Her Passionate Plan B

A few miles outside the small soundside town of Muddy Landing in a handsome old house that had seen far better days, Daisy Hunter packed another box of her late patient’s clothing, to be dropped off at the Hotline Thrift Shop the next time she was in Elizabeth City. It would’ve been better if she’d moved out the day after he’d died, but her apartment still wasn’t ready. And then Egbert had suggested she stay on at least until she took on another case, and one thing had led to another.

“The estate will continue to pay your salary while you inventory and pack away personal property. Aside from that, houses left standing empty for any length of time tend to deteriorate rather rapidly,” he’d told her. Egbert had a precise way of speaking that, while it wasn’t particularly exciting, was certainly reassuring. A woman would always know where she stood with a man like Egbert Blalock.

Up until Harvey’s death she and the banker had been only nodding acquaintances. Since then they had met several times to discuss Harvey’s business affairs. It was during the second such meeting—or perhaps it was the third—that she’d begun to consider him from a personal standpoint. The more she thought about it, the more certain she was that he was excellent husband material. After all, she wasn’t getting any younger, and if she ever intended to have a family of her own—and she definitely did—it was time.

So while Faylene, the three-day-a-week housekeeper, gave the old house one last going-over, including rooms that had been closed off for decades, Daisy made lists, packed away various personal effects and thought about how to go about making a match for herself. She knew how to do it for someone else, but objectivity flew out the window when she started thinking of deliberately engineering a match for herself.

Naturally she hadn’t confided in either of her friends. Knowing Marty and Sasha, at the first hint of any personal interest they’d have taken over and mismanaged the whole affair. Sasha tried on husbands the way other women tried on shoes. Marty was not a whole lot better, although she swore she’d learned after her last experience.

Catching sight of herself in the large dresser mirror, Daisy touched her rumpled hair. At least it was dry now, but the color wouldn’t attract a dead moth, much less a man. She was long overdue for a trim, but before she did anything too drastic she needed to find out if Egbert preferred long hair or short. Did he like blondes, and if so, how blond? Platinum? Honey? Her hair was that indeterminate color usually called dishwater.

His was a nice shade of medium brown, thinning slightly on top. Not that hair loss was anything to be ashamed of, she reminded herself hastily. These days baldness was a fashion statement. It was even considered sexy. And while Egbert wasn’t exactly sexy, neither could he be labeled unsexy. Sasha had once called him dull. Daisy hadn’t bothered to correct her. Egbert wasn’t dull, he was simply steady, reliable and dependable, all excellent traits in a husband. Some women might prefer a flashier type—not too long ago, Daisy would have, too. Now she knew better. Been there, done that, to use a cliché.

Her stomach growled, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Once she’d returned to the house after the service, she had quickly changed out of her damp clothes and gotten to work again, anxious to get the job done so that she’d be ready to set her own plans in motion. A stickler for propriety, she preferred to wait until she was finished here before launching her campaign.

Folding another of Harvey’s tan-and-white-striped dress shirts—he must have had a dozen, all the same color and style—Daisy allowed her thoughts to drift back to the brief rainy service and the stranger she’d seen there. Whoever he was, he definitely wasn’t a local. She’d have noticed him if she’d ever seen him before. What woman wouldn’t? Those long legs and broad shoulders—the high, angular cheekbones, not to mention the startlingly blue eyes. As a rule, eye color was barely discernible from a distance of more than a few feet, but the stranger’s eyes had reminded her of glow-in-the-dark LEDs.

What color were Egbert’s eyes, she wondered idly—hazel?

Brown. It was Harvey whose eyes had been hazel, usually twinkling with humor despite his painfully twisted body. Bless his heart, he should have had a family with him at the end, only he didn’t have a family and most of his friends had either died or moved away. A couple still lived in Elizabeth City, but their visits had dwindled over the past year.

As she went about layering articles in a box, Daisy thought back to the last hour she had spent with her patient. The noise of the television had bothered him, so she’d read him the newspapers. They’d gotten as far as the editorials when somewhere in the middle of Tom Friedman’s piece on nation-building he’d fallen asleep. As it was nothing unusual, she had quietly refolded the paper, adjusted the covers and turned off the light.

