Here we go. Thanks for reviewing. Also thanks for telling me about the
signed review thing. I turned it off. By the way, I hadn't seen 'Shorties
in Love' when I started writing this – we both had the same candles ideas.
Chapter 4
Max exchanged glances with Bling, who was openly admiring her way with his difficult employer and friend as they both walked through to the kitchen where they could talk without Logan hearing.
"So all I have to do is say 'pleeese.' said Bling slyly.
Max threw him a look, and said "So," in a business like manner, but her next words were less assured.
"He 'is' going to be all right? I mean, it's not like the last time when ...?" She couldn't bring herself to say any more. The memory and pain of seeing Logan lying in the hospital bed unconscious; the doctor telling her there was nothing he could do; her own plea "Don't leave me," - it was all far too fresh in her mind.
Bling shook his head, and smiled at her comfortingly. "Max, you know Logan. He obsesses, then he doesn't eat, then he doesn't sleep. I've seen him do this before."
She gave him a half smile, perhaps not entirely satisfied.
"We'll keep an eye on him," added Bling.
"Would you trust me to keep an eye on him?" Max asked with a glint in her eye.
Bling laughed. "Well I'm sure he'd prefer you to me!"
Max wasn't entirely sure of that, but she had a plan.
"You planning on sleeping here?" Bling asked innocently.
"Yeah, I'll take the guest room," Max replied, refusing to take the bait.
She then added "Bling, there's something else."
Bling looked at her questioningly, the smile fading from his face as he saw the seriousness of hers.
"I think Logan is in danger."
Max continued, "Until this is sorted out, we can't leave him alone, particularly outside of here."
Bling admitted, "It was kinda hard not to hear the 'discussion' you two had today."
"He's been receiving threats against his life," Max told him, still shaking her head at the thought she hadn't been told. "Logan's gonna have to work out who's behind this, but it's up to us to watch his back."
Looking thoughtful, Bling replied, "I'll be back first thing in the morning, before you head off to work."
As he let himself out, the trainer mused that Logan was a lucky man to have the ministrations of Max for the evening.
********************************************************
Logan reached for his glasses and looked about in amazement when he woke about an hour later – the lights were out and in their place a dazzling array of candles lit the area, and their afternoon picnic had been laid out on the low table in front of the couch.
Max saw him stirring as she was returning with a bottle of wine and two glasses.
Logan pulled himself upright and smiled at her in appreciation.
"So what do you think? I thought it might make up for missing our picnic this afternoon."
"I'm impressed."
"Hope you don't mind – I raided all your cupboards for candles."
"No. It looks beautiful. I didn't know I had so many."
Logan, suddenly conscious of the fact that he still had his exercise gear on looked for his wheelchair.
"What is it?" asked Max.
"I need to get my sweater. This T Shirt is kinda ..." he trailed off, making a face.
"I'll get it for you," Max offered.
Logan hesitated for a moment, then giving in to being waited on he said, "It's on my bed."
Max paused for a moment at the doorway of his room, musing that you couldn't fault Logan on taste. She hadn't been in his room very often, but it had the same masculine, warm, mellow feel as the rest of his apartment. The blue sweater was on the bed as he'd said.
By the time she'd returned he'd changed his position so that he was sitting facing her, his feet on the ground.
"There you go," Max said, tossing it to him.
Logan waited a beat, for some reason feeling a little embarrassed, then he pulled off his grey T Shirt.
Max busied herself with the picnic items, but couldn't resist stealing a quick look while he pulled the sweater over his head, at his toned, athletic body.
Something made her think back to the few times she'd seen him before the shooting – tall, confident, perhaps overly confident ...
With slight embarrassment herself this time, she realized that Logan was looking at her expectantly. "Well, are we gonna eat?"
"Oh ... yeah."
Recovering quickly she handed Logan the wine and opener. "You may do the honours."
He passed Max her drink, but as she went to take it, held on a fraction longer so that both their hands were on the glass. His eyes held hers, and he simply said "Thank you."
Max felt her stomach do something strange – strange but nice.
"No big dealio," she smiled back, obviously pleased.
