Was that a platinum card?
She pulled her hand away. “Don’t.”
“C’mon, Jenny.”
“You’ll just push the stinger in farther.”
“Trust me.”
“Seriously?”
A muscle flexed in his cheek. “I won’t kiss the sting. Is that what you need to hear?”
She sighed in frustration. She was overreacting to everything today. Logan was used to kissing women senseless, but she wasn’t used to having her better sense fried. She willed her heartbeat to slow and then shoved her injured hand toward him.
“You’re not allergic, are you?” With the edge of the credit card, he probed the lump rising around the stinger.
“No.” Did he have to lean in so close? “I’ve been stung before.”
“You could still have a reaction.” His green gaze rose up to meet hers. “You are flushed.”
“The sun,” she said tightly, “is hot.”
“Any tightness in your chest?” He flicked the card across the lump and leaned in close to inspect the rising welt. “Having difficulty breathing?”
“No.” She stopped breathing so she wouldn’t smell the scent of his soap. “Did you get it out?’
“Yes.” Tucking the card in his back pocket, he slid his other hand down her wrist to press her pulse. “Feeling itchy?”
“Logan—”
“We should check for hives.”
“All over my body, I suppose?”
He slow-lifted his lids. “I wouldn’t want to miss a spot.”
“You’re enjoying yourself.”
He raised his brows. “Not as much as I’d like to be.”
She glared, but the look that made graduate students flee only made Logan wink.
“Time to head home.” She shot to her feet.
“First,” he said, lumbering all, “take some antihistamine.”
She swept past him and grabbed the discarded sample bag. “I will when I get home.”
“You didn’t bring any with you?”
“I don’t usually get stung.”
“You don’t usually get kissed senseless in the middle of the woods, either.”
She threw him a challenge. “Never without warning.”
“Life is full of surprises. Ever hear of anaphylactic shock?”
“Yeah, I’ve heard of it.” It was definitely shock she was feeling. It had been too long since she’d been so thoroughly kissed.
“Your blood pressure rises,” he said. “Your pulse races. The airways narrow, making it hard to breathe.”
Sounds about right. “I’ll take an antihistamine when we get home,” she said, hauling her pack on her back. “Will that suffice, Doctor Logan?”
“You’ll take some when we get back to the car. I’ve got a first aid kit there—I should have brought it with me.” He swung his pack over his shoulder. “And I am a doctor, Jenny. Doctor Macallister.”
She stopped short.
“Seems neither one of us is exactly who we seem.”
***
Logan sank the blade of the chain saw into the pine trunk, holding the buzzing tool steady as steel met wood. He’d been chopping this fallen trunk into smaller sections since morning, when dew still clung to the grass. Now the sun had dried the grass stiff. Insects buzzed in the heat. A few more passes of the saw and this log would be in pieces just the right size for his purposes. Then he could really get down to work.
A thick, circular slice of wood fell to a pillow of sawdust on the shed floor. Logan shut the chainsaw off, planted it on the worktable nearby and raised a bottle to his lips. The water had long lost its coolness, but at least it slid wet down his throat. Finishing the last drop, he swiped his arm across his forehead and stepped out of the shelter of the shed, hoping for a cooling breeze.
His gaze shifted, inevitably, to the basement window. The glow of a bare bulb was visible through the grime. She was at it again. Rather, she was at it, still. In the two days since they’d returned from the park, she’d barely budged from the gloominess of the lab. But for the sight of that bare bulb and the sound of clanking glassware, he wouldn’t even know that he had a gorgeous, cantankerous redhead for a roommate.
He lobbed the empty bottle toward the recycling bin and then ran his chaff-flecked fingers through his hair. Wasn’t he a charmer? The only woman he’d taken a liking to in a long time—a colleague of a friend, no less—and he was screwing it up. He didn’t think he’d misread her in the park, but now she popped her head out of her subterranean refuge only when he wasn’t around to see her. The only evidence he had that she was eating was the slowly depleting supply of deli meats in the refrigerator. The only evidence that she was showering was the vague scent of strawberry shampoo lingering in the hallway in the morning.
His cell phone rattling on the workbench inside the shed, followed by a tinny rendition of “Home On The Range.” Logan hesitated at the familiar ring, but only for a minute. He and his buddies had made a pact nine months ago. Pride wouldn’t let him dodge a call from either one of them, even if he didn’t feel like talking.
“Hey, Dylan,” Logan said, answering the call. “The college semester must be over if you have time to call.”
“It is, and every damn grade registered.” Dylan MacCabe barked a Viking-loud laugh that made Logan pull the phone away from his ear. “I’m as free as a golden eagle for the next two months. I’m about to start work on that project I proposed at the reunion.”
Logan’s smile went tight. He’d last personally seen Dylan and another friend, Garrick, at a college reunion last fall. They’d all ducked out of the banquet room full of hungry divorcees to seek sanctuary in the old rugby field where they’d first met. They’d talked as the night stretched into the wee hours of the morning, catching up with each other’s lives, talking more about philosophy than they ever had as students. As the sun rose golden over the green field, they discovered they’d all suffered a personal loss. The kind of loss that made a
