His Girl Friday

The silence between them was every bit as explosive now as it had been three minutes ago, but before either of them could speak, Ben Meadows came in the door with a file folder in one hand.

“Sorry to bother you, but I need some copies made,” he whispered to Danetta, obviously thinking Cabe was on the telephone.

“I’ll…I’ll do them.” Danetta took the folder with shaking fingers and rushed away to the room where the Xerox machine was kept. Cabe hung up the phone belatedly and took Ben into his office. Danetta did the copies and went back to work as quickly and efficiently as she could.

For the rest of the day, she held her breath, but Cabe didn’t come near her again. She wasn’t sure if she was glad or sorry, but their relationship had changed forever in those few minutes.

She went home to her lonely apartment, wishing her cousin were home. But the older woman, a ravishing blonde, wasn’t due back for a while. Jenny spent most of her working life on expeditions to rustic places, and Danetta knew that it occasionally became dangerous. A man had followed Jenny home once and tried to trail her. Later they’d learned that he was actually an enemy agent, of all things, trying to get information on the geology report Jenny had submitted to Eugene Ritter’s company. Those strategic metals she prospected for were important to a lot of people, and not all of the interested parties were Americans.

Even now, Jenny’s letters home were full of intriguing innuendos about her job, and Danetta worried about her. She had once secretly envied Jenny that exciting, gypsy existence, but the longer she was around Cabe, the less the life-style appealed. Just lately, the thought of leaving her job was disturbing. She refused to consider why.

She opened the door and there was Jenny, tanned and blond and exuberant.

“Dina!” she exclaimed, hugging the younger woman as she used the childhood nickname she’d always given Danetta. “Oh, how good to be home again!”

“You’re not supposed to be here!” Danetta cried, her face showing her surprised pleasure. “But, oh, I’m so glad you are! You look great!”

And she did, too. Her long blond hair fell in soft waves, and her white pantsuit gave her an ultrasophisticated look. Her dark blue eyes sparkled with life as she laughed. Danetta watched her and thought, if only I looked like that. She actually sighed as she put down her purse and kicked off her shoes.

“How long can you stay?” Danetta asked as she went into the kitchen to cook something for supper.

“Overnight,” Jenny said, laughing at Danetta’s expression. “I’m sorry, love, but I’m en route to a new site. And that’s all I can tell you, so don’t pry. Nothing to worry about. Except the lounge lizard there.” She grimaced, glancing toward the radiator where Norman had draped himself, looking like a small green dinosaur. “Norman keeps staring at me like he wonders how I’d taste.”

“He’s not a meat eater. He’s a vegetarian,” Danetta reminded her. She explained the same point every time Jenny came home, and had for the past two years, ever since she’d talked Jenny into letting her bring the small pet into the apartment. Things had been fine until Norman began to grow. But he was undemanding company, house-trained and a walking deterrent to criminals. There had been one attempted break-in, and the perpetrator had run screaming from the apartment, almost colliding with Danetta in his terror. Norman had stood in the doorway with his mouth open, presenting his whip of a tail to lash at the intruder. When he was a few years older, that tail would be a rather dangerous weapon, too. But at the time, Danetta had never been more proud of him. Despite his prowess as a watch-lizard, he was something of a trial to poor Jenny, and he’d frightened away one of her prospective boyfriends who had a terror of saurians.

“What happens if he takes a bite out of me and likes it? Remember Captain Hook and the crocodile?” Jenny mumbled.

“Norman’s never had a taste of you.” Danetta grinned. “Anyway, he likes you!”

“Does he?” Jenny frowned. “How can you tell?” she mused, watching the lizard’s habitually blank expression.

“I can read his mind.” Danetta studied her cousin. “I know you love your job, but is it really necessary, all this cloak-and-dagger stuff?”

Jenny laughed delightedly. “Indeed it is. I think of this as a patriotic service to my country. Maybe even to the world, who knows? Now enough about me. Tell me all about you.”

“There’s nothing to tell,” Danetta said with a grin. “I’m not beautiful like you.”

“I’m not, you know. I just make the most of what I’ve got. In fact—” she studied her younger cousin “—so could you. You’d be an absolute dish if you tried. What is this compulsion you have to emulate potted plants and curtains?”

Danetta glared at her. “I am not imitating inanimate objects. I’m just into self-preservation, that’s all.”

