The Case of the Missing Secretary Page 6

  “My housekeeper,” Emmett said. “The only woman west of the Pecos who isn’t terrified of those kids.”

  “She had to have some minor surgery, but she’ll be back tomorrow. Come on, son,” Tansy coaxed. “You could use a day off. Besides, it’s too late to go home and try to get anything done.”

  He didn’t want to admit how much he wanted to stay. The way he felt about Kit was changing by the minute. He didn’t want to leave her.

  “You stay, too, Kit,” Tansy commanded. “It’s too late for you to go now, anyway.”

  “But I have my ticket…”

  “You can use it tomorrow,” Emmett coaxed, smiling at her. “I’ll take you to a concert. Our local symphony has several this time of year. How do you fancy Aaron Copland?”

  “Fanfare for the Common Man!” Kit said enthusiastically. “Oh, I’d love to go and hear some of his music!”

  Logan was mildly surprised. The topic of music in any personal way hadn’t come up since Kit had started working for him three years ago. He had no idea she liked Copland. So did he.

  “How about Stravinsky?” he asked. “His work is largely of an experimental nature. A lot of people don’t care for it.”

  “I like it,” Kit said.

  “So do I,” Emmett seconded. “I think The Firebird is a tribute to his ability as a composer.” He hesitated. “Let me make a couple of telephone calls. There’s a special charity concert being given by a visiting orchestra, and I think they might include Stravinsky in their program. Let me find out.”

  He came back shaking his head. “Wrong night, I’m afraid,” he said ruefully. “But there’s a Mexican folk group in the city. Want to go see a Mexican ballet?”

  “What about the children?” Kit asked.

  “They like concerts and music of any sort,” Emmett said. “They’ll sit like mice. You wouldn’t recognize them properly dressed and behaved.”

  “I certainly wouldn’t.” Tansy sniffed.

  “That’s because they used my flexible ropes to tie her to the bed the first night she got here,” Emmett explained. “She taught them some new adjectives.”

  “You, too,” Tansy chuckled. Her eyes twinkled. “It’s so alive here, Kit. You really ought to marry Emmett. You’d never be bored.”

  “Not until the kids got grown, at least,” he added. “Be a sport. Two little words—I do.”

  “I’m not that much of a sport, thanks just the same.” She laughed. “I don’t want to get married for years yet.”

  “It’s a shame to wait for something that may never happen,” Tansy said gently.

  Kit’s eyes were eloquent as she begged Tansy not to give away to Logan how she felt.

  “All right,” the elderly woman said, laughing softly. “I’ll quit playing matchmaker. I would like to point out, though, that I have a perfectly marriageable son who thinks you’re wonderful….”

  “I have never said…!” Logan began fiercely, color burning along his high cheekbones.

  “Chris, my dear, Chris, not you,” Tansy scoffed. “You’ve already announced to all and sundry that you can’t wait to talk the beauteous Betsy into letting you support her for life in the manner to which she’d like to become accustomed.”

  “Betsy has money of her own,” Logan said shortly.

  “Indeed she does,” Kit said, burning inside at the injustice of it.

  “If you have something to say, Morris, spit it out,” Logan challenged.

  “Very well, I will.” She threw down her napkin and got to her feet. “Your beautiful blonde spider caused my nice old neighbor to kill himself over a stupid lottery ticket. He killed himself because she played him for a fool and got him to sign over every penny he had to her! That’s why she’s got money, Mr. Deverell. That’s how she’ll get yours, too,” she added huskily. “She’ll wind you around her little finger and promise you that lovely body. But you won’t get it until she’s got your name on a legal document of some sort. And then you still won’t get it. But she’ll have you. Drawn and quartered and bled to death, she’ll have you.”

  She turned and left the room. The closed expression on Logan’s broad, dark face had told her that he wasn’t buying a word of it.

  You simply couldn’t talk to a stone wall.

  Emmett caught up with her outside a few minutes later. He was smoking a cigarette and looking all around.

