She walked over to the scruffy VW Bug, the hem of the flowered dress swinging gendy against her legs. As she leaned over to peer uncertainly into the engine compartment, the thin cotton draped lovingly around the soft curves of her bottom and Neill choked on a mouthfiil of cola.
Startled, Anne jerked upright and spun toward the sound, one hand pressed to her suddenly thumping heart, her eyes searching the dimly lit garage. Someone was straightening away from the workbench, moving toward her—^a man, a stranger.
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The realization made her skin ice over and filled her throat with the acid taste of old fear.
"Sorry. I didn't mean to startle you." The rueful apology stopped her convulsive move toward the door and escape. She drew a shallow breath, struggling for control as he came closer. '1 guess you didn't see me," he said, stopping a few feet away and smiling at her.
Black T-shirt, snug faded denims, worn black boots and thick, dark hair the color of midnight. It was the hunk, she realized, the man she and Lisa had been shamelessly ogling just a few minutes ago. Anne breathed more deeply, feeling irritation replace the momentary panic. She'd thought she was past reacting like that, years past it. Yet here she was, bolting like a silly little rabbit just because she happened to be momentarily alone with a strange man. And it wasn't even as if they were really alone, she thought, hating the fear that had her glancing toward the office.
*'David got a call a few minutes ago," Neill said, seeing the direction of her glance. He kept a careful distance between them and made his voice low and soft. He didn't want to do anything to bring back the sharp look of fear that had tumed her gray eyes almost black. Such pretty eyes, he thought. She was pretty, like the girl on an old-
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fashioned box of candy. Big gray eyes, the kind of skin that could only be called peaches and cream, hair the color of pale honey, a short straight little nose and a soft bow of a mouth, the lower lip just a little fuller than the upper, the kind of mouth that made a man want to taste that faint hint of a pout. As a general rule, his taste ran to tall, leggy brunettes, but he was willing to concede that his focus might have been a little too narrow in the past. There was definitely something to be said for short, curvy blondes.
**Your car?" he asked, nodding to the Bug.
**Yes. She's in for a tune-up."
*'She?" Neill deliberately made his grin puppy-dog friendly. **Whaf s her name?"
'*Lucy," Anne said automatically and then flushed, bracing for laughter. Not everyone understood the impulse to name a car.
**Some cars just seem to require a name, don't they?" His smile widened in friendly amusement. *'My older sister had a thousand-year-old Volvo sedan named Morris that someone had painted pink. I was in junior high, and my mother used to ask Darcy to pick me up after school. I was convinced my mother hated me. It was bad enough to have my big sister picking me up, but that car..."
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He shuddered at the memory. "How macho can a guy be if he's forced to ride in a pink Volvo?"
'It must have been very traumatic/' Anne smiled, the last trace of fear evaporating. It just wasn't possible to be afraid of a man whose sister had driven a pink Volvo named Morris. And there was that smile. And the way his eyes laughed even when he wasn't smiling.
No buck teeth, no crossed eyes and, since he was looking at her with unmistakable male appreciation, it seemed unlikely that he was gay. In fact, there wasn't a flaw in sight, she decided, catching back an appreciative sigh. Early to mid-thirties, with a lean, rangy body, blue, blue eyes, nearly black hair, strong, angular jaw and a mouth that looked as if it smiled more than it frowned. The man was practically a poster boy for tall, dark and handsome.
*'I never have been able to figure out what it is about Bugs that makes people so crazy about them." Looking at Anne's car, he shook his head at the phenomenon. **A friend of mine got one for his sixteenth birthday. No air-conditioning, the heater was a joke, and when it came to hills, passengers were required to get out and push. But he loved that car. I wouldn't be surprised if he had it
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bronzed and keeps it on the mantel next to his kids' baby shoes."
She chuckled but, at the same time, reached out to pat the car's fender reassuringly. **Lucy has heart,'' she told him.
He nodded, that smile flickering in his eyes again. **Seth used to get that same look when he talked about his car." He slid his hands into his pockets and let the smile reach his mouth. ''Personally, I think it's the ugly puppy syndrome. You gotta love the car because you figure no one else wiU."
Anne's smile took on a sheepish edge. ''They were going to strip her for parts."
He laughed. "So you bought her to save her from a wrecking yard?"
"More or less." She stroked her hand over the fender, and Neill tried not to think about having those slender fingers on his skin.
You've definitely been spending too much time alone, Devlin.
"Are you working for David?" Anne asked shyly. Later, she would be amazed at the easy way they were talking. She'd never been the kind of person who struck up casual conversations with strangers, yet here she was chatting with the best-
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looking stranger to cross her path in all her twenty-five years.
He shook his head. *'My bike gave a death rattle a few miles out of town.'' He nodded toward the red and silver motorcycle sitting just inside the garage. **I lucked out and caught a ride into town. Otherwise, Fd still be lost somewhere in the cornfields. For a minute there, I was pretty sure Rod Serling was going to pop up and start intoning some moral lesson."
Her soft gurgle of laughter had Neill smiling. A cola, some cookies and a litde conversation with a pretty woman—^yeah, Ufe was definitely on the upswing.
