Orange vinyl-covered booths framed three sides of the diner’s interior and were joined on their open end by a bar with a row of orange vinyl-covered stools. Roxanne slid into one cracked vinyl booth and glanced at the waitress who approached bearing water and enthusiastically smacking a wad of pink chewing gum. Her hair was dyed orange—most probably to match the booths—and clashed horribly with the wilted pink uniform she wore. The black nameplate artfully pinned to her ample bosom said “Dottie” and with a mascara mole painted on her left cheek, the name seemed to fit to a T.
“Why, Malcolm Daniels!” she exclaimed as she set the amber glass of water on the table in front of him. “I haven’t seen you in a coon’s age. Where have you been hidin’ yourself?”
“Now, Dottie,” he said, dodging her pink tipped nails as they reached out to pinch him on the cheek. “It hasn’t been that long. I was just in for coffee the other day.”
Dottie pouted, one fuchsia-painted lip protruding a country mile. “Not on my shift.”
Roxanne rolled her eyes.
Malcolm smiled. “If you weren’t off playing hooky with the boss’s son—”
She swatted Malcolm’s hand and popped her gum. “You naughty boy. You know I’m savin’ all my love for you.”
Roxanne watched in a mixture of silence, annoyance, and disbelief as Malcolm continued to flirt with the brassy waitress. Surely he didn’t take the woman seriously. Why, she was old enough to be … to be his big sister! And she surely wasn’t the polished debutante that Malcolm would undoubtedly need to complement his career.
“What happened to your chin, sugar?”
Malcolm absently rubbed the black sutures. “Just a little mishap.”
“Let me go get my order pad, and then y’all can let me know what you want to eat.”
“A menu?” Roxanne asked. “Before I order I’d like to see a menu.” She tried to keep the hostility from her voice, but she didn’t like the waitress’s familiarity with Malcolm. She didn’t like it one bit, y’all.
“Land sakes! We don’t get much call for menus ’round here. Most everyone in these parts knows what we serve. I’ll see if I can rustle one up for ya.” She turned to leave, then stopped and looked back at Roxanne, her eyes narrowed in recognition. “You’re that Yankee reporter, right?”
Roxanne smiled, aided by the fact that she had never before heard the word “right” spoken in two syllables. “Right.”
“I’ll be back directly with that menu,” Dottie said, then disappeared behind the counter.
“Won’t think of me as that Yankee, huh?” She muttered the words to Malcolm, but couldn’t meet his bottomless brown gaze. Every time she did, she felt as if she were tottering on the edge of a precipice. Like when he’d kissed her. She could feel his gaze, tangible against her waiting lips. And oh, yes, she had been waiting for his kiss. Anticipating how it would feel to live out the fantasy she had been dreaming ever since he’d walked into her jail cell. This desire for him had to be controlled and quickly before she broke one of the cardinal rules of journalism: never sleep with a story. If there was one thing Newland had taught her that was it. Maybe it was time to face this attraction she had for him straight on.
“Malcolm.”
“Roxanne.”
They both said the words at the same time.
“You first,” he said.
“Uhmm … ” The only way to get into a cold bath was to jump in. “I think you—”
“Here we are,” Dottie interrupted. She wiped the mixture of dust and grease from the red covers of the menus and placed them on the table. Then she took the pencil out of her bun and poised it above her order pad. “What can I get y’all to drink?”
“Coffee,” Malcolm said. “Roxanne?”
It took her a minute to shift her mental gears from desire to beverage. “Orange soda.”
Dottie smiled what Roxanne considered the Official Jefferson County Be-Kind-To-Yankees-Smile. “How ’bout a cherry Coke?”
Roxanne tried to make the connection between an orange soda and a cherry Coke, but in the end gave up and simply nodded her head. “A cherry Coke will be fine.”
“Y’all look at those menus, and I’ll be back in a flash with your drinks.”
“But?” Malcolm prompted once Dottie was out of sight again.
