“Samantha, offer me a drink. The listening device in your bag is picking up nothing but silence so far.”
Oh. Right. The bugs.
Sam nodded, not exactly trusting her voice as she drew her eyes up to Logan’s face. He smirked at her as he pulled out a device she assumed would sweep for listening devices. Sam cleared her throat.
“Can I get you a drink, Logan? Um, I think I have root beer and, um, maybe … water. Milk? I have milk.”
Milk … it does a body good. His body sure has done good. Maybe he’s a milk drinker.
Logan was grinning at her again, the look in his eye telling her that maybe she’d said that out loud.
“Did I do it again?”
“Yup.” The look on his face was entirely too smug.
“Jerk. What do you want to drink?”
There was laughter in his eyes and his voice as he continued to scan her home with the device he’d brought. “Water would be great,” he said, as he headed off toward the stairs to the second floor.
Sam left her jacket and purse up in her room, purposefully leaving them behind, so unless Logan found more bugs, no one would overhear their conversation.
She followed him down the stairs but when he headed into the dining and living rooms, she stayed in the kitchen, popping ice into two glasses and filling one with water and the other with root beer. Root beer was her vice. Certainly not her only vice. But a big one.
“Make yourself comfortable,” she called in to Logan as she put the root beer back in the fridge and bumped the door shut with her hip. She figured if there were bugs in here, they should be saying something to one another. She saw Logan slip almost silently down the stairs to the basement before coming back up and crossing to the couch, where he sat down.
“Nothing in the house,” he said. He tossed a signal jammer, similar to the one Chad had given her earlier, on the coffee table.
“The scanner should have picked up any devices even if they weren’t transmitting. Some devices only pick up if a bug is actively transmitting information. Chad likes his toys and keeps some pretty advanced stuff around, but to be on the safe side, continue to jam any conversations you don’t want overheard.”
Sam sat beside Logan and handed him his water before sipping her root beer. She tucked one leg up under her and tried not to pay attention to the fact that the hottest man she’d ever met was sitting next to her. In her home.
She tried to ignore the fact that, when he sat, the strong muscles of his thighs flexed against the fabric of his pants, drawing her gaze and making her wonder what those muscles looked like beneath his pants. What they felt like.
This time, she caught herself before she reached a hand out. No feeling up the hot guy sitting next to you. His knowledge of all this technical stuff actually made him twenty times more appealing than he would be if he’d just been a pretty face and a hot body.
“Do you really think this is just about Sutton and someone digging for information? The competition looking for something?” Sam asked.
“Yeah, I do,” Logan said. He half turned to face her on the couch, one arm up over the top edge. He lifted a strand of her hair and let it run through his fingers.
Sam almost rolled her eyes at how her body reacted to the simple gesture. It was more than just the physical rush of heat and the leap in her chest. There was an emotional tug at her heart and she needed to remind herself that Logan didn’t plan to act on whatever this was that seemed to pull them together.
He’d said as much to Jack at the cocktail party. She overheard it herself.
Well, not overheard. She saw it come out of his mouth with her own eyes. And despite how many times he told her she looked like Jessica Rabbit and he thought she was hot, he didn’t plan to do anything about it. Which sucked.
“You should really think about moving into a higher security place. Something with gated access and regular security patrols.”
Sam shook her head. “Can’t. Mrs. Murphy relies on me to bring her groceries and Mr. Johnson needs someone to help him feed and trap the feral cats that live in the woods behind us. We trap and release them after we get them neutered or spayed.”
Logan gave a slight shake of his head, but he didn’t push. “We’ll have Zach set up security here then. He’ll install the standard door and window sensors, but I’ll also have him put in some panic buttons in strategic places that you can hit if you’re ever in trouble. He can wire them to the police station, but also to me. I’m only five minutes away from here.”
Sam told herself to focus on what Logan was saying, but it was hard. She should probably be taking this more seriously, but both Chad and Logan had assured her she was likely safe. Really, how could she be expected to pay attention to words when he was sitting on her couch, staring at her with those intense eyes that made her want to whimper and strip down to her panties?
“Are you listening to me, Sam?”
Sort of.
“Yup.” She nodded.
“The crawl space in your master bathroom — if the alarm is tripped or you notice anything suspicious, hit the panic button and head right for that crawl space. Barricade yourself in with the boxes in there. Is there anything heavy in them? Heavy enough to hold the door?”
“Books,” Sam said. “Most of them are filled with books.”
Logan nodded. “Good. Light enough for you to move quickly, but if you pile a few in front of the door, they should hold briefly. They’ll buy you a little time. And, with the crawl space being in your master bathroom, it’ll be one of the last places any intruder gets to when they enter. Block yourself in and don’t come out for anyone other than myself or Chad. I’ll get a bar to add to that door to fortify it, but the boxes are your contingency plan until we get that installed.”
“So yummy when you’re in protector mode.” Sam sighed. “Damn, that was out loud, wasn’t it?”
Logan gave a huff with a shake of his head, but she saw the corners of his mouth twitch and knew he was trying not to smile.
“I should go,” he said, standing. He picked up the jammer and handed it to her. “Remember to turn this off and let them hear you watching a little TV and brushing your teeth. Anything they’d expect to hear.”
“Won’t anyone listening think that’s odd? I mean, suddenly their device just goes out?”
He shrugged. “At first they’ll just assume it’s interference from everyday stuff you’d run across. It won’t tip them off for a few days, at least. Eventually, they’ll notice it’s happening too often, but not at first.”
He paused and seemed to search her face. “Are you okay to stay here tonight by yourself? Do you want me to stay with you until Zach gets your security system in place?”
Yes, please.
“No, that’s okay. I’m not worried about it. I think Chad’s right. Jack will probably know exactly who it is and Chad will track the bugs back to them and it’ll all be fine. Like you guys said, I’m the weak link. Chad and Jack and Andrew would certainly notice anything awry right away and people know that. They wouldn’t think I would spot anything, so they targeted me, that’s all.”
He seemed to shake himself out of a haze. With purposeful movements, he took the jammer from her hand and showed her that he was turning it off. She wasn’t honestly sure if his next words and actions were for show for whoever might be listening, or not.