Bedeviled Angel (30 page)

"What's funny?"

"That Tiff sprung the engagement trap and you fell in 'dumb ass over thick head.'

Her words."

Logan shot from the sofa. "Melody knows? Jess, I gotta go."

"I thought you wanted to talk."

"Can I have a rain check? I want Mel to understand what happened, and Shane…

I want him to hear it from me, so he knows the truth—"

"Right, go. First things first. See you tomorrow."

Before Logan made it across Jessie's yard, his mother and Melody's father pulled into the driveway.

Melody came out to greet them. His mother folded Melody into her arms, and they walked inside arm in arm, followed by Mel's father. If any of them had spotted him, and Logan thought his mother had, they didn't acknowledge his presence.

Damn. He hung back a minute, squared his shoulders, went to Melody's door, and rapped it open. The three of them sat at her table, as if waiting for him, their faces set like a hanging committee.

Melody's father stood, his stance protective, and Logan chuckled. "If Mel needs defending from one of us, it's not me," Logan said.

Actually, after the coatroom incident, she did need defending from him, Logan thought, but he hadn't considered that before he spoke. Damn, he had it coming anyway. "Sorry, sir. Do your worst," Logan said.

"Don't 'sir' me. You're despicable."

"Daddy, stop it. Logan and I have no understanding. We've made no promises.

He's free to marry any shark he wants."

"It's a mistake," Logan said. "I didn't ask her. She assumed I meant—"

Melody laughed. "She didn't assume; she manipulated you, again, the same way she did at the ball when you asked me to dance and she accepted. You simply played into her hands… as always."

"At the ball?" Logan said. "At the ball, she… You're right."

"Right," Melody said. "She
acted
as if she thought you asked her. Looks like a case of the shark bites twice."

"Hard to believe anybody can be that—"

"Conniving, spoiled, calculating, controlling," Melody supplied. "Guess again, Sherlock."

Logan sat. "I plan to end it tomorrow." He looked at his mother. "Shane and I might have to move, though."

"It can't be that bad," his mother said.

"Can't it?" Melody said. "The station owner giveth, and the station owner taketh away. Tiffany's daddy is used to giving his girl whatever her cold little heart desires."

"I don't know how you got yourself into this," his mother said to Logan, "but I do know that you and Shane deserve someone who loves you."

"I know, Ma."

"I think you should be horsewhipped," Melody's father said, "for leading my daughter on."

"I never—" Logan and Melody looked at each other, and Logan shut his mouth.

"Has Tiffany told you that she'll be a good mother to Shane?" Melody asked.

"Because, take it from me, she'll send him to boarding school first chance she gets."

Melody's father regarded her for one enlightened minute, and they seemed to understand each other, perfectly—perhaps for the first time, judging by the surprise, and sadness, on their faces.

"It won't come to that," Logan said. "I won't let it."

"Right," Melody said, shoving him, literally, out the door and slamming it in his face.

"You're mad at me, aren't you?" Logan said from the wrong side of the door.

"Jerk," Melody said, her lock clicking into place.

"I'll take that as a yes."

LOGAN guessed his son was staying over again, because he was pretty sure he was standing in the cold alone.

Upstairs in his apartment, he paced. He could fix it with Max, he thought, but Tiffany was going to be pissed when she got it through her thick head that they weren't getting married. If she also figured out that he honestly, hopelessly, cared for Melody, she would do her vindictive worst to make Melody's life a living hell.

Tiffany
was
conniving and manipulating. Mel had been right about her all along.

She was a pampered, spoiled brat. Damned early childhood degree had thrown him

—probably why Tiff chose it in the first place—man freaking bait.

But why had Tiffany played that game at the ball, unless she already knew he was attracted to Melody. Shit! Maybe he should try and turn the tables before he approached Max, and manipulate Tiffany into breaking up with him.

He might start by not letting her have her own way all the time. Max would likely embrace that maneuver, plus it would drive Tiffany crazy. He'd have to stop paying attention to Melody, though, to throw Tiffany off Mel's scent.

THEY worked on Melody's "Plymouth Plantation Thanksgiving" on-site for the better part of the following week, which gave Logan a good excuse not to be available for Tiffany to parade him to every fund-raiser and society event she could find. It also kept him and Melody away from Tiffany's scrutiny.

Since Melody had never cooked over an open hearth, her Thanksgiving show became a liberating experience for her. In a thatched roof cottage with a kitchen garden, hideaway loft, and cooking fire, she could admit that she didn't understand how the pilgrims cooked anything, much less the first Thanksgiving. She could be herself, ask questions, and allow her pilgrim guides to teach her.

