Beneath The Surface

Rolling his eyes, Logan held the contract out in front of him as if it were going to bite him. “Just what I need—a psychological test. Maybe I’ll flunk it.”

Carter laughed. “Fat chance. You’re saner than anyone I know.”

Logan wasn’t so sure of that. If he’d had an ounce of sanity, he would never agree to go to a dating service!

Still, he kept his word and headed for the place. When he arrived twenty minutes later, however, he couldn’t bring himself to go in. This was crazy! Why hadn’t he thought to offer Patty and Carter their money back? It would cost him a tidy sum, but it would be worth it if it meant he didn’t have to pretend to be looking for a date.

“It’s safe to go inside,” a quiet feminine voice said. “They’re really quite nice.”

Looking up, Logan blinked at the sight of the woman holding the door for him. Slim and petite, with curly, dark auburn hair arranged in a thick braid down her back, she had a shy smile and understanding brown eyes that, for some reason, reminded him of Faith.

Taken aback by the thought, he frowned. What the devil was wrong with him? She looked nothing like his wife! His subconscious was just playing tricks on him and making him feel guilty for even thinking about dating another woman.

“Nothing personal,” he said dryly, “but I can think of a thousand other places I’d rather be.”

“Oh, I agree,” she said with a twinkle in her eyes. “Like the dentist.”

“Actually, I was thinking the opera, but the dentist will do.” Wishing he could stand there and chat just to keep from having to go inside, he forced a smile that held little humor. “I guess there’s no point in putting it off.”

“It’s better to get it over with,” she agreed. “Good luck.”

“My luck ran out a year ago,” he said flatly, “but thanks, anyway.”

With that cryptic comment, he turned and walked into the dating service. He’d hardly given his name to the receptionist when he was shown into the office of Nancy Hartfield, the counselor who’d been assigned to help him find Miss Right.

“So you’re Logan,” she said with a friendly smile, rising from her desk to shake hands with him. “It’s a pleasure meeting you. Your sister was afraid you wouldn’t come anywhere near the place when you found out what she and your brother had done.”

“I almost didn’t,” he retorted. “I’m not looking for a date, let alone a wife.”

“Well, that’s blunt enough,” she said wryly. “Obviously, Patty was right to be worried.”

“There’s a reason she and Carter didn’t tell me what they were up to until it was too late,” he said dryly. “They knew I’d never go for it.”

“But you’re here,” she pointed out. “Obviously you intend to participate.”

“Under protest. As much as I’d like to walk away, I can’t. This cost my brother and sister too much money.”

“I’m sure they appreciate that. And who knows? You may find a way to make the best of the situation. Just because you’re not looking for a date doesn’t mean you won’t make friends with some of the women we set you up with.”

Placing the psychological test in front of him, she explained how his answers would be fed into a computer, then matched with women whose test results were compatible with his. “So it’s very important that you answer the questions as honestly as possible. Even though you’re not looking for a date, we don’t want this to be a complete waste of time for you. Shall we begin?”

Resigned, he had little choice but to agree. Over the course of the next two hours, he answered questions about his likes and dislikes, politics, religious beliefs, ethics, even his plans for retirement. By the time he finished, he felt as if the dating service knew him better than his own family did.

Nancy immediately entered the results into the company database, and the computer spat out names of five candidates who might become the woman of his dreams. As far as Logan was concerned, that position had already been filled and a replacement wasn’t possible, but he obliging took the list, folded it and put it in his pocket.

Watching him, the counselor smiled. “At this point, I normally tell clients they can request another list of possible dates whenever they like, if they feel they’re not compatible with any of the previous matches made by the computer. But you’re different. I have an idea you’re not going to even look at the list, let alone call any of the women on it.”

“No, I’ll make some calls,” Logan assured her. “I gave Carter and Patty my word. I never said anything about being enthusiastic about the process. This wasn’t my idea, remember?”

To her credit, Nancy didn’t try to convince him to give the service more of a chance. Smiling slightly, she said, “Well, I guess that’s it, then. Good Luck.”

Surprised, he lifted a brow at her. “What? No pictures? Don’t most dating services take a picture to show the prospective dates?”

