looked around the room as if seeing it for the first time. He shrugged. “It’s a change.”
“It certainly is,” she said tartly. “And not for the better.”
Feeling thoroughly disgruntled by the whole exchange, Dorothy stalked out of his office, her back rigid, her temper barely in check. She’d started the day with one worry on her mind—her daughter. Now she had two.
Her marriage, which she’d always accepted as faintly staid, but solid, was anything but secure. She’d been around long enough to know that enough tiny little fissures could seriously undermine the foundation of the most fortified structure. Discovering that her marriage was riddled with such fissures was a shock.
Unfortunately, for the moment Dinah had to be her priority. She simply had to hope that when she got around to focusing on her own life, it wouldn’t be too late.
Cord Beaufort lazily swatted at the fly circling his bottle of now-lukewarm beer. It was the end of a steamy, grueling day, a day that had tested his patience and sent his nerves into more of an uproar than the last time he’d engaged in far more pleasurable, rambunctious sex.
He’d met with the board of directors for Covington Plantation and to a man—and woman—they were the most impossible, exasperating group of self-important human beings he’d ever had the misfortune to work for. They wanted to micromanage everything and not one of them had the expertise for it.
Worse, he’d had to wear a suit and tie, even though the temperature was pushing ninety. If there was one thing he hated more than placating a bunch of wealthy, egotistical bosses, it was wearing a suit and pretending not to be bored to tears while they yammered on and on. Things that should have been decided in less than an hour had taken the whole damn day.
Stretched out in a well-used Pawleys Island hammock strung between two ancient live oaks, he now wore comfortable jeans and nothing else. He was trying his best not to move a muscle until a breeze stirred, which probably wouldn’t happen until November. He was not feeling especially optimistic at the moment.
The sound of a car bouncing along the dirt lane leading to his house did nothing to improve his mood. He wasn’t feeling any more sociable than he was optimistic. He’d left all the ruts in the damn road as a way of discouraging visitors. Most people had long since gotten the message.
When the car finally came into view, he tried to place it and couldn’t. The sight of a pair of long, shapely, bare legs emerging from the front seat, however, did improve his outlook marginally. Only one woman in all of South Carolina had legs like that. And she pretty much hated his guts. He couldn’t say he blamed her.
If all the rumors he’d been hearing were right and Dinah Davis had decided to come home and appear on his doorstep it could only mean one thing. She was here to redeem the idiotic offer his brother Bobby had made to her years ago. Bobby, much as Cord loved him, was a damned fool. Who’d want a woman whenever she felt like it, even if that woman was as drop-dead gorgeous as Dinah Davis?
Cord watched her as she exited her car, wondering if her uppity mama knew she was going around town in a pair of shorts that left little to the imagination, and a halter top that wasn’t exactly on the approved fashion list for a one-time Charleston debutante who never strayed from the straight and narrow. Right now she looked more like somebody he wouldn’t mind taking a tumble with, which would flat-out horrify her mama.
Then again, maybe Dinah’s choice of attire explained why Mrs. Davis had been on such a royal tear at the board meeting today. A rebellious daughter, even one who was thirty-one or so and internationally famous, could unsettle an uptight woman.
“Well, well,” he murmured as Dinah lifted her chin with a familiar touch of defiance and started in his direction. “Just look at what the cat dragged in.”
Bright patches of color immediately flooded her cheeks and her devastating, dark blue eyes flashed with irritation, but her good breeding quickly kicked in. She was, after all, on his turf. An uninvited guest with manners, Cord thought with amusement as he awaited her response.
“Good evening, Cordell,” she said, her voice as sweet as syrup, yet unmistakably insincere. “I see your manners haven’t improved with age.”
“Not much,” he agreed, refusing to take offense. “Time’s been kind to you, though. You’re as pretty as Miss Scarlett and twice as tough, judging from what I’ve seen of you on TV.”
“I’m amazed you watch network news,” she said. “I thought the cartoon channel would be more to your liking.”
“Sugar, I’m a man. Surfing channels is in my nature. Even I slow down when I see a hometown girl lighting up the screen in my living room, while bombs blow things up behind her.”
“Yes, I imagine it gives you something to fantasize about on one of your lonely nights,” she said, her voice cool with disdain.
“I am never lonely except by choice.” Lately, though, he was making that choice more and more. Women, gorgeous and fascinating though they could surely be, were proving to be more trouble than they were worth. Dinah gave him a withering look signaling that she found his claim laughable.
“As pleasant as it is chatting with you,” she said in that same syrupy voice that was all about properly bred, South Carolina manners, “I’m here to see Bobby. Is he around?”
Cord took a long, slow sip of beer and an insolent, long, slow head-to-toe survey of her before replying.
“Nope.”
She regarded him with unmistakable impatience. “Expected back?”
Cord saw no reason to help her out when he disapproved so heartily of her apparent mission. “Eventually.”
“Which means exactly what?”
He grinned. Riling Dinah had always been a snap. It was a pure pleasure to see that hadn’t changed. “I thought I was clear enough. He’ll be back when he gets back. You know how it goes with us lazy, good-for-nothing Beauforts. We’re not much on timetables.”
Dinah sighed heavily, which had a fascinating effect on the rise and fall of her barely clad breasts. Cord wondered if she had any notion of the raw sensuality she projected or just how close he was to summoning the energy to drag her straight into his arms and give her the kiss she was half-begging for. Probably not or she’d have hightailed it out of here, instead of pestering him for answers he would not give her. He intended to protect Bobby from his own foolishness.
“Is Bobby due back tonight? Tomorrow? Next week?” she asked, her tone impatient.
“Could be next week,” he said, then shrugged. “Maybe not.”
“Has anyone ever told you how impossible you are?”
“Before you?” he asked. She scowled.
Cord grinned. “Now that you mention it, I believe your mama said something very similar to me just this afternoon.”
Her eyes widened, pleasing Cord with the fact that he could still surprise her. Shocking Dinah had been one of his primary delights back when she and Bobby had been dating. It had been a long time since he’d taken such pleasure in stirring a woman’s temper or her dismay.
“Where on earth did you see my mother?”
