if you ever lose it." He made a grab, and instinctively

  she tightened her fist on the nozzle. And nailed him.

  The spray hit him mid-chest and had a giggle bubbling out of her before she could stop it. "I'm not

  going to play with you now. I'm serious, Logan."

  Dripping, he made another grab, feinted left. This time she squealed, dropped the hose, and ran.

  He snagged her around the waist, hauled her off her feet at the back end of the patio. Caught somewhere between shock and disbelief, she kicked, wiggled, then lost her breath as she landed on the grass on top

  of him.

  "Let me go, you moron."

  "Don't see why I should." God, it felt good to be hor
izontal. Better yet to have her horizontal with him. "Here you are, trespassing, watering my pots, spouting off lectures." He rolled, pinning her. "I ought to

  be able to do what I want on my own land."

  "Stop it. I haven't finished fighting with you."

  "I bet you can pick it up where you left off." He gave her a playful nip on the chin, then another.

  "You're wet, you're sweaty, I'm getting grass stains on my—"

  The rest of the words were muffled against his mouth, and she would have sworn the water on both of them went to steam.

  "I can't—we can't—" But the reasons why were going dim. "In the backyard."

  "Wanna bet?"

  He couldn't help wanting her, so why was he fighting it? He wanted the solid, sensible core of her, and the sweet edges. He wanted the woman obsessed with forms who would wrestle on the floor with her children. He wanted the woman who watered his pots even while she skinned him with words.

  And the one who vibrated beneath him on the grass when he touched her.

  He touched her, his hands possessive as they molded her breasts, as they roamed down her to cup her hips. He tasted her, his lips hungry on her throat, her shoulder, her breast.

  She melted under him, and even as she went fluid seemed to come alive with heat, with movement.

  It was insane. It was rash and it was foolish, but she couldn't stop herself. They rolled over the grass,

  like two frenzied puppies. He smelled of sweat, of labor and damp. And, God, of man. Pungent and gorgeous and sexy.

  She clamped her hands in that mass of waving hair, already showing streaks from the sun, and dragged his mouth back to hers.

  She nipped his lip, his tongue.

  "Your belt." She had to fight to draw air. "It's digging—"

  "Sorry."

  He levered up to unbuckle it, then just stopped to look at her.

  Her hair had come out of its band; her eyes were sultry, her skin flushed. And he felt those roots take hold.

  "Stella."

  He didn't know what he might have said, the words were jumbled in his brain and tangled with so much feeling he couldn't translate them.

  But she smiled, slow and sultry as her eyes. "Why don't I help you with that?"

  She flipped open the button of his jeans, yanked down the zipper. Her hand closed over him, a velvet vise. His body was hard as steel, and his mind and heart powerless.

  She arched up to him, her lips skimmed over his bare chest, teeth scoring a hot little line that was a whisper away from pain.

  Then she was over him, destroying him. Surrounding him.

  She heard birdsong and breeze, smelled grass and damp flesh. And heliotrope that wafted on the air from the pot she'd watered. She felt his muscles, taut ropes, the broad plane of his shoulders, the surprisingly soft waves of his hair.

  And she saw, as she looked down, that he was lost in her.

  Throwing her head back, she rode, until she was lost as well.

  * * *

  She lay sprawled over him, damp and naked and muzzy-headed. Part of her brain registered that his arms were clamped around her as if they were two survivors of a shipwreck.

  She turned her head to rest it on his chest. Maybe they'd wrecked each other. She'd just made wild

  love with a man in broad daylight, outside in the yard.

  "This is insane," she murmured, but couldn't quite convince herself to move. "What if someone had

  come by?"

  "People come by without an invitation have to take potluck."

  There was a lazy drawl to his voice in direct opposition to his grip on her. She lifted her head to study. His eyes were closed. "So this is potluck?"

  The corners of his mouth turned up a little. "Seems to me this pot was plenty lucky."

  "I feel sixteen. Hell, I never did anything like this when I was sixteen. I need my sanity. I need my clothes."

  "Hold on." He nudged her aside, then rose.

  Obviously, she thought, it doesn't bother him to walk around outside naked as a deer. "I came here to

  talk to you, Logan. Seriously."

  "You came here to kick my ass," he corrected. "Seriously. You were doing a pretty good job of it."

  "I hadn't finished." She turned slightly, reached out for her hairband. "But I will, as soon as I'm dressed and—"

  She screamed, the way a woman screams when she's being murdered with a kitchen knife.

  Then she gurgled, as the water he'd drenched her with from the hose ran into her astonished mouth.

  "Figured we could both use some cooling off."

  It simply wasn't in her, even under the circumstances, to run bare-assed over the grass. Instead, she curled herself up, knees to breast, arms around knees, and cursed him with vehemence and creativity.

