The Kitchen Witch (18 page)

Melody pulled up short, caution riding
her,
afraid he'd want to go farther than was prudent.
"Bed?"

"Yeah, you can have it; I'll take the sofa."

"Oh."

Logan gave her a suspicious look. "What did you think I meant?"

Melody firmed her spine and resisted temptation, strong after her meltdown in his chair. "No offense,
Kilgarven
, but I'd rather have the sofa."

He raised a brow at her sudden change in attitude and shrugged. "No offense taken,
Seabright
, but you slept like a dream in my bed the last time you stayed over."

"Yeah, but I didn't like the dreams I had there." She'd liked them too much.

Logan warmed, remembering what he'd almost
done,
afraid her dreams had been more real than she knew. With a deal of guilt, he headed for the living room. "Suit
yourself
,'" he said. "But the bed's yours."

FOR Melody's second show, Logan remained standing behind the audience from the beginning, aware, as he had not been before, that his decision had to do with her making love to the cameras. He wanted her looking at him when she made love, in the same erotic way she had looked at him the other night straddling him in the chair.

As if she understood his intent, she played to him throughout the show, made love, not to the cameras, but to him.

Did she realize it? Did she know that they were reliving every hot and sexy moment in that chair on live TV, with no one the wiser?

The meal was a success, pot roast, dumplings, and all. Her cherry slump came out on the under-baked side, but the hungry crew testified to its success, nevertheless. Gardner grumbled about the dessert, but he never mentioned the great pot roast, though he ate enough for two.

Melody made that night's headlines. "Sexy witch turns up the heat." So much for nobody being the wiser, Logan thought.

WHILE Melody paced with outrage the next morning over the critique of her show as "a cheap try at sex in the kitchen," Tiffany came by the office to give Mel the evil eye and invite Logan to lunch.

FOR the next week, Melody taped "spots" for the show in and around New England. One day, she shot a promo beside Boston Common, another in a swan boat, then later, on the deck of
Old Ironsides
. The following couple of days, she headed for Mystic,
Connecticut
, and Newport,
Rhode Island
.

Logan barely saw her. He missed her during the day, but now that her kitchen was finished and she'd moved back downstairs, he missed her more in the evenings. Tiffany was trying to fill in the gaps, keep him from being lonely, he thought, since she turned up just about everywhere he went that week. Having Tiffany pop up became so common, it made Logan wonder if one of the secretaries wasn't giving her his schedule.

Logan honestly wished he missed Tiffany when they were apart in the same way he'd missed Melody the past few days.

For two more interminable days, Mel shot commercials at Plymouth Plantation and on the
Mayflower
. Later, they would return to the plantation to shoot her Thanksgiving show. Gardner had decided to tape that one, since she would be cooking off-site.

She returned to the station for the first time that week just as Logan was leaving the office on Friday afternoon, but if Tiffany had not waylaid him with a poor excuse for an excuse, he might have missed Mel altogether.

Logan realized, as he saw Melody's surprise at coming face-to-face with him, that she had been avoiding him, likely because he'd made her come three amazing times in his favorite chair. He got hard every time he sat in it now, and if she remembered the experience as vividly, she must surely be running scared.

Melody
Seabright
, running scared. Logan almost grinned.

"Hi, shark bait," she said, recovering and breezing into the office. "What are you still doing here?"

"Shark bait?"
Logan followed her in, glad for a reason. "Excuse me?"

"Since 'Daddy's Girl' has been chasing you like a shark after blood, I think the term applies."

"Is nothing sacred in this place?"

"Hey, why are you still here? You were supposed to pick up Shane again tonight, remember?"

"Just running a bit late," he said. "Let's go pick him up
together
, like the old days."

Melody looked at the clock, grabbed her purse, and scooted him out of the office.
"A bit?"
The echo of a scold entered her voice as she started down the hall. "He's going to be frantic. Why did you wait so long?"

