MM03 - Saturday Mornings Read Online Free PDF Page A

the last fifteen minutes she'd found him totally irresistible, and she couldn't have said why any more than she could have flown to the moon without wings.
    She was already close enough to feel his body heat, but what was the harm in moving closer? His arm tightened at the same time she made some slight movement. She found herself thigh to thigh with him, pressed tightly as a skin on summer sausage. Her heart thumped hard against her ribcage, and she imagined that he heard.
    “Look over yonder.” As he pulled into the Pirates' Den, he nodded toward a sleek black Chevrolet truck. “Perched like two jaybirds on a limb. Hooter and James, the town's bad boys... except for me.”
    Her heart did a quick fandango. She'd suspected it, and now he'd confirmed it. She was on a date with Tupelo's bad boy. Margaret Leigh Jones, the most inexperienced woman this side of the Mississippi, was set to enter the Pirate's Den with a man she couldn't handle if she had a whip and a chair.
    She lifted her chin in a small gesture of determination. She'd just have to keep her wits about her, that was all.
    “Well, looka here!” The voice echoed across the parking lot as she and Andrew got out of the truck.
    “Hooter,” Andrew whispered in her ear.
    “Looka what Andrew's got. Where'd you get that beauty, boy?”
    “I don't tell trade secrets, Hooter.”
    “It's ain't right not to share, Andy.” The gruff voice belonged to James.
    “Look but don't touch, boys.”
    Keeping his arm around her, Andrew quickly drew her into the nightclub. The encounter in the parking lot was nothing compared to the shock of entering the Pirates' Den. Smoke fogged the room, circling the naked bulbs like blue vultures. Skin was showing everywhere. Women with naked shoulders and skirts hiked up to show their mesh-stockinged legs were sitting at tiny tables with men wearing cowboy hats and snakeskin boots and smoking big, ugly cigars.
    The loud music and loud voices combined in a roar that filled the club. There was a small parquet dance floor, but it was so crowded, a toothpick wouldn't have fit between the dancers.
    “Do you like it?” Andrew had to yell in her ear to be heard.
    “It's... different.”
    “From what, pretty one?”
    “From professional reading.”
    Laughing, he wove his way through the crowd, keeping her safely tucked against him. By some miracle, he found a table about the size of six large postage stamps in a far corner of the room. She slid into a chair, bumping two people on her descent.
    “Excuse me,” she said. They didn't even look her way.
    “It happens all the time.” Andrew sat across from her. His legs got all tangled up with hers. She tried to move away, but there was nowhere to move. So she sat at the crowded table with her knees between Andrew's and her thighs pressing against his as if she were some shady lady of the evening. She supposed it was indecent, but it didn't feel that way. It felt slightly naughty and almost comfortable and ever so exhilarating.
    Andrew reached across the table and linked his hands with hers.
    “How about a good tall glass of root beer to cool things off.”
    “Root beer?”
    “You don't like it?” He looked crestfallen, as if she'd just said she didn't like his grandmother.
    “Yes, I like it. It's just that I never imagined a man like you drinking root beer instead of Old Crow.”
    “You keep saying 'a man like you,' as if I'm from some other planet. I'm just an ordinary bird-dog trainer, living in the woods and getting my kicks by dancing with pretty women on Saturday nights.”
    “You're far from ordinary, Andrew McGill.”
    “Tell me more.” He leaned so close, she had the sensation of falling into his eyes for the second time that day. “Like all human beings, I love to hear good things about myself.” He squeezed her hand. “You will say good things, won't you, Margaret Leigh?”
    “If you call bold to the point of swaggering good, I suppose I will.”
    “Swagger. I like that