“You want me to lie?”
“There was more testosterone in it than in a whole class of eighth-grade boys.”
“What’s wrong with testosterone? You’re a man, you’re full of it.”
He grunted, for, medically, she was right. Long-term abstinence had a way of building up a cache.
Can’t think of that.
“I like brainless thrillers.” She leaned back on the chair, the dashboard lights liming her face. “It’s one of the few pleasures my ex introduced me to.”
Ex.
“It’s therapeutic to stop thinking for a while,” she added, “and just be distracted by explosions.”
“You don’t do that often.”
“Do what? Go to the movies?”
“Stop thinking.”
He regretted the words instantly, because it destroyed any therapeutic benefit and set her shifting in her seat. Ahead of them loomed the possibility of a good night kiss. His reptilian brain wanted her to stopped thinking altogether—but his cerebral cortex knew she deserved better.
“Who was the bastard, anyway,” he said. “This ex who only pleased you when he took you to a movie?”
She startled him by laughing. “That’s a more perfect description than you’ll ever know.”
He didn’t know where to start with that.
“I tried very hard to make him happy. I was faithful, enjoyed his company, greeted him at the door every day when he came home—”
“Did he want a girlfriend or a cocker spaniel?”
“He wanted something more, that’s for sure.” She turned her face toward the passenger side window. “Something I wasn’t capable of giving.”
“He sounds like a jerk.”
She shrugged. “Jerks may be my type.”
“No.” He glanced at her, saw the back of her head and a blur of a reflection in the passenger side window glass. “If you had to work that hard, he wasn’t the right guy. End of story.”
“And you know this from long and varied experience?”
He knew better than to answer that. He’d had a few relationships that had gone deep enough to leave an imprint. He always accepted that they had ended because of distance, the pull of demanding careers, and ill-timing, but, really, it was something deeper. Love had come to his married siblings the same way each time. They’d return home from school or work or a party all bothered and lit up. Talking about ‘this girl’ or ‘that guy’. Months, or occasionally weeks later, they’d be engaged. That’s how it was supposed to happen. Now, sitting here next to Jenny, rocked by the rumbling of the truck, the only light in the cab a reflection of the reach of his headlights, he couldn’t find any reason not to confess his truth.
“I’ve seen three of my siblings married, and it’s always been swift and sure.” He flicked on the wipers as the rain intensified. “Just proves that your ex wasn’t the right man.”
Oh, you’ll know the one for you, his two married brothers had said to him, you’ll know the minute she walks into your life.
“Logan,” she teased. “You’re a romantic.”
He flexed his hands over the steering wheel and fixed his gaze on the white line in the middle of the road, remembering not for the first time the image of Jenny walking out of that shower on the day he met her. The rain splashed against the windshield, the wipers squeaked it away. The motor rumbled under his foot. And for a moment life contracted upon him, reduced in all its dense complexity to the simple space within this cab. To the living, breathing redhead sitting beside him, and to the surprising insight of her scientific mind.
“I know one thing,” he said. “You should never let any man make you feel less brilliant and desirable as you are, Jenny Vance.”
The car revved as he pressed down on the accelerator. He wasn’t ready for this now. He’d spent the evening light-headed, his loins engorged, erotic visions roiling through his mind. But his life was in chaos, the timing was all wrong. He had nothing to offer.
Nothing at all.
CHAPTER SIX
As soon as Logan took the key out of the ignition, Jenny tumbled out of the Ford. She couldn’t take another minute so close to that brooding hulk of a man. He exuded sexuality in waves so powerful he seemed to suck every atom of air between them. She needed to breathe deep and clear her head of too many imaginings.
She stepped out of the jeep. Rain pounded her head and shoulders, soaking her in an instant. Hunching over, she scrambled around the truck and headed blindly for the deck.
“Here.”
He loomed out of the darkness and thrust his jacket over her head. She clutched it against the roar of the rain and tried to ignore the fragrant warmth emanating from the brushed cotton inside. She followed him up the stairs. He snatched the key out of the stone turtle tucked under potted geraniums and fumbled with the lock as thunder rumbled in the distance. He thrust the door open and they both burst inside.
Jenny slipped his coat off her head and flicked on the light switch. She glanced up at the recessed lights in the ceiling as nothing happened.
She flicked it again.
“Power’s out,” he said, his deep voice rumbling. “There are candles in the drawer by the fridge. Stay here.”
He moved into the darkness. She pulled off one of her sandals, smearing her fingers with grit and mud. She toed off the other sandal and pushed them both to the side of the mat. She heard him yank open draws, then fumble amid the clank of silverware and wooden spoons. Finally, she heard the strike of a match. A golden glow flared in the kitchen.
She minced across the cold floor and thrust the faucet onto rub her hands free of grit. By the flickering light, she watched him set an array of candle nubs on the counter, and then light them, one by one.
She jerked the faucet off and dried her hands on a dish towel. “Do the lights go out often around here?”
“Every
