The Boys Club (11 page)

He just wished he wasn’t alone. As much as he didn’t want to
admit it, Jack giving him permission to find someone else opened up a new door
for his thoughts to explore. Maybe it was okay to find someone else, someone he
could love as much as Karen. Someone with whom he could share every bit of his life,
even the bad things. Someone kind, understanding, intelligent, soft, and
beautiful…

Someone like Sara.

Logan chased away the crazy, stray thought from his mind. He
headed back outside to spend more time in the clear air under the full moon,
alone with his memories and regrets.

As soon as Logan shut and locked the
door, Sara turned on the bed. Throwing her back up against the wall, she
crossed her arms. Who the hell did Logan think he was? From the way he had
spoken to her since the beginning she expected honesty from him, not some
half-cocked story about her father and the FBI. He acted as if she were the
stupidest person in the world, but expected her to trust him and only him.

She lowered her head and massaged her temples, her growing
headache the least of her concerns. Though the whole of Logan’s tale made no
sense, some of it rang true. Her gut instinct over the past few months told her
that her father had mishandled his money and not on accident. The runaround he
gave her and the simple explanations Stephen spit out only fueled her
suspicions.

She knew how to recognize the signs of money laundering.
Though she didn’t want to admit it before, she knew that’s what he had done. He
had quite possibly been doing it all along. Logan telling her that he was up to
no good cemented that thought, but the idea of the FBI investigating him seemed
far-fetched. Or did it? She only saw the accounts of the one company. His
illegal activities could span across everything he did.

What she had problems reconciling was that he wanted her
dead. Sure, they weren’t always on the best of terms and the thin ice she
skirted across to please him had plenty of cracks, but he wouldn’t kill her. He
wasn’t that kind of criminal.

Sara gasped as the word rolled across her brain.
Criminal
. She had thought it before with
regards to her father, but never connected the two into one idea. It was the
same thing she accused Logan of being, and yet Logan had treated her far better
than her father ever had. Could Logan be one of the good guys despite having
kidnapped her?

The lock on her door clicked and the doorknob turned. “I
just wanted to check on you,” Charlie said, as he stepped through the narrow
opening. “Are you doing okay?”

An exasperated laugh left her lips. “I don’t know what
‘okay’ means anymore.”

Charlie sat at the end of the bed, unfazed by her comment.
He hiked his leg up on the bed and faced her. “What’s going on?”

Sara shrugged. “Logan said all kinds of things about my dad.
I don’t know what’s true, what’s a lie, and what’s skewed.”

“I can’t talk to you about that without Logan here.” Charlie
started to move off the bed. “I can get him and we can talk—”

“No!” Sara reached her hand out to stop him. “I don’t want
to talk to him. I want you to tell me the truth about why you kidnapped me.”

“I don’t know what Logan told you or didn’t tell you and I’m
not supposed to talk to you about any of this without him here.”

Everything went back to Logan. Her frustration grew, but she
didn’t want to take it out on Charlie. “Just one question,” she said, keeping
her voice even-keeled. “Did my father hire someone to kill me on my honeymoon?”

He slid off the bed and studied her for a moment before
folding his arms across his chest. “Again, I don’t know what Logan told you,” he
said, “but whatever he said is true. Logan doesn’t lie. He doesn’t know how.
Now, is there anything you need? Food, a breathing treatment?”

Tears welled in her eyes and she shook her head. Charlie
slunk out of the room, leaving her alone once again when she wanted nothing
more than to talk to someone about everything Logan had said. She had hoped
Charlie would give her answers, not more questions. Logan had his thumb on
every part of the kidnapping, right down to who could tell her what. Charlie’s
statement that Logan didn’t know how to lie scared her even more. If Logan
didn’t lie, her father hired someone to kill her. And Stephen might know about
it.

She shook the thought from her mind and went into the
bathroom to get ready for bed. It was far easier to stay mad at Logan for
fabricating her reasons for being there rather than believe her own father and
the man she agreed to marry might want her dead.

