Run the Risk

That story had died with the reporter, but Yates was still around, and soon, Logan would be able to question him.

He could hardly wait.

Thoughts of Morton Andrews continued to plague him even as he parked and did his shopping. He could still see the smug prick: fifty years old, tall, trim, and as dirty as they came. Women seemed to find him handsome with his dyed white-blond hair, near-black eyes and slick wardrobe.

As one of the wealthier club owners in the state, he always had a babe on his arm. The women either didn’t know, or didn’t care, that Andrews dealt drugs and was suspected of forced labor trade and everything from theft to murder.

What would Pepper think if she knew of her brother’s association with Morton Andrews? Did she even know her brother had worked at Checkers?

As Logan grabbed the few things he needed off the shelves, he could have sworn he felt someone watching him. Not casual curiosity but intense observation. He paid for his groceries and walked out to the parking lot.

The sense of being watched sharpened. After slipping on mirrored sunglasses, he looked around, nonchalantly checking parked cars, customers and shadows.

Though he saw no one in particular, he’d been on the job long enough to know he hadn’t imagined it. Only Reese and the lieutenant knew he was currently undercover, but Andrews was always a threat. For that reason, Logan remained cautious. But he was damn good at his job, and he doubted Andrews could have had him followed, not without Logan knowing it before now.

So who then? Possibly Rowdy Yates?

He stowed the groceries in the rear of his pickup and opened the driver’s door. The fine hairs on the nape of his neck prickled; would he end up with a bullet in his back? Anyone with a rifle could pick him off with ease. Was Rowdy corrupt enough for cold-blooded murder?

“What are you doing here?”

Logan jerked around and found Pepper standing there, a hand shading her eyes from the sun, a soft breeze playing with a few loose tendrils of her dark blond hair.

When he pulled off his sunglasses to greet her, he noted her look of unease.

Logan knew her damn brother was the most likely threat to him…but was he also a threat to her? “I had to get stuff for dinner.” To make it more difficult for anyone with a rifle scope, he maneuvered her between his body and the grocery store entrance. He had his own truck at his back. “What are you doing here?”

“I needed some groceries myself.” Looking beyond him, expression wary and anxious, she scrunched her face against the glare off the blacktop parking lot. “I could have gotten your stuff for you, but since you’re here anyway—” she took his arm and began hauling him back toward the store “—you may as well give me a ride home when I’m finished.”

That attitude was so different from what she’d expressed back at the apartment that his suspicions darkened. Was she hoping to protect him from Rowdy?

He said only, “Glad to.” And he freed his wrist from her grip so that he could put a hand to the small of her back.

The rain from the night before had ramped up the humidity, but it also left behind that stirring breeze that plastered her skirt to her legs. The skirt kicked up with each hurried step she took.

“Stop staring,” she said. “You’re embarrassing me.”

He’d been about to ask her why she was rushing him, but she effectively sidetracked him. “I find it hard not to watch you.”

“Why?” she asked.

Before, he’d studied her to make her aware of him, not out of any real intimate interest of his own.

Now…her every move enthralled him. He needed to see her body, to touch her all over. At every moment, some part of his brain churned over the body hidden from him. In a very short time, he’d become obsessed.

“You have long legs,” he mused aloud.

She missed a step, then moved ahead of him, out of his reach.

Knowing he had her on the run, Logan smiled. “Slim hips, too.”

She charged forward, grabbed a cart and shoved her way down an aisle. Hanging back a little, aware of the concentrated way she resisted any sway to her walk, Logan watched her.

Suddenly she stopped and turned to glare at him.

And it was a glare of pure fire, taking him by surprise.

“Stop it,” she ordered him, “or leave.”

Mesmerizing, that small sign of her temper. “You asked me to give you a ride home.”

“Yes, but if you can’t behave in a civilized way, I’d rather walk. In fact, I like walking. It’s good exercise and—”

“Forget it, honey.” Logan put his arm around her and started her forward again. “I’ll pretend you’re not hiding a sweet body, okay?”

Her mouth opened, but nothing came out. She clung to the cart, almost using it for support as he urged her down the bread aisle.

As she shopped, Logan stayed attuned to their surroundings, but he no longer felt the scrutiny of prying eyes.

Come out, you bastard, Logan thought to himself. Come out so I can get to you.

But he didn’t see Rowdy Yates anywhere around, and he didn’t feel that burning gaze, either. His disappointment would have been more pronounced if he weren’t so fascinated with Pepper. The no-nonsense way she shopped, how she moved, even her junk food choices were a source of interest.

Add to all that her awareness of him, which he felt in spades.

Even in the middle of a grocery store, that damned sexual chemistry arced between them, live, hot and alarmingly real. Possibly the most real thing he’d felt in two long years.

* * *

“TURN IN HERE.”

Logan glanced at her. “What?”

“I need to go to the department store, too. Turn in here.” He’d been silent too long, and she didn’t know if it was because he’d sensed her brother’s nosiness, or his curiosity about her body that kept him brooding.

Neither possibility boded well for her peace of mind.

As he pulled into a parking spot, she opened her seat belt. Already preoccupied with thoughts of her brother and his domineering presence, she said, “You don’t need to wait. Thank you for the lift, but I’ll walk the rest of the way after I’ve finished.”

Before she moved an inch, he caught her arm in a gentle but unbreakable hold. Far too seriously, he said, “I don’t mind waiting.”

He had such big, strong hands, but she couldn’t imagine him ever hurting her. “What happened there?” She nodded at his left hand, braced on the steering wheel. The nail gun had left behind some grisly bruising.

As if he’d forgotten the injury, he looked at it. “I screwed up at work, that’s all.”

Pepper couldn’t resist reaching for his wrist, drawing his hand toward her. At the base of his thumb and halfway up his index finger, purple, blue and green colored his skin. At the fleshiest part of his thumb, where it webbed, she saw a puncture.

“What did you do?” she asked softly, pretending she didn’t already know.