Eternal Outlaw

Book 17: Panorama of the Old West

by Georgina Gentry

Genres: Historical Fiction; Sagas; Historical Romance

Synopsis

A DEAL WITH THE DEVIL Kansas 189's. Riding in Coffeyville with the notorious Dalton Gang, Johnny Logan never expected a simple bank robbery to go so murderously wrong. Limping away from the carnage, he finds himself facing death. . .and the devil himself. For eternal life, Johnny will agre to almost anything - even returning to scene of the crime every hundred years. At least until an angelic blond gives him a reason to regret his choice. AN ANGEL'S EMBRACE Kansas 1999. Angelica Newland was still smarting from a bad marriage when she took a job with Logan Enterprises and found herself swept off her feed by her dakly handsome boss, the infamous corporate lion, John Logan. But when Logan's mysterious secrets plunge her into the past with him, they begin a desperate race against time- to reclaim Logan's soul. . .and the love they had found in each other's arms.

Release date: May 16, 2014

Publisher: Zebra Books

Print pages: 352

Sample

Jiminy Christmas, just what had she let herself in for? Angelica Newland turned uncertainly to climb back onto the city bus, but it was already roaring away down the busy expressway in a haze of exhaust fumes.

“Think of this interview as an adventure,” she muttered to herself, looking at the imposing black marble and glass skyscraper looming before her. “You know you don’t have what it takes to get this job as a fancy executive assistant.”

Angie looked again at the address. Yes, this was the right building: 666 Logan Parkway. 666. Without thinking, she crossed herself, then felt foolish. She had never been religious, but old habits died hard, and she knew her late grandmother would have warned her not to consider a job in a building with that address.

The Oklahoma breeze blew wisps of her dark blond hair out of her French twist. She probably looked a sight, but nothing much could improve her plain looks anyway, she thought. Angie squinted at the magazine in her hand. A darkly handsome man dressed in a tuxedo with a leading Hollywood beauty on his arm stared back from the cover of Business International Monthly. The headline splashed across the cover read: JOHN LOGAN VI: THE MYSTERIOUS OUTLAW OF WALL STREET, CONTROLS HIS EMPIRE FROM CATTLE COUNTRY WHILE LIVING THE ELUSIVE LIFE OF AN INTERNATIONAL PLAYBOY.

“I might as well get this over with,” Angie thought aloud, swallowing her misgivings as she put the magazine in her purse and marched through the heavy brass and glass doors, blinking pale blue eyes temporarily blinded by the bright sun outside.

The building was as rich and foreboding inside as it was on the outside. It made her feel frumpy and plump, nothing at all like the elegant women she saw crossing the rich marble halls, hurrying to beautifully decorated offices.

She searched out the directory by the elevators. “Executive Offices: 66th Floor.” Angie took a deep breath and straightened her navy blue dress, wishing it wasn’t so plain as she stepped into the elevator to be whizzed up at dizzying speed. She’d felt drawn by some unseen force to apply for this job, but now she regretted the impulse. She pulled out the magazine again.

It was his eyes, she decided. John Logan VI’s dark eyes seemed weary and sad, belying his reputation as a cutthroat business exec.

“Jiminy Christmas, he’s used to beauties. He won’t hire me.” Angie stuffed the magazine back into her purse. She’d already read it twice. According to the article, for six generations his family had built its sprawling empire, beginning with railroads and gold mines and, later, cattle and oil. The outlaw of Wall Street, they called him. John Logan VI had a reputation for being hard and ruthless and very, very successful.

“Just a dream boss,” she muttered to herself as the elevator stopped. “Angie, you are an idiot!”

She got off on the sixty-sixth floor. The corridors surrounding the elevator were full of hurrying people. Angie paused at a central desk where a nervous young man with thinning red hair tried to deal with three phones that all seemed to be ringing at once. The name plate on his desk read: ALBERT RENQUIST.

“Excuse me, but could you direct me to Mr. Logan’s office? The Jiffy Girl Employment Agency sent me.”

