The Case of the Missing Secretary (8 page)

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

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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 full 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 stroked her hair and whispered words of soft reassurance.

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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.

“Innocence in these confused times is a rare jewel indeed,” he murmured, watching her.

She glared at him. “My jewel is none of your business,” she muttered. “And how do you know, anyway?” “I don’t,” he agreed. He grinned slowly. “But I could find out in ten minutes flat with a little cooperation,” he added. “How about it?”

She latched on to what he was suggesting at once. “Mr. Deverell!” She didn’t know whether to gasp or laugh or kick him very hard. She walked on toward the barn without saying anything at all. The barn door opened and all three kids smiled at them with very knowing faces.

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“Where are the kittens?” Kit asked.

“Right over here,” Amy volunteered, leading them. “Uh, Polk and Guy and I have to go get cleaned up. We’ll see you later!”

There was a scurrying sound and the barn door closed, but Kit would have bet her socks that the kids were still inside. She exchanged a glance with Logan, who actually grinned.

“Aren’t they cute?” she asked, reaching down to pick up a kitten and stroke and caress it.

“Yes, they’re cute,” he mused, paying much more attention to Kit’s rapt face than the small felines. He knelt beside her and gave the cats equal attention. Nothing else was said for several long minutes.

“Damn!” came a long-suffering exclamation from Guy, who stood up along with his siblings, cast a disgusted look at the adults and stalked out of the barn. The other two went with him, trying to look both sheepish and angry at the same time. Logan chuckled. “I suppose they were expecting a floor show.”

“Those kids know too much already,” she said, refusing to be baited. “But they’re sweet children.”

“They are not! Why do you think the family avoids this place like the plague? My cousin Belinda came down here to spend the night last year and the little monsters put an armadillo in the bed with her.” She whistled. “I’m glad they like me!”

“You’d better be. They defanged a rattler and shoved it in my room the first time I was fool enough to spend a night here.” “What did you do?”

“I went out the window, of course,” he said. “Stark naked, because that’s how I sleep, and I think I took at least two-hundred dollars worth of pane glass with me.” She could almost picture it. “Weren’t you hurt?”

“Only my pride. The glass did very little damage. Fortunately for them. I haven’t been back since, until now.” He cocked an eyebrow at her. “But they’ll be nice to me this time. They think I’m going to kiss you, and they can catch us at it and we’ll be embarrassed. “That’s not a nice thing to say!” “Why do you think they were hiding in here?” he asked patiently

The Case of the Missing Secretary 357 and smiled at her confusion. “Well, hide your head in the sand. But they’re getting old enough to be curious, you know, and I’ll bet Emmett hasn’t told them zilch.”

“He has so!” Amy interjected until two small hands, one on each side, clapped over her mouth.

“You varmints!” Logan raged at them. They’d eased back in and were crouched just inside the door behind a wall. “You’ll swing for this, you sidewinders!”

“You’ll have to catch us first, and you’re old!” Guy called. The three of them escaped at a dead run.

“They’re right,” Kit said thoughtfully, eyeing him. “You are old. Thirty-five just this year.”

He glared at her. “How would you like to be flattened out on the hay here for a few minutes?” he asked, glancing around. “The kids could sell tickets.”

She cleared her throat. “I take it all back. You’re young. You’re in your prime, in fact.”

“I was in my prime at eighteen, actually,” he remarked. He smiled wickedly. “But I can still go all night.”

She leaped up in the wake of outraged embarrassment, brushed off her jeans and stalked out the door just in time to connect with three small, warm bodies. They all went sprawling, Kit included.

“I told you they were both too old,” Guy muttered as he helped his siblings to their feet. “You have to watch teenagers to find out that sort of thing, not old people. Come on. We’ll go down to the river and spy on Josh Landers and Cindy Gail when they get through fishing!”

Flushed with glee they rushed off again, leaving Kit muddled and out of sorts.

“I told you,” Logan said from behind.

Emmett passed the kids, whirling around as they went by him like cyclones. He didn’t ask where they were going. He wandered on down to join Kit and Logan.

“Why are you sitting on the ground?” Emmett asked Kit conversationally. “Is there a sudden chair shortage?” “I’m just where your offspring left me, flat in the dirt,” Kit told

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him. “They were down here spying on us-” She broke off when she realized what she was saying.