“We’re old-fashioned,” she replied simply. “We prefer to match people according to personality, not looks. That’s why we’re more successful than the others.”

He didn’t care how successful they were, they were going to strike out with him, Logan thought as he walked out of the building with a sigh of relief. Thank God that was over! He hadn’t lied to Nancy Hartfield. He would call some of the women on the list…in his own good time. Maybe he’d get around to it next week, when he had nothing better to do.

But twenty minutes later, when he unlocked the front door to the home he and Faith had shared for fifteen years, silence hit him like a slap in the face, just as it had every day since his wife had died. He tried to tell himself that it wasn’t so bad—he was getting used to it.

But the quiet made the house seem empty and cold, and loneliness tugged at his heart. Without thinking, he headed for the kitchen to grab a beer from the refrigerator. He’d just popped the lid on the can and started to lift it to his mouth when his gaze fell on the trash can next to the stove. It was nearly overflowing with empty beer cans.

Startled, he froze, scowling. Had he drunk that much beer over the last few days? He couldn’t have. Sure, he had a couple when he came home at night because he was lonely and he missed Faith so much, but there was nothing wrong with that. It wasn’t as if he was a drunk. He could control himself.

Oh, really? a voice in his head drawled. Then why didn’t you? What would Faith think if she could see you now?

The answer to that was a no-brainer. She’d be thoroughly disgusted with him.

Logan couldn’t say he’d have blamed her. He was pretty disgusted himself. This wasn’t who he was. At least, he never had been in the past. He wasn’t a teetotaler, but he’d never made it a practice to drink regularly, either. Or at least he hadn’t until Faith died.

God, he missed her! He missed the smell of her, the taste of her, the sound of her voice. Given the chance, he would have done just about anything to feel her in his arms again. But he wouldn’t become a drunk just because he didn’t want to go through life without her. Stepping to the kitchen sink, he poured out the beer he’d just opened, then collected the rest of the cans from the refrigerator and tossed them in the trash. Not giving himself time to think about what he was about to do, he pulled out the list of women Nancy Hartfield had given him, then reached for the phone.

“Hello?”

Logan flinched at the eager female voice that shrilled in his ears seconds after he finished punching in the first number on the list. Was the woman sitting by the phone, waiting for it to ring? he wondered. “Hi,” he said gruffly. “This is Logan St. John. Is this Missy Trainer?”

“Yes! Did you get my name from the Right One Dating Service? I didn’t know if I should call or wait for someone to call me first. Have you called anyone else? This is just so exciting!”

In her too high voice, she rushed on to tell him how she’d never had a serious relationship, but this time she just knew she was going to meet Mr. Right. Logan hoped she did, though he knew it wasn’t going to be him. Not that she gave him a chance to tell her that. Wound up like a battery-operated bunny, she just kept talking and talking and didn’t give him a chance to get a word in edgewise.

“I’m sorry,” he cut in abruptly. “But there’s someone at the door. We’ll have to talk another time.”

“What? Oh…well, okay.”

He hung up before she could say another word, then almost threw the dating list in the trash. This was nuts! What was he doing? He loved Faith. He wasn’t going to forget her by talking to someone like Missy Trainer!

So call someone else.

He almost didn’t. But Patty and Carter knew he’d gone to the dating service today, and before the night was over, one of them would call to see if he’d set up any dates yet. Muttering a curse, Logan reached for the phone and punched in the second number on the list. He hoped they appreciated this, he thought. There weren’t many people he would do this for.

Praying that the second woman on the list wouldn’t be as bad as the first, he braced himself for God knows what as an answering machine clicked on and a mechanical voice said, “I can’t come to the phone at the moment. Leave a number at the beep.”

Disgusted, he sighed. Apparently, this wasn’t his night. “Hello,” he said, leaving a message. “This is Logan St. John. I’m looking for Abby Saunders. I got her number from the Right One Dating Service…”

Chapter 2

In the process of changing out of her work clothes into jeans and a T-shirt, Abby froze at the sound of the deep male voice rumbling from her answering machine. She’d left the dating service only two and a half hours ago and she was already getting a call? She wasn’t ready!