Logan dragged himself out of bed
after another restless night of very little sleep. He figured he would be half
dead by the time the job ended if he didn’t find a way to rest soon. Already
asleep when he came back into her room, Sara also seemed to suffer from anxiety
during the night. She tossed and turned in her own bed, all while staying in
the grip of sleep, adding to his insomnia.

Throughout the night, he wandered between his bed and hers,
watching over her while she fidgeted in her sleep. At one point her lips moved
and an inaudible utterance emerged, letting him know just how distressed he
made her with his narrative. His stomach twisted at the thought of upsetting
her. He hadn’t intended to be so forward, but once he started speaking, he
couldn’t stop.

Schaffer’s suggestion to get to know her, to see her as a
person, also contributed to his unrest. He wanted to do that, to understand her
and get her to trust him, but a strange unsettling surfaced in his gut every
time he considered knowing her more. In the early morning hours, he finally
realized why. He already saw her as more than a person who needed saving. He
saw her as a woman, one who had caught his eye when he first saw her, and he
couldn’t control his attraction to her.

Once he admitted his fascination with her, he understood why
Karen plagued his thoughts. He never thought of Karen while involved with
Allie, but only because he knew his relationship with Allie ended with sex.
Sara intrigued him on a different level, the same one on which Karen entered
his life. The idea of meeting someone else he could see as part of his life
frightened him in a way he hadn’t experienced since he first lost Karen.

More than that, Sara represented nothing more than a
fleeting moment. She would leave his life as quickly as she came into it. In a
few days, the FBI would take her away and she could quite possibly spend the
rest of her life in hiding. He wouldn’t see her again after she disappeared
into WITSEC and he couldn’t do anything to change that outcome.

Logan left the room when Charlie got him for breakfast. He
opted for fruit instead of a large meal, as he had already decided to take Sara
out running. For a moment he considered getting Les and Jack to do it for him,
but he couldn’t take a chance with the leak still uncovered, no matter how much
he believed his team wasn’t involved. At least having Jack with him would
provide a buffer so he could ignore Sara.

After he ate and swallowed half a cup of coffee, he found
Jack in the backyard. They planned a route across the four acres of land behind
the house. Though Sara ran five miles a day, they decided half the distance
would be best at first. If everything went well, they could increase the
distance for their next run. They agreed to hang back and let her run in front
of them to give her a sense of freedom. Both men could outrun her if she tried
to escape and keeping her contained between the house and the trees at the back
of the property held little risk.

Back in the house, Jack detoured into his bedroom to change
while Logan made his way to Sara’s room. He knocked and waited for her permission
to enter before unlocking the door. Logan pushed the door open and found Sara
sitting up in bed, the comforter pulled to her chest and her childlike eyes
fearful. The sight battled for control of Logan’s good spirits and he reminded
himself that his reason for being there would soon change her demeanor.

“How about a run this morning?” he asked.

Sara eyed him for a long moment before responding. “That
would be nice, but I don’t have anything to wear.”

“You do, in the suitcase. I made sure of it. I’ll have
Charlie bring it back for you. Do you want to eat before we go?”

“I can eat and shower afterward.”

“Just come out when you’re ready.” He closed the door behind
him, but left it unlocked to help her feel more comfortable. He spoke to
Charlie about the suitcase, then went into the guest bedroom and changed into a
pair of shorts and a T-shirt. He had not gone running in over a week and the
idea of the fresh air and exercise made all the negativity from the night
before disappear.

When he emerged from the guest room, Sara turned the corner
with timid steps. “I wasn’t sure where to go,” she said.

“You’re fine.” He motioned for her to walk in front of him
and they started down the hall. “Jack is meeting us out back.”

As they entered the living room, she twisted her head to
look at him. “Jack is one of the others here?”

“Yes, him and Les. We might see Les out on our run, but he
usually keeps himself busy in the shed.”

Her eyes roamed around the living room, examining every
corner. Logan interpreted her actions as looking for weapons or a way to
escape, but he had no fear that she would leave. Though he made a mistake in
dumping all the information about her father and the hit on her at once, he had
also planted enough in her mind to create some doubt about her family.