Roxanne made the mistake of looking into those chocolate brown eyes. All rational thought fled. Lord, why did she have such a weakness for chocolate? And what had she been about to say? “Never mind,” she improvised. “It doesn’t really matter. Come Monday I’ll probably be on my way to the state pen. Where is the prison, by the way?”
“Roxanne, you’re not going to jail.”
She shrugged. “Then I’ll be on my way back to Chicago.”
“Y’all ready to order now?” Dottie slid the cup of black coffee to Malcolm, then placed a fountain-sized Coke with a fat red cherry on top in front of Roxanne.
“Sorry. I haven’t even had the chance to look at the menu.”
“Give us another couple of minutes, huh, Dot?”
“Anything for you, sugar.” She ran her brightly painted nails gently down the side of his face, and the snake had the audacity to actually smile.
After the waitress had gone, Roxanne whirled the cherry around in the dark liquid of her soda. “You are a flirt.”
“This is my hometown, Roxanne. Maybe we’re just a little more friendly down here than folks are where you come from.” He took a tentative sip of his coffee as if to test the temperature, then a larger swallow.
“I suppose,” she muttered and buried her head in the menu. It was just another of the glaring differences between the two of them. She couldn’t imagine going into her favorite deli back home and flirting with the crotchety, overweight owner in the perpetually dirty apron. His equally crotchety, equally overweight wife might take offense.
“What looks good to you?” Malcolm asked, bringing Roxanne out of her thoughts and back to the task at hand.
“I don’t know. What would you suggest?”
He folded his menu and studied her from across the table. “For you, I’d recommend chocolate sop and biscuits with a side order of bacon.”
Roxanne made a face. “Chocolate what?”
“Trust me,” he said with a smile as he waved for Dot.
Ten minutes later, Roxanne was presented with the most heavenly meal she had ever been served on either side of the Mason-Dixon Line. Light-as-air biscuits had been spread with butter, then smothered with a rich chocolate sauce to rival the efforts of the finest chefs in the entire Chicago metro area. Maybe even the world. This meal was a chocaholic’s dream come true.
She cut off a piece of the biscuit and raised it to her lips, nearly fainting the taste was so exquisite. She couldn’t help herself. She closed her eyes and moaned out loud. She had been homesick this entire trip—that is until she had tasted Len’s—
“What do you call this again?” She opened her eyes and looked across the table to where Malcolm sat.
He had cut off a portion of his gravy-covered biscuit, but instead of actually eating, his elbow was braced on the table, his fork suspended somewhere between his plate and his open mouth.
“Daniels. Hello. Earth to Daniels.” Roxanne waved one hand in front of his face.
Malcolm blinked once, set down his fork, then wiped his brow with a paper napkin. “You were saying something?”
“Yeah, but you were a million miles away.”
Malcolm swallowed hard and nodded. A little muscle in his jaw bunched and jumped. “I’m back now.” And just like that, he became Malcolm B. Daniels IV attorney at law, the same man she had met in the jail yesterday.
“Good,” Roxanne sarcastically replied. “I missed you.”
“What did you want to know?”
“What this is called.” She waved a fork-full in the air, then popped it into her mouth. Heaven.
“Chocolate sop.”
“Sop?”
“Sop.”
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“O-kay,” she said slowly. “Not a very appetizing name.”
“It’s called that because you’re supposed to sop up the chocolate with the biscuits.” He demonstrated, taking a piece of his own biscuits and trailing it through the gravy.
“Why couldn’t they call it chocolate wipe-it-up?”
Evidently the men at the table next to theirs were listening to their conversation because they shook their heads collectively. She supposed it was just the way of small towns. She really didn’t know for certain, she’d never lived anyplace other than Chicago.
“Roxanne,” he chided. “I know this is hard for you to understand, but you really should try to blend in a little more.”
“Hey, I like the food. What more do you want?”
“I meant what I said at the gravesite.” He lowered his voice even though it wasn’t really necessary. The men at the next table laid their money down to pay for their meal and were on their way out the door. “I want you to move your things to my apartment as soon as we get back to Magnolia Acres.”
