“You tell her—”
“J. D. Turner! When she told me you had not behaved like a gentleman toward her, I barely believed it. But here you are on my step, cursing.” She shook her head and made a little sucking sound with her lips.
He could see his future unfolding dismally before his eyes. All the senior citizens in Dancer would be looking at him sideways now. He’d have to do free lawn mower tune-ups for a year to remove this smudge from his character.
That woman in there was ruining his life without half-trying.
“Kindly tell her I’ll be waiting,” he said tautly.
Mrs. Saddlechild sniffed regally and snapped her door shut. He figured he’d be cooling his heels for a good hour, and so he was relieved when Tally appeared a few moments later.
“Yes?” she said, stepping out onto the porch.
His relief was short-lived. Her hair was in the same crisp bun of the pulling-the-pins-from-it fantasy. She was wearing a crisp white shirt that was not silk, and pressed navy blue shorts that ended at the dimple in her knee. It reminded him of the kind of outfit lady golfers or off-duty nuns wore.
If you did not know there was a lacy bra underneath it, it was the kind of outfit designed to inspire trust and nothing else.
“Don’t ‘yes?’ me in that innocent tone of voice,” he warned her. He looked at her eyes, thinking last night’s fading light must have lent illusion to the color. But no, they were more purple than blue. Amazing.
The cool light in them made him want to pull all the pins from her hair.
“Leona said she’d call the police if you didn’t mind your manners.”
Leona. Great. This was just great. Was that actually a twinkle of amusement warming her eyes? How dare she be amused at his expense?
“I want to know what the hell you think you are doing,” he said, his tone low. He could see Mrs. Saddlechild peering out from behind her front curtain. He smiled for her benefit, but the smile felt stretched and taut, like a wolf baring its teeth.
“I’m having tea,” Tally said, unforthcoming. “And ginger snaps.”
He wanted to grab her and shake her until the pins flew free. Or kiss her again. He tried to remember the last time he had felt this passionate—this uncomfortably out-of-control—but the answer evaded him. “Why are you doing this? Why are you asking questions about me? Why are you so hell-bent on creating problems in my life?”
Her eyes were very expressive, and she looked guilty, a kid caught with her hand in the cookie jar, but she said, her tone dignified, “I don’t see how asking a few innocent questions could create problems in your life.”
“Really? Well let me tell you something. When a stranger shows up in Dancer and starts asking if J. D. Turner pays his bills on time, by the next day it’s the talk of the coffee shop that he probably gambled away his life savings in Las Vegas.”
The guilty look darkened her eyes, so he pressed onward, “And if somebody asks if he has an ex-wife or two stashed away somewhere, then the talk in the barbershop and the hairdresser’s for the next three weeks will be about the possibility that he might have a secret wife or two. People will begin to ‘remember’ little incidents that back up this theory. There will be sightings in nearby towns.”
“Surely you exaggerate,” she said uncertainly, and looked guiltier than ever.
“And does J. D. Turner get drunk on Friday night? Or Monday? Or Tuesday? I guarantee you, there will be lookouts outside the New Life Church where AA meets twice a week for the next year trying to catch me making an entrance.” He was enjoying her guilt, immensely, the fact that she had dropped her gaze from him and was now studying the toe of a sneaker so absurdly white she must have polished it.
“And let’s not forget the final question. Does J. D. Turner like children? Good God, that coupled with me tracking you down here will have Mrs. Saddlechild posting the wedding bans in the Dancer Daily News!”
He saw, suddenly, and with grave irritation, she had not lowered her eyes from his out of guilt alone. Her shoulders were shaking suspiciously.
“Are you laughing?”
She glanced up at him, and shook her head, vehemently, no. But it was too late. He had seen the line of her mouth curve up, the mischievous sparkle it brought to her eyes.
“I fail to see the humor in this,” he said sternly. Thankfully, she quit smiling. That smile would make it way too easy to forget she was an uptight menace, and that his mission was to run her out of town.
She looked at him squarely, drew back her shoulders. “You don’t strike me as a man who gives two hoots about what the people of this town have to say about you.”
“Just because you’ve been digging up dirt, don’t assume you know one single thing about me, Tally Smith.”
“As a matter of fact,” she said, and he did not miss her reluctance, “there is no dirt. You appear to be a highly respected member of this community.”
“Your tone implies I have somehow managed to pull the wool over the eyes of an entire town.”
“Apparently most of whom have been spared the sight of you in a towel. And also,” she continued, “as a charter member of the Ain’t Gettin’ Married, No Way, Never Club, it strikes me as bizarre that you would kiss a complete stranger on your front porch.”
Stan had a big mouth. The club was secret!
“Kissing has nothing to do with marriage, unless you read a certain kind of novel, which I am almost certain you do.” He had scored, because he saw indignant red splotches bloom in her cheeks. “Plus, for as fascinating as all this is, you haven’t answered my original question. Why the curiosity in the first place?”
She looked at the toe of her shoe again. So did he. The whiteness of those runners really bugged him. Didn’t she have anything better to do with her time?
Didn’t she have a fellow chasing her around trying to get the pins out of her hair?
He reminded himself firmly, that only one question about her was any of his business. The question that pertained to him. Everything else entered distinctly murky territory.
“Cat got your tongue?” he asked silkily. “I want an answer. I want to know why you’ve been asking questions about me all over town.”
“All right,” she said. “My sister left you a small inheritance. I wanted to see if you deserved it. I’ll mail it to you.”
He watched with extreme interest as the tip of her nose turned red, and then her earlobes, and then her neck.
He was willing to bet she had never told a lie before in her life.
“Try again,” he said, folding his arms over his chest, and giving her the mean look that always made Stan flub his pool shot.
She took a deep breath and looked everywhere but at him. She touched the button at her throat to make sure it was done up tight, not an ounce of her exposed to him.
“I found your picture in my sister’s things,” she said finally, her tone clipped and uneasy.
“And?”
“And I was intrigued. I wanted to know more.” Her glowing red nose and earlobes changed to a shade of beet.
“Don’t even try to appeal to my male ego,” he said. “It won’t work. There is no way you drove all this way because you looked at a picture and found me irresistibly attractive. You could have any guy you blinked your big eyes at back home, wherever that is. You wouldn’t have to drive halfway across the country looking for one.”
“I wasn’t trying to appeal to your male ego,” she said indignantly. “I have a man at home. I most likely will marry him before the year is out.”