Her Passionate Plan B (4 page)

Even with her nose stopped up she was aware of it again—that leathery, woodsy scent that was so essentially male. She tried to blame allergies for causing her to break down. She'd been allergic to her ex-fiancé's cologne. Jerry, a typical metrosexual who spent more on maintenance each month than she did in an entire year, used cologne lavishly.

Magee was nothing at all like Jerry. Feature by feature, he wasn't even handsome, not by Hollywood standards, yet the sum total was—

She didn't want to think about the sum total, not when all it took was a few comforting words spoken in that dark molasses voice of his to affect regions of her body that had been neglected far too long.

She was a noisy crier, which was one of the reasons she tried not to indulge if there was anyone within hearing distance. Once she got started, she bawled, boohooed and squealed like a day-old piglet.

It didn't help that he kept making those warm, rusty, there-there sounds while his hands stroked her back. His chin was moving over the top of her head, probably searching for her off button. She took a deep, steadying
breath but didn't pull away. Another few seconds, she promised herself.

Maybe she'd make him close his eyes first. As if this morning hadn't been bad enough, add red eyes and a wet nose. By now her hair must look as if she'd just lost a battle with a leaf blower.

“Better now?” he inquired softly. The way he was holding her, there was no way she could fail to be aware of every hard, interesting contour of his body. She'd heard of an embarrassment of riches. This was an embarrassment of embarrassment.

“Thanks for your, uh—patience,” she said with all the dignity she could muster, which wasn't a whole lot. “If you're through here, Faylene can show you around downstairs.” She pulled away and backed into the cardboard box that had started the whole pathetic episode.

Well, hell. Let Faylene deal with whatever was in the box. She could give it away or dump it in the river, because Daisy couldn't handle another decision.

“Why can't you show me around downstairs?” Still the same warm honey tones, but she detected a steeliness now that hadn't been there a moment ago.

“Because I'll be busy in the attic.” She'd forgotten about the attic until the box had reminded her.

He followed her out and closed the door, then nodded toward a narrow door in the shadowy end of the hallway. “Is that the attic stairway? Be funny if it turned out my dad had left some stuff up there, wouldn't it? I guess anything he might have left downstairs would have long since been tossed out, but attics…you never know, right?” He sounded as cool and impersonal as if the past few minutes had never happened.

Instead of turning toward the front stairway, he moved toward the attic door. “Why don't we check it out together? It'll only take a few more minutes.”

D
aisy surrendered to the inevitable. The sooner she satisfied his curiosity, the sooner he'd leave. At least she had herself under control now, pink nose, puffy eyes and haystack hair notwithstanding.

This was turning out to be the day from hell. What more could happen? She'd planned to grab a nap as soon as she got home from the funeral and then start on another closet with Faylene's help, but Marty and Sasha had come by and stayed for almost an hour. No sooner had they left than the Lone Ranger had turned up with his blue eyes and his sexy voice, making all sorts of demands.

Actually, they were more requests than demands. All the same, she didn't need any more stress added to what she was already dealing with. “You can take a quick look, but whatever's up there is just junk. Things that
were too good to throw away but not good enough to use. You know what attics are like.”

“Matter of fact, I don't,” he said, sounding far too guileless for a man who stood more than six feet even without the cowboy boots he affected. “We didn't have one where I grew up.”

That's right, she thought, knowing she was being unfair—turn on the boyish charm, why don't you?

Trouble was, it was working. “Oh, come on then, if you must,” she grumbled. “But make it fast, I still have a lot to do today.”

The steps were narrow, steep and dark with ancient varnish. Four steps, then a landing and four more. She caught up with him on the landing where the pull cord was anchored, but before she could yank on the single bulb at the top of the stairway, he barged ahead.

“Watch out, there's a—”

Too late. He stumbled over the rocking chair she'd dodged the other day when she'd gone searching for boxes.

Bending over to rub his shin, Kell said, “Hey, this thing looks familiar. Maybe I saw it in a picture or something. It's possible, isn't it?”

How could he simply ignore what had happened in the sewing room when every cell in her body was still buzzing with—well, it was hardly sexual awareness, Daisy told herself. It had to be embarrassment. Shrugging, she said, “Sears Roebuck probably delivered thousands of them. A few might even have made it to Oklahoma.”

It was as if he'd pulled down the shades on those brilliant blue eyes, shutting off the look of boyish expectation that made him seem younger than the lines around
his eyes indicated. “Yeah, I must have seen one just like it in one of the better soddies out there in the panhandle. At our house we used to sit on upturned buckets, but for company, we always brought in the milking stool.”

Thoroughly ashamed of herself, Daisy closed her eyes. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean that the way it sounded.” She did, but knew she shouldn't have. “I'm tired—I'm in a rotten mood—but that's no reason to take it out on you.”