**rm sure David will be able to fix your bike," she said.
*'You should be careful about making promises I may not be able to keep." David Freeman's voice preceded him as he stepped into the garage. He was a short, stocky man with medium brown hair and ordinary features made memorable by unexpectedly pale blue eyes. Neill had liked him on sight and liked him even more when the mechanic had immediately recognized the Indian motorcycle for what it was. He'd pointed Neill in the direction of the soft drink machine and promised to take a look
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at the bike as soon as he finished the tune-up he was in the midst of.
'*How's it going, Anne?"
*'Good. Or it will be if you've got Lucy back in working order."
Anne, Neill thought. The name had an old-fashioned femininity that suited her. It didn't take much imagination to picture her in a long dress with a ruffled bonnet framing her face. Not that he didn't much prefer the modem version, he admitted, allowing his eye to drift to the smooth length of leg left bare by the flippy little skirt of her sundress.
**rve got your baby running again," David said, moving over to stand next to her. Neill caught the look the other man shot in his direction and wondered if it was his imagination that put a warning in it. And was there something proprietary in the way David touched her arm as he explained the work he'd done on her car?
Neill was surprised to feel a twinge of disappointment at the thought that she might be spoken for. He was just passing through. If he was incredibly lucky and the mechanic could resurrect the Indian in the next couple of hours, he would be on the road before nightfall. If not, then tomorrow or the next day. One way or another, he wasn't going
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to be around long enough for it to matter whether Anne of the pretty gray eyes and soft smile was seeing someone.
Way too long without a social life, he thought as he watched her pull a checkbook out of the small purse she carried. If they were lovers, would she be paying him for working on her car? Not that he cared, Neill reminded himself as he turned restlessly away. Just idle curiosity, an occupational haz
ard for a writer. He tilted his head back and downed the last of the now lukewarm cola. Tumed back when he heard the trunk slam. She was just sliding into the car, giving him a last glimpse of long, slim legs.
She pulled the door shut, looked at him through the open window and smiled shyly. "Good luck with your motorcycle."
*'Thanks." Just as well she was leaving, Neill thought. Another few minutes and he might have found himself asking her out. Too many nights spent alone, too much time staring at a monitor with nothing but his own words for company. Still, he found himself walking to the garage door, watching the silly-looking little black car tum onto the main road.
"Forget it." Behind him, David Freeman's voice was dry as dust.
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**Why?" Neill turned, his eyes holding both question and a faint challenge. He didn't pretend not to know what the other man was talking about. **Is she spoken for?''
**Not that I know of."
"Then why should I forget it?"
David shrugged, his dark eyes unreadable. *'Just take my word for it. Or not. Doesn't matter much one way or the other, does it, since you're just passing through? I'll take a look at your bike now. See what the problem is."
He walked away, but Neill stayed where he was a moment longer, his eyes shifting back out to the road. The little black car was long gone and Freeman was right—^it didn't matter.
Damned if he knew why he found that so irritating.
Chapter Two
Ihe phrase "steel magnolia" could have been coined with Olivia Moore in mind. The only daughter of a wealthy Atlanta businessman, she*d been raised in a world of wealth and privilege. Her parents had expected her to make an appropriate marriage—^a Southerner from her own social class—^but she'd surprised herself no less than them by falling in love with John Moore, a country doctor of no particular social standing and a Yankee to boot.
When they couldn't talk her out of the marriage, Olivia's parents gave her a spectacular wedding, attended by the cream of Atlanta society. They also settled an equally spectacular sum of money on
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their daughter, to ensure that she could maintain the lifestyle to which she was accustomed, even in the northern hinterlands to which her new husband was taking her.
The money ensured that Olivia never had to worry about living on her husband's income, nor within the confines of the lifestyle she'd married into. She redecorated her new home— 3, rambling monstrosity with ridiculous Tudor pretensions— with fine antiques and made twice yearly trips to New York to refurbish her wardrobe. The local women, who had been perfectly willing to accept young Doc Moore's new wife into their social circle, soon found that Olivia wasn't interested.
In a town where nearly everyone knew everyone else, at least by sight, she made acquaintances but no real friends. The lack didn't bother her, since she had no particular interest in becoming intimately acquainted with farm wives and shop clerks. She would have been faintly surprised to know that the locals thought her a terrible snob. It was so obvious that Loving, Indiana, simply could not provide the sort of society to which she was accustomed that it never occurred to her that anyone could think otherwise. Fourth of July barbecues and Harvest Fairs were quite simply beneath her.
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She had been, she felt, a good wife. She'd been disappointed when John refused to consider staying in Atlanta, where she had friends and family, a social life that mattered, but she hadn't insisted that he change his mind. Nor had she complained about the lack of amenities in the small farming community to which he'd brought her. If, with the clarity of a few months' hindsight, she'd seen the wisdom in her parents' arguments against the marriage, pride would not allow her to admit as much. Divorce was unthinkable—^an admission of failure she refused to make. It never occurred to her that John might feel the same regrets. After all, she had given up a great deal, while he had gained... Well, he'd gained a wife who was not only beautiful but was from a much higher social strata than he could ordinarily have aspired to. The idea that he might have regrets would have astonished her.
