He wasn’t even sure he should be walking around civilized people instead of locked up in a mental hospital talking about his feelings. He wasn’t relationship material.
Jack joined the men where they stood, still debating the training and prowess of the SEAL teams versus that of the Army Rangers. All three men laughed when Jack opened with: “So, Logan, you know I like you, right?” as his eyes cut across the room to Sam.
Logan shook his head. “Yeah, yeah. I got it. You’ll kill me in new and interesting ways. We’ve covered it. Chad’s most recent plan includes fileting me from head to toe and Andrew promised to bring salt to the party.”
“Hey, I said salt and margaritas,” Andrew said with a grin.
Jack laughed. “I thought we’d take you out on the boat, chum the waters, and see if a SEAL could swim faster than a shark.”
Logan had to grin at the creativity of the men who stood laughing around him. He saw Sam glance toward their group and his smile stilled. What the hell. He might as well be honest with these guys and let them know they had nothing to worry about.
“Listen, Samantha Page may very well be one of the sexiest creatures to walk the earth, but I’m not planning on dating her. You guys don’t have to—” And, that’s where he broke off, because he’d just watched Sam’s eyes go wide and round with surprise, as though she’d understood every word he’d said. Every damn word.
“Jack. Would Samantha by any chance read lips?” Logan didn’t take his eyes off Sam, and she seemed to choke on her drink as he asked the question.
Jack could hardly speak and Andrew and Chad seemed to be completely useless as they laughed at his blunder.
“Sure does,” Jack finally said as Logan continued to stare at a suddenly red-faced Sam, across the room. “Why do you think she sits in on every negotiation I go to? Real handy trick.”
Of course it is.
Chapter 3
Logan knew things probably should have been awkward with Sam for a while after that, but they got over it quickly. They were a little stiff the next time they talked, but she appeared to be happy to ignore his comments from the cocktail party. He was glad to go along with her plan.
Two weeks into his stint at Sutton and he’d managed to avoid leaving the building most days. He brought lunch, and when his team met over lunch, he’d had it catered in with sandwiches from the bakery located in the lobby of the building. Since Jack’s sister-in-law owned the bakery, no one seemed to mind him throwing business her way once or twice a week.
Sam dragged him out to eat at the bagel place a couple more times. They hadn’t ventured any farther than that, and she seemed content to wait on him to ask to go further. Each time, they went well after the lunch rush was over, making it easier on him.
As they had the first day, they stood away from the crowd and away from the intersection as they waited for the light to change. It was the saving grace that allowed him to manage the outing.
He was settling in with his team, getting the new arm of science and technology up and running at Sutton. Of course, a lot of the companies Sutton Capital had funded in the past were related to science and technology in some way. In the past, Jack relied on either the knowledge base of those in the company he was funding or on independent contractors hired for the project to guide him.
With the new team, Jack had chosen people who not only had science or technology in their backgrounds, but who also had either a business background or who had leadership skills that would help the start-ups Sutton dealt with find their way. Logan’s field was communications, but he also had a powerful track record of leadership from his service.
Logan and Sam were working on getting everyone on this new team assigned to work with companies whose industry matched their skill set.
For the most part, that meant Sara Blackburn grabbed anything having to do with electronics, electromagnetics, or engineering; Jax Cutter and Dave Alexander took anything medical; and Kaeden O’Shea took anything else.
Kaeden was a lot like Sam in that his depth and breadth of knowledge was a little mind-numbing. The man was crazy smart and seemed to have a baseline knowledge of about every topic you could throw his way. Enough, at least to assess the merits of a company’s technology or research and help guide that company toward success.
Logan was starting to feel a little more settled into Sutton Capital. And that was in large part due to Sam. Earlier in the week, Chad popped into Logan’s office and signed him into the feed for every security camera in the building. That gave him access to any camera angle he wanted to check on any feed, at any time.
Logan knew having that access would mean he’d be able to take a deep breath during his work day and calm the grating need to check his surroundings. Perimeter checks on a building like this weren’t easy to fit into a workday.
When he asked Chad why he’d given him access, the big man just shrugged. He said Sam thought Logan might want access. Chad didn’t think it was a bad idea to have another set of eyes on the building’s security, and given the high security level Logan had obtained during his military service, Chad felt comfortable with him.
Logan just nodded his thanks and Chad walked away as though it was nothing. But Logan knew he owed Sam. She seemed to know what he needed, at times even better than he knew himself.
A light knock on the door jamb of his office had him looking up into Sam’s grinning face. Speak of the devil.
“How about some Mexican?” Sam held up a bag of takeout.
Logan lifted an eyebrow.
“You know, Mexican food? Remember the restaurant down the street I mentioned?”
Logan laughed as his stomach rumbled in response to her questions.
“That’s yes, right?”
He smiled and nodded, extending one leg under his desk to push at the chair that sat on the opposite side. The chair moved out a few inches in invitation to Sam.
“That’s a yes,” he said, and moved several piles of papers to make room on his desk. Sam opened the takeout containers and shoved a napkin and plasticware across the desk to him.
The sound that came out of Logan’s mouth when he looked at his lunch was half groan and half indefinable gurgle of wordless appreciation.
Hell, this woman could somehow read what he wanted all the time. That fact would have unsettled him more if the smell of a combo plate of enchiladas, chimichangas, and rice and beans smothered in rich sauces and guacamole, hadn’t distracted him.
Logan continued to moan as he scooped oversized bites of the steaming food in his mouth, but stopped to glare at Sam when he heard her laughing at him.
“Sorry.” She raised her hands in front of her as if in apology but the impish grin on her face said she was anything but sorry.
“I like food. What can I say?”
Sam nodded and bent her head over her own food, eating with almost as much enthusiasm as Logan, but when Logan burst out with, “Jessica Rabbit!,” her head popped up in surprise.
“Excuse me?” Sam blinked at him.
“Jessica Rabbit. I’ve been trying to figure out who you remind me of all this time and it just hit me. It’s Jessica Rabbit. I mean, your hair is black not red, but other than that—” He broke off as if he was making all kinds of sense and she should be able to understand what he was saying.