"Is she pretty?" Tabby asked suspiciously, her dark eyes brooding.
"I never noticed," he said honestly. "She's been crazy about Logan Deverell for years. Now she's breaking the ties, and having a bad time of it. Watching Kit gave me some idea of how it must have been for you, breaking your heart over me," he said solemnly. "You won't ever need to do that again."
"Won't I?" she asked quietly. "You aren't marrying me out of pity, are you, Nick?"
He glanced toward the loading ramp. The first-class passengers were almost through boarding. His group was next. "I have to go. No, I don't pity you." He took a deep breath and went for broke, his eyes staring straight into hers. "I love you, damn it," he said through his teeth. "All right? You finally made me say it. Satisfied?"
Her face began to glow. She could have danced on top of the airplane. "Nick," she whispered, and went into his arms. The kiss she gave him almost made his knees buckle.
"Stop that," he choked, pushing her away. He actually flushed and kept his back to the other passengers while he fought for control.
"Well, well." She beamed knowingly.
He glared at her. "Just don't gloat," he muttered. "I hate women who gloat."
<4I can't help it. I feel dangerous." She made a growling sound in her throat. "Let's make love on the floor."
He actually moaned. "I'm going back to Houston. I'm leaving right now!" He picked up his bag, carrying it strategically. “I’ll expect you day after tomorrow."
"Oh, I'll be there," she said, peeking up at him demurely. "I bought this black lace nightgown. It's see-through..."
He kissed her quickly and ran for it.
"Coward!" she called after him.
He grinned over his shoulder as he sprinted down the loading ramp. Then he was out of sight and Tabby was hugging his revelation to her like a teddy bear. Her feet barely touched the ground all the way back to the car.
Chapter Eleven
What seemed like a hundred years later—but actually only three days after Nick flew back to Houston—Nick and Tabby became man and wife in a small, intimate ceremony at the local Presbyterian church in Houston.
Tess and Dane, Helen and Harold, and the rest of the staff were there for the occasion. Kit Morris came with Tess. She still looked drawn and pale, but Nick was very pleased with the way she'd taken to detective work. Her boss's loss was the agency's gain, because she had a sweet personality and a way of talking to people that made them anxious to give her any information she asked for. She had a natural compassion, as well, and a steely inner toughness. He felt sorry for Logan Deverell. The man had set loose a treasure.
After the reception, Kit came up to congratulate her mentor. "I hope you're both going to be so happy," she told Tabby, her blue eyes soft and warm. "Nick's a nice man."
"Thank you," Tabby said, smiling. She looked lovely in her oyster-white wedding dress with its Juliet sleeves and V neckline trimmed with lace. She'd worn a long white veil of illusion lace that Nick had lifted with trembling hands just before he kissed her. It was pushed back over the dainty seed-pearled crown of flowers that held it in place.
She looked lovely. Nick had said so twenty times. Now he said it again.
"Let's go," he said softly. "I'm starving to death."
"There's some cake left," she murmured dryly.
His eyes darkened as they searched hers. "It will take something much sweeter than cake to satisfy this particular hunger. Think you can?"
Her lips parted on a breath of pure excitement. "I don't know," she whispered. "But I'm going to love trying."
His face flushed a little. "Let's go, darling. I want you to myself now."
She clasped his big hand in hers and they said their goodbyes. They were flying down to the Cayman Islands for a honeymoon, but tonight they booked a suite in a local luxury hotel. Nick drove them there and swept her up to their rooms without extricating the luggage.
"My things," she protested when he closed the door.
"Later," he breathed as he drew her to him. His eyes burned into her face. "Much, much later. Right now, you won't need clothes, I promise you."
He eased her out of the beautiful wedding gown, whispering how lovely she looked, how much he loved her, needed her. She let him guide her shy hands to his body and teach her new ways to touch him, to make him even hungrier than he already was.
Minutes later, they twisted feverishly against each other on the coverlet of the bed, both nude, both in anguish from their sobbing need.
