“Do what?”
“This,” she insisted, repeating the vague gesturing.
I clenched my teeth together. “What is this?”
“I don’t know what it is. I just know it’s something.”
It had been suggested in the past by people who didn’t really know me at all well that as an editor who spent her days editing romantic fiction, I might have unrealistic expectations of men. Anyone who knew me – really knew me – knew that wasn’t true. Although I was actively looking for the man I wanted to spend my life with, I wasn’t looking for a fantasy man. I was looking for someone understanding, protective, and funny. I didn’t expect perfection. I just wanted to like the person I was dating, and I wanted him to be kind.
Bryan was neither funny nor kind.
“So the bitch took the fish, even though she never bought the fish,” Bryan finished, his nostrils flaring.
I blinked, wondering how my mentioning that my hake had been delicious had somehow gotten us onto the topic of his ex-girlfriend. Again. So far Bryan had turned all of our conversations on this abysmal date back to his last two ex-girlfriends.
He seemed to be a very angry little man.
Bored, I somehow found myself kicking the hornet’s nest. “But didn’t you say you won it at a fun fair for her?”
He scowled. “That’s not the point.”
“Surely a gift once given cannot be taken back?”
“Ugh, that’s such a fucking female thing to say.”
I stuck my hand up at the passing waiter. “Check, please.”
Exhausted from the terrible date, all I wanted was to get home and snuggle up to watch the latest episode of my favorite reality singing contest, which I’d recorded from the weekend.
I was hurrying up my stairwell when, to my horror, his door opened.
Logan stepped out, surprising me with his attire. He wore a beautiful black suit and a black shirt.
The top button was open on the shirt and he wore no tie, but still he was very smart – it was the most civilized I’d ever seen him. I had to wonder if he worked at night, and if so, what exactly it was that he did.
I drew to a stop at the top of the stairs, and Logan jolted when he saw me, his gaze raking over me, his lips parting slightly as though he were in shock. Like him, I was wearing black. A black Alexander McQueen dress with a pleated knee-length skirt and a V-neck that showed off a modest amount of cleavage. The dress was a remnant from my previous life, and it was pure class. I loved it.
I’d loved it for almost ten years. For once my honey brown hair hung loose over my shoulders, and my makeup was soft in dusky pink shades, which suited my light complexion.
I flushed when those extraordinary eyes of his connected with mine.
“Back from a date?” he said, sounding surprised by this.
“Yes,” I answered out of politeness.
“I take it the date didn’t go well?”
“Why would you think that?”
“Because you’re home alone.”
Feeling my cheeks redden, as they had a tendency to do around him, I slipped past him, rummaging through my clutch for my keys. “It may come as a shock to you, Mr. MacLeod, but not all of us sleep with someone on the first date.”
“How boring.”
I jerked around at his teasing tone and found his eyes glittering at me. “It’s called respecting a woman.”
“It is called not living life to the fullest.” He started to descend the stairs. “Maybe if you got yourself laid, you’d relax a wee bit.”
I sniffed, denying even to myself that his perception of me stung. “I am perfectly relaxed.”
“Oh, you sound it,” he called up, his infuriating chuckle trailing up to me as his head disappeared from sight.
“Argggh.” I smacked my clutch against my door before throwing it open and slamming it shut behind me. The clutch went sailing down the hall of my flat in my anger. “Damn the man!”
Next time I was bloody well going to get in the last word.
CHAP TER 3
“B ugger, bugger, bugger,” I muttered as I attempted to retrieve my keys from my purse while trying to juggle three shopping bags filled with food.
A large hand suddenly tugged on the handles of one of the bags and I jerked my head up in fright.
My gaze clashed with Logan MacLeod’s. “Wha—”
The bag was in his hand and the second and third followed quickly into his other.
I stared up at his serious expression, bemused. “I didn’t even hear you come up behind me.” He certainly moved quietly for a big man.
Instead of speaking, he gestured to the front door of our building.
Flustered, my hands shook a little as I tugged my keys out and selected the right one. I let us inside. “I can carry them now. Thank you.”
His blank face and refusal to give me back the shopping bags forced me to keep walking. I stopped at flat one on the ground floor and knocked. Logan halted in confusion. Before I could explain, the door to the flat opened and I was faced with my favorite neighbor, Mr. Jenner, and his cheery disposition.
“Ah, Gracie, there you are.” He grinned at me, his smile faltering a little when he glanced beyond me. “Oh, you have company?”
“Mr. Jenner, this is Mr. MacLeod. He just moved into the building. He very kindly offered to carry your shopping.”
I heard Logan’s grunt behind me and didn’t know whether it pertained to my diplomatic retelling of the situation or the fact that the shopping bags weren’t for me.
“Oh, how kind.” Mr. Jenner smiled at Logan. “Come in. Come in.”
I looked at Logan and he stared at me, his eyebrow raised in question.
“I do Mr. Jenner ’s shopping for him every week. I can carry them inside if you like.” I held out my hand for the bags.
“I’ve got them.” He brushed past me, and I followed him into Mr. Jenner ’s flat.
The elderly gentleman lost his wife a few years ago, only a few short months after I moved into the building. His son had arranged for a cleaner to visit once a week, but she wanted more money to do the shopping, so I had offered to do it for free because the Jenners were kind and welcoming to me from the moment I moved in.
I watched Logan as he glanced around the small, well-kept flat, wondering if he was really listening to Mr. Jenner ’s chitchat as he followed our neighbor into his kitchen.
I realized I had been so busy watching Logan I hadn’t heard Mr. Jenner ’s chitchat and was thus confused when Logan offered, “I’ll take a look at it.”
“Look at what?” I said, immediately diving into the bags Logan had placed on the counter. I started putting the perishables away in the refrigerator.
“Mr. Jenner ’s washing machine is playing up. I’ll have a look at it.”
“Are you qualified to do that?” I said, still curious about exactly what it was he did for a living.
“Yes. I have a Ph.D. in washing-machine technology.”
I rolled my eyes at his sarcasm.
“That’s very kind,” Mr. Jenner said, clearly oblivious to the undercurrents of tension between me and Logan.
“I’ll do it now, if that’s okay?” Logan shrugged out of his jacket at Jenner ’s grateful nod.
I didn’t particularly want to stick around to see Logan do a good deed. It might put a dent in my annoyance, and I wanted nothing to penetrate my dislike for my new neighbor. One good deed did not outweigh the growing tally of complaints I had against him. “Well, I’m off, then.”
Mr. Jenner smiled. “Thanks again, Gracie. You’re an angel.”
I returned his smile but found mine wobbling a little under Logan’s fierce regard. Ignoring his quizzical, burning stare, I waved good-bye without looking at either of them and dashed from the flat.
All those moments would be lost in time… like tears in rain.
I stared at the sentence for the fifteenth time, trying to think what it was that niggled at me about it, why it was so familiar, but I couldn’t concentrate.