Emmett lifted an eyebrow and looked at Logan, who had a disgustingly smug and triumphant look on his face. “Oh,” Emmett said. He smiled a little sadly, managing with one word to convey total understanding of the situation and regret on his own account.

“They’re just curious,” Emmett added after a minute, rocking back on his heels. “I told them the basics, and how to stay out of bad trouble with it all. They cleared their throats and pretended not to listen.” He chuckled.

“Well, they were on their way down to the river. Something about a couple of teenagers fishing there…” Kit told him. “Ohmigod!”

Emmett did an about-face and rushed off in the general direction the kids had taken.

“No wonder he’s so slender and fit,” Kit remarked, watching his figure slowly grow smaller in the distance. “I don’t think I’ve seen him sit for five straight minutes since I’ve been here.” “The kids keep him on his toes. When he’s here.” “Rodeo is very dangerous, isn’t it?”

He nodded. “And for him more than most. His father died in a bull riding competition, right in the ring.” “How terrible for him!”

“That’s not all of it. His mother killed herself soon after the funeral. That was when Emmett got married.” He said it pointedly. “He was lonely and grieving, wasn’t he?” she asked.

“And determined to have a family so that he could fill up the house and banish the bad memories as quickly as possible. But the woman he married didn’t take to motherhood, and she was really too young to settle down. She fell head over heels in love with a pretty ordinary man who’d worshiped her since high school. Emmett was never at home back then. He was paying off the mortgage on his father’s land and just getting started good on the rodeo circuit-She should have stayed around. One of our more well-to-do relatives died last year and left Emmett fixed for life. I think Emmett’s ex-wife married too young and wasn’t really in love with Emmett.” “Then he doesn’t have to do rodeo,” she said.

The Case of the Missing Secretary 359 “Not financially,” he told her.

“Oh. I see.” And she did. Emmett was harboring a wealth of hurt. Perhaps the pain and danger of rodeo made it go away for a while, or brought him close to memories of happier times when his father was alive. “But it can’t be good for his kids.” “Maybe he does it to escape them,” he murmured dryly.

“But they adore him. You can tell that they do, and it’s mutual. But…”

“But he’s afraid to get too close.” Logan looked down at her with sudden comprehension. “He’s afraid to love, because he’s afraid of being left alone again. One way or another, he’s lost every single person he ever loved.”

Kit didn’t reply. She kept walking and so did Logan, but the thought lodged in his mind and wouldn’t be coaxed out. Was he that way, afraid to love? Betsy was temporary. Even as he’d admitted his physical need for her, there was never a time when he’d pictured her as a permanent part of his life. She hated cooking and housework and she and he never thought alike on the important issues. They argued often on politics and religion and just about everything else. The only real common ground they had was when Logan took her in his arms. But even that was superficial, shallow. There were times when he was almost certain that her enjoyment was nothing more than a facade.

Kit had said as much. She had to care about him, to be so protective. They’d been together a long time, he supposed, so maybe she felt a proprietary interest in his happiness. Still, she’d been upset enough to quit. Was she jealous?

He stuck his hands into his pockets as they walked, the big, husky man and the slender, graceful woman. It felt good to spend time with her. She didn’t chatter or talk fashion and gossip at the expense of more serious subjects. Kit only spoke when she had something to say.

“Betsy was upset because I didn’t bring her with me,” he remarked..

She didn’t look up. “You could ask her to fly out and meet you.” Logan gave Kit a calculated glance that she didn’t see. “She’d

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want to sleep with me,” he lied. “Emmett would go through the roof. He doesn’t believe in that sort of thing.”

She hated the very idea of Betsy in Logan’s bed. Her hand clenched at her side, but she didn’t make any remarks.

She didn’t need to. The small movement didn’t escape Logan’s dark eyes. He smiled.

“Tansy’s being very agreeable, don’t you think?” she said, changing the subject.

“Yes. Suspicious, isn’t it?” he added. “She probably didn’t ex-pect you to be this good at tracking her down.” He stopped, and the look in his eyes was thoughtful. “In fact, it really was good detective work.”

“I’m not just a typist, you know,” she murmured. “I do have a brain and a few skills.”

“If I never realized that, why would I go off and leave you in charge of the office for days at a time?” he asked. “I always recognized your talents, Kit.” Her heart jumped in her chest. “You never said you did.”