It would help if he weren't so…distracting. She actually found herself wondering what he liked in a woman—whether he'd be attracted to someone neat and practical or someone sexy and wildly impractical. One thing was certain—no man could be attracted to a grungy-looking crybaby who fell apart at the sight of an old sewing machine.

While he examined the rocking chair and prowled the shadowy space under the sloping ceilings, Daisy mentally distanced herself by thinking about her plans for the future. In a few minutes—half an hour at most—he'd be gone.

She tried not to watch him as he moved around, touching things, studying old license plates someone had nailed to the rafters, shaking his head over a pair of dried and cracked rubber waders. Even the way he moved was distracting. Those long legs, that gorgeous gluteus—

Stop it. Just stop thinking about what you're thinking about! Think about Egbert and how thoroughly decent he is. Think about the way he'll smile, shy and a little nervous, when you walk down the aisle with a bouquet of spring flowers. It would be a small wedding,
she'd already decided on that much, but definitely in church. Dressy, but not formal, as there was no point in buying an expensive gown and wearing it only once—although Sasha would argue with her there. Her hair would be lighter and probably shorter, but not too short.

Try as she would to bring the picture into focus, the man waiting at the altar wore jeans, a leather jacket and western boots. A man she'd first seen only hours earlier. A man with a crooked grin and a wicked gleam in his eyes, and as she saw him waiting at the altar, all she could think of was—

Too much stress. She had flat out lost her mind.

Recovering her lost train of thought, she looked guiltily at the broken rocker. “I really am sorry, Mr. Magee. It's just that—well, I guess it gets to me, dealing with all these personal effects. As a rule I'm never involved in that sort of thing, but Mr. Snow didn't have anyone else and I hated to think of strangers pawing through his belongings. He was—he had too much pride for that.”

He didn't say a word, just stared at her with those enigmatic blue eyes. Flinging her hands out in a gesture of helplessness, she said, “Look, I liked the man, all right? He was my friend as well as my patient, and this is one last thing I can do for him. So if you don't mind—”

“Just get the hell out of the way so you can finish, right?” he said softly.

She turned away, blinking rapidly. Oh, dammit, not again!

Across the room under a small stained-glass window sat a humpback trunk. That, too, would have to be gone through. She'd almost sooner cart it down to the river and throw it overboard unopened.

“Daisy?”

“What!” she snapped without turning around. Daisy the unflappable, known far and wide for her composure, was coming apart at the seams, leaking embarrassing emotions all over the place.

“It's chilly up here and you're not wearing enough clothes. Let's go down and see if what's her name can brew up some coffee, okay?”

“Faylene,” she said, grasping any excuse to cut short the tour. “Her name is Faylene Beasley, I told you that twice already. She worked three days a week for Mr. Snow and one day each for my two best friends, and I don't know why I'm telling you all this because I never babble.”

He nodded soberly and led the way, probably expecting her to collapse from overwrought nerves. If she happened to fall and break a leg, he'd be just the type to compound the fracture by sweeping her up in his arms, leaping aboard his white horse and galloping off to the nearest emergency room. God save her from amateur heroes.

“My grandmother might have sat in that rocking chair,” Kell said quietly after closing the attic door. “I don't know if Blalock explained or not, but my dad and Uncle Harvey shared a mom.”

“I believe you mentioned it once or twice.”
Uncle
Harvey? Daisy knew exactly what he was trying to do. He was trying to stake his claim. But it wasn't up to her to decide.

They reached the front of the second-floor hall, her rubber-soled shoes squeaking on the newly waxed floor, his worn, western-style boots making whispery sounds.
He continued, saying, “
Half
Uncle Harvey, if you want to get technical. Anyhow, Blalock said Harvey had never married and it's usually women who save stuff. Guys just toss it or cover it up with more junk. So my grand-mom was probably the one who stashed that old trunk up there.”

“So?” She should have sent him packing when he first showed up. Let Egbert deal with him, this wasn't part of her job description.

Oh, sure—like housecleaning and sorting through tons of stuff was?

“So there might even be a few old pictures of her and her two sons up there, you reckon?”

He waited for an answer and she didn't have one. As far as she was concerned he could have any pictures he found. He could even have that box of mending for all she cared. She'd leave it to Egbert's interpretation of Harvey's will and whatever he found out about the cowboy's claim.

If he thought turning on the charm would win her over he was flat out of luck. She'd already been vaccinated. What had happened upstairs had been a momentary aberration, not a sign of weakness on her part.

Daisy waited for him to leave. When he didn't, she turned toward the kitchen. Let Faylene deal with him.

His leathery-woodsy scent and whispery footsteps were right behind her. “Don't you think it's significant that both Harvey and Evander had names with
V
in them? I mean, what are the chances?”

“What do you mean?”

