Instructions for Love (16 page)

“I’ll do the same,” Dane told her.

T-Fred’s big green eyes brightened. “Oh, y’all went fishing…”

But just to catch one fish.
The words were on Erin’s lips, but if she spoke them, she’d also have to give an explanation. Aunt Tilly’s instructions. Dane had only taken her because he was kind enough to let her try to follow them.

Smile wide, T-Fred bounced away.

Dane shoved into the men’s room, and Erin went into the one for ladies. She soaped her hands until the stale fish odor left them. A glance at the mirror made her cringe. A deep crease circled the front of her hair from the band of the cap, and the rest of her brown hair flared out, windblown. No wonder everyone in the restaurant had reacted so strangely. They were probably surprised that Dane would accompany such a disheveled woman.

Using her fingers, she separated the hair near her forehead. She gave her head a shake and pressed down all the rest of her hair as best she could. Well, she decided, heading out, T-Fred’s patrons wouldn’t need to speculate any longer. This was the last time they were ever going to see her out with him.

That thought made a sensation of sadness to wash over her, especially when she spied Dane seated at the table, the same table they’d shared only a day ago. He peered at the tablecloth as though deep in thought. His black hair was pressed down a little on top from the cap he’d worn, the sides of his hair slightly tousled, giving him the look of a boy who’d just come in from playing.

She smiled at his image. He noticed her coming, shoved his chair back, and stood.

“No more fishy smell?” He held her chair out.

“All gone from my hands.” She sat, and he pushed in her chair. She glanced down at her shirt, noting a small smear. “But I think I held some of what I caught too close to my clothes. I doubt if the smell will ever come out of them.”

Dane gave her a slight smile, resuming his place. “All of those other New Yorkers might think you have a new perfume and want to know where to get it.”

“Maybe so. We are on the cutting edge, you know.”

He nodded, his expression serious. “I know.”

“Two dailies, coming right up,” T-Fred said, carrying plates. She set them down in front of them, giving Erin a wink. “Hope you enjoy it, honey.”

Dane did not meet T-Fred’s gaze when she glanced at him. Left alone after they thanked her, they began to eat. Dane did not appear to want to talk. He seemed weary, possibly from introspection.

“Mm, scrumptious,” Erin said, swallowing her first bites of the well-seasoned potatoes and the tender pork.

He glanced up from his plate. “You said that yesterday.”

“Maybe y’all—or is that `all y’all’—have the best food I’ve ever tasted.”

Her comment garnered a grin from him. Dane set down his fork. “Or maybe we just wait until everybody’s starving before we feed them.”

“It could be that.” She ate more of the potatoes. “Oh no, it’s the cooking. How do cooks get their dishes so tasty?”

“Our secret.” He winked. “We don’t share it with outsiders. A person has to stay in our kitchens and watch our clandestine operations.”

Erin snickered. “Clandestine,” she repeated, although Dane’s bit of conversation ceased. He resumed eating, hungrily and without glancing at her, making Erin wonder if he was actually embarrassed to be seen with her.

People at other tables had left by the time he finished his meal. He wiped his mouth with a napkin and peered across at Erin, sitting still. “You’re not finished? You left half your food. I thought you liked it.”

“Love it,” she said, pressing a hand to her stomach. “But my jeans will pop if I stuff myself with any more.”

“That would be interesting,” he said, leaving a large tip on the table.

The suggestion of his words played through Erin’s mind.

They headed out, and Dane stopped to pay the cashier.

“Bye. Y’all come back tomorrow,” T-Fred called across the room. “No, that’s right. Y’all caught your own fish.” Her suggestive tone hinted of something between them.

Dane’s eyes flashed anger.

Erin’s stomach clenched. He shoved the door open, letting her go out, and trailed behind to the truck. She considered what she might say, but nothing seemed right. She didn’t want the people who lived in the community believing Dane had any romantic ties to her either. She had thought of saying that to him, but his mouth kept a grim set. No one really said what she was thinking. Besides, she didn’t believe he’d want conversation, even if it was to confirm his own annoyed feelings. They spent the ride back to the plantation in silence.

At the house she trotted inside before him, heading for the dining room.

