Dane was fascinated by the report Kit gave him when she got back to the office.
“You’re kidding,” he remarked when she finished. “Nobody has children like that in real life. Are you sure you haven’t been reading fiction?”
“Why don’t you go out there and see for yourself?” she suggested dryly.
“No, thanks!” He shook his head. “What a family. Tansy went home with Logan, did she?”
“Yes, but nobody knows how long she’ll stay. When Betsy walks through the door, I expect Tansy will vanish again,” she said dejectedly.
“That means more business for us.” Dane chuckled.
“I suppose.”
Dane gave Kit a new case to work on, tracking down a bail jumper this time. But the man wasn’t a dangerous criminal; he was a forger who’d made “bush bond.”
With a little help from the skip-tracing department, specifically from Doris, Kit latched onto an address downtown in the red-light district. There was only one way to get close to that address, and she didn’t find it at all amusing.
The sacrifices I make for this job, she thought as she adjusted her skin-tight, green sequined miniskirt and black halter with matching black silk hose. She overapplied her makeup and saturated herself in sweet perfume. Then she drove to the address and started to walk, rather self-consciously, along the crowded sidewalk between two adult bookstores.
“Hey, who are you? This is my spot! What do you think you’re doing, girl?”
The questioner was the real thing, with bleached blond hair and good skin, of which most was on blatant display.
Kit glanced around nervously and moved closer to the blonde. “I’m a detective,” she whispered. “I’m trying to find a bail jumper. Please don’t give me away.”
The woman looked impressed. She pursed her lips and nodded. “A detective? For real?”
“I’m afraid so.” She eyed the other woman curiously. “I saw Pretty Woman. You aren’t…?”
Delighted laughter met her query. “No. But I wouldn’t mind meeting somebody with an expensive car who brought me flowers. Now, in this job, that’s real fantasy!” She and Kit both laughed.
“Who’s this dude you’re looking for?” the woman asked, glancing around. “Maybe I know him.”
“This is a copy of his driver’s license photo,” Kit said, producing it. She didn’t mention how she’d managed to obtain it, and the hooker didn’t ask.
“I’ve seen him!” the woman said. “He doesn’t have much time for us, but he passes here every night on his way to that adults-only video place at the corner. Matter of fact, he’ll be along about nine, if he follows his usual routine.”
Kit glanced at her watch. “Mind if I stick with you?” she asked, nervous now that she was attracting attention from men and pimps alike.
The hooker chuckled. “This isn’t your scene at all, is it, honey?”
“Well, no.”
The other woman smiled at Kit—really smiled at her. “You haven’t looked down your nose at me once.”
“I don’t think any of us are so good that we can look down on anybody else,” Kit replied with a shrug, then shivered a little in the cold. “How do you keep warm?”
“The street people have fires in barrels down the alley. We usually take a break and go stand down there. They don’t mind us. Society’s cast-offs stick together.”
Kit felt a surge of sympathy for the woman, who looked to be in her thirties. But she had a worn-out look in her eyes. “Don’t you worry about, well, about diseases?”
“All the time,” she was told. “I had a friend who died of AIDS last month.” She shook her head. “We’re all careful now. Real careful.”
“Why do you do this?”
“It’s all I know how to do. Even this was better than home, when I was thirteen,” she said with a haunted look in her eyes. She shivered a little, and suddenly looked so fragile and pathetic that Kit could have cried for her. “Well, would you look at that hunk?” she said suddenly, nodding toward an approaching crowd. “He sure isn’t down here for a pickup, I’ll bet.”
Kit followed her gaze and caught her breath. No, she thought. No, I can’t be seeing this.
But she was. It was Logan, breathing fire in a figurative sense. And not only did he see Kit, but he obviously knew she was here.
“Doris told me,” he said without preamble. “Dane must be out of his mind to let you come down here alone at night! What’s the matter with you, are you daft? Don’t you know what kind of people these are?”
Kit was offended. She glared at him. “Yes, I know,” she said. “But do you? Don’t insult my friend!”
The hooker looked as shocked as Logan did.
“You could be out here if circumstances hadn’t made you rich,” Kit said. “Anyone could. Look around you! These people didn’t wake up one morning and decide to wander around the back streets of the city!”
Logan hesitated. He glanced at the blonde, who was gaping at Kit.
“You know her, I guess?” the hooker asked.
“She works for me. At least, she did before I fired her.”
“If you fired her, you’re pretty stupid for a handsome, rich man,” the hooker said, but she smiled. So did Logan.
“Hey, look, there he is!” the hooker said urgently, pointing to a small, dark man in a camouflage jacket.
“Glory be!”
