From upstairs, she heard the echo of running feet and a warbling Shane-giggle. Swift upon its heels came a deep and sexy man-laugh, and Melody went all warm and soft inside. Father and son playing together.

Shane had stepped as easily into her heart as he had into her kitchen, melting her to her soul. Must be his rusty freckles and mahogany cowlick, not to mention the endearing replica of Logan's half-grin. Yep, she had fallen hard, a surprise for a nonnurturer like her, but she guessed it had been easy enough; he was a great kid, though lost in a lot of ways. When his father left that first night, she'd seen Shane's eyes darting to and fro, as if he were prepared for the worst. She'd recognized the fear he kept hidden, that he'd be left behind for good. She wished she could reassure him, make him feel secure in his father's love, though Logan was doing a pretty good job of that, whether he knew it or not.

For that reason, among others, Melody feared that if she weren't careful, she might find herself falling for Shane's yuppie-pin-striped dynamite dad as well. And if she and Logan weren't a toxic combo, who was?

Logan's motto was "plan, work, prosper, invest wisely." He embraced routine, while she liked to change course on a whim.

So, why the sizzle every time he got close? Why listen for his step, crave his smile?

Because she was an idiot, that's why.

Her philosophy had always been "live, love, enjoy, grab life by the cajones and make it sparkle," because really, if you didn't do that for yourself, who would? Never mind that her life usually turned out more like "get a job, get fired, get a new job."

She had followed the same pattern with boarding schools. Like clockwork, as Daddy predicted, she'd screw up, clean up, and try again. Good thing she liked change, because change seemed to find her at every tum. Her job at the station was the biggest and best change ever, she thought, wondering how long it would last before she screwed that up, too.

For half a beat she thought the job might actually impress her father-as in make him proud of her-then she shook her head on a derisive snicker and picked up her cheesecake.

Logan was a lot like her father-though Logan not only played with his child, he had now lived in the same house with Shane for two full months in a row. That would have been a record for her father.

Nevertheless, she and Logan were incompatible, unsuitable opposites, and they didn't have much in common, either. Bad, bad, bad.

Just like her parents. For the short duration of their marriage, Daddy had traveled in one direction, Mom in the other, until Mom's fatal diving accident when Melody was six.

If she was ever foolish enough to have children, Melody wanted more for them.

She supposed she wanted them to have a dad like the easy-going Logan, the free spirit she sometimes glimpsed behind the briefcase. She wasn't surprised she was attracted to a man who read to and played with his child, even sometimes sang him to sleep, according to Shane.

Hey, a man who didn't abandon ship under fire of heavy lingerie couldn't be a total tight ass. Also in Logan's favor there was that totally cute, tight ass to consider.

Melody smiled, picked up her chunky doodle dessert, crossed her ankles on the coffee table, and savored her first creamy bite. Logan Kilgarven was surely not for her, and she could take that fact to the bank.

On the other hand, she could still picture him in her mind's eye, stuffing her garment bag into his trunk this morning. Nothing wrong with appreciating the view.

ON Saturday, the tall ships were due to start arriving at two, and Logan had said to come upstairs around one-thirty.

At one, Melody was still cleaning the mess she'd made while sorting through her clothes the morning before. She was also trying to find the strapless bra and seamless bikinis she usually wore under her two-piece playsuit, which was perfect for the pirate cave picnic, though she might have taken them to work by mistake. As she dialed Logan's number, she gazed out the kitchen window in time to see Shane dash across the backyard. Logan picked up on the first ring.

"Did you see my yellow bra and bikinis in the bag I left in the bathroom?" Melody asked.

"I assume you want Logan," a woman said. "This is his mother. Do you want me to look?"

Melody lowered her brow to the wall near her phone, shook her head, and felt the blaze on her cheeks. After a warm minute, she told herself that someday she might actually see the humor in this. Maybe. "Mrs. Kilgarven. Hi. This is Melody Seabright from downstairs."

"You just missed Logan," the woman said. "He went to get the ice cream he forgot to buy."

"Just like a man."

"I'd be happy to help you find what you're looking for," Logan's mother said, amusement lacing her voice.

"Shane went with his father, didn't he?" Melody asked, though she knew the answer.

"Of course."

Melody sighed. She had seen a shadow precede Shane's dash through the yard. "Why don't you come downstairs for a cup of coffee, Mrs. Kilgarven, and let me explain my opening remark."

The woman chuckled. "Phyllis, please, and I can hardly wait."

When Logan and Shane got back from the Stop-N-Go-Broke, 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, as he reached beneath her short, scarlet robe to stroke the sensitive skin above her knee and-oh, nice.

"And this," he said as he stroked higher.

Nicer.

"If you're gonna be telling tales, Melody Seabright, I think you ought to know what you're talking about."

Skittish as a cat on the inside, Melody held her breath so as to appear still as stone on the outside. Logan stroked beneath her robe, slowly upward, until he cupped her bottom in both hands, nothing between her skin and his palms but a scrap of silk.

"So," she said, in view of their positions, her breathing shallow. "You wanna dance?"

Logan's chuckle seemed to come from deep inside as he pulled her against him and planted nipping kisses on her temple, her earlobe, her hair.

