LITMIR.BIZ

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She couldn’t have a sandwich with this man. She’d been an unwitting party to ruining his life. You didn’t have a sandwich with a man whose life you’d annihilated. “I’m not dating.”

      He ignored her and thrust the plate at her again along with a bottle of ginger ale. “I know this is your favorite.”

      He’d gone out of his way to find out what she liked to drink? Bits of the icy formation around her heart broke off like chunks of an overheated glacier. Marybell took the plate and the ginger ale and set them beside her on the blanket. “Thank...you.”

      Tag leaned back against the guesthouse and grinned again, letting his long legs unwind in front of him. “That’s more like it. I like gratitude in the women I’m not dating.”

      She quashed the smile she was fighting with a vengeance. “As long as we’re clear this isn’t a date, I’ll eat your bologna sandwich, but it’s only because I’m starving and you’ve left me little choice now. Madge will be closin’ up shop soon, which means I can only get whatever she has left. Usually that’s eight-hour-old meat loaf.”

      Tag took an enormous bite of his sandwich and nodded, swallowing hard. “Bologna’s better for you than meat loaf. All these by-products put hair on your chest.”

      Her laughter tinkled from her lips before she could stop it. She nibbled at a chip to keep from making any more unfamiliar mating noises, but her mind was racing. “Why did you do this?”

      “Do what?”

      Make me feel something for you. Make me fight a dreamy sigh. Make me want to twirl my Mohawk in centuries-old, ritualistic gestures of flirtation. “Here—this—under my office window.”

      He shrugged his wide shoulders. “Because I had a funny feeling you’d try to skip out on our nondate. I figured this was the best way to catch you skipping.”

      “I’m not dating.”

      “Anyone, or just me?”

      “Anyone.”

      “Where do you come from, Marybell Lyman?”

      “Did you just hear me?”

      “Just because you’re not dating doesn’t mean you can’t have polite conversation.”

      Everywhere and nowhere. “Atlanta.” Atlanta was big. That seemed safe enough.

      “Me, too. The last name Lyman isn’t familiar, though.”

      That’s because it’s not really mine. “I get the feeling we didn’t travel in the same social circles.” No truer words.

      “Did you go to college?”

      She stiffened. He couldn’t possibly know—could he? Why was he asking so many questions? That’s what people do when they want to get to know you, Marybell. They make conversation. “Did you?”

      “Yep. Got a degree in architecture.”

      “Which led you here to Plum Orchard where big buildings are just linin’ the streets.” She was doing her best to be surly, but Tag wasn’t having it, and she was having trouble sustaining it because he was blatantly ignoring her efforts.

      “Nope. My sister’s death led me here.”

      Damn. Now she was just being a jerk. She knew from Em that his sister, Harper, had died, but she didn’t know that was why he was in Plum Orchard. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be so rude.”

      “Sure you did. You want our nondate to be over. But you know what, Marybell Lyman, that’s all right. To be rude, I mean—because we’re on a nondate. If this were a real date, I’d make you pay the tab for being so rude.”

      “I think I can rustle up some spare change for the bologna sandwich.” She stopped then. He wasn’t attacking her safe place knowingly. He wasn’t threatening everything she loved and held dear to be a malicious jackass.

      Lighten up. At least enough to appear civil.

      Marybell reached out and put her hand on his arm, softening her words. “And I really didn’t mean to be rude about your sister. I just didn’t know your reasons for comin’ to the PO. I’m sorry for your loss.” No one understood loss better than she did.

      Tag grabbed her hand and used it to slide her closer. “I’m sorry, too. She was a great sister.”

      The brief flicker of pain in his eyes made her wonder what had happened beyond what Em had told them. It was deep and it was personal, if Tag’s face lined with some raw emotion she couldn’t pinpoint was any indication. But then he smiled without letting go of her hand. “Why phone sex?”

      Her hand in his felt so good, so warm against her icy fingers, Marybell forgot to pull away. “Why not?” she said on a smile.

      “Hey, no judgment here. Just curious. I mean, if we’re honest, not many little girls dream they’ll grow up and be phone sex operators.”

      Not this one, either. This one had wanted to grow up and be a ballerina and wear a pink tutu. “The economy stinks.”

      “And that’s what led you to phone sex? Even in a bad economy, most people don’t consider phone sex. McDonald’s? Sure.”

      “Most people aren’t me.”

      “Fair enough. How’d you know you’d be good at it?”

      Desperation made me good at it. Desperation and the kindest man in the world who’d offered her an opportunity to live in a warm house free of vermin and filth. “I don’t know. I just made it work because financially, I needed to.”

      “Desperate times, huh?”

      And so many desperate measures. “That about sizes it up.”

      “Landon Wells, right? He’s the man who owned Call Girls before Dixie and Caine?”

      Her heart twisted in her chest at the mention of Landon’s name. She’d loved him so much. He was the only person on earth who knew who she really was. The only person on earth who’d cared little about her past—who’d been willing to help her when the entire world wanted to spit in her face—and some had—literally.

      “Yes.” She damned her throat for closing up. Clearing it, she sat up straighter, acutely aware of Tag’s thumb caressing her finger. “He was an amazing human being, and if not for him, I’d be livin’ on the streets.” She didn’t care that she was revealing something so personal, so painful. Landon would always have her undying gratitude, and she’d never hesitate to say it out loud.

      “No family to turn to?”

      “Nope.” Not a single soul.

      “I’m sorry to hear that.”

      “Don’t feel sorry for me.” Please. “There are plenty of others who have it so much worse. For instance, just today I read one of the Kardashians broke a nail and Taylor Swift is never, ever getting back together with her boyfriend.”

      Tag chuckled. “I didn’t mean it in a pity kind of way. I meant it in the ‘Wow, it sucks that you don’t have people nosing into your business twenty-four-seven’ kind of way. So, where’s your family?”

      Marybell stared at him. This was getting too close for comfort. Yet she found herself repeating the words she repeated to everyone when they asked. “I was in the foster care system all my life. No family.”

      His grip on her hand tightened, and she knew she should yank hers back to safety, but it was so warm and...safe. Something about the calloused surface was safe. “Damn. This time I am sorry.”

      “Damn. I’d hoped you’d be more original.”

      “Original?”

      “Everyone says they’re sorry. I guess you’re not the exception I’d hoped for,” she teased, and smiled. She was used to the eyes

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