She was crying when he moved slowly above her and held her eyes while his hips very tenderly eased down. He possessed her completely in one smooth, delicate motion, and she gasped at the feel of it.
"It isn't...like it was...before," she managed, trembling.
"I love you," he said unsteadily. "Love you to the height of the world, the depth of the oceans. I didn't know how much until these last terrible weeks without you. This," he breathed, moving gently so that she gasped at the power of his need, "is how much I need you—!"
His voice broke. His mouth covered hers and he groaned as her hands slid hungrily down his back to the base of his spine. He moved, and she moved with him, in a rhythm that was terrible in its slow, sweet intensity. She sobbed, clung, as they drifted into realms they'd never touched before. It was so slow that she began to cry out as she tried to get closer to him and knew that she could never get as close as she wanted, needed, to get...!
She cried out, her voice throbbing in time with his as the deep, tearing spasms caught them both. He stilled, but his body didn't, couldn't. He shuddered and his voice broke on her name as he gave in to the red waves that scalded him.
Tabby cried for a long time afterward. She wouldn't let him go, cradling him to her, savoring the heat and dampness and even the weight of his powerful body in the aftermath.
"I thought I might die," she whispered unsteadily, staring over his shoulder at the ceiling.
"Now you know why the French call it the little death," he said quietly. He lifted his head, searching her wide eyes. He kissed her eyelids, rubbing the tip of his tongue against the spiky wetness of her thick dark lashes. 'This is profound," he whispered. "I never realized that it could be like this with someone."
She opened her eyes. "You were experienced," she began, surprised.
"I never loved anyone until now," he said simply. "With you, it's...more spiritual than physical. I loved you. You loved me. It was a physical expression of something intangible." He touched her face in wonder. "I remember thinking I was going to die trying to get closer to you. Even...that close...wasn't enough."
"Yes," she said, her face mirroring her own awe. "I know."
He drew in a breath and laughed unsteadily. "And this is only the beginning," he said, shivering.
He was afraid! She read that in his face. She touched him gently. "It's all right," she said softly. "I'll never leave you. I'll love you until I die."
He stiffened and his face went taut. And then she knew.
She reached up and kissed him, kissed his eyelids, his cheeks, his nose, his chin. She kissed his mouth with soft reassurance. "I'm not going to do anything foolhardy and get myself shot, you know, she whispered.
He made a sound that barely registered, and his arms became bruising, painful as he held her with something bordering on desperation. "If I lose you, I'll die," he choked.
"Oh, my darling, you're not going to lose me!" she cried, her body trembling as she realized just how deeply he did care for her. "Never, never...Nick, love me...!"
She kissed him, moving her hips under him, arousing him to a sudden, violent frenzy. He lost control and took her with such raging need that she found her satisfaction almost at once, and then again and again until his powerful body shuddered into completion.
He cursed viciously as he convulsed, his neck corded, his body lifted above hers so that she could watch him. He felt her eyes and then he went actually unconscious for a space of seconds in a blackness of tearing, unbearabl
e pleasure.
She was bending over him, concerned. "Nick?" she whispered worriedly, touching his face with hands that trembled. "Oh, Nick, darling, are you all right?"
His eyes opened. His face was very pale, his body trembling with the strain it had been under. "I tried not to feel like this," he whispered.
"Yes. I know." She bent and smiled as she kissed his eyelids, his mouth. "I love you so much," she choked, her voice full of tears. "I was dying because you didn't want me...!"
He groaned and pulled her down to him, kissing her with feverish emotion. "I love you. I always did. But I was so afraid. You see how it is now, don't you?" he asked bitterly, laughing at his own helplessness. "I let you watch me, because I wanted you to have it all. I'd do anything for you. God, you own me now!"
He seemed shattered by the knowledge that he was helpless when he was with her, as if it made him feel less than a man. She couldn't have that.
She laid her cheek on his chest. "When you're rested," she whispered, "we'll do that again. And this time, you can watch me. Maybe if you see that I'm as totally at your mercy as you just were at mine, you'll realize that what we feel for each other is mutual. There's nothing shameful about it, nothing demeaning." She smiled. "Nick, love is like that. It overpowers, owns. But I can't gloat. I'm only happy that you care so much. I'll never, never make you sorry that you do. I promise."
