The Case of the Missing Secretary

by Diana Palmer

  “No,” Kit began.

  “Why are you here?” Logan demanded from his mother.

  Tansy glared up at him. “I thought I had cancer.”

  He went stark white. “And…?”

  “It’s not,” she said shortly.

  His dark eyes, relieved, went to Kit’s white face and kindled again. “You lied to me, damn you,” he said softly. “You told me you didn’t know where she was! She’s been in here with the threat of cancer hanging over her and I wouldn’t have known!”

  Kit didn’t reply. She couldn’t. She felt as bad as he must.

  “Oh, Kit, I’m sorry,” Tansy began.

  “Dane’s going to get an earful about this, and I damned well hope he fires you!” he said, bristling with rage at her betrayal. He’d trusted her, planned to marry her. But she didn’t trust him. She’d covered up his mother’s situation and her hospitalization. She’d deliberately lied to him about it! He was so furious that he could barely speak.

  “Get out of my mother’s room!” he said viciously. “Get out of my life, while you’re about it! You can take that damned marriage license and rip it up, because I wouldn’t go five feet toward the altar with a two-faced, cold-blooded little liar like you!”

  Kit felt the tears welling in her very soul. They both blurred in her blue eyes as she turned and went out of the room with the tatters of her dignity around her.

  “But it’s not her fault,” Tansy was saying loudly.

  She didn’t hear what Logan said. She kept walking.

  Eventually she found her car, through a mist of hot tears. Her eyes were red and swollen long before she got back to the office and went to tell Dane Lassiter what had happened.

  Tess was with him. They both gaped at the sight of her.

  She blurted out the whole story and then dried her eyes and blew her nose. “He wants you to fire me,” she told Dane. “I guess I deserve it. I was only trying to do what Tansy wanted me to, but she wasn’t paying us, Logan was. He said he had the right to know.”

  Tess hugged her warmly. “Now, now,” she said soothingly. “It’s all right.”

  “I’m not going to fire you,” Dane said. “If Logan wants to refuse to pay, that’s his affair. The agency won’t lose that much. But he will,” he added curtly. “The next time Tansy takes a powder, he can damned well track her down himself.”

  “Not on my account,” Kit pleaded. “I don’t want any of you in trouble because of me.”

  “You’re our employee,” Dane said curtly. “That makes you family. Nobody, but nobody, threatens family around here.”

  Kit forced a smile. “You’re very kind.”

  “It’s easy to be kind to nice people. You go back to work and get your mind on another case. Consider this one closed.”

  “Okay. Thanks,” she added.

  “We’re going shopping tonight,” Tess reminded her. “It will cheer you up.”

  “I could really use that now,” Kit replied.

  She went back to her desk. Adams paused beside it, frowning. “You okay?” he asked. “I heard Deverell took a bite out of you. Don’t let it get you down. We all catch hell sometimes, you know.” He grinned sheepishly. “Want me to go bash his nose in for you?”

  She laughed, her blue eyes twinkling. “Would you do that for me?”

  He blushed. “Sure. If you want me to.”

  She reached out and took his big, hammy hand in hers. “Adams, you’re the nicest man in the world.”

  He only smiled, looking even more sheepish.

  “How about supper?” he began. “Doris and I know this place that makes great Irish stew,” he added, glancing at Doris, who smiled and nodded. “You could have supper with us….”

  The sound of the front door opening caught their attention. The person entering had full view of Adams holding Kit’s hand and smiling at her.

  Logan Deverell stared at them from a face that would have done justice at a murder trial.

  Kit’s eyes sparkled with anger. Her injured dignity sat up and growled. “Yes, Mr. Deverell, can we help you?” she asked. “If you’d like to speak to Mr. Lassiter, I’m sure he’ll be happy to oblige you. I’ve already told him that you’re dissatisfied with my handling of your case. Sadly for you, he doesn’t feel it warrants firing me.”

  “This the guy you were telling me about?” Adams asked Kit, looking big and pugnacious, an expression he’d cultivated back in his homicide days on the police force.

  Logan glared at Adams. “I hope your medical insurance is paid up,” he said levelly, “because I’m a tae kwon do blue belt.”

  “I don’t need a bodyguard, thanks just the same, Adams,” she added, gently disengaging her hand.

  “Well, if you do,” Adams said, glancing toward Logan, “just whistle.”

  He ambled away and Logan shoved his hands into his pockets as he moved to stand just in front of Kit’s desk. His broad shoulders rose and fell. “Mother told me all of it.” He looked uncomfortable. “I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions.”

  “If that’s an apology, it isn’t necessary,” Kit began.