“Is this a proposition?” She tried to keep her tone light, but her mouth went dry and her tongue stuck to her teeth. Instead of flippant, she sounded more like a phone sex operator.
Desire flashed hot and quick in Malcolm’s eyes. “No,” he said, contradicting the passion so clearly burning there.
“I—I think it’s better if I stay with Miss Kitty. She—”
“No,” Malcolm repeated. “I can’t trust you to stay alone.”
And I can’t trust myself to stay with you. “I thought that wasn’t proper.” It was lame, but it was the best she could do on such short notice. “What about Miss Gertie?”
“I’ve got a spare room that’s been converted into an office. There’s a futon in there. It should be more comfortable than Lester’s basement, and proper enough that even Miss Gertie can’t protest.”
“Fine,” Roxanne replied easily. The word “office” was not missed by her. Where there was an office, there were files and where there were files …
“Don’t get any ideas. I keep all my files under lock and key.”
Roxanne jerked her attention back to her attorney.
“And I want you to leave Della and Truman alone.” His words were softly spoken, almost a plea. It was as if he could read her mind. Or at least the parts about the murder. Heaven help them both if he knew the illicit thoughts she was having about him.
“You want me to forget my original assignment, then totally ignore what could easily be the story of my career?”
“There’s more to life than a story.”
“Not in my world,” Roxanne shot back, angry with him for bringing it up and angry with herself for being angry with him.
They stared at each other across the table, blue eyes clashing with brown.
“These are real people with real lives that you’re trying to destroy in your need for the next cover story for your little rag. I won’t stand for it.”
“I told Len you were out here.” Dottie interrupted the tense moment, sashaying up to the table, still smacking her gum. “He said that you got into a fight last night at Jack’s. Any truth in that? Say no, ’cause I got twenty dollars ridin’ on this.”
Malcolm tore his gaze from Roxanne’s. “Sorry to disappoint you.”
“It was Cameron, wasn’t it?” She snapped her fingers. “I should have known. But you’re not one to go ’round pickin’ fights with the town bully. What was it about?”
Malcolm looked back to Roxanne. “Nothing.” The word was flat and made her feel two inches high.
“Hey, Dottie,” someone yelled from across the room. “Get your fanny over here and bring the coffee.”
Dottie stayed for a moment more, looking from Roxanne to Malcolm, before she turned to retrieve the coffeepot.
“Keep your pants on.” Roxanne heard her yell, but she couldn’t take her eyes off Malcolm.
“Leave Truman and Della alone,” he intoned after several long minutes.
“Help me find the murderer.”
“Leave them alone.”
“Daniels—”
“Here ya go.” Dottie refilled Malcolm’s coffee. “Can I get y’all anything else?”
“No,” Roxanne and Malcolm said in stern unison.
“Fine, then.” Dottie backed away from the table keeping a close watch on them both.
“Help me find the murderer,” Roxanne repeated.
“You mean help you pin this rap on a man I’ve known as a father since I was eight years old.”
“Malcolm, I can’t help the way things turn out. Della’s pregnant. Valentine’s the father, and I’ll prove it.”
“How?”
“Della threw a rose into Valentine’s grave.”
“I suppose you want to exhume his body when he hasn’t even been in the ground for—” he checked his watch “—half an hour.”
“It had a black and white ultrasound picture tied to it. I saw it.”
“How do you know it was an ultrasound picture? It could have been just a plain old black and white.”
Roxanne rolled her eyes. “There is a difference.”
“And I suppose you’re an expert on ultrasound imaging.”
Roxanne lowered her gaze. Talking about ultrasounds brought back too many memories, painful memories. “I know what they look like.”
“That doesn’t prove anything."
“Dr. Seager,” she said, veering the subject away from ultrasounds. “Dr. Seager has the medical records.”
“And what do you propose to do? Just waltz in there and demand to see them? There is such a thing as patient confidentially. There’s no way Dr. Seager’s going to willingly let you see those files.”
