His Girl Friday (2 page)

which manufactured and sold parts for dril rigs.

He'd been at it for ten years, quite succes fully, but his father annoyed him by never mentioning exactly what Cabe did for a living. In fact, by way of revenge, he liked to tel his friends that Cabe was a janitor at a local bar. Danet a hadn't understood the amazement of new clients at first when they realized whose son Cabe was—because old man Rit er was something of a legend in the oil busines , and many of his cohorts bought their parts from Cabe. But now that she was in on the joke, it was alternately amusing and exasperating.

The elder Rit er had never quite approved of his son's independence. He liked running the whole show, and everyone's life that was in any way connected to his own. Just as his son did. When Eugene frequently visited Cabe at the office, he was full of helpful suggestions for Danet a. His last had been that she stop cal ing his son "Mr. Rit er" and concentrate on wearing clothes that emphasized her nice figure.

"You'l never catch his eye that way, you know," the old man had muttered, clearly disapproving her neat skirt and blouse.

"Mr. Rit er, I don't want to catch his eye," she'd replied. "He's not my type at al ."

"You'd set le him," he continued as if she hadn't spoken, nodding his silver head as he towered over her, with eyes as pale a blue as Cabe's. "Keep him away from these party girls he takes around. He'l die of some god-awful disease, you know," he whispered conspiratorial y. "He doesn't even know where those girls have been!" At that point, Danet a had excused herself and made a dash for the rest room, where she collapsed against a wal in tears of hysterical laughter. She'd wanted so badly to tel her bos what his father had said about him, but didn't know how to bring up the subject.

Cabe's curious scowl final y caught her at ention. "Wel , don't just stand there, Dan, sit down," he muttered, watching her watching him. "I don't know what's gotten into you lately, but your mind's just not on your work."

Her eyebrows lifted sharply. "I beg your pardon?" she faltered, standing beside the chair across from his mas ive desk.

"Sit!" he said shortly.

She sat. The curt authority in that deep voice had the same effect on his male employees. He was so used to throwing out orders that he didn't have any inhibitions about doing it at restaurants, other peoples' parties—just about anywhere. Hostes es were said to sigh with relief when he left.

"No wonder your father doesn't approve of you," she muttered. "You're just like him."

"Insults are my line, not yours, kid," he reminded her. He leaned back in the chair and it squeaked alarmingly. He was no lightweight, even if it was al muscle. His pale blue eyes stared a hole through her. "You don't look very cheerful this morning. What's wrong?'

"You had two bites out of me before I got in the door, and it wasn't my fault," she replied.

"So? I have two bites out of you most mornings, don't I?" His eyes glit ered with faint humor. "It goes with the job description. You cried for the first two days you worked here."

"I was scared to death of you those first two days," she recal ed.

"Then you threw the desk calendar at me." He sighed. "It was nice, having a secretary who fought back. You've lasted a long time, Dan." Maybe too long, she wanted to say. But she didn't.

"No comment?" He jerked forward in his chair with one of those lightning moves that always threw her off balance. For a big man, he was incredibly fast. "Look here, we've got to do something about my father."

She blinked at the sudden change of subject. " We do?"

He glared at her. "Yes, we. He's feeding the rumor mil again. His latest favorite bit of gos ip is that I'm looking for a wife. My phone rang off the hook last night with offers from the aged eligible of Tulsa."

She grinned at his irritated expres ion. She could just see the spinsters get ing their arrows out. "You know why, don't you?" she asked. "You changed the lock on your apartment and now he doesn't have a key that fits."

"My God, I had no privacy at al ! I had to do it. He was waiting for me at the apartment last Friday night," he said, his eyes narrowing angrily. "I took Karol home with me after dinner and there he stood, sharpening his knife on a whetstone. He took one hard look at her and invited himself for coffee and a drink. He didn't go home until after midnight. Meanwhile he treated Karol to a monologue on the fine art of castrating calves, mucking out stables and as orted other disgusting subjects that made her sick. She went home."

"Oh, I can understand that," she agreed, trying to convince herself that it didn't mat er about Karol going home with him. It did irritate her, though, that she minded his careles at itude toward his conquests, when she should have been grateful that she wasn't among them. "I once heard him tel one of your women friends about the treatments you were taking for some contagious condition."

