Free Renegade Player by Dixie Browning Page B

turned to Dotty and said, “Think about it, will you? I’ll talk to you after lunch.”
    “What was that all about?” Willy asked as she fumbled for her dark glasses. In spite of an overall haze, the light was fierce.
    “Tell you over lunch.”
    She handed over her keys and told him to drive and he made a big show of being shocked, asking her if she was sure she trusted him.
    “With my car, yes.”
    “That one was below the belt,” he charged, and then added, “and that was no deliberate double entendre.”
    She shot him a swift look that almost immediately crumpled into a grin, disarmed by the amusement she saw reflected in his lean face. Lowering himself under the wheel after seeing her seated, he extracted the Mercedes from between its companions with an economy of movement that was a joy to watch and Willy reminded herself forcefully that if she didn’t look out, she’d be right back where she was before.
    She didn’t ask where they were going, content to feel the speed-induced wind comb through her hair, and to watch the beautiful precision of his hands as they handled the gears with a finger-light touch. Those hands, she thought with wry honesty, were as expert at directing a piece of machinery as they were at directing the reactions of a woman’s body, and heaven help her if she forgot that fact!
    They ate at the same small, unimposing beachfront place where he had taken her that day with Kip and they vied with white-haired surfers for space. Kiel ordered the soft-shell crab sandwiches with beer for himself and milk for her and he frowned as he replaced the spotted menu in its holder. “I don’t think Moses would have approved of your having milk with shellfish,” he told her.
    “Probably not, but let’s hope this place has better sanitation and refrigeration facilities than Moses did.”
    “As a health officer at a time when one slipup could be fatal, he did a first-class job of getting his people through safely, but I’ll bet he never saw a crab sandwich that could compare with these,” Kiel said, accepting their order from a waiter whose T-shirt read simply, T shirt.
    They talked of food and its preservation in a variety of climates, and Willy gradually relaxed her wariness and found herself laughing wholeheartedly for the first time in a week, but when Kiel said, “If you’ll wipe off that milk mustache, I’ve a proposition to put to you,” she stiffened again.
    He reached across the table and wiped her mouth with his napkin, the sun creases around his eyes deepening. “On Dotty’s behalf, that is,” he added. He went on to explain that Dotty was down in the dumps because Bill was going to have to celebrate his birthday without her. “He’s registered in the tournament and he left for Hatteras this morning and won’t be home until next weekend. It occurred to me that since I plan to sail down for the weekend to watch the start, Dotty might like to come along as a passenger and then she and Bill could have a little celebration after he winds things up Saturday night. Of course, it all hinges on having another woman along. What about it, are you game?”
    “Who, me?” she asked awkwardly. “You mean leave today?”
    “Why not? Here, come on outside. I can’t hear a thing over that demolition derby they call music.” He steered her through the crowd around the jukebox and they paused on the sagging porch to gaze out over an empty lot that was aglow with yellow flowers.
    “What about it?” he murmured absently as he looked out over the flowers to where cloud shadows chased themselves across the solemn dome of Kill Devil Hill. “Looks as if the weather’s going to cooperate.” A nameless sort of excitement started somewhere down inside her and tightened up her throat so that she had to try twice before she could get her words out. “Does . . . does Dotty really want to go? I thought she was busy studying for her realtor’s exam. She and Bill plan to be married as soon as she