Downhome Darlin' & The Best Man Switch by Victoria Pade Read Free Book Online Page A

threatened with a glint of mischief in the sidelong glance he shot her way.
    â€œWhat does that mean?”
    He only shrugged and grinned.
    â€œMy reputation will already be in shreds after you were seen carrying me out of that bar last night.”
    â€œThought that’s what you wanted—to show folks you were different than they thought you were.”
    â€œMaybe not that different.”
    â€œWhat’ll they be sayin’ if I start showin’ up to howl at the moon under your bedroom window every night?”
    â€œThat you’re a lunatic.”
    He laughed. “And that all sorts of things must have gone on between us to drive me crazy.” He pulled up in front of her house and stopped the car. “So what’ll it be? Show me the best place to watch the sunset or have me raisin’ a ruckus under your window?”
    â€œThis smacks of blackmail, you know.”
    â€œDoesn’t it, though?” he answered with yet another grin. “Tonight at eight?”
    She wasn’t sure whether or not he’d actually make good on his threat. And it wasn’t really much of a threat to begin with. So she could have refused. Could have and should have.
    But she did owe him for driving her home the night before. For not taking advantage of her or of the situation.
    â€œOkay,” she said. “Eight o’clock.”
    His grin turned victorious, and he leaned across the seat as if to kiss her again.
    Only she leaned back farther and faster than he leaned forward, avoiding his lips.
    â€œBut don’t get any ideas,” she warned as she got out of the car and closed the door behind her.
    â€œToo late. I already have plenty of ’em.”
    He pulled away from the curb then, and she could hear him laughing devilishly as he did.
    What’s gotten into me? she asked herself, watching his car as long as she could see it and knowing she should not have plans to spend any amount of time with the man again. Not when she couldn’t hold her own with him. And what did he want with someone like her, anyway, when even the town accountant hadn’t found her exciting enough?
    So call the man and tell him you won’t go after all, she ordered herself.
    But she knew she wasn’t going to do that. Crazy as it seemed not to.
    And it did seem crazy.
    Because here she was, shy, quiet, predictable, provincial, prudish Abby Stanton.
    Playing with fire.

3
    â€œF INALLY.”
    â€œIt’s about time.”
    The voices of Abby’s sisters came from inside the house as she turned from the curb after watching Cal Ketchum drive off. Bree was apparently on the lookout upstairs at the bay window in one of the four bedrooms—the one they’d used as a guest room since their brother, Lucas, had left. Emily was standing at the window downstairs that opened onto the round turret that wrapped one corner of the two-story white clapboard Victorian house.
    Abby just waved without calling any kind of answer back to her sisters because she didn’t want to draw any more of their neighbors’ attention than she already had.
    She headed for the house, struck as she always was by how beautiful the old place was, how much it looked like a dollhouse. Wide porches followed the line of the multicantilevered and gabled front and the turret on both levels, with spindled railings and poles making the turret look like a double-decker, attached gazebo.
    A steep roof topped the house, and an octagonal roof finished off the turret, keeping it from being stark. Gingerbread latticework accentuated all the overhangs, and beveled glass surrounded the carved entrance door.
    But in spite of how inviting her home was, there was no speed in Abby’s climb up the six steps that lifted her into the cool shade where white wicker chairs, a swing and two settees all with flowered cushions waited for someone to while away the early-summer days. She wasn’t anxious to face her sisters and