"A woman with a sweet tooth is gonna love this," Logan said, as he put down the pair of stemmed wineglasses he'd scrounged from her cupboard and uncorked a private label split of dessert wine, the fund-raiser favor.

"Don't you have any socks?" he asked as he handed her a glass of the pale, tarnished gold wine and sat on the floor beside her.

Melody made a concerted effort to ignore his question, as she regarded the contents of her glass and questioned him with a look.

"Give it a taste. It's a dessert wine from the Rhone Valley. I conned an extra split out of the waiter for you."

"Sure you did."

"I did."

"Why didn't you bring it in earlier, then?"

"Because I didn't want you to toss it at my head and ruin a perfectly delicious bottle of wine."

"You knew you'd screwed up!"

"I forgot until I saw our parents leave."

"You didn't bring me the wine as a peace offering, then?"

"It's a sweet wine; you have a sweet tooth. I brought you the wine as a gift, just because-"

"Because I kept Shane while you went out on a hot date." Melody shrugged and sipped the wine thoughtfully.

"He loves you."

"He's a great kid, Logan, and I love him right back."

"You should have a couple of your own."

"Kids? Hah. No thanks. I come from a long line of screwups. No kids, no husband, that's my motto. I've got all I can do to take care of me." She took another sip, raised the glass. "Great stuff."

"Can you identify the taste?" he asked.

"Apples? No, maybe pears... or honey. Apricots!"

"According to the waiter, it's supposed to taste like a funky fruit salad."

Melody took another sip and smiled. "Yes, fruity, and delicious. And your presence tonight helped to raise money for?..."

Logan shrugged. "Hell if I know. Venture capital for private vineyards?"

"Which the poor always need."

"I'm sorry I forgot our cooking lesson. Thanks for watching Shane."

Ink and Spot came barreling in, frolicking over Melody's lap, all frisky energy and short, spiked tails. As Ink leaped on Logan's shoulder, Spot landed in a more delicate location. Logan grunted, grimaced, and gingerly removed the lap-leaper before he could do permanent damage.

Melody howled with glee.

"Did you pay him to do that?"

"Please, I'm ashamed I didn't think of it. Sheer anticipation would have kept me sane through dinner."

Logan chuckled, and the kittens left the room as fast as they'd arrived."When did you bring them down?" Logan asked."When Shane started to worry they'd be lonely. Last I saw, they were sleeping behind his knees like one black fur ball."

"They woke up."

"With a vengeance," Melody said, "and batteries charged, ready for fun. Hey, speaking of fun, did you have a nice date?"

"I wouldn't exactly call it a date."

"Oh." She took another sip. "Why not?"

"I think I blew it early on, though I haven't dated in a while, mind you, so I'm not positive."

"What happened?" Melody asked, her shoulders relaxing.

"I saw an old school chum, two actually, because they married each other, and asked them to join us for dinner."

Melody hooted. "Good move, Kilgarven. You get an F-minus in Dating 101."

Logan finished the wine in his glass. "I surmised as much from the pinch Tiffany gave me before I'd completed the invitation."

Melody rose and got the bottle off the coffee table to refill their glasses. "Were you afraid that you'd screwed up?" Melody asked, when she sat back down. "Or did you screw up on purpose?"

"Beats the hell out of me." Logan looked deep into his wine as if for an answer, knowing only that he was having a better time now, with Melody, than he'd had all evening. He looked up at her, firelight painting silver blue lights in her raven hair.

"You got a theory, Seabright?"

"Not one I'm sharing."

Logan shrugged. "No fire," he admitted, not sure Melody would understand.

"Bummer," she said.

"You really don't mind, do you?" he asked. "That I went out on a date, I mean."

"Of course not. We don't have an exclusive; we don't even have an understanding. I'm no better for you than you are for me."

"Care to explain?"

"No offense, but you're not exactly my dream man."

"Right." Logan took another sip of wine. "Then what do we have, because this...

energy between us is..."

"Fire," Melody said. "Sex."

"That's what I thought." Logan took her glass, set it on the floor, and framed her face with his hands. "You are aware of the old adage, are you not, Mizzz Seabright, that if you play with fire, you get burned?"

Chapter Sixteen.

"BURN me," Melody said. "I dare you."

Logan groaned and opened his lips over hers, starving, desperate to become a part of her, mouth to mouth... for a start. They glided to the rug, face-to-face, the blazing hearth at his back, the taste of honeyed apricots and pears, and the promise of sex fresh on their mating tongues.

The world disappeared. Their bodies met, quivered to flame. Hands and hips moved in a building rhythm, exploring, arousing.

Body to body, they lay, absorbed in the taste and texture of each other, barely breaching the barriers, when a wet splash of fruity droplets, a fiery hiss, and a wash of shattering glass brought them to their senses. They heard a mewling screech before a bedlam of cool damp paws scurried over them.

They sat up to find a chaos that gave the furry culprits away.

"Oh, the poor things," Melody said. "They might be hurt."

Logan rose, self-conscious, in total and embarrassing discomfort, and went looking to make sure the kittens hadn't been cut by the glass they broke. But no, they had become sleepy fur balls again, that fast.

When Logan saw that Melody was limping, he made her sit on the edge of the tub and put her foot in his hands. He washed the cut, placed an antiseptic ointment and a cartoon Band-Aid over it. Then he found her socks, put them on her, and carried her to the daybed in the living room, before he cleaned up the shattered glasses and spilled wine.