In costume. Melody gave the word
pilgrim
new meaning. Logan guessed that if any of the original pilgrims had looked like Melody Seabright, the "goodwives"

would certainly have considered her a witch, if only because their "goodhusbands"

would have followed wherever she went.

The following Monday, after wrap-up and editing, the entire crew watched a preliminary screening of the show.

Because Melody knew how to play to a camera, they had kept an unplanned scene where a lamb wandered into the cottage and stole the show. Mel made it work by kneeling and whispering into the lamb's ear—loud enough for the mikes—that perhaps lamby-pie was not what he'd like them to serve for Thanksgiving dinner. Lo and behold, the lamb had bleated and trotted back out.

They'd kept most of the tourist segments as well. At Melody's suggestion, they had invited some of The Keep Me Foundation's proud successes to tour the plantation during the shoot.

In one scene, a set of three-year-old twins dressed as Indians had taken to Melody, and she to them, and they'd helped her stir the cauldron suspended over a banked fire in the huge walk-in fireplace, while she chanted a spell for giving thanks.

Mel suggested the video editor add a Thanksgiving request for donations to The Keep Me Foundation to the screen credits at the end of the show. The request rolled over a scene with the girls tasting Indian Pudding and zooming in on their smiles.

When the tape ended, everyone in the viewing room applauded and raved, especially Gardner and Peabody, who called it "magic"—no surprise to anyone.

Even Tiffany smiled, though she lost her composure somewhat, Logan thought, when her father praised Mel to the stars in front of everyone, and asked her to do a New Year's Eve special with a larger market in mind.

THE day before Melody's Thanksgiving show was set to go out, Logan got one of those evening calls from the station that he hated so much, but this time the break-in was real. Gardner wanted him there as soon as possible.

"Anything missing? Any damage?" Logan asked, as he pulled a pair of slacks off a hanger in his closet.

"Yeah," Gardner said. "See if you can track Mel down and get her to come, too.

We have a problem. I can't find a single copy of her Thanksgiving show. Looks like they've been stolen. Come as soon as you can. I have to get out of here."

Logan went downstairs for Melody. Ice Man didn't seem to know they lived in the same house. Office gossip must be slipping, or the loyalty the staff showed Mel had paid off.

Logan didn't tell Melody that her Thanksgiving show seemed to have gone missing, because he hoped he'd find a backup on the server.

"Who's going to stay with Shane?" she asked from the bedroom side of her closed door.

Logan paced her kitchen, dialing and redialing his cell phone looking for an answer to that very question. "Nobody's answering anywhere," he said.

"Our parents went to the Keys for the week. Didn't your mother tell you?"

"Yeah, I guess she did, and I think maybe Jessie's doing a sleepover with the D.A."

Melody's hoot made Logan grin. Leave it to her to be happy for Jess, though she hadn't acted so excited over their parents.

"Try Vickie or Kira," she suggested.

"What's Vickie's number?"

Melody came out of her room, turned her back on him, and held her hair aside, revealing the unzipped back of an electric blue wool dress, figure-hugging and sexy as hell. "What's wrong with Kira?" she asked.

"I don't know. You tell me."

"No, I mean why not ask her to sit?"

Logan zipped her dress, and Melody turned to face him, still waiting for an answer.

"She's… a witch?"

"Not the kind that will shove Shane in an oven and bake him."

Logan winced.

Melody confiscated his cell phone to call Vickie and ask if she could stay with Shane. "Nope," she said a minute later, as she flipped the phone shut. "Her grandmother's not feeling well tonight. She can't leave her. Shall I try Kira?"

Logan sighed. "Mel."

"For heaven's sakes, Logan, Kira was a kindergarten teacher before she became a fund-raiser. Give her a break."

Jessie had once said the same about Mel. Logan caved. "Call her."

Kira arrived ten minutes later, wearing a quilted camouflage vest over a pair of red flannel pajamas and sporting a playful pair of witch-face slippers, complete with nose warts and pointy hats. "I believe, I believe," Logan said, raising his hands in defeat and leading the witch upstairs.

"I woke Shane to tell him we were going and to make sure he remembered meeting Kira at the tall ships party," Logan said, getting into a warm car. "Thanks for starting it."

"Did Shane remember her?" Melody asked, giving him a sidelong glance.

"You know damned well, he did. Seems he's been to Kira's with you a couple of times."

"Hey, that was before I knew about your irrational fear of witches."

Logan chuckled. "Are you warm enough with all that leg showing? I can't believe you wore a dress. I thought you said this was the new millennium."

"I pretty much dress for whatever mood suits me."

"You know, I figured that out somewhere along the way."

"I like old clothes. The styles are unique, and I can always find something that speaks to the moment. I also feel connected to the people who wore them before me, as if I'm living history. My grandmother—my mother's mother—was the same.