The next morning she’d prepared his morning meds and rapped on the door of his bedroom. Hearing no response, she had entered to find her patient sleeping peacefully.

And, as it turned out, permanently.

She hadn’t cried, but sooner or later she probably would. She’d been closer to Harvey Snow than with other patients, maybe because she’d admired his courage. Living alone with a steadily worsening case of rheumatoid arthritis and then two small strokes, he had never lost his sense of humor.

Sooner or later the tears would come, probably at the worst possible time. It did no good to try to suppress them, this much she knew, both as a nurse and as a woman. Spare the tears and suffer a head cold. The correlation might not have been clinically proved, but she believed it with all her heart.

A deep sigh shuddered through her as she closed the box and taped it shut. Wrenching her thoughts from her depressing task, she made up her mind not to wait any longer to have her hair trimmed, styled and maybe even lightened. She needed cheering up. In fact, she might even take a day off to go shopping, keeping in mind that Egbert’s tastes were probably more conservative than her own. But even a classic shirtwaist could be unbuttoned to show a hint of cleavage and maybe a flash of thigh.

As long as she was shopping, she might as well look for something long and swishy in case he invited her to go dancing. The holidays were coming up, and it had been ages since anyone had taken her out dancing. That used to be her favorite aerobic exercise.

Did Egbert even dance? Maybe they could brush up on their skills together. Dancing skills as well as a few other skills, she thought, trying to drum up a twist of excitement.

She was too tired for excitement. It had been a long day—a long, depressing day, but at least it was nearly over. First thing next week she would get on with her own agenda.

In fact, she could get started right now by calling Paul and making an appointment to get her hair done. Nothing too noticeable, just enough to make Egbert take a second look and wonder if he’d been missing something.

She reached for the phone just as the darn thing rang. Startled, she dropped the roll of tape she’d been holding. The calls had started as soon as word got out about Harvey’s passing—everything from tombstone salesmen to local historians wanting a tour of the house, to antique dealers and real estate people wanting to know what, if anything, would be sold off.

She referred all calls to Egbert as Harvey’s executor. “Snow residence,” she snapped. What she needed was an answering machine, only she wasn’t going to be here that long.

“Daisy, honey, you sound like you need a massage—either that or a stiff drink and a three-pound box of chocolate-covered cherries. How’d it go today?”

“You mean other than the fact that it was pouring rain and the preacher kept sneezing and only a handful of people showed up?”

“Hey, we offered,” Sasha reminded her.

“I know, I’m just being bitchy. Make that chocolate-covered coconut and I might bite.” Daisy dropped tiredly down on the sleigh bed that had been moved back into the room after the rental service had collected the hospital bed. She’d been fighting depression for days.

“Look, Marty and I were thinking—it’s time we took on another project. Now that she’s closed her bookstore she’s drinking too much.” Daisy could hear the protest in the background. “I know for a fact that she’s gained five pounds. You game?”

Smiling tiredly because she knew they were only trying to cheer her up, she said, “Count me out on this one. The last thing I need now is to try to rearrange someone else’s life when I’m up to my ears in artifacts that so far as I know, no one even wants.”

“Oh, honey—I know it’s real sad, but moping’s not going to get you anywhere.” Sasha had a softer side, but she’d learned to cover it with a glitzy style and an offhand manner.

“I’m not moping.” As a professional, Daisy knew better than to get too personally involved with a patient. On the other hand, she’d been with Harvey longer than with most of her previous patients.

“How ’bout it, you ready for a challenge?” Sasha teased.

Daisy sighed. She’d been doing a lot of that lately. Better they think she was grieving than making plans for her own future. If she even hinted as much, the next thing she knew she’d be engaged to some jerk candidate they’d found in a singles’ bar.

