Free Low Country Liar by Janet Dailey Page A

had inadvertently made.
    Lisa had to clamp her mouth tightly shut to keep from telling him exactly what she thought of his chances. There had been enough arguing in front of Mitzi. The time for taking a stand against Slade Blackwell hadn't come, not until she had something to back up her suspicions.
    "It's settled, then." Slade turned back to Mitzi. "Dinner tomorrow evening. I'll pick the two of you up at seven."
    "No!" Lisa snapped, and received a piercing look of inquiry from him.
    "She's just being stubborn." Mitzi seemed to be amused by their cutting byplay. "Of course we'll have dinner with you, Slade. I want Lisa to have a few nights out in Charleston while she's here and you know all the good places."
    "No," she refused again.
    "Lisa," Mitzi said in a cajoling voice.
    The tiredness of Lisa's bones and muscles was making her doubly irritable. She felt at her wits' end trying to cope with this intolerable situation.
    Slade must have sensed that she didn't want to bring everything out in the open yet and was backing her into a corner. Tomorrow was going to be another trying day, and she simply couldn't face the thought of seeing him tomorrow night.
    "Mitzi, I'm going to be out all day tomorrow with Peg and Susan," she reasoned. "I'm not going to feel like going out tomorrow night."
    "We'll make it Thursday, the day after," Slade suggested.
    "Yes." By then, Lisa intended to have all the information she needed to convict Slade Blackwell beyond Mitzi's reasonable doubt.
    "I'll look forward to it," he said with a maddening smile, and took his leave.
    "He's an infuriating man." Lisa muttered as the study door closed behind the arrogant set of his shoulders.
    "But he is a man," Mitzi observed with a bright twinkle in her eye. "If I were your age—"
    "If you were my age, you'd be welcome to him." She turned away from the door to face her aunt. Her lips still felt tender from his bruising kiss. "I told you once that I don't care for the strong, masterful type. He leaves mecold."
    "Cold?" Mitzi raised an eyebrow, amusement evident in the action. "I think hot is more like it."
    "Please, Mitzi." Lisa lifted a warning hand of protest. "At the moment, Slade Blackwell is a very volatile subject as far as I'm concerned. And unless you want me to explode, you'd better drop it."
    There was a heavy sigh of agreement from her aunt. Lisa knew she was hurt by the veiled animosity between two people she liked, but she also knew that Mitzi was going to be even more hurt when she found out the kind of man Slade Blackwell really was. In the long run it would be best, though.
    Mitzi wisely didn't introduce Slade's name into the conversation again. Despite that, neither the incident in the study nor the man himself was far from Lisa's thoughts.
    By ten o'clock a mental and physical exhaustion began to set in. Lisa was grateful when Mitzi suggested that it was time they went to bed. Upstairs in her room, Lisa ignored the bed in favor of the bathroom where the shower spray massaged the aching muscles of her shoulders and neck. She tumbled into bed and turned off the light. In the darkness, she wondered if thoughts of Slade and how she would unmask him, would keep her awake. That was the last thing Lisa remembered thinking.
    THE STUDY DOOR WAS OPEN when Lisa came down the spiral staircase a little after seven the next morning. The typewriter was silent.
    "Is that you, Lisa?" her aunt called and appeared in the doorway an instant later. "Gracious, but you are up early this morning. And all dressed, too."
    "I decided that I didn't want to sleep my vacation away," Lisa lied, preferring to be snugly asleep in her canopied bed.
    "Come in and join me for coffee. Mildred just brought me a fresh pot," Mitzi invited.
    "I wouldn't want to disturb you. I know you're working." Her finger clutched her large purse, its sides bulging with the red wig she had crammed inside.
    "Nonsense. You aren't disturbing me," her aunt insisted. "I was just taking a break before I