"Okay, Mel."
"Pals?"
"You and me?"
"Sure. You're such a good
kid,
I might have to borrow you from your dad once in a while, just so you can be a good influence on me."
"Okay, Mel."
"Do you know how to-make gravy?"
"I watch Dad do it all the time."
"Good, let's try that next."
They decided to use a big pan and make a lot, because gorgeous old Dad liked extra gravy. But while Melody was stirring it, just the way Shane said Dad did, the gravy erupted without warning, bubbling down the stove like a hot lava flow.
"Yikes! Yikes!" In a panic as to how to stop it from taking over her kitchen, Melody lifted Shane off the chair he was standing on and moved him to safety.
While he repeated his new mantra, "Turn it off, turn it off," Melody tried a forward attack, but couldn't get close enough to the stove to reach the dial. So she went to the broom closet and flipped the circuit breakers—all of them—to cut the power to the stove… and plunged them into darkness.
A heavy silence fell, and lasted, for half a beat, until a spontaneous eruption of a little boy's giggles grew, and grew, and a crescendo of full-blown laughter, joyful and breathless, took over the apartment and filled Melody's heart.
After Shane finally caught his breath, Melody turned the circuit breakers back on, one by one, while he told her which room lit up. By the time they had enough light from the other rooms to see the kitchen, the gravy had cooled a bit and Shane fetched bath towels for her to clean up the spill.
Later, because she didn't have a potato masher, Shane tried to smash the boiled potatoes with the back of a big spoon, but during his enthusiastic attempt, the aluminum bowl, potatoes and all, bounced, upside down, into the sink. Shane looked so
stricken,
Melody twirled him off his chair and danced him around the kitchen. "I'm glad it was you," she sang, until she had him laughing again. "I'm glad it was
youuuuuuu
."
After an exhausting few hours, they surveyed the meal they had prepared. "What do you think?
Awesome?"
Melody asked.
"Or yuck?"
Shane patted her hand. "
It's
okay, Mel, don't feel bad. I'll teach you to cook, or Dad can, or he can cook for you. Then you can eat upstairs with us every night."
"That bad, huh?"
His grin was as deadly as his father's, and Melody wondered what old Dad would say about his son's chivalrous offer.
She was glad Shane had eaten the cookies before supper, though, because it was taking his father longer than they'd planned. They gave up waiting and tried to gnaw their way through the leather the recipe called Beef Burgundy, but that was useless. She didn't feel like eating dessert, but Shane dug right in… and promptly gagged.
Melody shoved a wad of napkins at him. "Maybe ginger, instead of cinnamon, and cherry pie filling instead of firm green apples, wasn't such a good idea, after all," she said.
Shane wiped his mouth, "Yuck!" he said, and giggled. Despite his batter-beating and sore fingertip, and the way dinner had turned out, a spark now lit his eyes, a glint of mischief and life that had been missing before. He'd had a good time playing chef, and she'd had almost as much fun as he had. But the results looked disgusting. Lord, she'd better get rid of the evidence before Logan returned. If he saw the mess she'd made, he would never—
"Hi, Dad.
Me'n
Mel had fun. Look! We cooked!"
Chapter Two
MELODY turned on her heel, as every woman's fantasy man seemed to magically appear—jeans, soft and snug in all the right places, hair tousled, sleeves rolled up.
Nothing uptight about
dishy
Dad tonight.
"Hey, sport," Logan said, hugging Shane against his legs as he cupped the boy's upturned head. "You changed clothes?"
Shane nodded, looking… worried.
"A spill, huh?" Logan said on a chuckle.
Shane relaxed. "Mel's washing my other stuff."
Logan looked up. "That wasn't necessary," he said, assessing her, Melody thought, from her steam-frizzed hair to her gravy-splattered mules.
"No problem."
"Sorry to walk right in," he said. "The door swung open when I knocked."
Gotta
get that latch fixed
, Melody thought.
Logan rubbed his hands together. "Something smells g—" He focused on the table for the first time and stopped.
