“No. Not what I was going to say.” She reached across the table to touch his large, tanned hand. Just thinking about his rough palm cupping her bare breasts started a flutter in her tummy. “Forgive me. I shouldn’t have brought up the subject at all.”
“It’s okay.” Logan squeezed her hand. “You’d be surprised at how many people flat-out ask what it’s like to fight in a war. I tell them it’s like going to another planet. The same rules don’t apply.”
“I know you were in the army. This afternoon that man at the exhibition center called you Captain.”
“I was in the regular army with him, then I went to special ops. Basically, I was an army ranger. And Delta Force.”
“Really? I saw that movie with Chuck Norris a long time ago.”
“That was more hype than truth.”
“Of course.” Kensey blushed and leaned back, moving her hand to her lap.
Logan smiled. “But yeah, it’s tough to come home. I’m giving a presentation in two days about what guys face after a tour. The world you lived in was one of absolute vigilance. The fight or flight response never turns off. And then you’re back in a happy suburb in Cleveland or LA and every sound is magnified, every movement suspect. It takes a lot of practice to be a civilian again. Especially for spec-ops personnel because they tend to do more than one tour. That’s not to say they come home burned-out. They bring a whole lot of invaluable skills back with them.”
Kensey almost asked him how many times he’d been deployed but stopped herself.
“I’m trying to get more companies to see that and hire vets. The thing they want most is to feel useful again. And hell, it’s not charity. Too many people don’t understand what it means to have a trained special-ops soldier on their team. My security company is still small but other than my sister, everyone is ex-military. Most of them are on-call because I don’t have enough work yet, but that’s slowly changing. We were involved in taking down an international sex trafficking operation last year. So we’ve picked up more clients.”
“The bust that happened in New York?”
He nodded.
“I read about that,” she said. “In the Times. I don’t remember seeing your name, though.”
“No, you wouldn’t have. It doesn’t matter. That kind of publicity won’t get me the business I need. I’m looking at a bigger picture. My goal is to have two thousand full-time employees within five years. Maybe more. It’s doable but it’ll take money and connections. I’m hoping to sign on as a subcontractor with someone here who has both. I’ve got a lot riding on it.” Logan exhaled. “Every day more and more vets are coming home to nothing. The people I hire know therapy for every employee is nonnegotiable. So everybody gets help, which is another consideration.”
Kensey let what he’d said sink in for a minute. He really was one of the good guys, wasn’t he? He’d already served his country, and now he wanted to help his fellow vets train and heal so they could live the civilian life, yet use the skills they’d learned through their service.
“How many did you do?” she asked, finally, unable to stop herself. “Tours, I mean.”
“A lot,” he said with a wry smile. “The thing is, in between deployments you don’t get to go home and chill, you’re in training to go on your next tour.”
“I can’t imagine.”
“I don’t know. From what I’ve seen so far, you’d make a great candidate for a certain type of work.”
“Nope. I’m too independent. I’ve never been great at groups of anything.”
“No Girl Scouts?”
“I only eat the cookies.”
Logan sat up straight. “There’s gotta be cookies in that pantry. You want to come look?”
“Nope. I’ve just had my sugar allotment for the day. For several days, actually.”
“Come on. Don’t be like that. Staying here? The best R & R ever? The cookies have to be killer.” He held out his hand to her, and she couldn’t say no.
Not that she gave a damn about the cookie assortment. She liked the warm, tingly feel of his palm pressed to hers. Middle school kids held hands. It wasn’t a big deal, certainly nothing that should feel this incredibly intimate. Yet it did. Another oddity... She couldn’t remember ever being with a man and feeling relaxed enough to let her guard down. It was easy to do with Logan. Maybe too easy.
He rooted around until he found the cookies. It was like watching a kid at Christmas. He turned to her, his expression helpless with a kind of awed joy. “Double Stuf,” he said, as if he was talking about the Mona Lisa. “They melted into guck by the time they arrived where I was stationed. I missed them. A lot.”
