Loving Liza Jane by Loving Liza Jane (epub)

Author:Loving Liza Jane (epub)
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
Published: 2011-09-08T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

I assure you I don’t need you driving me to the Bartel and Baxter farms. I’ve managed all the other home visits without your help.” Liza gave Ben a self-reliant look, but he didn’t buy it.

“That may be so,” he told her, his own back stiff with stubbornness, “but there aren’t many families in these parts as vindictive as those two. There’s moonshining and who knows what else going on up there in those parts. For all I know they might greet you with a shotgun. It’s just plain not safe for a woman.”

Ben could see by her obstinate look that it wouldn’t be easy convincing her, but he’d be hog-tied before he’d let her go alone.

“I don’t see…”

“Liza, tell me what day you’re planning to go.”

“What?”

“I’m going to drive you, so you may as well stop arguing with me.” Exasperated by her willfulness, he took a couple of calming breaths and waited.

When she still didn’t give an answer, he stepped closer, finding her too irresistible to ignore a second longer, her light blue dress drawn in at the waist to reveal how tiny she was, her golden hair pulled back into a tight little knot, several loose strands falling about her glowing cheeks in gentle ringlets.

Beads of perspiration dotted her idyllic little face. Without forethought, he took a folded kerchief from his back pocket and dabbed her cheeks and brow. “I don’t want anything to happen to you,” he said, shocked by how much he meant it. “And that’s why I insist on taking you.”

“Oh.”

Obviously taken aback by his gentleness, she gazed at him, her blue eyes uncertain. He couldn’t say he blamed her. He’d done everything possible to avoid her for the last several days, too afraid of what might happen if he didn’t. But now here he was doting on her like some kind of teenaged fool. And if he didn’t watch himself, he’d be kissing her flower petal lips before the sun went down.

“When I say those families aren’t safe, I mean what I say. Some folks around here have had run-ins with them. Personally, I haven’t, but I don’t want you taking any unnecessary chances.”

“Oh,” she repeated in a feather-light voice.

He refolded the kerchief and put it back in his pocket, then unthinkingly tucked a couple strands of her golden hair behind a delicate ear. Standing so near, he couldn’t help but notice she smelled of lavender. He wanted to move closer to see if the scent came from her face—or perhaps behind one ear.

“Ben, you mustn’t…”

“That’s the first time you’ve called me by my first name,” he said, suddenly warmed by the realization.

“Yes, well…”

“What were you going to say?”

She moved away from him, taking up the big handbell on her desk. “I’m going to call the students in. I’d rather you weren’t here when they come in.”

“You wouldn’t want anyone getting the wrong idea?”

“Exactly.”

“I’m afraid I can’t leave until you tell me what day you plan to go up to the Bartel and Baxter farms.

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