Kit was running before the other two could say a word. When the man realized that he was being chased, he took off. Kit followed him. The high heels were hampering her. She stopped just long enough to strip them off and kept running, panting for breath as the small man dodged cars to cross the street, with Kit in hot pursuit.
“Stop!” she yelled after him.
He looked over his shoulder when she yelled and lost his footing. He went down with muttered curses, tripping other people on the way.
Kit ran to him, dragging out the handcuffs she’d brought from the office. She flipped him over, linked a cuff over one wrist, crossed it over the other and cuffed that one, too.
She laughed, her senses heightened with success, still panting for breath as she dragged the small man upright and held on to him. Her feet were freezing.
“You’re a damned cop, I guess?” the man grumbled.
“No. I’m a private detective,” she told him.
He made a sound and glared at her.
Logan and the hooker caught up, both laughing when they saw Kit with her prize in cuffs.
“Hey, a cop couldn’t have done any better!” she said enthusiastically. “That looks like fun!”
“It is.” Kit grinned. She held out her hand and the hooker shook it. “Thanks.”
The hooker left and Logan propelled Kit to his car, one big hand wrapped completely around her arm while she held on to her bail jumper.
“Who’s got who in custody here?” the little man asked.
“I’ve got you and he’s got me, I guess.” Kit sighed. “Just my luck. I can’t even go on a stakeout on main street without ex-bosses popping out like measles.”
“You mean you used to work for him?” the little man asked. “What a lucky escape you had!”
Logan scowled over his shoulder at the bail jumper. “Watch your mouth.”
“Oh, aren’t we in a nasty temper tonight,” the prisoner mumbled.
“There’s a policeman,” Logan remarked, having spotted one.
“I can’t…!” Kit protested, but it was already too late. Logan dragged her, and thereby the bail jumper, off to confront the officer.
“This man is a bail jumper,” Logan said, propelling Kit and the man forward. “Can you tell me where to take him?”
“You aren’t taking him anywhere…he belongs to me!” Kit raged.
“I do not,” the bail jumper said indignantly. “You attacked me! Officer, this hooker attacked me and put me in handcuffs! I demand that you arrest her for assault!”
“I am not a hooker, I’m a private detective! Look, I have my ID right here…uh-oh.”
She didn’t. It was on her dresser at home, where she’d left it. She looked at the policeman, whose eyes were narrowing as he considered action. She looked at the bail jumper, who had a smug I’ll-get-you-now look on his face. She glanced at Logan, who was obviously not concerned with trying to save her.
“Nice night,” she remarked. “Well, toodle-ooh!”
She turned and took off, bare feet and all. There was a whistle and several shouts, but she kept running.
“Quick, in here!”
She followed the voice, and the hooker that she’d met earlier jerked her into the shadows of the alley.
“Now I’m in real trouble,” Kit wailed. “I’m on the lam!”
“No. You’re hiding from the heat.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“Listen, go around the block and down the next alley, but go careful, you hear? I’ll scout out the hunk and tell him where to find you.”
“Thanks!” Kit said fervently.
“No problem. Run!”
She waved and darted through the alley.
Ten minutes later, Logan picked her up at the corner, the policeman having long since given up and taken the handcuffed man to headquarters to have his story checked. That wouldn’t work to the agency’s advantage, because Kit couldn’t now claim that she’d collared him. But the client would have his money back just the same, and maybe Dane wouldn’t fire her.
“Of all the harebrained, stupid stunts!” Logan shouted the minute he had her in the car. He turned the heater on full blast and pulled out into traffic. “You’ll probably have pneumonia!”
“Go ahead, rub it in!” she muttered.
“I intend to, good and hard,” he returned. “Do you have any idea how much trouble you could have found out there?”
“Of course I do, but it goes with the job,” she replied. “Besides, I’m tough.” She spoiled the pose with a loud sneeze, and wrapped her arms close around her shivering body.
“Tough, my elbow,” he said heavily. “You’re turning my hair gray.”
“I’m not your problem,” she reminded him, exasperated. “For heaven’s sake, I don’t even work for you!”
“My mother considers that you do. So does my brother.”
“They don’t count.”
“They all blame me because you left.”
“And you don’t think they should!” she exclaimed.
He made an uncomfortable sound. “I must have been out of my mind to fire you,” he said under his breath. “Nothing’s been the same since. I can’t find files, I can’t get letters out the same day I dictate them, half my clients have quit because they think I’m running a brothel….”
“A what?”
“The one who can spell tried to seduce the last three men who came into the office,” he said icily. “I fired her!”
“Good for you. Who’s doing the spelling now?”
