ankle. Logan half expected to see her slide over into her partner’s lap.
He looked back at Annie. She was sitting quietly, her expression closed. Riley was studying her fingernails—painted such an ungodly black that it looked as if her hands had been caught beneath a ton of bricks.
The school picture that Will had shown him the day before had indicated how much she took after him, but in person the resemblance seemed less marked. Her expression tightened when she noticed him looking at her and she shifted in her chair, crossing her arms.
Classic defensiveness.
“I guess I don’t need to ask if you and Sara kept in touch after you two graduated from Bendlemaier.” Logan turned his attention back to Annie. He was perfectly aware of Riley’s increased defensiveness when he mentioned the school. Another thing that Will had clued him into.
He and Noelle wanted to send their daughter to the exclusive boarding school. But it was apparent that Riley liked the idea even less than Annie once had.
Annie’s smile looked forced. “I, um, I didn’t graduate from Bendlemaier. But we kept in touch when she went off to college. We’d talked often enough about wanting our own shop, and when the opportunity arose, we went for it.”
For some reason, Logan had assumed Annie had been in college with Sara. Showed how much he knew about his sister. He wondered if Sara had changed as much as Annie. Even though it hadn’t been in his plans—which were to do what needed doing and get out of there as quickly as possible—he had more than a fleeting desire to see his kid sister.
He’d talked to her a few times in the past ten years on the phone, but he hadn’t seen her in person in longer than that. He still remembered her expression the last time they’d seen each other. Confused. Hurt. It had felt like his skin was being peeled away to know he’d never come back to Turnabout to be any sort of brother that mattered. Instead, he called when the need to do so grew too great and sent her money to salve his conscience. After enough years, he could almost convince himself his system worked.
But he wasn’t there to deal with his family issues. So he studied Annie for a moment. He’d fully expected to see her, since Will had told him that his daughter was staying with her, but he hadn’t expected any of the feelings that had hit him when he did. “Your hair used to be longer, didn’t it?” He knew good and well how long it had been. Thick and shining, its wild white-blond curls had reached down to the small of her back. All those years ago, she’d used that mane like a weapon against any male in her vicinity.
“Yes.” She poked her fork into her water glass, spearing the lemon, which she squeezed back into the water. Her cheeks looked vaguely red. “You look pretty much the same to me.” She glanced at Riley, making him wonder what she was thinking. “A little older, but aren’t we all?”
“All this reminiscing makes me want to gag.”
“Then face the other way before you do, Riley, so you don’t ruin our lunches,” Logan suggested mildly.
She glared at him. It made him want to smile. She was very much like her aunt had once been. Full of attitude. The style of clothing had changed some in the past decade and a half, but she wore hers just as tightly and flauntingly as Annie had ever done.
He watched Annie’s down-turned head for a moment. There was nothing flaunting about Annie’s appearance, now. She had on a sleeveless khaki jumper that nearly reached her ankles over a short-sleeved white T-shirt. The dress was shapeless and the neckline of the shirt didn’t even reveal the base of her slender throat.
She wore a plain watch with a thin black band on her left wrist and no other visible jewelry. Gone were the jangling metal bracelets, the chains around her neck, the multiple sets of dangling earrings. Her brown lashes looked soft and naked and if she wore a hint of makeup, she’d done it too subtly for him to tell. When she’d been seventeen she’d seemed to pile on the stuff with a trowel.
“Geez. Take a picture, why don’t you?” Riley rolled her eyes and shook her head at him, her disgust obvious.
Annie looked up, her gaze flicking from her niece to Logan’s face. Then her cheeks flushed again. She moistened her lips and seemed about to say something, but the waitress returned, arms laden with their orders, leaving Logan to wonder what had caused that flush—if it had to do with the past.
She’d never seemed the blushing type before.
The last time he’d seen her had been at her parent’s palatial Seattle home, where he, along with the rest of the wedding party, had spent the night following Will’s wedding. He’d been pretty damned angry with her.
But even angrier with himself. Her youth could explain her actions. He’d had no such excuse.
“Pass the ketchup, please.”
He handed Riley the bottle, vaguely surprised by her politeness. But then again, attitude or not, she was Will and Noelle’s daughter. He watched her dump it over her French fries. “Like to have one French fry with your ketchup?”
She made a face then nodded. He took the bottle when she was finished, doing the same thing with his own plate. “Me, too.”
It earned him a studiously bored look.
Annie had ordered a salad. She stabbed her fork into it, moving lettuce and chunky vegetables from side to side, but not seeming to eat any of it.
“So, what did happen when you left Bendlemaier?”
She didn’t look up from her salad. “Not a lot.”
“How come you don’t still live on Turnabout, if you came from here?” Riley dredged a fry back and forth through her pool of ketchup.
“I had a job that took me elsewhere.” It was true enough, though hardly the entire truth. He had the sense that Riley had only posed the question to keep him from asking more questions of his own to her aunt. It struck him as oddly protective.
“What kinda job?”
“Riley, it’s none of our business.”
He shook his head at Annie’s protest. “I became a spy.”
“Yeah, right.” Riley rolled her eyes and scooped up her dripping French fry, licking her fingers afterward.
“Okay, I’m a consultant,” he said dryly. The lie had always been more palatable for people than the truth—even if he’d dared to share the truth with anybody who mattered. Even his associates had a hard time stomaching it. There were a lot of agents who worked for Coleman Black, the head of Hollins-Winword, in many capacities. But there was need for only one clean-up man.
“Consultant for what? Who?”
“Did you pick up that questioning technique from your dad? I always figured if he hadn’t wanted to be a lawyer, he’d have made a good cop.”
The teen wasn’t fooled. “That’s not an answer.”
“What happened with your law degree?” Annie finally spoke.
“I stuck it in a closet where it’s gathered a lot of dust.” He smiled grimly. He did practice law. Just in a manner most people didn’t want to be aware of. He’d
