Capturing Us (Cedarville #2)

Chapter 1

W hen a man drove you crazy – like pull your hair out crazy – and yet you still loved him, that’s when you knew you were in trouble.

That was Melanie’s current situation.

Logan fucking Graham.

And yes, that was his official middle name. At least in her mind.

It was Tuesday afternoon and instead of making a lesson plan for her advanced tap class, Melanie was leaning against the wall in what was quickly becoming her favorite studio to teach in at Dragonfly Dance.

And, if you wanted to get technical, it was exactly the same as the studio across the hall. But there was just something about this room that spoke to her. From the very first moment she had walked in, it had felt like hers. There was just no other way to explain it.

Owning a dance studio was not what she had pictured herself doing in life. Dancing had always been her life and when Juilliard, the mecca of dance schools, offers you a scholarship, you go. And that’s what had happened. So ,at eighteen, she’d packed up her pointe shoes and left small-town life in Cedarville, Ohio and moved to New York.

Then her life took an unexpected turn when in her senior year of college, she landed wrong during a leap and tore both her meniscus and ACL. Instead of dancing professionally, like she always assumed she would, she found herself moving back home to Ohio after she graduated.

And honestly, she hadn’t been that sad about it.

Somewhere along the way, dance had gone from something she had loved to do, to something she dreaded.

And that pissed her off.

Dance had been her outlet as a child, a place she could go to and just be herself. But out of nowhere, all of a sudden it had become this thing she had to do or her life would be a waste.

Then, one night after she had moved back home, she and her best friend Carly had gone out drinking and came up with the genius idea to open a dance studio in Cedarville. Carly had also danced through elementary and high school but had always just done it for fun. She was good though, and could easily teach.

Their biggest problem had been coming up with the money to start a business. Their saving grace was that Melanie owned the house they lived in because it was left to her when her grandparents passed away. That meant their monthly bills were ridiculously low.

It took them four years of scrimping and saving, but two months ago, they’d opened Dragonfly Dance.

And the kicker, according to Leah who they had hired to run the business, they were actually making money.

So with all her business problems solved that just left her with the Logan fucking Graham problem.

And it was a big one.

She’d been in love with the damn man since, well she couldn’t actually remember a time when she didn’t love him. When she’d gone away to college it subsided and she was able to function and actually date. And when she had moved back home to Cedarville, he had moved away so again, so she pushed it deep down inside.

But then, six months ago, the jackass had decided that for whatever reason, he wanted to live back in Cedarville full time.

And she hadn’t been the same since.

Her heart beat faster when he was around, and if he touched her...HOLY TOLEDO, she was a hot mess.

Then, on the day of the studio’s open house, she had walked in on a break-in at her house and ended up knocked out cold. From that moment on, Logan had been glued to her side in some sort of Florence Nightingale scenario.

Or so she thought.

In her mind, there was no other way to explain his sudden interest in her.

And so, here she sat in her favorite studio trying—and not succeeding—to not picture him naked.

She sighed and dropped her head back against the wall, closing her eyes. She knew she should stop herself from thinking about him, but her mind just kept picturing his chest and arms and shoulders. The man was seriously built. His upper back and shoulders had this tattoo that covered most of his skin. And her fingers itched to trace the lines. He’d only gotten it recently and she had only seen it maybe twice, so she wasn’t even sure what it was, she just knew that if he was hot before, this made him ten times hotter.

Standing, she forced the image of Logan and his back tattoo out of her head and pressed play on her iPod. A fast-paced pop song boomed from the speakers and she began to move to the beat. While ballet was her specialty, hip hop was her go-to for stress relief.

She shook her body to the beat until sweat was dripping down her face and soaking through her leotard and tights. With the music still blaring, she stood in the center of the room, hands-on-hips, breathing heavily.

She saw the door open in the floor-to-ceiling mirror on the wall in front of her. Carly stepped inside, with Leah right on her heels.

“Oh hell,” Carly said, “she’s been dancing.”

“Who did what and who do we need to kill?” Leah asked jokingly, but Mel knew that if it came down to it, these two women would do anything for her.

And she felt the same about them.

“You act as if I only dance when something is wrong.” She turned to face them, still breathing heavily.

“Lately, that is the only time you dance,” Carly said.

“That’s not true,” she said defiantly. But if she actually went back in her memory and thought about it, her friend was right.

She sighed – it seemed she was doing a lot of that lately – and wiped the sweat from her face. “I was just thinking about things.” She walked to the shelf that held her stuff and grabbed her towel to wipe off while hitting stop on her iPod.

“What kind of things?” Leah asked when the music stopped.

“I’m guessing Logan Graham things.” Carly raised her eyebrows.

