Free Playing Dead in Dixie by Paula Graves Page A

mind.
    He bent closer, and she saw a fresh nick on the underside of his jaw.  Bathed and shaved.  Well, well.
    Maybe he had a date, she told her traitorous mind.  His good grooming might have nothing to do with her at all.
    But the hungry look in his dark eyes as they lifted to meet hers suggested otherwise.  "Eaten dinner yet?"
    She shook her head.  "Bonnie's cooking peas and cornbread.  I shucked the peas myself."
    His lips curved.  " Shelled the peas.  You shell peas.  You shuck corn.  And don't worry, she'll save you some leftovers."
    Her stomach fluttered.  "I won't be here?"
    He shook his head slowly.  "You're coming with me."
    She lifted her chin, forcing herself to remain outwardly cool, even as her heart tripped wildly in her breast.  "Does this caveman act impress the Bangor ladies?"
    "You haven't seen my caveman act yet, sugar."
    "So, you just walk in here and I'm supposed to go with you because you say so?"
    "No, you're supposed to go with me because you're the kind of girl who can't resist a surprise."  He tipped her chin up with one finger.  "Right?"
    Spot on, actually, but she wasn't ready to admit it.  "I'll have to check my appointment book."
    "You don't have any appointments."  He ran his finger down her throat and over her collarbone before dropping his hand back to his side.  "And my surprise has an expiration date."
    "Mysterious," she murmured, trying to ignore the shivery fire his light, intimate touch had ignited.
    "And you love a mystery, don't you?"
    Breathing was becoming difficult.  "When are we leaving?"
    He backed away, glancing at his watch.  "How soon can you change?"
    "Into what?"
    His dark eyes glittered with humor.  "You do know how to ask a leading question."
    She found her own lips curving with a nascent smile.  "Should I dress up or go casual?"
    "What you're wearing is fine."  Wes leaned against the wall, folding his arms and looking her slowly up and down.  She seemed to feel his gaze, like invisible fingertips moving feather-light across her skin.
    She looked down at her attire.  Jeans and a yellow t-shirt she'd borrowed from Bonnie.  The jeans fit nicely, showing off her long legs, but the t-shirt was oversized and a very unflattering color.  Hardly something she'd wear on a hot date.
    And if the rapid-fire cadence of her pulse was any indication, this particular date might be a pretty hot one.
    "Let me put on a different top, at least."  She slipped past him, out of the hallway into her bedroom, where the air seemed less heated.
    She had found a cute black tank tee in a thrift shop in Savannah during her brief stop there.  Spaghetti straps and a bodice cut in at the waist to show off her shape.  She slipped it over her head and checked her reflection in the dresser mirror.
    She looked pretty.  There was no vanity in the observation, just a statement of fact.  Of her mother's three daughters, she was the pretty one.
    "Use what God gave ya," was her mother's favorite saying.  For Carly's sister Lorna, providence had given her an affinity for nurturing, a gift that had earned her babysitting money and later a job at a Trenton day care.  For Teresa, her interest in mechanical things had led to a job in a Philadelphia machine shop and good union wages.
    For Carly, her looks were supposed to be her ticket out.  She'd been the only one of the three to inherit both her Irish mother's green eyes and her father's long, sooty lashes and wavy black hair.  Her lithe, curvy figure was a feminine echo of her father's lean, muscular build, her clear, pale skin a gift from her Irish mother.
    "Lorna and Teresa, bless their souls, they'll be havin' to study all the time," her mother always said.  "But you're my pretty one.  You'll be the one to find ya a fine fellow who can take ya away from here and you'll be happy as clams in butter."
    But Carly hadn't waited for someone to take her away.  She'd gotten out as soon as she could, hit the road and kept moving.