"I must say, you certainly know how to spoil a girl." She threw a hand out towards their repast. "Hey, I should be thanking you. To think I would have been happy with peanut butter sandwiches!"
"Well, I thought of that," replied Logan seriously, then grinning, "but I couldn't find the right wine as an accompaniment."
*********************************************
Some time later, the wine had been finished, the food had been eaten, and plates cleared away.
They had chatted amiably throughout the meal, but now it was concluded, the thought that had been uppermost in both their minds could no longer be restrained.
Logan looked at Max, Max looked at Logan, then simultaneously they said, "About the letters."
Max bit her lip, and said, "You first."
Logan took a deep breath, in the manner of one about to bare his soul. Being open never came easily to him.
"I received the first one two days ago."
He shrugged, "I wasn't too concerned - that kind of thing goes with the territory - Eyes Only has never been in the business of making friends. I've been researching it, tryin' to get a lead."
He shook his head as he spoke. "No luck so far. To tell the truth I'm not even sure how serious it is. Maybe it's just a crank job ... Anyway," and at that he lifted his eyes to her face, "I was going to tell you about it when I had something to go on."
He hesitated for a moment, then continued, his eyes intent on those polished floorboards again, "I didn't want you to worry about me. You have enough on your plate. I don't mean for you to be saddled with me as well."
He tried to sound upbeat on the last few words, but he kept his eyes averted from her face. Instead of the polished floorboards, all he could see was her face as they sat in his car outside his uncle's cabin, the day Max was going to leave Seattle with Zack.
Her words came back vividly, "I'll be better than okay. It's what I'm made for. It's you I'm worried about."
He had put his head down as she'd said it then, and the words were no easier to hear today. The truth was that he didn't want to be the protected, but the protector. Ludicrous he knew – even before the shooting ... well, he wasn't going to go there.
Max looked at him incredulously. "What planet are you spaced out on? The great and powerful Eyes Only someone to be saddled with?"
He laughed cynically at her words. "Next you'll be telling me the pen is mightier than the sword."
Ignoring the comment she continued, "And I can think of a number of times you saved this girls ass." She smiled a little self-consciously, "I just don't like to admit it. Besides," she added with a daring amount of warmth in her voice, "friends are s'posed to worry about each other. It kinda goes with the territory."
Logan didn't appear as if he wanted to pursue the issue. Had she got through any of those layers of his? There was so much more she would have liked to say, but ... well ... she didn't, although she did think she saw a gleam of understanding in his eyes.
Now it was her turn to confess. Why was honesty such a whack job?
Logan was watching her now, enquiringly.
"You know yesterday, when we were going to ... What was that!"
Logan looked around. "I don't hear any..."
"Shhhh," she cut him off.
Max rose at her most cat-like and headed stealthily towards the door.
"Max, my chair," Logan reminded her. It was still next to the exercise table.
"Later," was her terse reply.
With an exasperated sigh, all he could do was sit and wait.
Max was at the door now. She could hear a scratching from the other side and it was surprisingly loud. The thought flashed through her mind that if it was the element of surprise they were after, they'd well and truly blown it.
She was just about to wrench open the door when she heard voices the other side of the door call "Security, don't move. Get down on the ground."
It was an anticlimax she hadn't expected. She carefully opened the door.
"Building security here ma'am. We appear to have apprehended a man attempting to break into Mr. Cale's apartment."
The security guards had their guns trained on a man dressed in dirty clothes and a baseball cap.
The accused, as if aware of her scrutiny, lifted his face. She stared at his eyes intently.
They were brown.
Damn!
"Is Mr. Cale there ma'am?" one of the guards was asking.
"Leave him with me. We'll deal with it."
Both guards hesitated. The would-be thief was quite a deal heavier and taller than her, not to mention a lot uglier.
Seeing their hesitation, Max reached forward, grabbed the man's arm, and expertly twisted it up and behind his back, with enough force to make the man cry out in pain.
"Come with me, Scumbag." Her words and tone were almost more threatening than her actions.
"Thanks boys. Mr. Cale and I will sort this out."
