The Case of the Missing Secretary

by Diana Palmer

  Logan couldn’t help himself. He chuckled.

  “That’s right, laugh at me,” she blustered. “You always found something about me to make fun of. If it wasn’t my cat, it was a man I dated or something I wore…!”

  “Whatever became of the cat?”

  She shrugged. “He moved to Detroit with a little girl down the street.”

  “Well, I’ll be.”

  “He wasn’t much of a cat, anyway. He ate half my potted plants before he left.”

  He shook his head, still laughing. “You have the most unorthodox lifestyle of anyone I know.”

  “You don’t know me, Mr. Deverell,” she told him flatly. “You never did. I was just a dictating machine with legs.”

  He glanced at her with a raised eyebrow. “Very nice legs, at that. You never bothered to display them at the office.”

  “God forbid that I should be accused of coming on to you,” she taunted.

  “That would have been the joke of the century.” He turned the corner and eased the car into the underground garage at his apartment building. “I always did wonder why you were so nervous of being alone with me.”

  “You were forever yelling at me,” she mumbled. “I wanted to have the door open so I could get a head start running if I had to. And why are we here? I’m not going up to your apartment with you!”

  “You are,” he replied grimly. “I’m not taking you home looking like that!”

  “I left home looking like this!”

  “I hope nobody saw you,” he said curtly. “Or you may not have a home to go to.”

  “I went out the back,” she said involuntarily. “I don’t have anything else to wear….”

  “I’ll loan you a shirt and some jeans.”

  “Yours?” Her eyes imitated pie pans. “Great! Have you got some string so we can tie up the legs…?”

  “Chris’s would probably fit you. You’re about the same build,” he said with exaggerated patience. “I keep a change of clothing for him at the apartment in case he needs it.”

  “Why do you have an apartment and a house?” she asked, and then went scarlet at the look he gave her.

  “Don’t ask embarrassing questions if you don’t want embarrassing answers.”

  “You can count on me, sir.”

  He helped her out of the car and into the elevator, careful to keep her out of sight beside his formidable bulk. Fortunately the hall was empty when they got to his floor. He whisked her into the apartment with an audible sigh of relief.

  “Now, just stay there while I—”

  “Logan, are you finally home?” Betsy called half angrily from the bedroom. “I’ve been waiting for hours! Why didn’t you call— Oh!”

  Betsy was suddenly standing in the doorway of the bedroom, in a pink negligee. At the sight of Kit, her eyes bulged.

  “You!”

  “Hello, again, Betsy dear,” Kit said prettily. “Logan brought me home for companionship, but since you’re here…”

  “Logan, how could you?” Betsy wailed, bursting into mock tears. “How could you?”

  Logan cursed roundly under his breath. He threw off his overcoat. “Get into the shower while I fetch those clothes for you!” he told Kit. “In there, the guest room!”

  He shoved her through the door and closed it with a loud thud. Afterward, there were loud voices and louder voices and thuds and silence and then a vicious slam. Kit got under the shower and used the fragrant soap to clean off her horrid perfume and makeup.

  When she was scrubbed clean, she lifted a thick white robe from the back of the door and slipped into it. It must be Logan’s, she thought. It smelled of the same sexy cologne he favored. She drew it closer while she wondered if she dared open the door. Betsy was probably still out there, waiting to cause an even worse scene.

  Logan would want to get rid of Kit as soon as possible, she was sure, with Betsy waiting for him in all her glory. Kit could have screamed and wept, but it wouldn’t help the situation. Betsy was in possession, and they all knew it. Logan might rescue Kit for old times’ sake, but he wasn’t emotionally involved. She wasn’t stupid enough to mistake concern for love.

  She opened the door and peeked around it. Logan was sitting sprawled in an easy chair, his jacket and tie off, his shirt open at the neck. He was sipping a glass of something amber colored. He looked broody and out of sorts. He was alone.

  He spotted her and scowled. “Well, come on out of there,” he said icily. “You’ve sure blown my evening to hell.”