On the back porch, Logan introduced her to Jack, who gave
her a firm handshake and a warm smile. Sara tucked her chin down and shrugged
with a shy hello. She seemed to struggle with how to act around them and Logan
wanted nothing more than for her to feel comfortable. The more she trusted
them, the easier it would be to get her into WITSEC.

As she stretched in preparation for their run, Logan’s eyes
wandered to the side. Her palm flat against the side of the house, she pulled
her foot up, until her heel was flush against the back of her thigh, her
clothes hugging every curve. He turned and tried to stretch himself, but looked
back at her when movement caught his attention. From the corner of his eye, he
watched her bend at the waist and reach for her running shoes.

Logan cleared his throat and walked away from her. When he
reached Jack, he started to speak, but noticed Jack looking around him to catch
a glimpse of Sara. Logan tightened his mouth to avoid laughing at Jack’s
obvious behavior.

“How far ahead of us do you think we should let her go?”
Logan asked.

“Ten feet at the most,” Jack said. “I think this will go a
long way in getting her to warm up to us. We should let her stay out of her
room the rest of today, too.”

Logan wondered how much of Jack’s request was oriented to
the job, but he couldn’t deny the logic. “Keeping her prisoner all day in that
room doesn’t seem to be working.”

Jack grinned. “Just leave it to me and I’ll have her warmed
up by the end of the day.”

Logan started to reply, but stopped when he heard Sara
behind him.

“I’m ready,” she said in a quiet voice. She tucked stray
strands of dark hair behind her ear.

“You can go ahead of us and we’ll stay back a little ways so
you can have some privacy,” Logan said.

“Like my security detail does.”

“Exactly like that,” he said. “You’re not going to try and
give us the slip, are you?”

She flinched and her eyes flew up to his face. “You know
about that?”

“We know a lot of things,” Jack said, “but taking off on us
never crossed your mind, did it?”

“No.”

“Whenever you’re ready,” Logan said.

Sara turned and started with a slow trot. They quickly
picked up speed and settled into a comfortable pace. Jack rambled from topic to
topic, filler to make the time go by quicker. Logan gave short answers, but
focused more on clearing his head so he could start again with Sara. He would
keep Charlie with him this time and keep his own feelings about her father at
bay. Sara did not know what he had done, and Logan intended to keep it that
way.

As they neared the end of the run, Jack nudged Logan and
gestured toward Sara. “Check out the view.”

Logan glanced at Jack. “As far as you’re concerned, there is
no view.”

“Ah, come on. Tell me you didn’t notice.”

“I didn’t notice.”

“Liar.”

Logan allowed a small smile. “Alright, she looks… nice.”

“What are you, like fifty? She doesn’t ‘look nice.’ She’s
hot as hell. I can’t even look at her without thinking about stripping those
sweaty clothes off her body and—”

“You don’t want to do anything to her but keep her safe.”

“Are you kidding me? Just ‘cause you want to walk the
straight and narrow doesn’t mean we all have to.”

“It’s not a matter of the straight and narrow. She’s the
job, not some girl at a bar waiting for someone like you to take her home.”

“Why did Doctor Connors have to get her such tight running
clothes?”

Logan had wondered the same thing himself, many times during
the course of their run. Memories from searching her the day before flashed in
his brain. The images reminded him of her timidly standing in front of him with
most of her beautiful, fair-toned flesh exposed, enough of it so he could
imagine what he couldn’t see.

He fixed his gaze on the back of her head, watched her short
ponytail bop from side to side, and reminded himself again of his job. He did
his best to not let his eyes fall down her body again, but he couldn’t help
himself.

“Yeah,” Jack said. “You noticed.”

“Just shut up and run.”

Jack laughed and bumped into him, shoving Logan off to the
side. Logan grinned and returned the hit. Spending their teen years together
had turned them into brothers and allowed them the leeway to still act like it
as adults.

Sara’s head turned to the side with the commotion, but Logan
focused his eyes forward and ran straight ahead, as if being caught goofing off
by the teacher. As soon as her head rotated back around, Jack laughed again and
jabbed Logan’s arm. Logan shook his head and kept running.