Max closed the door on them without giving them the opportunity to reply.
With the man's arm still twisted behind his back, she pushed him down the hallway to the right, towards Logan.
"Got a present for yah!"
Logan looked at the man closely. "I've never seen him before."
"Pity."
She turned to her captive. "Okay, out with it. You were caught trying to break in here ... and?" she finished menacingly.
"No! They got it wrong! Honest!"
Max's every instinct told her the man was lying. He appeared to be a petty thief, hardly a mastermind with a grudge against Logan – either that or an incredibly good actor.
"You're lying," she purred in his ear, twisting his arm tighter. "You know, it only takes a liiiiiitle more pressure for me to 'snap' your arm in two. Now, you wanna come clean before you're groveling on the ground in pain?"
The man had started to sweat profusely. He found this girl frankly terrifying. He looked down at Logan, hoping for a possible ally, but Logan interpreting his look correctly said, "You heard her. I wouldn't waste time thinking about it if I were you."
Max upped the pressure a fraction more, and the man completely caved in. "Okay, okay, I'll tell you, just don't hurt me. I'll tell you." He was pathetically desperate.
"Start talking," she spat out.
"I met this man in the bar. He said he'd give me a thousand big ones if I came up here and roughed up some guy in a wheelchair. Said it'd be easy money."
"You talking straight with me?" Max thought it all sounded far too simple.
The man was garrulous now, determined to please. He just wanted to be out of there.
"Like I said, he just wanted me to scare him a bit. I dunno why. He didn't say."
He looked hopefully between Max and Logan. Obviously he hadn't connected Logan with 'the man in the wheelchair.'
For his part, Logan regarded the man impassively.
Max looked at him in frank disgust. "You're a real hero, aren't you?"
"I'm just tryin to make a bit of money," the other responded defensively.
"What did the other man look like?" asked Max.
"I dunno...tallish, dark hair, real fine clothes, and he smelt real good too."
"What colour eyes?"
At this even Logan noticed the edge to her voice.
"Had dark glasses on - couldn't see, but I'll tell you one thing, he was a real cold fish."
The man almost shuddered just thinking about him.
"You know, like a shark or something lurking in the depths, just waiting to pounce on ... "
"Shut Up! Are you on something?" Max was beginning to have serious doubts about the man's sanity.
"Hey," he said, sounding hurt, "I'm just tryin' to help. You gonna let me go now?"
"Have you ever seen this man before?" put in Logan.
"Uh uh. Total stranger.
"How did he pay you?"
"Cold cash. Impressive eh?"
Max asked, "Why didn't you just run? You had your pay off."
"Hey, I got some pride in me! Anyway," he added, "he scared the crap outta me. I wouldn't want to double cross that dude!"
Logan looked up at Max. "Well, it's not much to go on."
"Can I go now?" asked the man hopefully. I won't come back –thinkin' of leavin' this dump, try my luck up north."
Max looked at Logan, her dark eyes questioning.
"Tell us your name, then you can go," Logan told him.
The man seemed greatly relieved. "Jack Slater."
Grabbing the man's elbow to hustle him to the door, Max said, "Okay Jack Slater, this is how it works: if I ever see your face around here again, let's just say you'll be writing permanently with your toes. Got me?"
"Hey, like I said, I'm headin' north."
For some reason Slater looked back towards Logan, and in that instance Max saw the look of comprehension that flashed across his shifty face. "So..o..o.oh, your boyfriend here is the wheelchair guy," he leered.
Max grabbed him in a vice-like grip with one hand at his throat. "You just won the lottery," she congratulated him, tightening her hand at his throat till he felt like he was about to pass out. "Now if I see you around here it'll be your scrawny neck that gets broke. Got it?"
She pushed him away as if she couldn't bear to touch him a second longer.
Jack Slater stood there whooping for breath.
"Now let's pass you back to the security boys. I'm sure they've got a little something up their sleeves for you."
Locking the door behind her, she escorted him downstairs to the foyer, and left him in the hands of the two security guards she'd seen earlier.
"We're done with him. He's all yours," she smiled sweetly.
