Read Online Driven to Distraction (Silhouette Desire S.) by Sheri Whitefeather, Dixie Browning - Free Book Online Page A

difference.”
    â€œA philanderer?”
    â€œSkunk. The two words are interchangeable. My dad says I’m a meddler, but honestly, I’m not. It’s just that I get these brilliant ideas that occasionally don’t work out quite the way I’d planned.”
    â€œOkay, I’ll try my hand at being skunk bait. Beats working in an unair-conditioned office that smells like turpentine. I keep telling my dad that a window unit wouldn’t exactly bankrupt James and James Lumber Company.”
    â€œWho’s the other James?”
    Suzy grimaced. “Moi. He hopes. You wearing that?” She indicated Maggie’s ankle-length, button-front, straight-line shirtwaist. “Hate to tell you, but if you’re looking for any action tonight, that dress has to go. Sexy, it’s not, and besides, the skirt’s too tight for line dancing. If those boots are anything to go by, that’s probably all our cowboy knows how to do.”
    Maggie tossed a Perry Silver Watercolor Workshop brochure at her. It sailed under the cot.
    Â 
    Seating arrangements had been slightly modified for the second night. Seated at the head table, Perry Silver had the only chair with arms, thus denoting his rank. Janie was on his right with Ben beside her, Georgia to his left, with Charlie beside her, with a retired public health nurse at the far end.
    â€œHow come all the men have to be at one table?” Suzy asked as they made their way to the small tableby the kitchen door. “Why can’t we share the goodies?”
    â€œAsk whoever arranged the seating.” Maggie wondered, too, but she wasn’t about to make an issue of it. Charlie, she wouldn’t have minded—at least he had a sense of humor, but either of the other two would have made her too nervous to eat, for entirely different reasons.
    â€œI wonder how I’d look with pink hair,” Suzy mused as she dug into the entrée, which tonight was pork chops and sweet potatoes with bagged coleslaw and biscuits from a tube, compliments of the two librarians and a retired accountant.
    â€œIf you mean like Janie’s, it’s more peach than pink.”
    â€œWhatever. Our cowboy sure seems to like it.” She shot Maggie a sly look.
    Our cowboy?
    â€œSo?” If she sounded preoccupied, it was because she was. Preoccupied with trying to keep her mind focused on the reason she was here.
    Ann slid into the empty chair beside Maggie, her allergies apparently subdued. “I signed the three of us up for tomorrow, is that okay?”
    Maggie said, “I thought when I signed up that meals were included.”
    Ann shook her head. “Read the fine print. Meals are provided, some assembly required. Words to that effect.”
    â€œIf worse comes to worst I guess I could microwave,” Suzy admitted.
    Maggie sighed. “I can cook. Plain country, nothingfancy. I’ve been doing it for years, else my Dad would have cholesterol up the wazoo.”
    Without cracking a smile, Ann said, “I didn’t know there’s where cholesterol settled. Live and learn.”
    â€œYou probably didn’t know Maggie was jumping off tall buildings to save the weak and helpless by the time she cut her permanent teeth, either,” Suzy said dryly.
    â€œThen I vote we elect her chief cook, you can do the serving and I’ll do the bottle washing,” Ann said. “Maggie? Okay with you?”
    Maggie shot her a telling look. The fewer people who knew about her covert mission, the better.
    They talked about men and about food and about the best shops in Hanes Mall. And about men again. “You know what?” Maggie said quietly. “I don’t think he’s all that great.”
    â€œWho, Ben Hunter? Trust me, he’s great.” The observation, not surprisingly, came from Suzy.
    â€œI was talking about our leader,” Maggie said. “Do you like his work?”
    â€œActually, he’s