“Cousin Melody. The smoker with acute bronchitis is now in the hospital. She says she won’t come back.”
“I don’t blame her.”
He glared in her direction. “You can keep quiet. One way or another, you’ve cost me plenty since you left.”
“Since you fired me,” she corrected.
He dragged a big hand through his thick hair. “Damn it, Kit, you know I never meant you to take it seriously! You never did before! My God, I fired you every other week, but you never actually left!”
“That was before Betsy came along and made vanilla pudding out of your brain,” she replied stiffly.
“She didn’t do anything except make me ache.”
“While trying to pick your pockets,” she said through her teeth.
“She isn’t like that!” he raged, despite the fact that he was seeing Betsy with new eyes since he’d come back from San Antonio. In fact, he was discovering for himself that Kit was right and Betsy was exactly “like that.” He wasn’t admitting it, though. No, sir!
“The devil she isn’t like that!” Kit shot back, turning in the seat. Her dark hair was damp and her mascara had run. Her hose had runs in them. She looked like a third-rate clown.
Logan couldn’t help himself. He chuckled.
“That’s right, laugh at me,” she blustered. “You always found something about me to make fun of. If it wasn’t my cat, it was a man I dated or something I wore…!”
“Whatever became of the cat?”
She shrugged. “He moved to Detroit with a little girl down the street.”
“Well, I’ll be.”
“He wasn’t much of a cat, anyway. He ate half my potted plants before he left.”
He shook his head, still laughing. “You have the most unorthodox lifestyle of anyone I know.”
“You don’t know me, Mr. Deverell,” she told him flatly. “You never did. I was just a dictating machine with legs.”
He glanced at her with a raised eyebrow. “Very nice legs, at that. You never bothered to display them at the office.”
“God forbid that I should be accused of coming on to you,” she taunted.
“That would have been the joke of the century.” He turned the corner and eased the car into the underground garage at his apartment building. “I always did wonder why you were so nervous of being alone with me.”
“You were forever yelling at me,” she mumbled. “I wanted to have the door open so I could get a head start running if I had to. And why are we here? I’m not going up to your apartment with you!”
“You are,” he replied grimly. “I’m not taking you home looking like that!”
“I left home looking like this!”
“I hope nobody saw you,” he said curtly. “Or you may not have a home to go to.”
“I went out the back,” she said involuntarily. “I don’t have anything else to wear….”
“I’ll loan you a shirt and some jeans.”
“Yours?” Her eyes imitated pie pans. “Great! Have you got some string so we can tie up the legs…?”
“Chris’s would probably fit you. You’re about the same build,” he said with exaggerated patience. “I keep a change of clothing for him at the apartment in case he needs it.”
“Why do you have an apartment and a house?” she asked, and then went scarlet at the look he gave her.
“Don’t ask embarrassing questions if you don’t want embarrassing answers.”
“You can count on me, sir.”
He helped her out of the car and into the elevator, careful to keep her out of sight beside his formidable bulk. Fortunately the hall was empty when they got to his floor. He whisked her into the apartment with an audible sigh of relief.
“Now, just stay there while I—”
“Logan, are you finally home?” Betsy called half angrily from the bedroom. “I’ve been waiting for hours! Why didn’t you call— Oh!”
Betsy was suddenly standing in the doorway of the bedroom, in a pink negligee. At the sight of Kit, her eyes bulged.
“You!”
“Hello, again, Betsy dear,” Kit said prettily. “Logan brought me home for companionship, but since you’re here…”
“Logan, how could you?” Betsy wailed, bursting into mock tears. “How could you?”
Logan cursed roundly under his breath. He threw off his overcoat. “Get into the shower while I fetch those clothes for you!” he told Kit. “In there, the guest room!”
He shoved her through the door and closed it with a loud thud. Afterward, there were loud voices and louder voices and thuds and silence and then a vicious slam. Kit got under the shower and used the fragrant soap to clean off her horrid perfume and makeup.
When she was scrubbed clean, she lifted a thick white robe from the back of the door and slipped into it. It must be Logan’s, she thought. It smelled of the same sexy cologne he favored. She drew it closer while she wondered if she dared open the door. Betsy was probably still out there, waiting to cause an even worse scene.
Logan would want to get rid of Kit as soon as possible, she was sure, with Betsy waiting for him in all her glory. Kit could have screamed and wept, but it wouldn’t help the situation. Betsy was in possession, and they all knew it. Logan might rescue Kit for old times’ sake, but he wasn’t emotionally involved. She wasn’t stupid enough to mistake concern for love.
She opened the door and peeked around it. Logan was sitting sprawled in an easy chair, his jacket and tie off, his shirt open at the neck. He was sipping a glass of something amber colored. He looked broody and out of sorts. He was alone.
