That bit of wisdom worked like a stun gun, probably because she made sense, which made Logan feel like a jerk, which he deserved. The fact remained that she couldn't cook, but this was not the time to bring it up. "You're right," he said. "Again, I'm sorry."

"Listen," she said, poking him in the chest, still carrying a furious head of steam. "One: Assets can sometimes double as liabilities. Remember that. Two: The drill, if that's what you want to call it, was me demonstrating how I would use sex-appeal on the show, and if Gardner got confused, then I'll straighten him out."

Oh, she'd straighten him out all right, Logan thought. That was the problem.

"Three: I'm going to have to be able to work with that man, a lot of men, without you getting all bent out of shape."

"I know." Logan shook his head. "I'll be cool from now on. Scout's honor."

"Were you a scout?"

"Sure." Until they threw me out.

WHEN they pulled into the driveway, Shane came running over to the car from Jessie's. "Hey, Mel, wanna come to my pirate cave picnic next Saturday to watch the tall ships come in? You don't have to cook or anything, but if you want to, I can help."

Melody ruffled Shane's hair. "Thanks, buddy." She turned to Logan. "You're going to watch the ships from a cave?"

Logan supposed he should be sorry that Shane had taken it upon himself to invite Melody, but an imprudent, adventurous part of him wanted to spend time with her, too. Working side by side, driving into work together should be temptation enough, he supposed, without hanging together on the weekends, but Shane had asked. "We practically front Salem Harbor," he said, "so with a pair of binoculars, we should be able to see the ships after they clear Winter Island and before Marblehead gets in the way. Better than fighting the tourists."

"The pirate cave is nearby?"

"That's what he calls our turret." Logan pointed to the top of their old Victorian. "I haven't been able to convince him that a cave isn't likely to be surrounded by windows." Logan stepped closer to Melody, as Shane followed something hopping in the grass back toward Jessie's. "I won't let him go up alone, because there's a door to the widow's walk up there. Even with it locked, the thought of him having access to the roof makes me crazy. What do you think about me using a leash on him, Saturday?"

Melody grinned, which was Logan's intent, and a nice change from the mood of their ride home. "Seriously," he said, "it'll be a fine vantage point. Watching the ships make their way toward Boston Harbor gave me the perfect excuse for a supervised pirate cave picnic. Join us."

"I don't want to crash your party, besides I won't know anyone else there."

"Just Jessie, me, Shane, and my mother. It'll be fun. Come on."

"In that case, it does sound like fun. I love the tall ships, and I've never been up in the turret. Can I bring something for lunch?"

"Just your appetite. My mother's in charge of the picnic. She's a great cook."

"As opposed to me?"

"I didn't mean that. Look, just to make you feel better, I'll be first in line to sample what you cook during your run-through in a couple of days."

"PIGS wouldn't eat this slop."

Logan heard the comment as he stepped onto the set after he'd missed Mel's preliminary run-through.

Gardner stood with his hands on his hips looking a bit dazed. "Where's the black cat I got for a walk-on?" he asked. "I think the poor thing ate some."

"Hey?" Chuck yelled into a headset. "Anybody see a dead pussy?"

Silence, and the acrid scent of smoke, hung in the air like a pall, and everywhere Logan looked, somebody was cleaning a mess. The oven door hung open at such an odd slant, Logan was afraid to ask what happened. He knew he shouldn't have met with the Nutty-Yum people today. He should have cleared his calendar and been here for Melody. Speaking of whom... "Where's Mel?" he asked. "Anybody seen Melody?" he shouted.

"Can't have gone far," said the soundman through the mike. "Broom's still here."

"Cute," Logan said, running his hand through his hair. "But is she all right? She didn't get hurt, did she?"

"Relax, Logan, she's fine, maybe a bit upset."

"Upset? Why?"The guy shrugged. "Because her chicken exploded?"

Chapter Four.

"HER chicken exploded?" Logan looked around, waiting for someone to explain, but nobody did. Wait a minute. Chickens didn't just explode. Though with Mel, you couldn't be sure. "What the hell happened here anyway? And why are you all hanging around? Doesn't anybody have work to do?"

