Talking After Midnight. Dakota Cassidy

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СКАЧАТЬ just wasn’t vivid enough to get past the idea. Of course, Em didn’t do the dirty-talkin’, either. This woman, according to Em, did.

      Either way, he’d stick with one-on-one, messy, down-in-the-mud, flaws-and-all, human connections.

      Speaking of messy, when Marybell finally reappeared, it was with the floppiest-brimmed hat he’d ever seen cover a woman of no more than five foot two. It was white with black polka dots, sporting a big, shiny pink bow around it. The brim was so big it fell over her eyes, masking almost every feature of her face but the tip of her cold-infested nose and her full, chapped lips. It would have swallowed her whole if she didn’t hold it in place.

      “Fancy date?” he asked, unable to stop himself from noting how comical she looked in a moth-eaten bathrobe and summer hat, still trying to figure how she fit into the sparse but colorful landscape of her apartment.

      She rocked back on her fuzzy black feet. Not amused, said her posture. “Not unless he wants the black plague.”

      “So you kiss on the first date?” he asked, almost looking around to see whose mouth those suggestive words had come out of—and more important, why they had come out at all.

      She clucked her tongue, her lips never changing their pursed disapproval. “Only if my date doesn’t mind some snot.”

      Unfriendly fire, Captain. Man your battleships. “I’m Tag Hawthorne.” He offered his hand, noting it was cracked and calloused from working outside in Jax’s unheated barn.

      She backed away, covering one foot with the other in the process. “I’m dying of the flu.”

      “Is dying your first name or your last?” Beneath that wide brim of her ridiculous hat, he’d swear he saw her almost smirk. What was with the hat to begin with? Sure, she was sick, but no one could be that vain, could they?

      “Why are you here?”

      Tag paused. If he was reading her right, there was a whole lot of territorial in her. This is mine. Keep out. So he smiled, opting to reassure her. “Zombie outbreak.”

      Her sigh crackled, wheezing from her chest as her fingers pulled a tissue from her bathrobe pocket and pressed it to her nose. “You’re no Daryl,” she replied, her voice, even congested and tight, so sweet it almost hurt his teeth. Fascinating.

      “Really, who is?” he joked, still trying to figure out what it was about this woman that made him want not only to get a rise out of her, but to have her treat him with something more than an upturned nose of total disregard. He was all but pulling her pigtails for no reason other than to pull.

      Maybe it was the hat. He damn well wanted to see what was under the hat.

      Marybell tapped an impatient fingernail on the door she held on to as if it were the armor that helped her protect her castle. “So, you’re here why?”

      She wasn’t biting. Not even a nibble. So he slapped on his serious face and played the Emmaline card while still trying to figure out how, in all the trips he’d made to Call Girls over the past few months, he’d missed seeing her. “Em sent me to fix your heat.”

      She flapped a hand at him. A ringless hand. Interesting. There were plenty of unattached women in Plum Orchard, a thirsty crew, if you asked him. They’d shown up at Jax’s on more than several occasions with all sorts of casseroles and pies, but he’d never seen Marybell in the mix. “Not necessary. I can take care of it when I’m better.” She began to close the dungeon door on him.

      Tag stuck his hand in it, shaking his head. “Uh, no. I mean, wait. That came out wrong. What I mean is, you do know Em, don’t you? I mean, you work with her, right?”

      Still nothing but cool disdain and the scent of Vicks. “I do.”

      “Well, try living with her. Or almost living with her. She doesn’t like the word no. If I don’t at least look at the problem, she’ll have my head. You don’t want carnage on your hands, do you?”

      Her sigh was full of phlegm, making him wince in regret. He was teasing her while she was standing at the door with the raw wind nipping at her. Em wouldn’t like that, either. “Listen, you need to get inside out of the draft. If you get sicker, Em’ll have my head. Just let me take a look, okay? You can trust no one will read a story about you and your hacked-off limbs hanging in a smokehouse in the Plum Orchard Herald. I’m safe. Call Em and check, if you need to.”

      Her chin lifted a little, still standoffish. “No, thank you. I’m fine.”

      Patience. She just needed patience. He had time for that. “It’s going to be down in the thirties tonight, Marybell, and if I remember right, this apartment has concrete floors. Great in a hot Georgia summer, not so great in the winter with this recent cold snap. One quick look and then I’m out of your hair. Deal?” He smiled wide, hoping to sway her with his winning grin.

      Yet as he held that grin for as long as his mouth would allow, Marybell clearly wasn’t affected in quite the way he’d hoped. In other words, letting him in had nothing to do with the magic of the Hawthorne charm.

      While his teeth stuck to his cold lips from smiling so hard, she finally rolled her hand toward the thermostat, keeping the hat pulled down over her eyes. “Fine.” She turned on her fuzzy foot without another word, leaving him to wipe his feet on the small mat outside her door and enter the enemy’s castle.

      Oddly, as she made her way back to the couch, clinging firmly to her hat, he couldn’t help admiring her petite frame, even in a rumpled bathrobe. Compact and curvy.

      Then guilt stung his gut. Jesus, Hawthorne. She’s full up with snot, and her nose, what you can see of it, anyway, is redder than a poker fresh from the fire, sick as a dog and still, you gawk.

      Jackass.

      * * *

      Like before when the girls sneak-attacked you, remain calm. Walk to the couch. Sit your backside down. Hang on to your hat and say as little as possible.

      When Tag sauntered past the couch, he stooped at her feet, making her freeze and stiffen. “Dropped this,” he offered casually, picking her throw blanket up and placing it on her lap before scanning the room and locating her thermostat.

      As Tag popped the face of the digital thermostat off, Marybell let her fingers drift to the arm of her couch and gripped it hard. Every cell in her body ordered her to run and hide. Yet her aching muscles refused to unclench.

      Watching him from beneath the brim of the ridiculous hat Dixie had given her as a gift when they’d all watched the Kentucky Derby together was like watching the numbers grow smaller on a ticking bomb.

      They were sexy numbers, no doubt. Tight, muscled, encased in a pair of jeans that set her heart to fluttering and skipping as if she were jumpin’ double Dutch. He wasn’t classically handsome like his brother, Jax.

      On the contrary, he was rough, unkempt, his large hands spotted with a dark-wood stain that had set into the rough calluses on his fingers. His skin was ruddy, hard-weather worn and kissed by the sun. His eyes were an odd combination of brown and gold, as rich and deep as his voice, making her wonder what lay behind them.

      As Tag tinkered with the dial, emitting a sound from deep within the strong column of his throat, Marybell fought a sigh of girlish admiration. СКАЧАТЬ