The man juggled one phone at his ear while reaching for another, his expression dubious. He ignored her for a long moment while he dealt with the phones and a fax machine that clicked at the end of his desk. She was only too painfully aware of his disapproving scrutiny as she waited. So what if she was ten pounds overweight? Well, okay, fifteen pounds. She was going to start a new diet this very week to see if she could take it off.

Finally, he gave her his attention. “Jiffy Girl sent you?” He sounded incredulous.

She stuck out her chin defiantly. “I said as much. Is he in?”

He blinked, evidently not used to a woman who stood her ground. “No one ever knows whether Logan’s in or not; sometimes we go for months without seeing him. Let me check.” He dialed, and immediately his tone became subservient. “Renquist here, sir.” He asked a few overly polite questions, then hung up. “Mr. Logan is expecting you.” He sneered and gestured toward a giant pair of walnut doors at the end of the hall. “I’ll buzz you through, although you don’t look like executive assistant material to me.”

“Thank you. I’ll tell Mr. Logan you said so.” Angie turned and strode toward the doors.

“Please don’t do that,” he called after her. “He’s—he’s a difficult man to work for.”

Angie paused, looking back over her shoulder. The balding twerp seemed reasonably cowed. John Logan must be a real SOB. “I won’t tattle on you,” she assured him and strode toward the big walnut doors, seeing her reflection in the gleaming brass and glass of the walls as she walked, more than a little conscious of that extra weight. It had always been a problem, no matter how little she ate. “If I were only five foot nine, long-legged and gorgeous,” she murmured with a sigh, “I might have a chance at this job.”

But did she really want it? Even more, she regretted her impulse in asking Jiffy Girl for this interview. But Angie had been getting desperate. School had barely started and already it didn’t look as if she’d be getting enough substitute teaching jobs to live on. She had to take some drastic steps or she would soon be flat broke.

“Hold that thought,” she reminded herself, taking a deep breath for courage before she grasped the brass knob and walked through the heavy doors.

She was in a small, richly decorated office with a fine walnut desk and a sweeping view of downtown Oklahoma City. The big doors closing behind her cut off the frantic noise of business and hurrying feet into sudden silence. The office was empty, and Angie realized she was facing another door off to her left that was slightly ajar. From there she could hear a slight murmur of conversation.

Angie bit her lip, wondering if she was supposed to wait here or if she would be given instructions via the intercom. She pulled at her skirt, straightening it, and wondered if she should have dressed in something other than a no-nonsense navy blue dress. At least the dark blue was thinning, helping to hide her plumpness.

She waited, fidgeting and wishing this interview was over. Talk about a fool’s errand. . . .

After a long moment, she walked to the door, and knocked gently. “Mr. Logan?”

No answer. Inside, she could still hear the slight murmur of conversation. Was he interviewing someone else, or was he trying to intimidate her by letting her cool her heels in the outer office? Why had she felt almost driven to apply for this job? Well, she had that interview with the dentist in Moore this afternoon; she’d have a chance there.

Angie took a deep breath and walked in. So this was the office of one of the richest men in the world. In awe, she looked around at the fine antique furnishings, the expensive Western paintings on the walls. Somehow, she had a feeling those Remington bronzes on the tables were originals. Priceless Navaho and Persian rugs muffled her footsteps.

A high-backed leather chair was turned away from her and toward the wall of gleaming windows behind the big walnut desk. Past the windows, she could see the skyline of downtown Oklahoma City against a pale blue sky.

A murmur of conversation drifted to her, and Angie realized there was a man in that high-backed leather chair, his black cowboy boots propped up on a low filing cabinet as he talked on the phone. Expensive, custom-made cowboy boots, she realized, and small feet for a man. Small feet on a man means a big. . .

Angie turned crimson as she remembered her Southern grandmother’s saying.

The man had a magazine in his hand. She could see his arm, clad in a dark gray silk suit. “I don’t give a damn if the ad agency does think this will sell fine jewelry,” the voice snarled in a deep, Southwestern drawl. “I hate the damned ad; pull it!” He slammed the magazine down on the desk so hard, it bounced. “I own that magazine, too, don’t I? Fire the editor! I hate ads featuring women that look like they’re starving! I don’t care if it is a fashionable look! I own your ad agency, don’t I? After you do all that, I’ll expect your resignation in the mail, pronto!”

