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She squared her shoulders and headed toward him, determined not to lose her cool.

  * * *

  DORIAN WAS BACK sooner than Deke expected, her figure in the sarong drawing admiring glances from passersby.

  “My friend isn’t home,” she said. “I guess I’ll have to call a cab, only the phone ate the quarter. You wouldn’t happen to have another one, would you?” She avoided his eyes, and he wondered if the friend she had called was a man. A woman who looked like this one must have a boyfriend, he figured.

  Deke turned out the pockets of his jeans, but no change presented itself. “Sorry,” he said. He was overly aware of the way men were ogling her skimpy costume, but he thought maybe he’d better not offer his jacket. It was a gesture that she might somehow misinterpret, considering her mood.

  She sighed. “So I’ll be late for my next job,” she said. “It’s about what I expected.” She looked so crestfallen that Deke wanted to—

  But no. He had no business entertaining thoughts of kissing her. He didn’t even know her last name. Yet.

  “My car is right over there,” he said cautiously. “I could drop you off.”

  “The Big Bad Wolf. Jack the Ripper. I’m sure you get the idea,” she said. She reached inside the car for her duffel bag. As she leaned over, the sarong hiked up, affording Deke a better look at her legs. The brief glimpse renewed his determination.

  “It’s not as if I’m a complete stranger. You’ve known me for a while,” he said. He glanced at his watch. “At least half an hour.”

  “What I have learned about you,” she retorted, “has not put me at ease. Though you do look rather familiar.” She studied him thoughtfully, her full lower lip caught between pearly white teeth. A wisp of blond hair, as fine and as inspirational as moonbeams, fell across one high and rounded cheekbone. It was all Deke could do not to brush it away.

  “You may have read about me in the Journal and Constitution last weekend,” he said helpfully. “In the business section. With a picture and everything.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “You’re not that guy who gets telepathic messages through the fillings in his teeth, are you?” she asked.

  Deke was momentarily disconcerted before he remembered another feature story that he had read at about the same time.

  “I was a day or two after that guy,” he told her.

  “Refresh my memory.”

  “The article was about tea. Dr. Feelgood’s Herbal Teas, to be more specific. We sell ten single herb teas and fifteen blends,” he said, not without pride.

  She stared at him. “You’re that fellow? The thirty-two-year-old millionaire who started out grubbing herbs for farmers’ markets in the north Georgia mountains and parlayed his business into a multimillion-dollar empire? When you were only in your twenties?”

  “The same,” Deke said modestly.

  “Well,” she said. “No wonder you can afford to buy overpriced Caribbee products for people with purple hair.”

  “I don’t make a practice of it,” Deke said. “It’s just that I really wanted to meet you.”

  “It worked,” she said dryly.

  “Yeah, sort of.” He smiled at her, and to his surprise, she smiled back. Her smile unleashed a radiance that outshone the sun, which was fading fast in the western sky. That reminded Deke that she’d said she would be late for work.

  “So back to what we were talking about. Can I give you a lift?”

  “I guess so. All right, let’s go,” she said.

  “Want me to carry that?” he asked, looking at the duffel bag slung over her shoulder.

  “Thanks, but I’m used to it.”

  “This way,” he said, scarcely believing that this dream woman, this fantasy in a sarong, was at this very moment walking calmly alongside him toward his car.

  “You know my name is Dorian,” she said. “You might as well tell me yours.”

  “Deke. Deke Washburn,” he said. He led her to his car, a Jeep Wagoneer. He’d left his Mercedes sedan back home in his garage in Rabun County, which was where it stayed most of the time. He’d never been able to get the hang of driving something that practically hollered money and privilege when he drove it down the street, especially since the street where he lived outside the town of Mabry on Blue Lake was a dusty, unpaved rural road.

  “I’ll sit in back,” Dorian said when he unlocked the Wagoneer’s door on the passenger side. Before he could object, she had unlocked the back door. She clambered nimbly into the rear and unzipped the duffel.

