Chapter 21
Logan
Who’s the idiot who, at the peak of his skill, fell in love with a spitfire girl who makes him think about stepping away from it all?
Ah, right. That would be me.
I came to California for one reason only, and from the start I’ve done just about everything except what I came to do. I made a mess with my team, got myself injured, cowardly hid from Lola when she was twenty meters away from me.
My eyes jump to Savannah as she moves around my kitchen like she was always meant to be here, and one more mistake flashes through my mind: I opened my heart to a woman who might actually be tough enough to handle it.
As far as my goal goes, she was the worst decision I could have made, and I don’t care.
She’s always been beautiful, but nothing compares to right now. Her hair’s pulled back in a messy plait, there’s a streak of red sauce on her cheek, and she’s humming along to whatever song plays on her phone as she chops vegetables with the skill born from hours of practice.
I’m done for.
There’s no turning back now.
I could stand here for the rest of my life, watching her make magic.
Watching how she jumps among three different tasks at once.
How she seasons without measuring. How every once in a while she pauses to sway her hips to the music.
She’s wearing that sassy pink apron pulled tight against her curves, and the fluid way she moves around the kitchen is enough to make a man lose his head.
But then I notice the wrinkle between her eyebrows and the tense set of her shoulders when she checks the clock on the stove.
She lied about having plenty of time. And it’s my fault.
She came after me instead of finishing this order.
She chose me over her business, over the thing she values most and has sacrificed so much to build.
My heart has been pounding unevenly in my chest since I saw her on that beach, and she’ll never understand what she’s done. How much her choice means to me.
She chose me.
No one’s chosen me like that except my parents. I’ve always had to prove myself and show my worth to get people to stick around.
But Savannah didn’t hesitate.
And now she might lose what could be her biggest client of her whole career. Because of me.
Swallowing the knot of guilt in my throat, I step forward and tap the volume down on her phone. “What can I do?”
She looks up, startled. “Huh?”
I gesture at the chaos spread across the counter. “Put me to work, Sav.”
“I’m fine. You can go—”
“I’m helping you. Whatever you need.”
Her gaze jumps to the clock, then to the pile of half-prepped ingredients. The tension in her shoulders doubles. “Okay,” she breathes and points at an onion. “Start chopping.”
“On it.” I grab the knife, all too aware of how little time I’ve spent in a kitchen. But how hard can it be to chop an onion?
“Whoa!” Savannah grabs my wrist, a nervous laugh eases out of her. “Not like that, Crocodile Dundee. You don’t want to take your thumb off.”
Her arm presses against me, her skin warm and smooth, and her hair smells like vanilla. I hum, not sure what we were talking about.
“Like this,” she says, and adjusts my fingers so none of them are in danger of being sliced.
Right. “Didn’t realize your job was so dangerous,” I grunt, gritting my teeth before I start getting ideas. She’s so close. Close enough that if I leaned down and turned her head toward me…
She bumps her hip into mine, and though she doesn’t use much force, I feel like I’ve been knocked to the ground. “Don’t be such a baby.”
“All part of my charm, love.”
“Ah yes, the infamous Logan Callahan charm.” With a quick grin, she returns to her end of the counter.
She’d better stay there. My self-control is ready to snap.
We fall into an easy rhythm. Savannah gives me a task, I muck it up, and she gently corrects me with the patience of a saint.
It’s sweet and blissful torture. Every time her fingers brush mine as she takes something from me, heat skates up my arm.
When she skirts around me to grab something and her hand runs along my lower back, I forget how to breathe.
At one point, she leans across me to pick up a spatula, and suddenly I can’t remember what a spatula is even for.
The last week and a half has been rough, but this is so much worse.
“What are those?” She groans, staring at the disaster I’ve made of a few potatoes. “Why are they so small?”
I look down at the misshapen tubers and shrug. “I think they’re cute.”
“You’re cute. Those are pathetic.”
Heat blazes through me as our eyes meet. “I only care about that first part.”
Her gaze slips down to my mouth, and I’m completely cooked. I can’t resist her anymore. As all logical thought flies out the window, I lean closer, relishing the way she doesn’t move at all.
A timer goes off on her phone, and Savannah sighs and scoops up the potatoes. “We’ll make it work.”
I really hope we do.
With every brush of hands, every bump of shoulders, every time her tongue flicks across her lips as she concentrates, I’m electrified. My body lights up with each tiny point of contact, and I lose more cognitive function until the only thing I can do is follow orders.
I thought I enjoyed watching Savannah work. But standing beside her and joining in on the tasks? It’s so much better. Our rough edges fit together more smoothly when we’re side by side. Like this is where I’m supposed to be, helping her change lives through her food.
This is home.
Halfway through whisking a bowl of eggs, I freeze as that thought settles in my chest. I’m meant to be here.
Those words should terrify me because they run too close to commitment.
To choosing something I have no business wanting when it means giving up everything I’ve built my life on.
I’m supposed to be training hard so I can jump straight back into Wallaby training at the end of the season, not standing in a kitchen losing myself to a woman who deserves more than a man with one foot out the door.
But nothing about my time in the States has been logical. Not a moment of it.
And I’ve certainly never been logical when it comes to Savannah.
I look at her and can’t help the smile that stretches across my face. This is where I want to be, and no matter how convinced I was about the future I wanted, it can’t compare to this. Here, with her, nothing else matters.
“Taste this,” she says and lifts a spoon to my mouth without looking at me.
I grab her wrist to steady her hand, and her eyes jump to mine, vividly green and so full of trust that my heart lurches in my chest and my smile freezes as I fully internalize my thoughts.
I want to keep her. Not just for a season. She got under my skin the day we met and never left, and whatever the future might hold for me, I want her in it. But I don’t deserve her. Not yet.
“Everything okay?” she asks, looking at the whisk in my motionless hand before meeting my gaze again.
No. Nothing is okay.
If I want to keep her—if I want even the chance of her continually choosing me the way she did today—I can’t keep avoiding the hard things. I can’t expect her to lean on me if I don’t know where I come from or where I’m going.
I can’t ask her to choose me if I can’t choose myself.
I need the truth. All of it. I need to find out who I am so I can know what I have to offer.
Lowering her hand with the spoon, I stare into her incredible eyes as the decision hits me like a bad tackle, right to the shoulder.
I can’t ignore it anymore. Not Lola, not my past, not what I feel for the spitfire woman standing in my kitchen.
It’s time to man up and face my fears before I lose the best thing to ever happen to me.