Her Forever Man

“Several reasons. Gut feeling.” She wouldn’t tell him she had an odd sense of fate about Brock. Nothing romantic, of course. He was trustworthy. “You’re solid and responsible. You give the impression that you were born forty years old. You come highly recommended,” she said. “Your daughter says you’re the best. You kept your end of a bargain you didn’t make by letting me stay in your home. Plus there are the other reasons.”

“And they are?” he prompted in a skeptical tone.

“You don’t like me. You don’t want me here. In fact,” she said, pushing aside her little twinge, “you don’t want me, period.”

Three

God save him from the female gender, Brock thought, and shook his head. “I said you weren’t ugly,” he told her.

“There’s a large gap between not ugly and attractive,” Felicity said with a Mona Lisa smile.

She hugged her arms against the cold and Brock couldn’t help noticing the way her nipples beaded against her sweater dress. It was easy to imagine how her breasts would look and feel naked; rounded ivory mounds with small raspberry tips, soft, sensitive, responsive. She would feel like heaven in his hands, against his chest, in his mouth.

And there would be hell to pay, he thought as he remembered Felicity was the proverbial Ms. Moneybags.

“You’re an honorable man,” she said, meeting his gaze. “I thought honor was an extinct virtue among men, but you possess it. I think you could help me.”

Brock sighed. He didn’t spend much time thinking about honor and virtue. He just tried to do what was right. “What do you want from me? I’m no lawyer.”

“You can help me find someone I can trust to set up the foundation. I can tell you’re not a man to be taken advantage of. I don’t seem to have developed that skill yet,” she said wryly.

Everything she said was true, but Brock still didn’t feel right helping Felicity part with half her fortune. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-four,” she said. “Why is that important?”

“I’d feel easier about this if you were about sixty years older, if you’d lived more and longer and had more experience.”

“Maybe you could pretend,” she said with a cheeky smile.

He eyed her body once more and shook his head. “Not likely,” he said dryly. “You’ve never been married or had any children,” he repeated.

“Neither,” she said.

“Getting married and having children might change your perspective,” he told her.

“I already told you I’m not doing that.”

“You could change your mind.”

“I can’t. It’s not meant to be. I accept that. My purpose is to do something else,” she said earnestly and stepped closer to him. “I may not be older, more experienced or married, but I can identify need. I want to do something about it. There’s an emptiness in me, and I know the only way I can make it go away is to do this. Is it so bad that I want to make life better for some people? Is it so bad that I don’t want to hoard what I have? That I want to share it instead?”

Her passion and vulnerability tugged at his heart. For someone with so much, she understood the fulfillment in giving. Brock was torn. On one hand, it went against every drop of his Logan blood for Felicity to insist that she was unconcerned about the heritage of her future family. On the other hand, he could see that she was trying to create a different kind of heritage. “Okay, duchess, just for this moment, let’s say I help you give away your money. What are you going to do with the rest of your life?”

“I don’t know. That’s not what is important—” she began.

“That’s where I disagree. This is a mighty big decision, and you have the rest of your life to live with it. And I have the rest of my life to live with aiding and abetting your…” he paused, then finished his thought, “…your insanity or generosity.”

“But—”

“But nothing,” he said, adjusting his hat. “I want you to think about this for a couple of weeks and tell me what you have planned for yourself, how you’re going to live your life. Then, we’ll see.”

Felicity didn’t want to wait. Her goal burned like a coal in her gut. Since Doug had left the country with her money, she’d felt as if she’d taken ten steps backward. “It’s called exploring your options.” Brock leaned closer. “I can tell you’re trying to find a way around what I’m saying, but if you want my integrity, honor and help, then you’re gonna have to do this my way. I have a bad feeling that if I don’t take the reins when you and I go down this road together, then I’ll end up in the ditch.”