Melody's mouth parted, opened of its own accord, the tender skin of her inner lips abraded by his bristled jaw one minute, soothed by the silk at the hollow of his throat the next. He smelled spicy delicious, tasted salty sweet, and felt better than she could have imagined.

Caught in a swirling current of excitement and apprehension, Melody didn't know whether to push Logan away and escape, or pull him closer and revel in the "dance." While she tried to decide, he tongued the pulse at the base of her throat, released a button, two more, and licked the pale skin between her breasts deeper into the vee of her robe.

To add to her needy frustration, her knees about gave out as he made a stroking foray with his talented hands to a torturous spot just shy of her center. All the while, he kept her prisoner, kept her from buckling, and with his mouth, he gave a great deal of nibbling attention to a spot just shy of her lips... and if he damned well didn't reach either of those destinations pretty damned soon, Melody was going to scream.

Logan pulled without warning from the kiss, his gaze assessing, and she almost howled, but before she could, he opened his mouth over hers, hard and greedy, and she swallowed the unexpected trill of satisfaction that rose in her throat.

Melody reveled in the potency of his promise as Logan pulled her tighter against him, rough, needy, arching hard into her. He cradled and settled her in all the right places along a torso, lean and firm... everywhere. A perfect fit, a dance in place, rocking, stroking, crests against hollows.

"Dancing" with Logan Kilgarven felt... dangerous, like riding a heathen sea wave. Somewhere in the back of her brain, Melody knew she'd wipe out, that it would hurt, bad, but she didn't give a damn, because the high was higher than she thought she could go.

When Logan fitted his ponderous length firm against her center, Melody closed on him to capture him with her thighs and keep him there, rocked him against her, promised more with muscles pulsing warm and wet.

She did some exploring of her own over his tight, soft-washed jeans and black T-shirt, skimming her hands down his back and across his nice firm butt, making him moan even as he kissed her with staggering skill.

She tried to keep her head and remember her goal: to find out firsthand whether Nikky had been exaggerating Logan's assets. It did not seem possible from this angle, yet just to be sure, Melody slipped her hand between them and grasped his thick rigid length.

Logan groaned, became larger, firmer, thicker. Glory! Not an exaggeration.

Melody held and kneaded his burgeoning promise-she couldn't help herself; there was so much to work with-while Logan encouraged her in a voice gone hoarse and rough with coaxing. Her back against the wall, their hands and bodies moving with primitive purpose, they danced to a quickening rhythm that could end only one way.

"Hey, Dad!" The door flew open and hit the wall.

Logan and Melody jumped apart.

Mel screamed.

Logan hit his head on a cupboard and swore.

Chapter Seven.

"AWESOME! Scared'ya, didn't I?" Shane was all big eyes and tickled surprise.

Aroused to painful proportions, Logan had turned his back, bent over double, and braced his hands on the counter, swearing below his breath.

Melody clutched her robe closed. "We were um... uh... We were-"

"Trying to sneak up on a mouse, son, from different directions, but you scared us, and the sucker got away."

Melody bit down on a giggle and could not look at Logan.

"A mouse?" Shane gazed eagerly about the floor. "Want me to help?"

"Shane?" Logan said. "You wanted something?"

"Oh, yeah. Gramma Phyl said, 'Cool it and come upstairs. Dessert later.'"

Melody's giggle finally escaped as she went into her room and shut the door. While dressing for the pirate cave picnic, she wondered how to get herself abducted later by Long John Kilgarven.

WITH the party in full swing, Logan mixed another batch of margaritas. That meltdown in Melody's kitchen had been an aberration, a fall from grace, a mistake. He remembered thinking so at the time, even as he approached her and prepared to teach her a lesson. But as if he had stepped from his body and watched from afar, he'd seen his hand, pale against the tan of Melody's leg, imagined the silk of her, warm against his palm, and knew there was no turning back. Almost as if the choice had been taken from him... as if he had been... bewitched.

What if she really is a witch? The question resonated in his mind. Logan frowned and shook his head. Though the silk and scent of her would not stop teasing him, mind and body, he would resist the witch from now on. So what if she'd tasted of lime Popsicles with a kick. He would not fall back into his bad-boy habits. And taking Melody Seabright to bed would be a sure and painful plummet, a mistake he could not afford. He would not attempt to entice her into staying after the party, as he might once in his blighted life have done, not with Shane in the house, not that he thought she would. He would not; he could not. He had a son to raise, a son who needed a stable family life, not a horny, reckless father.

Allowing himself to become attracted to Melody would be... worse than risky, Logan thought. It would destroy all he'd worked to achieve for his son. Forget that he hadn't become this stimulated this fast since... had he ever become this stimulated this fast, beyond the first rush of puberty?

Shane's mother had surely enticed him in a way he remembered, seriously scary, since Mel excited him in a way that made Heather seem like a dud in comparison.

Talk about an ice bath. If a woman more dangerous than Shane's mother wasn't a natural deterrent, nothing would be. Logan handed his mother and Jessie each a second drink, while Melody taught Shane to use his new binoculars from inside the windowed octagon turret. Of course, Melody kept her mind focused solely on his son, while Shane's sick father kept his attention on Melody's perfectly rounded bottom as she bent over the boy.