“To lure Old Thomas to guard the tunnel I made at the cost of a lot of my flesh.” He stood up.
He was speaking of the hateful, aggressive, bad-tempered old peacock that wandered about the place. Kit’s glorious body was inches from hers, and he held his hand down to her. She took it, and stood up before him. It was the closest she’d ever been to him, and she could feel the warmth of his body. When he reached out as though to touch her face, Olivia instinctively stepped back.
“You have thread in your hair.”
She stood still while he pulled out several strands and took some off her shoulders. He stepped around her, removing pieces of thread from her clothes. Bending, he pulled two long green strands off her ankles.
“There!” He stepped back to look at her. “You are now back to being perfect.”
For a moment they stood in silence, looking into each other’s eyes. “I guess I better get back to work,” he said.
“Me too.”
Turning away, Kit took a couple of steps, then he halted and looked back at her. “Or you and I could call a truce and take the afternoon off. I need to go into town to—”
“Yes,” Olivia said. “Anywhere. Go is my new favorite word.”
Kit grinned. “Come on then, let’s move around the side. If any of them see us, they’ll give us something to do.”
“Or cook,” Olivia said. “What about...?” She nodded at his bare body.
“I keep clothes hidden in the well house.”
“Ah, right,” she said. “Protected by the thorns, which are guarded by Old Thomas.”
“Exactly!”
Olivia followed Kit across the acres, and when he stopped behind big shrubs and tree trunks and looked in all directions, she did too. They were like a pair of comedy spies, racing from one hiding place to another. “The yarn monsters,” he called them as he pulled another piece off his arm. “How did I sleep through that?”
“Three weeks of sleep deprivation and nonstop work will do that,” Olivia said as she ducked behind a sycamore tree.
He halted beside her. “We ought to stop.”
She knew what he meant. They should stop trying to outdo each other.
When she nodded in agreement, they ran to the huge mass of blackberry vines. Most of the branches had long since stopped producing fruit and should be cut away, but they’d been neglected for years.
“You better wait for me here,” Kit said as he got down on his stomach and started to go through what seemed to be a tunnel.
“Because I’m a girl?” Her hostility was back.
“I was thinking more of your pretty dress.” He rolled over onto his back and motioned to the entrance. “But please, be my guest.”
Olivia didn’t want to go slithering on the ground, but she’d talked herself into a corner. She got down beside him, ignored the smile of delight he gave her, then worked her way through the tunnel.
At the end was a small building with a door that barely opened against the vines. Inside, it was small, with a window at one end. On a hanger on the wall was a freshly ironed, short-sleeved blue shirt and light colored trousers. Slip-on Weejuns were on the floor.
In the corner were half a dozen pillows that she knew used to be on the furniture in the Big House. A few books were on an old shelf. Here and there were artifacts that had probably been found around the plantation: arrowheads, shells, a teacup with a missing handle, a rusty sword that looked to be from the Civil War.
Kit entered in silence and gave her time to look around. “Now you see my secret hiding place. Where I escape.”
She well understood the need for such a retreat. Privacy wasn’t readily available on Tattwell. Between the kids and the two old men, Olivia rarely had a moment alone.
“This is great.” She sat down on a pile of pillows. “I think I could go back to sleep.”
Kit was smiling, pleased that she liked his hideout. “Do you mind if I...?” He motioned to the clothes.
Olivia gave her best I’m-a-woman-of-the-world shrug and picked up a book. It was a history of war from Russia’s point of view. She pretended to read while surreptitiously watching him remove his skimpy shorts. He had boxers on underneath—but she knew that since the fabric often peeped out. Not that she’d looked!
When he turned his back to her, she admired his deeply tanned skin. But when his boxers dipped down on one side, it took her a moment to realize that she wasn’t seeing contrasting white skin. Good heavens! she thought. He’s getting a tan all over. Somewhere on this old plantation Christopher Montgomery was running around naked.
He quickly pulled on his clothes, and when he looked back at her, Olivia was absorbed in the book.
She stood up. “Great,” she said, “you’re clean and I’m a mess. I can’t go anywhere looking like this.”
“I could boost you up the rose trellis to get into your bedroom.” His eyes moved down her in a suggestive way.
Olivia couldn’t help smiling. “Thanks, but maybe when we go into town we could stop by my parents’ house. I need some clothes.”
Kit’s face changed to serious. “You want to introduce me to your parents? The lowest of the low? Aren’t you afraid I’ll contaminate them?”
She had to work not to laugh. “It’s Tuesday afternoon. Dad will be out fishing and Mom is at her bridge club.”
“I should have known.” His tone did make her laugh. “After you.” He motioned to the tunnel.
“How are you going to get out without messing up your clean clothes?”
“That’s a secret.”
Olivia got down and made her way out through the vines. The ground was damp, but her dress was already dirty so it didn’t matter.
Turning, she watched Kit come out. He snaked out by using his forearms and his feet. His knees and his clean trousers didn’t touch the ground. It was a movement she’d never seen before and she was startled by it. To do that, he had to be in truly excellent physical condition.
She followed him across the plantation, again going from tree to tree so they wouldn’t be seen, to where the old truck was parked. Kit picked up a rock. Under it was a tin can and inside were the keys.
“The kids haven’t found my hiding place yet, but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time.”
Smiling, Olivia got into the truck and they pulled out. When they reached the road that led into town, they looked at each other and burst into laughter. They had escaped!
“So why do you have this job?” Kit asked.
Since Uncle Freddy and Mr. Gates loved gossip, she was surprised that no one had told him everything about her. “I grew up in Summer Hill. I’m a small town girl. We take what jobs we can get.”
Kit looked away from the road to glance at her. “You’re about as much a housekeeper as I am a gardener. Why are you here?”
She was pleased with what he’d said, but she didn’t want him to see that. “Actually, I do have another job. But the theater caught fire and it was postponed until the fall.”
“Theater?” When Olivia was silent, he said, “Are you going to make me guess?”
She shrugged one shoulder.
“In Richmond?”
“Not quite.” She put on her haughtiest look.
“Something local. Did you get the lead in a play about the history of Summer Hill?”
“No! I—” She saw that he was teasing her. “On Broadway.”
“Where is that? Virginia? North Carolina?”
She sat in silence while she waited for him to realize what she meant.
His eyes widened in a very gratifying way. “That Broadway?”
Olivia smiled sweetly. “The very one.” For the rest of the drive, she told him how she’d won the lead role at the auditions, shared an apartment with her costar for the rehearsals, and finally, how the fire had caused the delay.
He pulled into the driveway of her parents’ house, turned off the engine, and looked at her. “I am impressed. Really, I am. Now I see why you were so angry when I got there.”
The way he said that made the blood rise in her cheeks. “I guess I was. A bit.”
“Are you kidding? That first day I was so scared of you I couldn’t say a word. I was afraid of what you’d do to me. Anybody who could sail over the cabbages like you did has to be dangerously strong. I was worried you might—”