He spotted her and scowled. “Well, come on out of there,” he said icily. “You’ve sure blown my evening to hell.”
“You could go after her,” Kit said miserably, her big blue eyes accusing. “I’m sure she’ll get over it when you explain what happened.”
“Explain?” he asked with a careless smile. The expression in his eyes wasn’t careless; they were blazing. “Like hell I will! If she wants to take this at face value, let her. I don’t give a damn.”
“But you must!” she protested. “You’re engaged!”
He opened his palm and held out a huge diamond engagement ring. “Not anymore. Not since five minutes ago, thanks to you,” he added with barely contained fury. He tossed the ring onto the coffee table.
She tugged the robe closer with a long sigh. “It’s not my fault,” she said miserably. “I never asked you to come storming into my stakeout.”
He glared at her. “You think I could have left you there with a clear conscience?” he asked, exasperated.
“Yes, you could!” she muttered. She dug her hands deep into the pockets, aware of her bare feet and even barer body under the robe, her hair damp and tousled from the bath. “You don’t have to wander the city at night looking for me. I’m not your responsibility.”
He swirled the amber liquid in the glass, his big, dark eyes on her face. “So you keep telling me.”
He looked older. There were deep lines in his broad face, and as she watched him sip whatever he was drinking, it occurred to her that she’d never seen him this way. Even when she’d traveled with him, there had always been a very formal atmosphere. He’d never taken off his jacket and tie in her presence, or done anything more than roll up his shirtsleeves. She’d learned more about him physically in San Antonio than she’d learned in three years.
In the intimacy of his apartment, she was more aware of him than ever. If only he loved her, wanted her, needed her, she thought miserably. If only there wasn’t Betsy. As he’d said in San Antonio, she’d waited for years for him to notice her, and when he did, he’d turned the wrong way—toward Betsy, who was searching for a means of support, not a man.
“You look as worn as I feel right now, Kit,” he said quietly, watching her as closely as she’d been watching him. “I don’t suppose your evening was any bed of roses, either, even before I came along.”
“I didn’t realize what it would be like on the streets,” she confessed, moving to sit on the sofa, poised on the very edge with her bare toes curling into the carpet. Her senses were all aroused, but still she felt at home with him, as if she belonged here. That was silly, and she pinched herself mentally. “Life is pretty terrible for some people, isn’t it, Logan?”
“I suppose it is. You shouldn’t have gone that far looking for your bail jumper.”
“I know that, now,” she admitted with a rueful smile. “I was gung ho on doing my job. Dane will probably fire me when he finds out what I did.”
“Not Dane. He’ll promote you for going above and beyond the line of duty.” Logan laughed mirthlessly, his eyes slow and quiet on her face. “You’ve always given more than anyone asked of you. You used to stay late at the office night after night when I needed you, and I never heard you complain. I wasn’t very kind to you, was I, Kit?”
“Why ruin your image on my account?” she mused dryly.
He chuckled. “I suppose it would have. I enjoyed our disagreements. I miss them.”
“Hire someone who talks back.”
“I tried. They run into the ladies’ rest room when I start yelling.” His big shoulders lifted and fell. “I suppose I’ll have to learn to be polite.”
“What a comedown.”
“You don’t know the half of it, honey.”
He wasn’t a man who used endearments, but that one sounded as if he meant it. In his deep, smooth voice it was seductive.
“I could go and talk to Betsy for you,” she offered after a minute, because she did feel guilty.
His eyebrow jerked. “What would you tell her?” he asked curiously.
“The truth,” she replied. “It seems to work best.”
“After that blatant statement that you came back here to entertain me?”
“Well, I’m sorry about that,” she said slowly. “It shocked me to find her standing practically naked in your bedroom.”
“You might not believe it, but it shocked me, too. Since I came back from San Antonio, Betsy has been pushing me toward a quick ceremony, but I was resisting.” He sipped his drink. “I think tonight was a dead-end play. She was going to make sure of me.”
Kit flushed and looked away.
“Wouldn’t you, if you were engaged to someone?” he persisted. “The risk of pregnancy would certainly be an incentive to an honorable man.”
“You said you never took that kind of risk.”
“Not normally. But any man can be pushed off balance by a seductive woman and driven crazy. Too crazy to give a damn about precautions.”
She picked at the robe and didn’t look up. “You don’t seem the type to lose your head, Logan.”
He smiled secretively and his dark eyes wandered all over her as though they were caressing hands. “Don’t I, Kit? Well, why don’t you take off that robe and I’ll prove to you that I am.”