LITMIR.BIZ

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and keep them at bay.

      * * *

      THIS WASN’T MAX’S first Southern funeral—she’d been to the funeral of her maternal grandfather over in High Point—so she knew the viewing meant Hank would be cleaned up from his heart attack and subsequent car accident and on display. As much as funerals played a role in the North Carolina gossip chain and anyone with a claim of kin or friendship on the deceased or the survivors’ side was expected to go, this couldn’t be Trey’s first funeral, either. But every time he looked over at the open casket, his eyes closed in a barely concealed grimace. No one should look so attractive while looking for an escape hatch.

      Each person who expressed their condolences to Trey and Kelly probably didn’t notice Trey’s discomfort. But they probably weren’t pretending to talk farming with neighbors while really watching the grieving family like Max was.

      “Maxine!” The voice of Lois Harris jolted Max out of her thoughts. “Did that mechanic Garner recommended work out for you?”

      Max had given up asking Miss Lois to stop calling her Maxine. It wasn’t worth the wasted breath, plus Lois and Garner had been invaluable in providing local farming contacts. So Miss Lois could call Max whatever she wanted and Max would call her by the not-quite-formal-but-still-respectful name of Miss Lois, and they would both be happy.

      “Yes, he’s been quite helpful.” The used tractor had seemed like such a deal when she’d bought it, but it turned out to be a piece of junk. Luckily, the Harris’s mechanic got it working at the end of last season and it appeared to be making it through the winter. Still, saving for a new tractor seemed smarter than trusting in the magic of the Harris’s mechanic, even if she now had three pots of savings money and keeping track of them strained her Excel spreadsheet. Asking to borrow a tractor last summer had been professionally embarrassing—and she had no desire to repeat the exercise.

      “Now, don’t let him...”

      Max stopped listening to Miss Lois warn her about the mechanic’s propensity to predict doom. Not only had she heard it before, but she was curious about the attractive brunette grabbing on to Trey’s hand with both hands and pressing it to her heart.

      “That’s my second cousin.” Miss Lois leaned in to whisper to Max. “Never been to a funeral or wedding she didn’t cry at, bless her heart.” Sure enough, the young woman had both moved on to Kelly and been moved to tears. “The Roxboro Mangums always have a pool going on when she’ll burst into tears. She’s no blood relation to Trey, but she’s not your real competition.”

      Miss Lois was a wily woman and it was a fool who turned a back to her. She “y’all’ed” and “blessed hearts” and “sugared” like a Southern cliché, but she wasn’t a fragile flower of womanhood. Max hadn’t been in North Carolina long when she realized that Lois’s politeness was a bit like a rattlesnake’s rattle—the more polite Lois was, the greater the warning about the coming bite. The ruse didn’t only work on Yankees like Max; Southern men were equally gullible. Garner might be the farmer on that side of the Harris family, but Miss Lois was the businessman.

      “I’m not worried about competition.” There was always the chance this was the one time Miss Lois could have the wool pulled over her eyes.

      “Oh, Maxine, you’ve been staring at my nephew the entire time we’ve been in the funeral home.”

      Max hauled her gaze from Trey to Miss Lois. “He’s my new landlord. Of course I’m curious about him. And he seems troubled.”

      “You’re welcome to try that on a fool, honey, but don’t try it on me.” Miss Lois’s words carried a reprimand, but her voice was kind. “He hasn’t wanted anything to do with the farm since he was five years old. Hank and Noreen are lucky he didn’t run away and join a circus. Unless you give up farming and move to D.C., there is no future in that man. You can hear it in his voice.”

      Lois’s words highlighted something about Trey that had bothered Max from the moment he’d spoken to her. Trey had no Southern accent. Kelly didn’t have much of one, but Trey’s was nonexistent. His voice was completely flat—as if the drawl had been purged from his soul. And he must have grown up with one, as Max had yet to meet a Harris other than Trey without a y’all lingering somewhere on the lips.

      And if he’d eradicated the accent, why hadn’t he started going by some name other than Trey, which was a constant reminder that he was the third Henry William Harris? Max tried to look at Trey in his charcoal-gray suit out of the corner of her eye, but the side view gave her a headache. Miss Lois was watching her with raised brows when Max pulled her eyes away. “I’m not watching him for any future, Miss Lois—or any future beyond him being my new landlord, but...he doesn’t seem all that upset.” That wasn’t right; something was clearly wrong with Trey. “Or at least not upset about the death of his father.”

      “Trey and his daddy never did rub along, and Hank didn’t care until it was too late.”

      Was Trey thinking about his lost relationship with his father as he stared at the cold body lying on satin? Or was he irritated that he was saddled with a farm he didn’t want left to him from a father he had no affection for?

      Reading any emotion beyond stress into the tightness of Trey’s eyes was nearly impossible.

      “So long as he doesn’t try to sell the farm out from under me, his relationship with Hank doesn’t affect me.” But even as she said those words, she couldn’t take her eyes off the tension evident in Trey’s neck as he ducked out the door. Max told herself that Miss Lois wouldn’t notice and slipped out the door behind him.

      * * *

      TREY TURNED AROUND at the sound of someone stumbling and swearing under their breath behind him. The voice was soft, so he’d figured it was a woman, but he had expected his cousin Nicole to offer up another slippery round of tears, not solid, stable Max. She hesitated a little, then put her hand on his shoulder, her palm warm even through his suit jacket. He shivered. He should have grabbed his coat.

      “I’m sorry,” she said.

      “You already said that.” He struggled to keep the anger in his voice in check. He wasn’t angry with her. In truth, he wasn’t even angry at his father right now, but the pressures of pretending to be sad were wearing on him. And then there were the pokes from stories people had about his father. When he’d made a face at one such tale, Aunt Lois had given him a look and told him not to speak ill of the dead.

      Max’s fingers curled around his shoulder, their strength pressing into his collarbone. Somehow, the simple gesture was more reassuring than any enveloping hug he’d received from his relatives. “And I’m still sorry—for Hank’s death and for whatever drove you outside.”

      “My cousins were beginning to tell stories of going to the Orange County Speedway and what a grand time they all had, especially after my dad got really drunk and his insults got both creative and unintelligible.” Trey could picture the scene, including his father throwing beer cans until he was tossed out.

      “I imagine what seems like a funny story among cousins is less funny to his children.” She hadn’t moved her hand from his shoulder, so he could feel her step closer to him in the movement of the joints in her fingers. Even in the dark, through his shirt, her fingers felt sturdy. Solid. Stable. He wanted her to press up against him so he could feel her strong, purposeful body up against his. To be able to go home with her and draw patterns in her freckles as he forgot himself in her body.

      But she was his tenant and he was at his father’s funeral, so his thoughts would remain thoughts only.

      “You say that like there could be something funny about the belligerent drunk.” Unexpected sexual frustration made the words come out with more anger than he’d meant.

      “When I knew him, he was only belligerent.”

      The bald honesty of her statement forced a laugh out of him. “And yet you still have some affection in your voice.”

      Her

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