4. Make Me Feel Better After a Bad Dream
This is officiallythe worst night of my life.
The events of the last few hours keep running through my head, each more unrealistic than the next. Why did I rent that car? I never drive. I’ve also kissed three people in my life, and tonight let a stranger grope me. And why—why did I decide to pick up smoking?
It feels like even showering didn’t help with the crippling terror.
I’m a criminal. Lying to the police makes it official, and I spent the last few hours twisting and turning in bed, trying to make my mind up.
I can’t be arrested. It’s not like I meant to set anything on fire anyway. Sure, I’m guilty of trespassing, but people don’t go to prison for that, do they?
I grab my phone to do a quick online search, but there’s no service, and after watching the screen buffer for a few seconds, I set it back down.
Just when I need to know if there’s such a thing as “accidental arson.”
I peer around the small room, trying to decipher something—anything—about the man whose house I’m currently sleeping in, but there’s not much to go on. A bookshelf, a desk, and a crate full of toys. The fact that they’re neatly stacked in the guest room probably means whoever the child is, they don’t come here often.
Those two cops seemed to know him. The man, whom Logan called Conny, definitely wasn’t a fan, but Josie? Connor said she and Logan are family. Could she be an ex-wife? He looks older than me—maybe thirty.
Oh my god. What if she makes it her life’s mission to prove I’m guilty of my crimes because she thinks I slept with her ex-husband?
“Shit,” I mutter as I sit on the edge of the bed. Maybe I should leave this house and never come back. If I get a cab to the airport, will they contact the authorities back in Mayfield?
We need to figure this out—right now, I decide as I stand and open the bedroom door. Everything’s dark, but the door to what I presume is Logan’s bedroom isn’t fully shut.
Approaching with as much stealth as I can muster, I look through the sliver and locate the two piglets sleeping in a bundle of blankets on the floor. The moonlight hits the bed directly, and Logan’s lying face down, his long hair strewn over the pillow and a sheen of sweat covering his broad back.
Everything I can see from here is covered in intricate black tattoos.
For a moment, my eyes run over the muscles and furrows. I haven’t personally seen a whole lot of naked men, but none of what I have seen comes close to the near perfection that is this man’s upper body. I didn’t even know people this sculpted existed, and it’s as thrilling as it is intimidating.
Pushing the door open, I walk to one side of the bed and call his name. Nothing. I do it again, a little louder, but he makes no sign of having heard me, so I climb onto the thick mattress and sit on my heels.
“Logan?” I insist as I gently shake his arm.
He flinches. “Hmm?” He turns over and narrows his eyes, his long brown locks caught in the crease of his neck. “If you’re going to set me on fire, have the decency to let me sleep through it.”
“I’m not an arsonist,” I insist.
“Whatever you are, you’re in the wrong room.”
He turns his back on me, and I have to press my lips tight at the sight of his rippling muscles. “Logan, what happens when the police come back?”
He inhales. “Normally, they’d drop it. The police department can’t waste resources on two stolen piglets, and Derek knows better than to try to take me on by himself. But your little pyro-show spices things up.”
“So what will we do?”
“Same as we did last night,” he mumbles in a sleepy voice. “Lie our asses off.” He twists his neck to look at me over his shoulder. “Which, by the way, you suck at. Do I look to you like someone who’d let you kick him during sex?”
Ignoring him, I shake my head. My chest feels tight, and there’s a fluttering sensation in my stomach that won’t disappear. “Listen, I think I should just tell the truth.”
His head drops on the pillow, and after a groan, he pulls himself up. The blanket bunches at his waist as he leans against the headboard, a hand rubbing the side of his beard. “What?”
“It’s not like I meant to set Derek’s garbage on fire. It was just an accident.”
“But did you set it on fire?”
“Yes.”
“Afraid it still counts as a crime.” Hand dropping from his face, he studies me for a few seconds, then he shrugs. “You do realize you’re not even a suspect, right? They think I set that asshole’s garbage on fire so I could steal the piglets.”
“But there must be my DNA on the crime scene. And if they search the woods, they’ll find my blood. Look,” I say, pointing at the scratches on my legs.
“Search the woods?” He huffs out a laugh. “Does that happen before or after the FBI sends a helicopter?”