"Hey, Logan, come see this," Gardner called, with a laugh. Poor guy hadn't refrozen properly since Melody came on board.

Logan went to find the boss examining the remains of... damn, that might actually have been a chicken. "Son of a-" Logan bent on his haunches to get a better look. "What in the world? Hey, somebody shoved a firecracker up this bird's butt! Okay, who's the wise guy?"

Tim Kaiser came over. "This was supposed to be Mel's initiation, Logan."

"You mean like when you locked me in the shower? That kind of initiation? Do you initiate everybody?"

"Only the people we like."

"Lucky Mel." Logan ran a hand through his hair. "What did she do when the clucker blew?" Damn. He was starting to find this funny, which would not be a good thing, if Melody didn't.

"She ran off the set."

"Couldn't you have initiated her another way?"

"Hell, Logan, we didn't think you'd like us to lock her in the shower with, say, Hal or Woody."

"Good thinking." His people already knew he had the hots for her, though she hadn't seemed to figure it out yet. "I'll go and look for her."

He found Melody in their office, lights off, face down on the sofa, and sat beside her to stroke her hair. She purred like a kitten, raising his temperature, urging him on. Neither of them spoke.

Just sitting in the dark, running his hand along her witch's mane of sable curls felt erotic as all hell, never mind that stroking it lured him all the way down its incredible length to the curve of her fine bottom beneath... and he was a lowlife, getting hard when he should be consoling her.

"I like that," she said.

Wonderful. "Me, too." She had obviously no idea how much, which was another puzzle; Heather would have known and used the knowledge to her advantage. Logan shook his head, grateful he sat in shadows too dim for her to see either his confusion or his physical reaction.

"Gardner doesn't have the cajones to fire me, himself, does he?" Melody asked in a small, pathetic voice.

"He doesn't, actually, but I'm not here to fire you, so you can stop feeling sorry for yourself. I should probably fire the crew, though."

Melody raised herself on an elbow. "The crew? Why?"

Logan tried not to show his amusement. "For stuffing a firecracker up your chicken's butt." One minute she was lying down, the next she was standing over him hauling him to his feet by his necktie. "What did you say?"

"Hey, you're choking me."

"Your crew did what?"

"Mel." Logan pried her hands free and loosened his tie. "They want to be your crew, too. That's why they played the joke on you. They want to be friends."

"Are they insane?"

"Think of this as similar to when a little boy puts a snake inside the desk of the girl he likes."

"You know, I'm glad I wasn't born in this town. You're all kind of spooky."

"Well you'd better go out there and show my fellow spooks that you can take a joke, or life's going to get pretty dull around here." Logan switched on the light, and his heart tripped when he saw that she had been crying. Without a thought, he opened his arms and she stepped in, which he liked, except that he liked it too much, especially the way she folded herself into him, as if he were all the protection she needed. Oh boy. For both their sakes, Logan relaxed his hold and took a half-step back, but Melody followed and clung.

Not good. "You want me to go and make everything better?" he asked, baiting her to let go, half-hoping she'd hold on.

She buried her face in his shirt and nodded.

He raised her chin, so he could see her. "Will the real Melody Seabright come out fighting?"

"Don't." She batted his arm. "I'm... fragile."

As an army tank. "I don't know why you'd think you screwed up, you being such a great cook and all."

With a gasp, her head came up.

"Gotcha!" Logan crowed.Hands flat on his chest, Melody pushed him away. "Rat!""That's my girl. Now go fix those raccoon eyes, and we'll go back to the set. The gang is waiting to welcome you, officially." As she went to do his bidding, Logan looked down at his white shirt, at the splotches of black eye makeup on it, and rolled his eyes.

"I gotta like this, right?" she called from the private bathroom attached to their office. "I mean, I'm not supposed to smack anybody around, am I?"

"We all go through it, Mel." Logan heard the echo of his words and knew he'd opened a bag of tricks better left sealed. Damn.

"What did they do to you?" she called a couple seconds later.

Logan considered a bald-faced lie. In the end, he chose a partial truth. "They locked me in the shower."

Melody came out with a perplexed look on her face and an open lipstick in her hand. "You can't lock a shower."

"No, but you can set up a barrier to keep the door from opening."

