Bedeviled Angel (34 page)

"Something tells me I'm going to regret this. I don't think I have the staminaa…

aahhhh."

"Oh, I think you do." She soaped him everywhere, giving particular attention to the part growing in her hands. "Nice," she said, sliding it between her breasts, lathering them both vigorously.

Logan groaned, and he swore, he reached for her a dozen times, and she ordered him to put his hands back where they belonged. And then she knelt before him, but before she realized what he was doing, he had her back against the shower and he'd slipped inside of her, pounding her, raising her so high and so fast, she screamed with her cataclysmic release, and he did the same. "So much for slow," she said, when she caught her breath.

He soaped her, languorously, played every sensitive spot, gave her the same attention she gave him, except that he made her come, not once, or even twice, but four extended times. Now she was the one begging for mercy, as her knees buckled and she slid into his waiting arms.

He carried her back to the bed, and they slept for almost an hour, unmoving, dead to the world, wrapped in damp sheets and each other's arms, until the sound of a honking horn woke them with a jolt.

"Jeez, what time is it?"

"After six," Melody said. "We have to go." Her knees nearly buckled as she rose.

Logan pulled her back down. "The world is about to intrude. Give me one more kiss to remember."

Melody went into his arms, and they kissed as freely as the wind, the way they would never kiss again. He cupped her cheek, she grazed a finger down his fresh growth of beard. "I love your beard in the morning."

"Careful or I'll never shave again."

He cupped her and brought her close. "I love your ass, morning, noon, and night.

Did I ever tell you that?"

"Er, no, you never did."

"Well, I do. Get some clothes on before I forget we're leaving."

Melody came back wearing her dress, ready to be zipped. Logan accommodated her. "I like this on you."

"I wore it to get your attention."

He turned her to face him. "You always have my attention."

"I wanted to look as nice as Tiffany always does."

"Clothes can't make her beautiful. I saw her face when Max gave you that raise.

She's a jealous cat."

"You're insulting Ink and Spot."

Logan chuckled, glad they'd stepped from regretful to playful. Together they put the sofa back together and tidied the office. Mel put the sheets in a bag to take home and wash.

"All set?" he asked.

They looked around, as if they would never see the place again, though they would never view it in quite the same way, and they both knew it. Melody worried about going back to the way things had been between them.

Logan worried about going on without her. He knew what he had to do, and he wasn't looking forward to it.

The Volvo had survived the storm fine in the garage, but it didn't get them far, because a tree blocked the exit. They turned around and tried getting out the other exit, but a bulldozer clearing an obstruction in the road blocked them there, so they abandoned the car in the garage and walked home.

The bracing, storm-clean air smelled of fresh cut greens, and sea salt. Melody and Logan walked hand in hand, not saying much, stopping to kiss a time or two, through the bricked mall, by closed shop windows, wishing it wasn't too early to get a Morning Glory Muffin or the best pancakes in the world.

When they got to Salem Common, in front of the Hawthorne Hotel, Logan asked Mel to sit for a minute. She did, and he braced a foot on the bench to face her. "I robbed a convenience store when I was twelve, got arrested, and was brought before a juvenile judge named Jessie Harris."

Melody nodded. "Not the background of a tight-assed stuffed suit."

"Nope. The past of a man forced to trade in his beat-up 'hog' for a briefcase, his bad-boy image for a job, and carelessness for fatherhood. I like the me I've become, though. I'm not making excuses, not even for the stealing."

"Jessie told me a bit about the way your father treated you and your mother, but not much."

"He said I'd never amount to anything."

"Hey, our fathers predicted the same for us."

"Nah, yours is mild… and redeemable." Logan extended his hand. "Have I shocked you?"

"A bit." She rose and leaned into him. "Makes me like you more."

"No kidding?" He kissed her brow. "Guess I should have told you sooner."

They made their way past Pickering Wharf and The Gables to the street where they lived. With Halloween a memory, Salem was the image of any other sleepy New England town, except for having some of the most beautiful historical architecture Logan had ever seen. A great place to raise a boy, he remembered thinking. Too bad that hadn't worked out.

He kissed Melody on the porch before they went in the house. A kiss good-bye.

He believed she knew it as well. Good-bye to intimacy and a future that could never be. They would both move on, move forward.

Logan had a son to raise—none of the choices he made were for himself. Melody had a life to conquer, every choice she made based on survival. Her parents had about crippled her in that way, he thought. His father had nearly done the same to him.

Funny how the past could direct the future, no matter how hard you tried to keep it from happening.

Melody pushed her door open. "Kira, Shane, we're home." She turned to Logan.

"They must have gone upstairs after all."

