by Webb, Peggy
To: Clemmie, Belinda, Janet, Joanna, Catherine, Molly
Re: Paternity?
That put a whole new light on this man, Clemmie! Okay, maybe he’s vulnerable, and maybe he’s not as bad as Janet thinks, but listen here! Have your fun with him but keep your distance. Don’t you dare let a man involved in a paternity lawsuit near your Virginia!!!
Bea
From: Catherine
To: Clemmie, Bea, Belinda, Molly, Joanna, Janet
Re: Fling
Clemmie, sweetie, I hear alarm bells. Still, he sounds like your chance for a fling. Is there such a thing as a chaste fling? You know what I mean. Ditto what Bea said.
Cat
From: Molly
To: Clemmie, Bea, Belinda, Joanna, Janet, Catherine
Re: Find out
OMG, Clemmie! What a bummer! Call Daddy. He’ll find out about this man, and you can bet your boots he’ll get straight to the truth. I was so hoping he’d be the one for you!
Molly
From: Joanna
To: Clemmie, Bea, Janet, Molly, Belinda, Catherine
Re: Fernando
YOU CANNOT BELIEVE EVERYTING YOU HEAR! I heard some things about Fernando after I started dating, but he’s NOTHING like what the gossips said! Trust your heart, Clemmie!!! GO FOR IT!
Joanna
From: Bea
To: Joanna, Clemmie, Janet, Catherine, Molly, Belinda
Re: Fernando
What gossip, Joanna? Are you sure you got to the bottom of it? I don’t want you getting hurt. Dang, girlfriend! I don’t want to have to fly to Madrid and stomp his butt with my boots!
Bea
From: Janet
To: Joanna, Bea, Molly, Belinda, Catherine, Clemmie
Re: Madrid
Joanna, what are you not telling us?
Janet
From: Catherine
To: Joanna, Bea, Molly, Belinda, Clemmie, Janet
Re: Boots
OMG, we’re making a mountain out of a molehill. Joanna and Clemmie both have sense enough to stay out of trouble. Still, Bea, if you have to kick butt, wear those cute leopard print boots we found in the French Quarter when we shopped for Glory Ethel’s wedding dress.
Cat
The Dixie Virgins had given Clemmie the go ahead. Sort of. When she closed her laptop, she was smiling.
o0o
After scouting locations, Michael was enjoying his first fried catfish meal at Woody’s Cafe in the center of Peppertown. The small restaurant was neat and clean, with polished brass fixtures, quiet Wedgwood blue walls and starched Priscilla curtains. About fifteen people sat at the small Formica topped tables around Michael, and they all seemed to know each other.
Conversation whizzed from table to table, buzzing around him like excited insects. During the course of his meal, Michael overheard remedies for bad colds—not merely colds, he mused, but bad colds. Mustard plasters and castor oil were the answers. He learned how to trap gophers: put chewing gum in the hole and cover it with a board. He found out that Mary June had left Claude for a traveling preacher and that everybody in the community was ready to tar and feather her if she showed her face around here again. He heard that the new song leader at the Baptist church couldn’t hit high C if his life depended on it.
Michael sat back and listened to the day-to-day tribulations of the soft-spoken Mississippi townspeople. It all sounded so wonderfully ordinary and so innocent. Like Clemmie. His mind swung back to the woman he’d vowed to keep at arm’s length with less than honorable tactics. How that innocence of hers hammered at his defenses! He wondered if she would have been different if she’d lived in a place where people were cutthroat and problems were high-powered—and where confidences often brought lawsuits.
“Would you like some more of that sweet tea?”
He glanced up, startled out of his reverie by the quiet drawl of the pretty little waitress. Her wide smile showed two chipped teeth.
“I noticed a while back that you’d finished drinkin’ what you had.” Without waiting for a response, she refilled his glass. “You’re a stranger in town, aren’t you?”
Why should you care? he thought. But he could see that she did. Her face was shining with earnestness.
“Yes,” he said.