“Knowing your dishy Mr. Ritter, I can understand that,” Jenny said with a dry glance. “He’d turn on a brick. But he isn’t the only man on earth, Dina. And you’re nearing twenty-four already. Don’t bury yourself in that office and spend your life eating your heart out for your handsome boss,” she added gently.

Danetta’s lips parted suddenly. “I’m not eating my heart out for Cabe Ritter!”

“Aren’t you?” Jenny got out mayonnaise and bread and put them on the table, pausing to set it with silverware and plates and napkins before she sat down to watch Danetta wielding a knife at the counter. Her blue eyes were soft and concerned. “He’s all you ever talk about when I’m home. You haven’t dated anyone for over a year, remember.”

“I don’t want to have to fight off men,” Danetta faltered.

“That isn’t it. You’re besotted with Mr. Ritter.”

“That’s ridiculous!” she laughed nervously. “Here, have some ham.”

Jenny’s eyebrows rose as Danetta picked up a plate of cake she’d already sliced and absently offered it to her cousin.

“Uh, Dina, that isn’t ham,” she said.

The younger woman frowned, glancing from the ham she was slicing to the cake she’d handed her cousin. She could feel her face flaming.

“It’s my dull life making me crazy,” Danetta sighed. She took back the cake and offered the sliced ham. “Maybe I do need to kiss Norman and see if he turns into a prince.”

“That’s frogs, not iguanas,” Jenny corrected. “But you could use a prince,” her cousin added. “A nice tall one who’ll treat you like royalty. You’d look right at home in a cottage with a white picket fence and pretty little girls playing around your skirts.”

“We both used to dream about that, remember?” Danetta recalled with a smile as she paused long enough to heat up some spinach quiche for Norman and put it in his dog dish. She wondered if anybody made bowls for iguanas. She glanced at Jenny, noticing the withdrawn, sad look on the older woman’s face. “Jenny, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Jenny said quietly. “I’m just tired.” She caught the other woman’s curious look and smiled. “Nothing’s wrong, really. How are Uncle Rob and Aunt Helen?”

Danetta allowed herself to be sidetracked, reluctantly. “Mom and Dad are fine,” she said. “They’re organizing a youth program back in Missouri that caters to teens on the edge of drug addiction, and they said that your mom is taking up break dancing.”

Jenny laughed. “So she wrote me. I hope she doesn’t break anything doing it. It’s so nice to be home, Dina,” she sighed. “Even if it’s only for a night.”

And it was barely a whole night; when Danetta woke, Jenny was already gone. The twin bed where Jenny had slept was neatly made, and there was a note on it, a very brief one, saying that Jenny had to catch an early flight and would write.

Danetta fed Norman some bananas and avocado and leftover spinach quiche and went to work worrying. Something was going on, and judging by Jenny’s look and distracted presence, it was something big.

Jenny had worked on that hush-hush project for the past few months. Her mother, who was Danetta’s Aunt Doris, and Danetta’s own parents had been uneasy about her taking the job. But Jenny wasn’t a homebody, and she seemed to thrive on the excitement.

The thing was, nobody knew or understood what Jenny did. And maybe it was better that way.

Danetta had an office full of people as the day began, which gave her the advantage of not having to spend any time alone with the disturbing Mr. Ritter. After yesterday, she had every intention of walking wide around him. She could have choked herself senseless for letting him get that close, for letting him see how vulnerable she was.

But he was, again, all business, even if she did feel the heat of his gaze more often than usual as the day wore on.

Lunchtime came, and Danetta got her purse to run down to the small Chinese restaurant at the corner and get the takeout she’d ordered. She usually ate at her desk except when one of the women from the other offices in the building invited her to join them, and that wasn’t too often these days. It seemed that everyone was suffering from work pressure.

“Can I bring you anything from the Chinese place?” Danetta asked Cabe politely, pausing in the open doorway of his office.

“No, thanks,” he said with forced indifference. He was still having hell trying to keep his distance from her after yesterday. “I’m taking Karol to lunch.” She nodded and started to leave, stopped by his curt, “Dan?”

She turned, grateful to hear even that hated nickname if it meant he was mellowing a little. “Yes, sir?”

His blue eyes narrowed and with helpless fascination he studied her slender figure in the gray crepe dress. “You’ve been very quiet today.”

“I’ve been busy,” she said. “And I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

He scowled. “Why not?”

He had no right to ask, but the answer popped out automatically. “I had company. Well, until just before dawn, anyway,” she began, wondering how much she should tell him about Jenny.