The hand slammed the phone down so hard, it rattled, and she heard him sigh, as if annoyed. His chair creaked as he turned toward the giant windows and the view of Oklahoma City behind his desk.

Intrigued, Angie tiptoed closer and peered at the open magazine. It was a typical fashion layout, she thought; a gaunt beauty wearing expensive gold and diamonds and the latest couturier gown. The silver-blond model looked flat-chested and starving.

Without thinking, Angie said, “Well, I don’t blame you! It’s nice to see someone making a political statement against fashion models who look like they’re recovering from bulimia.”

The big leather chair whirled around. “Where in the hell did you come from?” It was the man from the magazine cover, every bit as intimidating and darkly handsome in person. No, he really wasn’t handsome; he was virile and dangerous-looking, and somewhere in his mid-thirties. A lot of American Indian blood, Angie noted. Instead of a regular tie, he wore a fine turquoise and silver bola with his Western suit.

As a former Air Force brat, Angie wasn’t easily intimidated, but this glowering big male made her take a step backward. “I—the Jiffy Girl Agency sent me, and I just want to say you have a lot more principle than Business International Monthly says you do if you’ll try to change a fashion trend that’s landing thousands of young women in hospitals trying to imitate it.”

He didn’t say anything, just continued to glare at her as if he couldn’t believe her effrontery. His eyes were black as jet and just as hard. A tiny mole twitched on the left side of his sensual mouth.

“What I mean is,” Angie rushed on, “they said you were a real old-fashioned robber baron, but you must have some principles, because I heard you say to jerk the ad, and then that you were willing to close the company, and—”

“I have few principles,” he growled, “and you have more guts than any woman I ever met.” He leaned back in the big leather chair and folded his hands across his wide chest, staring at her.

Angie was so startled by his admission, she gulped. “No wonder they call you an outlaw—”

“Don’t call me that!” he roared at her. “I just sued and ruined that rag for calling me that! I’m not an outlaw; I’m respectable and successful! My company doesn’t do anything most of the international companies don’t do, but I’m fair game for the tabloids because I’m always brutally frank, Miss—Miss—?”

He wasn’t going to intimidate her, she vowed to herself, but her knees seemed to be shaking. “Newland. I was merely suggesting that those magazine ads annoy me, too, and plump women vastly outnumber skinny ones, so that’s more money that’s spent on clothes and jewelry—”

“Hush.” He made an annoyed gesture.

“What?”

“I said hush; you chatter more than a squirrel.”

Angie hesitated, trying to read his dark, rugged face as he leaned his elbows on his desk and steepled his fingers, staring at her with that intimidating, steely gaze. No, he definitely wasn’t handsome, but he had an arresting, virile quality, like all those antiheroes in the old movies she loved so well.

“You could at least ask me to sit down.”

“I said hush.” He gestured toward a chair and reached out to pick up what was evidently her application. “Now, Miss ... ?”

“Newland; Angelica Newland,” she said, deciding from his stoney expression that she was going to be out of here in record time.

Logan’s cold, dark eyes scanned her resume with no hint of the sad weariness that had drawn her on the magazine cover. He was probably a good poker player, she thought.

“Well, Miss Newland—”

“Mrs.,” she corrected, “but I’m divorced—”

“Now why does that not surprise me?” He drummed his fingers on his desk.

The expression on his dark features told her that this was no time to go on about Brett’s drug and job problems, or how she tried and tried to straighten him out while he spent all her salary. Actually, she was now a widow. Brett had OD’d more than a year ago, but she seldom told people that. She felt guilty for being alive and not saving him from himself.

“I suppose I was out of line commenting on the ad,” she began, “but I can see why you objected to it—”

“Can you, now? I’m not politically correct,” John Logan snapped. “I objected to the scrawny girl in the ad because she was too skinny to appeal to me or any other man, for that matter, and men are the ones who buy expensive jewelry and trinkets for women.”

