Free Yesterday's Bride by Susan Tracy

perfunctory, polite voice as he entered the room. He looked unfamiliarly formal in his dark, pinstriped suit.
    Before Leigh could answer him, Paula had risen and placed a beautifully manicured hand on his arm.
    "Did you get everything arranged with McCurdy?"
    He nodded briefly and once again directed his attention to Leigh and Jody.
    "How would you two like me to take you out to lunch?" he asked.
    Once again Paula intervened. "Jason, you have an appointment to see Mr. Stone at one o'clock," she dutifully pointed out.
    "Call Howard and ask him if he can come at four instead. He won't mind. If there's a problem, put it off until tomorrow." Jason sounded irritated.
    Her expression hardening slightly, Paula walked over to her desk and picked up the phone.
    After Leigh and Jody had freshened up in the bathroom, they left the office for the hardware store to retrieve Leigh's packages. Then Jason headed the car toward the outskirts of town.
    "We're going to one of my favorite spots," he told Leigh.
    Before long he turned into a parking lot opposite a rambling wooden building that shone pristine white in the sunshine. A sign hanging from a post designated it The Coach and Four.
    The building was obviously old, as was the tall boxwood hedge that surrounded it. Aware of Leigh's interested gaze, Jason related that in the eighteenth century it had been an inn, a stopover for tobacco planters on their way from their backcountry estates to the market in Raleigh.
    "Local legend maintains that before and during the Revolutionary War it was a hotbed of rebel spies. Some famous battles were fought relatively near here, you know, the Battles of Alamance and Guilford Courthouse."
    He got out of the car and walked with an easy stride around it to open the door for Leigh and Jody. Taking Leigh's arm in a firm grip and catching Jody by the hand, he guided them into the building.
    "What do you think of it?"
    "It's charming." Leigh looked around in wonder. She might have been transported back in time to the eighteenth century. Jason had drawn her into a room that had been used during coaching days as a parlor. The furniture grouped around the cavernous fireplace, he told her, was a replica of that used in colonial times. The gracefully curved sofa and chairs and delicate mahogany tables had been imported from Europe by the wealthy planters.
    Across the hall, the public tavern had cruder furnishings, rough homemade benches and trestle tables.
    "Don't worry," Jason told Leigh as he escorted them to the large dining room down a narrow hall, "the food is twentieth century."
    Despite Jason's words, Leigh noticed as she studied the menu that some attempts had been made to offer colonial fare. With mischief brightening her eyes, she told Jason she thought he should try the jugged hare and Indian pudding.
    "No way. I'm a steak and potatoes man. But you go ahead. Do you know what Indian pudding is, by the way?" Assured that she did not, he told her that it was a mixture of corn meal and molasses.
    In the end, Leigh decided to have a steak, too.
    When Jason gave their order to the long-gowned, mob-capped waitress, he added a bottle of wine, saying that it was not every day he could dine with two such lovely ladies.
    Leigh was just dipping into her sweet potato pie, a concession to the colonial atmosphere, when Jason seemed to notice her dress for the first time. It was a warm spring day and the restaurant was not air-conditioned, conditions which had led Leigh unthinkingly to push up the long sleeves of her jersey dress.
    "Isn't that dress too heavy for a day like this?" Jason was frowning at her.
    Leigh put down her fork. "Yes, it probably is."
    "Then why the devil are you wearing it?"
    "Because it's all I have," she answered sweetly. "When I packed to come to Raleigh, I brought only a few things with me since I mistakenly thought I'd be there for just a few days. That was until you came into the picture, of course," she added tartly.
    "Why didn't you say