Книга - Her Passionate Plan B

Her Passionate Plan B
Dixie Browning


Honestly, ladies, I had the perfect plan to catch a good man…until he showed up out of nowhere! With his come-hither, all-male looks, sexy stranger Kell Magee could melt the chrome off a bumper. But marriage material? Men like Kell are good for one thing–wild, scorching sex. No, I'd do much better with someone like our town accountant. Sensible, dull, he wouldn't drive me crazy with desire or have me dreaming of hot kisses all day long. The sooner Kell finds his family roots and leaves town, the better. Because I, Daisy Hunter, can't afford to lose my heart again, even if I've already lost my mind to preposterous fantasies of ditching Plan A for a very passionate Plan B!









She Didn’t Move Away Fast Enough, And Somehow, She Was In His Arms.


“Daisy,” Kell rumbled softly. “I was hoping I’d just imagined what happened between us.”

Daisy shook her head. She hadn’t imagined anything. But before she could reply or even pull away, he was kissing her. Softly at first, a mere brushing of warm lips, then it escalated into something far more intense.

Break away now while you still can, she told herself. Or you’ll never be able to settle for less.

Daisy twisted her face away from his, her voice uneven as she murmured, “This isn’t very smart.”

“Believe it or not, I didn’t plan for this to happen,” Kell said, panting as if he’d just finished a ten-mile run.

“Trust me, sweetie, neither did I.”


Dear Reader,

Silhouette Desire is starting the New Year off with a bang as we introduce our brand-new family-centric continuity, DYNASTIES: THE ASHTONS. Set in the lush wine-making country of Napa Valley, California, the Ashtons are a family divided by a less-than-fatherly patriarch. We think you’ll be thoroughly entranced by all the drama and romance when the wonderful Eileen Wilks starts things off with Entangled. Look for a new book in the series each month…all year long.

The New Year also brings new things from the fabulous Dixie Browning as she launches DIVAS WHO DISH. You’ll love her sassy heroine in Her Passionate Plan B. SONS OF THE DESERT, Alexandra Sellers’s memorable series, is back this month with the dramatic conclusion, The Fierce and Tender Sheikh. RITA


Award-winning author Cindy Gerard will thrill you with the heart-stopping hero in Between Midnight and Morning. (My favorite time of the night. What about you?)

Rounding out the month are two clever stories about shocking romances: Shawna Delacorte’s tale of a sexy hero who falls for his best friend’s sister, In Forbidden Territory, and Shirley Rogers’s story of a secretary who ends up winning her boss in a bachelor auction, Business Affairs.

Here’s to a New Year’s resolution we should all keep: indulging in more desire!

Happy reading,






Melissa Jeglinski

Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire




Her Passionate Plan B

Dixie Browning







www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)




DIXIE BROWNING


A painter and gallery-operator whose interests include archaeology and astrology, folk music and baseball, Dixie Browning branched out in a brand-new direction in 1976, starting with a weekly newspaper column on art. Since then she’s written more than a hundred romances. Now living with her retired husband on North Carolina’s Outer Banks where she grew up, Dixie uses the area she knows best as background for many of her stories.

For a personal reply, fans may contact her at P.O. Box 1389, Buxton, NC 27920, or through her Web site, www.dixiebrowning.com.




Contents


Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve




One


Daisy, who prided herself on her dependability, was upset that she arrived late for the graveside service. First the blasted phone wouldn’t stop ringing, and then, in the middle of getting dressed, someone had pounded on the front door, causing her to accidentally kick one of her good shoes under the bed. Faylene had been there to answer it, thank goodness—it had been the power people wanting to know when to suspend service.

She had dashed back upstairs in her stocking feet and retrieved her shoe, in the process pulling a run in her only pair of dark panty hose. As a result of all that, plus the fact that her car was always cranky in wet weather, she was already more than ten minutes late.

Standing stiffly apart from the few others gathered at the graveside of her late patient, she felt the cold, blowing rain begin to soak through her raincoat, which was old, but at least it was black. Her yellow slicker had seemed somehow inappropriate.

Egbert, of course, was already there. She’d never known him to be anything other than punctual. Under the cover of a pair of oversize sunglasses, Daisy studied the man she had picked out to marry. When it came to making matches, she was old enough to know what mattered and what didn’t. She wasn’t about to make the same mistake a second time.

Egbert hadn’t a clue, bless his heart. It would never occur to him that any woman would deliberately set out to seduce him into marriage—but then, modesty was one of his better qualities. Daisy had scant patience with overt “testosteronism,” or blowhards as she called them.

For the first time, a slight shift in the few people huddled on the other side of the grave gave her a clear view of the man standing next to Egbert. Now, there, she mused, was the perfect example. If that man had a modest bone in his long, lean body, she would be seriously surprised. Even the way he was standing with his feet spread apart, his arms crossed over his chest, spelled arrogance.

I came, I saw, so what the hell—I conquered.

She could almost read his thoughts.

She could almost feel his thoughts.

Egbert was wearing his usual dark suit along with a nicely cut black raincoat. A sensible man, he had brought along an umbrella. He really was a nice-looking man, she thought objectively. Maybe not Hollywood handsome, but certainly moderately attractive.

Daisy was a firm believer in moderation. Unlike her two immoderate best friends, she didn’t have a string of failed marriages behind her, only a single ego-numbing near miss. Once he realized what a perfect wife she would make, Egbert would be her first. Theirs would be a lasting union between two mature professionals, not one of those starter marriages that were so popular these days.

A noisy flock of ducks flew overhead to settle on the nearby river. She followed the ragged chevron until they were out of sight and then her gaze strayed back to the tall stranger.

No sensible raincoat for him, much less an umbrella. Rain beat down on his bare head, plastering gleaming black hair to a deeply tanned brow. For reasons she was at a total loss to explain, she felt a shiver of purely sexual interest. If she’d learned one thing from the past—and she’d learned several—it was that the minute sexuality kicked in, common sense flew out the door.

The man was a full head taller than Egbert, which would have made sharing Egbert’s umbrella difficult even if he had offered. And knowing Egbert, he would have offered, because he was not only polite, he was genuinely caring—another big mark in his favor.

Between sneezes, the preacher managed to get in a few words about the man they were there to honor while Daisy wondered some more about the mysterious stranger. If she’d ever laid eyes on him she would definitely have remembered, not just because he was the only one present who was not appropriately dressed.

Although she had to admit that his blue jeans and leather bomber jacket were far better suited to the weather than her six-year-old black dress and leaky black raincoat, not to mention the muddy pumps that were slowly sinking into the wet earth.

