Читать книгу His Girl Friday - Diana Palmer - Страница 6

Norman was curled up on the radiator, as usual, when Danetta got home. He opened his eyes and then closed them again, his long emerald-green body sprawled over the warm place.

“You’re so enthusiastic, Norman,” she sighed, pausing to rub his head and tickle his chin. He did look ferocious, she supposed, remembering Mr. Ritter’s horrified expression when she’d mentioned having an iguana. But the reptile’s fierce appearance was just window dressing in Norman’s case. She’d carried him around and petted him since he was barely seven inches long, and she didn’t find him in the least intimidating or frightening. It was hard to be afraid of a creature that liked spinach quiche and responded to a whistle. She was sure that a book she’d read on iguanas said they were stupid. It was a good thing Norman couldn’t read.

She heated up some quiche for him and turned on a Beethoven sonata. When she put the quiche in a bowl with two or three fresh hibiscus petals from the florist, Norman sniffed and oozed down onto the floor. He looked like a miniature dinosaur, Danetta thought as she watched him plod to his food dish and eat hungrily. He wasn’t much on regular meals. He ate about every second or third day, and he was certainly healthy enough. His tail gave her nightmares. It was terribly long and quite handsome, and she lived in fear of stepping on it. Iguanas shed their tails quite easily if they were pulled on, but Norman would never forgive her if she cost him his crowning glory.

She brooded most of the evening over Cabe Ritter’s behavior. First he wanted her to dress in a more feminine way, then he accused her of having a crush on him, then he seemed to be mad because she denied it. He was the most puzzling man she’d ever known.

Finally she went to bed, leaving Norman on the radiator. It was still cool at night, and that warmth attracted him. He was so predictable. She could always find him on the radiator, on his paper in the bathroom—because he was housebroken—or in the kitchen. It was a good thing that Mr. Ritter had never come to visit her at home, she mused as she lay awake. Norman would give him fits.

She closed her eyes with determination, but she kept seeing her enigmatic boss’s broad, hard face. She’d denied her attraction to him for a long time, and it was a good thing she’d learned to hide it. If she’d given herself away today when he’d made that accusation, she’d be looking for another job.

As if she’d ever have a chance with such a man, she sighed inwardly. He could have his pick of women, and did. Danetta wouldn’t even be in the running. She only wondered why he’d been so irritated when she’d made that remark about his being a womanizer. Surely he didn’t want her to have a crush on him! Of course not. She groaned and rolled over. She had to try to get some sleep.

The next morning, she felt as if she hadn’t gotten even one hour’s worth. She went to work dragging, her eyes bloodshot and dark circled. She’d dressed hurriedly in a green-and-lavender-and-brown swirled dress—a shirtwaist dress, although she hadn’t really meant to. She left her hair down, too, mainly because she didn’t have time to put it up after she’d overslept.

Mr. Ritter was usually a half hour later than she was. Today, of course, he was early. Mentally groaning as she tried to tiptoe into the office, she prepared herself for a lecture. He didn’t say anything as it turned out, but he did give her a cold glance as she walked in, his eyes going pointedly to the clock on the office wall, which proved that she was a full ten minutes late. He was on the phone, nodding and muttering to someone on the other end of the line.

She mouthed an apology and started to take off her lightweight car coat.

“Keep it on,” he called to her, covering the receiver. “Get the tape recorder and your pad and pen. We’re going out to a rig to get some data about that new machine part I made for Harry Deal.”

She had to grit her teeth. Harry Deal was an old-line rigger who hated women and made no secret of it. He made her feel like fish bait, and Mr. Ritter knew it. Which was probably why he was dragging her out to the rig with him, she thought miserably. He was getting even for what she’d said the day before.

“Not today,” she sighed to herself. She put her coat over her arm as she got the necessary items together. “I’m just not up to Harry Deal today.”

“Stop moaning,” her boss snapped. He held open the office door, his cold eyes taking in every fact of her appearance. But they lingered on the soft thrust of her breasts and the sensuous curves outlined by the dress, and the coldness went out of them. The pale blue began to darken, to glitter. His jaw tautened and the arm that had been holding the door open moved, so that as she started to go through the doorway, he was suddenly blocking her way.