  “Isn’t it?” His dark eyes slid over her face. “You’ve been crying.”

  “Tansy was angry with me,” she hedged.

  He scowled. “Was that the only reason?”

  She lowered her gaze to her locked fingers, lying cold on her desk top. “How is she?”

  “Diabetic, apparently,” he said. “They’ve had to put her on insulin. That explains her weight loss and the gnawing hunger and thirst and weakness. They’re sure she’ll be back in top form in no time.”

  “Did it come on suddenly?”

  “Apparently not. But she didn’t recognize the symptoms. She was thin for years, and then she started to gain weight. They said she was a textbook type 2 diabetic who could be controlled with diet. Her penchant for sweets put her over the line.” He shifted. “It may have saved her life. She very nearly went into a coma.”

  “Poor Tansy.”

  “In more ways than one. She felt guilty about you. I caught hell for what I said to you,” he mused, smiling faintly.

  She refused to rise to the bait. She was tired of being cut to pieces by him. She lifted a composed face. “Did you want to see Mr. Lassiter? Our receptionist is still out of the office, but I can buzz him for you.”

  “No, I don’t need to see Dane,” he replied. “He can bill me for services rendered, no argument. You found her. It’s her fault I wasn’t told, not yours.” He searched her weary face. “You’re very loyal, Kit.”

  She didn’t react. “If that’s all,” she said without expression, “I have another case I need to be working on.”

  “A case, or Adams?” he asked with a speaking glance in the general direction of the office where Adams had disappeared.

  “Adams is…”

  “As Nick used to say, a tick,” he said, lowering his voice. “If he attaches himself to you, you’ll never get rid of him.”

  “That’s my business, Mr. Deverell,” she reminded him. “You have no right to interfere in my personal life.”

  He recognized the quote, and she’d meant him to. He pursed his lips. “Throwing my own words back at me?” he asked. “I suppose I don’t deserve any less.”

  She didn’t reply.

  He searched her blue eyes for a long moment, and delicious sensations shot through his powerful body as he let the look linger. Kit blushed and averted her face, and his heart jumped in his chest.

  Three years, he thought. He’d never really looked at her. He’d never let himself look at her. Now she was out of his office, out of his life, and he couldn’t seem to stop looking at her. Betsy had been a remedy for boredom, but Kit was…everything. He looked down at her and loved her, suddenly, unbearably. He’d given her hell for something that wasn’t her fault, broken their engagement. And after all that, to discover that he was in love with her…

  He shrugged. His eyes slid over her body. “Tansy wants to see you.” />
  She nodded. “I know where she is.”

  “I really am sorry,” he said unexpectedly. “I was thinking that you’d betrayed me, that you hadn’t trusted me enough to be honest with me. I…lost my temper.”

  “I noticed.”

  “Damn it, Kit, you have to marry me!” he burst out.

  “Why?” she asked haughtily, aware that everyone in the office was staring at them.

  He looked around at the audience and sighed furiously. “Don’t you all have anything better to do?” he demanded.

  “Not me,” Adams said. “How about you guys?”

  The other detectives and skip tracers shook their heads.

  “Oh, hell,” Logan muttered. He rammed his hands into his pockets and looked down at Kit with pure repressed fury.

  “What does it matter to you that you broke the engagement?” Kit asked. “You never wanted to marry me in the first place. I was just a substitute for Betsy!”

  Logan searched her flushed face and couldn’t drag his eyes away. She was so lovely. He remembered her laughing, and crying, and he knew that nothing would fill the gap in his life if she left him.

  “Actually, Kit, it was the other way around,” he said finally. “Betsy was a substitute—and a very poor one, at that—for you.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “That isn’t true,” Kit said quietly.

  “Isn’t it?” He moved to the desk and stood over her. “Did you tear up the marriage license?”

  “I meant to,” she returned.

  “Where is it?”

  She hesitated. She reached into her desk drawer and pulled it out. They’d had the blood test the same day they’d taken out the license. They could be married legally today.

  “Come on,” he said gently. “Let’s get married.”

  “But, Logan,” she protested.

  He drew her out of her chair. “City hall, eleven o’clock,” he told the office. “You’re all invited!”

  There were so many congratulations and well-wishes that Kit couldn’t get anyone to listen when she said it was a mistake, and she wasn’t marrying Logan.

  It did no good to try. He put her into her coat, took her out the door and drove her down to city hall.

  “But what about Tansy?” she groaned.

  “We’ll go and see her afterward,” he replied. “She was delighted when I phoned her.”

  “You didn’t know that I’d have anything to do with you after this morning,” she said icily.

  “I knew that you loved me,” he said simply. “If I’ve learned nothing else in life, it’s that love doesn’t wear out.”