“I need to get to work,” he said when he entered.

She glanced at the phone on its small table. “Is there an answering machine anywhere?”

“When I’m here and I answer the phone, people can talk to me.” His rigid body language still spoke, assuring her he didn’t expect to be close to her again.

For a reason she couldn’t fathom, that unspoken message hurt. She tried to shake off the feeling, meeting his cold stature with her own. “How about Caller I.D.? Or do they even have that down here?”

He responded with a bitter stare. “We have everything down here that’s worthwhile.”

A moment passed while they regarded each other as enemies.

Dane took a breath. “Were you expecting a call from someone special?”

She shoved her hands on her hips. “For someone who oversees the plantation, you certainly put your nose in everyone else’s business.” The second the words were out, she regretted them. This man didn’t need to be put down. No one did. She couldn’t imagine what had brought out this emotional upheaval.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, watching the sadness that gripped his eyes. “I guess I’m just exhausted. I’m not used to getting up so early and then fishing and watching alligators.” She gave him a small smile that she hoped he’d return.

Dane didn’t. He remained grimfaced and turned away. “Call anybody you want.” He stalked across the room. “I’ll be out with the other workers in the fields.”

Regret sped through Erin, making her wish they could start their conversation over. She never spoke to anyone like she just did to him. Why had she snapped and said such a hurtful thing? Was it because he’d asked who she wanted to call—suggesting, as he had before, that she and Trevor were an item? There was no way.

She crossed the room, shaking her head at herself. Maybe the steamy heat of the climate, or possibly exhaustion had made her act so caustically. Whatever it was, she needed to get over it immediately and apologize.

She heard a door slam, and his truck roared to life. Dane’s tires squealed as he sped off.

Erin sank back. She gazed through a window. Seeing only her rental car in the driveway left her with an inexplicable feeling of emptiness. She wished he was back here again, smiling and trading quips as they had done in the boat.

What was going on with them, she wondered. The time they’d shared in the bayous and swamp had been mystical, having swept her up into another life, a life that wasn’t hers. It had only been a mini-vacation, taking her into exotic surroundings she had only seen hinted at in stories. But the fauna and flora of Dane’s outdoor world had swept into her, and she appreciated his taking her out into that wonderland, with its enchanting creatures.

“But back to real life,” she told herself, sitting down at the telephone. She had to take care of one more detail so she could carry out her aunt’s wishes.

Asking the operator to bill her home phone, she waited while the call was cleared and then her boss picked up. “Hello, Trevor,” she said. He didn’t like informal chit-chat, so without ado, she said what she needed to. “I know I was supposed to be back there tomorrow, but something came up. I need to stay down here until day after tomorrow. I’m sure y’all won’t mind.” She enjoyed saying
y’all
, the word sounding friendly.

Trevor’s raised tone told her he hadn’t noticed. None of the words he spat at Erin gave her a hint that he’d ever known or cared about her work or her as a person.

“Well do whatever you have to do,” she told him. “I’m staying.”

Chapter Eleven

Dane cleaned their fish on the marble-topped table kept behind the side porch for just that reason. He’d returned from the fields and talking with the men working in them. His mind, however, could not remained fixed on their important topics of borers and planting new cane. While he’d spoken with his friends who worked in the fields, his thoughts kept returning to the woman who was probably still speaking on the phone inside his house.

Erin bothered him, in more ways than he cared to admit. He slid his filet knife along the backbone of the iced perch and noticed the late-afternoon sun had sunken behind the magnolia trees, letting the shady area cool him. Yet he still felt intense heat. It crept up from his core.

He scaled the fish, glanced toward the rose bushes she had cut on, and made a decision. She had to go. He had let her stay in his house and fish from his boat, interrupting his work and making him think of her instead of what he needed to accomplish. But if he didn’t get Erin out of his head, he could, for the first time, miss completing a planting deadline.

No way.

He tossed the last fish he’d cleaned into the ice chest, slammed its cover, and stomped into the house. “Erin,” he called, not seeing her in the kitchen or dining room.

