Her Passionate Plan B (3 page)

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.

K
ell 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.

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.