It wasn’t very cold, but the rain was beginning to come down in earnest now. Hardly a time to be wearing sunglasses, but then, people often did at funerals, she rationalized, if only to hide eyes that were red and swollen from tears.

Or, as in Daisy’s case, to shield open curiosity.

No, he definitely wasn’t from around here. She knew everybody in Muddy Landing by sight, if not by name. Besides, if Sasha and Marty had ever laid eyes on him, he’d be heading their list of eligible bachelors. That is, if he was eligible.

She tried to see if he was wearing a ring. He wasn’t, but that was no guarantee. He had tucked his thumbs under his belt with his fingers splayed out over a flat abdomen. The phrase washboard abs came to mind.

Washboard abs? She’d been watching too much television. Since Harvey, her longtime patient, had died so unexpectedly, she’d had trouble getting to sleep, but from now on she’d stick to the weather channel.

He hadn’t moved a muscle. Maybe he was from Fish and Game, checking to make sure no one slipped down to the river for a spot of illegal duck hunting. No uniform, though. Besides, his hair was too long for a fed.

On a day like this, she mused, he could at least have worn a hat. She pictured him in a Stetson—a black one, not a white one, with the brim turned up on one side and a showy cluster of feathers tucked under the band.

Almost as if he could feel her staring at him, the stranger suddenly looked directly at her across the blanket of drowned flowers and artificial turf. Daisy stopped breathing. There was nothing unusual about blue eyes, but when they were set under crow-black brows in a face the color of well-tanned leather, the effect was…well, riveting, to put it mildly.

The service came to a hurried conclusion just as a fresh wave of rain blew in off North Landing River. With no family to console, the preacher sneezed again, glanced around and mumbled a few apologetic words to no one in particular before hurrying to the waiting black minivan. The pitifully small group of mourners began to straggle away—all but two.

Oh, Lord, they were headed her way. Not now—please!

Pretending not to hear Egbert calling to her, Daisy hurriedly splashed her way through puddles to where she’d left her car in the potholed parking lot. She was in no mood to have anyone—not a stranger and certainly not Egbert—see her with wet hair straggling down her neck, wearing a six-year-old rayon dress and a soggy raincoat that was even older. Not that she was egotistical in the least, but that would probably set her plans back at least six months.

The timetable she’d set for herself didn’t allow for six months. She wasn’t getting any younger. Three months from now Egbert would have been widowed exactly a year. Timing was everything. She didn’t want to rush him, but neither did she want to wait until some other woman moved in and staked a claim.

She pulled out onto the highway, the windshield wipers slapping time with her disjointed thoughts.

She would finish all the sorting and packing that had to be done, and then she would sit quietly and listen while Egbert explained for the third time all the legal whereases, whereinafters and heretofores that prevented him from simply reading poor Harvey’s last will and testament and turning everything over to the beneficiaries. Which in this case were the housekeeper Harvey had shared with Daisy’s two best friends, and a loosely organized, poorly funded historical society.

A glance in the rearview mirror told her Egbert was two cars behind, driving precisely two miles under the speed limit. Some devil made her press her foot on the accelerator until she was doing five miles above the speed limit.

Daisy never exceeded the speed limit. Caution was her middle name.



“We’ve got to do something about Daisy.” Rain droned down outside as Sasha propped her elbows on the table, carefully stroking glittery purple polish on her long fingernails. “She’s showing signs of being seriously depressed.”

At Daisy’s request, neither of her friends had attended the graveside service. They hadn’t insisted.

“She’s not depressed, she’s grieving. She’s always like this after she loses a patient, especially a long-term patient. That color clashes horribly with your hair, by the way.”

Sasha studied her nails, then looked at her friend, Marty Owens. “Purple and orange? What’s wrong with it? You know, the trouble with Daisy is that she takes every case so personally. It’s bad enough working all those long hours, but when she actually moves in with a patient the way she did with poor Harvey Snow…” Sighing, she wiped off a smudge of polish.

“I guess it made sense when she got evicted and he had that big old empty house going to waste.”

“She wasn’t evicted. Everybody had to move out after the fire. Where else would she have gone? The nearest motel still open is in Elizabeth City—that would have added at least forty minutes to her daily commute. Anyway, it probably wouldn’t have hit her so hard if either one of them had any other family.”

Nodding in agreement, Marty poured herself another glass of wine. She was already over her limit, but weekends didn’t count. Trouble was, since being forced to close her bookstore, every day was a weekend. “I never heard her call him anything but Mr. Snow, but you know what? I think she considered him sort of a surrogate grandfather. Who’ve you got in mind for our next match, Sadie Glover or the girl with the thick glasses who works at the ice-cream place?”

The two women—three, when Daisy was with them—were accustomed to topic-hopping. Sasha said, “How about Faylene?”

Marty’s eyes widened. “Our Faylene? Well, for one thing, she’d kill us.”

“Daisy needs a distraction. Can you think of a bigger challenge than to find a mate for Faylene?”

“She’d be a challenge, all right. The trouble is, we’re running out of male candidates unless we expand our hunting range.”

“Oh, I don’t know—I’ve got a couple of possibilities in mind,” Sasha said thoughtfully.

Several years ago it had been Sasha and Daisy who had lured Marty into helping set up a shy, elderly neighbor with the cashier at the town’s only pharmacy. At the time, Marty had just lost her second husband to another woman and needed a distraction. The match had been deemed a success when the neighbor had rented out his house and moved in with the widowed cashier and her seventeen cats.

The three women had toasted their success and begun looking around for any others who might need a deftly applied crowbar to pry them out of a lonely rut. Soon matchmaking had become their favorite pastime. Not simply shoving a pretty single woman into the path of any eligible man. There was no challenge in matchmaking for winners.

But for those who had given up hope—for the terminally shy, the jilted, the plain and the socially inept—now, there was a worthwhile cause. Without actually planning it, the three friends began identifying needy singles in the area and tactfully offering makeovers and even a few hints on dating protocol where needed. Often all that was required was a simple boosting of self-confidence. Or as Sasha put it, echoing a song from her humongous antique record collection, accentuating the positive and eliminating the negative. After that, they engineered situations that threw the prospective couple together, the local bimonthly box suppers being a favorite venue, and let nature take its course.

“Forget Faylene,” Marty said now. “Why don’t we just find a man for Daisy?” Of the three women, Daisy Hunter was the only one who had never married. Marty, having buried one husband and divorced another, had officially sworn off men for herself.

Sasha had divorced four husbands and readily admitted to having abominable taste in men, but that didn’t keep her from choosing mates for other singles. “Lost cause,” she said now. “Daisy knows plenty of men—what about all those doctors she works with?”

