"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 home 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..."
Emmett put a hand over his mouth, dropped his food, and ran from the room.
"No guts," Guy said disgustedly, looking after him.
"Disgraceful." Polk nodded.
"Whatever are we going to do about him?" Amy sighed.
"You did it last time," Tansy reminded them while Kit sat, dumbfounded. "Bringing that...that 'not alive' thing in here on a dustpan to show him."
"Yeah," Guy chuckled. "He didn't even make it to the bathroom that time!"
"You ought to see him at the rodeo if there's any blood," Amy piped in. "He goes green and white, all mixed up, and his stomach churns."
"Except if it's him that's bleeding," Guy pondered. "Weird, ain't it? Never bothers him if it's his own blood. And if it's ours, and an emergency, he's never sick. But sometimes you can turn him green real easy if you talk about something yucky."
"What a terrible way to treat your poor father," Tansy chided them. But her eyes were twinkling.
When Emmett came back, his eyes were glittering with imminent retribution.
"Great barbecue, Dad. We're going in to watch that new survival show on the educational channel, okay?" Guy blabbered.
He and the others murmured excuses and ran for it.
"Little monsters!" he called after them. "I'll get you for this!"
"Why do you let them do it to you?" Tansy asked. "You know it's terminal to show weakness to children."
"Well, look who started it off," he said, narrowing his eyes at Tansy.
"Couldn't resist it," she sputtered. "You are a case, Emmett."
He picked up his fork and forced himself to eat a bite of barbecue. Amazingly it stayed down.
Kit listened to the conversation without taking part in it. This man was one of the more interesting people she'd ever met. She wondered what was going to become of him.
Logan Deverell was sitting on the doorstep of the Lassiter Detective Agency the minute it opened the next morning.
"I want to see Kit," he told Dane.
Dane lifted both eyebrows. "You can't. She's out of town running your mother to the ground."
"Where out of town?"
"San Antonio."
"Oh, no! Why in God's name did you let her go there?"
Dane didn't move. "It's only your cousin, Logan."
"No, he isn't only my cousin, he's got these three pint-sized assassins and they hate women! They'll burn her at the stake. And if they don't, Emmett will have her in front of a minister...I've got to get out there and save her!"
He was gone before the last word hit the air, with a shell-shocked Dane looking after him. Tess came to stand beside him, staring toward the closed door.
&nb
sp; "Logan?" she asked.
He nodded.
"Where'd he go?"
"To San Antonio to save Kit from Emmett."
She turned and looked up at him. "I beg your pardon?"
"It seems that Emmett is in a perpetual state of readiness to marry the first available woman, but he can't get her past his three kids. Logan's gone to the rescue."
"I thought he wanted to find Tansy?"
"We did. She's staying with Emmett."
"And so is Kit, because she phoned last night with some story about being hijacked by white Indians and narrowly escaping being burned at the stake."
He smiled down at her. After a minute, he bent and kissed her with slow, lingering warmth. "I need a very strong cup of black coffee, and then you can tell me that again. Join me?"
She looped her arm through his. "I'd be delighted."
The thunderous knocking at the front door woke Kit, who'd overslept from sheer exhaustion. She and Tansy and Emmett had been up very late. Emmett had serenaded her. His voice grated like a nail file, but he did play the guitar quite well and she enjoyed listening to him. Then they talked about rodeo—which was the passion of his life—and about his plans for the future. They didn't talk a lot about the kids, who were carefully concealed behind curtains and under chairs listening. They'd been told three times to go to bed, but they never paid any attention to their father. Anyway, they were bent on finding out everyone's opinion of them.
The knocking stopped, but it was followed by a familiar bellow.
"Where is she?" Logan demanded.
"What a hell of a nerve, practically breaking into my house at this ungodly hour!" Emmett muttered. "Quiet down or I'll turn those kids loose on you!"
"Oh, God, not that, anything but that!" Logan groaned.
There were muffled giggles down the hall.
"Anyway, Tansy's asleep. Or she was, until you tried to knock the house down around our ears."
"I'm not looking for Tansy. Where's Kit?"
Kit's heart leaped in her chest. She couldn't believe that he'd come all this way for her! Had he seen Tess Lassiter and become concerned when he knew she was out here with the volatile San Antonio Deverells? Had he missed her?
She sat up in bed, just in time for Logan to throw open the door and confront her. She was dressed in the concealing flannel gown Tansy had loaned her.
"So there you are!" he growled.
"My, what a pretty picture." Emmett sighed as he saw her. "Dar-lin', you would look lovely propped up in my bed like that..."
"Out!" Logan shoved his cousin unceremoniously out the door and slammed it. "You lecher! She's only a child!"
"I'm going to marry her..." came through the door.
"Over my dead and decaying corpse!"
There was a muttering sound, like gagging, and quickly retreating footsteps.
“So much for him," Logan said with satisfaction. He stared at Kit for a long moment. "You can't marry him. It isn't love. He just likes women. There are so few who can get past those kids, he'll gladly latch on to anyone they like."
"I'm not blind," she said primly, folding her slender hands in her lap "Why are you here? I thought you wanted me to find Tansy. I did."
I know that. But you had no business moving in with the Family from Hell."
"What a way to talk about your own cousins!"
"Everybody knows about them. Nobody will even come near the place for fear of disappearing in the brush! Emmett lets those kids do anything they want to since his wife left. He doesn't care enough to make the barest attempt at control. He's too busy riding in rodeos to prove he's still a man, and getting his body broken to bits in the process! He can't get over the fact that his ex-wife left him."
Kit began to see the carefree Emmett in a new light, and he didn't seem quite so carefree anymore.