  “You could go after her,” Kit said miserably, her big blue eyes accusing. “I’m sure she’ll get over it when you explain what happened.”

  “Explain?” he asked with a careless smile. The expression in his eyes wasn’t careless; they were blazing. “Like hell I will! If she wants to take this at face value, let her. I don’t give a damn.”

  “But you must!” she protested. “You’re engaged!”

  He opened his palm and held out a huge diamond engagement ring. “Not anymore. Not since five minutes ago, thanks to you,” he added with barely contained fury. He tossed the ring onto the coffee table.

  She tugged the robe closer with a long sigh. “It’s not my fault,” she said miserably. “I never asked you to come storming into my stakeout.”

  He glared at her. “You think I could have left you there with a clear conscience?” he asked, exasperated.

  “Yes, you could!” she muttered. She dug her hands deep into the pockets, aware of her bare feet and even barer body under the robe, her hair damp and tousled from the bath. “You don’t have to wander the city at night looking for me. I’m not your responsibility.”

  He swirled the amber liquid in the glass, his big, dark eyes on her face. “So you keep telling me.”

  He looked older. There were deep lines in his broad face, and as she watched him sip whatever he was drinking, it occurred to her that she’d never seen him this way. Even when she’d traveled with him, there had always been a very formal atmosphere. He’d never taken off his jacket and tie in her presence, or done anything more than roll up his shirtsleeves. She’d learned more about him physically in San Antonio than she’d learned in three years.

  In the intimacy of his apartment, she was more aware of him than ever. If only he loved her, wanted her, needed her, she thought miserably. If only there wasn’t Betsy. As he’d said in San Antonio, she’d waited for years for him to notice her, and when he did, he’d turned the wrong way—toward Betsy, who was searching for a means of support, not a man.

  “You look as worn as I feel right now, Kit,” he said quietly, watching her as closely as she’d been watching him. “I don’t suppose your evening was any bed of roses, either, even before I came along.”

  “I didn’t realize what it would be like on the streets,” she confessed, moving to sit on the sofa, poised on the very edge with her bare toes curling into the carpet. Her senses were all aroused, but still she felt at home with him, as if she belonged here. That was silly, and she pinched herself mentally. “Life is pretty terrible for some people, isn’t it, Logan?”

  “I suppose it is. You shouldn’t have gone that far looking for your bail jumper.”

  “I know that, now,” she admitted with a rueful smile. “I was gung ho on doing my job. Dane will probably fire me when he finds out what I did.”

  “Not Dane. He’ll promote you for going above and beyond the line of duty.” Logan laughed mirthlessly, his eyes slow and quiet on her face. “You’ve always given more than anyone asked of you. You used to stay late at the office night after night when I needed you, and I never heard you complain. I wasn’t very kind to you, was I, Kit?”

  “Why ruin your image on my account?” she mused dryly.

  He chuckled. “I suppose it would have. I enjoyed our disagreements. I miss them.”

  “Hire someone who talks back.”

  “I tried. They run into the ladies’ rest room when I start yelling.” His big shoulders lifted and fell. “
I suppose I’ll have to learn to be polite.”

  “What a comedown.”

  “You don’t know the half of it, honey.”

  He wasn’t a man who used endearments, but that one sounded as if he meant it. In his deep, smooth voice it was seductive.

  “I could go and talk to Betsy for you,” she offered after a minute, because she did feel guilty.

  His eyebrow jerked. “What would you tell her?” he asked curiously.

  “The truth,” she replied. “It seems to work best.”

  “After that blatant statement that you came back here to entertain me?”

  “Well, I’m sorry about that,” she said slowly. “It shocked me to find her standing practically naked in your bedroom.”

  “You might not believe it, but it shocked me, too. Since I came back from San Antonio, Betsy has been pushing me toward a quick ceremony, but I was resisting.” He sipped his drink. “I think tonight was a dead-end play. She was going to make sure of me.”

  Kit flushed and looked away.

