Dixie Browning - The Virgin And The Vengeful Groom

So had Lily. They had both overcome amazing odds to make something of themselves—Bess in an age when women were supposed to be seen and not heard, to wear corsets and bustles and high-top shoes.

She’d even smoked cigars. Lily didn’t smoke. She didn’t drink. She didn’t even take aspirin for headaches or cramps; however, she occasionally allowed herself to over-indulge in junk food.

“You’d have loved subs, Bessie. With peppers and onions and provolone and oil and vinegar—we’d have royally pigged out.”

Bess had eaten raw fish aboard ship and something called salt horse, which might be horse, or it might be kangaroo, for all Lily knew. Neither animal sounded particularly appetizing. She had picked and eaten fruits that Lily couldn’t even pronounce, much less visualize. Lily wanted to believe she would have done it, too, in Bess’s place, because the more she read, the more convinced she was that she and Bess Powers were two of a kind, separated by a century, give or take a few years.

It was almost as if fate had guided her that day. She had gone to the storage unit to leave a box of books—author’s copies of her first three paperbacks, plus a few foreign copies. Doris, her housekeeper, threatened to burn the things the next time she tripped over them, but there was simply no more room on her crowded bookshelves. That was when she’d noticed the auction. A few people were bidding on the contents of three units on which the rental payments had fallen too far behind. Standard procedure, she’d been told when she’d asked what was going on. “But that’s awful,” she’d said at the time, even as she edged closer to get a look at what was on the block.

The boxes had been opened. Nothing but old books and some old newspapers—the others only glanced and turned their attention back to the two chairs, three bicycles and a suitcase of winter clothing.

For reasons that hadn’t made sense at the time, and hardly did even now, Lily had felt defensive on behalf of the papers. Poor things, no one had wanted them. Lily knew what it was like to be shunned. Sensible or not, she’d gone all defensive and put in a bid on the lot. At least she could give the things a decent burial. Burn them or something. Maybe even try to locate the owner.

Feeling self-righteous, she had taken a second look and discovered among the ancient newspapers what appeared to be travel journals or logbooks, a few old novels, the covers all mildewed, and several diaries, the locks no longer effective as the leather straps had more or less disintegrated. That was when she’d first felt it—that all-but-imperceptible quiver of excitement that always came when she hit on the seed of a solid plot. Sometimes it was the people, sometimes the conflict—this time it was a woman named Bess, who had written diaries.

Diaries that Lily was increasingly certain she’d been meant to find all these years later, because she and Bess were kindred spirits. Oh, yes they were, and if that sounded spooky, so be it. She didn’t have to admit to anything, all she’d had to do was pay for the stuff, drag it to her car, squeeze it in and get it home and up to her third-floor apartment.

Which she had ultimately done, her appetite whetted by the promise of mystery, tragedy, possibly even romance….

The boxes had been heavy, her car was small. Enter the second coincidence, or as Lily preferred to think of it, the second omen. She was of two minds when it came to publicity. Personally, she hated it. As Lily O’Malley, bestselling novelist, she had learned to tolerate it, although even the best publicity was not without dangers. Occasionally a fan grew somewhat…obsessive.

She’d been struggling to load the boxes on a dolly to get them to her car when she’d sensed someone behind her. Braced instinctively for trouble, she heard the man say, “Hey, aren’t you Lily O’Malley? My wife reads everything you write. I thought I recognized you from your picture inside the back cover.”

She eyed him warily. He was wearing an Atlanta Braves cap. The press pass clipped to his pocket looked legitimate, but with what had been happening to her this past week—the phone calls and the awful things she’d found in her underwear drawer—she didn’t dare take chances. If this guy turned out to be her stalker, she would just as soon confront him here in a public place, where one loud scream would bring help.

On the other hand, if he really was a reporter, she would rather not be discovered wearing her oldest grungies. Hardly the image her publisher liked her to present.

Never show fear, she reminded herself. Cardinal rule. “And you are?” she demanded in her most imperious tone.

“Bill DeSalvo, Virginian Pilot. Whatcha got here, books?”

He looked harmless, but then, so had Ted Bundy. “Nothing at all valuable—mostly old papers. Actually, I’m really not sure yet.”

“Bought yourself a pig in a poke, huh?”

“You have a way with words,” she said dryly. After hearing his voice, she was pretty sure he was not the one. In fact, he was a fellow writer. So she ventured a smile, but a quick one. Not a particularly warm one.

“Let me give you a hand with that stuff.” By the time he’d helped her lift the last box and squeeze it into her open sports car, she had gleaned quite a bit of information. She knew, for instance, that his wife read a chapter over her breakfast every morning and three chapters before she fell asleep each night, which didn’t say a whole lot for their marriage.

DeSalvo learned that the boxes contained old logbooks, a few moldy novels and the journals of a woman who seemed to have spent some time at sea. He also learned that Lily’s latest title, Blood Will Tell, was due to hit the stands within days and that she would be appearing at a local bookstore. And yes, of course she’d be delighted to sign a book for his wife.

Asked where she got her ideas, she nodded to the boxes. “Who knows? I might have just bought six boxes of ideas.”

The young man jotted down a few notes. “You mean you do this kind of thing all the time, looking for inspiration?”

By then Lily had learned that DeSalvo was brand-new at his job, and that running into a celebrity was a big break. Flattered in spite of herself, she told him about the time she’d paid eighty-five dollars for the diary of a nineteenth-century prostitute only to find that it was a combination account book and recipe book. “All I learned was that bay leaves keep weevils out of cornmeal and that the diarist earned a grand total of two dollars a night, six nights a week and paid someone named Leandra ten dollars a month.”

“For what, bed, board and clean sheets?”

“Probably.”

It was then that she’d noticed the photographer he’d waved over. “D’you mind?” the young journalist asked, and she brushed back her hair and tried to look as glamorous as possible, wearing the ancient white shirt and baggy slacks she’d put on to deal with the accumulation of books Doris kept threatening to burn.

And now here she was, piling up still more stuff to trip over. Pack rats didn’t need housekeepers, they needed warehouses and bulldozers.

“Hope you find something in there worth all the trouble,” the young reporter had said when she’d climbed behind the wheel.

“Or at any rate something more intriguing than budgets and household hints,” she returned, laughing. This time the flash caught her with her mouth open and her hair blowing across her face. Oh, well. Any publicity was supposed to be better than none at all. “There’s bound to be something here. A bit of mystery, a bit of romance—who knows what I’ll find?”

She waved and backed out of the parking slot, muttering under her breath, “Just don’t you dare refer to my books as bodice rippers.”