Luck Be a Lady - Cathie Linz [17]
So what the hell was he doing getting messed up with Megan’s drama? Her uncle played golf with the police superintendent and the mayor, for God’s sake. He’d already pissed off her family by barging in on their wedding and then dropping the bombshell about his grandfather’s marital status. He really didn’t need to further alienate them by taking off with their precious librarian Megan.
She didn’t really look like a librarian to him. She didn’t wear those smart-girl glasses and didn’t have her hair scraped back from her face. Instead, her hair blew in the wind coming through her open window. Strands flew across her face, but she didn’t seem bothered. Angie would have had a fit. Angie would never be caught dead in a vintage car. Only top-of-the-line stuff for her.
Not that he could afford much top-of-the-line stuff on a cop’s salary, but he’d tried his damndest to keep his wife happy because he’d been a stupid bastard. Those days were over.
Yet here he was, with another damsel in distress. But he didn’t plan on having sex with this one. No way he was that stupid, no matter how awesome her cleavage was or how long her legs were.
His plan was simple: He couldn’t let Megan pull his granddad, who had enough on his plate at the moment, into her web of a dysfunctional family problem. He’d keep her distracted long enough to keep her from involving Buddy and then he’d cut her loose.
It wasn’t as if she was without resources of her own. She had a family. And once she calmed down, she’d realize the logical course of action was using their power to get the information she wanted.
He had to admit it was a little strange that there was so little information available in the databases about her mother. That wasn’t normal. Not that he was a pro at normal. As a police officer, he’d seen more than his fair share of weird and nasty. He’d seen the dark side, lived it, been consumed by it and barely lived to crawl out of it . . . forever changed.
“It’s really dark out here,” Megan said.
Logan knew all about darkness. How it ate away at you from the inside out. How it messed with your mind and your decisions. How it screwed you.
Oh yeah. He was a pro at walking the line along that dark side. Most cops referred to the thin blue line as the line between police keeping order and protecting the public from complete chaos. But Logan had experienced another line, right at the edge of a different kind of chaos between sanity and despair.
Megan was one of those Suzie Sunshine types who believe that people were basically good and kind. Sure, she was feeling bitter at the moment about her family lying to her, but her optimism about the rest of the human race was still there.
As for him . . . well, he’d lost that positive outlook long ago. He knew better. Seeing small kids abandoned by their crackhead mother in a filthy vacant building with little food and no heat for days on end in the middle of winter did that to a man. Made him question things. So did finding a body tossed into a Dumpster, burned beyond recognition. He’d seen too much to be an optimist.
But he couldn’t walk away. If he did, the darkness won.
So Logan kept his attention focused on the twin beams of light from the Chevy’s headlights on the highway ahead and blocked out the memories of the life-altering mistake that haunted him in his nightmares. To do otherwise would destroy him.
Chapter Four
Megan stared at Logan’s face illuminated by the vintage dashboard lights. He’d barely spoken since they’d left Las Vegas. “If you’re getting tired, I could drive,” she said.
“No way.”
She was insulted by his emphatic refusal. “I’m a good driver.”
“No one drives this borrowed baby but me.”
“It’s just that Buddy said you flew directly to Vegas from work.”
“I caught a few hours’ sleep after leaving the reception.”
“Oh. That’s good. But the offer stands.”
He waved her words away. “We’re almost there.”
“The Butterfly Ranch,