She looked up warily, her apprehension visible on her soft features. Close up he was devastating. That gray-and-beige sports coat clung to him lovingly, not too tight but certainly not overloose. Her eyes dropped, noting involuntarily the way his gray slacks molded the powerful muscles of his long legs. He smelled of spicy cologne, and her eyes rose again and stopped at the wide curve of his mouth above that cleft chin. She could feel the heat of his big body and it made her long to lean against him.

“Is this for my benefit?” he asked quietly, his eyes smoothing down the clingy shirtwaist dress.

Her heart bounced in her chest as her eyes met that glittery stare. “Of course not,” she faltered. “I…was running late, and I didn’t have time to put up my hair.”

“I’m not talking about your hair,” he replied, his voice deep and measured. His arm moved deliberately so that it brushed lazily against her shoulder, and she could feel the warmth of his breath on her temple. “Be careful,” he murmured softly. “You said yourself that I was a womanizer. Wearing something that sexy might give me ideas.”

Her shocked eyes were trapped in his stare. It was like electricity flowing between them for one long, staggering instant.

“I…didn’t mean to,” she stammered.

“Didn’t you?” He moved his arm away and stood aside to let her pass. She managed that on legs almost too wobbly to support her. After shrugging into her coat, she went out to the car. Her face burned as she realized just how vulnerable she was to him. And he wasn’t even trying. What would she do if he ever made a real pass at her?

There was a strained silence between them as he drove out of town toward one of Harry Deal’s newest oil rigs. This was a derrick, because Harry was drilling for the first time on this new field on his property. He hadn’t hit oil yet, but Danetta would have bet that he was going to. Harry could smell oil, and he had quite a track record.

“My father has a percentage of this exploration,” Cabe said a few minutes down the road. He tapped ashes from his cigarette into the ashtray of his big gray Lincoln, glancing sideways at Danetta. “Relax, for God’s sake,” he snapped. “I’m not going to jump on you!”

She bit her lower lip until her teeth bruised it. “I appreciate it,” she managed with forced humor.

He took a long draw from his cigarette and let out an audible sigh with the smoke. “It’s all right, Dan,” he said after a minute. “I don’t have the right to tell you how to dress, although I guess I might have pushed you into what you’re wearing today by the insulting things I said about the way you looked.” He moved uncomfortably. “It’s my father, damn it! I hadn’t even noticed your clothes until he stuck his nose in.” In fact, he hadn’t really noticed Danetta that much until his father had started to point out her virtues. Now he found himself watching her all too often. Like right now. He glanced toward her and then away, his face tautening as his eyes registered once again how sexy she looked in a dress that fit properly. “That dress is…very flattering.”

She knew her face was flaming. All at once she felt like one of the creatures on the endangered species list. She darted her eyes to the window without acknowledging the compliment. “You said your father had an interest in Mr. Deal’s operation?”

He put out the cigarette. “A small percentage, yes,” he replied, relieved to have the hot tension die down. The sight of her in that dress wasn’t doing his self-control any good at all, and he hoped she was too green to realize that his bad temper was due to the new attraction he was feeling for her. “Eugene likes to have his finger in every pie he can find.”

“I thought oil was a bad investment right now.”

“The market’s down, but it will come up again. Like gold, it fluctuates. But as long as it’s a necessity, prices will eventually go up. Eugene and Harry Deal are smart enough to diversify. They’ll make out.”

“Is there a problem with the equipment you made for Mr. Deal?” she asked.

“He thinks so. I don’t.” He glanced at her and grinned. “I know the joker who’s operating the rig for him. He’s an old-line rigger and he doesn’t like trying new things. He’s probably put the damned part in backward or left it out altogether.”

Which turned out to be exactly the case. Danetta, standing uncomfortably to one side while Cabe wrestled with an unfathomable piece of greasy equipment, saw the older man nearby turn red when the motor was turned back on and the part slid into place and worked with textbook precision.

The rig was overrun with men—muscular, rough-looking men who seemed to find Danetta, even in her light car coat, quite an attraction. There were some women in that line of work, but not in Harry Deal’s crew. She felt all too conspicuous.

She was holding Cabe’s jacket while he worked. Now he wiped his hands on a handkerchief that would never be white again and gave Harry Deal a speaking look.

Harry, a white-haired, short man with a big nose, glared at his rigger. “Okay, I stand corrected,” he muttered. “Sam, you can explain all this to me later.”

