She tried to keep her head and remember her goal: to find out firsthand whether
Nikky
had been exaggerating Logan's assets. It did not seem possible from this angle, yet just to be sure, Melody slipped her hand between them and grasped his thick rigid length.
Logan groaned, became larger, firmer, thicker. Glory!
Not
an exaggeration.
Melody held and kneaded his burgeoning promise—she couldn't help herself; there was so much to work with—while Logan encouraged her in a voice gone hoarse and rough with coaxing. Her back against the wall, their hands and bodies moving with primitive purpose, they danced to a quickening rhythm that could end only one way.
"Hey, Dad!"
The door flew open and hit the wall.
Logan and Melody jumped apart.
Mel screamed.
Logan hit his head on a cupboard and swore.
Chapter Seven
"AWESOME!
Scared'ya
, didn't I?" Shane was all big eyes and tickled surprise.
Aroused to painful proportions, Logan had turned his back, bent over double, and braced his hands on the counter, swearing below his breath.
Melody clutched her robe closed. "We were um… uh… We were—"
"Trying to sneak up on a mouse, son, from different directions, but you scared us, and the sucker got away."
Melody bit down on a giggle and could not look at Logan.
"A mouse?"
Shane gazed eagerly about the floor. "Want me to help?"
"Shane?" Logan said. "You wanted something?"
"Oh, yeah.
Gramma
Phyl
said, 'Cool it and come upstairs.
Dessert later.'"
Melody's giggle finally escaped as she went into her room and shut the door. While dressing for the pirate cave picnic, she wondered how to get herself abducted later by Long John
Kilgarven
.
WITH the party in full swing, Logan mixed another batch of margaritas. That meltdown in Melody's kitchen had been an aberration, a fall from grace, a mistake. He remembered thinking so at the time, even as he approached her and prepared to teach her a lesson. But as if he had stepped from his body and watched from afar, he'd seen his hand, pale against the tan of Melody's leg, imagined the silk of her, warm against his palm, and knew there was no turning back.
Almost as if the choice had been taken from him… as if he had been… bewitched.
What if she really is a witch
? The question resonated in his mind. Logan frowned and shook his head. Though the silk and scent of her would not stop teasing him, mind and body, he would resist the witch from now on. So what if she'd tasted of lime Popsicles with a kick. He would not fall back into his bad-boy habits. And taking Melody
Seabright
to bed would be a sure and painful plummet, a mistake he could not afford. He would not attempt to entice her into staying after the party, as he might once in his blighted life have done, not with Shane in the house, not that he thought she would. He would not; he could not. He had a son to
raise
, a son who needed a stable family life, not a horny, reckless father.
Allowing himself to become attracted to Melody would be… worse than risky, Logan thought. It would destroy all he'd worked to achieve for his son. Forget that he hadn't become this stimulated this fast since… had he ever become this stimulated this fast, beyond the first rush of puberty?
Shane's mother had surely enticed him in a way he remembered, seriously scary, since Mel excited him in a way that made Heather seem like a dud in comparison.
Talk about an ice bath. If a woman more dangerous than Shane's mother wasn't a natural deterrent, nothing would be. Logan handed his mother and Jessie each a second drink, while Melody taught Shane to use his new binoculars from inside the windowed octagon turret. Of course, Melody kept her mind focused solely on his son, while Shane's sick father kept his attention on Melody's perfectly rounded bottom as she bent over the boy.
Logan wondered if a celibate order of monks for fathers existed—something like AA, but for single fathers addicted to sex lives.
"Melody?
Mellie
-Pie, are you up there?" Logan's speculation ended with that boisterous call from somewhere below.
"Daddy?"
Mel said, standing straight.
"Can I come up?"
"Daddy?" she shrieked.
Right behind her, Logan watched Melody fly down the stairs then stop before some big guy with a fake smile—must be Daddy.
Logan went down to introduce himself and invite Mr.