His short answer didn’t discourage her. Before he knew what was happening, she’d found out who he was and why he was there and was introducing him to everybody in the restaurant. They folded him to their collective bosom like a long-lost friend. Somebody clapped him on the back, somebody else paid for his dinner, and a fat woman in black started a party. It began with telling jokes and ended with a sing-along.
Not a soul in the cafe seemed to care a whit about his bank account. And when he mentioned that the loud party might draw some criticism from neighbors, he was told that folks in Peppertown sang when they were happy—and everybody understood.
He was still singing when he got into his car to go back to Brady’s Boarding House. He didn’t know what time it was and he didn’t care. He hadn’t felt this relaxed and this happy since he was ten years old.
o0o
It was midnight when Michael returned to the house.
Clemmie heard his car drive up. She closed the book she had been reading and walked to the bedroom window. She hadn’t really been waiting up for him, she told herself. But he was her boarder, and she felt a certain duty to see that he was all right.
The moon, bright as only an October moon can be, shone down on him as he got out of the car. Clemmie had never seen a man who looked so like a Greek god.
He strolled toward the gazebo, his face lifted toward the moon, singing in a lusty baritone.
“Oh my darlin’, oh my darrrlin’, oh my darrrlin’, Clem-en-tine.”
She threw open the window and leaned out.
“Be quiet, you’ll wake the other boarders.”
Michael turned around. When he saw her, his face lit in a broad grin. “ ‘But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.’ “
“It’s midnight, and I’m the innkeeper.”
“ ‘Arise fair sun—’ “
“You’re crazy.”
“No, I’m merely giving vent to the spontaneous joy your little town brings out in me. Somebody started singing at Woody’s and I can’t seem to stop.” He waved his arm toward her. “Come out and join me.”
“Shh! Do you want everybody to hear?”
“I was told that everybody in Peppertown loves a happy person. Won’t you come out, darling Clementine?”
Clemmie heard an upstairs window open.
“What’s going on down there?” Miss Josephine’s quavery voice drifted down to them.
Clemmie was thankful Miss Josephine’s night vision was poor.
“It’s just an old tomcat,” she called.
“Well, whatever it is, give it what it wants so it’ll go home.” The upstairs window banged shut.
Michael Forrest, leaning against the gazebo, laughed. “Are you going to give me what I want, Clemmie?”
“I’m going to come out there and drag you off to bed so you won’t wake the neighbors.”
“I can hardly wait.”
Chapter Four
Clemmie hung out the window, her face flaming hot. Goodness gracious. What had she said? That she was going to drag Michael Forrest to bed? He probably thought she was some kind of flirt.
One thing was certain: she had to put a stop to that singing or she’d have Miss Josephine to deal with again.
Michael’s humming drifted on the night breeze. She snapped her eyes open and risked a peek in his direction. He was leaning against the gazebo, grinning like that old tomcat next door when he’d cornered a helpless bird, and he was still humming that infernal song under his breath.
“Oh, do be quiet,” she said, more exasperated with herself than with him.
“Don’t shout, my darling Clementine. You’ll wake Miss Josephine. What would she say about you cavort
ing with a Hollywood man?”
Clemmie almost laughed. If he knew what Miss Josephine had already said about him he wouldn’t be so casual.
“I’m not cavorting. I’m…” Good lord, what was she doing?
Michael lifted had one eyebrow in that cocky, wicked way of his, and she was hanging out her window like some two-bit floozy, dressed in nothing but her nightgown, to boot.
She pulled back with alarm and crossed her arms over her chest. Although her gown was perfectly respectable cotton with a sweetheart neckline, she wasn’t taking any chances. Michael laughed, and then, to make matters worse, he started singing again. Clemmie grabbed her robe and headed out the door. She’d have to deal with him the way she would deal with any problem boarder—with courage and firmness.
The minute she stepped into the moonlight with Michael Forrest, courage and firmness gave way to butterflies in the stomach and marshmallow legs. How was it possible that God had put so much perfection into one man? Her plans to scold him gave way to a desire to sink onto the porch steps and simply gaze at him. And that glorious smile he gave her didn’t help one bit.