“Oh.” Angie sighed without meaning to; of course it was true. She wondered who John Logan VI bought fine jewelry and furs for.

He glanced up at her loud sigh. “Angelica? Pretty fancy name.”

“My mother found the name in France or someplace; my father was in the Air Force and was always being transferred around the world. He retired here at Tinker Air Force Base before he died.”

“I didn’t ask you all that.” His dark eyes bored into her. “Do they call you Angel?” A hint of a mocking smile played across his hard mouth.

“Not hardly! Angie, most of the time.”

He studied the papers before him. “Hmm. Twenty-four years old. You’re an elementary-school teacher?”

“I would be if I could find a job.” She shifted in her seat as his eyes took in every detail of her, “I haven’t even managed to find a permanent position, so I’ve been substituting, but not enough to make a living.”

“At least you’re frank about it. Do you have any experience at all in being a personal assistant?” He tossed the application on his desk.

“To be honest, none, but I need a job.”

Now he really did stare at her. “Your honesty is refreshing; hardly anyone ever tells me the truth. They tell me what they think I want to hear.”

Angie took a deep breath. “Maybe it’s because you bully everyone so much, they’re terrified of you.”

His eyebrows went together in a black line across his rugged, dark face. “What did you say?”

“Never mind.” Angie stood up. “You don’t need to bother with the formalities; I’ve had enough interviews to know that this one’s finished before it starts. Just write NFD across my papers like the others have done—”

“I will say when this interview is ended!” John Logan thundered. “Sit down and hush!”

“I will not hush!” Angie was too annoyed and tired and discouraged to care anymore. She started toward the door, throwing her words back over her shoulder. “This is my thirteenth interview this week and this is only Thursday morning. I’m very tired of filling out applications only to lose the job to some thin, ditsy bottle blonde with long legs and big silicon boobs.”

She struggled with the doorknob a moment, then realized he probably controlled it from his desk for security reasons. “Please open the damned door and I’ll do us both a favor and go interview that dentist out in Moore.”

“I said the interview isn’t over until I say it is, so come back here.”

Angie turned to confront him, determined she would not cry. He would enjoy that triumph too much. “Does everyone jump when you say ‘frog’?”

“Most of the time.” He drummed his fingers on his desk and stared back at her, a slight smile playing around his hard mouth. “Money does that for a person.”

“I don’t think you have enough money to hire me, Mr. Logan.” She stood by the door and glared back at him.

“You are a fiesty thing, aren’t you?”

Fiesty? She hadn’t heard that word since she’d sat through twenty reruns of Gone With the Wind. “Mr. Logan, I am going to report you to the management of Jiffy Girl.”

He shrugged. “Be my guest. I think Jiffy Girl was swallowed up by Logan Enterprises in a stock acquisition last summer. Now sit down and we’ll finish this interview.”

He must be determined to humiliate her, but she would not let him, no matter how much money the SOB had. Angie marched back over and took a chair across from him.

He had picked up her papers again and was reading them. “Oh, yes, here it is. ‘Angelica Newland Security Update.’ ” He continued to study the application, but his hard, hostile face was so inscrutable, she couldn’t read his expression. Now he looked at her for a long moment. “My inside information tells me you’re divorced but also widowed, have no blood relatives, and survived a bad car wreck several years ago that killed your mother and younger sister.”

She nodded, not wanting to relive those memories. They had told her she had died momentarily, and only a fast paramedic had brought her back to life. “I don’t see what that has to do with my applying—”

“In my position, Mrs. Newland, I have to be cautious. I check out everyone whom I might hire clear back to grade school.” He looked at the papers again. “Hmm. Graduate of Oklahoma State University, high grades, training in CPR and first aid?”

“I thought as a teacher, I might need it in a playground or athletic field emergency.”

“Very commendable.” However, his tone made it sound more sarcastic than anything else. “Father a retired air force officer,” John Logan read aloud, “but he’s dead, too?”

Angie nodded. “I told you I was an Air Force brat, but my folks were divorced when I was small.”

“Why did you come back to Oklahoma?” His dark eyes bored into her.