"Let me help you," she said.

"My cats; my mess." He straightened when realization hit. "Though, now that I think about it, I seem to remember that I didn't acquire those pesky little critters on my own."

Melody smiled sheepishly and snuggled down into the bed, probably more tired from a nerve-wracking evening of entertaining her father than she thought. Logan felt like a rat for leaving her to do that alone.

By the time he went to tuck Melody in for the last time, she'd grown sleepy, but she smiled at his playful lips on her cheek, her brow, her earlobes, her fingers, until she giggled drowsily.

Logan said good night, heard her satisfied sigh, and watched her curl into his favorite ass-up pose. Then he checked his son, kittens and all, kissed his brow, covered him to his neck, and went upstairs.

MELODY was not entirely disappointed when Logan showed up early Saturday morning to go apple picking with them. "I can be the tree climber," he said, "since you cut your foot last night." He bent on his haunches before his son. "Is that okay with you, sport? Or are you disappointed not to have Melody to yourself all day?"

"Nah, you can come, too. But I get to climb trees, too, 'kay?"

"Deal," Logan said. "Mel?"

"I guess we can stand having you along," she said, turning to grab a backpack so as not to reveal her pleasure over the satisfying turn of events.

When they went to the shop for Shane's Halloween costume later, Melody and Shane proceeded to try and talk old Dad into renting a kilt, jacket, tarn, and tasseled kneesocks for the occasion. Though it took some coaxing, he reluctantly agreed, with a final, "absolutely not" to the bagpipes.

"Oh, God," Logan said when he modeled his highlander costume. "I'm going to look like an idiot."

No, Melody thought when she saw him, and her heart did a ten-point flip, women are going to be chasing you around Salem Common. But she kept that opinion to herself, sure the truth would put a final end to his participation.

Melody rented a genuine witch costume, both for her Halloween show, and to go trick-or-treating with Shane, and she modeled it for them.

While Shane and Logan chose a pumpkin to carve, she went for a final fitting on the gown she'd ordered for the station's annual Salem by the Sea ball the following Friday. No vintage outfit this time, but an up-to-the-minute fashion statement-a curve-flattering, full-length corset dress that her mother would have loved. This, she did not model, because she wanted to make a "splash."

When they got home, Melody and Shane designed and transferred a scary face to Shane's pumpkin. "Hey, Mel," Logan said as he began to carve it into the semitoothless ghoul they'd envisioned, "why don't we drive to the ball together next Friday? That way, we only have one car to park." He looked expectantly up at her.

As an invitation for a date, if that's what it was, it ranked right up there with an appointment for a root canal, but the expectant way Logan watched her made her think that he almost cared about her answer.

"Why not," she said, in keeping with the style of the question, "but who's going to watch Shane that night, if we're both going out?"

"When I got the job at the station they told me I'd be expected to attend the ball, so that's all arranged. He's doing a sleepover at my mother's, aren't you, sport?"

Shane grinned. "Yep. We're gonna rent movies and make popcorn balls and pond scum."

"Pond scum?" they said together.

"Gramma told me about 'em. Lime jigglers with gummy worms and spiders and ugly stuff like that. Yum."

ON Sunday, Logan tasted Melody's leftover stuffed pumpkin, eating two servings to decide whether it would work for the show. Finally he agreed it would be perfect for her "Haunted Pumpkin Patch Halloween."

"Works for me," he said. "Fix that with your creamy pumpkin soup and the bloody punch Shane keeps talking about."

"We could make a berry pie and call it Old Gooseberry Pie," she suggested.

"I don't know; I make a hell of a pumpkin cheesecake."

"Ooooh, that sounds yummy, but I'd want to decorate it with a chocolate icing web, and licorice spiders, and give it a spookier name."

"Spider cheesecake, it is."

"Dad you should carve a hundred pumpkins and put candles in 'em for Mel's show."

Logan groaned.

The following day, Gardner loved the candlelit jack-o'-lantern idea. Fortunately, he ordered them precarved.

Melody's Halloween ratings hit an all-time high for the station, and clips from the show got picked up by one of the broadcast biggies for a national pre-Halloween news segment. That's when stations, other than their own affiliates, began to show a great deal of frantic, last-minute interest in carrying Melody's Thanksgiving show.

As a result, Gardner held an after-work "social" in his office, with waiters serving champagne to half the staff and crew. 'To Melody," he said after calling for silence and raising his glass. "Without your style, your showmanship, spells, and sex appeal, we would never have gone this far this fast." He raised his glass higher. 'To Melody Seabright, our own winning Kitchen Witch."

Tiffany walked out.

SALEM by the Sea, a lavish, Friday night, dinner dance extravaganza sponsored by WHCH TV, and held just before Halloween, had become a world-class event, with tickets coveted by broadcasting "names" from New York to Montreal. Salem hotel rooms, already at a premium as Halloween approached, sold out the night of the ball. Because Salem's Kitchen Witch, a hot new property, would attend this year, ball tickets sold out earlier than usual. Though Melody laughed the whole thing off, Logan retained a great deal of awed respect for anyone or anything in the business that created a buzz this loud.

Peabody called an impromptu meeting in his office early on the morning of the ball. Logan and Melody took the stairs, after a mutual, though silent, decision that stairs were safer than elevators. "I've got a nagging in my gut," Logan said as they climbed. "Something ugly is brewing in Witchtown."

Melody scoffed. "If I were shark bait, I'd have a paranoid gut-ache, too."