“You came.” He left the gazebo and started toward her, stopping when he was close enough to touch.
“Of course, I came. I came to...” Her voice trailed off as he took her hand and lifted it to his lips.
“...make me feel as welcome as that grand group of people at Woody’s,” he finished smoothly. He could feel her hand tremble in his. Innocent. The word blazed through his mind like a comet. And that gown and robe she was wearing...white cotton, for God’s sake. It made his throat ache in a way that all the black lace in the world couldn’t do.
“I’m glad you came out, Clemmie.” He swept his free hand to include the moonswept gazebo, the towering oaks, their leaves rustling with autumn secrets, and the night sky, ablaze with stars. “This is a setting that shouldn’t be wasted. Will you sit with me in the gazebo?”
He was still holding her hand. Clemmie was surprised at how good that simple act felt. Looking up at him, she wondered why she had dreaded coming out. He was wearing a little boy look of anticipation that made her heart turn over.
“It’s late and I probably shouldn’t.”
“For me, Clemmie.”
“I don’t usually do this kind of thing, especially not dressed in my nightgown.”
He suppressed a grin. “You look perfectly respectable.”
“I do?”
“Certainly.” His gaze swept over her. “You don’t even have any skin showing, except a small spot below your chin, right above those ruffles.”
“Oh.” Her free hand went up to cover her throat.
An unbearable tenderness caught at him. He reached up and covered the hand that rested on her throat.
“Don’t, Clemmie.” Slowly he pulled her hand away. “Don’t hide from me.” Her eyes were luminous as he cupped her face. “Your skin is so soft in the moonlight. Let me touch it.”
He brushed his fingers across her throat and upward to her cheeks. She closed her eyes and sighed.
“You like that, don’t you?”
It never occurred to Clemmie to lie. “Yes. Oh, yes.”
“I do, too.” Michael allowed himself to prolong the magical moment long enough to memorize the exact structure of her cheekbones, the precise silky texture of her skin, the exact slant of her exotic jade eyes. I like it all right, he said to himself. Too damned much.
Abruptly he released her face, tucked her hand through his arm and hurried off toward the gazebo.
“Michael?”
“I invited you to sit in the gazebo.”
If Clemmie had not been so enraptured by the gentle way he’d touched her cheeks and gazed into her eyes, she’d have noticed the gruffness of his voice, the grim set of his mouth. But she was caught up in the thrill of romance. Her mind was happily sailing ahead, planning the words she would use to invite him to the church social.
The gazebo would be the perfect place. In the moonlight it had an air of magic. Its white latticed sides gleamed like spun sugar, and night wind whispered symphonies through the arched openings.
Her white gown billowed around her as she settled onto the bench. She looked out through the lattice at the stars and smiled. She knew just how it would be. She’d say, “Michael, will you be my guest tomorrow night at the church social?” and he would flash that endearing little-boy-at-Christmastime smile and say, “I thought you’d never ask,” and then they would laugh together. She loved the way he laughed, deep and uninhibited, like thunder through the hills.
Michael gazed down at her, his longing clearly stamped on every feature. But Clemmie was too caught up in her own plans to notice. The autumn breeze sighed around them, lifting Clemmie’s hair back from her face.
Stifling a curse, Michael shook his head like an old dog, which wasn’t far from the way he was feeling. Protecting himself—and her—by being the cad was going to be one of the hardest things he’d ever done. But now more than ever, he had to play the role. The woman sitting in front of him was stripping away his defenses one by one. If he didn’t start putting them back up, he’d soon be hopelessly lost. And then they’d both be sorry.
“Are you cold, Clemmie?” He sat down beside her and drew her smoothly into his arms. She stiffened at his sudden move, but she made no attempt to pull away. He almost wished she had; he almost wished she’d gotten up and run back into the house.
