Summer Magic Read Online Free Page B

voice was low and angry.
    Ignoring her, Logan turned on the hapless young clerk. They were of equal height, but Chris had yet to put on the bulk of a man who had left adolescence behind fifteen years ago.
    “Pack up everything! Now!”
    Chris threw articles haphazardly into paper sacks while Logan reached into a pocket of his jeans and withdrew a gold monogrammed money clip. Tossing five twenties on the counter, he stacked the bags in the shopping cart.
    He turned his midnight gaze on Caryn, and for a brief moment she saw a hint of rage lurking beneath the surface of his composed features. “Please go and check on Domino,” he ordered quietly. “I’ll bring the food out.”
    She vacillated, knowing Logan wasn’t finished with Chris, and what she saw in the young man’s startled gazewas fear. Managing a bright smile, she said, “It’s been nice, Chris. I’ll see you around.”
    Chris shook his head, but Caryn did not see his last gesture of desperation as she turned and walked out to the parking lot.
    Logan waited until she disappeared before he leaned in close to the quaking store clerk. “Stay away from her,” he warned, “or I’ll show you what real action is.”
    Holding up his hands in a sign of surrender, Chris displayed his perfect white teeth. “Look, man, I didn’t know she belonged to you. I … I was just trying to be friendly.”
    Logan’s lips twisted into a cynical grin as he patted Chris’s cheek. “No harm done, kid.”
    His head bobbing up and down like a buoy on the water, Chris totaled Caryn’s purchases. He picked up the five twenties, handing two back to Logan. “You gave me too much money.”
    Logan, pushing the cart away from the counter, shook his head. “No, I didn’t. It’s a tip.”
    The fact that he had just faced possible bodily injury because he had come on to another man’s wife faded quickly as Chris computed that the man Caryn had called Logan had given him a fifty-dollar tip.
    “Cool, man,” he shouted to Logan’s departing back.
    Yeah cool
, Logan thought as he pushed the shopping cart out to the parking lot; what he had wanted to do was shake Caryn until her teeth rattled. He couldn’t believe it when he saw her flashing her brilliant eyes at that boy; and that was what he was—a boy. He doubted whether Chris was old enough to be served alcohol.
    Damn! Talk about bad luck. If he didn’t have bad luck, then he wouldn’t have any luck!
    The woman he had wanted to carry his name and bear his children slept or had been sleeping with his best friend, while the woman with whom he was to share a house for the summer batted her lashes at men who weren’t old enough to buy her a beer.
    Caryn was seated in the Wrangler with Domino in herarms. His tiny pink tongue darted out as he tried licking her chin. Logan warned her about spoiling his dog. He wanted Domino as a companion. Give her a week and she would turn the puppy into a mush.
    Staring straight ahead, Caryn’s eyes narrowed behind the lenses of her sunglasses. Her rage had ebbed slowly, and only now had she regained control of her temper. All Logan had to do was say a word—a single word—and she would let him have it. They had been thrown together for less than two hours, and he was doing to her what had taken Thomas Duff two years to do—make her decisions for her.
    Logan noticed the set of Caryn’s jaw and decided it best they discuss what needed to be discussed behind closed doors. He loaded the back of the Jeep with her purchases and returned the cart to its proper place, then slipped into the four-wheel-drive vehicle beside her. Their return to the house was accomplished in complete silence.
    He parked along the side of the house and wasn’t surprised when she didn’t wait for him to help her down as she cradled Domino carefully in her arms. Sitting down on the top step of the porch, she sat and watched the waves wash up on the stretch of beach as he unloaded the car and took everything into the