The Dixie Virgin Chronicles: Molly (Book 3) Read online

  Glory Ethel laughed. “I see she got to you.”

  “This is not one of Chaucer’s bawdy tales; this is real life. It’s not the woman that is bothering me; it’s the heat.”

  Glory Ethel turned and stared out the window. Molly was still in the yard, cavorting with two dogs.

  “Bea didn’t tell me what a stunning woman she’d turned into. If she still likes me I’m liable to marry Jedidiah on the spot.” She turned around and grinned at her son. “Are you going to escort me like the perfect gentleman you are, or am I going to have to get out of this car and go visit the Rakestraws all by myself?”

  Samuel knew that mood. Right now it was useless to argue with his mother. He’d make the best of the situation and save his arguments for later.

  “Mother, you’re giving me ulcers.”

  “I wish you’d give me something.”

  “What?”

  “Grandchildren.”

  He’d heard that before. And so had his sister. Steeling himself for another encounter with Molly, Samuel got out of the car. He was determined to see this through. As he helped Glory Ethel from the car, he glanced at the woman in the yard. She was bending over her dogs with her back to him. She had the most astonishing legs he’d ever seen. They were long and tanned and extraordinarily beautiful. Perfect. The word came to his mind just as Molly straightened and turned to smile at him. Good grief. Everything about her was perfect: the wide turquoise eyes, the flawless skin, the high cheekbones, the generous mouth, the exquisitely proportioned body. No wonder artists and sculptors wanted her for a model.

  He could imagine the havoc a woman like that would wreak in his carefully ordered world. There were men in Florence who would fight for just a glimpse of her. And his mother wanted her to be part of the family! All the years he’d spent rebuilding the family respectability would be for nothing.

  “Are you going to stare at her all day, or are you going to escort me to the door?”

  “I wasn’t staring.”

  “Humph,” was all she said, which wasn’t even a word. This could turn out to be the worst day of his life.

  His mother had never met a person she didn’t’ like, and this little girl all grown up was no exception. Glory Ethel greeted her with a huge hug, mindless of the dirt and water she got on the front of her dress.

  “My dear, I can’t tell you how I’ve looked forward to seeing you again! You even prettier than Bea said.”

  Samuel could tell the compliment pleased Molly. She was obviously a frivolous, gullible woman who would believe anything a person told her if it were prefaced by a compliment. And gaudy. Good Lord! She was as gaudy as that floozy his father had run off with—that two-bit country singer who had come to cut a record at The Shoals and had ended up with all the Adams’s family jewels, half the Adams fortune, and Taylor Adams to boot.

  While he was tallying up Molly’s faults, a slender distinguished-looking man came out the front door. He was a handsome older gentleman with a thick shock of silver hair and the bold nose and chin of a Roman gladiator. It was easy to see where Molly had gotten her good looks.

  His mother fluttered and flirted like a schoolgirl. He didn’t know how she finally managed to make the introductions.

  Mr. Rakestraw gave Samuel’s hand a firm shake and then turned his attention to Glory Ethel. Bending gallantly from the waist, he kissed her hand. “My dear, I’ve waited so long for this.” He tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow. “While the children are chatting, we’ll go inside. I’ve made lemonade.”

  “That sounds lovely, Jedidiah.” Glory Ethel cast a smile over her shoulder at her son and allowed herself to be escorted inside.

  Samuel started to follow them and then he remembered his wet clothes. He hesitated, torn between wanting to keep an eye on his mother and not wanting to track mud into the house. His glance swung to Molly. Being stuck in the yard with her had all the appeal of jumping into a blender full of whipped cream and cherries. Southern manners and muddy shoes be hanged, he thought. He was going inside so he could keep his mother from making any more foolhardy mistakes.

  He started toward the front door.

  Molly reached out and caught his sleeve with one hand—the muddy one. But hell, what did a little more mud matter? He was already wearing enough to furnish his sister Bea with mud facials for a month or two.