  “Wouldn’t you, if you were engaged to someone?” he persisted. “The risk of pregnancy would certainly be an incentive to an honorable man.”

  “You said you never took that kind of risk.”

  “Not normally. But any man can be pushed off balance by a seductive woman and driven crazy. Too crazy to give a damn about precautions.”

  She picked at the robe and didn’t look up. “You don’t seem the type to lose your head, Logan.”

  He smiled secretively and his dark eyes wandered all over her as though they were caressing hands. “Don’t I, Kit? Well, why don’t you take off that robe and I’ll prove to you that I am.”

  Chapter Eight

  Kit stared at him in disbelief. Perhaps she’d heard him wrong.

  He didn’t look as if he was kidding, though. His eyes were steady and very dark. Deliberately he put his glass on the table beside his elbow. He leaned back and slowly one big hand went to the buttons of his shirt and flicked them open. Under the shirt, his broad chest was darkly tanned and thick with curling black hair. He pulled the shirt out of his slacks and unfastened his belt. He tossed it aside, too, and then kicked off his shoes.

  Still watching Kit, he stretched out full-length on the sofa with a cushion under his head.

  “Come here,” he said quietly.

  There were, of course, fifty perfectly good reasons to ignore him and lock herself in the bedroom. She went crazy trying to focus on any one of them. But with him lying there, sensuous and warm and welcoming, nothing in her brain seemed to work.

  “Logan, I can’t,” she said hesitantly.

  He didn’t speak. He simply held out an arm.

  She loved him. In the final analysis, there was nothing else that mattered, she told herself. Not the fact that he was on the rebound from Betsy, or that he didn’t love her.

  She got up and went to him. But when she sat down, he caught her arm and wouldn’t let her any closer.

  “The robe,” he said, his voice deep and quiet and deadly somber. “Take it off, Kit.”

  “But, I can’t…!”

  “If you love me, you damned well can,” he replied.

  Her nerve gave out. He wanted more than she could give. What had she expected, anyway?

  She started to get up, but his hands caught her wrists and held her there, gently but firmly.

  “You only want consolation,” she said. “I can’t be an interlude or a diversion. I’m sorry. I…I want much more than that from a man before I can give myself,” she added softly. “I’m not like Betsy.”

  His hands slid into hers, locking with them. He searched her eyes slowly. “I never had Betsy,” he told her, his voice deep and still in the silent room.

  She felt her cheeks going hot. “You were engaged to her.”

  “All the same, until tonight, she was intent on a legal ceremony beforehand.”

  “I see.”

  “I don’t think you do. I know I didn’t, until she perched there in her negligee and I realized for the first time that she was bargaining, not being moral.” His eyes narrowed. “You wouldn’t bargain with me, would you, Kit? You’d never use sex as a medium of exchange.”

  “I wouldn’t know how,” she said honestly.

  “Little Miss Muffet,” he murmured, studying her pixie face. He smiled. “All right, I won’t seduce you. Is that what you want?”

  She didn’t. Her eyes fell to his chest and she wanted to feel her breasts burying themselves in that thicket of hair. Unfortunately he knew enough to realize that.

  His big hand went to the knot at her waist and lingered there. He searched her eyes slowly, intently. “Despite all your hang-ups and principles, you want me. I could slide my hand inside this robe and touch your breasts, and you’d lie with me without a protest. I know that, and so do you. But I won’t do it. If you sleep with me, you have to have both eyes open and no coercion about it.”

  “I suppose you know that I want to,” she said miserably.

  He nodded. “It’s pretty hard to miss. What are you afraid of?”

  “Everything,” she said unhappily. “That you’ll think I’m cheap, that I won’t be able to live with it, that I’ll get pregnant, that everyone will know…”

  “I’ll use something,” he said curtly. “There will be no risk of your getting pregnant. No one will ever know except you and me. And for God’s sake, how can I think you’re cheap when you’re a virgin?”