“What, after Jerry whatsisname? He of the sockless Gucci loafers? He of the Armani suits and the blow-dried hair, not to mention that god-awful cologne? The jerk who dumped her the night of the rehearsal dinner?”

“Yeah, there is that. You know what? The trouble with the nursing profession is that most of the people Daisy meets are either doctors or patients. When a patient happens to die, it’s bound to be depressing, especially when it’s one she’s had as long as she had old man Snow.”

“Well, duh. She’s a geriatric nurse, for Pete’s sake. She knew what she was getting into when she chose that specialty.”

“She chose that specialty,” Marty reminded her friend, “because she had the hots for the guy who used to manage that adult day-care center, remember? The one who turned out to be skimming profits?”

Sasha shrugged. “Okay, so she’s got lousy taste in men. Join the club.”

“That’s right, your second husband got sent up for money laundering, didn’t he?”

“Hell, no,” the redhead said indignantly. “It was my first. I was only eighteen—what did I know?”

Both women chuckled. Marty said, “Right. So while she’s grieving, house-sitting and packing stuff up for the thrift shop or whatever, we can start trolling for eligible bachelors between the ages of what, twenty-five and fifty? By the way, who’ve you got in mind for Faylene?”

Sasha frowned at her nails. “Hmm, it is sort of flashy, isn’t it? Okay, two possibilities come to mind, but I thought we might start with Gus down at the place where I just got my brakes relined. I happen to know he’s single.”

“Gay?”

“You ever heard of a gay mechanic?” Sasha slipped off her sandals and contemplated her unpolished toe-nails while Marty continued to sip her wine.

“You know what, Sash? If we want to get Daisy involved in another project we really need to wait until she can sit in on the planning session. Maybe if we encourage her to come up with a few candidates on her own, she’ll perk up and get involved. But I still say Faylene will have a hissy fit if she finds out what we’re up to.”

Applying purple glitter polish to a toenail, Sasha slanted her a grin. “She can have all the hissy fits she wants, just so she doesn’t quit. You know me and housecleaning.”



A few miles outside the small soundside town of Muddy Landing in a handsome old house that had seen far better days, Daisy Hunter packed another box of her late patient’s clothing, to be dropped off at the Hotline Thrift Shop the next time she was in Elizabeth City. It would’ve been better if she’d moved out the day after he’d died, but her apartment still wasn’t ready. And then Egbert had suggested she stay on at least until she took on another case, and one thing had led to another.

“The estate will continue to pay your salary while you inventory and pack away personal property. Aside from that, houses left standing empty for any length of time tend to deteriorate rather rapidly,” he’d told her. Egbert had a precise way of speaking that, while it wasn’t particularly exciting, was certainly reassuring. A woman would always know where she stood with a man like Egbert Blalock.

Up until Harvey’s death she and the banker had been only nodding acquaintances. Since then they had met several times to discuss Harvey’s business affairs. It was during the second such meeting—or perhaps it was the third—that she’d begun to consider him from a personal standpoint. The more she thought about it, the more certain she was that he was excellent husband material. After all, she wasn’t getting any younger, and if she ever intended to have a family of her own—and she definitely did—it was time.

So while Faylene, the three-day-a-week housekeeper, gave the old house one last going-over, including rooms that had been closed off for decades, Daisy made lists, packed away various personal effects and thought about how to go about making a match for herself. She knew how to do it for someone else, but objectivity flew out the window when she started thinking of deliberately engineering a match for herself.

Naturally she hadn’t confided in either of her friends. Knowing Marty and Sasha, at the first hint of any personal interest they’d have taken over and mismanaged the whole affair. Sasha tried on husbands the way other women tried on shoes. Marty was not a whole lot better, although she swore she’d learned after her last experience.

Catching sight of herself in the large dresser mirror, Daisy touched her rumpled hair. At least it was dry now, but the color wouldn’t attract a dead moth, much less a man. She was long overdue for a trim, but before she did anything too drastic she needed to find out if Egbert preferred long hair or short. Did he like blondes, and if so, how blond? Platinum? Honey? Her hair was that indeterminate color usually called dishwater.

His was a nice shade of medium brown, thinning slightly on top. Not that hair loss was anything to be ashamed of, she reminded herself hastily. These days baldness was a fashion statement. It was even considered sexy. And while Egbert wasn’t exactly sexy, neither could he be labeled unsexy. Sasha had once called him dull. Daisy hadn’t bothered to correct her. Egbert wasn’t dull, he was simply steady, reliable and dependable, all excellent traits in a husband. Some women might prefer a flashier type—not too long ago, Daisy would have, too. Now she knew better. Been there, done that, to use a cliché.

Her stomach growled, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Once she’d returned to the house after the service, she had quickly changed out of her damp clothes and gotten to work again, anxious to get the job done so that she’d be ready to set her own plans in motion. A stickler for propriety, she preferred to wait until she was finished here before launching her campaign.

Folding another of Harvey’s tan-and-white-striped dress shirts—he must have had a dozen, all the same color and style—Daisy allowed her thoughts to drift back to the brief rainy service and the stranger she’d seen there. Whoever he was, he definitely wasn’t a local. She’d have noticed him if she’d ever seen him before. What woman wouldn’t? Those long legs and broad shoulders—the high, angular cheekbones, not to mention the startlingly blue eyes. As a rule, eye color was barely discernible from a distance of more than a few feet, but the stranger’s eyes had reminded her of glow-in-the-dark LEDs.

What color were Egbert’s eyes, she wondered idly—hazel?

Brown. It was Harvey whose eyes had been hazel, usually twinkling with humor despite his painfully twisted body. Bless his heart, he should have had a family with him at the end, only he didn’t have a family and most of his friends had either died or moved away. A couple still lived in Elizabeth City, but their visits had dwindled over the past year.

As she went about layering articles in a box, Daisy thought back to the last hour she had spent with her patient. The noise of the television had bothered him, so she’d read him the newspapers. They’d gotten as far as the editorials when somewhere in the middle of Tom Friedman’s piece on nation-building he’d fallen asleep. As it was nothing unusual, she had quietly refolded the paper, adjusted the covers and turned off the light.

The next morning she’d prepared his morning meds and rapped on the door of his bedroom. Hearing no response, she had entered to find her patient sleeping peacefully.

And, as it turned out, permanently.

She hadn’t cried, but sooner or later she probably would. She’d been closer to Harvey Snow than with other patients, maybe because she’d admired his courage. Living alone with a steadily worsening case of rheumatoid arthritis and then two small strokes, he had never lost his sense of humor.

Sooner or later the tears would come, probably at the worst possible time. It did no good to try to suppress them, this much she knew, both as a nurse and as a woman. Spare the tears and suffer a head cold. The correlation might not have been clinically proved, but she believed it with all her heart.