“Aww, that makes me not want to make fun of you.”
He turned on her again, only this time so sharply she jumped. “Make fun of me, eh? I’ve got a good memory, Kensey whatever-your-last-name-is. I will remember this.”
She was already laughing at his inability to remember her last name, but what got her... “Really? You think you can remember something for three more days? That’s amazing. I should have known you were in Delta Force.”
He couldn’t keep a straight face, either, and it felt like heaven to just laugh like this. Over something silly and meaningless. Laughing just because it felt good. Laughing with someone.
With Logan.
He put the cookies on the counter, then settled his hands on her hips and smiled. She looked up into his handsome face, tilting her head back to maintain eye contact as he pulled her against him. She was tall, with or without heels, but with both of them barefooted, he seemed so much taller than she was. It was kind of nice for a change.
She lifted a palm to rest on his chest and he lowered his mouth to hers. He brushed a soft kiss across her lips, and then he adjusted the angle of his head. Just as his tongue swept past her parted lips, his hand slipped inside her robe.
A giggle threatened to ruin the moment. She tried to ignore it.
Logan lifted his head. “What?”
“Nothing.” She cleared her throat. The giggle came out in a whoosh. “You taste like Cap’n Crunch.”
“Is that right?” He gave the belt a good tug and her robe fell open. His gaze locked on her hardened nipples. “What have we here?”
His lips barely grazed her right breast when his phone rang. Up on the living room wall, the text showed the call was coming from McCabe Security and Investigation.
8
LOGAN FROWNED, AND it was such a rapid transition, it made Kensey step back. It was doubtful the caller could see all the way into the kitchen but she quickly retied her sash.
“I have to take this.” Logan was already on his way to the living room, where he took a seat on the couch and accepted the call. “Mike,” he said. “It’s late. What are you doing at the office?”
“Okay, this is weird. I’m looking at you in your friend’s apartment, right? Lisa told me to use your office phone if I needed to call you.”
Logan sighed. “You know my sister. She wanted to see the place so she rigged the calls to go directly to Skype. It’s pretty cool, though. I’m looking at you on a wall monitor in the living room. What’s up?”
As Kensey cleared the table she glanced at the wall. Mike had short dark hair and a lean face shadowed with stubble. She put the milk in the fridge and carried the bowls to the sink, trying to ignore what was happening in the living room. Or that she and Logan were wearing matching bathrobes. If he’d wanted to speak privately he would’ve taken the call in his bedroom. Still, she didn’t want to be nosy.
“I got a problem,” Mike said. “You remember I told you about Tony? One of us. The Special Activities Division. Dude was burnt and left out to dry?”
“Yeah, sure. I remember.”
“I saw him down at Rocco’s Gym and he looked like shit. After he went too far in the ring, I pulled him aside. He’s not doing well. He didn’t tell me what had happened in Islamabad, but I could see why he’d been sent back. Bad PTSD. Permanent tremor, enough anxiety to fill a football field.”
“I thought he was staying at that VA halfway house.”
“He’s been sleeping rough. Jumping at every noise. The dude needs some solid sleep and to get cleaned up. I don’t think he remembers what it feels like to be human.”
“Okay,” Logan said. His voice was low, and he was rubbing his jaw as he seemed to think it over. Mike waited without fiddling around, his gaze squarely on Logan. The office around him was nothing special. Almost bleak but for a group of beautiful sunset pictures on the plain white walls.
“Take him to my place, if he’ll go. Check out his meds. Then get Dr. Price to go talk to him. You know what to do, Mike.”
“You think the doc will act on my say-so?”
“Why not?”
“You’re always lead on these things.”
“Hell, Dr. Price knows you. Probably knows all of us better than most people do,” Logan said, with a quiet hollowness to his voice that filled Kensey with a sudden and inexplicable sadness.
“Okay. You know I’d take Tony to my place except all I’ve got is that efficiency.”