His eyes widened. "It was Vera, wasn't it? Wasn't it? My God—" he banged his fist on the desk "—that's why she left in such a hurry and without saying goodbye! The venomous old snake!" Vera, Danet a recal ed, had been his steady date before Karol.

"Is that any way to talk about your father, Mr. Rit er?" she asked gently.

He gave her a tolerant stare. "Dan," he began, using the appal ing nickname that he and he alone had stuck her with, "when he was in here last week, one of the kinder things he said about you was that you dres ed as if you had pull at the Salvation Army surplus store."

She was so insulted that she forgot to protest the destruction of her name. "The venomous old snake!" she exclaimed. He raised an eyebrow. "That's what I thought you said. Any ideas?"

"None that won't get you arrested," she replied. "Why is he interfering so much lately?" He sighed, brushing a huge hand through his thick, wavy hair. "He thinks I need a wife. So he's going to find me one."

"Maybe he's just bored," she murmured thoughtfully. "You could ask your stepmother to take him on a world cruise." His eyes hardened. "I have as lit le contact with my stepmother as pos ible," he said curtly.

"Sorry." She knew that was a sore spot with him, but she didn't know why. He was a very private man in some ways. He shrugged. "I gues your parents are stil married?"

She smiled. "Yes, sir, for thirty years last November."

"Don't cal me sir," he said harshly. He broke a pencil and got to his feet, moving toward the window like a human steamroller while Danet a caught her breath at the bite in his voice. He pulled open the blinds and looked over the flat landscape of the city. "I don't want to get married. I don't want to love anyone." She stared at his broad back incomprehensibly.

He fingered the blinds thoughtfully. "You haven't volunteered any information about Karol to my father, have you?" he asked suddenly, turning toward her. His height was intimidating when he loomed over her that way. She shifted gracefully in the chair. "No, si—" She cleared her throat. "No, Mr. Rit er. He did al the talking. As usual."

"What did he say?"

She muffled a giggle. "That you were going to catch some god-awful disease if he didn't save you from those women." She leaned forward. "You don't know where they've been, you see."

He burst out laughing. The sound was deep and rich and pleasant, because he wasn't usual y a laughing man. It took some of the age from his hard face, made his blue eyes sparkle. She smiled at him because he looked wickedly handsome when he was amused.

"So that's his angle. Maybe I can have a long talk with him about modern life."

"That wil only work if you tie him up and gag him first."

"He's confiding in you lately, is that it?" He pursed his lips and studied her with that quiet scrutiny that was becoming more and more frequent. "How old are you now, Dan?"

"Twenty-three." And if you don't stop cal ing me Dan, I'm going to wrap you in cel ophane tape and hang you out the window, she added silently.

"You were barely twenty-one when you came here," he recal ed thoughtfully. "Gangly and nervous and painfully shy. In some ways, you're stil shy."

"How kind of you to notice," she said, "now about the mail—"

"You don't date," he said as if he knew.

She crossed her long legs. "Wel , no. Not a lot," she said with obvious reluctance.

His blue eyes searched hers. "Why?"

She chose her words carefully. She'd never had this kind of personal discussion with him before, and she wondered why he'd brought up the subject. Surely his father hadn't been trying to play Cupid for her? "I'm not modern enough to suit most men," she replied final y. He perched himself on the corner of his desk and looked down at her quietly. "Modern as in sexual y liberated?" She felt her cheeks grow warm. "My parents were mid-die-aged when I came along, and they were and are very conventional people. I was taught that love should mean something more than sex. But I discovered that to most men, love meant a nice dinner followed by a ses ion in bed. Nobody was wil ing to spend the time it would take to build a relationship, especial y when there were so many women who didn't want one anyway. So I gave up evenings with unpleasant endings and brought Norman home to live with me."

He frowned. "Norman?" "Norman, my iguana," she explained.

He paled and gave her a frankly horrified look. "Your what?"

"My iguana. He's a nice pet," she said defensively. "I I got him when he was just a baby—" ;

' 'An iguana!'' He looked quickly around the office as if he thought she'd put Norman in her purse and brought him to work with her. He actual y shuddered. "My God, no-i body has an iguana for a pet! It's a snake with legs, for heaven's sake!"