"Poor man," she said quietly.
"Poor man, the devil. He isn't your problem. Go home!"
Her eyebrows arched defiantly. "I don't work for you anymore. You can't tell me to walk to the corner!"
"No? Let me show you what I can get you to do, Miss Morris," he said, and started toward her.
Chapter Four
Kit froze. She'd never been alone in this kind of intimate setting with Logan, not even when she'd had to accompany him out of the country and they'd stayed in hotel suites together. Then, it had been all business and he'd never noticed her, no matter how she dressed or looked.
But now, the gown she was wearing might have been transparent as his dark eyes slid over the bodice and seemed to see right underneath it. He had a sophistication that was vaguely alarming. A woman's body was no mystery to him. She'd seen enough women come and go in his life in the past three years to know that he was experienced.
Her fingers grasped the cover and drew it up sharply to cover her breasts. She flushed as he paused by the bed and looked down at her.
Something changed in his face. He lifted one bushy eyebrow and deliberately let his eyes fall on her softly parted mouth.
He'd never wondered what it would feel like to taste Miss Morris's pert little mouth. But suddenly, he wanted the knowledge with a longing that corded his powerful body. Betsy was pushed to the back of his mind quite suddenly while he grappled with unbelievable desire for his ex-secretary.
“Will you please get out of here?" she squeaked.
He made an odd, hesitant movement and sat down on the bed beside her. His big hand, half the size of a dinner plate, folded around both of hers and detached them from their death grip on the coverlet.
"What are you afraid of?" he asked.
It was a tone he'd never used with her, a deep, husky pitch that was like warm velvet. She looked into his eyes closer than she'd ever seen them and became lost in their dark brown depths.
She wasn't breathing quite naturally. Neither was he, if the rise and fall of his broad chest under its charcoal-gray suit and white shirt was any indication. He smelled of some exotic cologne that appealed to her senses, and he was clean-shaven. The elegant Mr. Deverell was never disheveled or less than immaculate. Kit couldn't imagine him wearing jeans and chambray shirts as Emmett did.
"Answer me, Kit."
That was new, too—her name on his lips. It was always Morris this, Morris that. She searched his eyes helplessly. "I'm not afraid of you," she said absently.
Her vulnerability had a devastating effect on him. Their fights had become legend in the office building where he worked. Kit had a fiery temper and a stubborn nature, and he enjoyed the explosions that resulted from his prodding of both.
But she wasn't fighting now. She was sitting in his grasp like some exotic kitten, her big blue eyes wide and afraid and yet... almost welcoming. She had a beautiful complexion, he thought, and a mouth that looked as if it would feel like warm silk.
His body tautened with longing. He wasn't even thinking of consequences or other commitments as he captured her face in his big, warm hands and slowly bent to her upturned mouth.
She gasped as she felt his breath, coffee and mint scented, and the tentative brush of his mouth on her parted lips.
He felt her body jerk instinctively. His nose drew against her own. All he could see, think, breathe was the shape of her mouth under his. "I won't hurt you," he whispered, moving closer. "I can be gentle, even if I've never given you cause to believe it."
She felt his mouth touching hers, and it was like electricity. So many dreams, and here was the incredible, pulsing reality of his mouth against her own, his body so near that she could feel its heat and strength. She was floating, drowning.
She heard his breath catch, a tiny burst of sound that she knew was going to be a prelude to something volcanic and utterly destructive. And even as she yearned hopelessly for his touch, she knew that she couldn't give in to this madness. She didn't dare let him...!
She froze. "What about Betsy?" she said quickly.
His hands tightened on her head and his head lifted. His dazed eyes stared into hers. "What?
"
"Don't forget Betsy!" she managed unsteadily, fighting his pull on her starved senses. "Remember Betsy, Mr. Deverell."
Mr. Deverell. He was Kit's boss and Betsy's would-be lover. He wondered how he could have forgotten that. His heavy brows met as his head lifted and Kit's pale face suddenly came into stark focus and he regained his lost wits.
Abruptly he let her go and stood up, turning his back while he struggled with unfamiliar feelings. He could feel his heart beating against his ribs, feel the tautness of his body with what he recognized dimly was desire. What was wrong with him? He didn't want Kit! He'd fired her. Betsy was warm and soft and loving, and her body promised heaven if he could ever maneuver her into bed. Kit was young and untried, very probably she'd never slept with anyone. God! he thought, and his body reacted sharply to the thought.
Kit pulled the covers back over her and averted her face. "I'd like to get dressed, if you don't mind," she said hesitantly.
"What? Oh. Certainly." He went out the door without a protest, and Kit thanked God for small miracles.
She couldn't quite believe what had almost happened. She had to be very careful from now on. Logan had made his opinion of Betsy quite clear, along with his commitment to the woman. Why he'd tried to kiss her, she couldn't comprehend. All she knew was that she mustn't, for her own sake, ever let him get close enough to try again.
Unrequited love was something she'd lived with for three long years. She knew Betsy and she didn't want Logan to fall victim to the woman, but there had to be another way to stop it. She really couldn't allow herself to become embroiled in a hopeless affair with him, even to save him from financial ruin. She'd certainly lose him that way. And when he'd had his fill of Kit's inexperience, probably Betsy's sophistication would snare him for sure. The thought was depressing, but it had to be faced. She couldn't let herself dream about him anymore. She had to get used to being without him in her life, in any capacity.
She got dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, and went to the dining room where the rest of the family, Logan included, was sitting down to an enormous breakfast.
"Can he cook, or can't he?" Tansy enthused over the biscuits. "Emmett, you've missed your real vocation. God meant you to be a chef."
Books By Diana Palmer Page 129