Free The Kitchen Witch by Annette Blair Page B

where they charged two grand for ice cream, laughter from the other side of Melody's door stopped Logan cold, one foot on the stairs. A frisson of alarm shivered his spine and raised his hackles. Familiar laughter, well, familiar voices anyway. Couldn't be his mother; Phyllis Kilgarven hadn't laughed in years. Jessie, maybe? Yes, that was Jessie's voice all right. No, maybe it was his mother.
    A premonition of doom swamped him. Suppose Melody had cornered them both, which scared the hell out of him. Because he was smart. And paranoid. His mother and Jessie together could wreak havoc, he knew from long experience. Throw Melody into the toxic blend, and… oh God, there went his organized world.
    Logan regarded Melody's door, panic increasing with every star. Ignoring the thud of his heart, he'd barely knocked before it opened, slow and torturous, as if by an unseen hand, macabre, menacing.
    The sight that greeted him stopped his blood. The most dangerous women in the witch capital of the world sat at Mel's retro fifties enamel table, heads together, surrounded by a spill of salt, a harried lime, and a quarter bottle of tequila.
    Logan held the door for support. "Please tell me that bottle wasn't full when you started."
    They all three giggled. Great. "Hello to you, too," he said, eyeing Melody's sexy red cover-up, short and saucy, an outfit that in any other circumstance would make him want to take a closer look… examine the goods, cop a feel.
    He regarded the bright-eyed trio and raised a sober brow. "Ready to party?"
    Melody grinned. "We started without you."
    Nofoolin '.
    His mother raised her glass his way. "You kinky little devil."
    Ah, crap.
    Mel raised hers. "A toast to
long
office legends. Uh, I mean long-standing."
    "Hey," Jessie nudged Melody's shoulder with her own. "I thought you said, 'long-staying?'"
    The tequila triplets burst into laughter.
    Logan touched his throbbing temple. Too late to put himself up for adoption, but he might have to move… to another galaxy. "Damn."
    Shane gasped. "Dad, you said a bad word."
    "I had provocation, son."
    Shane's face lit up. "If I get a poor vacation, can I call Roddy Simms a dick-head?"
    All laughter, all sound, stopped.
    "Shane," Logan said. "We need to have a talk."
    "Right after our pirate cave picnic," said Shane's grandmother, who rose to propel him by the shoulders into the hall and out of harm's way. "Melody, why don't you get dressed and come on up," she said. "Logan, let's go."
    "Yep," Jess said, giving Logan a loaded wink and taking Shane's hand. "Let's go make Jessie's famous marshmal -low salad."
    "Do we gotta put fruit in it?" Shane asked.
    Logan waited for them to hit the stairs before he shut Melody's door and turned on her. "Please tell me you didn't tell Jessie and my mother about Nikky ."
    "You mean they didn't know? Shame on you for keeping secrets from your mother. And Jessie, too, why she's like—"
    "The thorn in my freaking side! Tell me, do you tell your mother about all your… your—"
    "Many and varied sexual exploits?" Melody snorted—a measure of the tequila in her blood. "Hah, she should have lived so long."
    Logan's stricken look made Melody sorry she'd shocked him, but she wanted out of the subject and fast. "You never told me what a delicious sense of humor your mother had."
    "My mother? You're kidding? What did you say that she found so amusing?" Logan began to advance, tripping Melody's pulse with the promise of retribution sparking his eyes and creasing his brow. "Do I have to teach you to keep what's between us… between
us
?" he asked.
    The wicked purpose in his expression sent Melody scrambling from her chair. She took a step back for each one Logan took in her direction, and when the wall stopped her retreat, he raised a brow… and grinned. "You gonna tell her about this?"
    "This?" The word emerged as a squeak.
    "This," Logan repeated, inhaling her, as if she were a flower for heaven's sakes, and skimming her brow with his lips,