His Girl Friday (3 page)

He narrowed his blue eyes again and searched her face. "You never talk about your love life."

"I gues I could make up something," she said, trying not to look and sound as unsophisticated as he made her feel.

"I thought as much." He was watching her in an odd way. He seemed to do that a lot these days, as if he was curious about something. She wished he'd come out with it. He made her feel like an insect on a pin. "Too many nights alone can make a woman vulnerable, you know. Especial y a repres ed maidenly type."

"Are you trying to tel me something, Mr. Rit er?" she asked final y.

"I'm concerned about you," he said surprisingly. "Ben Meadows, my new sales manager, mentioned this morning that he'd been trying for two weeks to get a date with you, but that you froze him out." He smiled faintly, and his pale eyes became intent. "He thinks you won't go out with him because you've got a crush on me. In fact," he added with a stare that was pure speculation, "so does my father."

She couldn't help the flush that highlighted her exquisite complexion. Her heart jumped into her throat. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. "My gosh!" He glared. "Wel , you don't have to make it sound like a perversion," he said shortly. "Women do find me at ractive from time to time."

"A certain type of woman, yes. Not me!"

He sat very stil and she wondered if she'd final y gone too far. He didn't seem to move, but his eyes narrowed and grew cold. "Why not you?"

"That's personal."

"So it's personal. I want an answer," he said doggedly.

She took a deep breath. She couldn't lie to him, even if she might have done bet er to lie. "Because you're a womanizer, Mr. Rit er," she said, feeling backed into a corner. He was beginning to look dangerous, and she dropped her eyes to her lap. "I'm sorry, but I don't find that kind of man very at ractive." He took a draw from his cigaret e and let out a thin cloud of smoke. His eyes grew brooding and even colder. "I suppose I asked for that. I didn't realize what kind of answer I might get." He sat up straight. "Al right, Dan, you've convinced me that my father doesn't know what the hel he's talking about. Let's do the mail." She felt guilty, but she didn't dare back down. He respected spirit. She'd learned her first week as his secretary that it was either give it back as good as he gave it out, or spend her life in tears. He didn't pull his punches, and he didn't respect anyone who did. As she soon discovered, he needed that toughnes to deal with the people who frequented this office. Busines was hard, and he was equal to it, even during reces ions.

Al the same, she had the oddest feeling that she'd wounded him. If a woman he cal ed by a masculine nickname could wound him, that was. Sometimes it cut her to the bone when he cal ed her Dan. He made it sound as if she were his fishing buddy or his tennis partner. He treated her that casual y, and it had hurt. Maybe that had prompted her uncharacteristic outburst about his lack of morals.

She wondered why he was so promiscuous. In two years, she'd learned next to nothing about him, except about the type of woman he liked. About his feelings and thoughts, she knew nothing. She knew his mother had died ten years ago, and that his father had remarried a lady named Cynthia. Danet a knew that he spent time with them, but he never talked about them. His father did let a few things slip from time to time when he came into the office, but not enough to satisfy her growing curiosity about the enigmatic man she worked for.

He started dictating, pacing as usual, and she had to work to keep up with him. He wasn't sparing her. She felt the whip of his voice and the ice in his stare until he was final y through and let her go back to her own desk.

He was unusual y silent for the rest of the day. She sent people into his office and buzzed him when he was needed on the telephone, but he didn't offer her coffee or stop to talk. At quit ing time, he was out the door before she was, leaving her to close up without even a goodbye unles she counted the curt jerk of his head as he left, at ache' case in hand. Danet a watched him go with mixed feelings. Perhaps she shouldn't have opened her mouth. Now she'd real y complicated things. She covered the typewriter and the computer, got her purse and sweater, and went out to stand in line for the bus. She watched it approach indifferendy, her mind stil on her bos . One of these days I wil kis my iguana, she thought vengefully, and he'l turn into somebody as handsome as Robert Redford and then you'l be sorry, Mr. Rit er! And he'l buy me mink coats and diamonds and we'l live in decadent luxury. .

She became aware of amused stares and realized belatedly that she was talking out loud.

"I'm a writer," she improvised. "It's a great plot, the iguana prince. ."

"Yeah? The part about Robert Redford was great," an elderly woman said, grinning as she got onto the bus just ahead of Danet a. "But nobody would kis an iguana!" Danet a only smiled.

Two

Norman was curled up on the radiator, as usual, when Danet a 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. Rit er's horrified expression when she'd mentioned having an iguana. But the reptile's fierce appearance was just window dres ing in Norman's case. She'd carried him around and pet ed 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, Danet a 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 Rit er's behavior. First he wanted her to dres 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.

Final y she went to bed, leaving Norman on the radiator. It was stil cool at night, and that warmth at racted 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. Rit er 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 at raction 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. Danet a 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 dres ed hurriedly in a green-andlavender-and-brown swirled dres —a shirtwaist dres , although she hadn't real y meant to. She left her hair down, too, mainly because she didn't have time to put it up after she'd overslept.

Mr. Rit er was usual y a half hour later than she was. Today, of course, he was early. Mental y 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 wal , 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 cal ed 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. Rit er knew it. Which was probably why he was dragging her out to the rig with him, she thought miserably. He was get ing 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 neces ary 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 dres , and the coldnes went out of them. The pale blue began to darken, to glit er. 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 smel ed 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 dres . Her heart bounced in her chest as her eyes met that glit ery 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 Uke 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 pas . 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 pas 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 dril ing for the first time on this new field on his property. He hadn't hit oil yet, but Danet a would have bet that he was going to. Harry could smel 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 cigaret e into the ashtray of his big gray Lincoln, glancing sideways at Danet a. "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 cigaret e and let out an audible sigh with the smoke. "It's al right, Dan," he said after a minute. "I don't have the right to tel you how to dres , although I gues 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 real y noticed Danet a that much until his father had started to point out her virtues. Now he found himself watching her al 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 dres that fit properly. "That dres is. .very flat ering."

She knew her face was flaming. Al 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 cigaret e. "A smal percentage, yes," he replied, relieved to have the hot tension die down. The sight of her in that dres wasn't doing his self-control any good at al , and he hoped she was too green to realize that his bad temper was due to the new at raction 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 wil come up again. Like gold, it fluctuates. But as long as it's a neces ity, prices wil eventual y go up. Eugene and Harry Deal are smart enough to diversify. They'l 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. Danet a, 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 Danet a, even in her light car coat, quite an at raction. There were some women in that line of work, but not in Harry Deal's crew. She felt al too conspicuous.