The Case of the Missing Secretary

by Diana Palmer

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” he murmured thoughtfully, glancing at his brood. “Another captive! Bring her in, boys, and we’ll build a nice, warm fire.”

  The last thing Kit saw before she hit the floor was the surprise that momentarily softened those fierce features.

  Chapter Three

  Kit opened her eyes and there was that lean, dark face again. White teeth gleamed in it. Green eyes glittered humorously in it.

  “Welcome back,” a deep voice said.

  “You can’t burn me at the stake,” Kit said in a rush.

  “Beg pardon?”

  “Move, Emmett,” an elderly voice said stridently. “Don’t be absurd, Kit,” Tansy Deverell chuckled, “of course he isn’t going to burn you at the stake. I tell you, Emmett, these children are even worse than you were at their ages! You’ve got to do something about them!”

  “You want us to go away, don’t you?” Guy asked belligerently. “Well, we won’t! This is our house, and we can stay here if we want. Tell her, Dad.”

  “I can’t argue with the boy. Look, he’s armed,” Emmett said reasonably, gesturing toward the bow Guy was holding.

  “You’re his father!” Tansy raged.

  Emmett frowned and looked at Guy and then at Polk and finally at Amy. “That’s what their mother said.” He sighed. “I guess they do look like me. Lady, are you all right?” he asked, remembering Kit, who was sitting up dizzily.

  “Yes, I’m just getting over the shock. It isn’t every day you get captured by a band of Indians and threatened with the stake.”

  “Aw, gee, lady, we wouldn’t have burned you,” Polk said. “It’s a lot of work to cut that much wood.”

  Kit stared at him blankly.

  “Why did you faint?” Tansy asked curtly, her blue eyes somber in a lovely complexion that hadn’t aged, with a frame of beautifully groomed silver hair. “Has my son gotten you in trouble?” she added angrily.

  “I’m not pregnant,” Kit muttered. “And if I was, it would make biological history. Your son is much too busy getting himself married to one of the world’s prime gold diggers.”

  “Yes, I know,” Tansy said wistfully. “He wouldn’t listen to me, either. I’m sorry he fired you, Kit. He’ll be sorry, too.”

  “No, he won’t. He replaced me.” She grinned at Tansy. “It only took him three women to do it. One can do payroll and filing, but she carries an electric weapon and smokes like a furnace. One can spell, but she’s trying to seduce him. And the third one could do all three if she wasn’t scared to death of him. She’s nice.”

  “That would be Melody,” Tansy said, and bit her tongue at the quick, almost violent look Emmett gave her.

  “Melody?” he asked slowly. “Melody Cartman?”

  “Yes, that’s her name,” Kit said, too shaken to notice the undercurrents. “If the smoke doesn’t kill her, she might work out to be his right hand someday.”

  “I hate cigarettes,” Tansy said with a pointed look at Emmett.

  “Cigarettes are a curse,” he agreed. Then he shrugged off his bad mood, grinned, pulled one out of his pocket and lit it, daring the onlookers to say a word.

  “Okay, Dad. You asked for it,” Guy muttered. He whipped around to his back, pulled a water pistol and quickly extinguished the glowing tip.

  Emmett stared at it with a forlorn sigh and dropped it. “Damn. That was my last one.”

  “And don’t try that again, partner,” Guy said firmly, twirling the water pistol back into his pocket while his siblings applauded loudly. He grinned at Kit. “Hey, lady, want to come hunting rabbits with us?”

  “No, thanks, I feel a bit endangered right now.”

  “We wouldn’t have a post to tie you to out in the brush,” Polk argued.

  “But there’s the brush itself,” Amy mused. “It’s very dry, and I got one of Emmett’s old lighters….”

  “Will you stop calling me Emmett?” he muttered at his child. “I’m your father. Show a little respect.”

  “Yes, Emmett,” Amy said politely, pulling the lighter out of her pocket.

  She flashed it and Emmett grabbed it. “Not anymore, you don’t,” he said. “Scat, you varmints! And don’t bring back any rattlers this time!”

  They scampered out, giggling and murmuring among themselves while Kit caught her breath.

