Her Passionate Plan B

That was when he’d heard the bad news. “I’m sorry to tell you, but the man you’re looking for recently passed away. He’s being buried today, in fact. I’m on my way to the service now, so if you’ll excuse me?”

It had taken Kell a moment to digest the news. He hadn’t moved.

“So far as anyone knows,” the smug banker had gone on to say, “Mr. Snow left no surviving relatives.”

Kell had felt like protesting, Dammit, I’m a surviving relative!

Instead he’d ended up following Blalock through a driving rain along miles of narrow blacktop to a country graveyard. After that, he’d followed him back to the bank. Only now, after the banker had called up a few records on his computer and then grilled him like a trout on a spit, was he finally headed out to see where his father had once lived.

Supposedly lived, as Blalock had stipulated.

Kell figured he could spare five days. A week at most. The boys back home could handle things at the store. If not, they had a go-to number.

Somewhere along the line, working with at-risk kids had segued into even more of a full-time job than the sporting goods store he used as a training ground. He was also in the process of turning a working ranch into a baseball camp, so he had just about everything a man could want. Satisfying work, financial security and enough women of the noncommitted variety to keep him happy well into his senior years.

On the other hand, there was this roots thing. Once he’d started digging, he hated like hell to give up. Blalock might have reservations about the Snow-Magee connection, but Kell trusted his instincts, and those were signaling loud and clear that he was right on target. His dad might have spent most of his life in Oklahoma, but Kell would bet his seven-figure portfolio that his roots were in Muddy Landing.

Following the narrow, wet highway between flat fields and a marshy shoreline dotted with private landings and small boats, he was wishing he’d paid more attention back when his old man used to reminisce about bear hunting in the Great Dismal Swamp and fishing on the Outer Banks. Both areas were less than an hour’s drive from Muddy Landing. That alone was evidence that he was on the right track.

Trouble was, he’d usually been too impatient to listen. Hanging in the open doorway, baseball glove in hand, he’d been like, yeah, yeah, look, I gotta run now, the guys are waiting. He wished now he’d paid more attention when his dad had had a few beers and got to rambling, but at the time about all he’d been interested in was playing pickup baseball and showing off his best stuff in case any girls were watching.

Speaking of girls—or in this case, women—he had a feeling the woman in the black raincoat was the same one he’d spoken to on the phone, the one who’d referred him to Blalock. Hadn’t Blalock said that Snow’s nurse was still staying at the house, winding up a few things? Kell thought it was damned decent of her to show up at the funeral. Not many others had bothered. Dressed the way she was, with those wraparound shades, she’d reminded him of one of those mysterious women you saw in movies standing alone at some high-class funeral. They always turned out to be the Other Woman.

The question was, whose Other Woman was the lady in black? Half Uncle Harvey’s?

If Blalock knew, he wasn’t talking. After only a couple of brief conversations before and after the graveside service, Kell got the distinct impression that the banker was reluctant to uncover any possible link between his client and Kell’s father. From an executor’s point of view, a relative coming in from left field at this stage of the game might muddy up the waters. Blalock struck him as the kind of guy who liked his waters nice and clear with no hidden snags.

Kell should have assured him right off the bat that he wasn’t interested in the estate. Now that it was too late to meet his relative, all he wanted was a chance to learn more about his father’s early life and maybe even meet a few cousins if any lived nearby.

The trail had split some fifty-odd years ago when sixteen-year-old Evander Magee had left home. Kell, who’d been fourteen when both his parents had died in the fire that had blazed through their double-wide, burning any documentary evidence they might have possessed, had never even thought about his roots until recently. The combination of watching his fortieth birthday barrel down on him and becoming a godfather to his best friend’s twin sons had set him to thinking about family.

That’s when Kell had first confronted the fact that he was the last in the Magee line. That was a pretty heavy burden on the shoulders of a man who had conscientiously avoided anything that even smelled like commitment.

He thought again about the bedraggled blonde in black. Kell liked blondes. He liked women, period—wearing black or any other color. Better yet, wearing nothing at all. She’d sounded pretty cool on the phone. She’d looked cold, wet and miserable in the flesh.

He wondered if she’d thawed out yet.

The day of the funeral seemed endless. By late afternoon the rain had finally tapered off. While her friends, who evidently thought she shouldn’t be left alone, sipped iced tea and leafed through an old issue of Southern Living, an exhausted Daisy relaxed in the dark green cane rocker on a screened porch that had been damaged in the hurricane and never repaired. She watched rose-tinted clouds float over the hedgerow, smelled the fresh green scent of broken branches and wet, overgrown pittosporum. This was her favorite place to sit as long as the mosquitoes weren’t too bad.

It had been slightly more than two months since Hurricane Isabel had come whipping across the sound, roaring upriver all the way to Muddy Landing and beyond. Things were still in a mess. Construction workers, already pushed to the limit building those little starter houses that were springing up like toadstools, had quit building to repair hurricane damage. The owner of her apartment building kept making excuses as to why the place wasn’t ready for reoccupancy, and she understood, she really did, but darn it, she couldn’t stay here much longer. She had her own life to get on with.

