The Dixie Belle's Guide to Love by Luanne Jones Read Free Book Online

intimidated her even more. From her father’s immaturity to Pernel’s eccentricities, life had not prepared her to handle a real man—well, not to handle him, but to—
    “That’s it, baby.” Will interrupted her thoughts. He stepped away from the booth and aimed another imagined swing at the dingy brick wall. “It’d be over before you knew what hit it.”
    Rita liked the way his black hair curled against his tanned neck in stark contrast to his soft white shirt. He no longer had the long, lean lines of a young athlete, but that only heightened his appeal to her. If, she quickly corrected herself, a man like that could ever even remotely appeal to a smart, principled, down-to-earth woman like her.
    “We can do this, Rita.” He faced her. “I know we can do it.”
    “You think?” The driest whisper she’d ever heard came from her lips.
    “I know we can, if you want to pursue it.”
    “Pursue…it?”
    “…don’t kid yourself, ladies, this is about sex. It’s about passion and tension and longing for something more. It’s about tearing everything down that doesn’t work any longer, about getting tired and sweaty and when it’s done about producing something worthwhile. It’s about rebirth and bursting through to the next level.” Cozette’s words came back to haunt her.
    “Yeah, pursue it, follow through, go after it. What do you say?”
    “Let’s do it!” She said it, all right. But danged if she had planned to say it, at least not with that much energy. “But let’s not get too carried away. Can’t we take it nice and easy? Do a few things and see how that goes then decide if it needs more work after that?”
    “We’ll have to yank those out.” Will scratched something down on his already crowded legal pad, then pointed his pencil at the row of shabby booths in the back. “Yank ’em out and have ourselves a great big ole Tennessee bonfire.”
    “Baby steps, that’s what’s in order here.” She pinched her thumb and finger together, but he did not even look her way.
    “And while we’re at it let’s toss this lunch counter onto the flames as well.” He slammed his palm onto the worn surface.
    Their half-empty glasses of iced tea shuddered at the impact.
    He took a drink from his, then clunked it back down as he swept his gaze over the room. The air around them practically shimmered with his enthusiasm. “I bet I can come up with a working list of recommendations by nightfall. Tomorrow we can go over specifics and talk budget, and then I can get moving.”
    “Don’t feel you need to hurry on my account.”
    If he picked up on her sarcasm, it didn’t show as he settled down on a vinyl-covered stool at the counter. He fanned the pages of his notes a few times, his shoulders hunched forward and his back to her. “No need to drag my part in all this out. At this rate I can be back in Memphis in time for a late dinner at the Rendezvous.”
    “Good. Hate for something as trivial as my uprooting and reordering my entire life to put a cramp in your plans for the weekend.”
    He spun halfway around to look her way. “What?”
    “Nothing.”
    “Yeah, I thought it was nothing.” He grinned, more with his eyes than with his lips.
    He had heard her. He just wanted the satisfaction of making her say something so ungrateful and rude to his smarmy, smug, drop-her-dead-where-she-stood handsome face.
    “I think you actually like it when I say something meant to put you in your place, Mr. West.”
    “Call me Will.” He took another slug of tea, which was mostly sugary dregs and melting ice. He cracked one of the round pieces of ice in his mouth and gave her a wink like they’d shared some naughty secret. “ Especially when you’re saying something intended to put me in my place.”
    What a truly twisted individual. Unless, of course, that was his way of showing her he knew the truth about himself. Could Wild Billy, at one time every inch the self-loving donkey-headed bastard she’d