“Yes, sir,” Sam grumbled. He shot Cabe a hard glare and stomped off to the other side of the rig.

“How’s your dad?” he asked Cabe.

“Making money. He hopes you’re going to fund him a new Rolls with this strike.”

“I’m doing my best.” He turned, pursing his lips at Danetta. “Still got the same secretary, I see. Not married yet, Miss Marist?”

Danetta hugged Cabe’s coat to her breasts. “I did find one candidate, Mr. Deal,” she replied sweetly, “but he couldn’t change a tire and talk at the same time, so I gave him up.”

Harry smiled unpleasantly. “Can’t change your own tire?”

“I have to these days. Most men are so fastidious that they don’t like getting mussed up doing those difficult jobs.”

Cabe saw disaster ahead. He took Danetta by the arm and led her away from a smoldering Harry. “Let me know if you have any more problems, Harry,” he called over his shoulder. “We have to get back to work.”

“Thanks, Cabe,” the older man said shortly and turned back to his job.

“Arrogant old dinosaur,” Danetta muttered, all too aware of the biting grip Cabe had on her arm even through the thick cloth.

“You escalated things, honey,” he reminded her. “Now get in there and keep quiet until I get you out of earshot.” He gave her a faintly amused glance. “You’ve never talked back to Harry before.”

“Maybe it’s the smell of oil and grease that did it,” she offered, smiling impishly. She felt free, now that she’d finally stood up to the old devil. Maybe working for Mr. Ritter had given her that bit of extra self-confidence. She’d had to stand up to him, and now it was getting to be second nature to stand up to other people. She’d…expanded emotionally, she thought.

He chuckled softly as he put her in the Lincoln, leaving his jacket in her hands as he went around and got in. He was still trying to get the grease off his big hands.

“Damned old-line riggers,” he said on a heavy sigh. “Harry needs to fire that son of a—”

“Mr. Ritter!” She glared at him.

“Sorry, Miss Lily-White.” He glanced at her as he started the car. “You ought to be used to my language by now.”

“I ought to,” she agreed. She leaned back against the cushy seat with a long sigh and closed her eyes. “Just when I think I’ve heard it all, you invent new words.”

He chuckled softly. “Do I?” He sat watching her with the engine running, his eyes curious. He slowly turned her face toward him, with a big, grease-stained hand. The smile left his hard lips. “You’re a little wildcat when you get started, aren’t you?” he asked in a tone he’d never used with her before. “You didn’t have that fire in the beginning. It took a few tears to bring it out, but you don’t back away from anything these days, do you?” he mused. His big thumb moved to her mouth and suddenly dragged across her lips while he watched her reaction with narrowed, intent blue eyes.

The sensation that deliberate action caused shocked her. Her body went taut and hot all at once, and her breath caught audibly.

Her response was sheer delight. He’d forgotten that a woman could be that sensitive to his touch. She was innocent, not like the jaded, very sophisticated women who frequently passed through his life. Almost everything sensual was new to her. His thumb moved again and pressed against her mouth so that she could taste tobacco and the faint smell of grease on it. He felt his body tighten as her face told him exactly how much pleasure she was feeling. His blue eyes glittered into hers at a proximity that made her muscles clench.

“Did you know that your mouth was that sensitive, little one?” he asked huskily, searching her wide eyes. “That it could arouse you when a man played with it?”

She swallowed nervously, her body tingling with new sensations. “The…men on the rig…” she whispered.

“The windows are tinted,” he reminded her in a slow, deep undertone. His thumb moved again with sensual pressure and he bent closer, so that the cologne scent of his big body overwhelmed her. Her scent was in his nostrils and he wanted nothing more in life than her soft mouth. Reason and sanity seemed to go out the window as he watched with masculine delight the helpless reaction of her innocence to his experience.

“Mr. Ritter…!” she murmured. He was overwhelming her, and she was afraid.

“Have you ever been kissed properly?” he whispered, letting his eyes drop to her parted, swollen lips. “With your mouth open under a man’s lips?” he breathed, and she actually moaned. His jaw tautened. “It would be so easy. I could lower my head, just an inch or so,” he drawled softly, moving closer, “and let you taste my breath. And then I could slide my hand into your hair, like this—” he drew her face up under his with the pressure of his fingers at her nape “—and I could kiss you like that. I could part your lips with my mouth and drag you against me so hard that you could feel my heart beating…”

She panicked at the mental pictures he was putting into her mind, and in one last burst of sanity she pushed at his chest, trying not to feel the hard warmth of hair-roughened muscles under the thin white shirt. “No! You…mustn’t,” she pleaded. “I work for you…!”