“You don't hear many names with
V
in them, do you?”

“Victor, Vance, Vaughn, Virginia—Virgil.”

“Hmm…never thought of those. Remind me not to play word games with you.”

If his smile was meant to disarm, it wasn't working. “I never play games,” she informed him.

His smile widened into a grin. “Ri-ight.”

They were still standing there when something struck the side of the house. Daisy said, “Oh, no—it's probably a bird. I'd better go see if it's hurt. Sometimes in the late afternoon the sun reflects on the glass and—”

She was hurrying toward the front door when the same sound came again. This time they stared at each other, then both looked in the direction the sound had come from.

Kell said, “Upstairs.”

Daisy said, “Outside.”

“Might be a branch,” he murmured. “The wind's picked up.”

“Oh, great. That means more raking. I'd forgotten about the yard.” In an unspoken truce, they hurried outside and looked for signs of a stunned bird among all the pecans, pine cones and broken branches littering the unkempt lawn.

“What about a lawn service?”

“Some crews came by right after the storm and collected whatever Faylene and I could drag out to the road. We cleared off the porches and the driveway, but we never got around to doing anything more.”

“You do the yard work, too? I thought you were a nurse.”

She shrugged. “As long as I'm living here rent free, I try to earn my keep. Anyway, it's easier to do things myself than try to find someone else to do it, especially now.”

Especially now after the hurricane? Kell wondered. Or especially now that she was out of a job? “What about gutters?” he asked, remembering the one he'd seen dangling when he'd first driven into the yard.

“Gutters,” she repeated. “Well, shoot. I told Egbert they needed repairing, but he said repairs could wait until the estate was settled.”

“Which will be…?”

“Six months, I think. I'm not sure—Egbert needs time for any creditors to come forward, anyway, or any other—” She broke off and he finished for her.

“Or any other claimants. Don't worry, I'm not.” She shot him a skeptical look—she had it down pat. Kell didn't bother to set her straight. “Place is a mess, isn't it?” he mused.

She flashed him a smile that disappeared almost before it could register. The tip of her nose was still slightly pink, but it didn't affect the impact. Funny, he thought, because he usually liked his ladies groomed to a high polish. She was anything but.

“If it was a chunk of gutter banging up against the side of the house, I might be able to reach it and pull it down.” He knew damned well she didn't want him here. The thing was, the more she wanted him to leave, the more determined he was to hang around. “So why don't I take care of it now?”

Right. Magee to the rescue. He knew what gutters were for, everybody knew that. He even knew roughly how they were attached to a house. The rest he should be able to figure out.

Shielding his eyes from the low sun, he stared up at the dangling section of gutter. If he'd needed an entrée,
this just might be it. He could offer to tack up hanging stuff and saw off whatever couldn't be nailed back up. Men's work, he told himself, unconsciously bracing his shoulders.

When it occurred to him that researching his family tree might not be the sole reason he wanted to hang around for a few days, he was quick to deny it. No way, he told himself. The lady was…interesting, but not his style. Besides, he didn't do overnighters.

“Oh, yeah, that definitely needs to come down,” he murmured as they stood shoulder to shoulder and gazed up toward the eaves. “Lucky thing it didn't hit that window with all the stained glass.”

Nodding, Daisy turned toward the back door where Faylene waited with a market basket of assorted hand tools. “Told you that thang weren't gonna stay up there if the wind shifted.”

Kell reached for the basket, but Daisy beat him to it. Faylene said, “Want me to help you get the ladder out? While you're up yonder, you might want to whack off that big limb hangin' over the screen porch.”

“Where's the ladder? I'll get it,” Kell said, all but flexing his muscles to prove his prowess.

“I know I've seen you summers before,” the housekeeper said thoughtfully. “You weren't one o' them bachelors on the TV, were you?”

He grinned and shook his head. “No, ma'am, not in a million years, Ms. Beasley.”

Granted, he was a bachelor, and he'd definitely been on TV, but never in the context she'd mentioned. Before the housekeeper could recall where she'd seen him he
turned away, pausing only when he reached the bottom step and hesitated.

“I wondered if you knew where you were going,” Daisy said dryly. “The shed's around back. The ladder's hanging on the outside wall—at least it was before the storm. It might be over in the next county by now.”

“No problem. I passed a hardware store on my way here.”

“You're not buying any ladders,” she said, as if she suspected him of trying to ingratiate himself. Sharp lady. “There it is,” she said. “You take one end and I'll carry the other.”

“Be easier if I just balance it on my shoulders.” He could tell she wanted to argue, but instead, she marched off toward the house, giving him a perfect view of her shapely, well-toned backside. In a starched uniform she might be able to pass herself off as a dragon, but in rumpled shorts, a T-shirt and grimy athletic shoes, with her hair tumbling from the shaggy wad on top of her head, she was—