Seabright
to the picnic.
"I can't believe you came," Melody told the very proper older gentleman—as different from her as magic is to reality—as they made their way up the stairs.
"But I told you I would. Did you forget again?" Mel's father patted her hand in a patronizing manner, while Logan bristled on her behalf, and Melody's expression spoke more of promises broken than forgotten.
Chester
Seabright
pulsed with as much vibrant life as his daughter, though he stood a great deal broader, taller, and a bit too starched in his charcoal pin-striped suit—the style Logan favored, actually, though more expensive—and he seemed to lack Melody's sensitivity in a very big way.
Logan introduced "Judge Jessie Harris" to him first, to impress the man for some reason, but Jess took exception. "I've retired from the bench," she said shaking Chester's hand. "Now I give spine-chilling cemetery tours in my own private hearse."
"That must have called for quite the adjustment," Chester said, his tone not altogether approving.
"It makes for a nice change, actually." Jessie reclaimed her hand with a wry grin. "Change can be good. It's called balance." She gazed at Logan through the top of her bifocals, a sure sign he was in trouble, before she regarded his mother, then Melody. "Balance," she repeated. "I know a few people around here who should try it sometime."
Logan and Melody glanced at each other, then away. They'd damned near made a radical change, but Logan wouldn't have termed it a strike toward balance so much as one toward a tumble, ass over heels,
down
a very steep rabbit hole.
Chester politely refused the margarita Melody offered him and requested a martini, instead.
Figured, Logan thought, realizing he'd disliked Chester
Seabright
on the instant, but not sure why. Jessie, he saw, in true form, tried to reserve judgment, to give Melody's father the benefit of the doubt, while his mother acted like a calf-eyed schoolgirl with her first crush. After about fifteen minutes of that, Logan sidled up to his not-so-subtle parent, confiscated her margarita, and replaced it with an iced soft drink. "Bat those baby blues at him one more time," he whispered, "and I'm gonna
ralph
all over you."
His mother gasped and burst into laughter. What was wrong with her today? Laughing, flirting? Was there a full moon or something? Oh, crap.
Full moon over
Salem
.
In this company, that could be a howl.
When a couple of Melody's oddball friends showed up, the day took an even spookier turn, if that were possible.
"Everybody," Melody
said,
her hands on Shane's shoulders. "This is my friend Vickie. She owns The Immortal Classic, the vintage dress shop where I buy my clothes, and she's doing very well with it, too. And this is
Kira
," she said, indicating the woman dressed all in black.
Vickie, looking like a shy Russian peasant, nodded a general hello.
"Oh,"
Kira
said, hands on hips, "so Vickie's your friend and I'm not?"
Melody blushed, a phenomena Logan would like to examine at his leisure, but
Kira
of the wild red hair, svelte black dress, and
multipierced
ears with more hoops than a circus, winked as she took his hand and gave it a firm shake. "Do you believe in magic?" she asked.
Shane broke into a giggle just then, a jubilant sound—because Melody had taken to tickling him—and Logan had to admit, if only to
himself
, that magic seemed entirely possible.
"I don't really expect an answer,"
Kira
said at his studied silence. "I just like to make people of a certain temperament consider the possibility of magic.
Works better than prunes."
His mother barked a laugh, which did not help her cause one bit, Logan thought, even as Jessie bit off a smile, and the music for "Do you
Believe
in Magic?" began to play in his head.
Shy as she appeared, Vickie went to Chester and offered her hand. "I want to thank you, Mr.
Seabright
, for your investment in my dress shop. I could never have gone into business without your help."
Chester
Seabright
, that starched, holier than thou businessman, damned near blushed. "I'm n—
You're
… welcome… Vickie. I'm,
er
, glad I could help." He and his daughter exchanged a sharp, meaningful look, Chester's expression fulminating, Melody's sparkling with mischief.