“Work for me,” he echoed, his voice barely audible. He stared down at her soft mouth and felt his body clench with the need to take it. Work for him. The words echoed in his mind and he blinked and scowled down into Danetta’s shocked eyes. Danetta! His head jerked up.

“My God, what am I doing?” he asked harshly. He let go of her abruptly and sat up, moving away from her to light a cigarette. He managed it with a brief fumble, which she was too shaken to see. “I’m sorry, Dan,” he said stiffly. His heart was shaking him, and the tautness of his body was unexpected and disturbing. She was only a child. “That won’t happen again.”

He put the car swiftly into gear and pulled out onto the road without looking at her.

Danetta tore her eyes away from his hard features. She could hardly believe that had happened at all, except for the faint soreness of her mouth and her tingling scalp. No wonder women flocked around him, she thought miserably. He had an infallible technique. He’d barely touched her and yet he’d made her knees weaken. She could still taste his smoky breath in her mouth and hear the deliciously shocking things he’d said to her. She almost groaned at the fever he’d kindled and left unsatisfied. She’d wanted his hard lips to crush down on hers, to feel his arms go around her, his chest pressing roughly against her soft breasts. She wrapped her arms around her, trembling a little in the aftermath. What was wrong with him?

He was quiet all the way back to the office, keeping the radio between them. But all the while she was thinking, and wondering if he’d done it on purpose, to show her how vulnerable she was to him. Maybe it was revenge for calling him a womanizer. To show her that even she was wide open to his practiced technique. By the time they got into the underground garage, she felt sick all over, certain that he’d been trying to humiliate her.

She reached for the door handle the minute he parked the car, but his big warm hand caught hers, staying it.

“Not yet,” he said quietly. His eyes searched hers in the tense silence between them. Something in her eyes made him feel guilty. “I’ve hurt you.”

“I called you a womanizer,” she reminded him, dropping her eyes to his chest. “Was that…why? To teach me a lesson?”

“No, it wasn’t. And I got the lesson, honey,” he said shortly, then sighed heavily. “I’m used to jaded, experienced women who take everything a man does for granted. I’ve never had any experience with shy, fascinated virgins who make it all seem new and exciting.” He managed a wry smile at her blush. “Just for the record, Miss Marist, have you ever kissed a man with your mouth open?”

She went beet red and averted her face. “That’s none of your business!”

“In other words, you haven’t,” he mused, chuckling gently. “All right, chicken, run for it.”

“I don’t need teaching!” she threw at him as she wrestled the car door open.

“Oh, but you do,” he replied softly, his hand preventing her from jumping out. “You don’t know what I’d give to be your teacher,” he added with narrowed, glittery eyes. “But that would be disastrous for both of us. I’m too jaded and you’re too pure. The best I could offer you would be a few hours in my bed, and I wouldn’t insult you with that kind of proposition. You need a good, steady man to cherish you and give you children.” He shrugged heavily, staring at the glowing tip of his cigarette, and for a few seconds he let down his guard. “That would require a kind of trust I can’t give a woman. I don’t want to be vulnerable, Dan.”

“Nobody’s asking you to be!” she said angrily, so embarrassed that she could hardly sit still.

He caught her eyes. “Are you vulnerable?” he asked quietly. “Was my father right? Don’t you have a flaming, king-size crush on me?”

“No!” she cried.

There was a world of experience in his slow, knowing gaze. “Then why didn’t you fight me?” he asked in a tone as smooth as warm honey.

She darted out of the car and into the building so fast that she could barely breathe when she reached the office. The first thing she planned to do was type out her resignation. But when she opened the door, Eugene Ritter was sitting impatiently in the waiting room, looking like a thundercloud.

“What have you done with my son?” he demanded belligerently.

Danetta stopped short, her hair disheveled, her mouth red from the hard pressure of Cabe’s thumb, out of breath and almost shaking from what he’d said to her in the car.

“On second thought,” Eugene murmured thoughtfully as he studied her, “what has my son been doing to you?”

Cabe came in the door behind her, looking smug and so damned arrogant that she could have thrown the typewriter at him.