A deep sigh shuddered through her as she closed the box and taped it shut. Wrenching her thoughts from her depressing task, she made up her mind not to wait any longer to have her hair trimmed, styled and maybe even lightened. She needed cheering up. In fact, she might even take a day off to go shopping, keeping in mind that Egbert’s tastes were probably more conservative than her own. But even a classic shirtwaist could be unbuttoned to show a hint of cleavage and maybe a flash of thigh.

As long as she was shopping, she might as well look for something long and swishy in case he invited her to go dancing. The holidays were coming up, and it had been ages since anyone had taken her out dancing. That used to be her favorite aerobic exercise.

Did Egbert even dance? Maybe they could brush up on their skills together. Dancing skills as well as a few other skills, she thought, trying to drum up a twist of excitement.

She was too tired for excitement. It had been a long day—a long, depressing day, but at least it was nearly over. First thing next week she would get on with her own agenda.

In fact, she could get started right now by calling Paul and making an appointment to get her hair done. Nothing too noticeable, just enough to make Egbert take a second look and wonder if he’d been missing something.

She reached for the phone just as the darn thing rang. Startled, she dropped the roll of tape she’d been holding. The calls had started as soon as word got out about Harvey’s passing—everything from tombstone salesmen to local historians wanting a tour of the house, to antique dealers and real estate people wanting to know what, if anything, would be sold off.

She referred all calls to Egbert as Harvey’s executor. “Snow residence,” she snapped. What she needed was an answering machine, only she wasn’t going to be here that long.

“Daisy, honey, you sound like you need a massage—either that or a stiff drink and a three-pound box of chocolate-covered cherries. How’d it go today?”

“You mean other than the fact that it was pouring rain and the preacher kept sneezing and only a handful of people showed up?”

“Hey, we offered,” Sasha reminded her.

“I know, I’m just being bitchy. Make that chocolate-covered coconut and I might bite.” Daisy dropped tiredly down on the sleigh bed that had been moved back into the room after the rental service had collected the hospital bed. She’d been fighting depression for days.

“Look, Marty and I were thinking—it’s time we took on another project. Now that she’s closed her bookstore she’s drinking too much.” Daisy could hear the protest in the background. “I know for a fact that she’s gained five pounds. You game?”

Smiling tiredly because she knew they were only trying to cheer her up, she said, “Count me out on this one. The last thing I need now is to try to rearrange someone else’s life when I’m up to my ears in artifacts that so far as I know, no one even wants.”

“Oh, honey—I know it’s real sad, but moping’s not going to get you anywhere.” Sasha had a softer side, but she’d learned to cover it with a glitzy style and an offhand manner.

“I’m not moping.” As a professional, Daisy knew better than to get too personally involved with a patient. On the other hand, she’d been with Harvey longer than with most of her previous patients.

“How ’bout it, you ready for a challenge?” Sasha teased.

Daisy sighed. She’d been doing a lot of that lately. Better they think she was grieving than making plans for her own future. If she even hinted as much, the next thing she knew she’d be engaged to some jerk candidate they’d found in a singles’ bar.

No, thanks. Once she set her mind on a course of action she preferred to manage it on her own, the same way she’d been doing ever since her foster parents had split when she was thirteen and neither of them had wanted her. She had managed then, just as she would manage now. By this time next year she fully intended to be settled in Egbert’s tidy Cape Cod on Park Drive, with—in layman’s terms—a bun in the oven.

“Da-aisy. Wake up, hon.”

“I’m here, just barely. Okay, who’ve you got in mind?”

“Faylene.”

Her jaw dropped. “No way! A new project is one thing, but a lost cause is exactly what I don’t need at the moment.” For the past several years Faylene Beasley had worked part-time for Harvey and part-time for Daisy’s two best friends. As a housekeeper she was superb, but a target for matchmaking? “You’re not serious,” Daisy said flatly.

“Serious as a root canal. Honey, have you noticed how grouchy she’s been getting lately? That woman needs a man in her bed.”

Outside, the rain continued to drone down on the steep slate roof. So much for the Indian summer the weatherman had promised. Daisy’s stomach growled, reminding her again that she hadn’t eaten since a skimpy breakfast. “Look, call me tomorrow. Right now I’m too tired to think about it. I’m going to grab a bite of early supper and fall into bed. I might have another bachelor candidate for us to work with.”

Not for Faylene, though. Oh, no—whoever he was, he had to be someone extra special.




Two


Kell’s boots still weren’t dry, but at least he’d scraped most of the mud off. As disappointed as he was that he’d arrived too late to meet his half uncle, he had to admit he’d enjoyed watching the mystery woman dancing around, trying to keep from sinking up to her ankles. Not that he was a leg man, but she had nice ones. She was a blonde—sort of, anyway. With her hooded raincoat and shades, he hadn’t been able to see much more than half a pale face, a few wet strands and a pair of mud-spattered legs. But she definitely had world-class ankles.

Still reeling from learning that the guy he’d come so far to see had died, Kell hadn’t bothered to ask Blalock about the woman who had answered the phone when he’d called from the outskirts of town the night before. The one who had referred him to the banker. The bank had been closed by that time and he’d been forced to wait until this morning.

He should have called back when he’d first discovered a possible connection between the Snows of North Carolina and the Magees of Oklahoma City, but he’d had some things to wind up before he could leave town. Then, too, he sort of liked the idea of turning up unexpectedly, picturing Half Uncle Harvey opening the door, taking one look and recognizing him as his long-lost nephew.

Yeah, like that would have happened. Kell didn’t look anything like his dad. They might be built along the same lines, but Evander Magee had had red hair and freckles. The only facial features they shared were eye color and a shallow cleft in a chin that had been likened a time or two to the Rock of Gibraltar.

Okay, so he might’ve been overly optimistic, taking off without even notifying Snow of his intentions. A pessimist probably wouldn’t have bothered to track down a possible relative in the first place. Trouble was, even now, after all that had happened in his thirty-nine-plus years, Kell was a dogged optimist. Back in his pitching days he’d gone into every game fully expecting to win. As a starter, he might not go nine innings, but he’d damned well do seven. So it stood to reason that once he’d started the search, he’d had to follow through every lead.

It hadn’t helped when he’d got to Muddy Landing after dark only to find that the town’s only motel had been closed ever since Hurricane Isabel had blown through back in September. He’d had to drive miles out of the way and settle for a hole-in-the-wall place where the bed was too short, the walls too thin, the pillows padded with that stuff that fought back. If he hung around much longer he might be tempted to buy himself a camper and a good pillow, only he didn’t think the Porsche was rated for towing.