  She lifted her eyes to his and smiled mirthlessly. “Don’t men always say these things to make women give in?”

  “Of course,” he admitted. “Except that it’s usually a casual arrangement with no strings attached. That isn’t the case with you and me. You’re in love with me. I know it. Do you think, under those circumstances, that I could ask you for a casual hour or two in bed to satisfy a passing urge? Do you think my conscience would let me?”

  She hadn’t expected the question and she couldn’t quite answer it. She studied him without speaking while her mind whirled.

  “Then…then what do you want?” she asked.

  “I want you to love me,” he said huskily. “I want to lie in your arms and be loved by you until I’m too exhausted to do anything except sleep.”

  “Betsy…Betsy loves you.”

  He shook his head. “No. And you know it. I’ve never been loved. Not like you’d love me.”

  “But it would only be one night…”

  “Will you marry me, Kit?” he asked.

  Her body clenched. The thought was so ecstatic that her face burned with color. “You don’t want to marry me!” She laughed nervously. “Not for just one night!”

  “It won’t be for just one night. I’m thirty-five. You’re twenty-five. We know each other much too well, in the important ways, not to get along.”

  “An hour ago you were engaged to Betsy,” she said through her teeth.

  “Because you were so damned determined to save me from her that you pushed me right into her web!” he muttered. “My God, don’t you know anything about men?”

  “I know that they’re selfish and manipulative and domineering!” she shot back.

  “Who’s domineering?”

  “What do you mean, who’s domi— Oh!”

  He jerked her down against him and flipped her onto her back, taking her mouth with one slow, smooth motion. He groaned as he felt her lips part, felt the anger quickly transmuted into passion, and then into pleasure.

  Her arms were under his, sliding around him, her hands caressing the hard, warm muscles of his back. She felt his heartbeat growing quick and erratic against the robe and then, without warning, against her bare breasts. The thick hair that covered him also covered her now, a soft abrasion that made her moan as he drew himself against her.

  “Tell me to stop if you like, but do it now,” he said over her mouth. “Hurry!”

  His hands were on her, and she arched into them. “I can’t,” she whispered, shaken. “I don’t want
to! Logan… Please don’t make me pregnant…!”

  “I won’t,” he promised unsteadily. “I promise. Kiss me…!”

  He drew her completely against him, so that she could feel the swollen contours of his body in passion. His hands threw off her robe and drew her hips into the curve of his body.

  “Wait…” His mouth fastened hungrily onto her stomach and while he had her in thrall, he got his own clothing out of the way. When he slid back down against her, there was nothing between them, not even the air.

  She wept, because the pleasure was so sweet and slow and terrible that she thought she wouldn’t be able to bear it. His mouth on her body was heaven. His hands, touching her, exploring her, were ecstasy.

  “The sofa…it isn’t big enough for what we’re going to do,” he said against her mouth.

  He moved and moved her, but he shuddered at the silken brush of her body and groaned. “I’ll never make it to the bed,” he whispered hoarsely.

  She felt her back against the carpet and Logan’s formidable weight above her. His mouth ground into hers as he slid over her, against her, his warm, hair-roughened thighs parting hers in a sensual movement that was as arousing as his tongue in her mouth.

  “Here,” he said roughly, pressing something into her hand. “Help me.”

  He taught her how, the touching intimate and exploratory as he whispered at her ear.

  Then his kiss grew suddenly deep and demanding and his hips moved down. She felt him slowly invading her and she stiffened instinctively.

  “Does it hurt?” he whispered.

  “Not…not really,” she whispered back, embarrassed by the question.

  “Look at me.” He forced her flushed face up and looked down into it as he moved with deliberate sureness. She gasped and clutched at him. The expression on her face aroused him beyond bearing. Submission was there, and need, and sudden understanding of what had been a mystery before.

  “I’m going to take you,” he said huskily. He moved, stilling her body with a firm hand. “I’m going to take you, Kit. Right now.”

  As he spoke, he arched down, and she gasped as she felt him completely possessing her.