Page 84 of The Search

“I know that, dammit.”

“But you’re lucky. You have me flying to your aid even as we speak. I should be landing in San Francisco in a couple of hours. I’ll go check out the plant in Silicon Valley tomorrow, since that’s your largest facility, then Dodsworth. After that I’ll tap my contacts and see if I can get a lead on Rudzak. If that meets with your approval, of course.”

“And if it didn’t, you’d do it anyway.”

“What can I say? So I have an overabundance of initiative. How’s the dog lady?”

“Fine.”

“Do I detect a sour note? That was a distinct growl.”

“I don’t growl.”

“Well, you might come to a better understanding with her if you did. She seems to have an affinity for animals. But I thought you’ve been on friendlier terms lately.”

You are an animal.

Logan’s hand tightened on the phone as Madden’s words to Sarah came back to him. “Just find Rudzak. Fast.”

“I’ll find him.” Galen hung up.

Logan shoved the phone into his pocket, his gaze on the sun setting behind the mountains. He should go in, find Sarah, and smooth over the ripples of discord he had stirred after Madden left. He’d bungled it badly. With Rudzak no longer a continent away, he must not be forced to leave Sarah.

He couldn’t go back in the cabin. Not yet.

Damn Madden. With a few sentences he had blasted through Logan’s composure and shocked him into losing control.

She fucks like a wild animal.

He closed his eyes. “Jesus.” He could feel his body ready again even while fury and jealousy coursed through him.

She’s the only woman I ever screwed who never said no.

What erotic games had she been willing to play?

Get control. This almost painful lust wasn’t natural to him. Sex had always been an exquisite pleasure, not a driving obsession.

It wasn’t obsession. He wouldn’t let it be. He had reacted with instinctive arousal to Madden’s words, but any man would have had the same response.

And as soon as he could get his body in check, he’d go back in the cabin and make Sarah forget that he’d made that slip.

10

“Something’s happening,” Bonnie said. “I don’t like it, Mama.”

Eve glanced away from the skull she was working on to look across the room. Bonnie was curled up at one end of the couch. The little girl was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, as she always was when she appeared to Eve, her red hair wildly curly and her expression radiant and full of life. Eve’s heart leaped with joy.

She quickly looked back at the skull. “Well, hello. I wondered if I was going to see you again.” She changed the tab on the skull to a different depth. “I mean, dream of you again.”

Bonnie chuckled. “Of course that’s what you mean. You never give up, Mama. But someday you’ll admit I’m who I say I am. You’re already halfway there.”

“To the funny farm? No, thank you.”

“You know you’re not crazy. Where are Joe and Jane?”

“They went to a matinee in town. Jane wanted to see some new Matt Damon movie. I had work to do, so I passed on it.” She paused. “But I must have gotten sleepy and stretched out on that couch for a nap. Or you wouldn’t be here.”

Bonnie grinned. “Isn’t it great how much work you got done on that skull while you were sound asleep?”