"So... what?" she asked, closing the long slender tube and tossing it on her desk. "Did you spend the night in the shower?"

"A couple of hours." They started down the hall side by side.

"In a shower? Alone? Glory, all you could do in a-" Melody stopped walking. "Wait a minute. You weren't alone, were you? Guys who'd blow up a chicken wouldn't lock you in a shower alone. How much fun could that be?"

Logan kept going and didn't answer.

Melody followed him toward the set, waiting for him to elaborate, and when he remained suspiciously silent, she almost laughed. "What was her name, Logan?"

Still no answer.

"I'll take that as a memory we don't want to share," she said as she passed him by, making sure he couldn't see her smile.

When she got to the set, half the crew stood milling about, looking as forlorn as if someone had swiped the last beer.

She'd ruined their gag, stolen their laugh track. Now how was she supposed to- "Hey, I heard there was a chicken down here, needed mouth to mouth."

Nothing.

"Somebody wanna' razz me?" she said. "Go ahead. I can take it." But only silence and long faces greeted her. Logan was right, if she didn't handle this, life on the job would become too boring for words, in which case she might have to cast a few spells for kicks. No wait, spells were good-they could add color and depth to the show, providing she had a crew.

"Listen, guys, I appreciate that you wanted to... um... welcome me to the station and all. I'm flattered. Incredibly. And, okay, the gag was cute, funny even. Poor chicken. Ha ha. But let's get something straight right now. In the future, anybody comes near me with a firecracker, I'm out'a here!"

They cracked, broke into laughter. Whew. Melody didn't know what she would have done if they hadn't. Some of them even applauded. She acknowledged the compliment with a theatrical bow, and while she had their attention, she raised her hands for silence. "One last thing. Who'll be my bud and tell me who got locked in the shower with Kilgar-ven during his initiation?"

"That was Nikky from Human Resources," Chuck yelled.

Ah, camaraderie. Nothin' like it. Melody turned to share the moment with Logan, but he was walking away, shaking his head.

"Hey" Tim added. "Don't forget that Logan and Nik didn't come out for nearly two hours, even though we freed 'em in one."

Glory, what'd they do, clock 'em? "When was that?" Melody asked.

"A few weeks ago, just after Logan started," Woody said.

"Yeah," Tim added. "Nikky's still smiling."

As the chuckling crew returned to cleaning the mess they had caused, Gardner came up behind her and placed his hand a little too firmly on the small of her back. Melody stepped away.

"They meant well," he said.

"Yeah. They were kind of sweet, I guess."

He checked his watch. "Workday's over. Need a lift?"

"Thanks, anyway, Jag, but I've got stuff to do on the show."

She did have some details to look over, so did Logan, and as much as she wanted to know about the episode with Nikky, Melody kept her mouth shut while they worked at their separate desks in companionable silence for almost an hour.

More than once during that time, she thanked the stars for her luck. With her lemon chicken blown to smithereens, nobody had to taste it. Now she would have more time to practice. She also thought that Logan had been a surprisingly good sport, for a stuffed suit, both with her initiation and his own. Not for a minute could she imagine her father putting up with any of it.

When she shut down her computer and began putting things away, Logan slammed a hand on his desk. "Damn it," he said. "I can't stand the pressure. Grill me and get it over with. You wore me down. Ask me about my initiation. About Nikky. Go ahead; ask me anything. I'll tell you whatever you want to know."

Melody chuckled as she stood and opened the bottom drawer of her desk. "Like father like son. Easy marks, the both of you. Remind me not to waste my money on thumbscrews. You didn't even need chocolate chip cookies." She pulled out her purse and shut the drawer. "Thanks anyway, but if I want to know, I'll ask Nikky." She slung her bag over her shoulder. "Finished Shane's paperwork?" she asked, taking it from his desk and looking it over. "I need to drop it off in day care. Meet you in the garage in ten minutes."

FRIDAY began a lot like the day of Melody's interview. Logan knocked on her ridiculous purple door, again, and Melody wasn't ready, again. This time, however, she told him to come in. When he did, she shoved a huge boxy garment bag into his arms. "Take this to the car, will you? Then come back for that big brocade bag over there, but be careful, because the zipper's busted."