“Hello, Dad,” Cabe said absently. “Need something?”

Eugene stared at his son, looking for traces of lipstick probably, Cabe thought amusedly. The older man’s face fell. “Not really,” he said. “I wanted to know if you’re coming to our anniversary party tomorrow night. Nicky’s expecting you.”

Nicky? Danetta had heard that name once or twice. Was it a man’s name or a woman’s? Probably a woman’s, she thought miserably.

“I’m busy tomorrow night,” Cabe said shortly. “I’m taking Karol to the ballet,” he added, with a long, silent stare at Danetta’s averted face.

“So that painted woman is more important to you than I am,” Eugene said angrily. “And what about Cynthia? Is she going to suffer for the rest of your life because I had the audacity to marry again?”

Cabe turned on the older man, his eyes dangerous. “She’ll never be my mother, and Nicky will never be part of my family! Damn you, I loved my mother! You couldn’t even get her in the ground before you had Cynthia in front of a justice of the peace!”

“That’s a lie and you know it,” Eugene said in a surprisingly calm tone. “Cynthia did work for me while your mother was alive, but it wasn’t until after her death that we fell in love. Nicky was a delightful surprise, not an accident, and I won’t apologize for him. My God, boy, he isn’t taking anything away from you! He doesn’t even inherit anything except a share of my total estate. Cynthia and I agreed on that from the start! She’s got money of her own to settle on him, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“I’ve forgotten nothing,” Cabe told his father in a tone like shattering ice.

Eugene started to speak and then just shrugged, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “It wouldn’t kill you to spend one night with us, all the same. It hurts Nicky that you ignore him.”

“I owe him nothing!”

The older man grimaced and turned away.

Cabe slammed his fist down on Danetta’s desk, startling her. She’d put away her coat and was just sitting down to work. “All right,” he said angrily. “Damn it, I’ll come for the night.”

“That’s my boy,” Eugene said with an infrequent tenderness. He looked past Cabe at Danetta, who was trying to be invisible. “Why don’t you leave the brassy blonde at home and bring that one with you?” he mused. “She keeps an iguana. Nicky would love her.”

Danetta actually gasped. “How did you know about Norman?” she asked.

Eugene grinned. “Ask Jenny.” His eyes went back to Cabe. “Your secretary here looked pretty flustered when she walked in. I thought maybe you’d—”

“We just came from Harry Deal’s oil field,” Cabe said with uncommon venom. “She and Harry got into it.”

“I hope she won. He’s hell on the nerves,” Eugene said with a disappointed sigh. “Well, I’ll see you tomorrow night,” he muttered. “Brassy blonde, God knows how many men—”

“Get out!” Cabe said shortly.

Eugene knew when to quit. He waved at Danetta and walked out without another word.

Danetta was fumbling with the computer, trying to turn it on. Considering how well she did it normally, it was rather disturbing to look like a rank amateur. It had been an upsetting morning.

She smelled cigarette smoke. Cabe came closer with a cigarette in his fingers and stood over her, his pale eyes watchful, his dark, wavy hair falling rakishly onto his broad forehead. He had one hand in his pocket and his chiseled lips were pursed as he looked at her openly and with pure male appreciation.

“I don’t have a crush on you,” she said, trying to appear calm.

He lifted the cigarette to his mouth and took a long draw from it. “I’m thirteen years older than you,” he said quietly. “From a practical standpoint, you don’t even have a yardstick to measure me against. Your life is a blank slate.” He blew out wispy smoke. “No, I’m the last complication you need in your life, kid,” he said shortly. “So no more close encounters. Let’s get to work.”

He went back into his office with that quick, measured stride that meant he was in a temper. She should have been relieved. But she wasn’t. It was like the end of something that hadn’t even begun.

She loaded the computer, her heart around her ankles. If he didn’t want complications, why did he touch her that way in the car, saying those things to her? Her brows drew into an angry frown. He couldn’t resist a little mockery, she supposed. But she wouldn’t let him get away with it twice. From now on, she was immune. Or at least, he was going to think she was.

She wondered vaguely who Nicky was. It sounded as if he was a relative, and why would he like Danetta just because she had an iguana? She sighed. Her whole life seemed to be one big question these days.

She started the word processing program and began to type out the routine letters that Cabe had scribbled answers on before they left the office.