Her Passionate Plan B

by Dixie Browning

  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.

  Turning away, she swallowed a sob, only to choke on the next one. There was no holding back. By the time she started making squeaky noises in the back of her throat he was hovering over her.

  “Daisy? Ms. Hunter?”

  God, how embarrassing! “Go on downstairs. I—I’ll just—I’ll just…”

  His hands came down on her shoulders and he pulled her into his arms. She shook her head. I don’t want this, I really, really don’t.

  But she really, really did. Irrational or not, there were only so many tears a body could hold before the dam broke. “Allergies,” she muttered while he made small, comforting sounds in a language that was universal.

  Even with her nose stopped up she was aware of it again—that leathery, woodsy scent that was so essentially male. She tried to blame allergies for causing her to break down. She’d been allergic to her ex-fiancé’s cologne. Jerry, a typical metrosexual who spent more on maintenance each month than she did in an entire year, used cologne lavishly.

  Magee was nothing at all like Jerry. Feature by feature, he wasn’t even handsome, not by Hollywood standards, yet the sum total was—

  She didn’t want to think about the sum total, not when all it took was a few comforting words spoken in that dark molasses voice of his to affect regions of her body that had been neglected far too long.

  She was a noisy crier, which was one of the reasons she tried not to indulge if there was anyone within hearing distance. Once she got started, she bawled, boohooed and squealed like a day-old piglet.

  It didn’t help that he kept making those warm, rusty, there-there sounds while his hands stroked her back. His chin was moving over the top of her head, probably searching for her off button. She took a deep, steadying breath but didn’t pull away. Another few seconds, she promised herself.

  Maybe she’d make him close his eyes first. As if this morning hadn’t been bad enough, add red eyes and a wet nose. By now her hair must look as if she’d just lost a battle with a leaf blower.

  “Better now?” he inquired softly. The way he was holding her, there was no way she could fail to be aware of every hard, interesting contour of his body. She’d heard of an embarrassment of riches. This was an embarrassment of embarrassment.

  “Thanks for your, uh—patience,” she said with all the dignity she could muster, which wasn’t a whole lot. “If you’re through here, Faylene can show you around downstairs.” She pulled away and backed into the cardboard box that had started the whole pathetic episode.

  Well, hell. Let Faylene deal with whatever was in the box. She could give it away or dump it in the river, because Daisy couldn’t handle another decision.

  “Why can’t you show me around downstairs?” Still the same warm honey tones, but she detected a steeliness now that hadn’t been there a moment ago.

  “Because I’ll be busy in the attic.” She’d forgotten about the attic until the box had reminded her.

  He followed her out and closed the door, then nodded toward a narrow door in the shadowy end of the hallway. “Is that the attic stairway? Be funny if it turned out my dad had left some stuff up there, wouldn’t it? I guess anything he might have left downstairs would have long since been tossed out, but attics…you never know, right?” He sounded as cool and impersonal as if the past few minutes had never happened.

  Instead of turning toward the front stairway, he moved toward the attic door. “Why don’t we check it out together? It’ll only take a few more minutes.”

  Four

  Daisy surrendered to the inevitable. The sooner she satisfied his curiosity, the sooner he’d leave. At least she had herself under control now, pink nose, puffy eyes and haystack hair notwithstanding.

  This was turning out to be the day from hell. What more could happen? She’d planned to grab a nap as soon as she got home from the funeral and then start on another closet with Faylene’s help, but Marty and Sasha had come by and stayed for almost an hour. No sooner had they left than the Lone Ranger had turned up with his blue eyes and his sexy voice, making all sorts of demands.

  Actually, they were more requests than demands. All the same, she didn’t need any more stress added to what she was already dealing with. “You can take a quick look, but whatever’s up there is just junk. Things that were too good to throw away but not good enough to use. You know what attics are like.”

  “Matter of fact, I don’t,” he said, sounding far too guileless for a man who stood more than six feet even without the cowboy boots he affected. “We didn’t have one where I grew up.”

  That’s right, she thought, knowing she was being unfair—turn on the boyish charm, why don’t you?

  Trouble was, it was working. “Oh, come on then, if you must,” she grumbled. “But make it fast, I still have a lot to do today.”

  The steps were narrow, steep and dark with ancient varnish. Four steps, then a landing and four more. She caught up with him on the landing where the pull cord was anchored, but before she could yank on the single bulb at the top of the stairway, he barged ahead.

  “Watch out, there’s a—”

  Too late. He stumbled over the rocking chair she’d dodged the other day when she’d gone searching for boxes.

  Bending over to rub his shin, Kell said, “Hey, this thing looks familiar. Maybe I saw it in a picture or something. It’s possible,
isn’t it?”

  How could he simply ignore what had happened in the sewing room when every cell in her body was still buzzing with—well, it was hardly sexual awareness, Daisy told herself. It had to be embarrassment. Shrugging, she said, “Sears Roebuck probably delivered thousands of them. A few might even have made it to Oklahoma.”

  It was as if he’d pulled down the shades on those brilliant blue eyes, shutting off the look of boyish expectation that made him seem younger than the lines around his eyes indicated. “Yeah, I must have seen one just like it in one of the better soddies out there in the panhandle. At our house we used to sit on upturned buckets, but for company, we always brought in the milking stool.”

  Thoroughly ashamed of herself, Daisy closed her eyes. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.” She did, but knew she shouldn’t have. “I’m tired—I’m in a rotten mood—but that’s no reason to take it out on you.”

  It would help if he weren’t so…distracting. She actually found herself wondering what he liked in a woman—whether he’d be attracted to someone neat and practical or someone sexy and wildly impractical. One thing was certain—no man could be attracted to a grungy-looking crybaby who fell apart at the sight of an old sewing machine.

  While he examined the rocking chair and prowled the shadowy space under the sloping ceilings, Daisy mentally distanced herself by thinking about her plans for the future. In a few minutes—half an hour at most—he’d be gone.

  She tried not to watch him as he moved around, touching things, studying old license plates someone had nailed to the rafters, shaking his head over a pair of dried and cracked rubber waders. Even the way he moved was distracting. Those long legs, that gorgeous gluteus—

  Stop it. Just stop thinking about what you’re thinking about! Think about Egbert and how thoroughly decent he is. Think about the way he’ll smile, shy and a little nervous, when you walk down the aisle with a bouquet of spring flowers. It would be a small wedding, she’d already decided on that much, but definitely in church. Dressy, but not formal, as there was no point in buying an expensive gown and wearing it only once—although Sasha would argue with her there. Her hair would be lighter and probably shorter, but not too short.