"It's not that late." She'd all but accused him of neglecting his son, damn it. Prepared to argue, Logan checked his watch, but it was late.
Terribly so.
Almost an hour later than usual.
He stopped, struck by the fact that Melody was acting more responsible than him at the moment. "I did call down to say I was on my way." He caught up to her. "Thanks for worrying about him."

God, he wished she was the stable sort, a woman around whom calm, rather than chaos, normally revolved, a woman like Tiffany—but
not
. Tiffany, who, this very afternoon implied they already had some kind of date, except, Logan's senses were too full of missing Melody to care.

To hell with Tiffany.
He was with Melody now, finally.
Alone.

When the elevator doors closed, Melody didn't know who reached first, but she found herself pinned against the wall, the rail at her back, not that she cared, because Logan's mouth was opening over hers. A mouth she'd craved for days, his taste,
his
touch. God, she'd missed him.

They devoured each other, starved, she thought, as if they hadn't touched in years, when it had only been a week. Seven long, frustrating days, during which they'd passed like ships in a fog, circling but never meeting, searching but never finding.

"Oh," she said, when he placed his lips to the
vee
at her blouse and cupped her so close to her core, she nearly came. "Maybe if…"

"I know," he said. "I think so, too."

"I meant—"

"What?" He brought her so close, she felt his need pulsing against her, his thumb teasing so near, she "wept" for more. "What did you mean?" he asked, skimming her center, as if learning the shape of her were as important as touching her.

"Never mind," she said, afraid to voice so
cliched
a notion as getting it out of their systems, afraid he'd take her up on her offer, afraid he wouldn't.

"You think we should go for it, scratch the itch and be done with it?" he asked.

Better she should play dumb, make him think that was his idea.
"It?"

"Us, sex, 'it.'"

"I see your point."

"I know you do.
Because it was your point first."

"What makes you think so?"

"I'm psychic." He cupped the back of her knee, the one she held against his erection, and rocked it against
himself
the way she had been doing, and Melody blushed, even as she flowed with the electrifying sensations.

"No strings, no commitments," she warned.

"Absolutely," he agreed.

"Do you think once would be enough?" she asked as she bit his ear and tugged on his lobe with her teeth.

"However often it takes," he said. "I'm willing to go the distance."

She looked up at him, and they kissed, an exhilarating new awareness vibrating between them, until the elevator signaled their imminent arrival and Logan groaned, loathe
to relinquish
the charged moment.

They righted their clothes in time for the doors to open, barely, and Melody walked out first, like a shield, Logan one step behind… until he saw the look on his son's face, a look twisted with something like panic but—

Shane charged Melody, launched himself into her arms, and buried his face in her skirt, so Logan couldn't see him. Even when he asked what was wrong, he got a negative shake of his son's head. Since Shane had missed Mel this week as much as he did, it made sense, really, that he should stick to her. And when she got him laughing right off, Logan knew he'd mistaken the look.

Then he got caught in the snare of Melody's gaze over Shane's head, innocent, yet seductive, no longer full of promise, but regret. "Bad idea," she said.

Logan denied the statement, with a slow, determined, shake of his head, shocking her, but arousing her interest. "Sooner or later," he said, leaving her to interpret his meaning, and just as he wondered whether she understood, she blushed and lowered her lashes.

"I don't feel like cooking today," Shane whined, in the same contrary mood that had been driving Logan crazy all morning.
Ever since the night before, Shane had been clingy one minute, uninterested the next.
Logan couldn't figure out what was wrong with him.

After discovering how much Shane liked creating Melody's signs, Logan had instituted a father-son crafts night the evening before, which had ended rather abruptly when Shane super-glued his hand to the dining room table, a family piece that would now need to be refinished.

This morning, he'd knocked the pot of ivy he'd watered without permission off the coffee table. To make matters worse, he'd blamed Ink and Spot for the mud on the carpet.