Appalled—that was the best word to describe the look on his face as he eyed her not-so-dynamite dinner, Melody thought. Drat. Was he turning a little green around the gills there? "Have you eaten?" she asked. "I can fix you some—"
"God, no."
"Not this," she said. "I've got—"
"No, nothing."
He raised a hand so fast, she half expected him to form a cross with his fingers. "Thanks," he said, "but I'm beat. Let's go, Shane."
"Hey," Melody said. "You promised me a job."
"Oh, right. I forgot."
"You forgot!"
Logan chuckled. "I forgot to tell you that there's a secretarial job with your name on it at WHCH TV."
Melody stopped clearing the table and gave him a blank look.
"A secretary?"
"A secretary doesn't beat a vampire?"
"We're not playing Old Maid, here. This is my career."
"Wearing a Halloween Costume for thirty days in October does not a career
make.
"
"Thirty-one."
Melody dumped a black clump that might once have been beef into the sink, shoved the petrified mass into the drain, and turned on the disposal.
Logan stifled his grin and waited for the labored grinding to stop. "Can you handle a computer?" he asked when she'd finished destroying the evidence. "We've got a data entry opening that pays—"
"What about the cooking show?"
"The what?"
"I'd rather be a TV cook."
Logan gingerly poked a cold, ugly, congealing casserole of something… gray and… purple?
and
lost the fight. The harder he laughed, the redder Melody got, until she was as bright as her man-eating Capri suit.
"You rat.
You judgmental skunk.
How dare you put me
down.
I blew a perfectly good interview to help you out."
Logan had to give her credit. She stopped raging to kiss Shane's head and tell him they'd had fun before resuming her attack on his rodent father. Shane even hugged her back.
"I don't doubt your ability because of your Dracula fixation," Logan said, surprised at his son's easy show of affection. "It's the fact that you can't seem to cook that concerns me."
"I can too cook. I just didn't have the right ingredients. I wasn't prepared, that's all. I'm a good cook, aren't I, Shane?"
His son looked a bit cornered for a minute, then he firmed his spine like a loyal little soldier, and damned if Logan wasn't proud. "Yeah, Dad, I only puked 'cause Mel said she
probly
—"
"That'll be enough, Shane," Melody said. "I can take it from here."
"Okay, Mel."
Logan had to bite the inside of his cheek to remain serious.
Melody raged, and she paced. She called him three kinds of weasels and gave him a dozen ridiculous reasons why she would be good on the cooking show. But when she paced toward him, her breasts bouncing jauntily in that red sling she was trying to carry them in,
the
buzz in his head became louder than the sound of her voice. And when she walked away from him, it took all his studied attention not to introduce her cute little ass to the palms of his eager hands.
"So, will you?" she asked, coming to a stop directly in front of him.
"I'm sorry; what did you say?" His stomach growled, while another part of his body reacted a good deal more strongly.
"Will you give it to me?"
The silence pulsed. Logan flushed. "Excuse me?"
"The interview.
I'll watch Shane nights for a year, if you give it to me."
"Oh, the interview."
"What else would I
?…
" Melody narrowed her eyes.
Logan grinned, despite himself. "In the event I would even consider granting you an interview, you couldn't go dressed like that, you know."
"What's wrong with this?"
Besides the fact that he wanted to strip it away and suggest a friendly game of bone-jumping?
"Nothing."
She looked suspicious. "What do you think I should wear?"
"I don't know.
A dress, maybe?"
"A dress?
Get real. This is the new millennium."
"You're interviewing for a TV show, Melody."
"Yes!" she crowed, as she did a sexy little happy dance and high-
fived
Shane.
That's when Logan realized he'd been screwed… without the perks.
Damn. She was good.
Logan took his son's hand. "Let's go, sport." At the door, he turned back to Melody. "I have to be honest with you, Mel. That outfit could probably get you the job." He wiggled his brows. "You'd sure get a raise."