“Yes?” She sat on the bottom step of the stairwell in the office. No lights were on. Her elbows were on her knees. She wore shorts and peered up at him, her expression dreamy, or maybe dismal.

“What have you been doing?” He glanced around his office, pleased to find no sign that she’d disturbed anything.

“I showered, took a nap, and got up not long ago.” She stretched her arms and returned her elbows to her knees. “It’s unusual, sleeping so much. I normally don’t keep still long enough to nap during the day.”

Okay, sleeping, their sleeping arrangement, was what he needed to address, no matter how cuddly she looked sitting there in a dreamy state. “I have to tell you something,” he said.

“All right, tell me.” She peered up, but didn’t look interested.

“You shouldn’t sleep in this house with me.”

“Excuse me?” she said.

There, he’d told her. Dane paced, his eyes viewing the wooden floor. “Maybe Tilly wanted you to hang around a day or two more—though for the life of me I can’t imagine why.” He glanced at Erin to be certain she paid attention. A small smile played around her lips after his mention of Tilly.

Squaring his shoulders, he forced himself to say the rest. “But it’s not right for a man and a woman who aren’t, you know, romantically entangled, to be sleeping in bedrooms next to each other with only a door between them.”

“You could leave.”

“But I won’t.”

Her eyes narrowed. Her chest rose and fell. “And where did you expect me to go?”

His energy sprang up. She was understanding and agreeing to the terms he mentioned. “Tilly had that nice cottage out back. You could pack up your things, and I could drive out and show you which one you’d stay in. You could stay there as long as you want.”

Her eyes clouded. She appeared deep in thought. Erin abruptly rose and stamped off to the bedroom.
His
bedroom. All right, he really wanted to stay near the woman, attractive as she was and making that continuous unsettling run through his gut. The problem, he decided, glancing at the paperwork that needed tending to on his desk, was that no woman except his wife had remained in his space, sharing his days and evenings. And he wasn’t about to get all bothered because a visiting woman was making him feel so uncertain.

“Ready.” She stood near, small suitcase in hand.

“I’ll take that.” He grabbed for her suitcase, but she pulled it back. They stepped through the dining room and kitchen, where she glanced at the table and then the drip coffee pot as though silently telling each of them a sad farewell.

“The cottage is real pretty,” Dane said, trying to shrug off the regret that unexpectedly rushed through him. “Tilly knew how to fix things nice.” He snagged her butterfly key ring on the way out, handing it to Erin.

She moved out the back door ahead of him. Was she so solemn because it finally sank it? Finally now, she accepted that her aunt was never coming back? That she hadn’t owned a plantation? He almost wished it hadn’t been so when he witnessed Erin’s unhappiness. An instinct came to tell her wait, this place wasn’t his, it was Tilly’s.

But that would lying. He bit back the words that almost came out.

Erin yanked open the door of the sedan she’d rented at the airport.

“The electricity’s still on back there, you’ll see, and you can come back for supper tonight,” he told her. The second part of his comment surprised him once he’d said it, but darn, this woman needed to eat. Tilly hadn’t cooked in her place lately, and there probably wasn’t much in the pantry. “I’ll have the fish ready,” he said, excited at the prospect of having Erin back in his kitchen in the near future. “Maybe we’ll eat in about two hours.”

She started the motor without speaking.

Dane bolted to his truck and led the way. He watched for her car through his rearview mirror, smiling when he saw it following behind. He found himself looking in that mirror more than the road as they wound their way through the dip in front of the barn and turned into the fields.

Dusk and white dust from the shell road caused an unclear view, making him turn on his headlights. Pleased, he saw that she did the same. He slowed when they neared the cottages. In front of the second one, he pulled over.

She stopped behind his truck, and he pointed to indicate Tilly’s place. She parked next to the picket fence and took out her luggage.

Dane opened his passenger window. “You’ll like it.”

Her lips remained tightly set. She went through the gate and then up on the porch. Casting another glance at Dane, she then used the key and stepped into the cottage.

He waited until lights came on inside. First the kitchen. After a few minutes, the living room lights brightened that section. An urge to stay erupted in Dane, making him shake his head to come out of reverie.
I must be tired and ready to fall asleep
, he told himself, driving away.