Her heart pounding wildly, she stared at the phone as if it were a snake about to strike. She shouldn’t have listened to Lily and Rachel and Natalie. They might think they could go after happiness and find the American dream, but Abby should have known she couldn’t pull this off. There were some women who were just destined to go through life alone, and she was obviously one of them.

Her stomach in knots, her insecurities choking her, she almost let the answering machine finish taking the call. But she couldn’t forget her high-school reunion, couldn’t forget the expressions of her classmates on the dance floor. They’d been so happy, so in love with their partners. Watching them, she’d never felt lonelier…or more envious.

So talk to Logan St. John. This could be your chance…your only chance to have what you want! All you have to do is pick up the phone.

Still she hesitated. Men wanted someone who was pretty and flirtatious, who’d hang on their every word as if they’d just hung the moon. How could she do that? She wasn’t pretty, and she was too insecure to flirt. Why hadn’t she realized that sooner and spared herself this misery?

“If you want to talk, I’ll be in the rest of the evening. Give me a call at…”

When he started to rattle off his home phone number, she panicked. He was going to hang up! Furious with herself for being such a coward, she reached for the phone and snatched it up. “Hello?”

Her tone was almost defiant. Taken aback, Logan wondered if he had the wrong number. “Is this Abby Saunders?”

“Yes, it is.”

So the dating service had picked a defiant one for him, Logan thought with a groan. That was just great. First an air-head and now a woman full of anger. He was batting a thousand. Wait until he told Carter and Patty. Talk about a waste of money!

“I thought we might talk,” he said stiffly. “But I obviously caught you at a bad time.”

“No! Please don’t hang up,” she said quickly. “After the way I answered the phone, you must think I’ve got some kind of chip on my shoulder. I did sound pretty angry.”

“Actually, the word defiant comes to mind.”

“I’m sorry,” she said sincerely. “It’s nothing against you personally. It’s just that when I heard your voice on the answering machine, all I could think of was that I must have been out of my mind when I signed up with the dating service. I’m not good at this kind of thing.”

Logan had to admit that he liked her honesty. “I take it I’m the first date to call you?”

“And I’ve already blown it. I’m just so nervous.”

“It’s okay,” he assured her. “I know how you feel. I wouldn’t even be talking to you if my brother and sister hadn’t signed me up for the dating service without telling me.”

“You’re kidding! They didn’t even warn you?”

“Not until they’d signed on the dotted line and forked over a ridiculous amount of money. They were worried about me. I’ve…been keeping to myself a lot since my wife died last year.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Was she sick?”

“No, it was a car accident.” Abruptly changing the subject, he said, “What about you? Have you been out of the dating scene for a while? Is that why you decided to join the Right One?”

“Actually, I don’t know that I was ever a part of the dating scene,” she admitted wryly. “Oh, I’ve dated, but none of the men I went out with were exactly winners. I never had much confidence in myself.”

“Maybe that’s about to change,” he said easily. “What do you do for a living?”

“I’m a secretary. How about you? What do you do?”

“I’m a reporter.”

Surprised, she gasped. “You’re that Logan St. John? The one with the Gazette?”

He grinned. “Obviously, you’ve read my work.”

“I love your unsolved crime stories. You’re very good.”

He wasn’t one to boast about his writing or preen when praised. “Thank you,” he said simply. “So tell me more about yourself. Are you originally from Austin?”

“Actually, I was born in Liberty Hill, Colorado. It’s a small town—”

“Near Aspen,” he finished for her. “I’ve driven through there on my way to Aspen. How’d you end up in Austin?”

“Work,” she said wryly. “I was working for an insurance company in Denver and got transferred down here. I ended up quitting that job, but decided to stay in Texas. What about you? Are you from Austin originally?”

“Born and raised,” he replied with a chuckle. “The entire family lives here—grandparents, parents, my three brothers and my sister.”

“Oh, that’s nice! I only have one sister, and my parents were both only children, so we didn’t have any extended family when we were growing up except for grandparents…and they lived in Florida.”