How am I supposed to know?! “Before?”
With an eye roll, he stands and walks to the piglets. He gives them both a cuddle, and then he’s out of the room. Unsure of what to do, I follow after him.
The light in the kitchen is on, and as I walk closer, I find Logan reaching into a cupboard and pulling out a white mug. “Tea?” When I nod, he mumbles, “Maybe I should get you some Valium to go with it.”
I sit at the old kitchen table, tapping my fingers on my leg and wondering how he’s so calm. It must mean he’s broken the law before, right? Because I’m pretty sure my reaction is perfectly normal. And now that I think about it, Josie said it’s not the first time someone stole Derek’s animals.
“Do you do this a lot?”
He cocks a brow at me. “This?”
“Just...burglary?”
With a wide smirk that turns into a chuckle, he nods. “Now and then.”
I can’t tell if he’s serious, so I bite the inside of my cheek and look out the window.
“Do you often?—”
“I’m not a fricking arsonist, okay?”
He sets the kettle on a burner and turns with his back to the yellow counter, arms crossed. “That’s not how the police will see it, though. All they know is that you trespassed in the middle of the night, set his property on fire, then escaped and lied about it.”
“It was an accident. I wanted to talk to him.”
He hums as if he doesn’t believe me. “Irrelevant.”
“Look, I can’t go to prison, okay?” I know Logan will eventually find out what’s been happening between Derek and me, and trying to convince him tonight was just an accident will be impossible. “It’s an important moment for my career, and everything’s already falling apart, and I can’t...” I shake my head, eyes fiercely stuck on his. “I can’t go to prison.”
“Do what I say, and you won’t.” He points a thumb behind him. “Starting with, drink this tea, go to bed, and let me sleep.”
Rude.
“Why did you take those pigs?”
“Because he was going to kill them.”
At this point, I’d accept pretty much any excuse to hate Derek some more, but a farmer killing pigs is hardly newsworthy. “And?”
His jaw is set as his eyes turn darker. Somewhere in the periphery, the kettle begins a low hiss. “And?”
“I mean—aren’t you a farmer too?”
“And he weaned them before it was time,” he mumbles, then must notice it means nearly nothing to me, because he continues. “If piglets are separated from the sow too early, the changes in feed and environment will harm their development.” He fills the cups with water. “Those pigs were going to become bacon one day. At the very least, they deserved to live their life without any added stress. Don’t you think?”
“Sure,” I whisper. I can’t say that I’ve ever thought about pigs’ well-being a whole lot, but when he puts it that way, it’s hard to argue against it. “Then why did he do it?”
“Because he’s a cheap asshole who cuts corners, takes what he wants, and doesn’t care who or what gets hurt in the process.” Looking over his shoulder, he holds the tea bags over the cups. “Sound familiar?”
Awfully so.
“Look, there’s going to be an investigation, but they have nothing on us.”
“Except for the piglets. What about them?”
“No one will find the piglets.”
I chew my nails. I’m not a huge fan of farm animals, and if I could go the rest of my life without touching another pig, that’d be great. But thinking of those two tiny things becoming someone’s lunch is almost sickening. “What will you do with them?”
“What, you think I almost got arrested so I could use them for breakfast?” He rolls his eyes. “This is a vegan farm. All the animals here are safe.”
A vegan farm. That makes more sense.
“There could have been cameras.”
He shakes his head firmly. “No cameras.”
I exhale, propping my legs on the chair and hugging my knees. “What about the cab I took to Derek’s farm? I talked to the cab driver—he’d definitely be able to pick me out of a line-up.”
“I’ll take care of him. He’ll be sleeping with the fish come nighttime,” he says with a dramatically creepy voice.
Pretty sure that he’s joking, I rest my chin on my knees, but I can’t get rid of this weight pressing on my chest. If any of this gets out, I’m screwed, and knowing Derek, he’s probably itching to cry about it online.
“Relax, okay? This is a small town, and people know how Derek and I feel about each other, so they’ll pin last night on me.” He takes a sip of his tea. “And besides, any cab driver would look at you and think you’re more likely to water someone’s flowers than set anything on fire.”
