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СКАЧАТЬ fairly clean, without the sort of pollution you get in a big city. Having lived in Atlanta as long as I had, even relatively clean air tasted a little like wine when you took a deep breath of it. I should have been enjoying this gorgeous early evening, instead of worrying.

      Tell that to my nerves. They were as tight as piano wires as I went back on board.

      A reception was scheduled in the salon before dinner. People could come and go as they pleased, of course, but I expected a fairly good turnout. I went to my cabin and traded my slacks, blouse, and blazer for a simple dark blue dress that I thought looked elegant without being flashy. Low heels replaced the comfortable walking shoes I’d been wearing earlier as I tramped around Hannibal. I ran my fingers through my short red hair to fluff it out. I thought I looked good enough to sip a little champagne at the reception and then eat dinner.

      A few of my clients were already in the salon when I got there. I greeted them and asked them how the tour was going for them so far. Everybody seemed to be having a good time. I started to relax, telling myself that the whole business with Ben Webster would blow over without any more trouble. Sure, I didn’t know where he was, but he was a grown-up and it wasn’t my job to keep track of his every move. As long as he wasn’t on the boat, his whereabouts weren’t any of my business anymore.

      I became aware that a man sitting at the bar was watching me. Not to be vain about it or anything, but I’ve had a few men eye me in bars over the years. Not as many as when I was younger, maybe, but it still happened. This man wore jeans and a sports jacket and had dark blond hair over a pleasantly rugged face. When I caught him looking at me, he didn’t jerk his eyes away or look guilty. He just gave me a friendly smile and lifted the glass in his hand like he was saluting me.

      That interested me enough that I went over to him. “Hello,” I said. “Have we met?”

      “We have, Ms. Dickinson,” he said.

      “I’m sorry. Normally I remember ruggedly handsome men—”

      “And I always remember pretty redheads.” His voice changed, took on a slight quiver like that of an older man. “I quite fancy redheaded women, you know.”

      “Well, Mark Twain, as I live and breathe!”

      Mark Lansing grinned. “That’s right. You didn’t recognize me at all without the wig and the mustache and the make-up, did you?”

      “No, you look totally different,” I told him. “Bigger, even.”

      “That’s a trick. You stoop over a little and draw your shoulders forward, and people think you’re smaller than you really are.”

      “What are you doing here? I’m surprised to see you out of costume. It must take a long time to get ready, and you’ve got a performance tonight.” I checked my watch. “In a little more than two hours, in fact.”

      “It only takes about thirty minutes to get the make-up and the mustache on,” he said with a shrug. “The wig and the clothes take only a few minutes. I can’t wear the getup all the time. It’d drive me nuts. I’d rather take the time and trouble to take it off and put it back on every now and then.”

      “Well, I reckon I can understand that. Pretendin’ is fun, but deep down everybody wants to be who they really are.”

      “Pretty profound for a redhead.”

      I gave him a mock glare. “The last fella who said something like that to me got pitched overboard.”

      “How about if I buy you a drink to make up for it?”

      “I think you just wanted an excuse to buy me a drink.”

      He grinned again. “Now that you mention it…”

      “Champagne,” I said to the bartender.

      “Ouch,” Mark Lansing said.

      I ignored him and went on, “I’m Delilah Dickinson.”

      “Yes, ma’am,” the bartender said. “I’ll fetch the bottle I’ve been using for your party.”

      “What, I’m not paying?” Mark asked.

      “And give a glass to my friend here,” I told the bartender.

      “Yes, ma’am.”

      Mark shook his head. “Great, now I feel like a gigolo.”

      “Shut up and drink your champagne,” I said.

      It felt good to relax and flirt with a good-looking man for a few minutes. That’s all it was, just some harmless flirting, but I was glad that I’d run into Mark Lansing without his Mark Twain garb on.

      We sipped champagne and talked a while longer, the sort of small talk that a man and a woman make when they think they might be interested in each other and want to get to know each other better. I mentioned my divorce but didn’t go into detail about it. He said that he’d never been married but had come close a couple of times.

      “Cold feet?” I asked.

      “Jobs got in the way,” he said. “I’m attracted to successful women, I guess. The ones I was thinking about asking to marry me got good job offers on the other side of the country. I didn’t want to leave St. Louis, and I wasn’t going to ask them to turn down the jobs because of me.”

      “You’re from St. Louis?”

      “Yeah. Actually I was born in a little town down in the boot heel of Missouri, but I was raised in St. Louis.”

      “Have you been acting long?”

      “No, not really. The bug bit me late.”

      “What did you do before that?”

      He shrugged. “I was a lawyer.”

      I tried not to stare at him. “Let me get this straight. You gave up being a lawyer so you could play Mark Twain for a bunch of tourists on a riverboat?”

      “Yeah, pretty crazy, isn’t it?” he asked with a grin. “But there comes a time when you’ve got to do what you want in life, or what’s the point?”

      I couldn’t argue with that.

      “What about you?” he went on. “Did you always want to be a travel agent?”

      “Well…not really. But once I got into the business, I liked it.” I told him about working for one of the big agencies in Atlanta until I finally decided to take that leap of faith and open my own business. As I told him, I saw that he had done basically the same thing by leaving law and becoming an actor. That was a leap of faith, too.

      I went on to tell him about my daughter, Melissa, and her husband, Luke, and my twin teenage nieces, Augusta and Amelia. I didn’t tell him anything about what had happened during the first Gone With the Wind tour the year before. I didn’t want to scare him off.

      Both of us lost track of the time for a while, a sign that we were enjoying the conversation. Eventually Mark glanced at his watch and said, “I’ve got to go get ready for the performance. Maybe we can talk СКАЧАТЬ