sexy laugh that men wanted to hear again and again?
She had passed forty with every asset still intact, so
why was she chasing around the state of North Carolina
looking for this particular man? Yes, he had money
and yes, she was tired of worrying about how she was
going to pay the mortgage on Jackson House, her B&B
down in Wilmington; but he was not the first man with
money to want to put a ring on her finger and another
one through her nose. He was not classically handsome,
he needed to lose at least twenty pounds, he could be
crude and rough, and like many self-made men she had
known, he seemed to have the ethics of a polecat. But
he was hung like a prize bull, he was surprisingly unself-
ish in bed, and he made her laugh.
The older she got, the more important that was
becoming.
All the same, if he thought she was going to sit around
cooling her heels while he took his sweet time to let her
know why he’d broken both their date and his word, he
had another thought coming, she told herself. It could
have been fun for both of them, but
Enough was enough.
She stopped for gas on the east side of Raleigh and
bought a Coke for caffeine and a BC powder for her
headache. To hell with Buck Harris. She would go back
to Wilmington, make sure things continued to run
130
HARD ROW
smoothly at Jackson House, and then maybe she would
give ol’ what’s-his-name a call. The guy who had de-
veloped one of the first planned communities along the
river. The one who kept sending her orchids and roses.
What the devil
Buck, but what the hell? Maybe solid and dependable
would wear better in the long run.
As I-40 veered southeast through Colleton County,
her headache eased off and she flipped on the radio,
turning the dial to an amusing local country station.
Solemn organ music played softly beneath a somber
voice that enunciated proper names, followed by the
name of a funeral home.
Flame had to laugh. Just what she needed—the local
obituaries. “Add Mr. Effin’ Buck Harris to your list,”
she told the announcer. “From now on that SOB is
dead to me.”
Obituaries were followed by the latest county news:
the weekend had produced four car wrecks and a motor-
cycle accident for a total of three deaths. Several com-
puters had been stolen from a Dobbs middle school. An
employee with the county’s planning board had been