  He glanced down at the hand on his arm and lifted one eyebrow. His look of disapproval had been known to make people quake in their boots. Molly simply smiled at him.

  “Why don’t we sit outside? There’s a lovely chinaberry tree beside the house.”

  The last thing in the world he wanted to do was sit under a chinaberry tree with Molly Rakestraw. He already knew more about her than he cared to. He started to decline, and then thought better of it. Maybe he could find out exactly what the Rakestraws were up to.

  “Perhaps I can dry out a little while I sit under the... chinaberry, did you say?”

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t hear of many of those trees anymore.”

  Molly led the way to the swing, talking as she went. “I remember a great big old chinaberry tree on the farm where Daddy grew up. In the summertime I used to pick the berries and pelt the neighborhood hoodlums who came over to bother the cat. We called her Miss Praline. She was exactly the color of a sugar praline.”

  “The boys must have had a hard time of it. I can vouch for your aim.” He lifted his limp tie and squeezed water from it.

  “I am sorry about your suit.” She sized him up. “I’d offer you some of Daddy’s clothes, but I’m afraid they’d be too small.”

  “These are fine.” He watched Molly as she sat down, studying his opponent. The only problem was, none of his opponents had hypnotic, turquoise eyes.

  He sat down and stretched his long legs out in front of him, then gave Molly his best president-of-the-bank look.

  “Tell me about your father.”

  “He’s a wonderful man, an open-minded freethinker whose world is not limited by rules and convention.”

  That’s exactly what Samuel had thought. A muscle began to twitch in the side of his jaw.

  “What else?”

  His clipped tone and the disapproval in his face immediately got Molly’s dander up. Somewhere in her family tree was an Irishman known for his fighting spirit. Whatever else had been watered down over the years, the fighting Irish had been left intact.

  “Are you asking because you are interested or because you’re trying to find some fatal flaw?”

  For all her frivolous looks, she was smarter then he’d thought.

  “Well, naturally I’m interested. I left important work in Florence to drive over and meet him.”

  “And I left important work in Paris to meet you. I already know your mother, but only a little bit. Still, you don’t see me giving you the third degree about her. If she suits Daddy, that’s good enough for me.”

  “Naked modeling.”

  “What?”

  “I said, naked modeling. Isn’t that the important work you left in Paris?”

  Molly’s fist instinctively doubled, and only her good upbringing kept her from knocking him out of the swing. He’d pronounced “naked modeling” as if it were one of the seven deadly sins. Not only was he bossy, he was also judgmental: The Lord deliver her from a man who thought he knew everything.

  “I guess it’s the three-piece suit that gives you such a narrow view of life.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “That tie is bound to cut off circulation to your brain, otherwise you would know the difference between naked and nude.”

  “It all boils down to the same thing. You pose without your clothes on,” he told her.

  “The human body is not sinful.”

  “I never said it was... in the right place.”

  “The bedroom, you mean?”

  “Precisely.”

  “What I do is art, Mr. Adams, not sin.”

  “Labels don’t
change the facts. You bare yourself for the entire world to see, and you show absolutely no remorse.”

  Molly gave him another long, frank appraisal. Even in the wet crumpled suit, he was still a gorgeous man. But he was also a dictator, and she knew exactly how to deal with them.

  “I’m sorry about only one thing, Mr. Adams.”

  “What’s that, Miss Rakestraw?”

  “That I didn’t drown you with the water hose when I had my chance.” She put one foot on the ground and set the swing into gentle motion. Then she gave him a wicked grin. “And you can call me Molly.”

  “I can’t think of one good reason why I should.”

  “Because, Samuel, my dear boy, it appears that we’re going to be one big happy family.” She gave him a big wink.

  “Over my dead body.”

  “That can be arranged.”

  He boldly assessed her. In the space of twenty minutes she had made him forget manners, subtlety and reason. She was absolutely the most exasperating woman he’d ever met. The best he could hope for if his mother decided to go on with this foolishness would be to tame Molly enough to make her suitable for polite society.