“Things were pretty chaotic when we were growing up,” he admitted. “Christmas was always wild. It still is, in fact. Everyone has kids except me, and when we all get together, there’s paper and ribbon everywhere and enough food to feed an army.”

“It sounds wonderful.”

“My family’s helped get me through a lot,” he said quietly. “Of course, I wanted to shoot Carter and Patty this afternoon when they told me about the dating service, but they were only trying to help.” Forcing a lighter tone, he said, “Enough about me. What about you? What are you doing Friday night? Would you like to get together for a drink?”

Abby had relaxed as he’d talked about his family, but the second he asked her out, the nerves in her stomach knotted in alarm. “Oh, I don’t know….”

“I don’t bite,” he assured her with a smile in his voice. “Or at least I don’t if I’m fed regularly.”

She smiled slightly, only to find herself suddenly fighting the need to cry. “It’s not you,” she said thickly. “It’s me. I told you I’m not good at this. When I go on blind dates, I get all flustered and sick to my stomach and act like an idiot. It’s awful!”

“Okay, so we won’t go out on a blind date.”

Defeated, she was glad he couldn’t see her at that moment. She just wanted to drop down on her living room couch and cry her eyes out. Instead, she straightened her shoulders and forced a smile. “Thanks for calling…and for being so understanding. Good luck with your other dates.”

With the opening she’d so generously given him, Logan should have thanked her for the conversation and hung up. In spite of the fact that he’d enjoyed talking to her, it was obvious the lady had a lot of insecurities, and he didn’t need that.

But there was a loneliness in her voice that struck a chord deep inside him and reminded him too much of himself. Don’t go there, he ordered himself sternly. This woman’s problems aren’t yours. Remember, you only called her to get Carter and Patty off your back. You’re not looking for a date.

It didn’t matter. Even as he asked himself what the hell he was doing, he heard himself say, “Whoa, not so fast! Let’s talk about this. You paid a lot of money to meet people and go out. How are you going to do that if you’re not comfortable going on a blind date?”

“I don’t know.”

“What would make you comfortable?”

“Not going out with a stranger,” she said promptly.

He laughed, confused. “But you have to meet someone in order for them not to be a stranger. How are you going to do that if you won’t go out with someone you don’t know?”

“There’s other ways to get to know people without meeting them face-to-face,” she replied. “People do it all the time on the Internet. And there’s always the phone. Why can’t we have a phone date before we meet in person? Then if it goes well and we’re both comfortable with the idea, we can meet somewhere for dinner or a drink.”

“Are you serious? That would make you more comfortable?”

“I wouldn’t feel like I was going out with a complete stranger,” she said simply. “So what do you think?”

Logan almost laughed out loud. He couldn’t have planned this better if he’d tried. In spite of the fact that he’d temporarily lost his mind and asked her out for a drink, it was only because he’d felt sorry for her. He didn’t want to date anyone. He still loved Faith, dammit! But his siblings weren’t going to quit harassing him until he convinced them that he was jumping back into life. What better way to do that than to call Abby occasionally for a phone date? Carter and Patty would think he was dating, so he’d get them off his back, and all he would be doing was talking to Abby on the phone. Just thinking about it made him grin. This could work.

“Friday night’s good for me,” he replied. “How about you? I could call you around eight, if that’s okay.”

Stunned, Abby couldn’t believe he was agreeing so easily. If every man the dating service set her up with was as accommodating as Logan St. John, she was going to love dating! “You don’t know how much this means to me, Logan. I was afraid you’d think I was weird or something.”

“Not at all,” he assured her. “I don’t blame you for being nervous. Blind dates are the pits. There’s nothing worse than having a drink or a meal with someone you don’t know and sitting there in silence, trying to think of something to say.”

“I know,” she said. “It’s awful! I just can’t put myself through it.”

“There’s no reason you have to. We can talk on the phone as long as you like. If either of us decides that we don’t have anything in common and don’t ever want to meet, that’s okay, too. No hard feelings, okay?”

“No hard feelings,” she agreed. “Now that we’ve got that settled, I guess I’ll talk to you Friday night.”

“It’s a date,” he said with a chuckle, and hung up.