  “Mine might have. You starved it.”

  “Yes. And now I’m going to feed it until it becomes overweight,” he promised. “Ten minutes after you say I do I’m going to take you to our apartment and make love to you until you’re too weak to walk!”

  She flushed. “Hush!” she exclaimed, glancing around.

  “We can make love on the carpet, like we did the first time,” he said imperturbably. “Except that this time, it’s going to be very, very different.”

  “Because you’ve resigned yourself to marriage?” she asked dully.

  He turned her face to his and held her eyes. “Because I finally woke up and realized what was happening to me. I love you, Kit,” he said with quiet wonder, searching her shocked face. “I suppose I did all along. But I didn’t know it until I broke the engagement and sent you running out of Tansy’s hospital room. I worried that you might have taken me at face value, that I wouldn’t be able to get you back.”

  “You love me?” she asked, staring at him blankly.

  “Oh, yes,” he said huskily, putting more feeling into the words than she’d dreamed anyone could. “Can’t you see it? Feel it?”

  She could. Her heart ran wild. “I thought it was because you wanted me.”

  “I do, desperately,” he said.

  “You were so angry with me, Logan,” she began.

  “I know. I’m sorry.” He drew her hand to his mouth. “I love Tansy, too, you see.”

  “I knew that. I was trying to protect you,” she said miserably. “I thought if I waited, as Tansy wanted me to, until we knew the truth, it would be easier for you.”

  “You can’t protect me from life,” he said quietly. “I’m a grown man. I have the right to know what I’m up against. I’ve never run from anything.”

  “Except me,” she murmured with an attempt at humor.

  “You caught me, didn’t you?” he mused.

  “Well…”

  “Tansy will be all right,” he said. “She’s sorry for what she thought, and I’m sorry for what I said. We’ll both make it up to you somehow.”

  “There’s no need for that.”

  “Yes, there is. Want me to tell you how I’m going to make it up to you?” he teased softly.

  “No,” she said, dropping her eyes to his chest. “You can wait…and show me.”

  He did. It took hours and hours, while he caressed her in the silence of their apartment, sprawled in loving abandon with her on the big king-size bed with all the lights blazing away.

  He laughed at her shock, delighted in her hungry response, loved her from one side of the bed to the other and, finally, onto the floor with his inexhaustible ardor. It was dark before he was sated enough to rest.

  They slept. When they awoke, he carried her into the bath and they lay together in the Jacuzzi, gently kissing, while they bathed. Afterward, they fixed steaks and salad in the kitchen and ate.

  “Tansy was glad to see us,” she said when she was curled up in his lap on the sofa, when they’d put the dishes into the dishwasher.

  “And happy for us,” he agreed. He bent and kissed her with soft possession. “I love you, Kit,” he said huskily. It was evident in the eyes that swept over her, in the very softness of his voice. “I’ll love you all my life.”

  “That goes double for me, Mr. Deverell,” she murmured contentedly.

  He leaned back with a long, happy sigh. “At least we’re free of Emmett,” he said with a smile. “Tansy said he called and after the rodeo tonight, he’ll be on his way to San Antonio with the kids.”

  “Who’s keeping the kids?” Kit asked.

  “A babysitter at the hotel.” He chuckled. “I expect the poor woman will retire after tonight.”

  “No doubt.” She linked her arms around his neck and lay her head on his broad chest. “I’m tired.”

  “So am I. And we both have a job to go to in the morning,” he murmured. “I’m sorry I’m not a man of leisure. I’d like to stay in bed for several days.”

  “Me, too.” She sighed. “But I guess life goes on.”

  “Thank God, it does.” He tilted her face up to his and searched it hungrily. “I’m glad you didn’t give up on me, Kit.”

  She smiled and drew his face down to hers. “How could I, when my life began the day I met you? Bad temper and all,” she whispered against his hard mouth.

  “I do not have a bad temper,” he muttered.

  “You do so!”

  “I have never— What the hell are you doing?”

  She pushed him down on the sofa and sat on him, laughing at his expression. “Showing you who’s boss,” she whispered. She laughed with aching delight as she eased down to his mouth and kissed him while her hands smoothed under his shirt. “Do you mind?”

  “I don’t know. That depends on whether you can make me like it,” he whispered with ardent pleasure as her mouth settled on his. He chuckled as his hands went up to help her with his shirt. “So get busy. Show me!”

  And several delightfully feverish minutes later, it was pretty evident that she’d done just that.

  ISBN: 978-1-4592-1499-6

  THE CASE OF THE MISSING SECRETARY

  Copyright © 1992 by Diana Palmer

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