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needed a reprieve from all the empty spaces where Alice was supposed to be. She was antsy for human contact, no matter how unsettling. Though she obviously couldn’t afford a lot of one-on-one exposure with Logan, she couldn’t deny she wanted to find out more about the man Alice had said she could trust.
    “You’re no trouble. Though I expect if you chose to be, you’d be the kind of trouble that a certain type of man would relish.”
    Okay, time to start putting him off balance before she teetered right off this seesaw. She cleared her throat. “Were you and my sister ever . . .”
    Given that everything coming out of his mouth was like a shovel thrust into the bottom of her emotional well, flinging muck out over the top, it seemed a little pointless to be tactful, but she found she couldn’t say it outright. Fortunately, he understood what she meant.
    “No. Her interests lay elsewhere, as did mine.” His gaze did that sharpening thing again, spearing the fluttery place beneath her rib cage.
    “I think we should choose another subject for now.” Though she really had no idea what subject they were talking about, her instincts told her the topic was fraught with peril. “You said you were training Troy. Does he work at another store?”
    “No. I’m a training Master at the local dungeon. Being under my tutelage is a requirement of his Mistress.”
    Bull’s-eye, direct arrow. She’d been right about the fraught-with-peril thing. It took a Herculean effort not to leap all the way back to the door, the way she had the day she almost stepped on a snake sunning on the top step of their family’s back deck. His gaze remained on hers, steady. He was waiting for her reaction, like a damn scientist studying a hapless rat in a glass box. On top of that, he’d done it right in the middle of the mainstream public.
    She stole a flustered glance around the store. A couple of men, apparently contractors, seemed engrossed with selecting parts down one aisle, while a pair of women were having pie and coffee over in the refreshments area. None of them seemed to be staring, but then, maybe it only seemed to her like a herald bellowing an announcement in the public square. In fact, only one person other than herself seemed to have picked up on the discussion.
    “Those nails aren’t going to stock themselves, Troy,” Logan said. “You’re not part of this conversation.”
    As he spoke, Logan never shifted his attention from her face. Yet despite the apparent mildness of the comment, the undercurrent had the effect of a cattle prod. “No sir,” Troy said immediately. In her peripheral vision, she saw him busy himself with the stock, acting as if he’d donned supersonic noise-canceling headphones.
    Logan’s tone of command affected Madison as well, holding her in place like a hooked fish. But hearing he was a training Master brought forth another memory, something that hurt. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s not real to him.
    “It’s all right,” he said quietly. “I wasn’t trying to shock you.”
    She knew that. She was well attuned to people trying to manipulate her emotions, and he wasn’t setting off that alarm. Alice might have told Logan about Madison’s cravings, but it didn’t mean he was privy to her sister’s posthumous plottings. Alice was gone and Madison could set him straight about all that, right here, right now.
    She summoned a hard smile. “Sorry. You took me by surprise. This is still new to me. I’m not as knowledgeable about these things as Alice was. I don’t have her instincts.”
    “We all have an instinct for Dominance and submission, Madison.” He nodded toward Troy. “But if you’d like to expand your knowledge, you’re welcome to come help me with Troy’s next training session.”
    Very matter-of-fact, and helpful. It made sense, right? With a BDSM section in the store Alice had left her to run, the obvious assumption would be she had at least a business-level comfort with