"If they rough him up a bit it'll serve him right," she mused, "but I'd better not let Logan know."
TBC
Chapter 4
Max exchanged glances with Bling, who was openly admiring her way with his difficult employer and friend as they both walked through to the kitchen where they could talk without Logan hearing.
"So all I have to do is say 'pleeese.' said Bling slyly.
Max threw him a look, and said "So," in a business like manner, but her next words were less assured.
"He 'is' going to be all right? I mean, it's not like the last time when ...?" She couldn't bring herself to say any more. The memory and pain of seeing Logan lying in the hospital bed unconscious; the doctor telling her there was nothing he could do; her own plea "Don't leave me," - it was all far too fresh in her mind.
Bling shook his head, and smiled at her comfortingly. "Max, you know Logan. He obsesses, then he doesn't eat, then he doesn't sleep. I've seen him do this before."
She gave him a half smile, perhaps not entirely satisfied.
"We'll keep an eye on him," added Bling.
"Would you trust me to keep an eye on him?" Max asked with a glint in her eye.
Bling laughed. "Well I'm sure he'd prefer you to me!"
Max wasn't entirely sure of that, but she had a plan.
"You planning on sleeping here?" Bling asked innocently.
"Yeah, I'll take the guest room," Max replied, refusing to take the bait.
She then added "Bling, there's something else."
Bling looked at her questioningly, the smile fading from his face as he saw the seriousness of hers.
"I think Logan is in danger."
Max continued, "Until this is sorted out, we can't leave him alone, particularly outside of here."
Bling admitted, "It was kinda hard not to hear the 'discussion' you two had today."
"He's been receiving threats against his life," Max told him, still shaking her head at the thought she hadn't been told. "Logan's gonna have to work out who's behind this, but it's up to us to watch his back."
Looking thoughtful, Bling replied, "I'll be back first thing in the morning, before you head off to work."
As he let himself out, the trainer mused that Logan was a lucky man to have the ministrations of Max for the evening.
********************************************************
Logan reached for his glasses and looked about in amazement when he woke about an hour later – the lights were out and in their place a dazzling array of candles lit the area, and their afternoon picnic had been laid out on the low table in front of the couch.
Max saw him stirring as she was returning with a bottle of wine and two glasses.
Logan pulled himself upright and smiled at her in appreciation.
"So what do you think? I thought it might make up for missing our picnic this afternoon."
"I'm impressed."
"Hope you don't mind – I raided all your cupboards for candles."
"No. It looks beautiful. I didn't know I had so many."
Logan, suddenly conscious of the fact that he still had his exercise gear on looked for his wheelchair.
"What is it?" asked Max.
"I need to get my sweater. This T Shirt is kinda ..." he trailed off, making a face.
"I'll get it for you," Max offered.
Logan hesitated for a moment, then giving in to being waited on he said, "It's on my bed."
Max paused for a moment at the doorway of his room, musing that you couldn't fault Logan on taste. She hadn't been in his room very often, but it had the same masculine, warm, mellow feel as the rest of his apartment. The blue sweater was on the bed as he'd said.
By the time she'd returned he'd changed his position so that he was sitting facing her, his feet on the ground.
"There you go," Max said, tossing it to him.
Logan waited a beat, for some reason feeling a little embarrassed, then he pulled off his grey T Shirt.
Max busied herself with the picnic items, but couldn't resist stealing a quick look while he pulled the sweater over his head, at his toned, athletic body.
Something made her think back to the few times she'd seen him before the shooting – tall, confident, perhaps overly confident ...
With slight embarrassment herself this time, she realized that Logan was looking at her expectantly. "Well, are we gonna eat?"
"Oh ... yeah."
Recovering quickly she handed Logan the wine and opener. "You may do the honours."
He passed Max her drink, but as she went to take it, held on a fraction longer so that both their hands were on the glass. His eyes held hers, and he simply said "Thank you."
Max felt her stomach do something strange – strange but nice.
"No big dealio," she smiled back, obviously pleased.
"I must say, you certainly know how to spoil a girl." She threw a hand out towards their repast. "Hey, I should be thanking you. To think I would have been happy with peanut butter sandwiches!"