Sprawled out in the glider, Marty and Sasha were talking about a DVD they had recently rented, arguing the merits of Jude Law over Johnny Depp. Daisy wished they would leave so she could get on with the job of going through closets, drawers and shelves, and helping Faylene give one last cleaning to rooms that hadn’t been used in decades. Maybe tomorrow she’d feel more like shopping and doing something about her hair, but not now. Not when she was surrounded by reminders of a gentle man whose entire adult life had been filled with pain and loneliness.

“Stop mooning about that poor man. He lived a full life,” Sasha said.

“I doubt it,” Marty murmured. “Didn’t you say he was bedridden, Daisy?”

“Only the last few months. After his strokes. Before that he got around just fine in his chair. And I’m not mooning, I’m tired. I promised Eg—Mr. Blalock we’d have the house ready to show by the end of next week.”

“Show to who? Whom?”

She shrugged. “All those people who’ve been calling, I guess.” She drifted off again, thinking of all that needed doing and where to draw the line. Thank goodness she had never collected much beyond her clothes, a few nice pieces of furniture and a shelfful of her favorite authors, the latter thanks to Marty’s generous discount. That was one of the benefits of having a bookseller for a friend.

Sasha said, “Well, he’s always been pleasant to me, even when he had cars lined up waiting for service.”

Who, Harvey? Daisy jerked her meandering thoughts back to the present. Being nice to a gorgeous redhead was no big deal, but since when had Harvey had cars lined up? He hadn’t driven in years. Didn’t even own a car anymore.

“His garage is neat as a pin—for a garage, that is. And we know he’s honest,” Sasha continued.

Oh. They must be talking about Faylene’s potential suitor. “How do we know that?” Daisy wasn’t particularly interested in the prospective match. If they’d been talking about matching up anyone but Faylene she might have opted out, but none of them could get along without the housekeeper. If Faylene wasn’t happy, someone had darned well better find out why and do something about it.

“For one thing,” the redhead explained, “when he changed my oil and rotated my tires last week he charged me exactly what he charged Oren.” Oren being her next-door neighbor.

“Okay, so it’s just barely possible he won’t try to con her out of her life’s savings.” Having once been taken for everything she owned by a man who claimed to adore her, integrity ranked high on Daisy’s list of requirements—another area where Egbert scored in the top one percentile. “When it comes to dealing with his customers he might be trustworthy, but—”

“Look, all we’re trying to do here is get them together for a first date. They’re bound to know each other casually, the same way everybody in Muddy Landing knows everybody else here, right?” Sasha waited for nods of agreement. “So all we have to do is get the two of them up close and personal and see if anything clicks. I mean, Gus is no Joe Millionaire and Faye’s certainly not whatsername, fill in the blanks, but they’re probably about the same age—fiftyish—and they’re both single. Who knows, he might take one deep look into her eyes and—”

“And ignore everything else,” Marty said dryly. “Okay, so Gus has all his own hair and teeth, and Faye—well, you have to admit she has great legs.”

It went without saying that her hair was a disaster and her face had more wrinkles than a box of prunes. Her exact age remained a mystery, but she wore white sneakers, white shorts and support hose in all but the coldest months so that her legs, which really were shapely, appeared at first glance to be bare and smoothly tanned.

Daisy said, “He’ll freak if she takes him home with her.” Faylene lived in Crooked Creek Mobile Home Park, the small area surrounding her single-wide graced by forty-seven pieces of concrete sculpture at last count.

“So she collects art.” Sasha shrugged. “He probably collects something, most men do.” Two of her three husbands had collected other women.

“Whatever, they can work it out between them. Anyone heard anything about his sexual practices?”

“Does he practice?”

“The question is, how many hours a day does he practice?”

“No, the question is, how good is he?”

The two other women batted that particular ball back and forth until Daisy broke into a reluctant grin. Chuckling, Sasha said, “Oh, hush up, y’all know what I mean. After that last fiasco, we need to be sure of his, uh—persuasion.”

Marty said, “Methodist. You reckon he goes to any box suppers? I don’t remember seeing him there.”

“If he does, that means he probably can’t cook,” Daisy offered.

“Or that he’s big on charity.” The box suppers raised money for various charities, most recently for victims of Hurricane Isabel. The three women had found it a handy place to dish a little dirt and scout out matchmaking prospects—or as Daisy put it, victims.

“If he can thaw and microwave, that’s more than Faye can do,” Sasha reminded them.

“Here, here.” Marty lifted her glass of iced tea in a toast. “So are we going to do boxes for the next supper?” We, meaning Daisy. The other two women provided the raw material; it was Daisy who turned it into a delectable feast. “I think it’s Wednesday after next—or maybe this coming Wednesday. What’s today’s date, anyway?”

Daisy’s attention had strayed again. Maybe she should try one of those short, spiky cuts. Or maybe not. Egbert probably preferred a more conservative style. “Hmm? What date? Oh, Faylene’s date.”

Sasha glanced at her watch, which, depending on the button pushed, revealed everything from the phase of the moon to the Dow Jones averages. “Okay, this is Friday—it’s this coming Wednesday. Outside if the weather holds, in the community center if it rains or turns out cold.”