  “Nobody in the family ever comes here,” Tansy said as she and Emmett helped Kit up. “Can you guess why?” she added with a pointed glare at Emmett.

  “I could probably make a stab at it,” Kit mused.

  “He’s spoiled them rotten. They don’t do anything they don’t want to. The only exception he made was school. He insisted that they get educated.”

  “So I won’t have to support them for the rest of my life,” Emmett explained. He looked down at Kit and measured her with his glittering green eyes. “How do you feel about brief engagements? We could get married right after lunch.”

  Kit stared at him. “What?”

  “I guess you’re one of those girls who believe in long engagements, aren’t you? Okay. We can wait until tomorrow to get married, then.”

  “He does this all the time,” Tansy said sadly, shaking her head. “Pay him no attention.”

  “That’s the trouble, nobody does!” Emmett said in exasperation, throwing up his hands. “I’ve been turned down five times in one month.” He narrowed one eye, and glanced at Kit. “Maybe my luck’s changing, though. You’re not bad on the eyes and you can type. You could handle those kids and help me out in the office, too. We could be a ranching family. Think of it,” he said with a gleam in his eyes, “we could found a dynasty here. Several more kids and a few good bulls…”

  “Wait a minute, please,” Kit said, putting out a hand. “I have just avoided becoming a human sacrifice once today. You really will have to seek a soul mate elsewhere. I have it in mind to become the female Charlie Chan.”

  “Another private eye.” He shook his head. “What is it with you women and trench coats? We had a female private eye down here just a couple of months ago, looking for a missing woman.” He glanced toward the door. “Those kids again. They nabbed her at a rest stop and tied her to a tree. Good thing the fire attracted attention from the highway.”

  Kit didn’t dare ask any more. She simply stood and stared at him as if she doubted his sanity and her own. “Do you often send your children out to hijack prospective brides, Mr. Deverell?”

  “They won’t go at all if I don’t pay them, the mercenary little devils,” he told her outrageously. “They say I’m too cheap to get a really good woman. I don’t know, though, you’re pretty easy on the eyes. How about it? I’ve got all my own teeth.” He grinned to show them.

  “Thank you, but I don’t want to marry you.”

  “Of course not. You don’t know me yet. I’ll court you over barbecued ribs.” He frowned. “You do like barbecue? I simply couldn’t marry a woman who didn’t.”

  She chuckled at the sheer absurdity of it. “Yes, I like barbecue.”

  “You can’t marry her,” Tansy said firmly. “I’ve got her all staked out for my son.”

  “I don’t like Chris that much,” Kit said demurely.

  “You know I wasn’t talking about Chris,” Tansy murmured.

  “He likes the beauteous Betsy,” came the terse reply.

  “Excuse me, but the two of you are talking about Cousin Logan, aren’t you?” Emmett asked. “What’s he gotten himself into this time?”

  Tansy told him while Kit listened.

  Emmett shook his head. “It runs in the family. All us Deverells are fools when it comes to women. Look at me. My ex-wife couldn’t wait to marry me so we could have kids. But when we started having them, she got tired of it, so she ran off with a damned mechanic.” His eyes narrowed with feeling. “Go figure.”

  “Didn’t your wife ever want to come back?” Kit asked.

  He shrugged. “She called a while back, but I lost the telephone number. It’s just as well,” h
e added, for an instant, there was something not at all easygoing in the glint of his green eyes. “She got tired of the kids… God!”

  “There are women in the world who just aren’t cut out for motherhood, Emmett,” Tansy said. “There are others who would love your brood. Or at least there would be, if your horrible reputation didn’t precede you. Nobody will come near the place because of those kids, and you’ve encouraged them in a most unfatherly way to be hooligans.”

  “Straitlaced kids never have any fun, Tansy.” He chuckled. “I know. I was raised in a military academy. It took me years to shake off rules and tradition and start having fun.” His eyes grew wistful. “Do you know, I’ve treed more bars locally than the town drunk?”

  “Your sins will come back to haunt you,” Tansy predicted.

  “Not before I get a mother for those kids,” he said. “They’re going to seed.”

  “You planted them.”

  “I have to work, don’t I?”