He began to breathe normally, his moment of weakness slowly passing. He stroked her long hair softly and his body began to relax. "Is it like that for you?" he asked softly. "Do you come close to unconsciousness when I satisfy you?"
"Of course!" She lifted her head and looked down at him curiously. "Didn't you realize?"
"I haven't been able to watch you," he said quietly. "I was too far gone."
She smiled. "Next time, then," she whispered.
His eyes softened. "If I can control myself that long," he said with black humor.
"We've got all our lives," she told him. "All the rest of our lives to feel and share and love and be together. Risk everything, Nick," she whispered. "That's the only way to really love."
"Yes," he replied, and his eyes kindled. "I suppose it is." He searched her face. His lean hands caught her bare waist and lifted her to lie on him. "I've been running. If I let myself care, I knew it would be like it just was. I'd be helpless in my need, in my love, and if I lost you..." He took a deep breath. "Maybe Lucy's death affected me in ways I didn't realize. But I think I'm getting it all back in perspective. There are no guarantees. Only love. And we have that. My God, we have it!" he said fervently.
"Forever and ever," she sighed, and bent to kiss him again.
He pulled the coverlet over them partially and closed his eyes. He was committed now. It didn't feel so bad. In fact, he thought, looking down at Tabby's sleeping face, it felt like heaven. He closed his own eyes and let himself drift. Funny, he thought as he drifted off, that captivity and freedom suddenly felt the same. When he woke up, he'd have to puzzle that out. Right now, he was living a dream and he didn't want it to end a minute too soon. His arms contracted gently around his wife, and he smiled in his sleep.
END
3 The Case of the Missing Secretary (08-1992)
With love to SPG Tracy Adams 4th MMC, 13th COSCOM—please write!
Chapter One
Kit Morris was just barely lucid as she stormed into the Lassiter Detective Agency, her short black hair falling in wet strings around her face, her blue eyes huge and red-rimmed. Her tall, slender figure was clad in a gray suit that had been immaculate just that morning, paired with a soft white blouse and an extravagant silk blue-patterned scarf. Now, the whole outfit was a dripping mess—like Kit's nerves.
It was Tess Lassiter's day substituting for her husband Dane's receptionist, so she was the first person Kit saw when she dragged into the office. Kit and Tess had been best friends for years, long before Tess married Dane Lassiter, who'd been Tess's boss at the time. Kit and Tess had a lot in common. Not that Kit had a single bald chance of ever marrying her boss. Her ex- boss, that was. At the moment, Kit would much rather stand him up against a mesquite tree and put a fountain pen through his black heart than walk down the aisle with him.
"What happened to you?" Tess exclaimed. "My goodness, Kit, you look terrible!"
"Of course I look terrible! He put me out of the car on Travis Street!"
"That's five blocks from here," Tess mumbled. "He who?"
"Can't you guess?" Kit wailed. "It was him! My boss! My ex-boss," she corrected furiously, shaking her head to get the hair out of her eyes. "He...he hijacked me from the public safety department where I was getting my driver's license renewed!" she exclaimed.
"He hijacked you?" Tess had to smother a laugh.
"Yes! I didn't want to go with him, but he picked me up and carried me out to the car. And in front of all those people," she groaned. "I didn't even get my license fee paid! I'll have to go back again and stand in line for another hour!"
"Oh, Kit," Tess began sympathetically.
"I resigned two weeks ago, after all! I don't work for him anymore! He can't talk to me like that!"
"Like what?" Tess asked soothingly, trying to calm her best friend.
Kit's eyes blazed like blue flames. "All these years I've slaved for him." She choked. "Taking his dictation, following him around the world, withstanding his disgusting temper...and he has the gall...the gall to say that I'm not worth the salary he used to pay me! As if it was a king's ransom or something. Can you imagine?"
"Mr. Deverell said that?"
