Bedeviled Angel (3 page)

"I'll never forgive myself," she said.

He had batter in his hair, his ears. He was sneezing batter! After Melody carried him into the bathroom and washed him up, he admitted that the slap of batter had stung, and she cried again, in pure relief, because he was okay.

Shane patted her elbow. "It's okay, Mel. I'll take care of you."

Melody blew her nose. "How about we take care of each other," she said on a laugh.

"Okay, Mel."

After they went upstairs for Shane to change his clothes, they made friends with the mixer from hell, and during their second attempt, the batter actually looked like the picture in the cookbook. "Success," Melody said, as she poured it in a pan and placed it in the oven.

They got the hot fruit glaze right on the first try, another success, until Shane dipped a finger in for a scalding taste.

Melody applied a burn cream to the tip of his finger and covered it with one of her favorite cartoon Band-Aids. Then she wiped a few more tears and took him on her lap to cuddle. "Here," she said, bringing the wounded finger to her lips. "Let me kiss it better."

For a minute, Shane looked dumbfounded, then he buried his little face in her neck, and she stroked his baby-fine hair. "You all right, buddy?"

"I'm sorry, Mel."

"
You're
sorry?" She cupped his cheek and pulled his head back so she could look into his sad little face. "For what?"

"Being bad. Don't send me away."

"Send you… I might follow you home. Besides, you could never be bad. You're the best little boy that ever taught me to cook. Er, but don't tell your dad about the cooking, not until I'm better at it, okay?"

"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!"

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."