  Deke, soberly pondering what this move on her part actually meant, walked around to the other side and got in behind the steering wheel. The weather was hot due to temperatures approaching ninety on this bright May day, and he rolled down the windows while he waited for the air-conditioning to kick in.

  “Are you sitting in back because you think I’ll do something to you?” he asked as he buckled his seat belt.

  “As in Big Bad Wolf? As in Jack the Ripper? No, you’ll see why once we get going. Head toward I-285, will you?” She was rummaging as she spoke, but he couldn’t check the rearview mirror to see what she was doing because he had to concentrate on his driving as he eased into the fearsome traffic on Georgia 400.

  In the back seat, Dorian was holding up bits and pieces of clothing from the duffel bag.

  “I know I put the panty hose in here,” he heard her mutter under her breath. “Now where are they?”

  “Is everything okay?” he asked. A black Camaro streaked in front of him, and he slammed on the brakes. Dorian yelped, and then her head appeared over the top of his seat. She looked frightened.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  “I’d like to get there in one piece,” she told him.

  “Don’t worry, you will,” he said, but she only raised her eyebrows and started sorting items of clothing. “Say, I-285 is coming up. Which way should I go?” he asked after a while.

  “West.”

  He made the turn, eased off the ramp into traffic, and then looked in the mirror to check the view. And what a view. Dorian had unwound the sarong to reveal a lacy black bra. She seemed oblivious to his goggle-eyed stare. Too soon she wriggled into a slip and a black silk something with a draped neckline. Horns sounded loudly to his left; in his moment of inattention, he had inadvertently slid into the passing lane. He wrenched the steering wheel sharply to the right, but when he returned his attention to the show in the back seat, his passenger was already shimmying into a black-and-white houndstooth-check skirt.

  “You don’t have to look,” she told him when she saw him staring at her. “I’m used to it, though. In the theater, fast costume changes are a matter of course, and it doesn’t much matter who’s watching.”

  Deke found his voice. “You’re an actress, too?”

  “Most of the time. That’s when I’m not waitressing or doing temp office work or passing out samples of Caribbee. Though I should have had my head examined when I agreed to that job.”

  Leaning over the front seat to take advantage of the rearview mirror, she poked large faux pearl earrings into the holes in her ears. She studied the effect momentarily before retreating to the back seat again, leaving a subtle flowery scent wafting in her wake. Whatever her perfume was, it wasn’t the new exotic fragrance by Naiad, thank goodness.

  By this time, she had bent down with her head between her knees and was vigorously brushing her long hair, chattering all the while.

  “Of course, there just aren’t enough jobs for actresses in this town, and that’s the truth,” she said, her voice muffled. “Still, a person has to eat. It boils down to taking whatever job you can get sometimes. I always tell myself that I have a better chance of being discovered if I’m out in front of the public, and I console myself that any major Broadway producer could come to Atlanta to visit his mother or sister or somebody and walk in and see me pushing Caribbee. Well, it didn’t happen. Instead, who do I meet? A guy who sells tea.” She tossed her hair back and her head up.

  “No
offense,” she said quickly when she saw the hurt expression on his face. “At the moment, I’m glad I did.” She gazed out at the rapidly passing highway signs on the side of the interstate highway. “Okay, now you need to take the next exit, then turn right,” she said after a few moments. She tugged a braid-trimmed jacket on over the black silk blouse and smoothed it down over her hips.

  The green exit sign had barely come into view when Deke realized that half of a pair of panty hose was dangling over the front seat.

  “Don’t look,” Dorian commanded, but how could he not look when she was yanking up her tight skirt and unrolling sheer black nylon over shapely calves and thighs? As she pulled the hose over her hips, Deke swallowed hard and forced himself to negotiate the exit without having an accident, but his temperature had risen a good ten degrees before he even caught a glimpse of the tender pink flesh on the inside of those flawless thighs.

  “Now,” she said, pulling her skirt down before fastening a gold bracelet around her wrist. “I’m almost finished. All I need to do is put on the shoes. Turn left at the light, please.” She opened a compact and began to apply bright red lipstick with deft strokes. The effect was stunning, though it seemed to Deke like a case of gilding the lily.