Bottom line—he had found Harvey Snow a couple of days too late, spent a miserable night on a lousy mattress and, as a result, overslept. He had skipped breakfast, showed up at the bank nearly an hour past opening time and then had to wait to see a man named Blalock who had tried to brush him off, claiming he was pressed for time.

Kell was no quitter. Blocking the door of Blalock’s office, he’d introduced himself and explained why he was there—that he’d been given his name, and that his father had had a younger half brother named Harvey Snow. And that he needed to know how to locate the man as the phone book listed a rural-route number instead of a street address.

That was when he’d heard the bad news. “I’m sorry to tell you, but the man you’re looking for recently passed away. He’s being buried today, in fact. I’m on my way to the service now, so if you’ll excuse me?”

It had taken Kell a moment to digest the news. He hadn’t moved.

“So far as anyone knows,” the smug banker had gone on to say, “Mr. Snow left no surviving relatives.”

Kell had felt like protesting, Dammit, I’m a surviving relative!

Instead he’d ended up following Blalock through a driving rain along miles of narrow blacktop to a country graveyard. After that, he’d followed him back to the bank. Only now, after the banker had called up a few records on his computer and then grilled him like a trout on a spit, was he finally headed out to see where his father had once lived.

Supposedly lived, as Blalock had stipulated.

Kell figured he could spare five days. A week at most. The boys back home could handle things at the store. If not, they had a go-to number.

Somewhere along the line, working with at-risk kids had segued into even more of a full-time job than the sporting goods store he used as a training ground. He was also in the process of turning a working ranch into a baseball camp, so he had just about everything a man could want. Satisfying work, financial security and enough women of the noncommitted variety to keep him happy well into his senior years.

On the other hand, there was this roots thing. Once he’d started digging, he hated like hell to give up. Blalock might have reservations about the Snow-Magee connection, but Kell trusted his instincts, and those were signaling loud and clear that he was right on target. His dad might have spent most of his life in Oklahoma, but Kell would bet his seven-figure portfolio that his roots were in Muddy Landing.

Following the narrow, wet highway between flat fields and a marshy shoreline dotted with private landings and small boats, he was wishing he’d paid more attention back when his old man used to reminisce about bear hunting in the Great Dismal Swamp and fishing on the Outer Banks. Both areas were less than an hour’s drive from Muddy Landing. That alone was evidence that he was on the right track.

Trouble was, he’d usually been too impatient to listen. Hanging in the open doorway, baseball glove in hand, he’d been like, yeah, yeah, look, I gotta run now, the guys are waiting. He wished now he’d paid more attention when his dad had had a few beers and got to rambling, but at the time about all he’d been interested in was playing pickup baseball and showing off his best stuff in case any girls were watching.

Speaking of girls—or in this case, women—he had a feeling the woman in the black raincoat was the same one he’d spoken to on the phone, the one who’d referred him to Blalock. Hadn’t Blalock said that Snow’s nurse was still staying at the house, winding up a few things? Kell thought it was damned decent of her to show up at the funeral. Not many others had bothered. Dressed the way she was, with those wraparound shades, she’d reminded him of one of those mysterious women you saw in movies standing alone at some high-class funeral. They always turned out to be the Other Woman.

The question was, whose Other Woman was the lady in black? Half Uncle Harvey’s?

If Blalock knew, he wasn’t talking. After only a couple of brief conversations before and after the graveside service, Kell got the distinct impression that the banker was reluctant to uncover any possible link between his client and Kell’s father. From an executor’s point of view, a relative coming in from left field at this stage of the game might muddy up the waters. Blalock struck him as the kind of guy who liked his waters nice and clear with no hidden snags.

Kell should have assured him right off the bat that he wasn’t interested in the estate. Now that it was too late to meet his relative, all he wanted was a chance to learn more about his father’s early life and maybe even meet a few cousins if any lived nearby.

The trail had split some fifty-odd years ago when sixteen-year-old Evander Magee had left home. Kell, who’d been fourteen when both his parents had died in the fire that had blazed through their double-wide, burning any documentary evidence they might have possessed, had never even thought about his roots until recently. The combination of watching his fortieth birthday barrel down on him and becoming a godfather to his best friend’s twin sons had set him to thinking about family.

That’s when Kell had first confronted the fact that he was the last in the Magee line. That was a pretty heavy burden on the shoulders of a man who had conscientiously avoided anything that even smelled like commitment.

He thought again about the bedraggled blonde in black. Kell liked blondes. He liked women, period—wearing black or any other color. Better yet, wearing nothing at all. She’d sounded pretty cool on the phone. She’d looked cold, wet and miserable in the flesh.

He wondered if she’d thawed out yet.



The day of the funeral seemed endless. By late afternoon the rain had finally tapered off. While her friends, who evidently thought she shouldn’t be left alone, sipped iced tea and leafed through an old issue of Southern Living, an exhausted Daisy relaxed in the dark green cane rocker on a screened porch that had been damaged in the hurricane and never repaired. She watched rose-tinted clouds float over the hedgerow, smelled the fresh green scent of broken branches and wet, overgrown pittosporum. This was her favorite place to sit as long as the mosquitoes weren’t too bad.

It had been slightly more than two months since Hurricane Isabel had come whipping across the sound, roaring upriver all the way to Muddy Landing and beyond. Things were still in a mess. Construction workers, already pushed to the limit building those little starter houses that were springing up like toadstools, had quit building to repair hurricane damage. The owner of her apartment building kept making excuses as to why the place wasn’t ready for reoccupancy, and she understood, she really did, but darn it, she couldn’t stay here much longer. She had her own life to get on with.

Sprawled out in the glider, Marty and Sasha were talking about a DVD they had recently rented, arguing the merits of Jude Law over Johnny Depp. Daisy wished they would leave so she could get on with the job of going through closets, drawers and shelves, and helping Faylene give one last cleaning to rooms that hadn’t been used in decades. Maybe tomorrow she’d feel more like shopping and doing something about her hair, but not now. Not when she was surrounded by reminders of a gentle man whose entire adult life had been filled with pain and loneliness.

“Stop mooning about that poor man. He lived a full life,” Sasha said.

“I doubt it,” Marty murmured. “Didn’t you say he was bedridden, Daisy?”

“Only the last few months. After his strokes. Before that he got around just fine in his chair. And I’m not mooning, I’m tired. I promised Eg—Mr. Blalock we’d have the house ready to show by the end of next week.”

“Show to who? Whom?”

She shrugged. “All those people who’ve been calling, I guess.” She drifted off again, thinking of all that needed doing and where to draw the line. Thank goodness she had never collected much beyond her clothes, a few nice pieces of furniture and a shelfful of her favorite authors, the latter thanks to Marty’s generous discount. That was one of the benefits of having a bookseller for a friend.