"Don't worry,"
Kira
said, recapturing Logan's attention. "We're not party-crashing. We just came to borrow some lavender and lemon balm for a quick spell."
"Oh, from my herb garden," Melody said.
"Love and healing, right?
Sure. Come on."
"Nice meeting you,"
Kira
and Vickie chorused, as they followed Melody down the stairs and toward her kitchen garden out back.
After Melody left, the party went dead—as if the life had been snuffed from it, and Logan wondered if anyone else had noticed the sudden reduction in energy at her absence.
When she returned, Shane insisted Melody look at the ship coming in. Then Jess had to tell her about last night's
Boneyard
tour. Then, when Mel finally started in his direction, her father stopped her. Logan was finally forced to raise a fresh margarita and wiggle the glass to catch her eye and lure her over.
"
Kira's
a witch," she said, coming up to him and accepting the drink.
No kidding, Logan thought, watching her give the same enthusiastic attention to the salted rim of her glass that she'd given to their kiss in her kitchen earlier. "She is, huh?" He'd lost track of the conversation.
"Yep, a real one."
Oh yeah, now he remembered.
And what about you?
he
wanted to ask, less aroused but still caught in her spell. Are you a witch, too? It had not escaped his notice that Melody knew as well as
Kira
which spells the herbs were used for. "Why do you keep an herb garden?" he asked.
"For cooking, of course."
Logan's laughter did not endear him to Melody, but her witch and ditz friends, her suspect herb garden, not to mention her let's-make-magic approach to life, did help strengthen his resolve to keep his distance, especially from her talented mouth.
Only two tall ships passed by
Mellie
, I think about you all the time."
Melody's soft, full-hearted smile made her topaz eyes shine, as if she'd been given a great gift.
"Really, Daddy?"
Chester nodded. "Every month when my accountant reminds me that you're not cashing the checks I send you."
Melody's pleasure
dimmed,
and Logan caught the flash of hurt she tried to hide. "I told you, Dad, I don't need your help. I'm doing fine."
Logan's respect for Melody
rose
a double notch. She
was
doing fine, though he was concerned about how long that would last.
"So you give my money away?" Chester didn't so much ask his daughter a question, as chide her for her answer. "In my name, no less," he said to the company at large, "to heaven knows who all, and his cousin's worthless brother besides." He patted Melody's hand with the first show of fatherly affection Logan had seen. "Who's going to come knocking on my door asking me for more money this week,
Mellie
-Pie
? '
Free the Warthogs?' or 'Iguanas for the Homeless?'"
Logan stifled a chuckle, no less entertained than his mother, while Jessie didn't look the least surprised at any of it.
"So, let me get this straight, Mr.
Seabright
," Logan said. "I take it that you sometimes send Melody money to live on?"
"Sometimes?
Try, every month, and it's more than enough to live on. It's enough to… live pretty damn well on. She doesn't need those pathetic jobs she takes."
"Damn it, Daddy!"
"Dad, Mel said a bad word."
Good for Mel
. "Provocation, son," Logan said.
Shane thought about that for a minute, but when he started to speak, he caught the warning in Logan's look, and shrugged.
Logan returned his attention to Mel's father. "So, Melody chooses to provide for herself, does she? I find that commendable." Logan gave her
a thumbs
up, garnering a grin from her and a grimace from her father. "And she gives your money to charity?"
"Worthless
charities,
and worthless dress shops doomed to failure. Hell, she's throwing my money away." Chester looked at Melody in much the same way Logan had just regarded Shane, as if she were a recalcitrant child. "Care to explain yourself?" he asked her, "
while
we're on the subject."
Melody raised her gaze to the heavens before focusing on Logan, rather than on her father, the twinkle in her eyes subtle, but undeniable. "
Kira
got a job as a fund-raiser at The Salem Museum of Witchcraft and needed a few donations to her credit." She shrugged. "Daddy's checks were just sitting there, gathering dust, so I got the bright idea of signing one of them over to the museum."