Free One Track Mind by Bethany Campbell Page A

find her bent down by fate, possibly—though he didn’t wish it on her—broken. She would be middle-aged, and probably her red hair turning gray or cheaply dyed. She’d have gained weight, and that little hourglass figure would have turned as round as the clock in the town clock tower.
    Wrinkles would line her too-fair skin, and she’d be nothing except a frumpy, provincial divorcee with a thickening waist. The spirit he once thought so high and frisky would be flat as day-old champagne. Her rebellious nature would now be duty-bound and conventional. He would see her, and he would be over her.
    It wasn’t working out that way. She didn’t look twenty years older. She hardly looked ten years older. Her figure was even better. Her hair was still as bright, her eyes still sparking with life, and she was even prettier than when she’d been sixteen.
    She was just as spirited and just as independent, full of nerve and verve, and she didn’t seem bowled over by his new, improved, moneyed status. In fact, she seemed a bit disappointed in him.
    And as if to prove his worst suspicions, she turned to him and said, “Why are you dressed like that? Trying to recapture your youth? What happened to the silk shirt? The fancy shoes—what are they, Gucci?”
    He tried to keep a disgusted slant from his mouth. The shoes were actually Ferragamos, but he wasn’t going to brag about that. “This,” he said, gesturing at his T-shirt and jeans, “is how I usually dress on my own time.”
    “You were on your own time today,” she pointed out. “Do you always dress up to tromp around a speedway?”
    “I was making a business call,” he retorted. “Business hours are over.”
    “But we were supposed to be going for a business supper,” she reminded him. “So when do we talk business?”
    They were passing the speedway, and on impulse, he pulled in and parked in the westernmost corner of its parking lot. He could look out and slightly up and see McCorkle Castle now, glowing silver under a rising three-quarter moon.
    “I said we had some catching up to do,” he said, switching off the car. He pointed at the castle. “I picked up a lot of slugs on that land. I drowned a lot of beetles. What happened when Junior died? I thought he was going to leave it to the town.”
    He undid his seat belt, but she kept hers fastened, as if it were some kind of device that protected her from him. “He was older than Daddy. Like Daddy, he started getting forgetful, a bit erratic. His stepdaughter got power of attorney.”
    He grimaced. “Cynthia, the Southern belle? I kind of remember her. She always looked like her mouth was full of vinegar.”
    “Cynthia got everything,” Lori said. “But she didn’t want the castle. Too much upkeep. So she put it up for sale. And it didn’t sell for years. And the years weren’t kind to it.”
    He nodded. He knew that the South was quick to reclaim whatever land humankind had wrested from it. The weeds grew quickly, the woods closed in, the warm damp entered timbers. Mortar and concrete cracked. And a structure, even a castle, could go to ruin.
    “I’m glad somebody’s saving it,” she said, sounding truly grateful. She stared at the towers that rose against the darkening sky. “I hope somebody doesn’t do something horrible with it.”
    He examined her profile, still, almost exactly as he remembered it. She’d kept that way of holding her head high, her chin up.
    “Something horrible like what?” he asked.
    “Oh, I don’t know. I can think of all kinds of things. Making it into a fancy resort and building all sorts of touristy little units all around it. Cutting down trees and putting in golf courses and miniature golf courses.”
    She wrinkled her nose in distaste. “One swimming pool won’t do. There’ll have to be five—and kiddy pools. And they’ll make the lake bigger and have speedboats and water skis and a Zoom Flume waterslide, and a phony beach, and a sports complex