Angie hesitated. He’d think her silly if she shared the idea that she’d felt drawn . . . no, compelled by some inner force to return to this city. It wasn’t something she could explain. “I don’t know for sure. I was pretty rootless; then when I saw all that about the bombing of the Federal Building, I was reminded all over again how special the people of this state are.”

“I think so,” he said. “Your father’s dead?”

Angie nodded. “Trying to keep up with his young trophy wife was what gave him a heart attack in Florida.”

“Trophy wife?” His dark eyebrows arched upward.

“You know; less than half his age.”

“And pretty?” he asked.

“Certainly! No one would ever write NFD on her job application.” Angie said it with more bitterness than she meant. Evie was probably just the kind of woman John Logan would choose.

The thought discouraged and annoyed her. She started to get up, but he waved her back down, regarding her for a long moment. Then he stood up, and came around the desk. He was tall and broad-shouldered. That looked like an expensive custom-made suit he wore, but it had a Western cut. He sat down on the edge of the desk, only inches from her. She could smell the expensive shaving lotion from here. His dark eyes bore into hers, making her shift uneasily in her chair. The tiny mole by his mouth jerked as he frowned. “Tell me what ‘NFD’ means?”

“Everyone in the business world knows that.” Angie raised her chin defiantly and bit her lip. She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of making her cry, but she was reduced to blinking rapidly.

“I reckon my staff has kept me ignorant of such things,” he said and looked at her curiously.

Of course he was too important to deal with the minor details of employment, even at his own company.

“It—it means ‘Not Front Desk,’ ” Angie explained, reliving the humiliation. “When you see the interviewer write that across your papers, you know you won’t get the job; you’re not pretty or flirty enough to put out front, dealing with male execs and salesmen as they come through. They hide you in a back office; that is, if you get an offer at all.”

She thought she saw a smile tug at the corner of his grim mouth. “That’s against the law, isn’t it?”

“It’s supposed to be,” Angie shrugged, “but they get away with it; most people never learn the code.”

“Hmm. And knowing that, the agency still sent you over to interview for an executive assistant position?”

“They tried to discourage me,” Angie blurted out. “They said they’d sent you a dozen applicants and you’d hired two in the past three weeks and then fired them. But I felt compelled to come, for some reason—”

“Desperate enough to consider working for the outlaw of Wall Street?” He leaned closer, surveying her again, his face grim. Now he pulled a large, ornate gold pocket watch from his vest and looked at it.

“What a beautiful antique watch!” she said without thinking.

“It is, isn’t it?” He studied it as if he had not noticed it in a very long time. “The first John Logan bought it from the proceeds of one of his early, ah—railroad ventures.” He slipped it back in his vest, and it dawned on Angie that the watch had been a not-too subtle hint at how much time he had already spent with her. He was a busy man and he was telling her so.

She hesitated. “I didn’t mean to take so much of your time. I’ll be going—”

She got up, but he reached out and caught her arm in a strong grip. “You disappoint me, Mrs. Newland; I reckoned you were a little sassier than that.”

Sassy? She hadn’t heard anyone use that word since her dear grandmother died. She pulled out of his grasp. “Stop tormenting me. Just lie and tell me the position is already filled, and maybe offer me a file clerk’s job.”

“I don’t need a file clerk; I need someone to handle all these damned appointments and meetings I’m supposed to show up at, and all that blizzard of paperwork. I’ll admit I’m a hard man to work for.”

“Difficult,” Angelica thought aloud. “The agency said difficult.”

He laughed, and it had the sound of a man who didn’t laugh much. “I haven’t had anyone be honest with me in so long, I’ve forgotten what it’s like. I was just about to have some coffee. Would you like some?”

Angie hesitated. This was the strangest job interview she’d ever been on. He was toying with her for his own bored amusement, not realizing or caring that she’d used up her unemployment benefits and the rent on her furnished room was due. If she didn’t find a job this week, she’d have to start selling off her father’s antique coin collection, the only thing the pretty trophy wife hadn’t gotten in the will. “Thank you. I—I didn’t have time for a cup this morning.” She wouldn’t tell him she didn’t have an extra dollar for coffee in her purse.