  “Where are we going, exactly?” he asked, striving for a normal tone of voice.

  “It’s a mystery.”

  “I think you’d better tell me—” he said as he turned at the light.

  Dorian laughed, sending a silvery peal of notes cascading over the back of the seat and directly into his ear. He thought he’d never heard a more delightful sound.

  “Okay, here we are—the Moonlight & Magnolias Restaurant. Thanks for the lift,” she said, jumping out before he’d even pulled to a complete stop. He realized belatedly that he didn’t even know her last name.

  A uniformed parking attendant approached the Wagoneer. “You’ll have to move, sir. You’re blocking a delivery truck.”

  Sure enough, a Mack truck was breathing down the Wagoneer’s tail pipe.

  “Do I need a reservation to go to dinner here?” he asked the guy.

  “Yessir, you sure do. A week in advance is when folks usually make them.”

  “Well, put me down in case you have a cancellation. My name’s Deke Washburn. Did you get that?”

  “Sure enough, I got it, but there never is a cancellation at this restaurant,” the attendant said dubiously.

  Deke tossed him a twenty-dollar bill. “See what you can do. I’ll be back.”

  “Yessir,” said the attendant, staring at the bill in his hand.

  Deke gunned the engine and went looking for a mall with a men’s clothing store. The sign on the door of Moonlight & Magnolias had stated in big capital letters, No One Admitted Without A Tie.

  For the first time he conceded that Larissa had been right. He needed a tie. And he was going to do everything in his power to find one immediately, even if he had to buy one off the neck of a man in the street.

  Suddenly he realized that he hadn’t even asked Dorian what it was that she did at the restaurant. She had mentioned working as a waitress, but since when did a waitress wear a well-cut houndstooth-check suit to work?

  Chapter Two

  The only thing Deke took his time about was choosing a tie. The Goodwill Store had so many.

  There were wide paisleys and narrow paisleys, bolos and bows, and even a blue polyester ascot, which he knew right away was not his type. Maybe a solid color, he thought when he spied the red silk, but he discarded it when he saw a grease spot.

  Finally he grabbed a handful of ties and raced to the front counter.

  “I have absolutely no experience in buying ties,” he told the clerk at the register as he spread the ties out in front of her. “Which one do you think would look best on me?”

  The clerk took in his jeans and rumpled jacket. Deke had worn the jacket as a concession to Larissa, but the clerk seemed disdainful of it. After looking him over thoroughly, she pointed to a navy blue one with a small pattern.

  “This foulard is nice,” she said, fingering the fabric. “Yes, that would look good on you.”

  “I’ll take it,” he said. “How much?”

  “A quarter,” said the clerk.

  “Twenty-five cents?” he asked in disbelief.

  “Yes, sir,” said the clerk.

  “Gosh, that’s great. I mean, what a bargain.”

  “We’ve got a whole store full of bargains. Men’s clothing on your left, women’s clothing on your right, housewares and children’s clothing at the back,” the clerk said.

  “Yes, well, I guess I’ll wear this one but take all of them.” Deke slung the tie around his neck and peered into a nearby mirror. “I don’t suppose you’d know how to tie this,” he said in exasperation. He had never learned to tie a Windsor knot.

  The clerk, who was bagging the other ties Deke had chosen, did indeed know how, and Deke walked out of the store pleased with the way he looked but confused about other things. It was a strange world where shower gel cost 24.95 in a department store, but a tie cost only a quarter in a thrift shop.

  In minutes a sartorially circumspect Deke was standing outside the Moonlight & Magnolias restaurant, badgering the parking attendant.

  “You were going to get me inside,” Deke reminded him.

  “They’ve already started eating,” the attendant told him with a shake of his grizzled head.

  “I’ve got to get in. Surely there’s an extra table. I’ll double up with someone, anyone, if you can get me in,” Deke said in desperation.

  “Twenty dollars got you a parking spot. It might take more than that to get you inside,” the attendant said carefully.

