Table of Contents
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Three
Four
Five
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Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Lovin' a Good Ol’ Boy
Mary Kay McComas
This story is dedicated to the good ol’ boy I married
Copyright © 1990 by Mary Kay McComas. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from Denise Marcil Literary Agency, Inc.; the agency can be reached at [email protected].
One
AMBITIOUS, UP-AND-COMING YOUNG CORPORATE EXECUTIVE WITH PROMISING FUTURE . . .
"No," Anne Hunnicut said aloud, deciding that the newspaper headline she was fantasizing about didn't describe her well enough. She started over.
FAIRLY ATTRACTIVE COLUMBIA GRADUATE; COMPUTER-LITERATE CORPORATE EXECUTIVE WITH PROMISING FUTURE; OWNER OF MIDTOWN APARTMENT AND REALLY NICE CHINESE ART COLLECTION, FOUND DEAD ON A DESERTED ROAD EARLY THURSDAY EVENING, IN THE BACKWOODS OF KENTUCKY.
"Details on page thirty-two," she added, giving in to her drooping spirits. She hoped her boss, Calvin Schwab, would read it and feel never-ending guilt over the lengths he'd driven her to.
Standing beside a useless, smoke-belching rental car in the middle of nowhere, Anne wondered whether exposing herself to any number of perilous situations was mentioned in her job description.
“This isn't all that scary, Anne," she told herself, trying to bolster her courage. She kept her voice low to avoid disturbing the wildlife that lurked in the nearby underbrush. She hadn't actually seen any wild animals yet, but it hadn't been hard for her fearful imagination to convince her that they were there, watching her, waiting to attack her when she was most vulnerable.
"This isn’t any worse than standing all alone, totally defenseless in the middle of Central Park," she said, casting a wary glance at the tall, deciduous trees lining both sides of the road. They looked like not-so-friendly green giants.
The nightmare she was presently participating in was probably just as much her own fault as anyone else's, she admitted. Other job opportunities had been open to her over the past few years. But she'd been at Harriman Industries for so long, it had become one of life's little challenges to her to prove that she was as capable as any man there.
The textile industry was run primarily by men. It was notoriously chauvinistic. From the top of the line to the bottom of the barrel, every mother's son of them had the innate belief that a woman had no place in the industry, aside from being a manual laborer or a clerical worker, of course. It was a man's profession. It always had been and it always would be. Amen.
Anne had heard it all before. And she wasn't impressed. She had cut her teeth on trying to keep up with three older brothers. Comparatively speaking, proving herself in a corporation was like child's play. Closing down a textile mill couldn't possibly be any harder than learning how to slam dunk at the age of thirteen had been.
For years now, all the big projects and really juicy jobs had gone to the men in the office. Time after time she had been passed over because she “lacked the specific skills needed for the task.” Ha. She knew as well as they did that the only thing she lacked was an overabundance of androgens. She was as competent as any man at Harriman, except that she couldn't handle a fifth of scotch as well and she didn't have any sordid sexual conquests to boast about. When the problems developed at Webster Textiles, she had all but begged Calvin Schwab to let her handle them. He had hemmed and hawed for so long that she hadn't thought he'd let her. But in the end she had prevailed. She'd told him that if she couldn't settle the dispute successfully, she'd come back, chain herself to her computer, and fade quietly into the woodwork. Now look at her. She gave the rental car a swift kick in the tire.
That was when she heard it. The moment she had been hoping for and dreading at the same time had arrived. A car was coming down the road.
She heard it, and she turned expectantly, waiting for Lord only knew what to come around the bend in the road.
Having lived her entire life north of Philadelphia and east of Chicago, Anne wasn't sure what to expect in Kentucky. But she'd seen movies and heard stories about southerners and was of the general opinion that she wasn't going to have a whole lot in common with them. Well, she could probably learn how to drink mint juleps with the belles or swap corn recipes, but chewing and spitting tobacco was out of the question, and she'd rather die than call a hog.