Logan hated the ivy anyway. Melody brought it up the night before, all homey and bedtime cuddly in bunny slippers and a pink "stir my cauldron" T-shirt. Refusing his invitation to come in, she'd handed him the freaking plant and announced that Ivy stood for friendship. Then she'd turned to take her fine little backside right back down the stairs.

Logan wondered what had prompted her to give him a friendship gift, after they'd all but decided to consummate their lust. Well, after she'd seemed willing, anyway.

That was it; she was running scared, again. He'd bet the bank on it. He'd be able to prove it, if he knew how much chunky doodle ice cream she'd eaten since they got home from work last night.

Logan grinned. He rather liked the scenario. It intrigued him that she might be as scared of the sizzle between them as he often was.

God knew he didn't want to be "friends" with Melody any more than he wanted to cook with her, well, not cook food anyway. But the fact remained that they still had to prep for next week's show. And he should be friends with her, because anything more than friendship with a load of dynamite spelled suicide.

"
Da-aad
."
Shane tugged on Logan's sweatpants. "I don't
wanna
cook. I
wanna
go fly my kite."

"And I
wanna
go to the Sox game, but neither of us is going to get what we want. We're going to teach Melody to prepare a Boston Tea Party, because we want to keep our job."

"I don't want a job."

"Well I do. Today we cook. I don't have a choice, and neither do you."

"Yes, you do," Melody said, standing there trying to hide her bruised feelings.

"Damn it, Mel."

"Don't act like I did something wrong. Last night you said I didn't have to knock, but you just proved that I do. I don't feel like cooking, either," she told Shane as she kissed his head and turned to go. "See you both later."

"I
wanna
go with Mel."

Logan rolled his eyes. "All we have to cook today is dessert," he said, speaking to Melody and Shane's sweet
tooths
. "Cakes," he said enticingly now that he had their attention.
"With icing.
Chocolate."

"And breads," Melody added, losing Shane's interest and earning Logan's censure.

"All of which we could have with ice cream," she said with a sigh of resignation.

"Ice cream?"
Shane asked, doubtfully.

Melody regarded Logan. "Sorry about your baseball game."

"Sorry about what I said, the way I sounded. I had no plans for the game."

Melody smiled, but Shane was acting as if he couldn't trust either of them, which bothered Logan. Something was bugging his son, something had morphed him into a first-class brat this weekend, and Logan wanted to know what.

Melody took their aprons from the hook in the broom closet, handed one each to Logan and Shane, and donned her own, then she took out bowls and mixing supplies. She liked Logan's kitchen with its bright blue counters and yellow cupboards. She liked the cozy lived-in feeling that her remodeled kitchen lacked.

She watched Logan open a well-worn oak recipe file, ruffle through the index, with his too-big hands, and take out a dog-eared card that made him smile with some long-ago memory. The only family memories she had were with Logan and Shane, she realized. She was making them now. Logan placed the recipe on the counter and tapped it.
"This one first.
Butterballs."

She would always remember this. "You sure the Indians who threw tea into Boston harbor made butterball cookies?"

"It's a tea party. Make butterballs."

"
Okey-dokey
."
Melody read the card, admired his mother's neat hand, and saw her corner note: "Logan's favorite." She held an open palm toward Shane and ordered, "Eggs," like a TV surgeon.

With a shrug, Shane took a dozen from the fridge, set the box on the table, and, with a good deal of interest, watched her struggle to get the first one out. "Slippery little sucker," she said before breaking the egg on the edge of Logan's ancient blue-striped pottery bowl.

"I'll help," Shane said and flipped the box of eggs on its side. From across the room, Logan shouted, "No!" and dove, but it was too late. As if in slow motion, but too fast to be caught, one, two, three eggs hit the floor. Splat, splat, splat!

"Damn it, Shane!" Logan snapped.

Melody's heart tripped when Shane froze, his eyes dulled, and his little hands fisted.

She didn't know which of them seemed more upset; she knew only that she hated the fear on Shane's face and the helpless self-loathing on Logan's.