Moonlight on Nightingale Way (On Dublin Street 6)

“Do you think we got enough?” he said dryly.

I smirked. “I hope so, or you can say good-bye to your savings.”

“On that note.” He shut the boot and gestured to the computer store. “Does Maia need a laptop? For her school stuff? I mean, she needs a phone, but does she need a laptop?”

“Well, Logan, no one needs a laptop,” I said. “The question is can you afford a laptop?”

He frowned at my nosy question.

“You asked,” I huffed. “I’m just saying… Her birthday is in a few months. If you want to make up for unintentionally missing the last fifteen, a laptop would be a lovely way to do that. But not every birthday should be of laptop magnitude,” I hurried to add.

Logan looked undecided.

“Maia’s just happy to have you right now. She doesn’t need a laptop.”

He slanted me a look out of the corner of his eye. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah.” He nodded and then spun around to look across at the other side of the giant retail park. “Fancy having some lunch before we hit the supermarket for Mr. Jenner?”

I should probably have been getting back. I had work to do. “Sounds good.”

We started walking toward the Tex-Mex restaurant.

“So about a phone for Maia… Do I just buy one? Or should I let her pick it?”

I grinned. He was trying very hard not to sound anxious, but I could hear it anyway. “Do what you think is best.”

He made this little growling noise that a few weeks ago would have intimidated me. Now it just made me grin harder. “I can feel you laughing at me.”

“Moi.” I stared up at him round-eyed and innocent. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Aye, right.” He held open the door to the restaurant, staring me down the whole time.

I pretended to be cowed.

After we ordered, the waitress moved away and Logan and I were left just staring across the booth at each other.

He looked very serious all of a sudden.

“What?” I said warily.

“You haven’t mentioned your family at all, with the exception of that fucker who doesn’t even count as a brother.”

Uncomfortable under his sudden intense scrutiny, I shrugged. “My friends – Aidan, Chloe, and Juno – are my family.”

“What about your blood? Your parents?”

“I don’t speak to them.”

He cocked his head in curiosity. “Why?”

Why did he suddenly want to know about me? I’d gotten the impression that he was avoiding any really personal discussions between us when he threw up a wall after our outpouring and hug in his car the other day. “Why do you want to know?”

Logan shrugged and took a sip of water. When he placed the glass back on the table, he said, “You’re my friend.”

That surprised me. “Yeah?”

He gave me a lazy grin, and something rippled low in my belly in response to it. “Yes.”

Shoving away that ludicrous reaction to him, I gave a huff of laughter. “Who would have thought?”

“Certainly not me. I was pretty sure you were a shrew.”

I narrowed my eyes. “You were no picnic either, Logan MacLeod.”

He grinned again, and it occurred to me I’d seen him smile more in the last few days than I had the entire time I’d known him. “I’ve missed that,” he said.

“What?”

“You saying my full name in exasperation.”

I giggled. “I don’t think you’ll have time to miss it. I’m pretty sure you’ll be hearing it again soon.”

“Stop changing the subject.”

“I didn’t!”

“Someone did.”

“It wasn’t me.”

He gave me a low-lidded no-nonsense look. “Why don’t you talk to your family?”

Trying for nonchalant when I felt anything but, I rolled my eyes. “My mother is cold and my father is distant. I didn’t like life in London with them, so I left them behind for a real family here in Edinburgh. End of story. Okay?”

He was quiet a moment. I didn’t know if he was processing that information or gearing up for more questions… and then he surprised me again. “Thank you, Grace.”

“For what?”

It was his turn to give a huff of incredulous laughter. “For everything.”

Just like that I found myself locked in his gaze. The air around us seemed to thicken until I was feeling a little breathless. My skin was flushed and I felt a shiver skate down my neck, following a tingling path around my back to my breasts.

Logan’s eyes darkened with heat.

“Unfortunately” – our waitress appeared at our booth, and I practically jumped out of my skin – “we don’t have any more of the…”

I wasn’t listening to whatever she was saying to Logan. I was too busy wondering what the hell had just happened.

The waitress broke the moment between Logan and me, and right away he jumped into asking me about my work, and if I’d spoken to the author who had tried to plagiarize Blade Runner. From there we chatted and joked about our work, about Maia, and avoided anything too personal.

After our supermarket run, we dropped by Mr. Jenner’s to give him his shopping and then Logan disappeared into his flat to start work on decorating Maia’s room, and I darted into my flat to start my own work.

I think I reread the same chapter ten times.

Before I knew it, Maia was home from school.

I immediately called Logan over.