  “It looks safe enough right here,” he said, shoving his free hand into his jeans pocket. Under the wide brim of his hat, he was smiling as he joined her in the middle of the path that led into the distant pastures. The cool, dull brown horizon stretched out forever, a reminder that winter was almost here. “I have to pick times and places to smoke,” he added ruefully. “Those kids have radar and smoke detectors and water guns in every shape and size. I guess they’re right. I really should quit.”

  “It doesn’t do your lungs much good, I suppose,” she said.

  “Mine or anyone else’s. I don’t smoke in closed rooms. It’s too dangerous for bystanders.” He flicked off an ash. “Funny, you know, the Indians used tobacco for hundreds of years, but they used it mostly for ceremonial purposes. Same thing with peyote. Mostly those substances weren’t abused because they considered it sacrilege. Our culture abuses damned near everything.”

  “Especially natural resources.” She turned and looked up at him. He seemed different when he wasn’t pretending to be something he really wasn’t. He looked somber and quiet and very, very masculine. If it hadn’t been for the way she felt about Logan, she could have found herself falling all over this man.

  “Did I put my nose on upside down again?” he asked with a cynically cocked eyebrow.

  She laughed. “No. I was just thinking that you’re many-faceted. I don’t think I’ve seen the real you yet.”

  He shrugged. “Most people are pretty complex.” He studied her face for a long moment. “You’re without guile, aren’t you? You have an honest, open face. I’ll bet you return quarters you find on restaurant floors and obey parking signs and never tell lies.”

  “I try not to,” she corrected. “I was raised not to cheat.”

  Her face closed up as she got the words out, and he saw her reaction.

  “You tense when you get close to the subject of your parents.”

  “Do I? How big is this ranch?”

  He hesitated, but only for a minute. He smiled and proceeded to describe the size and operation of the ranch for her, until a perplexed and irritated Logan came out to join them. He’d made all the necessary telephone calls, and he was still seething at Betsy’s spitting fury because he hadn’t phoned her sooner. He didn’t like aggressive, snarling women. He respected intelligence, but Betsy had displayed cold, icy self-interest. Even through his physical infatuation for the woman, he recognized that.

  “Do you know where the children are?” Kit asked suddenly. “Should I go look for them?”

  “You’ll find them in the barn with the new kittens,” Emmett said. “That’s where they usually are these days. Pretty little things, all different colors and all with long fur and blue eyes. Old Walt wanted to get rid of them, but we’ve got mice in the barn, so I figured they might as well stay.”

  He had a warmth about him that probably drew women like flies, Kit thought. She’d never had warmth from Logan, not even the two or three times she’d had flu or a virus since she’d worked for him. It was never “poor Kit.” Rather, it was “when the hell are you coming back?”

  “I’ll go with you to look for them,” Logan said, smoothly interposing himself between Kit and Emmett. “Sorry you’re too busy to come with us,” he said with a smile at his cousin. “But I know how it is.”

  “Not yet, you don’t,” Emmett said enigmatically, with a gleam in his eyes. “But you’ll find out. How about that ballet?” he asked.

  Kit hesitated. “I really don’t feel quite up to it, but thanks anyway. Maybe Tansy and Logan…?”

  “Not me,” Logan replied.

  �
�Oh, well, maybe next trip,” Emmett said. He winked at Kit. “If you married me, we could go to all sorts of cultural events.”

  “Right now, we’re going to look at kittens and kids, thanks,” Logan told him, taking Kit’s arm. “Come along.”

  “Okay, I get the picture,” Emmett said. He tipped his hat at Kit and strode away, whistling.

  “I don’t want to go anywhere with you,” Kit snarled at Logan.

  He let go of her arm and linked his big hands behind him to study her. He was wearing a long-sleeved white shirt and tie with his dark gray suit slacks. The shirtsleeves were rolled up to the elbow and he was wearing boots instead of street shoes. His dark, thick black hair was windblown and it gave his broad face an untamed appearance. Against the sky, he looked as if he were part of the history of the place.

