Free Open Season by Linda Howard Page A

coolly replied, taking the laptop from him and carrying it to the library’s on-line computer, turning on lights as she went.
    He muttered something again, but this time, thankfully, she couldn’t tell what it was. She wasn’t as lucky with his next sentence. “You’re a little young to have a stick up your ass like the blue-hairs in this town.”
    To her credit, she didn’t falter. “Manners have nothing to do with age, and everything to do with upbringing.” She set the laptop down and swiftly began hooking it up to the power source and telephone outlet.
    It took him a minute. “Are you insulting my mother?” he finally growled.
    “I don’t know, am I? Or are you simply ignoring what she taught you?”
    “Shit!” he said explosively, then blew out a deep breath. “Okay, I’m sorry. Sometimes I forget I’m living in Mayberry.”
    If they were so boring and restrictive, maybe he should think about going back to wherever he came from, she thought resentfully, but kept her thoughts to herself before the situation developed into a full-fledged argument. “Apology accepted,” she forced herself to say, though she could have used a more gracious tone if she had really, really tried. She sat down and went on-line, then typed in the browser’s web address and waited until the site was found and the page displayed. Then she clicked on the update bar, and let technology handle the rest.
    “That’s it?” he asked, watching the little timer.
    “That’s it. You should do this regularly, at least every six months.”
    “You’re good at this.”
    “I’ve had to do it a lot since we got the virtual library,” she said wryly.
    He sat down beside her; too close, of course. She inched her chair away. “You know your way around computers.”
    “Not really. I know how to do this, but I had to learn. I can find my way around on the Web, I can hook up a system and load programs, but I’m not a computer geek or anything.”
    “City hall isn’t even on-line. Water bills and payroll are computerized, but that’s it.”
    He leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees as he watched the screen, as if he could hurry the process.
    “The police department is, though, isn’t it? Aren’t you hooked up with all those police networks?”
    He grunted. “Yeah. One line, one computer.” He looked disgusted.
    “Hillsboro
is
a small town,” she pointed out. “The budget isn’t very big. On the other hand, our crime rate is low.” She paused, suddenly unsure. “Isn’t it?”
    “Low enough. There hasn’t been a murder in the city limits since I’ve been here. We have the usual burglaries and assaults, drunk driving, domestic troubles.”
    She would have loved to ask him who was having domestic trouble, but bit her tongue. He just might tell her, and then she’d tell her mother and Aunt Jo, and feel bad about gossiping.
    Had he moved closer? She hadn’t seen him do so, but she could feel his body heat, and smell him. What was it about men that made them smell different from women? Testosterone? More body hair? It wasn’t an unpleasant smell; in fact, it was tantalizing. But it was
different,
as if he were an alien species. And he was definitely too darn close.
    She had had enough. “You’re crowding me,” she pointed out, very politely.
    Without moving, he glanced down; their chairs were separated by at least an inch. “I’m not touching you,” he said just as politely.
    “I didn’t say you were touching me; I said you’re too close.”
    He rolled his eyes and heaved a sigh, but hitched his chair another inch away. “Is this some other weird southern rule?”
    “You’re in law enforcement; you’re supposed to have studied body language. Isn’t that how you intimidate suspects, by invading their personal space?”
    “No, I generally use a nine millimeter for intimidation purposes. Not much chance of missing the signal that way.”
    Oh, and wasn’t that macho? He was such a typical man, bragging