Dixie Browning - The Virgin And The Vengeful Groom

And she needed it now. Oh, damn, oh, damn, oh, damn! Just when things were going so well—number two on the bestseller list, with a new contract in the works—and this creep had to go and ruin everything! She’d been told that crank calls were a part of being a high-profile woman living alone. She’d set herself up by being successful.

Or rather the PR firm her publisher used had set her up.

Thirty minutes. She would reward herself with half an hour of pleasure, because after all, she was between books. She didn’t have to start on her next one quite yet. And the signing had gone well today—she had sold more than half the stock and signed the rest. The manager had mentioned another session when Blood came out in paperback.

“I’ve earned this, and no slimeball with a damned telephone is going to take it away from me,” she muttered. Sliding open the drawer of the side table, she grabbed a package of cheese crackers. Opening one of the diaries, she munched and read and sipped, thinking, genuine pearls and fancy pens are okay, but this—this is real luxury. What more could any woman ask?

For twenty-five of those minutes she followed Bess down something called the Chesapeake and Albemarle Canal, trying to imagine what it had been like to be a woman alone with three men in a small open boat. Not only had Bess been up against heat and mosquitoes, she’d constantly had to fight against the kind of male chauvinism that had prevailed in those days. What was a parasol, anyway? Something to wear? Something to spray on you to keep from being eaten up by mosquitoes?

Another word to look up and add to her growing vocabulary.

She read a few more paragraphs and murmured, “Way to go, girl,” as she reached for another treat from her chair-side cache. At five before the hour, she reluctantly laid her book aside, dusted the crumbs from her fingers and untangled her feet from the ratty old velour bathrobe. Her agent, Davonda Chambers, had called that morning to say that the contract was ready for review.

“You know I won’t understand a word of all that legal mumbo jumbo, Davie. If you say sign it, I’ll sign.”

“Oh, you are my worst nightmare, girl. Look, it’s your career we’re talking about here, not mine. You’re going to read every word, and then I’m going to Mirandize you.”

“Okay, okay,” Lily had laughed. “Bring on your whereases and heretofores.”

Davonda had made a growling noise, but she’d laughed, too. She knew better than anyone about the great gaping holes in Lily’s education. Schooling had not been a priority in Lily’s youth. Thank God reading had.

She wished now she’d put it off until tomorrow. Even without the stress of the past week, with that nutcase ruining her life, playing lady for any length of time was exhausting. Here in the home she had made for herself, she could relax, think about her work in progress—or think about nothing at all. If she wanted to sleep all day and write all night, it was nobody’s business but her own. She did the tours and signings because her publisher had more or less mandated it—another new word—and because she knew for a fact that it had a direct bearing on her sales. The one today, for instance, would probably gain her a few new readers, and that would multiply exponentially, in the words of her publicist. Lily had come home and looked up exponentially to see if it was going to be good or bad. Given a choice, she’d much prefer to put on her oldest sweats, stock up on junk food and get on with the task of disappearing into the nice, safe world of fiction. She could write her way into all sorts of trouble, knowing that she could write her way out again. It was…exponential.

But even without the overeager fans and the few cranks, there’d been changes in her nice, comfortable lifestyle once she started showing up regularly near the top of the bestseller lists. Not all of them were to her advantage. Like luck, success was extremely fragile. One flop—one disappointing sellthrough, and it could all go up in smoke. So she juggled her career, dealt with her fans, most of whom were wonderfully supportive, and tried to ignore the few who weren’t. She listened with half an ear to the experts, afraid to trust in today or to look too far into tomorrow because she couldn’t quite forget yesterday.

The doorbell caught her halfway to her room to change into something presentable. Other than the police, the locksmith and the pizza delivery man, the only people who knew where she lived were her agent and her housekeeper.

“You’re—” Early, she’d been going to say, already reaching for the chain. Her first impulse was to slam the door. Her second was to scream bloody murder. She was still debating when the phone rang.

“The cops are already on the way,” she lied, shoving hard at the door that was blocked open by a big, water-stained deck shoe.

Behind her, the machine picked up, and she heard the familiar whispery voice. “Lily…guess what I’m doing right now. I’m in bed, and I’m not wearing nothing, and I’ve got your picture right—”

“Oh—damn!”

Confusion, impotent anger, frustration—embarrassment—it was too much. She closed her eyes and leaned against the door, never mind that his foot was still in the crack.

“You want to tell me what’s going on?” Curt pushed against the security chain, half-tempted to extricate his foot, walk away and forget he’d ever heard of Lily O’Malley. He didn’t need any more complications at this point in his life.

Trouble was, the officer-and-gentleman stuff had been drilled into him at an impressionable age. Regardless of the fact that she was either an outright thief or a conscienceless opportunist, she obviously needed help. “Open the door, O’Malley.” He made an attempt to sound reassuring.

She was not reassured. Glared at him, in fact. “Look, I don’t have time to play games,” he growled. His back was acting up again, thanks to yesterday’s long drive and a night of trying to sleep on a bed that was too short, too hard, in a room where the window was sealed shut. His left leg still hadn’t forgiven him for those three flights of stairs.

“Or maybe you enjoy dirty phone calls? Some people even pay for the privilege of crawling through that particular gutter.”

She closed her eyes. Her face, already pale without the war paint, grew a shade whiter.

“Okay, if that’s the way you want to play it, I’ll just state my business, you can hand over my property, and I’ll get out of your hair.”

“Property?”

He did a quick countdown, trying to hang onto his temper. “I believe I mentioned before that you’ve got something that belongs to me?” He wouldn’t have been surprised to find the lady in the process of sneaking out with all six boxes, after the way she had tried to elude him at the mall. He had let her get away, just to see what she was up to, but the game was over.

“Look, just hand over the boxes and we’ll call it even. I won’t prosecute and you can get back to your—”

“You won’t what?”

“Uh…prosecute?” Indignation wasn’t precisely the reaction he’d expected.

“Look, for your information, I don’t have one damned thing that belongs to you, and what’s more, I’m tired of jerks like you who won’t give up!”

“You’re tired? Well, that’s just tough, lady!”

Jerks like him? By the time he had tailed her here, nearly losing her twice in rush hour traffic, found a parking space a block and a half away, jogged the distance on concrete sidewalks and then climbed three flights of stairs, what little patience he might have been able to scrape up had eroded down to bedrock.

“If you want your friend to quit calling, sic the cops on him. The advice is free. Now you can hand over my personal property. I won’t even press charges.”