He ran up. "Hey, sport, I'm home."

Melody heard Logan shout. She got halfway up before he came out. "They're not here."

"They're not in my apartment, either."

When there was no answer at Kira's or Jessie's, Logan punched in 911 on his cell phone. "I'd like to report my son missing."

LOGAN watched his hand tremble as he told the police dispatcher he'd been out all night on a job emergency and hadn't seen his son since five the night before. The dispatcher said the boy hadn't been missing long enough for them to start a search, but when Logan asked for detective Grey, he promised that Grey would be right there.

Logan and Melody walked through the neighborhood calling Shane's name. They rang Jessie's doorbell, just in case, but no one answered. "She should sell the house," Melody said. "It needs a family in it."

"Screw the house; my son is missing!"

"I won't kid you, you're scaring me, but I think you're overreacting."

They woke their neighbors fronting the harbor, but they hadn't seen Shane, and they weren't pleased to be roused, either. Melody came up beside Logan as he looked out over the harbor. "This is stupid," she said. "There's a logical explanation."

Logan said nothing then, but back in the driveway, he cursed. "I can't believe I let you talk me into letting that witch baby-sit. Of all the irresponsible…"

"Kira is not irresponsible, and neither am I for suggesting her, if that's where you're—"

"Me!" Logan snapped, "I'm irresponsible, damn it. I've done some stupid things in my life, but this—misplacing my son—is by far the worst. Worse than robbing that store, worse than getting Shane's mother pregnant, worse than allowing Tiffany to believe we're engaged, worse even than taking you to bed."

"Gee, thanks."

"Tonight, I proved my old man right."

"Taking me to bed is not the worst thing you've ever done."

"No, losing my son is."

"He isn't lost. We should try Kira again."

"Do it," Logan said, handing Melody his phone.

He shouted Shane's name a couple more times, to keep from jumping out of his skin. Two patrol cars pulled up at about the same time. His heart skipped, because he thought he heard Shane answer. Detective Grey stepped from the patrol car in time to see Kira and Shane, a frisky beagle pup in tow, emerge through a backyard hedge. "Hey, Dad." Shane ran over. "Wow, cops!"

Logan had never been more grateful for anything in his life than he was to see his son. He lifted Shane in his arms.

"Da-aad, you're squishing me."

"How come the police are here?" Kira asked Melody.

"Logan reported Shane missing."

Kira frowned. "Didn't you read my note?"

"What note?" Grey asked.

"Oops," Shane said, pulling a sticky note and red pushpin from his pocket. "I was's'posed to tack it to the door. Sorry, Kira."

"My fault," she said, ruffling his hair. "I should have made sure you did."

"Where the hell were you?" Logan shouted at Kira.

"We went to get my dog. Shane worried about Spooky all through the storm, so when the rain stopped, we went to get him. I said so in the note."

"Dad, she only lives two streets over. We cut through lots 'a yards, and I was hopin' somebody would yell at us."

"Likes to play with fire," Melody told Detective Grey, "like his father."

"Can it, Mel." Logan thanked the detective for coming, and saw him off, before turning back to Melody. "I'm giving up playing with fire. I can't stand the heat, or the chaos, or the mayhem, that results, and it's not what I want for Shane either." He could see that she knew exactly what he meant. Chaos, turmoil, problems seemed to follow wherever she went.

"I'm settling it with Tiffany, now," he said. "No more fire, no more Mr.

Irresponsible. Keep Shane for a while; I'll pick you up for work in about an hour."

Melody nodded, while the welling in her eyes brought a heaviness to Logan's chest.

AT Max's house, Tiffany met Logan at the door in a clingy red silky thing as flashy as her diamond fingernails. "Can't wait to see me, darling?"

He evaded her kiss and took her hands to examine her nails. She hadn't yet bothered to get them fixed. He rubbed a thumb over the single pale nail, minus its glittering fake. "The police have it," he said. "If you care to claim it."

She retrieved her hands and placed the undamaged one on her heart. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Sure you do. It's called evidence… of the breaking-and-entering variety."

"Logan, don't."

"Don't what? What do you want from me, Tiff?"

"Keep this between us? For old times' sake?"

"Old times?" He chuckled. "It'll cost you."

She raised her chin. "Name your price."

"You can't buy your way out of this one, honey, not with me. Here's the deal: We're through, and you tell Daddy breaking it off is your idea. I'll resign from WHCH, and you stay the hell away from Melody… from now on. If anything, I mean anything, goes wrong for Mel—her show, her friends, lovers, car, future—if
she
so much as breaks a nail—I'll… turn you in to the police, and you get arrested for burglary."