The Backup Plan Read Online Free PDF

feeling especially optimistic at the moment.
    The sound of a car bouncing along the dirt lane leading to his house did nothing to improve his mood. He wasn’t feeling any more sociable than he was optimistic. He’d left all the ruts in the damn road as a way of discouraging visitors. Most people had long since got ten the message.
    When the car finally came into view, he tried to place it and couldn’t. The sight of a pair of long, shapely, bare legs emerging from the front seat, however, did improve his outlook marginally. Only one woman in all of South Carolina had legs like that. And she pretty much hated his guts. He couldn’t say he blamed her.
    If all the rumors he’d been hearing were right and Dinah Davis had decided to come home and appear on his doorstep it could only mean one thing. She was here to redeem the idiotic offer his brother Bobby had made to her years ago. Bobby, much as Cord loved him, was a damned fool. Who’d want a woman whenever she felt like it, even if that woman was as drop-dead gorgeous as Dinah Davis?
    Cord watched her as she exited her car, wondering if her uppity mama knew she was going around town in a pair of shorts that left little to the imagination, and a halter top that wasn’t exactly on the approved fashion list for a one-time Charleston debutante who never strayed from the straight and narrow. Right now she looked more like somebody he wouldn’t mind taking a tumble with, which would flat-out horrify her mama.
    Then again, maybe Dinah’s choice of attire explained why Mrs. Davis had been on such a royal tear at theboard meeting today. A rebellious daughter, even one who was thirty-one or so and internationally famous, could unsettle an uptight woman.
    â€œWell, well,” he murmured as Dinah lifted her chin with a familiar touch of defiance and started in his direction. “Just look at what the cat dragged in.”
    Bright patches of color immediately flooded her cheeks and her devastating, dark blue eyes flashed with irritation, but her good breeding quickly kicked in. She was, after all, on his turf. An uninvited guest with manners, Cord thought with amusement as he awaited her response.
    â€œGood evening, Cordell,” she said, her voice as sweet as syrup, yet unmistakably insincere. “I see your manners haven’t improved with age.”
    â€œNot much,” he agreed, refusing to take offense. “Time’s been kind to you, though. You’re as pretty as Miss Scarlett and twice as tough, judging from what I’ve seen of you on TV.”
    â€œI’m amazed you watch network news,” she said. “I thought the cartoon channel would be more to your liking.”
    â€œSugar, I’m a man. Surfing channels is in my nature. Even I slow down when I see a hometown girl lighting up the screen in my living room, while bombs blow things up behind her.”
    â€œYes, I imagine it gives you something to fantasize about on one of your lonely nights,” she said, her voice cool with disdain.
    â€œI am never lonely except by choice.” Lately, though, he was making that choice more and more. Women, gorgeous and fascinating though they could surely be, were proving to be more trouble than they were worth.
    Dinah gave him a withering look signaling that she found his claim laughable.
    â€œAs pleasant as it is chatting with you,” she said in that same syrupy voice that was all about properly bred, South Carolina manners, “I’m here to see Bobby. Is he around?”
    Cord took a long, slow sip of beer and an insolent, long, slow head-to-toe survey of her before replying. “Nope.”
    She regarded him with unmistakable impatience. “Expected back?”
    Cord saw no reason to help her out when he disapproved so heartily of her apparent mission. “Eventually.”
    â€œWhich means exactly what?”
    He grinned. Riling Dinah had always been a snap. It was a pure pleasure to see