  “Who were your ancestors?” she asked unexpectedly.

  “One of them was a lieutenant under Santa Ana,” he mused, smiling at her shock. “You did know that the enemy troops sometimes raped and pillaged in the local communities? One of my ancestors was unfortunate enough to be in a house alone when they marched through. Along with the Mexican blood, I’ve got some very upper-crust French and British.”

  It was a reminder that his background was much more monied than her own. She averted her eyes as they walked. “You’re very dark.”

  “Most of that is from the sun. I spend a lot of time in the Mediterranean.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  He followed her toward the barn. It was warm for a November day. She pulled off her sweater and left her arms bare in the white shirt she was wearing with off-white jeans and boots.

  “You look pretty Western today,” he remarked. “Didn’t you live on a ranch once?”

  She winced. “A long time ago. Look, there are the children…!”

  He caught her arm and swung her back to face him.

  “Your parents divorced, didn’t they?” he said quietly.

  He knew. She’d never been quite sure where he found out, or who had told him. She did know that her job required a thorough background check, and that he’d had one done before Dane’s detective agency even opened for business.

  Whoever had searched around in her record had certainly hit pay dirt. She didn’t even bother to deny it. His eyes told her there was no point.

  “It was a very messy divorce,” she said, averting her eyes. “They were arguing all the time. I don’t like to remember those days. They both remarried after the divorce, but they only had a few years with their new spouses. Both my parents are dead now.”

  He pulled her into his big arms. She was warm and soft and vulnerable, and he loved the feeling it gave him to comfort her. That should have warned him that his emotions were teetering on the edge, but it didn’t.

  “Here, now,” he muttered. He drew out a handkerchief and dabbed at her red, wet eyes with it. “Blow.”

  She did, hiccuping at the same time. “I never cry.”

  “I know. Not even when I yell.”

  He wiped the rest of her face and pressed the handkerchief into her hand. “Keep it. I’ve got dozens. Tansy has them hidden in every other drawer in my house. She thinks a man should have an endless supply.”

  “Why do you always call her Tansy instead of Mother?” she asked curiously.

  “She doesn’t seem old enough to be my mother at times,” he replied with a wistful smile. “She’s unique. Not that she doesn’t worry me out of my damned mind just by being unique.”

  “Not every woman her age would try sailboarding.”

  “This is true.” He pushed back the disheveled hair from her eyebrows. “You have skin like milk, Kit,” he said, sketching her cheekbones. “It’s almost transparent.”

  She flushed. “My mother…my mother had skin like that.”

  “Did she? Your people were ranchers, weren’t they?”

  “Yes. From over around El Paso,” she said wearily. “Poor farmers. I come from a long line of poor people.”

  “Wealth or the lack of it never made character, Kit,” he replied.

  “It opens and closes doors, though.”

  He didn’t argue. “I know the memories won’t ever fade completely,” he said. “But surely you’re doing yourself no favors by burying them so deeply.”

  “It seemed best.”

  “I suppose so. Feel better now?”

  “Yes. Thank you, Mr. Deverell.”

  He sighed. “Kit, after three years, don’t you think you could manage to call me Logan?”

  She searched his dark eyes in a long silence.

  “Surely we know each other well enough,” he persisted. He touched her lower lip, startled by its softness, its warmth and fullness. He couldn’t seem to drag his eyes away from it. As he watched, her lips parted and his breath lingered in the very back of his throat.

  His blood began to pound in his veins. His hands settled on her waist and drew her to him. There was nothing in his eyes except her mouth and even as he bent toward it, he knew he was going to regret this for the rest of his life.

  “There’s Betsy,” she croaked defensively, pressing her hands flat against his broad, hard chest.

  “Damn Betsy,” he bit off against her soft mouth.

  Chapter Five

  Kit froze, but only for an instant. The reality of Logan’s hard, expert mouth on her lips was all of heaven. She closed her eyes and felt as if her body was on fire from head to toe. He knew what to do with a woman’s mouth, she thought dizzily, pressing closer. He knew exactly what to do!