A big, shiny black Ford pickup truck came barreling around the corner, then slowed immediately. She had envisioned something a little older and spotted with paint primer, but at this point she was far more interested in the condition of the driver and whether or not he'd stop to help her.
When he came to a stop several yards behind her car, she breathed a sigh of relief, and when he looked to be normal in appearance, she breathed another.
She didn't like making automatic judgments about people, but she'd had no experience with the people who lived in these mountains. She was scared spitless that she'd hear dueling banjo music. It was an irrational fear, of course, but so was hydrophobia. Fear was fear, whether it made sense or not. She wanted to be open-minded. She had a tendency to believe that most people were pretty much the same. But then again, it was always better to be safe than sorry.
The first thing she noticed when the man got out of his truck was that he wasn't carrying a banjo or a shotgun. He was tall and lean with very broad shoulders and a slow, loose gait that gave her the impression that he thought he had all day to waste getting from his truck to her car. Taking brisk city steps, she met him halfway.
"Thank heaven you stopped," she said. "I was beginning to wonder if I'd ever see another human. I feel as if I've been stranded here for days."
"Afternoon, ma'am," he said, his voice low and soft; his smile amiable. "Car trouble?"
Given that the hood was up, the doors were open, and the car was billowing steam and smoke all over the road, his question seemed slightly redundant to Anne, but she answered anyway.
"Oh, the stupid thing. First its little red lights were flashing, and then it started smoking, and then finally it just stopped dead," she said, knowing it was usually wise to give the impression of being the reputed dumb blonde in situations like this. Her hair was auburn, but that didn't matter. It was the innocuous stupidity that always got to the male ego in these instances and encouraged them to be helpful. Besides, she always had been pretty stupid where cars were concerned. "If—if it had a flat tire, I'd know what to do. My father made a point of showing me how to change a tire. But he never said anything about smoke."
As he came closer, she got a better look at her rescuer. Normal didn't do him justice. As a matter of fact, he was very nice looking in an earthy, rugged way. Under a cap with an emblem that said made in America, his dark hair was brushed back away from his face. He had a square jaw and broad cheekbones. His nose was straight and his lips were full. He had rather a nice mouth, actually. She couldn't see his eyes behind the dark glasses he wore.
There wasn't anything extraordinary about him; there was just something about his face that impressed her. Character, maybe. Or the unique quality that distinguishes one person from another, which appears even in the faces of identical twins and makes them individuals. She wasn't sure why, but she liked his face instantly.
He ambled past her to the open hood of the car and peered in. He seemed to know just what he was looking for, because he turned his head toward her and said, "Your fan belt's gone."
"Gone?" She'd heard about fan belts. They were usually broken not gone.
"Must've broke a ways back, and you lost it. I've got an extra, but it won't fit your car. Gotta go to town for one."
What did that mean, she wondered. In New York it would have meant that it was time to find a phone and call her auto club. She had exhausted that possibility two hours earlier and she now prayed it meant something entirely different in Kentucky. She was casually taking in his long legs and very nice tush, when he turned and pressed them up against the car. He leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest as if he were waiting to see what she was going to do about the situation.
"Is the town very far from here?" she asked. "I'm not even too sure of where I am. I was heading for Webster" It's down that way, toward Knott County, about ten miles," he said, tilting his head in the direction she had been driving before the car died. You visitin'?"
"Ah. No. Not really. I'm here on business." She didn't want to say too much about why she was there for fear he wouldn't help her. She had a feeling that the people of Webster were not going to welcome her with open arms.
She could tell that he wanted to ask what her business was, but he didn't. Instead, he took off his glasses. Anne fought an urge to rush up and put them back over his eyes. Added to the rest of his features, his eyes made all the difference in the world in his appearance. They were green, or maybe hazel. But it wasn't the color so much as their expression that threw her for a loop.