Sasha said, “Well, he’s always been pleasant to me, even when he had cars lined up waiting for service.”

Who, Harvey? Daisy jerked her meandering thoughts back to the present. Being nice to a gorgeous redhead was no big deal, but since when had Harvey had cars lined up? He hadn’t driven in years. Didn’t even own a car anymore.

“His garage is neat as a pin—for a garage, that is. And we know he’s honest,” Sasha continued.

Oh. They must be talking about Faylene’s potential suitor. “How do we know that?” Daisy wasn’t particularly interested in the prospective match. If they’d been talking about matching up anyone but Faylene she might have opted out, but none of them could get along without the housekeeper. If Faylene wasn’t happy, someone had darned well better find out why and do something about it.

“For one thing,” the redhead explained, “when he changed my oil and rotated my tires last week he charged me exactly what he charged Oren.” Oren being her next-door neighbor.

“Okay, so it’s just barely possible he won’t try to con her out of her life’s savings.” Having once been taken for everything she owned by a man who claimed to adore her, integrity ranked high on Daisy’s list of requirements—another area where Egbert scored in the top one percentile. “When it comes to dealing with his customers he might be trustworthy, but—”

“Look, all we’re trying to do here is get them together for a first date. They’re bound to know each other casually, the same way everybody in Muddy Landing knows everybody else here, right?” Sasha waited for nods of agreement. “So all we have to do is get the two of them up close and personal and see if anything clicks. I mean, Gus is no Joe Millionaire and Faye’s certainly not whatsername, fill in the blanks, but they’re probably about the same age—fiftyish—and they’re both single. Who knows, he might take one deep look into her eyes and—”

“And ignore everything else,” Marty said dryly. “Okay, so Gus has all his own hair and teeth, and Faye—well, you have to admit she has great legs.”

It went without saying that her hair was a disaster and her face had more wrinkles than a box of prunes. Her exact age remained a mystery, but she wore white sneakers, white shorts and support hose in all but the coldest months so that her legs, which really were shapely, appeared at first glance to be bare and smoothly tanned.

Daisy said, “He’ll freak if she takes him home with her.” Faylene lived in Crooked Creek Mobile Home Park, the small area surrounding her single-wide graced by forty-seven pieces of concrete sculpture at last count.

“So she collects art.” Sasha shrugged. “He probably collects something, most men do.” Two of her three husbands had collected other women.

“Whatever, they can work it out between them. Anyone heard anything about his sexual practices?”

“Does he practice?”

“The question is, how many hours a day does he practice?”

“No, the question is, how good is he?”

The two other women batted that particular ball back and forth until Daisy broke into a reluctant grin. Chuckling, Sasha said, “Oh, hush up, y’all know what I mean. After that last fiasco, we need to be sure of his, uh—persuasion.”

Marty said, “Methodist. You reckon he goes to any box suppers? I don’t remember seeing him there.”

“If he does, that means he probably can’t cook,” Daisy offered.

“Or that he’s big on charity.” The box suppers raised money for various charities, most recently for victims of Hurricane Isabel. The three women had found it a handy place to dish a little dirt and scout out matchmaking prospects—or as Daisy put it, victims.

“If he can thaw and microwave, that’s more than Faye can do,” Sasha reminded them.

“Here, here.” Marty lifted her glass of iced tea in a toast. “So are we going to do boxes for the next supper?” We, meaning Daisy. The other two women provided the raw material; it was Daisy who turned it into a delectable feast. “I think it’s Wednesday after next—or maybe this coming Wednesday. What’s today’s date, anyway?”

Daisy’s attention had strayed again. Maybe she should try one of those short, spiky cuts. Or maybe not. Egbert probably preferred a more conservative style. “Hmm? What date? Oh, Faylene’s date.”

Sasha glanced at her watch, which, depending on the button pushed, revealed everything from the phase of the moon to the Dow Jones averages. “Okay, this is Friday—it’s this coming Wednesday. Outside if the weather holds, in the community center if it rains or turns out cold.”

“Oh, great,” Marty said dryly. “That’ll be romantic. Dibs on the table by the john.”

“Oh, hush, the weather will be perfect. So…shall we do our usual, only this time four boxes instead of three? I have a big purple gift bow I can donate. All we have to do then is tag one of the boxes with Faylene’s name and tip Gus off that the one with the purple bow has all his favorite food inside.”

“First we’ll have to find out what his favorite foods are,” said Daisy, ever practical.

“No, first I’d better do something about her hair.” Sasha was into hair. Her own had ranged from apricot to auburn to titian over the past few years. When she’d claimed to have forgotten what her original color was, Marty had suggested she watch her roots for a clue.

“Well, she can’t wear those shorts to a church box supper. Her legs might look great from a distance, but once you get closer—” Marty shook her head and grinned.

“As the lucky guy who buys her dinner will inevitably do.” Sasha again. “Okay, I’ll work on her hair. Marty, you organize something decent for her to wear. That leaves the box. How about it, Daisy?”

The youngest member of the group by two or three years was still gazing out at the soybean fields and hedgerows bounding the Snow property. She would miss the peacefulness once she moved back to her apartment. Muddy Landing had started life as a tiny settlement with only a few farmhouses—one of them being Marty’s—a farm equipment dealer and a bait-and-tackle shop. Over the past few decades it had tripled in growth, and now that the Greater Norfolk Area was spilling out across the state line, it was rapidly turning into a bedroom community.

Sasha snapped her fingers. “Earth to Daisy. You still with us, hon? What about it, you want to do your famous buttermilk fried chicken, a few of those luscious corn fritters, maybe some slaw and a couple of slices of that sinful chocolate-rum pie?”

“What? Oh…well, sure, but maybe we should run through a few more candidates first.” Daisy might be still single, but she knew how these man-woman things were supposed to work. Chemistry was important, but it would get you only so far. Unless there was something solid underneath, once the initial reaction fizzled out you were left with a total stranger.

Not that chemistry was even an issue where Egbert was concerned. That was the soundest part of her plan. Since there was no chemistry to begin with, it wouldn’t be missed when it fizzled out, as it inevitably would. She might not be as experienced as her friends, Daisy assured herself, but that didn’t mean she was naive. Far from it. The difference was that, unlike either of her two friends, she recognized good, solid husband material when she saw it.

At least she did now.

The wonder was that they hadn’t already added Egbert to their list of candidates. His wife had been dead almost a year now.

When the phone rang inside the house, Daisy groaned and got up to answer it, muttering about what she would do if one more salesman tried to sell her anything.