  Years of anguished longing, and it was happening. It was actually happening! These were Logan’s arms enveloping her, this was Logan’s mouth grinding so hungrily against her own.

  She knew she’d live on this memory for the rest of her life. Her body lifted closer to his, and she moaned. The pressure of his mouth lessened and he began to tease and softly probe her lips, breaking through any defenses she might have had left, demanding surrender.

  She gave it willingly. Her mouth opened to his penetration. She leaned into his big, powerful body and let him bring her so close that she could feel the corded muscles of his thighs, the flatness of his belly, the warmth of his broad chest against her soft breasts as his arms tightened.

  He groaned and she answered him, her body so perfectly attuned to his that she matched every single movement he made.

  Slowly her arms inched around his waist and she moved helplessly against the muscles of his body. He was against her, around her, sheltering and comforting her. Nothing could ever harm her again.

  His tongue teased lightly into her mouth and then began quite suddenly to stab at it, producing the most intensely private sensations in the lower part of her body.

  She tensed and tried to pull away, but his arms refused to release her. The movements became quicker, rhythmic, deep. She made a sound that she’d never made before and tried to twist upward in his arms, seeking blindly for a contact that would ease the powerful need he was building in her untried body.

  As if he knew what she needed, his hands suddenly dropped to her hips and lifted her into the cradle of his own, bringing her into a contact that shocked even as it aroused.

  She protested under his mouth. He lifted his head and watched her eyes with sensual mastery as his hands contracted, pressing her belly into a most blatant evidence of capability.

  Her eyes shared everything with him: her fear, her vulnerability, her shock, her delight in his masculinity. Everything.

  “Yes,” he whispered gruffly. He nodded and his mouth settled slowly back on her own. She was no longer protesting anything, and his hands were moving her in a lazy rhythm, which produced choked little cries of pleasure.

  When the building tension was more than she could bear, he wrapped his arms around her and all but crushed her, groaning into her mouth as he felt her shiver.

  He was breathing raggedly and his legs were unsteady, as was her whole, soft body. He wanted her. There was a barn nearby, but it was ful
l of kids. There was a house behind them, but it was full of adults. The ground was hard and cold, and very public. He cursed under his breath in anguish and his big body shuddered in response to her need.

  He drew back, his face hard with passion and frustration.

  Kit looked up at him, blazing with needs she hadn’t even known existed. Her legs almost went out from under her, her body throbbed so with unsatisfied desire. “I hate you!” she said, choking. She hit his chest, hard, once, twice, shaking with what she supposed was rage at his presumption and his teasing.

  “Here, it’s all right,” he whispered. His arms enveloped her, leaving a little space between their bodies as he comforted her, stroked her hair and whispered words of soft reassurance.

  Tears ran down her cheeks as she struggled for composure. He felt a tremor in his own body. It had been a near thing. Imagine, he thought, with Kit, of all people!

  His eyes opened and he saw the barn. The doors were closed, thank God, although there was one kid in the loft getting an eyeful. Polk. The quiet one. He darted back when he saw Logan’s head lift.

  “Spying on us, the devils,” he murmured against Kit’s temple.

  “What?” Her soft voice was shaken, beautiful.

  He lifted his head and smiled down at her. “The kids. They’re up in the loft watching us.”

  She blushed. “Oh, my!”

  His eyes kindled as he studied her. She was vulnerable. Now he knew it, but he didn’t know what to do about it. His whole body ached from the heat of hers.

  “You dress like someone who was raised in a convent,” he said quietly. “But you kiss like a wild woman.”

  “Now you know what kind of night school courses I took year before last!” she said sarcastically, pushing at his chest.

  He let her go, watching her try to get herself together. It amazed him that he could knock the logical, very prim Miss Morris off her pins. It delighted him. Betsy was a woman of the world, but this unique little sparrow wasn’t used to men at all. The contrast was surprising. He found that he much preferred teaching Kit to having Betsy tutor him in what pleased her.