As if he knew her thoughts, he gave a warm laugh and stepped out of the doorway. “See you later, Sue.”
Not if I see you first. “Goodbye, Logan.” She started to close the door.
And he said, “Now that wasn’t so painful, was it?”
She clicked the door shut in his face, then dropped against it.
Painful? Not exactly.
Stirring? She felt like a blender on high speed, all her emotions, all her dormant desires, churning together in a frenzy.
It had been too long—like forever—and she was too deprived to be around a specimen like him without imagining the impossible. She needed to find a way to avoid him, but she’d have to do it without causing suspicion. And there was the rub.
Avoiding him was suspicious.
Pepper turned so that it was her shoulders against her door. Head down, eyes closed, she struggled to come up with a plan.
Maybe, she reasoned to herself, she was going about this all wrong. Any woman would be flattered by Mr. Stark’s attention.
A woman like her, especially so.
Slowly, she lifted her head. Did she have a good reason to engage him in conversation? To get to know him better?
She pressed her hands to her cheeks and fought off a smile.
Yes, that’s what she would do. She would stop deflecting him, and instead—she’d shyly reciprocate. If that didn’t scare him off once and for all, she didn’t know what would.
* * *
LOGAN RISKE SAUNTERED back to his temporary digs with a feeling of encouragement.
So he’d had to be pushy. Again.
So he’d had to practically force a conversation on her. At least this time, he’d been successful.
More than successful.
The lady could deny it till doomsday, but he felt her awareness. If her damned brother didn’t have her so cowed, she’d probably be knocking on his door right now.
Thinking of her brother, Rowdy Yates, always soured his mood. No doubt Rowdy had run roughshod over her for years, so Logan had to proceed cautiously.
He ran a hand over his chest, considering all the twists and turns of her ruse. It was a ruse—he couldn’t be wrong about that. Yes, she looked different from the photos he had, but there was something in the eyes, in the way she looked at him.
Pepper Yates.
After two years of searching, the end drew near.
She was the one woman he needed, the link that’d get him everything he’d worked for.
He thought about the small grainy photos online, the newspaper reports. Her wide-eyed innocence had shown through. She looked a little worse now than she had two years ago, but he supposed running, and hiding, and putting up with her brother could do that to a woman.
His hands curled into fists.
Most everything he’d uncovered had been on Rowdy Yates, but bits and pieces of Pepper had surfaced, as well. He knew she was younger than thirty, and he knew she was shy.
He hadn’t known she would be so tall. At around five-ten, she stood only three inches shorter than him. And while no one would accuse her of being pretty, he hadn’t known that her light brown eyes would be so expressive. When she looked directly at him, he felt it.
All over.
Her hair was so dark a blond, it was nearly brown. Long, but lank. Dull. Untidy, with frizzy ends, despite her habit of securing it in a ponytail.
And still he wanted to see it loose. He wanted to feel it in his hands.
And speaking of untidy… His quick glimpse of her living room had been a shocker. He’d just naturally assumed that a plain Jane like her would be ultraneat, like the stereotypical mousy woman who lived like a maiden aunt.
Ha! Not even close.
Clothes, magazines, empty cola cans and a pizza box had all littered her small living space. Beyond that area he’d seen a towel on the floor of her bathroom, and through an open door, her unmade bed with a quilt more off the bed than on it.
For some reason, knowing she wasn’t a neat freak made him smile. It was such a contradiction to his assumptions.
He again pictured her sloppy bed and wondered if she’d had a sleepless night. He knew for certain she’d spent the night—every night—alone.
Maybe that was why, more than once, she’d stolen a glimpse of his body.
And that rosy flush?
Yeah, that hadn’t been annoyance he’d seen stirring in her expressive eyes.
Eyes that couldn’t hide her secrets.
Not from him. As a cop, he excelled in uncovering mysteries.
As a man, he knew how to seduce a woman.
Sue Meeks—what a joke—would be no different.
What he found odd was his own reaction.
She wasn’t outright homely; he knew women well enough to see that with some work, she could be attractive. Women had an amazing knack of highlighting their best features while downplaying their flaws.
Not Pepper Yates. The woman didn’t seem to have a clue how to promote her strong features.
And her body…well, who could know? She didn’t exactly look thick or thin, just…shapeless.
He hadn’t found any photos of her that really showed off her figure. And beneath the dated, ill-fitting clothes she now wore, she could be concealing anything.
Yet while talking to her, he’d felt alive. Hell, he’d felt alive just watching her stride down the sidewalk, her enormous, sloppy purse throwing her off-kilter more than the overloaded bags of groceries had. She’d kept her head down, but her stride had been long and confident.
Until she’d seen him.
Then she’d dragged her feet like a reluctant sacrifice.