  Molly stared back. She’d never met a man she couldn’t win with wit and charm. And yet, in less than an hour, Bea’s brother had her acting like some angry alley cat on a hot tin roof. He was absolutely the most aggravating man she’d ever met, and nothing at all like his sister. The best she could do if Daddy decided to go ahead with the marriage would be to give this man his comeuppance. She’d never seen a man who needed it more desperately.

  o0o

  Inside the house, Jedidiah and Glory Ethel looked out the window at their children.

  “Just look at them, out there swinging together like lifelong friends.” He lifted his glass of lemonade for a leisurely sip.

  Glory Ethel smiled fondly at him. “Sammy is not as easy to get to know as Bea, but he is equally as wonderful. I’m so glad he and Molly and getting along.”

  “They seem to have taken a shine each other.” He leaned over and squeezed Glory Ethel’s hand. “I’m happy to see things going so smoothly, my dear.”

  “So am I. Why don’t we go outside and tell them our good news?”

  They left their glasses on a silver tray and started toward the door. Halfway across the den, they got sidetracked by Jedidiah’s large collection of CD’s, and before they knew it, they were listening to Frank Sinatra and holding hands.

  Chapter Two

  A warm summer breeze stirred the leaves of the chinaberry tree, setting a low-hanging limb into motion and loosening an overripe berry. It tumbled toward the swing and landed with a soft plop on the front of Samuel Adams’ white shirt.

  It was the final straw. He quirked his eyebrow as if indicating it was all Molly’s fault, and impatiently brushed away the offending berry.

  She stifled her laughter. It served him right. She wished she’d thought of pelting him with berries herself. A good chinaberry war might loosen him up. She almost reached up and got a handful of berries, but she quickly changed her mind. After all, he was going to be a member of the family. She’d best try to make peace.

  She scooted across the swing and leaned toward him. Up close, his eyes were startlingly black and exactly like Bea’s. They almost made her forget what she was doing.

  “Here. Let me look at that.” She plucked the front of his shirt between her thumb and forefinger.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Chinaberries are notorious for staining clothes, especially white shirts. I’m checking you out.”

  “You already did that—with the water hose.”

  Molly noticed the briefest flash of humor in his dark eyes. It almost redeemed him. She brushed at the berry stain again. Underneath his white shirt, Samuel Adams was solid muscle. She’d thought a man in a three-piece suit would be soft and out of shape.

  “I promise—no water hose this time.”

  “I’m not sure I can trust you.”

  “Most people do.”

  “The first thing you should know about me is that I am not like most people.”

  “Am I supposed to be scared? Or should I merely bow and kiss your feet?”

  “I’d settle for a little bowing and foot kissing.”

  She almost caught him in a smile; almost but not quite. Still, she wasn’t above sneaky tactics to loosen him up.

  Leaning closer she affected a flirtatious pout. “I much prefer the other kind.” She circled her hand intimately across the front of his shirt.

  From the looks of that poker face, she’d have thought he was entirely unaffected. But this time she knew better. Beneath her hand, his heart quickened its pace. She gave him a smile of pure female satisfaction.

  He didn’t trust that smile. “The other kind of what?”

  “Kissing.” Without warning, she leaned down and kissed his chest, right over his heart, right through his wet shirt.

  He was so surprised he nearly fell out of the swing. He’d known many women in his lifetime, but he’d never known anyone quite like Molly. He looked down into that perfectly sculpted face. Stubbornness. That’s what he saw. Molly Rakestraw was a stubborn woman from top to bottom—from those pert little ears, all the way down to her muddy toes. He glanced at her feet again and did a double take. Good Lord. She was wearing gold snakeskin sandals. The snake’s head pointed between her toes and its tail curved halfway up her leg.

  Molly was accustomed to being studied by men. She leaned back in the swing to enjoy it.

  “Do you like what you see?”