“Logan Deverell is a tyrant and a beast.” Kit fumed. “The lowest of the low. A worm! No." She caught herself. "Pond scum! That's what he is, only much, much lower...."
"Did you do something?" Tess probed gently.
"Not since I told him about his new conquest, right before I quit," she muttered, trying to hide her feeling of heartbreak. Logan Deverell's new woman was why Kit had quit her job in the first place. "He's serious about her, you know."
"But why did he nab you?"
Kit threw up her graceful hands. "Who knows? Anyway, he tried to coax me into coming back and I told him I wouldn't. He practically jumped down my throat with both feet. He's never used language like that to me, and he said that I was worthless as a secretary and he didn't know why he was willing to hire me again."
Tess wanted to get up and put her arms around the taller woman and coax her to cry. But Kit was stubborn, even in grief. She held her chin high, struggling to maintain her dignity. Tess couldn't undermine her strength.
She could only imagine how her friend was hurting. Kit had been in love with Logan Deverell for years. The silly man never noticed her, except as a piece of office furniture.
"Why was he offering you your old job back?" Tess asked.
"I don't know. We started arguing before he got around to telling me. He was raging like a madman. I didn't even think, I just got out of the car and left."
"He put you out in the rain?" Tess groaned. "How could he!"
"He didn't put me out as much as I jumped out," Kit confessed. "The stupid blind man! I love him so!" Kit choked. Her heart felt as if it were something brittle that had just been smacked with a bat. She was coming unglued. "If only I were blond and stacked!"
"Who is this woman he's seeing?" Tess asked.
"Betsy Corley," she said huskily.
"I don't know her."
"I do. At least, I know of her. At one time I was good friends with the man in my apartment building that she took for everything he had." Kit took a steadying breath. "Logan is determined to marry her," she said and laughed hoarsely.
"Oh, Kit," Tess groaned sympathetically.
"At least I have a job, thanks to you and Dane," she said miserably. "I've burned all my bridges...."
"Well, in that case, it's a good thing we're making a detective out of you," Dane Lassiter murmured dryly. He joined the two women, slipping an arm around his wife. He smiled at her before his d
ark eyes went back to Kit. "We're glad to have you now that Helen's gone to South America where Harold's next job is. He's in the construction business with his father, you remember. And Helen's brother, Nick, is moving back to Washington so that his new wife can keep her tenure at Thorn College. He's starting up his own agency. I'll be two operatives short. That means I've still got to hire another agent. I'm glad you haven't been tempted to go back to your old boss."
'I'd be more tempted to step into a lion's mouth than I would to work for Logan Deverell again," Kit murmured dryly, hiding her pain. "I hope you know how much I appreciate your giving me a chance here." She pushed back her hair again and brushed at the moisture on her suit. It wasn't as wet as she'd first thought, and seemed to be drying slowly.
"We both do," Dane told her, smiling. "But you've been quite a surprise, you know. If there are such things as natural born detectives, then I think you're one of them. You've taken to the job like a duck takes to swimming."
She brightened. "You really think so?"
"I do."
Kit managed a smile. "Actually I always used to think I'd make a good detective, because I love poking my nose into things that don't concern me." She sighed. "You really did save my life by hiring me," she persisted. "I didn't have my rent payment. After I stormed out of the office the day I quit, I can't expect Mr. Deverell to send my severance pay after me. I didn't even work a week's notice."
“I hardly think Logan Deverell will do you out of your severance pay, regardless," Dane murmured dryly. "He's not a vindictive man."
"If you'd seen him ten minutes ago..." Kit muttered.
Dane cocked an eyebrow as he peered past her. "On second thought," he mused, "perhaps he is—"
Before he got the words out, the door flew open and a tall, big dark man in a gray raincoat stormed in.
"I've searched the whole damned city for you," he grumbled, his deep voice like muted thunder in the office as he glared at Kit. "You little fool, you could have been killed, jumping out of a car in the middle of traffic like that! Where in hell have you been?"
Books By Diana Palmer Page 125
