the door panel, was a man so outrageously good-looking, so devastatingly handsome, that for a moment she thought she might actually have hallucinated him right along with the Perrier and the sliver of lime. As the handle of her suitcase dug into her palm, she took in the classic lines of his face, the molded cheekbones and lean jaw, the straight, perfect nose, and then his eyes, which were a brilliant Paul Newman blue and as thickly lashed as her own. How could a mortal man have eyes like that? How could a man have such an incredibly generous mouth and still look so masculine? Thick, dark blond hair curled up over the edges of a blue billed cap sporting an American flag. She could see the top of a formidable pair of shoulders, the well-formed muscles of his tanned forearm, and for one irrational moment she felt a crazy stab of panic.
She had finally met someone as beautiful as she was.
'You carryin' any Confederate secrets underneath those skirts?' the man said with a grin that revealed the kind of teeth that belonged on magazine pages and made people count back guiltily to the last time they'd flossed.
'I think the Yankees cut out her tongue, Dallie.'
For the first time, Francesca became aware of another man, this one leaning out the back window. As she took in his sinister face and ominously slitted eyes, warning bells clanged in her head.
'Either that or she's a spy from the North,' he went on. 'Never knew a southern woman to keep quiet for so long.'
'You a Yankee spy, darlin'?' Mr. Gorgeous asked, flashing those incredible teeth. 'Pryin' out Confederate secrets with those pretty green eyes?'
She was suddenly conscious of her vulnerability-the deserted road, the failing sunlight, two strange men, the fact that she was in America, not safe at home in England. In America people packed loaded guns on their way to church, and criminals roamed the streets at will. She glanced nervously at the man in the back seat. He looked like someone who would torture small animals just for fun. What should she do? No one would hear her if she screamed, and she had no way to protect herself.
'Shoot, Skeet, you're scaring her. Pull that ugly head of yours in, will you?'
Skeet's head retracted, and the gorgeous man with the strange name she hadn't quite caught lifted one perfect eyebrow, waiting for her to say something. She decided to brave it out-to be brisk, matter-of-fact, and under no circumstances let them see how desperate she actually was.
'I'm awfully afraid I've gotten myself into a bit of a muddle,' she said, setting down her suitcase.
'I seem to have lost my way. Frightful nuisance, of course.'
Skeet poked his head back out the window. Mr. Gorgeous grinned.
She kept going doggedly. 'Perhaps you could tell me how far it is to the next petrol station. Or anywhere
I might find a telephone, actually.'
'You're from England, aren't you?' Skeet asked. 'Dallie, do you hear the funny way she talks? She's a English lady, is what she is.'
Francesca watched as Mr. Gorgeous-could someone really be named Dallie?-swept his gaze down over the pink and white ruffles of her gown. 'I'll bet you got one hell of a story to tell, honey. Come on and hop in. We'll give you a lift to the next telephone.'
She hesitated. Getting into a car with two strange men didn't strike her as the absolute wisest course to take, but she couldn't seem to think of an alternative. She stood in the road, ruffles dragging in the dust and suitcases at her feet, while an unfamiliar combination of fear and uncertainty made her feel queasy.
Skeet leaned all the way out the window and tilted his head to look at Dallie. 'She's afraid you're rapist scum gettin' ready to ruin her.' He turned back to her. 'You take a good hard look at Dallie's pretty
face, ma'am, and then tell me if you think a man with a face like that has to resort to violatin' unwilling women.'
He definitely had a point, but somehow Francesca didn't feel comforted. The man named Dallie wasn't actually the person she was most worried about.
Dallie seemed to read her mind, which, considering the circumstances, probably wasn't all that difficult a thing to do. 'Don't worry about Skeet, honey,' he said. 'Skeet's a dyed-in-the-wool misogynist, is what he is.'
That word, coming from the mouth of someone who, despite his incredible good looks, had the accent and manner of a functional illiterate, surprised her. She was still hesitating when the door of the car opened and a pair of dusty cowboy boots hit the road. Dear God… She swallowed hard and looked up-way up.
His body was as perfect as his face.
He wore a navy blue T-shirt that skimmed the muscles of his chest, outlining biceps and triceps and all sorts of other incredible things, and a pair of jeans faded almost to white everywhere except at the frayed seams. His stomach was flat, his hips narrow; he was lean and leggy, several inches over six feet tall, and he absolutely took her breath away. It must be true, she thought wildly, what everyone said about Americans and vitamin pills.
'The trunk's full, so I'm gonna have to throw your cases in the back seat with Skeet there.'
'That's fine. Anywhere will do.' As he walked toward her, she turned the full force of her smile on him. She couldn't help it; the response was automatic, programmed into her Serritella genes. Not appearing at her best before a man this spectacular, even if he was a backwoods bumpkin, suddenly seemed more painful than the blisters on her feet. At that moment she would have given anything she owned for half an hour in front of a mirror with the contents of her cosmetic case and the white linen Mary McFadden that was hanging in a Piccadilly resale shop right next to her periwinkle blue evening pajamas.
He stopped where he was and stared down at her.
For the first time since she'd left London, she felt as if she'd arrived in home territory. The expression
on his face confirmed a fact she had discovered long ago-men were men the world over. She peered upward with innocent, radiant eyes. 'Something the matter?'
'Do you always do that?'
'Do what?' The dimple in her cheek deepened.
'Proposition a man less than five minutes after you meet him.'
'Proposition!' She couldn't believe she'd heard him correctly, and she exclaimed indignantly, 'I was most certainly not propositioning you.'
'Honey, if that smile wasn't a proposition, I don't know what one is.' He picked up her cases and carried them to the other side of the car. 'Normally I wouldn't mind, you understand, but it strikes me as just short of foolhardy to be hanging out your advertising when you're in the middle of nowhere with two strange men who might be pervert scum, for all you know.'
'My advertising!' She stomped her foot on the road. 'Put those suitcases down this minute! I wouldn't
go anywhere with you if my life depended on it.'
He glanced around at the scrub pine and the deserted road. 'From the looks of things, it's getting mighty close.'
She didn't know what to do. She needed help, yet his behavior was insufferable, and she hated the idea
of demeaning herself by getting in the car. He took the choice away from her when he pulled open the back door and unceremoniously shoved the luggage at Skeet.
'Be careful with those,' she cried, racing up to the car. 'They're Louis Vuitton!'
'You picked a real live one this time, Dallie,' Skeet muttered from the back.
'Don't I just know it,' Dallie replied. He climbed behind the wheel, slammed the door, and then leaned out the window to look at her. 'If you want to retain possession of your luggage, honey, you'd better
get inside real quick, because in exactly ten seconds, I'm slipping the old Riviera into gear and me and
Mr. Vee-tawn won't be anything to you but a distant memory.'
She limped around the back of the car to the passenger door on the other side, tears struggling to reach the surface. She felt humiliated, frightened, and-worst of all- helpless. A hairpin slid down the back
of her neck and fell into the dirt.
Unfortunately, her discomfiture was just beginning. Hoopskirts, she quickly discovered, had not been designed to fit into a modern automobile. Refusing to look at either of her rescuers to see how they were reacting to her difficulties, she finally eased onto the seat backside first and then gathered the unwieldy volume of material into her lap as best she could.
Dallie freed the gearshift from a spillover of crinolines. 'You always dress for comfort like this?'
She glared at him, opening her mouth to deliver one of her famous snappy rejoinders only to discover
that nothing sprang to mind. They rode for some time in silence while she stared doggedly ahead, her