  He laughed until he thought his ribs would crack. "Where'd a nice girl like you learn words like that?

  How am I supposed to kiss that kind of mouth?"

  She seared him with a look even when he held the hose over his own head and took an impromptu shower. "Feels pretty good. Want a beer?"

  "No, I don't want a beer. I certainly don't want a damn beer. I want a damn towel. You insane idiot,

  now my clothes are wet."

  "We'll toss 'em into the dryer." He dropped the hose, scooped them up. "Come on inside, I'll get you a towel."

  Since he sauntered across the patio to the door, still unconcerned and naked, she had no choice but to follow.

  "Do you have a robe?" she asked in cold and vicious tones.

  "What would I do with a robe? Hang on, Red."

  He left her, dripping and beginning to shiver in his kitchen.

  He came back a few minutes later, wearing ratty gym pants and carrying two huge bath sheets.

  "These ought to do the trick. Dry off, I'll toss these in for you."

  He carried her clothes through a door. Laundry room, she assumed as she wrapped one of the towels around her. She used the other to rub at her hair—which would be hopeless, absolutely hopeless now—while she heard the dryer click on.

  "Want some wine instead?" he asked as he stepped back in. "Coffee or something."

  "Now you listen to me—"

  "Red, I swear I've had to listen to you more than any woman I can remember in the whole of my life.

  It beats the living hell out of me why I seem to be falling in love with you."

  "I don't like being ... Excuse me?"

  "It was the hair that started it." He opened the refrigerator, took out a beer. "But that's just attraction. Then the voice." He popped the top and took a long drink from the bottle. "But that's just orneriness

  on my part. It's a whole bunch of little things, a lot of big ones tossed in. I don't know just what it is,

  but every time I'm around you I get closer to the edge."

  "I—you—you think you're falling in love with me, and your way of showing it is to toss me on the ground and carry on like some sex addict, and when you're done to drench me with a hose?"

  He took another sip, slower, more contemplative, rubbed a hand over his bare chest. "Seemed like the thing to do at the time."

  "Well, that's very charming."

  "Wasn't thinking about charm. I didn't say I wanted to be in love with you. In fact, thinking about it

  put me in a lousy mood most of the day."

  Her eyes narrowed until the blue of them was a hot, intense light. "Oh, really?"

  "Feel better now, though."

  "Oh, that's fine. That's lovely. Get me my clothes."

  "They're not dry yet."

  "I don't care."

  "People from up north are always in a hurry." He leaned back comfortably on the counter. "There's

  this other thing I thought today."

  "I don't care about that either."

  "The other thing was how I've only been in love—the genuine deal—twice before. And both times it... let's not mince words. Both times it went to shit. Could be this'll head the same way.
"

  "Could be we're already there."

  "No." His lips curved. "You're pissed and you're scared. I'm not what you were after."

  "I wasn't after anything."

  "Me either." He set the beer down, then killed her temper by stepping to her, framing her face with his hands. "Maybe I can stop what's going on in me. Maybe I should try. But I look at you, I touch you,

  and the edge doesn't just get closer, it gets more appealing."

  He touched his lips to her forehead, then released her and stepped back.

  "Every time I figure some part of you out, you sprout something off in another direction," she said.

  "I've only been in love once—the genuine deal—and it was everything I wanted. I haven't figured out what I want now, beyond what I have. I don't know, Logan, if I've got the courage to step up to that

  edge again."

  "Things keep going the way they are for me, if you don't step up, you might get pushed."

  "I don't push easily. Logan." It was she who stepped to him now, and she took his hand. "I'm so

  touched that you'd tell me, so churned up inside that you might feel that way about me. I need time

  to figure out what's going on inside me, too."

  "It'd help," he decided after a moment, "if you could work on keeping the pace."

  * * *

  Her clothes were dry but impossibly wrinkled, her hair had frizzed and was now, in Stella's opinion, approximately twice its normal volume.

  She dashed out of the car, mortified to see both Hayley and Roz sitting on the glider drinking something out of tall glasses.

  "Just have to change," she called out. "I won't be long."

  "There's plenty of time," Hayley called back, and pursed her lips as Stella raced into the house. "You know," she began, "what it means when a woman shows up with her clothes all wrinkled to hell and

  grass stains on the ass of her pants?"

  "I assume she went by Logan's."

  "Outdoor nookie."

  Roz choked on a sip of tea, wheezed in a laugh. "Hayley. Jesus."

  "You ever do it outdoors?"

  Roz only sighed now. "In the dim, dark past."

  * * *

  Stella was sharp enough to know they were talking about her. As a result, the flush covered not only

  her face but most of her body as she ran into the bedroom. She stripped off her clothes, threw them