Having made her bed, she determined to lie in it as graciously as possible. Had her husband shown the least trace of ambition, she could have used her considerable social skills to help advance his career, but, as long as he was content to practice medicine in this backwater community, there was no question of advancement, so Olivia had tumed her attention to their three children.
She had, from the start, tried to instill in them a
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sense of their own worth. It was unportant that they understand that the real world lay beyond the suffocating confines of Lx)ving, Indiana. In this, she'd been hampered by John's sudden, unexpected refusal to allow her to send them to boarding school. Her arguments that they needed to start, early on, associating with the right sort of people and making the kind of connections that could benefit them later in life had fallen on deaf ears.
It was, as far as she was concemed, entirely as a result of his unreasonable attitude that their only son had dropped out of medical school to become the local sheriff, a position with few benefits and no opportunity for advancement. The fact that Jack didn't seem interested in advancement was also to be laid at his father's door. If John had only shown more ambition, set an example for their son... But he hadn't, and now, at thirty-five. Jack seemed content to remain in what his mother considered a dead-end job.
As if that wasn't distressing enough, he'd gotten involved with a woman whose fashion sense seemed to be derived from circus magazines. Olivia looked down the table to where Lisa sat across firom Anne, barely suppressing a shudder of distaste. She was too...everything. Too tall, too quick to laugh. Her features were too sharp, her move-
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ments too quick, her hair too red. There was no refinement about her, no elegance, and not even ten years in California could explain the impulse that had led her to pair a turquoise pinafore with yellow daisies dancing around the hem with a purple T-shirt, matching tights and Mary Janes with hot pink buckles. In combination with her fiery red hair and multicolored earrings that looked like nothing so much as fishing lures, she provided a splash of eye-searing color amid the muted grays and blues of the tastefully decorated dining roonL
The fact that Lisa had grown up with Olivia's oldest daughter did nothing to reconcile her to the possibility that Jack was serious about her. She'd considered Lisa a bad influence when Brooke was alive, and the nearly fifteen years since her daughter's death had done nothing to improve her opinion. It was a pity the woman hadn't stayed in California, far away from Jack, because it was perfectly obvious that she was completely unsuitable. Not that she was foolish enough to say as much to Jack. He was too much his father's son—^his stubbornness increasing in direct proportion to the stupidity of his actions.
If his father said something, he might listen, but John, as usual, had refused to interfere. He liked Lisa, he'd said. She made him laugh. Olivia's acid
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rejoinder that that was an admirable quality in a stand-up comic but hardly a first priority for a daughter-in-law had received nothing more than a shrug in reply, and the abstracted look in his eyes had wamed her that there was no point in continuing the discussion. More and more, John had developed an annoying tendency to divorce himself from whatever was going on around him.
Left on her own, she*d first tried to ignore the whole thing, hoping it was a phase Jack was going through—an early midlife aberration of some sort—but when theyM been dating a year and a half, it had become obvious that ignoring Lisa wasn't going to make her go away. It had been her suggestion that he bring the woman to Sunday supper. She'd hoped that seeing Lisa here, in the quiet elegance of his family home, would help to open his eyes to her complete lack of suitability, but it didn't seem to have had the desired effect. Perhaps the time had come to take more
direct action.
**I had been wondering where you shop these days, Lisa?" Olivia blotted her lips with a comer of her linen napkin and sent a closed-mouth smile down the table. '*You must find the local shops very limited after living in Los Angeles for so long. Particularly for someone with such a...unique sense of style."
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Anne closed her eyes briefly, her fingers tightening on her fork. Just when you thought it was safe to eat dessert, she thought, nearly choking on a laugh that would have held more than a touch of hysteria. Actually, the only real surprise was that it had taken her mother this long to conmient— albeit obliquely—on Lisa's outfit, an outfit Lisa must have put together with the sure knowledge that it would send her hostess's blood pressure through the roof.
*lt is difficult, Mrs. M," Lisa said, taking the question at face value, as if the patentiy false concern had been real. *'Luckily, I have a friend in L.A. who sends me things. She found this dress in a terrific thrift shop on Santa Monica Boulevard.'* Lisa smoothed her fingers happily over the shoulder of the turquoise pinafore.' 'Of course, it needed a little repair work, but you can't be too picky when it comes to used clothes."
Anne made a quick grab for her glass, drowning a laugh with iced tea. She knew all about the stores where Lisa's friend shopped. Thrift shop was a bit misleading, since vintage clothing was anything but thrifty. But Lisa's tone managed to convey the image of her friend scavenging garments from barrels full of castoffs.
*'No, I don't suppose one can be too picky
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about,..used clothing," Olivia said, her patrician features frozen with distaste. "Of course, I suppose, if you must watch your pennies, thrift shops must be a godsend." Her smile was razor sharp. **I know how difficult it is for creative people to deal with the financial end of things. How is your little business doing these days, my dear?"
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