I guess a short, blond, chubby woman isn’t exactly the typical criminal profile people look for. “But Derek! If he finds me here?—”
“Look, Primrose. You know the policewoman from tonight?”
“Josie?” When he nods, I ask, “Is she your ex-wife?”
He scoffs and shakes his head. “Where the hell did you get that from?”
“Yeesh,” I say with wide eyes. “Forget I said anything.”
“She’s my sister-in-law. She won’t let that interfere with her work, but she’s also not exactly out for blood.” He pushes my mug closer as if to invite me to drink. “So it’s in our best interest to do what she says, carry on the way she expects two people madly in love would, and hope this doesn’t reach her bosses.”
“So what, I should stay here indefinitely?” I ask before blowing on the hot tea.
“No, thank you.” He hums, tilting his head. “Maybe a couple of weeks.”
“A couple of weeks?”
“Well, I wasn’t the one to tell her we were starting a family together, was I?” He narrows his eyes at me. “And I’m not exactly thrilled at the idea of you sticking around either.”
“This isn’t my fault. You had the stupid idea of pretending we were...” I gesture wildly, and his hooded, tired eyes follow the movement of my hand.
“Except it worked.”
“Worked?” I shriek. This guy is unbelievable, isn’t he? “That’s why she asked if we were together, Logan. What was I supposed to say?”
“Plenty of things. Like that we met at the bar and you came back to mine to have your ass fucked.” He shrugs. “Which, by the way, is much more credible than you being a dominant kicker.”
Heat moving to the tips of my ears, I take my cup into both hands and raise it to cover my face—anything to avoid looking him in the eyes. “God, you’re so vulgar! I don’t...do that,” I hiss. “And besides, how are we supposed to convince anyone we’re together? Look at us.”
Though he cocks a brow, he doesn’t say a thing, and with a sigh, I drop my head.
“Give it a couple of weeks,” he insists. “That’ll be enough for them to exhaust any lead. And enough for Josie to believe you’re my long-distance girlfriend who came to visit.” He levels me with an unimpressed stare. “Do this for me, and I promise I won’t let anything happen to you. I swear it.”
I guess I don’t have much of a choice, do I?
“Fine,” I agree, his shoulders relaxing instantly. “But I’ll need to be back home in twenty days—I’m starting a new job.”
“In twenty days, we won’t even remember each other’s names.”
How nice of him. “And we’ll need rules,” I continue.
“Rules? What rules?”
“Well, I’ve watched movies. Read books. I’m pretty sure every good fake dating story has rules.”
Can an eye roll be loud? Because his sure is.
“I think the whole point of those rules is for the character of the story to break them.”
I guess he’s right. “Okay. No rules.”
He dips his chin with a curt nod.
“Okay, one rule.”
“I don’t follow rules, Primrose,” he says, frustration bleeding out of his voice. “I barely take suggestions.”
“You can’t do what you did out there,” I say, pointing at the back of the house.
“What, save your ass?”
“No, just...touch me.” I trace my finger over the rim of the mug. “And, and...kiss me.”
“I didn’t kiss you out there.”
“You kissed my neck.”
“Okay.” He rests his elbows on the table. “So I can kiss your lips, but not your neck?”
“N-no,” I say, and the memory of his beard scratching the skin of my face makes my stomach tumble. “I don’t want you to kiss me. At all.”
“Could have fooled me.”
I open my mouth to quip back, though it’s not exactly easy to argue with him. I wanted that kiss. Sure, it took me by surprise, but as soon as his mouth landed on mine, I wanted it to stay there. Which really, is all the more reason to set this rule. We don’t want things to get confusing, and I don’t need to be disappointed by yet another man.
“Fine. No kissing.” He snaps his fingers. “Oh, and one more rule.”
“Yes?”
“No falling in love,” he says in a corny voice. When I give him a dry look, he shrugs. “What? Isn’t that basically mandatory in the script?”
Whatever. Let him make fun of me. I have much bigger problems in my life.
“Forget about Mayfield for a while and get comfortable, Primrose, because you’re not going anywhere. The police said so.”
Howis this my life?
Closing my eyes, I breathe out.
“See you tomorrow.” He sets his cup in the sink, then throws me another glance before stepping to the door. “Don’t run away, okay? I like the chase.”