“He doesn’t have to know.”
“Are you suggesting we break into the doctor’s office and steal the files?”
“No, just look at them,” Roxanne replied defensively, then changed her tone entirely. “What’s the matter, Malcolm? Are you chicken?”
“No.”
“Then you’ll help me.” It was a statement not a question.
“Absolutely not.” He stood and retrieved two twenties from his wallet and slapped the bills on the table: one for their unfinished meal and the other—she assumed—for the bet Dottie had lost. “And this settles it,” he gritted under his breath. “You are definitely moving into my place.”
Roxanne emitted a low growl and followed Malcolm out of the diner. She was infuriated, frustrated, and agitated. Her attorney was blinded by his faith in the human race. How was that for ironic? He was, after all, a politician. A politician so hampered by loyalty that he didn’t want to face the facts. He wanted to ignore them, pretend they didn’t exist, stick his handsome head in the sand. She, on the other hand, didn’t have that luxury. She had only two days to prove her innocence.
“Why did you pay Dottie back for the bet she lost?” Roxanne asked as Malcolm drove them back to Magnolia Acres. No surprise, the chocolate helped restore her better nature. It had always been that way. Chocolate seemed to be the only solution to a world full of problems. Nothing could soothe her nerves like a healthy dose of the sweet stuff. Around Malcolm Daniels her nerves were constantly jangled. She didn’t know what exactly it was about him that put her hormones into overdrive, he just did. And they just were. He had her libido and her emotions tied in knots. She had spent half the day wanting him to kiss her and the other half wishing he would just drop dead.
He shrugged. “She’s a single mom with two kids to feed. She can’t afford to lose twenty dollars on account of me.”
“Is she really dating the boss’s son?”
“Why? You want to do a story on that, too?”
Roxanne sighed. “I’ve told you. I’m not out for just a story. I have to prove my innocence.”
“And I told you to leave it alone. The charges will be dropped on Monday. That’s all that concerns you now.”
“How can you say that? A young man lies dea
d, murdered in his prime. And you expect me to just not worry about it when I know who did it?”
He blew out a frustrated breath before turning his car into the drive and his attention toward her. “Roxanne, you don’t know anything. You have no proof, only speculation. Truman Silverstone took me in when I had nobody. He raised me like a son. Sent me to law school, took care of my trust fund. Hell, he even cleaned me up when I had one too many the day after I was called to the bar. He’s not a young man anymore. His heart’s not what it used to be. I will not stand by and let you hurt him with allegations from an over-fertile imagination.” He parked the boring Mercedes in the circular drive and got out of the car.
Roxanne inhaled sharply, unwillingly dragging his masculine scent into her lungs: the clean tang of his aftershave and the essence of one hundred percent male regardless, in spite of, and perhaps in defiance to, the conservative political facade he wore like armor. It was a crying shame that he could do this to her, and he wasn’t even in the car with her anymore.
The blithe retort she’d planned died on her lips as she got out of the Mercedes and slammed the door. “I—I—” she sputtered, then gave up the effort of speech and flounced behind him toward the house.
• • •
“Yoo-hoo? Malcolm, is that you?” Miss Gertie’s voice carried to him from the open door of her apartment as he entered the main house, Roxanne hot on his heels. She materialized a moment later, wheeling herself into the foyer. She had one dress—still on its hanger—draped over her neck and down the length of her. A Chihuahua sized lump to the left signified that Pablo was still in his customary place. The other dress trailed behind her like the train of a wedding gown. “I need your expert opinion. Which one?”
Malcolm rubbed the black sutures that bisected his chin—damn they itched—and looked at one dress and then the other. “Miss Gertie, if you’d like to rewrite your will, I’ll be happy to give you my advice, but I don’t really have a viable opinion on evening wear.”
“Posh,” she gushed. “You’re a man, and you know what you like. So which is your favorite? The red or the blue?”
“The red. What’s the occasion?” he asked.
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