Hope Ignites

Page 20

Not that he cared much what anyone thought. He never had.
But then his brother and Emma came up to them. Of course, the first thing Luke’s gaze zeroed in on was Logan holding Des’s hand. And damned if he was going to shake loose of her. He’d made a commitment—well, sort of—and he wasn’t going to back down, no matter how much of a smirk his brother was giving him right now.
Emma hugged Des. “I’m so glad you came today,” Emma said.
“I wouldn’t miss it. All the food, and I’ve heard the fireworks show is legendary.”
“Oh, it definitely is. Come on, there are some friends here I want you to meet.” Emma tugged Des by the hand. “Logan, I’m going to drag her away from you for a while, if you don’t mind.”
Logan nodded. “I don’t mind.”
He watched Des walk away, and soon she was lost in the crowd.
“Beer?” he asked Luke.
“You know it.”
They headed over to the keg and Luke poured them both a cupful of beer. “Let’s go grab a seat somewhere.”
They found an unoccupied picnic table, though it took a while to get there, since they both had to stop and greet several people, including Carter Richards, one of Luke’s best friends, who grabbed a beer and joined them.
They spent some time talking about work, about the ranch, and Carter’s auto shop businesses as well as the movie crew that were milling about meeting all the people from town.
“How’s the shoot going?” Carter asked him.
“Fine, I guess. I’ve been over there a couple of times to watch them shoot. Looks like it’s going good.”
“He’s dating the actress who’s starring in the movie, though,” Luke said.
Logan shot his brother a look. Luke grinned back at him.
“No, shit,” Carter said. “Desiree Jenkins? She’s a beauty.”
“Yeah.” Logan took a sip of beer.
“So how serious is it?” Carter asked.
“It’s not.” And Logan wasn’t going to get into a conversation about Des with either his brother or Carter.
“I’m taking you don’t want to talk about this.” Carter smiled and took a long swallow of his beer.
“I don’t,” Logan said.
“Yeah, but it’s so much fun to probe,” Luke said, obviously unwilling to let the subject drop. “I saw you and Des holding hands earlier.”
“What are you, twelve?” Logan asked. “Mind your own business.”
“Ooh, they were holding hands,” Carter said. “It must be serious. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you out and about with a woman before, Logan.”
“Maybe that’s because I keep my personal business to myself.”
“Mind if I join in?”
Logan hadn’t seen his friend Sebastian Palmer in a while. Bash ran the No Hope At All bar in town.
“Bash. Thought you’d have the bar open today,” Logan said.
Bash swung his legs over and took a seat at the picnic table. “Why would I do that, when I knew everyone in town would be here? Besides, Martha makes great food, and I can drink beer instead of serving it up.”
Logan grinned. “Glad to see you.”
“So what you’re telling me is that all the drunks will be on the ranch today,” Luke said.
Bash nodded. “Pretty much.” He turned to Logan. “Nice fan club gathered at the gates. How’s the movie business?”
Logan shrugged. “Hell if I know. I just rent the land.”
“And he’s dating the leading lady,” Carter added.
Bash gave him a look. “No, shit. That didn’t take long. I never knew you had such smooth moves.”
“We’re not dating.” Christ, all he’d done was hold her hand. And this was just with the guys—his friends, who were gossiping about it like the Sunday after-church ladies.
“So you’re not with her?” Bash looked confused.
“Not in a relationship sense, no.”
Luke laughed and slapped him on the back. “Poor, Logan. You don’t even know how to define your relationship with Des. Does she know this?”
“Know what?”
They all stood as Des came over to the table. “Your boyfriend/not boyfriend has no idea how to explain what the two of you have going on,” Luke said.
Logan panicked, just knowing that they were all going to tell Des how he’d colossally f**ked this up. And then she was going to be pissed, and this easygoing thing between them was going to be over.
Des quirked a smile and slid into a spot next to Logan. “Oh, that’s easy. We’re having smoking hot sex as often as we can get our hands on each other.”
Leave it to Des to shut everyone up.
Luke cleared his throat and Carter laughed.
“I like this woman,” Bash said, grinning at Logan, then stood and leaned over the table, his hand outstretched toward Des. “I’m Bash.”
She shook his hand. “Nice to meet you, Bash.”
Carter introduced himself, too, and Logan exhaled. “Have fun with the girls?”
“I did. And my friends seem to have disappeared.”
“They’ll be fine. I saw Colt leading them down the path a ways toward the corral. I think he’s showing them the horses.”
“Okay.”
Luke brought Des a beer. “Thanks,” she said. “So, you’ve all been gossiping about Logan and me? I expected that from all the women, not a bunch of guys.”
Bash laughed. “We weren’t exactly gossiping. We just asked a simple question that Logan had a problem answering.”
“I see.” She looked over at him. “The sex answer usually shuts everyone up.”
Logan nodded. “I’ll be sure to use that answer with the ladies from church.”
Des laughed. “Okay, maybe not them. But everyone else would be fine.”
“You really don’t care much about gossip, do you?” Logan asked.
She took a sip of beer. “Not really. So much is written about me in the gossip columns, anyway. Most of it untrue. Why would I care if you say something and it gets out? It’s true, isn’t it?”
She was so refreshingly honest, she kept him off balance. “I guess it is.”
Des turned to Carter and Bash. “So tell me about yourselves. I know Luke’s the cop. What do you both do?”
“I own some auto repair and body shops in Hope and in Tulsa,” Carter said.
“I could have used you when I backed my Honda into a fence post,” Des said with a wry grin.
