tried to catch up to her sister’s excitement. “You brought your art to the show.” She vaguely remembered Gabby telling her that she and Tyler were each submitting a painting, but the details had gotten lost in all the other details of their busy life.
Gabby nodded. “Mr. Barger—he’s the one in charge of the art show—said it sold about ten minutes ago. And Mrs. Eddleston from the bank is writing a check for Tyler’s painting right now.”
Her little sister looked as though she was about to pop, and it made Elena grin.
“Congratulations, Gabby.” It was Logan.
Gabby’s head jerked up and she blinked, as if noticing him for the first time. Hot color rushed across her face. “Thank you. Really. Thank you.”
Confused, Elena looked between Gabby and Logan. “What’s going on?”
“I bought the painting,” Logan said, his gaze on Gabby. “You can verify it with Mr. Barger, by the way, that I didn’t realize who the artist was until after the sale.”
Elena turned to look at him, still bewildered. “You bought a painting?”
There was a funny expression on Logan’s face. “I’ve just moved and I could use something for my walls. The painting…” He cleared his throat, shrugged, looked away. “Called to me.”
There was a buzzing in Elena’s ears. “Wh—” She had to stop, start again. “Which painting, exactly, did you show today, Gabby?”
Her sister gulped. Audibly.
“No,” Elena protested, her voice swallowed up by horror.
Gabby nodded, an expression somewhere between mischief and apology in her eyes. “Elena in Bed.”
Elena’s gaze flew to Logan, even as a flush moved just as quickly from her toes to her forehead. Forget worrying about looking sixteen. Because now the man had bought the right to look at her—all day and all night if he wanted.
And though she appeared decent enough in the painting, it didn’t help her state of mind to know—and Logan likely suspected—that beneath those covers she’d been stark naked.
Late Sunday afternoon, Logan blasted U2 through his stereo speakers as inspiration while he stripped the fourteen coats of paint covering the banister of the stairway in his three-story Victorian. His fingers ached from his grip on the scraper, his back would never be the same after spending the day half-bent, and he was stooping because his knees were already bruised to hell and back. But he’d never been happier in his life, he thought, singing along with Bono. Yeah, man. It was a beautiful day.
It took a while for a muffled banging to distinguish itself from the drumline of the song. Someone was knocking on his front door.
Logan descended the steps at a jog, then paused to turn down the stereo before approaching the foyer. With his hand on the doorknob, he hesitated. Maybe he should—
No, even if it was good ol’ Jonathon Chase, his father, intent on another turn of the guilt screws, it was too late to pretend he wasn’t home. Bracing himself, he pulled open the door.
Elena stood on the other side, looking as surprised to see him as he was to see her. They stared at each other for a moment, then she blinked, her gaze traveling down, then back up to meet his.
“You’re, um, dirty,” she pointed out, her voice as surprised as her expression.
He nodded, his own gaze involuntarily zeroing in on her full mouth. Dirty in his mind too, he could have added, because he’d been dwelling on that kiss they’d shared. Not to mention all the time he’d spent studying his new art acquisition, Elena in Bed.
Uh-oh. He suddenly had a very good idea about why the beautiful bane of his life was standing on his doorstep. She’d made some vague threats before hurrying off the day before about getting the painting back.
No, he resolved instantly. No way. It was his! It felt damn good to have something she wanted for once. What other man could say that?
“May I come in?” she asked.
Oh, she wanted the painting bad, Logan decided, because she was actually managing to sound sort of friendly.
Which immediately edged up the dial on his Trouble Meter. It was best not to let her inside. Call it a premonition, call it learning from past mistakes, but he and Elena did not do well in close proximity. Consider that kiss. No, better not. Not when she was so near.
He stepped out onto the porch, trying to invent a polite refusal. Hustle her toward home. Out of his life, good. Without his painting. Very good.
But now, a few steps closer to her and with his initial surprise out of the way, his eyes widened again. Elena appeared exhausted. Strangely defenseless too, with her sumptuous curves swallowed up by a white T-shirt and a baggy pair of denim overalls.
With a pale face and tired shadows beneath her baby blues, she was also so gut-wrenchingly gorgeous it made a man want to slay her dragons as much as he wanted to seduce her. Cursing his own weakness, he found himself turning right around to usher her inside.
“Is everything okay?” he asked, directing her toward the front room. Layers of wallpaper were peeled back from the plaster in long curls. Pink stripes over yellow flowers over a design that might once have been green but was now grayish.
She paused in the middle of the room, taking in the bay window, the wallpaper curls, the two old recliners—one with duct tape on the seat—that faced a big-screen TV sitting on a platform of cinder block and plywood. He watched TV sometimes while he worked. The recliners had been left behind by the previous homeowner.
She looked over at him, her expression amazed. “You do actually live here. Your mother gave me this address when I called but I wasn’t sure I understood her correctly.”
Logan gestured toward the recliner sans duct tape, and then frowned as he watched her drop to the seat with a little sigh. She seemed glad to have something beneath her.
“Oh, Mom has the story straight,” he replied, scrutinizing Elena even more closely. “Can I get you something to eat? A beer? Soda?”
She waved a weary hand. “Whatever.”
When he came back in with two bottles of beer in one hand and a plate of cold pizza in the other, Elena was collapsed against the back cushion of her chair. He handed her a bottle and put the pizza on the scarred end table between the two recliners, nudging over the remote control to make room.
She took a long swallow of beer then cast him a look. “You really quit Chase Electronics?”
He took a chug from his own bottle. “Yep.”
“You moved out of your condo and bought this Victorian. On my side of town.”
“Yep. Though the condo is actually Griffin’s. He and Annie will live in it when they get back from the honeymoon. Until they find their own house, anyway.”
“You quit Chase Electronics,” Elena repeated as if still not quite believing it, then took a longer swallow from her bottle.
“And