The moment she left, Sasha and Marty started talking in hushed tones. “Dammit, I told you she was depressed! She can’t even keep track of what we’re talking about—she just stares out there as if she’s lost her last friend,” Sasha hissed.

“Well, they were close. He was sort of a grandfather figure, especially once she moved in with him.”

“Big mistake. I told you so at the time, remember?”

“Yes, well, spilt milk and all that.” Marty looked around for her glasses. They were on top of her head.

“Anyhow, she said Faylene’s coming over this evening, so we need to get her to find out what she likes and doesn’t like in a man.”

“What who likes, Daisy or Faylene?”

“Both. Either. Oh, you know what I mean. The trouble with Gus is he lives over that garage of his. Even if things work out, can you see him toting Faylene up those stairs to get her across the threshold?”

Marty pursed her lips. Sasha had told her more than once that if she’d just get a few collagen injections, she could pass for Julia Roberts, only with bigger eyes. “He could always use the lift—that thingee he uses to get cars hoisted up so he can see all the whatchamadoodles underneath.”

“Did anyone ever tell you that for a former bookstore owner, your vocabulary is lamentably lacking?”

Before Marty could come up with a suitably erudite response, Daisy was back.

“That was Egbert—Mr. Blalock,” she said. “I’ve been routinely referring calls to his office since Harvey’s lawyer died last fall. He said a man showed up this morning who claims to be a relative.”

“Of Harvey’s? I thought he didn’t have any family,” Marty said.

“I don’t think he did, at least no one close enough to count. But Egbert—that is, Mr. Blalock’s been going over some records since the service this morning and he thinks this one might warrant checking out. He said the man had even insisted on going to the funeral.”

Daisy’s eyes suddenly widened. Please, not the cowboy! If that’s who was claiming to be a relative, she was out of here. Vamoosed. Whatever. All she knew was that she couldn’t deal with anyone that distracting. Besides, he hadn’t looked anything at all like Harvey.

After a sleepless night and an endless day she looked like something the cat dragged in.

Not that it mattered, she told herself as she hurried to the bathroom to do something about her hair.




Three


Kell Magee neared the house where he was all but certain his father had spent his first sixteen years. If he’d learned one thing over a wildly erratic thirty-nine years, it was to keep his expectations realistic. That was one of the things he tried to pass on to kids who usually preferred to talk about his short career as a starting pitcher. The first thing most of them wanted to know was how much money he’d made, his stock answer being, “Not as much as Greg Maddux or Randy Johnson, but a lot more than I ever expected.”

It was late that evening when Kell pulled into the driveway under a row of big pecan trees, taking care to avoid parking under any of several dangling limbs. He checked his notes again. Oh, man, he mused, gazing up at a house that looked like a wedding cake that had been left out in a hard rain. Just to be sure he hadn’t made a mistake, he climbed out of the Porsche and walked back to recheck the name on the mailbox.

H. Snow. The small, stick-on letters were starting to peel off.

It was when he turned back toward the three-story house with all the gables, the stained-glass windows and the dangling gutter that he saw the woman standing in the doorway. Even with the sun glaring in his eyes he recognized her as the same woman he’d seen at the cemetery that morning. Something about the way she was standing looked familiar, even though she was considerably drier now and minus the raincoat.

Squaring his shoulders—that bed last night hadn’t done his back any favors—Kell ambled toward the front porch. “Hi there,” he greeted once he was in range. “You left before Blalock could introduce us this morning, but he probably told you I’d be along.” The way she confronted him with her arms crossed over her breast wasn’t exactly welcoming. “You must be Ms. Hunter. The nurse?”

She waited to speak until he got close enough to see the spattering of freckles across her cheeks. “May I see some identification?”

At the bottom of the steps he froze. “Sure…” He had the usual stack of stuff crammed into his wallet. He’d left copies of most of it with Blalock. Why the hell hadn’t the guy warned her that he’d be coming out to see the place? “Name’s Kelland Magee,” he said, reaching toward his hip pocket. “I guess Blalock at the bank told you we’re pretty sure Harvey Snow was my uncle? Half uncle, at least.”

By now Kell was all but certain of the relationship, even though Blalock insisted on reserving final judgment—probably waiting for a DNA comparison.

Propping a foot on the bottom step, he adjusted his outward attitude, shooting for friendly and nonthreatening, but with subtle overtones of authority. “Did he tell you my dad’s mother married a man named Snow from this neck of the woods after her first husband died?” Shuffling through his credentials, he moved up another two steps. Once he reached the porch he stopped and held out a driver’s license and his social security card, which he knew better than to use as identification, but at this point he was getting a little desperate. Without moving a muscle, the lady was messing with his mind. This time her ankles had nothing to do with it.

While she studied his credentials, Kell pretended to take in the littered lawn while his excellent peripheral vision roamed over her streaky blond hair and a pair of steel-gray eyes that were about as warm as a walk-in freezer. Early to midthirties, he estimated. Nice mouth. If she ever relaxed so far as to smile, it’d probably be in a class with her ankles.

He waited for her to invite him inside. Finally she looked up, nailing him with a chilly stare. “What did Mr. Blalock tell you?”

“About what?” He scrambled through his two brief meetings with the banker, trying to recall everything that had been said while he’d attempted to convince the man to let him at least look over the place where his father had allegedly grown up.

“About—well, about Mr. Snow.” Her voice was soft but firm, and if that was an oxymoron, then so were all those mattress ads. “You said he might have been your uncle. How do I know you’re not a—a dealer of some sort.”

“Come again?”

Still guarding the doorway, she handed him back his documents and recrossed her arms. And then for no apparent reason, she seemed to drop her guard. “Oh, all right. You might as well come inside, but I’m warning you, if you try to sell me anything, or want to buy anything, you’re out of here, is that understood?”

Well, hell. In other words, look but don’t touch. “Yes, ma’am.”

Kell followed her inside, unable to keep his eyes from widening. The entire place, at least what he could see from the front hall, was crammed with stuff that looked like it all belonged in a museum. In his stellar, if somewhat abbreviated, career as a major league pitcher, Kell had stayed in some fine hotels. He had run with the kind of folks who had money to burn. In fact, for a while he’d burned his share, too—that is, until he’d wised up and started putting it to a better use.

But this was different. This was real stuff. The kind that was handed down, not the kind decorators went out and bought when they were commissioned to fill up an empty space. He knew. Once, back in Houston, when he’d gotten tired of staying in an apartment that looked as if he was waiting for the rest of his furniture to show up, he’d hired one. After three months and a whole bunch of money, he’d ended up surrounded by a lot of chrome, black marble, thick glass and white leather. As for the pictures, they had reminded him of the graffiti you saw scribbled on ruined walls in the barrio—not that he’d ever claimed to be an art critic.