“Recently?” he asked.
She laughed. “No. Back when I was a teenager. I try to avoid being an idiot these days. And I’ve since learned how to use a rearview mirror.”
Carter nodded. “I don’t think many of us escaped the teen driving years unscathed.”
“I did,” Logan said.
“So did I. That’s because we learned to drive as soon as our legs were long enough to reach the pedals,” Luke said.
Logan nodded. “Yeah, living on a ranch has its advantages. We were maneuvering tractors around before any of the rest of you got your permits.”
“Braggarts,” Bash said. “Some of us didn’t get early driving lessons and had to learn the hard way.”
“So you’re saying you had your share of car issues?” Des asked.
Logan let out a snort. “How do you think he earned the nickname Bash?”
“Oh.” Des looked at him. “That bad, huh?”
“Hey,” Bash said. “My name is a shortened version of Sebastian.”
“And because you drove too fast and got into three fender benders in the first six months after you got your driver’s license,” Logan added.
“Really,” Des said.
Bash shrugged. “Those weren’t all my fault.”
“Yes, they were,” Luke said. “You were a road menace.”
“But you all still got in the car with me.”
“You got your license first,” Carter said. “We had no choice.”
Des laughed. “And what do you do for a living, Bash?
“I own a bar.”
“In Hope?”
“Yeah.”
“How fun.” She turned to Logan. “We should go there some night.”
“If you’d like.”
“Do you have music?” she asked Bash.
“Yeah. And pool tables, and TVs. A little of everything.”
“Awesome. We’ll definitely come by.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
Logan finally stood. “I’m going to take Des for a walk, see if we can find her friends and introduce her to a few people.”
“In other words, you don’t want us grilling her anymore,” Luke said.
“Yeah, that’s pretty much it.”
Des waved. “See you later, guys.”
He didn’t even think, just slid his hand in hers.
“You sure about this?” she asked, looking down where their hands were linked. “People might talk about us, or God forbid, ask you more questions you’re too uncomfortable to answer.”
“Okay, so I didn’t handle that well. After our talk, I wasn’t prepared yet to deal with the onslaught of those assholes hitting me with questions about our relationship.”
She laughed. “It’s not a problem, you know. I can maintain a respectable distance.”
“I don’t want you at a distance. I want you next to me.”
“Where you can keep an eye on me?”
He stopped, turned to her. “No. Where I can touch you and look at you and drag you into a corner somewhere and kiss you.”
“I like the sound of that.”
She’d thought he was joking, but as they got near the side of the house, he pulled her down the walk, toward the back of the house. No one was back there, and he cupped the side of her neck and put his lips over hers, kissing her deeply, thoroughly, until she was dizzy. She raised up on her toes and wrapped her arms around him, drawing him closer.
And when he pulled away, she saw the heat of desire in his heavy-lidded eyes.
She blew out a breath. “Wow.”
“Yeah. Too bad there are hundreds of people here, because right now I’d like to drag you up to my bedroom and—”
“Oh, Logan, how are you?”
He quickly put Des in front of him as a woman appeared in the backyard. “Mrs. Springfield. Thanks for coming today. This is Desiree Jenkins. Desiree, this is Bonita Springfield. She and her husband, Ralph, own a farm nearby.”
Des felt the hard evidence of Logan’s erection against her backside. She smiled. “Very nice to meet you, Mrs. Springfield.”
“Oh, call me Bonnie. I was looking for Martha. Have you seen her?”
“No, ma’am. I haven’t. You might check inside.”
“I’ll do that. Nice to meet you, Desiree.”
“You, too, Bonnie.”
Mrs. Springfield went inside, and Des exhaled, then turned around to face Logan. “That’s what you get for dragging girls behind the house to steal kisses.”
“It was worth it.”
He was right about that. He took her hand and they made their way toward the front of the house again.
“So tell me about your visit with Emma.”
“She introduced me to her friends, Jane and Chelsea. They’re awesome. They want to plan a girls’ night out sometime while I’m here.”
He rolled his eyes. “That sounds . . . interesting.”
“I’m seriously contemplating it. I don’t have a lot of girlfriends.”
“What about . . . what were their names again? Callie and Sarah?”
“They’re mainly friends of Tony and Colt.”
“I see.”
“Yeah. So, anyway. They talked about going into Tulsa and having a spa day followed by a night on the town.”
“And you’d like to do that.”
“I’d like to do that. Like I said, I don’t have a lot of friends, and Emma seems really nice.”
“She is really nice.”
“In Hollywood, most of the women I know are actresses. So, of course, all we talk about is being a working actress, and what role we’re auditioning for, and blah blah blah. It’d be nice to be with women who aren’t actresses or in the industry.”
“They’ll probably ask you about your work, though.”
“I don’t mind, because we’d be able to talk about their work, too. Which isn’t acting.”
“I can see your point.”
“I’m sure you like talking with your friends about things other than cattle ranching, right?”
“True enough.”
“Or do you even go out with your friends?”
“Not really.”
She paused, turned to him. “Why not?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Days are long on the ranch, and then I go to bed.”
She shook her head. “Logan, you’ve got to get out more. Life is short, and meant to be lived. You have to get out and party. Get laid.”
He raised his brows and gave her a direct look. “I am getting laid.”
“Yes. And I’m sure I’m not the only woman you’ve been with in years, so obviously you get out some.”
“Okay, I get out some.”
“Or do women come knocking at your door just to get a piece of you?”
He didn’t say anything.