“Now that you mention it, I suppose I am.” She tried to make herself relax and settle into his arms. It had been so long since she’d even had a date, she’d forgotten such a simple thing as letting a man court her.
“I have a remedy for that.”
He pulled her closer so that her breasts were pressed tightly against his chest. And the way he was running his hands down her arms was far too sexy. If he kept that up, she’d be in his bed before she ever got to the first date.
“Relax, Clemmie. I won’t hurt you.”
“I know that.”
He felt like Jack the Ripper. Don’t, he wanted to yell. Don’t trust me. Instead he grimly set about his seduction.
“Has any man ever told you that you’re beautiful in the moonlight?”
“No.” Her answer came out on a sigh that stirred her warm breath against his neck. He hardened his heart.
“Then they’ve all been fools. You’re gorgeous.” He bent over her and traced his lips down the side of her cheek. “Luscious... delicious,” he murmured, following the smooth curve of her jaw with his lips. He ignored the frantic pounding of her heart.
“How long since a man has kissed you, Clemmie?”
“It seems forever.”
That honesty was almost his undoing.
“Then it’s high time you were put back in the mainstream of life.”
Clemmie shivered as his mouth seared down the side of her throat and nudged intimately into the top of her ruffles. Things were moving so fast, too fast. But, oh my, she thought, it felt so good. Did Michael feel that way, too?
She drew back to look at his face, and what she saw shocked her. He looked fierce and determined and yet... She studied him in the moonlight. There was something infinitely sad and moving about his eyes. Those incredible amber eyes looked shattered, as if someone had taken a sledgehammer and pounded them to pieces.
She touched his face. “Michael?”
“Oh, God. Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Don’t, Clemmie.”
Suddenly his mouth came down on hers with a force that took her breath away. His lips were fierce and demanding. Clemmie had never been kissed like that. She’d wanted Michael to kiss her; she really had. But she had hoped for tenderness and maybe a little controlled passion, not this heady assault that made her weak.
Michael’s tongue found its way between her lips and delved intimately into her mouth, and she experienced something that was almost like rebirth. Each spring she’d watched the greening of the earth. Sh
e’d seen the trees sprouting fresh leaves and tiny buds; she’d witnessed the transforming of blossoms into fruit. In Michael’s arms she felt as if she were greening. And it was glorious.
She heard him groan, or was it herself? It didn’t matter. Nothing seemed to matter right now except savoring this moment. She leaned into Michael’s chest, offering herself to him with complete trust.
Abruptly he pulled away and gazed down at her. “You’re so damned innocent.”
The anguish in his voice confused her. “I know I’m not very practiced at this sort of thing.”
“Hush, Clemmie.” He swept her back into his arms and pressed her so close she could feel every ragged breath he took. “Please, don’t do this.”
“Michael.” Her voice was muffled against his shirt. “I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”
“Nothing.” His hands spanned her narrow waist, and he put her away from him almost roughly. “There’s nothing wrong with you, Clemmie, except that you’re too damned trusting.”
“But Michael, we’re friends.”
“You don’t even know me.” He reached out and gripped her shoulders. “God, Clemmie. How do you know those stories you read about me aren’t true? How do you know I won’t take advantage of you out here in the dark?”
Clemmie didn’t understand what had gone wrong. Michael had been kissing her, and then he’d pushed her away. Somehow that didn’t seem right. If she were Janet or Bea she’d know exactly how to deal with the situation. She wished she could magically transport herself to her bedroom and send off a distress signal via email.
Pressing her hands together in her lap to hold them steady, she lifted her chin and looked him straight in the eye. “I’m twenty-five years old, Michael. I can take care of myself.”
His smile was bittersweet. “Can you, Clemmie?” He studied her for a long moment, those golden eyes seeming to penetrate right through her. She’d be willing to bet that he knew she was shaking inside.
She lifted her chin a fraction higher. “Yes, I can.”
He chuckled, but it wasn’t a sound of mirth. To Clemmie’s heightened senses, it was almost a sound of sadness.