“Good. I’ll see if I can figure out how this damned contraption works.” He left his desk and went over to a sideboard, then began to fiddle with an automatic coffeepot. He obviously didn’t have any idea what to do with the thing.

“Here, let me,” Angie said without thinking. Putting her purse down, she went over, took the coffeepot from his hand, and filled it at the bar sink, then set it up.

“I keep a chef on payroll, but I fired him, too,” Logan grumbled, stepping back and letting her do it. “He kept making some damned slop called cappuccino, and I like the regular stuff. They tell me I don’t dare ask a secretary to make coffee any more.”

“I don’t have any problem with making coffee for a boss,” Angie said as she reached for cups. “What do you like in yours?”

“I like it strong and with three spoons of sugar,” he said, and returned to sit down in the expensive leather chair behind the big desk.

“Didn’t your mother ever tell you all that sugar would rot your teeth?” Angie asked.

“Leave my mother out of this,” he snapped in a bitter tone.

“That was presumptuous of me; I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. She—never mind.” His expression was closed and hostile. The silence seemed to hang heavy as the coffee began to brew and the scent drifted through the room. He seemed bored, and she fidgeted and tried to think of some bright, interesting bit of conversation, but flirty small talk wasn’t Angie’s style.

She put three spoonfuls of sugar in his coffee and brought it to him; then she got herself a cup, put some cream in it, and took it back to her chair. “I know I’m not sleek and sophisticated,” Angie began apologetically, “but I’m a hard worker.”

“You look fine to me,” he said. “I don’t know what it is with you damned women, wanting to look scrawny.” He watched her and sipped his coffee. “Most of the women I know pick at their food like sparrows. Now, Lillian Russell could put away a slab of steak better than any man—”

“Who?”

“She was a Broadway star of the turn of the century,” Logan said and paused, “or so I’ve heard.”

“Oh, you’re a history enthusiast?” Angie smiled at him over her coffeecup.

Logan actually smiled, as if he’d heard a joke. “You might say that.”

Now there was only silence as he studied her. She wasn’t quite certain if she was supposed to thank him for the interview and leave or ask him if there were any more questions he wanted answered. He stared at her for a long moment. “Tell me, Mrs. Newland, just why I should hire you?”

Angie wiped her mouth. “I haven’t the faintest idea, except that I need the job and you’re evidently difficult to work for. I realize I may not be front desk material—”

“That is a matter of opinion.” Logan shrugged broad shoulders. “At least you’re not a bag of bones in a tight miniskirt. You also seem to have some brains, which is more than I can say for the others I’ve been sent.”

Surely after the way they’d clashed, he wasn’t about to offer her a job? She looked at him over her coffeecup.

He glared at her across the desk. “I am about to do something I know I’ll regret later, but I’m damned tired of interviewing people.”

“Most executives in your position would let some underling do the interviewing,” Angie said.

“Damn it! I know that. How do you think I ended up with those two gorgeous nitwits who didn’t last? Renquist hired them.”

Angie put down her cup. “You—you’re offering me the job?”

“If you want it; although, like I said, I know I’ll regret it.” He leaned back in his chair and put his cowboy boots up on the desk again.

Small feet, big . . .

“Why are you blushing?” he demanded.

She had a sudden vision of this big, virile man naked and felt herself burn even more. “I’m not sure I can tell you.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

“I’m not sure; maybe both.”

“People don’t usually buck me this way, Mrs. Newland.”

She looked at him squarely. “I need a job, Mr. Logan, but I won’t be bullied; I put up with enough of that from my husband.”

“Mrs. Newland,” his face was grim, “I have checked into your finances; you can’t possibly turn down this job; not at the salary I’m offering.”

Damn him, his investigators had done a thorough job after all. “All right; but I’m afraid this is going to be a relationship from hell.”

Now he grinned, but there was no mirth in his hard, dark eyes. “If you only knew. Can you start today?”

“Yes.” She was immediately apprehensive. Some unknown force had compelled her to interview for this job, but she hadn’t really expected to . . .