Although Brock could tell she wanted to argue, some remnant of sanity must have made her hold her tongue. After he escorted Ms. Moneybags back to the house, he took the truck out to make a late-night check on the cow. She hadn’t dropped. It could happen tomorrow or the next day. One of his neighbor’s bulls had waded through a shared stream and had a field day with his cows. That could mess up the birth weight of the calves, so he had to watch carefully. The weather was still iffy at night. Cattle weren’t the most intelligent animals on the earth and he’d watched a few new moms drop their babies in freezing water. After Felicity had disrupted his evening, he needed some time to himself to clear his head. He took in the wide starry sky and gradually began to feel a glimmer of peace return.

Brock looked out at the north pasture and knew he was where he was supposed to be. The uncomfortable thought struck him, however, that Felicity had no idea where she belonged.

He got into the truck and rode back to the house. He turned out the lights and carefully locked the doors. Since his dad got sick, it had been his job to lock up for the night and make sure the Logans were safe. He climbed the stairs and peeked in on his daughter and son, then went to his room and shut his door.

After his shower, he stood, nude, in the dark inside his bedroom. He had systematically closed and locked the doors to his house to protect his family. During the last several years, he had systematically closed himself off to his needs. He didn’t want to feel. He didn’t want another woman swinging a wrecking ball through his guts. He’d almost convinced himself and everyone he knew that he didn’t have needs anymore.

As he stood alone in his room, however, he remembered the combination of softness and fire in Felicity’s eyes, her stubborn intention to rid herself of her wealth, and, most disconcerting, her belief in him, his character, his integrity.

He remembered her sweet scent and sweeter curves. He’d been bred for honor. She was right about that. But when she’d insisted he wasn’t attracted to her and didn’t want her, the woman was dead wrong.

Even now, though he hadn’t touched her, his body was hard with wanting, with the need to mold her to him and take her, to taste her and take her again. He was alarmingly susceptible to her. A half-hearted flirting remark sent his hormones pumping through his blood like an oil gusher.

It was raging desire. It was raging insanity.

He closed his eyes to the unfamiliar sensations coursing through him and mentally snapped his walls into place. He would not have her. Just as Felicity had concluded she wouldn’t love a man because of the curse of her wealth, Brock knew he would never risk loving another woman because of the Logan Curse. Logans never won at love.

“I’m bored,” Bree said after Felicity finished reading the third book the next morning. The little girl rolled her head from side to side on her pillow. Finding ways to keep Bree occupied was far easier than trying to figure out what to do with the rest of her life. Brock Logan, she’d decided, was honest, honorable and impossible. She rolled her eyes at the assignment he’d given her, then banished it from her mind.

“You must be feeling better,” Felicity said as she searched for another way to entertain Brock’s daughter. She thought back to her own childhood and smiled. “But just to be sure, I think I’m going to give you Marybel’s cure.”

“Who’s Marybel?” Bree stopped moving her head and looked at Felicity curiously.

“She was my very favorite nanny,” Felicity told her, fondly remembering the one person in her life who had made her feel adored. Marybel had applauded when Felicity played “Chopsticks” on the piano and had told her what a pretty girl she was when Felicity wore braces and glasses. When Felicity was sent to boarding school, Marybel had left. She still missed the woman.

“What kind of cure?” Bree demanded.

“Wait right there,” she told her.

“Texans say hold your horses,” Bree corrected.

Felicity chuckled at Bree’s attempts to Texanize her and waved her hand. “Okay, hold your horses or cows,” she said.

“Cattle,” Bree corrected again.

“Exactly,” Felicity agreed and went to the guest room to get a few items from her cosmetic case. Returning to Bree’s room, she lined up five bottles of nail polish on the girl’s bed. “Choose one.”

Bree sat up and brightened at the sight of the different colors. “This is the cure?”

“Manicure, or as Marybel used to say, cure for whatever ails you.”

“I never heard of that.”

Felicity saw her father’s skepticism creep into Bree’s eyes. “Then it’s time you did. Whether you’re heartsick or body-sick, a cure just helps you feel better.” Felicity thought about her recent disaster with Douglas. “Although if there’s a man involved, you might need a day at the spa. Choose one,” Felicity said again.