His eyes were keen and intense, making a mockery of his loose, lazy stance. They revealed a confidence in the man that was staggering. They all but shouted, "I'm-an-all-American-man-and-I-wouldn't-have-it-any-other-way." Anne had never seen anyone like him before. His confidence went beyond bold and cocky to something so ingrained that he quite obviously took his membership in the Superior Gender Club as something ordained by God and therefore unquestionable.
Oh, Anne had seen arrogant men before. She'd grown up with three of them—her brothers. Later, she had come to know men with an overabundance of pride, men full of self-conceit, and others with a great deal of impertinence. But this one was a dilly. This man was so blatantly male and so secure in his manhood that he could probably make a bull blush, she decided.
And there he was, boldly assessing her as if she were a side of prime grade A beef. The merriment in his hazel eyes was irritating, and his audacity was making her madder by the minute. She triedto ignore his behavior, but she grew warm under his prolonged scrutiny, all too aware of her circumstances.
Tolerance had its limits though. And rude was just plain rude.
"I really wish you'd stop staring at me," she said bluntly.
"Why?"
"Because pound per pound I'm more expensive than any other piece of meat in this whole damned state, mister. And you just plain can't afford it," she told him when his impertinent staring had finally gnawed her nerves in half. His eyebrows shot up as if he were surprised by this bit of news, and amusement settled into his expression.
Anne didn't need this. She really didn't. It was proving to be one of the longest, most nerve-racking days she'd ever experienced. Lord, what a face he had, she thought – great buns too. So unfair. Maybe walking to Webster and getting someone there to help her wasn't such a bad idea after all. This man was making her as jumpy and nervous as a cat in a fiddle factory—so to speak.
"Hey. Where you goin'?" he called as she snatched her purse out of her car and started to walk away.
"To Webster. To find someone who'll be gentleman enough to help me without staring at me. I don't like being stared at," she said without looking back at him.
"You'll never make it in those shoes," he said, laughter ringing in his voice.
Anne stopped and looked at her high-heeled shoes. Then she looked back at him. He was still lounging against the rental car as though he hadn't a care in the world, a late May breeze rustling the sleeves of his shirt. Balancing on one foot at a time, she took her shoes off and moved on.
She'd taken several yards off her journey before she heard rapid steps coming up behind her. Images of the mentally deranged southerners she'd seen in the movies flashed through her mind. For all she knew, his family tree could look like a bamboo shoot, straight up with no branches, insanity flowing through its hollow center. She almost started running, except there hadn't been anything crazy in the man's eyes. There had been too much certainty, too much amusement, and too much awareness, but no craziness. Intuitively, she knew it would be wiser to stand up to him than run from him.
She stiffened indignantly when she felt his fingers wrap around her upper arm. She turned to face him.
"Jeez, you Yankee gals sure are prickly," he said, grinning. Unfortunately, he had the sexiest smile she'd ever seen. Full, malleable lips spread across even white teeth, crinkling the skin around his eyes and forming deep oversize dimples in his cheeks. "I was just lookin' at ya. Do they have a law against lookin' at pretty women where you're from?"
Anne wasn't going to dignify that with an answer. She looked down her nose at the sun-darkened hand on her arm, refusing to acknowledge the strange fluttering in her stomach and the way her heart raced when he touched her.
"Okay. I'm sorry," he said, releasing her. Anne saw the humor fade from his face, replaced by a sincerely contrite expression. "I was rude."
"Yes, you were." Sheepishness wasn't something that came naturally to him, and Anne found it hard to resist. She smiled. "Do you stare at all Yankee women like that? Is it something I ought to get used to while I'm here?"
He laughed. It was a soft, rumbling chuckle in his chest that Anne found very appealing. "Well, yes, ma'am. I do think you should get used to it. But it's not because you're a Yankee." This time his admiring gaze made Anne blush. He'd tempered it with a little more respect and a lot more goodwill, and it was nothing but complimentary. Self-conscious and suddenly feeling awkward, Anne smiled and glanced away.