"Well, I thought of that," replied Logan seriously, then grinning, "but I couldn't find the right wine as an accompaniment."
*********************************************
Some time later, the wine had been finished, the food had been eaten, and plates cleared away.
They had chatted amiably throughout the meal, but now it was concluded, the thought that had been uppermost in both their minds could no longer be restrained.
Logan looked at Max, Max looked at Logan, then simultaneously they said, "About the letters."
Max bit her lip, and said, "You first."
Logan took a deep breath, in the manner of one about to bare his soul. Being open never came easily to him.
"I received the first one two days ago."
He shrugged, "I wasn't too concerned - that kind of thing goes with the territory - Eyes Only has never been in the business of making friends. I've been researching it, tryin' to get a lead."
He shook his head as he spoke. "No luck so far. To tell the truth I'm not even sure how serious it is. Maybe it's just a crank job ... Anyway," and at that he lifted his eyes to her face, "I was going to tell you about it when I had something to go on."
He hesitated for a moment, then continued, his eyes intent on those polished floorboards again, "I didn't want you to worry about me. You have enough on your plate. I don't mean for you to be saddled with me as well."
He tried to sound upbeat on the last few words, but he kept his eyes averted from her face. Instead of the polished floorboards, all he could see was her face as they sat in his car outside his uncle's cabin, the day Max was going to leave Seattle with Zack.
Her words came back vividly, "I'll be better than okay. It's what I'm made for. It's you I'm worried about."
He had put his head down as she'd said it then, and the words were no easier to hear today. The truth was that he didn't want to be the protected, but the protector. Ludicrous he knew – even before the shooting ... well, he wasn't going to go there.
Max looked at him incredulously. "What planet are you spaced out on? The great and powerful Eyes Only someone to be saddled with?"
He laughed cynically at her words. "Next you'll be telling me the pen is mightier than the sword."
Ignoring the comment she continued, "And I can think of a number of times you saved this girls ass." She smiled a little self-consciously, "I just don't like to admit it. Besides," she added with a daring amount of warmth in her voice, "friends are s'posed to worry about each other. It kinda goes with the territory."
Logan didn't appear as if he wanted to pursue the issue. Had she got through any of those layers of his? There was so much more she would have liked to say, but ... well ... she didn't, although she did think she saw a gleam of understanding in his eyes.
Now it was her turn to confess. Why was honesty such a whack job?
Logan was watching her now, enquiringly.
"You know yesterday, when we were going to ... What was that!"
Logan looked around. "I don't hear any..."
"Shhhh," she cut him off.
Max rose at her most cat-like and headed stealthily towards the door.
"Max, my chair," Logan reminded her. It was still next to the exercise table.
"Later," was her terse reply.
With an exasperated sigh, all he could do was sit and wait.
Max was at the door now. She could hear a scratching from the other side and it was surprisingly loud. The thought flashed through her mind that if it was the element of surprise they were after, they'd well and truly blown it.
She was just about to wrench open the door when she heard voices the other side of the door call "Security, don't move. Get down on the ground."
It was an anticlimax she hadn't expected. She carefully opened the door.
"Building security here ma'am. We appear to have apprehended a man attempting to break into Mr. Cale's apartment."
The security guards had their guns trained on a man dressed in dirty clothes and a baseball cap.
The accused, as if aware of her scrutiny, lifted his face. She stared at his eyes intently.
They were brown.
Damn!
"Is Mr. Cale there ma'am?" one of the guards was asking.
"Leave him with me. We'll deal with it."
Both guards hesitated. The would-be thief was quite a deal heavier and taller than her, not to mention a lot uglier.
Seeing their hesitation, Max reached forward, grabbed the man's arm, and expertly twisted it up and behind his back, with enough force to make the man cry out in pain.
"Come with me, Scumbag." Her words and tone were almost more threatening than her actions.
"Thanks boys. Mr. Cale and I will sort this out."
Max closed the door on them without giving them the opportunity to reply.
