The Dixie Virgin Chronicles: Bea (Book 4) Read online

  The Dixie Virgin Chronicles: Bea

  Book Four

  PEGGY WEBB

  Copyright 2013 by Peggy Webb, second edition

  Copyright Cover Design 2013 by Kim Van Meter

  Copyright © 1991 by Peggy Webb, first edition

  Smashwords Edition

  Prologue

  From: Bea ([email protected])

  To: Molly, Janet, Joanna, Clemmie, Catherine, Belinda

  Re: Home!

  Another Mr. Right turned out to be Mr. Wrong! He broke up via text message. Can you believe that!!! What a coward! It boggles my mind how many men start out with potential and then end up nowhere close to the altar! At this rate, Virginia will be bald and gray before anybody get close enough to even say hello, let alone get up close and personal!

  I can’t wait to get back to Alabama! I need this break from my boss! She’s like Meryl Streep’s character in The Devil Wears Prada! Only worse! When I get home, Mother will tell me everything is going to be all right. I know better, of course, but still it helps to hear her say it.

  And Molly, it will be amazing to see you. You and Sam will be at the family reunion, won’t you? I still can’t believe you married my brother!!!! Don’t let him turn you into a banker’s wife! Just stay the same mischievous Dixie Virgin we all love and adore! Of course, you’re not technically a virgin anymore, but I can’t even go there!!!!

  Dang, I hope this new car makes it. Well, it’s used, very used, but it’s new to me. It’s a red Jag; can you believe it!!! I look like a million bucks in this car!

  Hugs,

  Bea

  From: Molly ([email protected])

  To: Bea, Belinda, Janet, Joanna, Clemmie, Catherine

  Re: Florence

  OMG, my honeymoon in Paris was AWESOME!!!! We’re back in Florence now, settling into Sam’s house. Of course, we’ll be there! OH, Bea, I can’t wait to see you!!!

  Me? Perfectly proper and non-controversial? NEVER!

  Much love,

  Molly

  From: Janet ([email protected])

  To: Molly, Bea, Clemmie, Catherine, Belinda, Joanna

  Re: Breaking Up

  Hang in there, Bea. Breakups can’t be easy. I think I’d die if Dan ever told me he was leaving! Oh, did I tell you! I’ve got a job offer at the hospital here in Tupelo, which is such a relief! Now, I can concentrate on getting my husband to cut out the junk food and eat healthy!

  Listen, Bea, have you ever thought about why you keep breaking up? What man in his right mind would ditch you! I think you may be subconsciously pushing them away because of the way Taylor Adams left. I know this isn’t easy to hear, but children whose fathers leave the family often have abandonment issues.

  Now that I’ve had my doctor’s say, do you want me to come to Texas and kick his ass?

  Xo

  Janet

  From: Belinda ([email protected])

  To: Bea, Molly, Janet, Joanna, Clemmie, Catherine

  Re: Pregnant

  Bea, I do wish you could find a wonderful man like Reeve. He worships the quicksand I walk on. We’re still trying to get pregnant, but I can’t seem to make a baby with him. I’m so upset!

  Janet, do you reckon I ought to go to a fertility clinic?

  XO

  Belinda

  From: Janet ([email protected])

  To: Belinda, Bea, Clemmie, Catherine, Molly, Joanna

  Re: Fertility Clinic

  No, Belinda! Give nature a chance to take its course.

  Janet

  From: Clemmie ([email protected])

  To: Bea, Janet, Belinda, Catherine, Molly, Joanna

  Re: Peppertown

  Bea, if you need some extra petting, stop by the boarding house on your way to Florence. We’ll sit in the gazebo out back and laugh and cry and eat chocolate, and I’ll send you on your way with a big care package of cookies.