"Skunk," she called after him, as she followed him out to the landing and watched him climb the stairs. "Shane," she said. "If your place gets to smelling too
skunky
, you can bunk down here with me."
"Okay, Mel. I'll go put on my
pj's
and be right back."
Logan shot Melody his most intimidating frown before turning to his son. "You will not. Your bed is upstairs."
"But
me
and Mel want to do a sleepover, Dad."
Logan took his son by the hand. It was all he could do
not
to suggest that he'd like to come, too. Talk about your double meanings.
Sheesh
.
Five minutes later, Logan draped a lathered washcloth over his son's face like a pall and elicited a giggle.
Shane shook the cloth off of his face, caught it, tossed it back, and grinned. "Don't need it. Mel washed me up."
"How domestic of her."
"Yup, there's no more batter anywhere."
"Batter?"
"Yup, all gone."
"Uh… what say you wash up again,
anyway.
"
Big sigh.
"
Okaaay
."
Logan had not failed to notice, when he returned, that, although Melody had removed the cape and the fishnet tunic and traded her stilettos for clogs—going so far as to desecrate the Capri suit with a splattered apron—she had still looked stunning.
What a night. He was in lust, his son was in love, and in three days' time, he was going to put his job on the line and interview a witch—a witch who didn't know beans about cooking—for a cooking show.
What if she really is a witch
?…
Logan had barely moved in before one of the secretaries at the station saw his new address and suggested he move out, fast. She said that Melody
Seabright
, his new downstairs neighbor, had recently made their
news, when she cast a spell on some guy who'd hit on her while she was giving a tour dressed as a witch. The guy claimed to have broken his ankle as a direct result of Melody's incantation, and he sued the tour company. That was how Melody had lost her most recent job.
But if she knew how to cast spells, why hadn't she bewitched herself into a better and more permanent job by now?
Logan handed Shane a loaded toothbrush, which he held suspended halfway to his small smiling mouth. "Mel's neat, isn't she, Dad?"
"Neat," Logan said, grinning. The
part of him watching his son's small happy face, and listening to him rhapsodize
, wanted to kiss Jessie for her brilliant suggestion.
The part that knew how dangerous women like Melody
Seabright
could be wanted to protect Shane from another one like his mother.
When Shane's perfect little teeth glistened, Logan followed him into a bedroom where Hogwarts ruled. "Tell me about your night with Melody," he said, hoping to get the scoop on the batter.
As Logan pulled the covers back, Shane imitated Mel's horrified reaction to her gravy boiling over, and 'her "Yikes" dance around the bubbling flow.
Oh boy, some cook
, Logan thought. But his son had not giggled like this, or been this animated, since before the woman who'd given him life dropped him at Logan's front door with a curt, "I've had enough; you raise him."
For weeks after she split, Shane had asked daily when his mother would be back, until he stopped asking altogether. Logan tried to tell Shane that Heather had probably gotten tired of trying to hide him from Logan, but Shane wasn't convinced.
His fault, Logan knew. If he hadn't tried so hard to find Shane, his son's small heart might not have been broken. "
C'mere
, buddy," Logan said, angry and guilty and grateful all at once. "Give your old Dad a hug."
Shane slammed into Logan's legs.
With a lump in his throat, Logan lifted his son into his arms. "You're a hell of a kid, do you know that?"
Shane leaned back and grinned. "That's what Mel says."
"Then it must be true." Logan dropped him onto his bed, getting a laugh for his efforts.
"Can we buy Mel some
measurin
' stuff, Dad?" Shane asked as he scrambled beneath the covers. "'Cause she doesn't
got
much. Or can she borrow ours? She might need to borrow me, too, sometimes, 'cause she needs me, '
kay
?"
"We'll see."
"Not like Mom, I mean. Mel
really
needs me."
Logan tried not to show his surprise at that statement as he pulled the covers up to Shane's neck and kissed his brow, but the fist around his heart tightened. "I love you, son."
"Love you too, Dad."
Logan turned off the light.
"Hey, Dad?"