When the phone rang later that evening, Logan wasn’t surprised to hear his younger brother’s voice on the other end of the line. “Well, well,” Logan drawled. “How did I know you would call?”

“I’m just concerned,” Carter said defensively. “Patty and I got you into this. The least I can do is check and see how it went.” When Logan only snorted, he said, “Oh, c’mon, don’t be that way. How’d it go? I know you got a list of dates after you completed the psychological test, so what happened? Have you called anyone yet?”

Torn between amusement and irritation, Logan rolled his eyes. “It would serve you right if I didn’t tell you a damn thing. You know that, don’t you?”

“Hey, this was all Patty’s idea—”

“And you were totally against it, right? That’s why you put up half the money.”

“Okay,” he acknowledged, “so I let her talk me into it. I was just trying to help.”

“You should have told me.”

“We thought about it, but we knew you’d never agree.”

“Exactly!”

“Look on the bright side,” Carter said encouragingly. “There are a lot of nice women out there—you might actually meet a couple you like. And if you don’t, you can always do a story on dating services. So? Talk to me! What happened?”

“I have a date Friday night,” he retorted. “Are you happy now? Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“With who? What’s her name? She must be nice if you asked her out already. Where are you going?”

“Geez, you sound worse than Mom!”

“Oh, God, I do!” his brother exclaimed, horrified. “Forget I said anything. Go out with your mystery date, have a good-time. I don’t need the details.”

When he told him good-night and hurriedly hung up, Logan laughed—truly laughed—for what felt like the first time since Faith had died. And it felt good…damn good. He’d have to thank Abby when he talked to her on Friday.

Logan had always been a morning person, but over the course of the last year he’d had little reason to get out of bed. He’d dragged himself to work and gone through the motions of doing the job he’d once loved, but he’d found no joy in investigative reporting, no joy in writing. He hadn’t needed to go to a doctor to know that he was suffering from depression. His days were gray and dull and stretched one into another with no end in sight.

He expected the following morning to be the same, but as he rolled out of bed and headed for the shower, he found himself thinking about his conversations with Abby and his brother, and a slow grin of anticipation stretched across his face. Maybe this dating thing wasn’t going to be so bad. He and Abby would talk on the phone, he’d put one over on his brother—who wasn’t easy to fool—and his family would never know the difference. He almost rubbed his hands together in glee at the thought. This was going to be fun.

Imagining his brother’s and sister’s faces when they discovered that he’d pulled a fast one on them, he arrived at work an hour later with a spring in his step. The smile on his face didn’t last long, however. He was just going over his notes for a story on fraud in the building industry when Nick Whitiker, his boss, buzzed him and announced, “We need to talk.”

Logan knew that terse tone well. Nick was ticked off about something. Had Logan missed a deadline? He didn’t think so, but he would be the first to admit that his work had suffered some during the last year. He and Nick had talked about it, and he’d done his best to be more focused. What had he missed? “I’ll be right there,” he promised.

Nick usually exchanged a few pleasantries with anyone he called to his office, but he didn’t this time. Instead, he nodded toward the chair angled in front of his desk. “Sit down,” he growled.

Logan preferred to stand and take whatever bad news Nick had for him, but he only had to glance at his boss’s stern face to know this wasn’t the time to push him. Without a word, he dropped into the chair. “If this is about the story on the poker games in the break room at the police department, I don’t care what Chief Hawkins said, I’ve got proof.”

Nick waved him off with a grimace. “If I thought you couldn’t back up your stories, you wouldn’t be on the crime beat. That’s not the problem.”

“Then what is?”

Leaning back in his chair, Nick looked at him over the top of his black-rimmed reading glasses. “I know the last year has been hard for you,” he said gruffly. “And to be perfectly honest, I don’t know if I’d have been able to hold myself together as well as you have if I’d lost Jackie the way you did Faith. Losing someone you love to cancer or some kind of health problem is one thing—you can understand it even though you can’t accept it. But a drunk driver who’s done this before? The jackass should have been shot!”

“I thought about it,” Logan admitted honestly, “but killing him wasn’t going to bring Faith back. Nothing will.”