“Well, are you coming, or are you going to stand there gawking all day?”

“Oh, yes, ma’am, you lead the way and I’ll follow.” If her backside looked anywhere near as good as her frontside, he’d follow her all the way up those stairs to the nearest bedroom. Only he didn’t think that was what she had in mind.

Nor, he reminded himself sternly, was it what he had in mind. At least it hadn’t been until he’d seen her up close and more or less undraped. Funny thing, the way some women could trigger a certain reaction. He’d read somewhere that the average male had seven spontaneous erections over the course of twenty-four hours, five of them when he was asleep.

Oh, man, this could prove embarrassing.

She’d changed into a pair of khaki shorts and a faded blue T-shirt. Hardly mourning clothes, but definitely not Frederick’s of Hollywood, either. As for her eyes…

Kell had never been real partial to gray eyes. Several women he knew wore colored contacts, but gray was actually kind of nice. Sort of restful. Might even call it romantic in a mysterious sort of way.

Get with the game, Magee, you’re missing the signals.

Bypassing the curving stairway, she led him to a big, high-ceilinged kitchen where an older woman in tight white shorts was stacking dishes in an open box. The woman pointed at him, using a flowered teapot as a pointer. “I know you! Who are you?”

“He says his name is Kelland Magee,” the blonde supplied, as if she hadn’t devoured every line on the cards he’d handed her. “He says Mr. Snow was his uncle.”

“I said he might have been,” Kell corrected. “I mean, I’m pretty certain a man named Harvey Snow was my father’s younger half brother, but the courthouse was closing just as I got there, so I won’t know for sure if this is the right one until we do some more checking.” And this was Friday, dammit. “There might’ve been more than one Harvey Snow around here.” He waited, tense as a rookie pitching his first game in the majors.

While his overall education was a little spotty, Kell had learned to trust his instincts. Right now those instincts were telling him that no matter what Blalock said, this house, as different as it was from anything he could have imagined, was where his father had spent his first sixteen years, or near enough.

“I’m pretty sure this is the right place. I mean the right Harvey Snow. The Dismal Swamp—” He nodded in the direction where he thought it might be located, hoping to impress her with his knowledge of the area. If that didn’t work, he’d try out his charm on her. Stuff used to work on groupies, but hell—that had been more than ten years ago. The use-by date on any charm he might once have possessed had long since expired.

Taking a deep breath, Daisy did her best to pretend she was wearing a freshly laundered uniform instead of her grunge clothes. Cleaning and packing was hot work. It wasn’t enough that the first time she’d seen him she’d probably looked like a witch on a bad day—now she looked even worse. She hadn’t had time to do much with her hair, and unless she used a blow-dryer and a big roller brush on it, it always ended up looking like last year’s squirrel’s nest.

And all this matters…why?

She didn’t know why, she really didn’t, except that there was something about his voice—and his face. Not to mention his body. Her gaze fell to his pelvic area and she felt heat rush to her face. He had on the same pair of low-rise jeans he’d been wearing this morning, the kind that were cut full in the groin area to accommodate…whatever.

“Miss?”

“Yes, all right!” If anyone had ever offered her even the smallest chance to learn something about her own heritage, she’d have jumped at it. The least she could do was give him the benefit of the doubt. “All right, come on, then. This is Faylene Beasley.” She nodded toward the housekeeper. “It’s late and we’re both busy, but I guess I can make time to show you around.” Her slight effort to sound gracious fell about five miles short of the mark.

The Beasley woman squinted at him. “Magee? Sounds kinda familiar. Long drink o’ water, ain’t you? I bet you played basketball.”

Kell shook his head. “Basketball? Sorry, must be some other Magee.” The nurse had sailed off down the hall, so he hurried after her. He had an idea the fuse on her patience was burning down fast, but before it fizzled out he intended to squeeze every drop of information from her he could. If nothing else he could enjoy the view.

She stopped beside the polished oak stairs and said, “What did Faylene mean, she knew you?”

“Faylene?”

“The housekeeper you just met. She said she knew you.”

Housekeeper, huh? Funny uniform for a housekeeper. More like the Playboy bunny from hell. “Beats me. I guess I’ve got one of those generic faces. Be surprised how many people think they know me from somewhere.”

She didn’t bother to hide her skepticism.

Amused, Kell considered telling her about his fifteen minutes of fame. It was more like five seasons, three of them going into play-offs, but that might sound like bragging. He had a feeling the lady would not be impressed.

Idly, he wondered what it would take to impress her.

Determined to show him around and get rid of him, Daisy popped open one door after another on the second floor, allowing him to peer inside before she hurried him down the hall. With all her heart she wished that the stranger she’d first seen this morning looked less impressive at closer range. He was setting off alarms in parts of her body that had been peacefully dormant for years.

“They’re all furnished more or less alike,” she told him, keeping her tone impersonal. They had vacuumed about half the rooms and replaced the dust covers. Reaching a door at the far end of the hall, she popped it open and then started to close it, having had about all she could take for one day. Before she could pull the door shut again, the man who said his name was Magee brushed past her. Intensely aware of the scent of leather, aftershave and healthy male skin, she wished she’d had time to shower and change into something fresher.

No, she didn’t! Of course she didn’t!

The small room was lit only by light that fell through a west-facing dormer. Not bothering to switch on the overhead fixture, she said briskly, “There’s nothing of interest here, so if you’re ready?”

Instead of backing out, he stepped into the room. “Hey, my mama had one of those things back in Oklahoma,” he exclaimed, sounding as if the fact that the Snows and the Magees had something in common proved his case beyond a doubt.

The article in question was a treadle sewing machine, its shiny black head gleaming with gilt scrollwork. Surrendering to the inevitable, Daisy moved inside the small room. The sooner his curiosity was satisfied, the sooner he’d leave. She said, “I believe Mr. Snow’s mother used this as a sewing room. I don’t think it’s been used for anything else since then, except maybe for storage.” Did sewing machines count as personal property or furniture? She’d have to ask Egbert. “Are you ready?” She would have tapped her foot to illustrate her impatience, only she lacked the energy.

“Those boxes, what do you suppose is in them?”

Oh, shoot. She’d forgotten those. “Probably fabrics. Maybe mending that never got done.” And because she was physically exhausted and emotionally stressed, the poignancy of the whole situation suddenly struck her. She could picture it, even though she had seen nothing like it in her entire life: a pile of clothes—shirts and small overalls—stacked beside the sewing machine, waiting for patches to be sewn on and seams to be stitched up.

She didn’t need this, she really didn’t. She had never even known Harvey’s mother. Couldn’t remember his even mentioning the woman.





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