Playing Dead in Dixie Read Online Free PDF

make a few calls, find out just what kind of woman they'd welcomed into their house.
     
     
    BONNIE WAS CRYING, a soft, hiccoughing noise, barely audible through the wall separating the Strickland's bedroom from the one where Carly lay, trying to will herself to sleep.
    She shouldn't have let Wes bully her into staying around.  He'd been wrong; having Carly around didn't seem to be giving Bonnie Strickland much comfort at all, only a constant, bitter reminder of what she'd lost.
    She should just go.  Pack up, sneak out of the house and walk to the main highway.  It was a little after ten. Most traffic on the four lane would be tractor-trailers.  She'd heard truckers were salt of the earth—surely one would give her a ride back to Savannah without turning out to be a serial killer.
    If not, she'd keep walking until she found another place to hole up for the night.
    Making the decision filled her with a palpable sense of relief, a giddy bubble of freedom rising in her throat.  She threw on a pair of jeans and the only sneakers she'd bought at the thrift store and shrugged into a long-sleeved overshirt in case August nights in Georgia weren't as warm as folks claimed.  She tossed the rest of her things into her bag and padded quietly toward the bedroom door.
    She was almost out the door when she realized she'd left the bed a mess.
    Guilt prickled a path down her spine.  No way was she going to leave poor Mrs. Strickland with an unmade bed.  Not after all the poor woman had done to make her feel welcome, on a day like today of all days.
    She made quick work of the bedding, straightening the quilt over the sheets and patting it flat with a soft slap.  Satisfied that she'd done what she could to keep the promise she'd made to Steve, she slipped through the bedroom door and headed toward the porch door.
    The door unlocked silently.  But try as she might to ease the screen door open, the hinges still made a low, groaning noise as she edged out onto the stone porch.  She paused in the doorway, listening behind her for noise from inside the house. When she was certain Bonnie and Floyd hadn't heard her exit, she closed the door behind her and headed for the steps.
    She was almost to the railing when a low voice asked, "Going somewhere?"
    Her heart stuttered.  Blackness edged her vision, blotting out the pale blue light of the moon spilling across the stone porch.  She clutched the porch rail to keep from falling.
    He found me.  Oh God, Dominick found me .
    "Carly?"
    Her heart started beating again.  He'd said Carly.  Not Lottie.  She took a deep breath and turned around.
    At the end of the porch, Wes Hollingsworth sat in a weathered rocking chair, his arms dangling so low that his fingertips brushed the porch floor.  His legs stretched in front of him, muscular and lean in a pair of faded Levis.  Moonlight bathed half his face, leaving the other half in shadow.
    Carly's heart rate evened out, but a different sort of nervous energy sluiced through her to replace the first jolt of fear.  Wes Hollingsworth might not be Dominick Manning, but he was dangerous in another way entirely.
    "You're not going to tell me why you're sneaking out of my aunt's house in the middle of the night?"
    "It's barely after ten," she said softly.
    "Stop arguing semantics, Jersey."
    "Bonnie's crying," she said softly, as if that explained everything.  Maybe it did.
    Wes's expression shifted, etched with pain.  "She just lost her son."
    "And I'm a constant reminder."
    Wes unfolded himself and moved toward her in deliberate strides, his boots clicking on the stone porch floor.  "Right now, breathing's a constant reminder, sugar."
    She told herself that she hated when he called her that.  Demeaning, chauvinistic, condescending—and sexy as sin.  She licked her lips as he moved closer, his body heat curling around her.  "I'm not doing anybody any good being here."
    "Not even yourself?"
    She shook her head.  Especially not herself.
    "I