Read Online Friendly Fire by Lorhainne Eckhart - Free Book Online

nervous?”
    “No, of course not. He’s my girls’ math teacher. Why would he make me nervous?” she replied too quickly.
    Logan didn’t say anything. He knew when someone was lying. Maybe she was lying to herself, but why would she do that? “Well, I’d rather see you safe—so I’m glad, just the same, to be driving you home. How well do you really know him?”
    “Oh, about as well as I know you, I’d say,” she snapped. “He’s from Boise, has an aunt in Florida and a sister who died. Tell me, Logan, what do I know about you?” The seat rustled as she slid around to face him.
    Logan wondered why Rose told him Brent had a large family and came from Chicago. She must have been confused. He’d have to talk with her tomorrow, but at least he could have Clinton start looking in Boise.
    “I have four brothers,” he began. “I’m the oldest and have been watching out for each of them. Joe just got married, Ben is some swanky oil executive, Samuel is just finishing up law school, and baby Jake is a football star. I grew up in Post Falls and enlisted in the marines when I was eighteen. I would have retired in the marines if not for the bomb ending my career. My parents are still together, retired and living in Boise. Anything else you want to know?” he asked, smiling at her grudging interest.
    “Why do you call your brother ‘baby Jake?' If he looks like you, he can’t be very small.”
    “No, Jake’s in college on a football scholarship. He’s as tall as me, but he’s the youngest, and we always looked out for him. Don’t remember who gave him that nickname, but it stuck. We still call him that to this day. Mind you, he doesn’t appreciate it much now.”
    She didn’t say anything else about it, gesturing to a road a block over from where he lived. “Down there, on the end.”
    She really didn’t have to tell him, since he’d already made a point of finding out where she lived, as well as the names of her girls, Dawn and Trinity. Rose had told him that one was a trickster, her sister always trying to smooth over whatever she had done. That had made Logan smile, picturing his brothers and his mama. The twins were a handful, he’d bet, but he’d like to get to know them and their mother better.
    Logan pulled into Julia’s driveway and shut off the engine. “Tell me, Julia, what kind of idiot would ever let you go?”
    She seemed to pull away in her seat without moving an inch, jutting her chin awkwardly as if fighting to hold back something that was causing her a world of hurt. “He cheated on me, had been the entire time we were married. I was the only one who didn’t know.” When she looked over at him, she wore a sad smile. “I guess I’m really not all that smart. You know what hurt the worst? After he told me he was leaving, I found out it was for his assistant, who’d been working with him for years. All our friends, even the receptionist, said, ‘Well, how come you didn’t see it? Didn’t you wonder what he was doing, all those long lunch hours and late nights?’ I could honestly say no, I had no idea; and everyone looked at me with such pity. It was like that saying, kicking someone when they’re down. I moved me and my girls here, where nobody knew us; where no one would look at me like that again.” She just stopped talking and tapped her purse.
    Logan, who was resting his arm on her seatback, reached over and touched her tightly fisted hands, running his thumb over her knuckles. She didn’t pull away. All she did was look up at him, and all he would have to do was lean in closer and touch her lips with his. The kiss would be so easy, and she was so vulnerable. “Then he’s a damn fool, and so are those so-called friends,” he finally replied.
    Her eyes went right to his lips, and her breath caught. For a moment, he imagined a rope bringing them together. He leaned foward and kissed her, running his mouth so lightly over her lips, soft and sweet, and she opened for him