With the man's arm still twisted behind his back, she pushed him down the hallway to the right, towards Logan.
"Got a present for yah!"
Logan looked at the man closely. "I've never seen him before."
"Pity."
She turned to her captive. "Okay, out with it. You were caught trying to break in here ... and?" she finished menacingly.
"No! They got it wrong! Honest!"
Max's every instinct told her the man was lying. He appeared to be a petty thief, hardly a mastermind with a grudge against Logan – either that or an incredibly good actor.
"You're lying," she purred in his ear, twisting his arm tighter. "You know, it only takes a liiiiiitle more pressure for me to 'snap' your arm in two. Now, you wanna come clean before you're groveling on the ground in pain?"
The man had started to sweat profusely. He found this girl frankly terrifying. He looked down at Logan, hoping for a possible ally, but Logan interpreting his look correctly said, "You heard her. I wouldn't waste time thinking about it if I were you."
Max upped the pressure a fraction more, and the man completely caved in. "Okay, okay, I'll tell you, just don't hurt me. I'll tell you." He was pathetically desperate.
"Start talking," she spat out.
"I met this man in the bar. He said he'd give me a thousand big ones if I came up here and roughed up some guy in a wheelchair. Said it'd be easy money."
"You talking straight with me?" Max thought it all sounded far too simple.
The man was garrulous now, determined to please. He just wanted to be out of there.
"Like I said, he just wanted me to scare him a bit. I dunno why. He didn't say."
He looked hopefully between Max and Logan. Obviously he hadn't connected Logan with 'the man in the wheelchair.'
For his part, Logan regarded the man impassively.
Max looked at him in frank disgust. "You're a real hero, aren't you?"
"I'm just tryin to make a bit of money," the other responded defensively.
"What did the other man look like?" asked Max.
"I dunno...tallish, dark hair, real fine clothes, and he smelt real good too."
"What colour eyes?"
At this even Logan noticed the edge to her voice.
"Had dark glasses on - couldn't see, but I'll tell you one thing, he was a real cold fish."
The man almost shuddered just thinking about him.
"You know, like a shark or something lurking in the depths, just waiting to pounce on ... "
"Shut Up! Are you on something?" Max was beginning to have serious doubts about the man's sanity.
"Hey," he said, sounding hurt, "I'm just tryin' to help. You gonna let me go now?"
"Have you ever seen this man before?" put in Logan.
"Uh uh. Total stranger.
"How did he pay you?"
"Cold cash. Impressive eh?"
Max asked, "Why didn't you just run? You had your pay off."
"Hey, I got some pride in me! Anyway," he added, "he scared the crap outta me. I wouldn't want to double cross that dude!"
Logan looked up at Max. "Well, it's not much to go on."
"Can I go now?" asked the man hopefully. I won't come back –thinkin' of leavin' this dump, try my luck up north."
Max looked at Logan, her dark eyes questioning.
"Tell us your name, then you can go," Logan told him.
The man seemed greatly relieved. "Jack Slater."
Grabbing the man's elbow to hustle him to the door, Max said, "Okay Jack Slater, this is how it works: if I ever see your face around here again, let's just say you'll be writing permanently with your toes. Got me?"
"Hey, like I said, I'm headin' north."
For some reason Slater looked back towards Logan, and in that instance Max saw the look of comprehension that flashed across his shifty face. "So..o..o.oh, your boyfriend here is the wheelchair guy," he leered.
Max grabbed him in a vice-like grip with one hand at his throat. "You just won the lottery," she congratulated him, tightening her hand at his throat till he felt like he was about to pass out. "Now if I see you around here it'll be your scrawny neck that gets broke. Got it?"
She pushed him away as if she couldn't bear to touch him a second longer.
Jack Slater stood there whooping for breath.
"Now let's pass you back to the security boys. I'm sure they've got a little something up their sleeves for you."
Locking the door behind her, she escorted him downstairs to the foyer, and left him in the hands of the two security guards she'd seen earlier.
"We're done with him. He's all yours," she smiled sweetly.
"If they rough him up a bit it'll serve him right," she mused, "but I'd better not let Logan know."
TBC