Both girls knew how she felt about Logan and yet it was still something they rarely spoke about. “If you must know, then yes, I was thinking about Logan.” Denying it was futile.

“Is he still all up on your jock?” Leave it to Carly to put it like that.

“Can a man be all up on a woman’s jock?” Mel asked. “Cause I don’t think they can.”

“Notice the way she avoided the subject?” Carly said to Leah.

“I sure did.” Leah crossed her arms over her chest and pursed her lips. “Seems like someone doesn’t want to talk about someone else.”

“For God’s sake!” Mel hissed out. “You two are like master interrogators. The government should really hire you.”

“And again, she deflects,” Leah said.

Melanie couldn’t stop herself from laughing. Having Carly and Leah as friends, the kind of friends who will give you hell about anything, was the best part of her life.

“Okay bitches,” she said, still laughing. “As I said before, yes I was thinking about Logan and yes he is still all up on my jock. The question I need answered by you is, what do I do about it?”

“Umm, if you don’t know, then I’m afraid I can’t help you,” Carly said completely straight-faced.

“Oh, I think she knows what she wants to do with him,” Leah added, “she’s just not sure if she should.”

“At least one of you is taking me seriously.”

Sobering Carly said, “You know I’m just messing with you, right?”

Melanie nodded. “I know.” She grabbed her bag. “Let’s get out of here and we can talk more at home.”

“Hey, no fair,” Leah said. “I don’t live there anymore.”

“And whose fault is that,” Mel said over her shoulder.

“Yeah,” Carly said. “And people having regular sex don’t get to complain about missing girl time.”

“I’m pretty damn sure that both of you could be having sex on a regular basis if you weren’t so damn stubborn.”

The bickering continued as they locked up the studio. They parted ways with Leah as she headed off in the direction of the house she shared with Brandon, and she and Carly made their way home.

“Have you seen Logan today?” Melanie asked Carly.

“No,” She shook her head. “I think that might be the first in a while. I can’t remember the last time I didn’t see him several times a day.”

“Yeah, me neither.” Mel wasn’t sure what that meant. But, she did know that seeing him three times a day and having him hover over her, drove her crazy, but not seeing him was having an even worse effect on her.

“Leah said that he was at her house over the weekend and that he mentioned a possible upcoming trip.”

Mel did her best not to visibly react, but inside she was freaking the fuck out. Logan leaving town was not something she was prepared to deal with. And yeah, she knew she was a hypocrite. First, she hated him being around all the time, and then she hated when he wasn’t around. It was a double-edged sword; a sword that, right now, she wanted to stab herself with.

Choosing her words carefully, she asked, “Did he decide anything?”

Carly pulled into their driveway, put the car in park and turned to her. She was silent for a few seconds before she said, “You’re allowed to be confused about Logan.”

Mel rested her head against the back of the seat. “I’m not confused. Not really. I just hate him even though I love him. And sometimes I want to strangle him more than I want to kiss him.”

“At least you don’t want to strangle him while you kiss him. That would be some pretty serious kink.”

A small laugh escaped her. “If I had to guess, Logan is probably into some serious kink.”

“Eww, I do not want to hear that. He’s my cousin.”

Ignoring her comment, Melanie turned her head and looked at Carly. “What do I do, Carls?”

“You put on your fucking big girl panties, or, in this case, take them off and go jump his bones.”

Carly opened the door and got out, leaving Mel alone with her thoughts. And like always, her thoughts were all about Logan.

Was Carly right? Should she just say fuck it and go to him?

Grabbing her bag from the floor of the car, she opened the door and continued to think it over as she entered the house. She was not the type of person who made decisions on a whim. And this was a big decision.

“You’re still here, so am I to assume that you are not taking my advice?” Carly was in the kitchen, leaning against the counter, eating an apple.

She entered the kitchen and pulled a wine glass from the cabinet. “You know that I can’t make a decision like this quickly.”

“Jesus, Mel, it’s been twenty years. How slow do you need to move?”

“So when I was nine, I was supposed to screw his brains out?” She took a sip of the wine she had poured.

“No, but sometime since you were sixteen, you could have. Or hell, even since you were twenty.”

“Why the hell did I have to go and fall for Logan fucking Graham?”

“Us Grahams are pretty irresistible.” Carly poured herself a glass of wine and jumped up to sit on the counter.

“And pretty damn cocky.”

“Do you think that the word cocky comes from the word cock? I mean, were men called cocky because they had said appendage?”

An image of Logan naked popped into her head. “If my imagination is at all correct, Logan is extremely cocky.”

Both girls began to giggle like school girls.

If she wasn’t having sex, having a best friend to laugh with about it was the next best thing.