  Hugs,

  Clemmie

  From: Catherine ([email protected])

  To: Bea, Janet, Belinda, Molly, Clemmie, Joanna

  Re: New Orleans

  OMG, Bea. The next man who breaks up with you is going to get a piece of my mind! Not that I have much mind left! OMG, some of these veterinary medicine classes are killing me. If I didn’t have the unveiling of my Virginia to look forward to, I’d throw myself into the Mississippi River!

  XOXO

  Cat

  From: Joanna ([email protected])

  To: Bea, Molly, Catherine, Janet, Clemmie, Belinda

  Re: Unveiling Virginia

  LOL!!! Bea, I’m so mad on your behalf I’d be right there kicking butt and telling Mr. Wrong off if I could! But a RED JAG!!! You go, girlfriend!!! Even your VIRGINIA looks better in that!

  I’m sick of being stuck in Madrid with a bunch of nuns! If I ever get out of school, you’ll hear me screaming all the way across the ocean.

  Big Hugs!!!

  Joanna

  From: Bea ([email protected])

  To: Molly, Catherine, Janet, Clemmie, Belinda, Joanna

  Re: Friends

  I feel better already! As soon as I program my GPS and figure out how to let the top down on my snazzy car, I’ll be on the road!

  Bea

  Chapter One

  Bea sang along with the radio, a Justin Bieber song she’d never heard of and didn’t even like much. Still, nothing could mar her mood. The sun was shining, she was on her way home, and she had the best looking car on the road.

  Suddenly she saw a sign welcoming visitors to Toby’s Mountain Arts and Crafts. Why not? She didn’t have any particular schedule, and this was supposed to be a relaxing vacation.

  She was still humming when she turned onto a pot-holed country road that wound through some of the prettiest scenery she’d seen. The little arts and crafts shop was a log cabin tucked into the side of the mountain and crammed with everything from handmade quilts to hand carved pipes. It was just the kind of mom-and-pop store she loved. She poked into every nook and cranny, and ended up buying an armload of gifts for everybody in the family.

  By the time she loaded them into the trunk, the sun was setting and she didn’t even know how far she was from the next town. Still, she was humming as she slid behind the wheel and headed back toward the interstate.

  Just around the bend, her Jaguar coughed once and died. She’d had the car serviced before she left Dallas. How could this be happening? If she hadn’t been in such a good mood, she’d have gotten out and kicked the tires.

  She switched the radio off then and reached into her car pocket to consult her map. It appeared she was on a county road somewhere between Caddo Gap and Pearcy, Arkansas – about as far from civilization as you could get.

  If she had flown home, none of this would be happening. Of course, she might have dropped out of the sky and that would be that. Bea didn’t think the skies were friendly. You couldn’t pay her enough money to fly.

  Sitting on the lonely road with her car refusing to budge, she wished she was the kind of woman who called her travel agent and booked herself on airplanes going everywhere from Paris, France, to Florence, Alabama.

  Bea folded the map, put back in the car pocket and grabbed her iPhone. Just her luck. No signal. She could probably get one if she walked around the curve in the road, but first she riffled through the car pocket till she found her owner’s manual. Surely there was nothing wrong that a level head and a steady pair of hands couldn’t fix.

  She released her hood, for all the good it did her. Brain surgery would be easier than fixing this sports car. It took ten minutes just to identify the parts. Once she’d done that, she set about trying to find the problem. Unfortunately, a broken car never look
ed broken. There were no gaping holes or frazzled wires or smoking pipes. There was only the dark, forbidding mystery of a foreign-built engine.

  She heard the vehicle coming down the road before she saw it. The driver was either practically deaf or had a perverse penchant for loud noise. Country and western music came around the bend two minutes before the truck.

  She looked over the hood of her car. The truck was electric blue and very, very old. It rattled with every inch of ground it covered. And it had to be rattling mightily to be heard over the music.

  The truck had stopped alongside her, and its driver leaned out the window, smiling. “Need any help?”

  With his wide smile and his nice blue eyes, he looked friendly and harmless enough, though the thick shock of blond hair and the beard did make him look like a pirate.

