Spring Fever

End of report. Mason scratched his chin and thought. Nothing sinister here. The guy was no tycoon, but he apparently also wasn’t a destitute bum. He owned an old vehicle—a van he probably used for gigs for his band. He owned his own house. It wasn’t a mansion, but it probably wasn’t a chicken shed either.

He scowled and closed the file. Nothing of interest here. A

The question that had been nagging at him ever since he’d left her earlier that evening was, Why? Why Shane Drummond? Why Atlanta? Why now?

And more important, why did he care so much?

12

A

When she emerged from the shower wrapped only in an oversized towel, she pushed aside a stack of unfolded laundry and collapsed onto the bed. Her head still hurt. She was tired, and worried about Sophie. But mostly, she was worried about her own screwed-up emotions.

How could this happen? How could she possibly be falling for Mason Bayless again? And what could she do about it?

Forget it. Forget him, she vowed. Think of Shane. Of her new life. And get the hell out of Passcoe.

She could still make a clean break. By the end of the week, she would, by God, finish packing and get everything loaded in the rental van. By next Saturday, she’d be moving into her own studio apartment in a close-in Atlanta neighborhood. She would be with Shane, who was good and true and loved her without reservation.

And I love Shane, too, she thought fiercely. I do. I really do. Shane is my future.

And the Monday after the move, she would start her first day of work at the ad agency. She’d be so busy, there’d be no time to think about everything she’d left behind in Passcoe.

She found a clean T-shirt and pair of jeans among the jumble of clothes on her bed, got dressed, and got busy.

For three hours, she worked feverishly, packing up a lifetime’s worth of belongings. The quicker she got it done, the sooner she could see Passcoe—and the Bayless family—in her rearview mirror.

A

She took grim satisfaction in assembling the flattened cardboard boxes, filling them, and then snapping a length of shipping tape across the intersecting flaps to seal them shut.

From the kitchen she moved into the living/dining room. She positioned a box in front of the bookcases and began unloading the shelves with a long sweep of her arm. A slip of paper escaped from one of the books and fluttered to the floor.

Stooping to pick it up, A

She sank to the floor and studied the photo. They looked so young! Her hair was in a ponytail, and she wore a pink polka-dot halter top and white shorts and was sunburned, with a bad case of raccoon eyes from her sunglasses, and her mouth was wide open, in midlaugh. Mason was ta

There were no other photos of them together. A

Not that it mattered. She stood up and tucked the photo back into the book, but instead of dumping the book back in the box with the others, she walked into her bedroom and placed it on her nightstand. Thinking better of it, she put it under her pillow.

Then she picked up the phone and called Shane. His voice, when he answered, was husky.

“Oh no,” A

“No, no,” Shane said. “Don’t hang up, baby. It’s fine. I wasn’t even in bed. Must’ve just dozed off in front of the television. What time is it?”

“Past three,” A

“What are you doing up so late?” Shane asked. “Something wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” she said quickly.

Liar. Liar. Liar. Her subconscious taunted her even as she spoke the words.

“I just needed to hear your voice,” she said, and that part was true.

It was his voice, deep, honeyed, and southern as sorghum syrup that had melted her heart the first time they met.

She’d gone down to visit her mother at Holden Beach back in September. After two lo-o-o-n-g evenings of watching Wheel of Fortune and Golden Girls reruns, in desperation one night, after Ruth went to bed at nine, she went out for a drive. She’d seen the Holiday I

The Sandpiper Lounge, as it turned out, was the happening nightspot for locals. A band called Dandelion Wine was playing to a packed house that night. A

And why not? He was tall and lanky, with a mop of satiny deep brown curls and the dark, gorgeous eyes of a poet. He had dimples, and just a hint of five-o’clock shadow, and he wore a faded plaid fla

When he’d start in on a song, the women whooped and called his name, “Shane! Shane!” He’d look up, smile shyly, and maybe treat them to a playful wink, but mostly he sat on a battered wooden barstool and played and sang.

A

She supposed she must have heard the song before, probably at those long-ago family reunions at her aunt’s cabin. “On the Other Hand” was an old country standard, he told her much later, and it had been covered by greats like George Jones, Keith Whitley, and George Strait. But she’d never heard the song about a married man tempted to cheat like she heard Shane sing it that night.

His voice was deep and true and fine, and he managed to wring emotion from every word, and as his long slender fingers plucked at the Dobro, she wondered if he was singing to her and for her.

“I called you twice, earlier,” he said now, sounding puzzled. “Didn’t you get my messages?”