  “I wouldn’t call riding in every rodeo from Texas to Montana necessity. You’re breaking every bone in your body one at a time.”

  “It takes money to keep this place going. The plumbing’s half-shot. I’ll have to bone up on my calf-roping.”

  “They’d let you manage old man Ted Regan’s place if you’d ask.”

  “Ted is only five years older than I am. He isn’t even middle-aged.”

  “Everybody calls him old man Regan,” Tansy said. “I don’t know why, except that he’s got prematurely silver hair. Anyway, he’d let you manage his place, but you just won’t.”

  “I don’t want to move to Houston.”

  “Jacobsville,” Tansy corrected.

  “Not much difference. And old Ted’s ranch is so close to Houston that it could be called a suburb. I like San Antonio.”

  “It would be the best thing in the world for the kids,” Tansy coaxed. “Plenty of fresh air, piney woods and green meadows, nice people.”

  “Girls?” he asked, lifting both eyebrows.

  “Nobody is going to marry you until you civilize those children,” Tansy warned.

  “That’s why I’ve got to get married. A man can’t do that kind of job alone,” he said plaintively. “I’m only one person, for God’s sake! They outnumber me three to one!”

  Kit had been listening quietly. This man was a cross between Chris and Logan. She liked him, but there seemed to be a lot more to him under the surface than was visible above it.

  “You could hire a companion,” she began.

  He swept off his white Stetson and held it against his heart, eyes wide and stark. “Lady!” he exclaimed. “I can’t bring that kind of woman into my home!”

  She burst out laughing. “You’re as incorrigible as Chris!”

  “He taught me everything I know,” he agreed. He perched the Stetson back on his head. “Yes, I suppose I could get a nursemaid for the kids, but they’d torture her to death the first night. She’d find a snake in her bed or a spider in her bath, or something even worse. I can’t do that to some poor unsuspecting woman. I do have a housekeeper, though, who is away on sick leave.”

  “There are women who have had survival training,” she said.

  “I don’t want a drill sergeant.”

  “Are you sure? Think of all the fun you’d have, watching her bring them into line,” Tansy suggested.

  He considered that for a minute. “No,” he said finally, shaking his head. “It would break their little hearts.”

  “The way they’re heading, they aren’t going to have hearts for much longer. You’ve got to do something, Emmett!” Tansy said.

  “Not right now. Tell us why you’re here,” Emmett said, turning to Kit.

  “I’ve come to find Tansy.”

  Tansy’s eyes widened. “Logan again!”

  “He worries.”

  “He’s a damned busybody,” Tansy muttered. “My God, I can’t go on a little bitty plane ride without him having me followed and reports filled out on my companions. He’s terrified that I’ll rewrite my will and leave all my money to someone’s terrier.”

  “That’s not true.” Kit chuckled. “He’s afraid you’ll end up married to some twenty-year-old gigolo and kill him with sheer exhaustion.”

  “How flattering,” the older woman said delightedly. “Emmett, do you know any twenty-year-old gigolos we could try?”

  “Shame on you,” he said shortly. “A nice, decent woman like you ought to be ashamed to say a thing like that to me.”

  “I don’t know why not. Last year, you were running around with that rodeo groupie and she was spending you out of bed and board.”

  “She was pretty,” he argued. “But the kids hated her. First time I brought her out here, she was going to go walking with them. I begged her not to, God knows I did.” He shook his head. “Last time I saw her, she was fishtailing her car all over the road trying to get back to the highway, and those damned kids were rolling in the dirt laughing.”

  “What did they do to her?” Kit asked curiously.

  “Damned if I know,” he said. “They never would tell me.”

  “You’re staying the night, aren’t you, Kit?” Tansy asked.

  Kit’s eyes widened. “Well, no!” she stammered. “I’ve got a return ticket late this afternoon for Houston.”

  “No problem,” Emmett said easily. “Hand it over and I’ll get you a flight tomorrow afternoon. I’ll make barbecue and serenade you with my guitar under a romantic Texas moon.”

  “Oh, no, not that. Anything but that!” Tansy wailed.

  “Shut up,” he muttered at her. “I took lessons.”

  “Don’t sing. Trust me,” Tansy said, batting her eyelashes at him.

