Thea Devine by Relentless Passion

never to be uttered by the proud man who was only the employee of the fiercely independent lady publisher. That wall, she realized, would always be between them, that and her own tangible horror of change.
    After an half hour during which they worked silently side by side, she sensed the tautness between them ease, and she thought she had imagined it all. He looked at her no differently than he usually did as he prepared to clean up and dismantle the press. He said no more or less than the usual commonplaces when they finally finishedwiping down the machinery and he began his own cleanup at the backroom sink.
    He left her with his customary goodnight bidding, and she felt mortified that she had thought such things about him at all.
    It had to be because of Logan. She felt edgy, nervy, as if he were hovering in the shadows, ready to pop out at her to test the validity of her protestations. And if he did … Logan was a stranger now, she thought as she locked up behind Jean. She didn’t know this Logan Ramsey at all, and already his challenge had colored how she looked at everything.
    It wasn’t fair.
    She doused the lights in the main office before retiring to the printing room to pump up some water and tackle the cleaning of her own ink-stained hands.
    And there he was, as if she had conjured him up, leaning against the soapstone sink, waiting for her,
sneaking
into her home and her life where she did not want him.
    “Hello, Logan.” She was amazed her voice sounded so even, so calm. “I would have thought you’d have gone home by now.”
    He gave her an amused look. “Now how could you think that, Maggie? I had a lot of business in town today. I even treated myself to dinner at the hotel.”
    “You’re mighty busy for a man who hadn’t been to town in six months or more,” she said tartly. “And I don’t recall you had any business
here
.”
    “I disagree with you there, Maggie. My most important business is here.”
    She made a dismissive movement with her hand. “I won’t listen to this, Logan. You can’t just walk in here and change things around and expect me to fall down in gratitude.”
    “I hardly expected
that
, Maggie. I’ve had vastexperience with how all-fired stubborn you can be.”
    She pivoted away from him abruptly as the double-edged meaning of his words struck her and echoes of the past erupted in her memory. Oh yes, he knew.
    Why on earth would you hang around that Frank Colleran, Maggie? He’s no good
….
    Don’t let him buy out your father, Maggie; he’s up to no good. I don’t care how tired your father is…. Maggie, I’ll help you run the damned thing, but don’t sell out to Frank
….
    Are you going to marry him? Are you sure? Why, Maggie, why?
    She had been so sure about everything—then. She was sure of nothing now.
    “Go back to your ranch, Logan,” she said finally. “There’s nothing for you here.” But she didn’t face him as she said the words; she wasn’t even sure she wanted him to do that.
    “Nonsense, Maggie. I plan to camp out in town until I have you where I want you.”
    He knew those words would do the trick; slowly she wheeled around to face him. “You’ll never get me anywhere I don’t want to be, Logan Ramsey.”
    “I wouldn’t issue such challenges, Maggie. I can be pretty persuasive.”
    His words sent a shudder through her.
    “Persuade someone else then. You want a ranch woman, Logan, not a town woman who’s used to running her own life. You need someone to share your life, not fight it.”
    “Are you going to fight it?”
    He asked the question so gently, and yet she sensed the steely resolution beneath his words. She felt as though he were rubbing her the wrong way deliberately, forcing her to retaliate to his provocative words.
    “I’ll fight it,” she said at last, because he left her noother choice, but she was disconcerted that her unequivocal response did not faze him in the least.
    “Good,” he said. “I expected nothing