"Look. I was just goin' into town anyway. If you don't mind hangin' around till I finish the stuff I have to do, you can go with me. We can pick up a belt, and I’ll fix your car on my way home. How's that?"
Any other time his suggestion might have made all the hair on the back of her neck stand up in alarm. But any other time she wouldn't have had a long wait on a desolate mountain road ahead of her either. She agreed to go with him.
He took the keys out of the ignition and moved her luggage from the back seat of the car, where she had put it for convenience, into the trunk for safekeeping. Then he led the way back to his truck and held the door open for her.
Even though the truck was only about two and a half feet off the ground, it could have been a couple of stories high for all the trouble Anne had getting into it. Her straight, tailored skirt had not been designed with trucking in mind. She tried several different leg maneuvers until she finally yanked her skirt up around her thighs in frustration and tried it again. When this also proved hopeless, and her only alternative was to crawl in head first, she reluctantly turned to her companion for assistance. She found him standing close behind her, still holding the door open and watching her with great relish.
The man was impossible.
Unaccustomed to feeling so miserably helpless, Anne put her hands on her hips and fought to maintain what was left of her shattered dignity, while she watched him make a huge production of drawing on a straight face. He released the door, clicked his heels, gave her a small graceful bow, and then very politely said, "May I?"
Anne's backbone sagged a little bit; she sighed and closed her eyes. But before she had time to reopen them or to think of how he planned to get her into the truck, he stepped forward and removed her hands from her hips. He placed his own hands where hers had been, and then lifted her up into the air, plopping her down on the seat. He could just as easily have shaken her like a rattle and set her on her head for the effect it had on her, she was so surprised.
It all happened so quickly. Her eyes came open. Somehow, her hands had come to rest on his shoulders, and with his fingers remaining at her waist, they came face
to face with mere inches separating them. The brim of his cap shaded the sun from his eyes and made them seem darker and more intense. Anne swallowed hard, trying to control the erratic skipping and thumping of her heart. She was only vaguely aware that her hands were trembling at his shoulders, but it didn't seem important to remove them just then.
He was wearing such a strange expression that Anne's focus on the world narrowed to the circumference of his face as she tried to decipher it. It was almost as if he'd come to a decision of some kind. His face was full of determination and that confidence she'd seen before. Odd thing was, she also had a feeling that his resolve had something to do with her.
"You know, my granny used to grow pansies in a flower box on her front porch. Your eyes are that same shade of purplish-blue." His speech had gentle southern inflections that were as smooth and intoxicating as Kentucky bourbon.
"What?" Anne liked his voice and the odd wayhe spoke. She could have listened to him talk all afternoon.
"Your eyes. They're as pretty as my granny's pansies."
His granny's pansies? That was exactly the sort of corn syrup stuff her brothers and the guys in the office had warned her about. They'd been teasing her for days, telling her to beware of all the charming southern gentlemen she would meet on her first official business trip. She wanted to brush the remark off as hokum, but for some odd reason she was terribly flattered. Maybe it was the soft way he said it—and the way he kept looking at her.
"My eyes," she said, trying to sound unaffected, wanting him to say more.
"Mm. They're real pretty." He ought to know, he was looking at them hard enough, she thought, growing warm under his intense inspection.
He looked deeply into her eyes as if he were looking for her soul. And then, suddenly, he seemed to reach in and wrench something away from her. That scared her, and she immediately pulled away.
He didn't try to hold her. He stepped back and waited for her to move her legs inside so he could close the door. Shaken to the core, Anne took several deep breaths in an effort to calm herself and tried to find something else to think about. While he walked around to the driver's side she took note of the truck's black interior, the cooler over the lump in the middle of the floor, and the rifle racked in the rear window.
Lovin' a Good Ol' Boy Page 1