  He let out an exaggerated sigh. “Another singing career ruined by critics. Well, I’ll play for you, Kit. Kit? What’s it stand for?”

  “I don’t know,” Kit said quietly. She’d never talked about her parents. The subject was much too painful, and the last person she could tell was this wild-eyed Texan. “I didn’t bring a bag….”

  “I’ll loan you one of my pajama jackets,” Emmett offered.

  “You can have one of my gowns, Kit,” Tansy said, elbowing a grinning Emmett out of the way. “Will you stop? Honestly, anyone would think you’d never seen a woman before!”

  “Well, I haven’t,” he argued. “Not like this one. Chris is always ranting about how nice she is, and if you like her, that’s a character reference in itself. She’d make a perfect mother for those kids.”

  “She’s going to marry Logan one day. He just doesn’t know it yet.”

  “I’d tell him fast if I were you, by the sounds of things.”

  “I wouldn’t have Logan on toast!”

  Emmett pursed his lips and made a whistling sound. “That sounds suspiciously like cannibalism. Speaking of cannibalism, did you know that there’s fossilized evidence that Homo erectus was a cannibal and ate his own kind? There are smashed bones and burned bones in late Pleistocene camps….”

  “Go away!” Tansy wailed. “Emmett, don’t start on this poor child. She’s not a prehistoric culture addict like you.”

  “I did a course in anthropology and I did my minor in paleontology,” Emmett confessed. “Dinosaur bones, that sort of thing. Did you know that there’s a fossilized link between birds and lizards? A fellow called archaeopteryx—”

  “Later, later, Emmett. Now what’s this about Betsy?” Tansy persisted.

  Emmett watched them walk toward the living room. He could sure do worse than that sweet young thing. She was only about ten years his junior and the kids had already taken to her. For an instant, he remembered what Tansy had said about Logan’s new secretary, and his blood began to burn. But he forced the thought of Melody away. He wouldn’t have to see her, thank God. He never went near Logan’s office. On the other hand, Kit was right here and he liked her a lot. He started whistling as he went out to feed the horses in the barn….

  “Well, I won’t come meekly h
ome with you and that’s that,” Tansy said at supper.

  “A Christian should be meek,” Amy piped up. She and the boys were cleaned up, but they still looked pretty much alike. With her very short haircut, Amy could have passed for a boy.

  “That’s right,” Kit said, smiling at the child.

  Amy smiled back, and without mischief. “You’re nice. Are you going to marry Emmett? We voted, and it’s okay with us. You’ll have to learn the rules, of course.”

  “Right,” Guy agreed. “Bedtime is at eleven sharp. No card playing on Sunday. When Dad’s got a girl in the living room, no peeking over the back of the sofa, no matter what sort of noises you hear….”

  “Guy!” Emmett exploded.

  “And most of all, if he’s been drinking, don’t get in front of him on account of he might fall on you,” Amy finished.

  Emmett put his hands over his face.

  “You should be ashamed!” Tansy muttered, glancing at him. “Reprobate! You really are the black sheep of the family.”

  “He isn’t black, Aunt Tansy,” Polk said. “He’s dirty. He always looks like that when he’s been in the barn with the horses.”

  Kit had to wipe her mouth suddenly, but over it her eyes twinkled with unholy glee.

  Emmett looked up, and the sight of those very blue eyes in merriment made him feel suddenly younger. He blinked and began to smile.

  Uh-oh, Kit thought. She wiped the smile off. Here was one complication she could do without.

  “You’re fighting it, Kit.” Emmett sighed.

  “I told you, you can’t have her,” Tansy reminded him.

  “There are plenty of women in Houston,” he began.

  “I’ve been working on this one for three years. Eat your barbecue, which is rather good, by the way. Did I ever tell you about the Russian count I met at Maxim’s in Paris the last time I was there?” she added, waxing reminiscent. “He was one of the last of the Romanoffs, and he actually remembered the siege of the Winter Palace.”

  Emmett looked at the barbecue on his fork and began to pale.

  Tansy shot a covert glance at him and continued. “There were fires everywhere. Some of the soldiers were thrown into them….”