  Deke pulled another twenty from his wallet. He didn’t care how much it cost; he had to see Dorian.

  The attendant pocketed the bill. “You wait here,” he said, slipping through the door.

  Deke cooled his heels. He’d never heard of this restaurant before, although it certainly seemed exclusive. Filled up at this hour? Not taking any reservations? It was ridiculous. It was—

  The door opened a crack. “Come inside,” someone whispered.

  Deke stepped inside and found himself in a dim foyer papered in flocked red-and-gold wallpaper, which reminded him of a French bawdy house—or at least what he had seen of them in the movies.

  “Follow the hostess,” the parking attendant said. “She’s found a place for you. I had to give her the twenty you just handed me, though.” The man waited expectantly.

  Deke pressed another twenty into his hand. “Do you know Dorian’s last name?” Deke asked him.

  “Can’t say that I do. Enjoy your dinner, sir.” With that, the man silently opened the door and disappeared.

  “Come with me,” said the hostess. Deke followed her through huge padded swinging doors into a big room, where people were sitting at small, elegantly appointed tables for four. A man in white tie and tails sat down at a grand piano in one corner and began to ripple off a few chords as a warm-up.

  “I’ve put you with the Larsons,” the hostess whispered. “There are three of them, and they didn’t mind if you made the fourth at their table.” She looked him up and down dubiously, and he realized that he was—despite his tie—underdressed.

  “Well, I might as well go ahead and seat you,” the hostess said with a sigh.

  “Do you know Dorian’s last name?” he thought to ask her as they approached a table in a corner where three elderly women sat.

  “I don’t know anyone named Dorian,” she said, which made him wonder if the employees at this place ever communicated. Someone around here must know Dorian.

  “Hello,” said the woman on his right as he sat down.

  “Hello” and “Hello,” chorused the other two.

  Sisters, he thought. The three of them looked disconcertingly alike with fuzzy, thin hair, buck teeth and quivering chins. They were all eighty years old if they were a day, and they wore elegantly beaded outfits that
would have bought Manhattan two hundred times over back when Peter Minuit was bargain-shopping with the Indians.

  “Hi,” he said, treating them to the full magnitude of his boyish grin.

  It worked. They all simpered.

  “We’re the Larsons—Pansy, Rose and Lily,” said the woman on his left, and the others nodded eagerly.

  “I’m Deke,” he said.

  “Deke,” said Rose, sidling closer. “Interesting name.”

  “A nickname,” he said.

  “For what?” asked Lily, leaning so far forward that the beads on her chest dipped into her soup, which was fortunately split pea, so it blended with the color of her pea-green dress.

  “I was christened Donald Kirby, after two relatives. The names didn’t stick. I’ve always been Deke,” he explained. A waiter set a salad in front of him, and he picked up his fork.

  “Our mother had a garden,” Rose said earnestly. “She said her life was a garden, too, and she wanted to fill it with flowers.”

  Deke smiled politely and took a bite of salad. Unless Dorian showed up soon, it was going to be a long dinner.

  The piano player stopped playing for a moment and lit a cigarette. A woman walked through a door behind the piano and slid her arm around the piano player’s shoulders.

  “Why, Harry,” she said in delight, so loudly that everyone in the room could hear. “I haven’t seen you in ages. How have you been?”

  The piano player brightened at the sound of her voice. Deke did, too. The woman was Dorian.

  “Well, Toots, I’ve been fine. It sure took you long enough to find me,” said the piano player. He was looking at Dorian in an openly admiring way, and there was an undercurrent of sexuality sparking between them. Deke set down his salad fork.

  “Nice seeing you,” Dorian said, much to Deke’s relief, and then she walked away.

  Deke relaxed in his chair. “Who is that guy, anyway?” he asked Pansy.

  “The pianist? Part of the— Oh, my. Will you look at who she’s with,” Pansy said.

  Deke followed her gaze, and, in fact, that of everyone else’s in the room. Dorian was now moving toward a table on the arm of a distinguished gray-haired man who was elegantly attired in a custom-tai-lored suit.