  “Everything is under control.” Shouting to be heard over the music, she waved her manual at him, wondering at the same time if there would be anybody around to hear her if she screamed. She doubted it. Anyhow, she wasn’t the screaming type. If anything needed taking charge of, she took charge, whether it was an ornery car or an ornery man.

  “I’m sure there’s nothing wrong that I can’t fix,” she told him.

  “All that beauty and brains, too. How refreshing.”

  He was the worst of his breed: an oversized chauvinistic male who expected nothing of women except an empty head. What else could she expect of a man who announced his presence with country music? Hadn’t that floozy her father had run off with done the same thing? Sashayed into Florence, twanging her guitar and her hips at the same time, and waltzed off with Taylor Adams and his fortune?

  Bea drew herself up to her full height, impressive by any standards, particularly in the cute new high heeled boots she’d bought when she and Cat went on that shopping spree in New Orleans. Then she gave him the look that quelled presumptuous male co-workers and deluded Romeos.

  “I’m not standing in the middle of the road to be refreshing. I’m here to repair a car. Will you excuse me?”

  She stuck her head under the hood and searched in earnest for something to fix.

  The driver turned his obnoxious music down a notch, just low enough so she could hear his wicked chuckle.

  “You don’t mind if I watch, do you?” Without waiting for an answer, he turned off the engine and climbed down from his truck.

  She watched him out of the corner of her eye. He was big, impressively big. And handsome in a rugged, devilish sort of way. Just the kind of flamboyant, shallow man she’d expected.

  He leaned against the door of his truck, watching her with an amused expression on his face. Her first instinct was to say something cutting enough to send him on his way; then she thought better of it. Her car might be seriously ailing, and she didn’t want to be stranded in the dark. As much as it would pain her to ask him for help, she might have to send him to the nearest phone to call a tow truck.

  “I don’t like to work with an audience, but you can stay as long as you don’t block my light.” She nodded toward the sun, slowly sinking westward behind his back.

  “Never let it be said that I interfered with the work of a beautiful woman mechanic.” He left his truck and came around to the front of her car. “You are a mechanic, aren’t you?”

  “Of course I’m a mechanic. My hands are not only worth a hundred and fifty thousand dollars each, they are also lethal.”

  “Lethal?”

  “Karate. Black belt.” She’d lied about being a mechanic—some perverse urge of hers, and she never had perverse urges. She hadn’t lied about the martial arts, though.

  “I’m impressed.”

  He didn’t look impressed. He still looked as if he had a ringside seat at a circus performed especially for him.

  “Then perhaps I should charge admission.”

  “You have a sense of humor, too. I like that.” He leaned closer, peering over her shoulder and getting in her way. “Do you have a name, pretty lady?”

  Pretty lady, indeed. As if a woman was nothing more than a glimpse of stocking and a puff of powder.

  “I do, but I’m sure men of your type wouldn’t bother to use it. Call me Bubbles or Boopsy or whatever it is men like you call pretty ladies.” She jiggled a wire that looked suspicious. Nothing happened. “Just don’t expect me to answer.”

  “That’s fine by me, Boopsy. I’m just here to watch.”

  o0o

  Russ Hammond had never met a woman with such a long stinger. But then, he’d asked for every barb she’d sunk into his flesh. It made life easier—keeping people at a distance. He’d had years and years of practice, and he was an expert at it.

  In the fading light, he watched as the woman poked and prodded her car. Every now and then she consulted her owner’s manual. Obviously she was not a mechanic. But then, neither was he. If he had known anything at all about cars, he’d have fixed hers and been on his way. All clean and neat and uninvolved. But he had no talent with broken cars. Some latent chivalry—promoted, no doubt, by the spectacular view of the sunset—had caused him to stop, and that same misbegotten gallantry made him stay.

  He watched as the woman with the shiny black hair and the cool white skin continued her futile efforts. She never appeared frustrated, never looked disgusted, never said a word. She merely looked determined. He decided that’s how George Washington must have looked crossing the Delaware.