No, thanks. Once she set her mind on a course of action she preferred to manage it on her own, the same way she’d been doing ever since her foster parents had split when she was thirteen and neither of them had wanted her. She had managed then, just as she would manage now. By this time next year she fully intended to be settled in Egbert’s tidy Cape Cod on Park Drive, with—in layman’s terms—a bun in the oven.

“Da-aisy. Wake up, hon.”

“I’m here, just barely. Okay, who’ve you got in mind?”

“Faylene.”

Her jaw dropped. “No way! A new project is one thing, but a lost cause is exactly what I don’t need at the moment.” For the past several years Faylene Beasley had worked part-time for Harvey and part-time for Daisy’s two best friends. As a housekeeper she was superb, but a target for matchmaking? “You’re not serious,” Daisy said flatly.

“Serious as a root canal. Honey, have you noticed how grouchy she’s been getting lately? That woman needs a man in her bed.”

Outside, the rain continued to drone down on the steep slate roof. So much for the Indian summer the weatherman had promised. Daisy’s stomach growled, reminding her again that she hadn’t eaten since a skimpy breakfast. “Look, call me tomorrow. Right now I’m too tired to think about it. I’m going to grab a bite of early supper and fall into bed. I might have another bachelor candidate for us to work with.”

Not for Faylene, though. Oh, no—whoever he was, he had to be someone extra special.

Two

Kell’s boots still weren’t dry, but at least he’d scraped most of the mud off. As disappointed as he was that he’d arrived too late to meet his half uncle, he had to admit he’d enjoyed watching the mystery woman dancing around, trying to keep from sinking up to her ankles. Not that he was a leg man, but she had nice ones. She was a blonde—sort of, anyway. With her hooded raincoat and shades, he hadn’t been able to see much more than half a pale face, a few wet strands and a pair of mud-spattered legs. But she definitely had world-class ankles.

Still reeling from learning that the guy he’d come so far to see had died, Kell hadn’t bothered to ask Blalock about the woman who had answered the phone when he’d called from the outskirts of town the night before. The one who had referred him to the banker. The bank had been closed by that time and he’d been forced to wait until this morning.

He should have called back when he’d first discovered a possible connection between the Snows of North Carolina and the Magees of Oklahoma City, but he’d had some things to wind up before he could leave town. Then, too, he sort of liked the idea of turning up unexpectedly, picturing Half Uncle Harvey opening the door, taking one look and recognizing him as his long-lost nephew.

Yeah, like that would have happened. Kell didn’t look anything like his dad. They might be built along the same lines, but Evander Magee had had red hair and freckles. The only facial features they shared were eye color and a shallow cleft in a chin that had been likened a time or two to the Rock of Gibraltar.

Okay, so he might’ve been overly optimistic, taking off without even notifying Snow of his intentions. A pessimist probably wouldn’t have bothered to track down a possible relative in the first place. Trouble was, even now, after all that had happened in his thirty-nine-plus years, Kell was a dogged optimist. Back in his pitching days he’d gone into every game fully expecting to win. As a starter, he might not go nine innings, but he’d damned well do seven. So it stood to reason that once he’d started the search, he’d had to follow through every lead.

It hadn’t helped when he’d got to Muddy Landing after dark only to find that the town’s only motel had been closed ever since Hurricane Isabel had blown through back in September. He’d had to drive miles out of the way and settle for a hole-in-the-wall place where the bed was too short, the walls too thin, the pillows padded with that stuff that fought back. If he hung around much longer he might be tempted to buy himself a camper and a good pillow, only he didn’t think the Porsche was rated for towing.

Bottom line—he had found Harvey Snow a couple of days too late, spent a miserable night on a lousy mattress and, as a result, overslept. He had skipped breakfast, showed up at the bank nearly an hour past opening time and then had to wait to see a man named Blalock who had tried to brush him off, claiming he was pressed for time.

Kell was no quitter. Blocking the door of Blalock’s office, he’d introduced himself and explained why he was there—that he’d been given his name, and that his father had had a younger half brother named Harvey Snow. And that he needed to know how to locate the man as the phone book listed a rural-route number instead of a street address.