She glared at him. "He is not! In fact, he looks like a lit le Chinese dragon. He's an iguanid; a descendant of dinosaurs, of ancient Iguanodon. He's quiet and clean and you should see the effect he has on door-to-door salesmen! He's three feet long, although he's stil just a baby," she murmured with a smile. Incredible that she'd never told him about Norman, but then, they hardly ever discussed , routine things about their private lives. He didn't even know that she lived with Cousin Jenny, she supposed. She wondered if he even knew that Cousin Jenny worked for his father, or that two years ago, it was Jenny who had told her | about this job so that she could apply for it.

'Why do you keep a reptile for a pet? Are you trying to 1 grow your own prince?"

She sighed angrily. "That only works with frogs. Lis-I ten, I just keep Norman for a pet, I don't kis him." She frowned. "Wel , I used to when he was a baby—"

"Oh, God!" he burst out, shuddering. He stared at her. 'No wonder you can't get dates! No sane man goes around kis ing a woman who kis es iguanas!"

"There's no danger of that," she sighed to herself, unperturbed on the surface as she fought down the picture in her mind of Mr. Rit er bending her back over an arm and kis ing her senseles . That was what she'd thought he was going to do at that Christmas party for one long, ecstatic f second, until he came to his senses. He got up and moved around his desk and sat down heavily. "I can see it now. One night there'l be a man in your apartment, and you'l cal a pres conference to explain how he got there. First you picked up your iguana and kis ed it, and al of a sudden, poof! Prince Charming!" He frowned. "Or would you get a king with something as big as an iguana?"

"You'l be the first to know if it ever happens," she promised.

He lit a cigaret e, grinning at her scowl. "You bought me that smokeles ashtray last Christmas.'

She pushed it toward him with a loud sigh. "I suppose I did."

"I try to quit."

"I wouldn't cal going overnight without cigaret es trying to quit smoking," she murmured dryly. She pushed the mail toward him, a gentle hint that she had plenty of work to do, even if he didn't.

He smiled indulgently. "I know, I'm procrastinating again. Did I ever tel you how much I hate answering mail? I'm stil get ing over last night," he added on a heavy sigh.

"Karol wanted to go to a concert. We sat through four hours of chamber music. I hate damned string quartets. I'd rather have gone to a country and western concert, but she doesn't think fiddles are cultural."

She had a giggle.

"Why are you giggling?" he demanded. "Surely you realize that fiddles are a big part of the American folk scene, and that sure as hel is cultural!"

"To you, chili is cultural," she reminded him.

"Of course it is. It's the only American food I like. Why in God's name do you button those blouses up to your chin? Are you afraid I'l go crazy if I get a glimpse of your naked throat? And you haven't worn your hair down since Christmas."

Her eyes widened. That was the most personal thing he'd ever said to her and it shocked her. "The blouse. . it's a jabot collar," she stammered.

"I don't like it. Can't you buy something with a V neck?" He glowered. "Failing that, you might try a shirt-j waist dres , they button up."

"What is this fixation about the way I look?" she burst out. "My hair's wrong, you don't like my clothes, now I button them wrong.. !"

"I don't know." He took a draw from the cigaret e, his eyes going involuntarily to her long, elegant legs where they were crossed. The skirt came just above her knees, and he 1

admired the fluid lines of her body with new interest, j "Maybe my father's right, and I shouldn't have a secretary who dres es like a Quaker." She stared at him.' 'Mr. Rit er, do you feel al right?" she asked cautiously.

He sighed half angrily, staring at her again. "I'm frustrated," he muttered, knocking an ash off his cigaret e. "You try going without a woman for four months and see how you manage."

She felt her face burning, but she glanced down at her notepad and concealed it. "I've gone without a woman for twenty-three years, and it hasn't done me any harm," she informed him.

"Oh, you know what I mean," he grumbled.

Unfortunately she did. He was the bluntest man she'd ever known. He said exactly what he thought, no mat er how shocking it sounded. He didn't even pull his punches with language when one of his clients or cohorts made him mad. In fact, during Danet a's first week on the job, Mr. Rit er had taken exception to a few remarks from a dis atisfied customer, and the unfortunate gentleman had come out of Mr. Rit er's office headfirst, followed by some of the foulest language Danet a had ever heard. It was a fascinating introduction to her hot-tempered, uninhibited bos .