  “Do you mind if I make a suggestion?” he asked, just as the last ray of light disappeared from the sky. She looked up and quirked one eyebrow at him. “Why don’t you hop aboard my trusty vehicle here and let me take you into the nearest town? We might still find a garage open.”

  “Thanks, but I’ll just look them up on my iPhone and call for a tow truck.”

  “You won’t get a signal here.”

  Damned if she didn’t try. Still, as she pranced around the hood and leaned into the open convertible to retrieve her iPhone, he greatly admired the view. She had plenty of curves, and those black boots she was wearing made her legs look long enough to wrap completely around a man.

  She walked off a piece and spent several minutes trying to make a call then marched back and tossed the phone back into her purse.

  “I can’t believe this. What is this place, the backside of Hell?”

  “Something like that. Hop in. I’ll take you to find that garage.”

  “I don’t want to leave the car.”

  Translated, that meant, I don’t want to get into a truck with a strange man, particularly that truck and that man. He didn’t have to guess; her face said it all. He might have argued that riding with him was safer than staying on a lonely mountain road in the dark, but he figured it would be a waste of breath.

  “Then I’ll just mosey on down the road.” He started toward his truck, saying over his shoulder, “I’ll stop at the nearest town and send a tow truck back for you.”

  “I’ll pay you, of course.”

  “And ruin a vagabond’s honor? No, thank you.” He climbed into his truck. Loud music and revving engine crashed into the silence. Leaning out his window, he saluted. “Goodbye, tiger lady.”

  Tiger lady? What in the devil had prompted him to call her that? Pet names were for pet people. He’s never even had a pet dog that lasted longer than two weeks. What would he do with a pet person?

  He put the thought of the woman out of his mind and concentrated on the sharp mountain curves. In all his bumming around, he’d never made it to this part of the country. He didn’t know what was around the next bend or even where the nearest town was, for that matter. For the most part, he traveled without the aid of maps. Aimless wandering suited his purpose. Or his lack of purpose.

  He didn’t keep track of time, either, so it could have been fifteen minutes or forty-five before he came into the small community—Pearcy, the sign read. He drove down the middle of the town. For all the activity, it might have been recently hit by the plague. All the houses were dark, the shops were closed up t
ight and the town’s only garage looked totally abandoned. Just to make certain, he got out of his truck and knocked loudly at the office door. His only answer was the forlorn “meow” of an alley cat passing by.

  He could drive on to the next town, wherever that might be, and hope to find a garage open. Or he could forget the woman. Somebody else was bound to come along and help her. Anyway, she wasn’t his worry.

  He opened his truck door and climbed back inside.

  Forgetting her would be the best thing all the way around. His decision didn’t make him feel good, but hell, he wasn’t about to get tangled up with another big-eyed helpless female. Nobility wasn’t worth suffering for.

  He chuckled to think how angry the woman in the road would be to know he was thinking of her as helpless.

  They all were. Till they got what they wanted. Take Lurlene, for instance. His wife down in LaBelle, Florida. Well, she used to be his wife. She wasn’t anymore. Not since he’d walked in and found her on their four-poster bed with the B-Quick Man. It was right funny now that it was all over and he could think about it without wanting to take his shotgun and blow them to Kingdom Come.

  Wormy little old Horace Clemmens had been thought of as the B-Quick Man because he ran a printing shop in Labelle called by that name. It had taken on new meaning the day Russ had come in from his orange groves and seen old Horace, skinny bottom and all, showing that two-timing Lurlene a trick or two.

  And to think Russ had once felt sorry for her with her story of having no place to go. He’d even been willing to give up his wandering ways and settle down in a white-washed house and two hundred acres of orange groves. It probably wouldn’t sound like much to most folks, but it was more than he had ever had. Lurlene, too.

  Thank goodness he’d never been foolish enough to believe he loved her. But it was the closest he’d ever come, and he’d paid the price. He never wanted to see LaBelle, Florida again.