Free Her Fifth Husband? by Dixie Browning Page B

Martha return the retainer, and then his thoughts veered back along a familiar path.
    The phrase, “Out of the frying pan, into the fire,” came to mind. He switched on a Molasses Creek CD and tried to focus on the lament of a crabber’s woman.

Five
    M arty had brought a cold pasta dish earlier and put it in the refrigerator. A size six, Marty had never met a carb she didn’t adore. Faylene had brought a can of corned beef hash and a bunch of loose-leaf lettuce from Bob Ed’s garden. Her culinary skills were notorious.
    So there was no real reason for Sasha to accept Jake’s offer of lunch at a seafood restaurant on the way to Kitty Hawk. “I had breakfast early,” he said. “Are you sure your ankle’s good to go?”
    Ignoring the question, she said, “So did I. I’m an early riser.”
    The truth was, her ankle still bothered her. As for her sleep patterns, those had been crazy for the past three days. Yesterday she had dozed on the sofa during the day, then lain awake half the night. When she finally fell asleep she dreamed.
    Oh, how she dreamed…!
    Jake had looked her over when she’d first let him in, his gaze moving slowly down her body to settle on her feet. She could have swatted him. For a change, she was wearing one of her few pairs of sensible shoes. Her three-inch cork platforms with flowered straps were the only shoes she could get on over her bandage.
    From the way he’d looked at her, she might as well have been wearing stilts.
    It had to be her imagination. Too much time on her hands.
    After carefully helping her into his SUV, his hands lingered on her arm. He said, “Listen, if you’re not up to this, just say so. Like I said, I can get Hack to drive your car to Muddy Landing. It’s practically on his way home since he lives in Moyock. The logistics might take some arranging, but we can work it out.”
    Sasha assured him she was feeling loads better. Actually, she was, until she’d overdone it. Just climbing up and down the stairs was exhausting enough without plowing through the spare room that doubled as a warehouse, looking for the set of framed patent medicine advertisements from a 1920s magazine she’d bought at a yard sale last year. Matted and reframed, they’d be perfect for the suite of doctors’ offices she was doing.
    They talked shop on the way to Kitty Hawk. Her shop, not his. As it turned out, Jake was a private investigator as well as a security expert. Evidently, private investigators discussed their work only on a need-to-know basis.
    It wasn’t his work she needed to know about as much as it was the man himself. For all her experience with the opposite sex, she had never met any man who affected her the way this one did. He was sweet, but not smarmy sweet. Sexy without even trying. She could hardly look at him without wondering what he would be like as a lover.
    The curse of an inquiring mind!
    By the time they were shown to a table in the beachfront restaurant, Sasha was practically salivating, which wasn’t like her at all. It must be a lingering side effect of the painkillers she’d taken the first day and then dumped.
    Once seated, she announced to the waitress, “I’ll start with dessert. Then, if I’m still hungry, I might have something healthy. Lemon chess pie, please.”
    Jake looked at her across the table, scattering her feeble defenses with a lazy grin. “Why am I not surprised?”
    Judging from the looks the waitress was giving him, Sasha wasn’t the only one who’d like a large serving of Jake.
    Without even glancing at the menu he ordered the fried oyster basket. She opened her mouth to ask if it was true what they said about oysters, then closed it before she could make a fool of herself. Any more of a fool, that was.
    â€œYou were serious,” he said after the waitress left. “About having dessert first.”
    She fluttered a