  He quirked one eyebrow upward. “I don’t like anything about you.”

  “Except the kiss. You enjoyed that.”

  “Don’t get your hopes up.”

  Without ceremony, he plucked her hand off his chest and put it back into her lap. Giving it a fatherly pat, he winked at her.

  “There’s no need for us to get chummy,” he continued. She seemed totally undisturbed by his lack of interest. He wanted to bother her a little, just enough to keep her off guard and give himself time to regain the upper hand. He played his trump card. “Besides, I’m not interested in teenagers.”

  “Teenagers!” She straightened so abruptly she almost fell off the swing. “I’ll have you know I’m a woman—all woman.”

  He leaned back in the swing and subjected her to a long, lazy inspection. “I don’t know,” he drawled. “It could all be padding.”

  She was speechless for two seconds, and then she threw back her head and roared with uninhibited delight.

  Now it was his turn to be speechless—but only for a moment.

  “I don’t see a damned thing funny about that.”

  She leaned back in the swing now, posing against the slats. It was impossible not to look, and hard not to be impressed. None of what he saw was padding, he’d guarantee it. But he didn’t say so. He merely continued to study her as if she were a whipped-cream confection that he considered too sweet for his taste.

  “The funny thing is that I’m twenty-two, which is a little long in the tooth for a model. As for the padding—you’ll just have to take my word. I don’t take off my clothes unless I’m paid an awful lot of money and unless the person asking says ‘pretty please.’“

  She studied him to see how he took that little white lie. Darn his hide! He was still as cool as snow in July.

  “I don’t recall asking.”

  “It’s just as well, Samuel. I wouldn’t have obliged, anyway.” She leaned across the swing to pat his knee and to see if she could rattle him. “You don’t mind if I call you ‘Samuel,’ do you, since we’re going to be in the same family and all?”

  “You can call my anything you like. Just know that I won’t come when you call.”

  “That might be a refreshing change.”

  “You’re accustomed to men doing your bidding? Is that what you want me to think?”

  She grinned at him again. “How do I know what old men think.”

&n
bsp; “Old men?”

  Her hand was still on his knee, and much to his surprise it was bothering him. He blamed it on overactive hormones and having been too long without a woman. His father had made a fool of himself over just such a woman as Molly, and he wasn’t about to repeat the mistakes of Taylor Adams.

  “Yes. You must be at least forty-two.”

  It galled him that she had overestimated his age by ten years. His mother was always telling him that he worked too hard, but he didn’t know it showed.

  “That’s experience showing. Bank presidents are never teenagers.”

  “You’re president of a bank?”

  “Surely Bea told you that. But don’t let it put any ideas into your pretty little head.”

  Molly was torn between anger and laughter. He thought they were after his money! And that crack about her “pretty little head” stung. He acted as if a pretty woman didn’t have the brains of a rabbit. If ever a man deserved his comeuppance, it was Samuel Adams. And she was just the woman to give it to him.

  She made a great show of tucking her legs under her, deliberately positioning herself so that her knee pressed into his thigh. Next she propped her arm along the back of the swing, letting her fingers make casual contact with the back of his neck. There was no mistaking the goose bumps. Excellent.

  Then she dipped her head in a way that made the fat shiny braid of golden hair slide over her shoulder and rest provocatively on her right breast. The smile she gave him was designed to melt every wax candle in Tupelo right down to its wick.

  “I’ll tell you a little secret, Samuel. A woman like me never has to worry about money.” She winked.

  His eyebrow lifted sardonically and his jaw pulsed with the jumping of tightened muscles.

  “That’s what I suspected.”

  “Oh, and you were right.” She leaned so close to him that the end of her braid brushed his arm. “I never intended to be one of those starving artists in Paris. You’d be surprised at the ways a clever girl like me can make money.”

  “Nothing you do would surprise me.”

  She winked again. “Good. I’m glad you understand.” She reached out to touch his chest. “And Sammy, when we become family, perhaps you can help me.”