Christie Ridgway - Mad Enough to Marry

Though unsurprised, Logan rolled his eyes. Three-fourths of the male population of Strawberry Bay was afraid of the woman volunteering in the senior prom booth, while the other quarter was afraid of what their wives or girlfriends would say if they approached her. “She’s not that bad,” he lied.

“It’s a kissing booth, Logan!” Sue Ellen exclaimed. “I know she has a younger sister who’s a high-school senior, but someone should have realized that that woman in that particular kind of booth might prove the end of a long-standing custom.”

Logan winced. Strawberry Bay, like any small town, was long on tradition and long on talk. Gossip would go on for decades that Elena O’Brien’s year in the senior prom kissing booth was the first year in twenty that the enterprise flopped.

Still, he was not going over there. Knowing Elena, she was more than likely thrilled by her solitude.

Before he could change his mind, he bid goodbye to Sue Ellen and ducked between the massive angled panels set up for the art show. He didn’t want to think about Elena and her predicament any longer. Out of sight, out of mind, he told himself.

Yet even from here he could feel her disturbing presence. A few months before, thanks to his brother’s romance with Elena’s best friend, Elena had vaulted back into his life. Though he hadn’t seen her since his last days in high school, she’d instantly gone about disturbing his peace of mind, just as before.

Worse now, because the grown-up Elena was a puzzle, one minute an icy fortress, the next a hornet, buzzing loudly and ready to sting. The last time they’d been face-to-face was a couple of weekends ago, when she was maid of honor and he was best man at Griffin and Annie’s wedding. He’d done his best to ignore her and the sexual vibration she started humming inside him too, because in recent weeks simplicity had become Logan’s new watchword.

And nothing about Elena had ever been simple.

Pushing her out of his thoughts once more, Logan hurried around the corner of the first aisle, barrelling into Si Thomas, one of the men who used to work for him at Chase Electronics. They bounced apart and Logan saw that the other man’s glasses were dangling over one ear, the wire stem bent.

“Lord, I’m sorry, Si. What can I do?”

The other man pulled his glasses off to inspect the damage. “No big deal. I’ll just—” He stopped, then squinted up at Logan. “As a matter of fact, there is something you can do.”

“Name it.”

Si smiled. “My wife is on the high school’s senior prom committee. She just begged me to find someone willing to…”

Logan didn’t listen to the rest of the request. Hands over his ears, he desperately backed away, then dashed down the next aisle to lose himself amongst the other browsers. When Si didn’t follow—thank God—Logan slowed his steps and glanced idly at the displayed artwork.

He paused as a painting caught his eye. It was a watercolor, he thought, but not in the bland pastels he usually associated with the medium. Whether its style was abstract or impressionist or something else altogether, he didn’t know, but the painting was obviously of a woman lying in bed. The tousled, raspberry-colored covers only hinted at her form, but the pearly, bare shoulders and the full, rosy mouth were those of a young woman. The rest of her face was obscured by her arm flung over her eyes. Inky hair was spread across the pillow.

The painting intrigued and unsettled him with its juxtaposition of decadent bed and sleeping woman. It was almost as if she was waiting to be awakened by just the right man.

“Hey, Logan,” a voice said.

Logan turned to greet the male half of a high-school-aged couple. “Hey, Tyler.” Tyler Evans lived on the estate that bordered Logan’s parents’. His father owned a produce distribution company—selling most of Strawberry Bay’s strawberries—and his mother served on several charity boards with Logan’s mother.

A petite, very pretty teenager with black hair and blue eyes stood beside the young man.

“This is Gabby,” Tyler said, sliding a proprietary arm around her waist. “We met in art class.”

The pretty young woman, who looked disturbingly familiar to Logan, smiled. He found himself smiling back. “Nice to meet you, Gabby.”

Tyler hugged her closer to his side and kissed her hair in the way that young lovers do, as if he couldn’t help himself. Gabby’s cheeks went pink, but her smile deepened and Logan knew he had to be wrong in his first suspicion—that Gabby was related to his nemesis, Elena. Though their looks were similar, Gabby appeared warm and approachable, and she’d obviously enjoyed Tyler’s affection. Touching Elena, however, was like grabbing a handful of stinging nettles.

“This is Logan Chase,” Tyler told Gabby.

Her smile turned Mona Lisa-like. “I know. My sister has, um, pointed him out before.”

“Ah.” Logan nodded. So he’d been right after all. “Gabby O’Brien. Elena’s sister.”

“Hey! So you know Elena?” Tyler’s voice turned heartily cheerful. “We were just going over to see her. Maybe you’d like to come along.”

Logan blinked. “You think I’d like to what?”

Tyler must really have it bad for little Gabby, because his cheery expression didn’t change. “Go see Elena. In the kissing booth. I’m going over there to—” he swallowed “—buy a kiss.”

Logan knew he must have heard wrong. “You’re going to what?”

Tyler gulped again, his face betraying its first signs of panic. “Buy a kiss,” he said bravely.

Logan laughed. “Not and survive you’re not. She’ll stab a kid like you before she kisses you.”

Gabby giggled and Logan looked at her, slightly ashamed for saying such a thing in front of the Frost Queen’s sister. But hell, Gabby had to know it was true.

“Someone has to go over there and pay for a kiss,” Tyler said stubbornly. “Once one man, uh, survives, more customers will come along. We need that money for the prom decorations.”

“Kid…” Logan ran a hand through his hair, trying to think of how to explain the situation tactfully.

“Someone has to,” Tyler insisted, looking young, noble and not just a little bit stupid. “And I guess that someone has to be me.”

Logan sighed. God. He’d tried, he really had. No one could say he hadn’t. He sighed again.

“Never mind, kid.” Logan inhaled a long, deep breath and wondered if the dread starting to build in his belly was what human sacrifices had felt on their way to execution. “I’ll do it.”

From fifty feet away, Logan gazed at the woman in the senior prom booth. If she wasn’t so staggeringly beautiful, he thought, kissing her wouldn’t be so bad.

Her midnight-black hair was sleek and shiny, hanging straight to her clean jawline and emphasizing her full, bewitching lips. Her skin, fine-pored and unmarked by even a single freckle, was a golden cream color that made her black-lashed blue eyes stand out like sapphires.

If that wasn’t enough to mess with a man’s brain, ever since she was sixteen years old, Elena O’Brien had possessed the kind of curves that made men from 12 to 112 stop, stare then salivate.

The hell of it was, Elena had a beautiful face paired with one hot, bodacious bod. It was the kind of coupling that made a man think only of…well, coupling. But Logan knew from personal experience that it wasn’t wise to let your wits wander southward when you were around Elena. While you were busy dreaming of her scratching your back, she’d be busy finding ways to scratch your eyes out.

The funny thing was, people genuinely liked her as a person. Women included, despite the kind of loveliness that might inspire jealousy. She was reputed to be an indefatigable employee and Logan’s new sister-in-law swore she was a terrific friend. But when a man approached Elena O’Brien as a man, she’d hiss and spit and scare the poor guy off. Sometimes off women altogether.